VivirLatino

Here is the 2nd part of Attorney Jan Susler’s presentation at the Union Theological Seminary on April 7th, 2010 on the issue of Puerto Rican political prisoners. This section of Susler’s presentation goes deeper into the history of Oscar Lopez and Carlos Alberto Torres.

In 1976, Carlos Alberto and Oscar, along with two companeras, went underground. Carlos Alberto and 10 others were arrested in 1980; Oscar in 1981; as well as others in 1983; they were accused of belonging to the FALN, Armed Forces for National Liberation. They invoked international law, articulating that colonialism is a crime against humanity; that anti-colonial combatants may use any means at their disposal, including armed struggle, to end that crime; and that the courts of the colonizing country may not criminalize captured anti-colonial combatants, but must turn them over to an impartial international tribunal to have their status adjudged. The U.S. did not heed international law, and proceeded to try them and send them to prison for sentences ranging from 35 to life… this, after the judge stated his regrets that there was no federal death penalty at the time, for that was the sentence he wanted to give them.

Time does not allow a complete catalog the myriad of human rights violations they experienced in U.S. prisons… the years of torture, withholding medical attention, lockdowns, harassment, false accusations of violations of prison rules and criminal laws. But we must take time today to consider what 30 years of prison means: Carlos Alberto’s father, Reverend Jose Torres (el Viejo) retired from his position as pastor of the United Church of Christ church and later succumbed to prostate cancer. Carlos was not permitted to go to his father’s deathbed or to the funeral. Oscar’s parents passed away. His mother, Mita, suffered from Alzheimer’s, and had difficulty understanding why she was unable to hug her son, as their visits were through thick plexiglass. Oscar was also not permitted to attend her funeral. Both Carlos Alberto and Oscar are now grandfathers… they have known their grandchildren only in prison visiting rooms, where guards hover closely and limit their physical contact.

In the early 1990’s, people in Puerto Rico and the U.S., who had worked to defend their human rights since the moment of their arrest, joined to form a campaign for the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners. By the mid 1990’s, the campaign had moved beyond the movement for the independence of Puerto Rico and expanded to include broad sectors of Puerto Rican civil society… a most unusual phenomenon in Puerto Rico, where status preference lines rarely allow for such convergence. The churches— in both the U.S. and in Puerto Rico— were key in this effort. The campaign created the understanding that the men and women in prison for independence were Puerto Ricans who were being punished with disproportionately lengthy sentences and cruel prison conditions because of who they were, and not for what they had done: if they had been social prisoners, convicted of crimes not related to the independence of Puerto Rico, they would never have been given such lengthy sentences, and they would have been released after serving far less time in prison. And if they had been political prisoners in any other country of the world— be it in South Africa, in France, in Germany, for example, they would have been released after serving less time in prison.
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