Ignored until recently by
all but a small, committed
group of supporters, 15
Puerto Rican political prison-
ers still locked away in jails across
the United States are a living
reminder of U.S. colonialism on the
Caribbean island. Today, the strug-
gle to obtain their freedom has
mushroomed into a broad-based
human rights campaign stretching
from Puerto Rico to the mainland
United States.
The arrest of the 10 men and 5
women by U.S. federal agents
between 1980 and 1985 marked a
major offensive against the Puerto
Rican independence movement.
Puerto Rican independentistas and
two militant underground organiza-
tions, Los Macheteros (The Machete
Wielders) and the Armed Front of
National Liberation (FALN), were
active in both the mainland United
States and Puerto Rico during the
1970s and early 1980s. These move-
ments took their cue from previous
generations of Puerto Rican nation-
alists who believed in armed resis-
tance to U.S. colonialism.
Annette Fuentes is a freelance journalist
and a member of NACLA’s editorial board.
She is also editor of Critica: A Journal of
Puerto Rican Policy and Politics, published
monthly by the NewYork-based Institute
for Puerto Rican Policy.
At the time of their arrests, most
of the 15 independentistas were liv-
ing and working in the Chicago
area as educators, community orga-
nizers and university students.
Edwin Cortes was a student activist
at the University of Illinois, and
Ricardo Jimenez attended the
Illinois Institute of Technology.
Dylcia Pagan was a TV producer
and writer at NBC, ABC and PBS.
Oscar L6pez Rivera, considered the
leader of the group by government
prosecutors, helped found the
Puerto Rican Cultural Center in
Chicago. Elizam Escobar was a
public school teacher in New York
City and also taught at the Museo
del Barrio. The others arrested
include: Adolfo Matos, Antonio
Camacho Negr6n, sisters Alicia and
Ida Luz Rodriguez, Luis Rosa,
Alejandrina Torres, Juan Segarra
Palmer, Carlos Alberto Torres, and
Carmen Valentin.
Grand juries in Chicago charged
each of the accused with multiple
counts of sedition and conspiracy
and the possession of illegal
weapons and explosives. Prosecu-
tors presented evidence, including
dynamite, guns and detonation
timers, obtained from apartments
allegedly used as safe houses by
several members of the group. The
indictments detailed conspiracies to
oppose by force the authority of the
government of the United States.
Not one of the prisoners was ever
charged, however, with an act of
violence that caused harm to a per-
son or property.
All 15 of the accused were tried
and convicted in Chicago courts,
refusing legal representation or to
acknowledge the jurisdiction of the
courts. Declaring themselves pris-
oners of an anticolonial war, they
demanded a hearing before an inter-
national tribunal. The Justice
Department, then headed by
Attorney General Edwin Meese,
ignored their demands. The courts
imposed extraordinary sentences-
ranging from 40 to 105 years-even
though their crimes involved no
physical injury to property or
human life.
The independentistas have
endured subtle forms of depriva-
tion-both physical and psycholog-
ical-since their arrest, says Jan
Susler, a Chicago-based attorney
who has represented the Puerto
Who would have guessed that more
than a decade after their
imprisonment, the freedom of the
independentistas would become a
cause cPl6bre in the mainstream
Puerto Rican community?
Rican 15 over the past 16 years.
During their first two years in cus-
tody, two of the women were kept
in total isolation. Alejandrina
Torres was kept in a notorious max-
imum-security unit at a women’s
penitentiary in Lexington, Kent-
ucky, which was cited by Amnesty
International for its violations of
prisoners’ rights. Torres suffered
physical abuse from the prison
staff, says Susler, including strip
searches and assaults during the
early years of her incarceration.
Today she is in ill health. “Oscar
L6pez is the only prisoner,” says
Susler, “who continues to live in
horrible conditions.” After being
transferred from Marion federal
prison, L6pez is now serving out
his 55-year term at the country’s
newest maximum-security prison
for men in Florence, Colorado. In
this prison, says Susler, solitary
confinement and a prohibition on
interaction among inmates is the
rule. The remaining prisoners are
scattered among the nation’s feder-
al penitentiaries, including Leaven-
worth, Kansas; Marion, Illinois;
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania; and
Danbury, Connecticut.
The length of the sentences
imposed on the Puerto Rican
nationalists has become a key point
for those pressing for their release.
A pardon application filed by
Susler in 1993 included the results
of a study comparing the sentences
imposed on the Puerto Rican
nationalists with prison terms for
individuals convicted of similar
crimes. The study found that the
average sentence of 842 months for
the Puerto Rican political prisoners
was three times higher than the
highest sentence meted out in
1980-262 months for kidnapping.
Weapons and firearms violations
earned average sentences of just 49
months. Compared to all violent
criminals sentenced in 1981, the
sentences imposed on the Puerto
Rican nationalists were seven times
higher. “When you see the sen-
tences given to them,” says Nilda
Pimentel, director of the Campaign
to Free the Political Prisoners,
“there is no other way to explain it.
They were made an example in
order to discourage others from
engaging in anti-colonial work.”
Until recently, only a few
left-leaning Puerto Rican
organizations kept alive the
cause of freeing the imprisoned
activists. Mainstream Puerto Rican
organizations carefully avoided the
issue. Even if most Puerto Ricans
harbored strong nationalist feelings
and many shared the dream of an
independent nation, they steered
clear of the radicalism associated
with the political prisoners. This
was especially the case during the
repressive Reagan years. The
FALN’s call for armed struggle did
not, in short, resonate widely in
Puerto Rico or among Puerto
Ricans on the mainland.
Who would have guessed that
more than a decade later, the free-
dom of the independentistas would
become a cause cdlkbre in the main-
stream Puerto Rican community?
Through a vigorous media cam-
paign and extensive grassroots
organizing, supporters both in
Puerto Rico and the mainland have
catapulted the political prisoners’
plight from relative obscurity into
the public eye. For the first time
since the 15 were imprisoned, there
is real hope that a presidential par-
don may set them free.
The Campaign to Free the
Political Prisoners is being orga-
nized on the mainland by Boricua
First!, a Washington, D.C.-based
organization formed in 1994 to
advance political, economic and
social justice for Puerto Ricans.
Earlier this year, Boricua First!
brought the campaign to the White
Vol XXX. No 3 Nov/DEc 19967 Vol XXX. No 3 Nov/DEc 1996 7UPDATE / POLITICAL PRISONERS
House. On March 29-National
Puerto Rican Affirmation Day-
3,000 Puerto Ricans flocked to the
capital demanding freedom for the
prisoners. A contingent of Boricua
First! leaders met with White House
matter of timing and presentation.
Falc6n, a sociologist, has devoted
most of the last 15 years to support-
ing the jailed activists. A retired pro-
fessor, he earned a law degree that
has enabled him to visit the prison-
Relatives and supporters of the prisoners call attention to their anomalous long sentences.
Third from the left is writer Piri Thomas.
counsel Jack Quinn, who promised
to prepare a briefing memo for
Clinton. In April, the Campaign
delivered 11,000 postcards to the
White House calling on Clinton to
grant a pardon.
After twelve years of Republican
rule in Washington, a Democratic
administration offers a “window of
opportunity” to get the prisoners
released, says Luis Nieves Falc6n, coordinator of Ofensiva ’92, a
group based in Rio Piedras, Puerto
Rico. Along with other activist
groups on the island, Ofensiva ’92
has crafted a sophisticated and suc-
cessful campaign on behalf of the
political prisoners that has won the
hearts and minds of Puerto Ricans
who, whether they are statehooders,
independentistas or pro-common-
wealth, all share a strong national-
ism. Making the quantum leap from
a marginal cause to a broad-based
campaign supported by Puerto
Ricans along the entire political
spectrum, says Falc6n, has been a
ers regularly and advocate on their
behalf.
“We decided to expand our
movement to include all organiza-
tions, some less radical,” says
Falc6n. “Our main thrust was to
stress the humanitarian nature of
the campaign. Whether you agree
politically with the prisoners or not,
you could support their cause
because their rights were so fla-
grantly abused.” For many Puerto
Ricans, says Jan Susler, the 15
independentistas have become a
national symbol, even if they
believe the activists were involved
in acts of terrorism.
In April, Ofensiva ’92 launched a
media blitz on radio and TV with
the slogan, “ya es tiempo de traer-
les a casa”-“it’s time to bring
them home.” Puerto Rican artists
and celebrities, including soap-
opera celebrity Cordelia Gonzilez
and salsa-maestro Willie Col6n,
lent their names and voices to the
effort. So did musicians Andy
Montafiez and Jacobo Morales. A
short advertisement with celebrities
calling for a pardon is now playing
in movie houses throughout the
island.
Warming people up for the media
campaign was a door-to-door peti-
tion drive demanding the release of
the prisoners, carried out by volun-
teers in communities throughout
the island. In Las Marids, a conser-
vative enclave in northern Puerto
Rico, everyone, including the
mayor, signed the petition. In La
Perla, a notorious ghetto outside of
San Juan, the response was equally
enthusiastic. Puerto Rico’s Catholic
bishops and cardinal, as well as
Episcopal church, have also
become active supporters of the
pardon effort.
The pardon application filed by
Susler is still pending in the Justice
Department. Meanwhile, Demo-
cratic members of Congress Nydia
Veldzquez (New York), Luis
Gutirrrez (Illinois) and Jos6
Serrano (New York) are lobbying
on Capitol Hill for a pardon. Last
February, former President Jimmy
Carter offered to assist the
Campaign’s efforts to negotiate a
pardon. Even John Cardinal
O’Connor, Archibishop of New
York City, has joined the move-
ment. In a March 12 letter to
Attorney General Janet Reno, he
asked that she review all 15 cases
of the Puerto Rican prisoners on
“humanitarian grounds.”
The Clinton administration has
not yet signalled its position on the
issue, but the campaign organizers
remain optimistic. It was, after all, Jimmy Carter-another southern
Democratic president-who in
1979 pardoned four Puerto Rican
nationalists who had opened fire on
a session of the U.S. Congress in
1954. “Mandela and Arafat have
been welcomed in the White
House,” says Nilda Pimentel, direc-
tor of the Boricua First! campaign.
“It is now time for our political pris-
oners to be freed.”
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