[Ppnews] Silvia Baraldini: Political Prisoner in the United States

[Political Prisoner News]

GRANMA
January 25, 2007

Silvia Baraldini
Political Prisoner in the United States

PHOTOS:
<http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2007/01/25/interna/artic06.html>http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2007/01/25/interna/artic06.html

"Guantanamo is the maximum, but there are aspects of Guantanamo being
applied at special units for political prisoners inside the United
States."

Arleen Rodriguez Derivet

Although nowadays her name may be little known outside of Italy and
human rights circles, Silvia Baraldini is a symbol. Sentenced to 43
years imprisonment, of which she served nearly half in US jails, her
life is marked, physically and spiritually, by the torture of being a
political prisoner in the United States.

Italian journalist Gianni Mina spoke about Baraldini after she was
released in Rome in September, 2006, "Consistent with her ideas, this
woman was willing to risk half her life and was sentenced to 20 years
based on the testimony of an FBI informant who erred in his
deposition, even to the point of getting the color wrong of her
unmistakable blue eyes [
] Then, to give her another 20 years,
judges, in the land of democracy, held a judicial farce and ruled as
a common trial what they themselves had admitted during the
preliminary investigation, was a political trial, to be able to apply
the Rico law, passed to punish the accomplices of gangsters."

"Silvia received the last 3 years of her sentence for an alleged
contempt of court, only for having refused to give, according to the
judges, complete information about the origin of a communiqué of the
Armed Forces of the Puerto Rican National Liberation, that was found
in her room, and which had been published in all the New York
newspapers."

Treated as a terrorist -since long before the term became the key
weapon of global repression-, Silvia was a victim of COINTELPRO, an
acronym for a series of FBI counterintelligence programs designed to
repress any attempts at radical opposition to the system in the
United States. COINTELPRO used the most unorthodox methods (from
planting drugs and criminal evidence to murdering police to accuse
the accused), well documented in publications and even movies that
try to soften up, using fictional devices, the brutal reality of one
of the darkest zones of the US political system.

Today, when millions of people in the world speak with horror of the
detainees at the illegal naval base at Guantanamo, and who knows in
how many secret prisons, simply demanding legal rights, it is worth
recalling that there are also hundreds of less visible victims of
police and legal tricks applied without mercy to silence and repress
possible internal dissent to the model. Instead of guaranteeing the
application of justice, in these cases the sacred US courts have been
the instrument used to bless injustice.

I met Silvia Baraldini in Rome in 2004. At the time she was serving
the last years of her sentence in "conditional liberty." In a belated
compliance with the Strasbourg Convention (1), in 1999, the Clinton
administration finally granted Silvia's Italian supporters what they
had demanded during 12 years of legal battle that Silvia be allowed
to finish out her punishment in her country of birth, although with
the promise that she would not leave jail before 2008.

Six months after Silvia's arrival to Italy, Clinton released several
of the Puerto Rican independence activists that had been convicted
with her and sentenced up to 130 years in prison. Why the difference?

Apparently because the Italian government had only requested a
transfer of the prisoner and had the obligation to comply with what
was agreed upon between the two countries. Meanwhile, the Puerto
Rican communities within the United States and the island had
demanded the immediate freedom of their prisoners, becoming a
movement of incalculable force that set off the imperial alarms all
at once.

Despite the advance of an illness that led to several operations in
the precarious prison conditions, in Italy, Silvia spent two years of
her harsh sentence before a constitutional court decided that she had
the rights of any sick Italian prisoner: to finish out her sentence
under conditional liberty.

Why was Silvia Baraldini a political prisoner?

I consider myself a political prisoner, along with other people, not
individually, because in a very specific period of history in the
United States, in the 1970s and 1980s, a number of movements began,
for the independence of Puerto Rico, for African-American rights,
against US aggressions in Grenada, Nicaragua


In all these movements, there were people participating in concrete
actions -I don't want to mystify the thing- against the government,
but they were political actions, from the perspective of the need to
struggle at different levels in this period, within the United
States. Clearly for that stance, for our behavior and for our
activities, at a certain time they arrested a number of people who
received very harsh sentences, very harsh
 I got 43 years.

For what crime?

One was having refused to testify before the Grand Jury against
Puerto Rican independence activists. They gave me three years for
that, but I wasn't the only one. Around 30 people who supported
Puerto Rican independence and refused to collaborate with the United
States government received three-year sentences.

And they gave me 40 years more for participating in the escape of
African-American revolutionary Assata Sakur (2). The government
prosecutor asked for 20 years for my participation in the escape and
20 more for "being a member of a clandestine organization."

What was that organization?

For me, such an organization never existed. The government said that
it was an organization, but in my opinion we were a coalition of
different individuals that did certain things at different periods.
It wasn't an organization, but the government said it was because it
was easier to convince the jury if we appeared to be a formal
organization.

That's to say, they also lied in order to put you on trial. The
prosecution lied in its charges against you? Or did it just use
deceit?

No, what really happened is that to create the idea of a well
structured organization they accused everyone, when the truth was
something else. They fabricated the charges. I was accused, for
example, of something that happened when I was in Africa, when it
wasn't physically impossible for me to be in America


It is curious how such a strong civil rights movement, like the one
that existed in the United States, has practically disappeared
 It
appears that the COINTELPRO approach was very effective


That is also my opinion. The result of the disaster caused by
COINTELPRO is that a generation or two of leaders are missing. They
either killed them or put them in jail. And it is very important for
a movement to have continuity from one period to another. It is a
disaster when there is one or two generations of important young
leaders isolated in jails or murdered because the new generations
that followed did not have a connection with everything that happened
before them.

I believe there are a series of things very tied to a gangster style.
It was a very dirty policy.

That doesn't mean that there aren't people in the United States today
that are fighting against what happened. I know there are people that
continue to work and continue to demonstrate against the war, in the
universities, in certain communities, for example San Francisco, New
York.

How would you respond if someone said to you that there are no
political prisoners in the United States?

I would say that is clearly false. There are many different types of
political prisoners in the United States. There are prisoners like
Oscar Lopez and Carlos Torres of Puerto Rico. There are political
prisoners belonging to the Catholic Church, who are pacifists against
all weapons and who break into bases. There are other political
prisoners, Catholics mainly, against the School of the Americas,
where torture is taught. I was in jail five years with a woman
imprisoned simply because she participated in a demonstration against
the School of the Americas. There are political prisoners like
Leonard Peltier of the indigenous movement; there are
African-American political prisoners like those who were accused
along with me. All those people are political prisoners.

At this time there are five Cuban citizens jailed in the United
States, some accused of espionage, with long sentences. They are also
political prisoners. In the situation of confrontation between the
United States and Cuba, Washington wanted to punish people that

defend Cuba.

What is the situation of a political prisoner within a US jail?

I believe that depends on the period. There are periods that are much
harsher than others. And it depends on the support you have from
people outside. That is tremendously important.

For example, in my case, when a movement was formed in Italy in
support of my return, the treatment I received improved because they
knew that I had support from outside.

That was also very important for the Puerto Rican prisoners: the
support movement and solidarity from the island and within the Puerto
Rican communities [in the United States|.

The case of the Cuban Five is now being talked about, that's
essential, the international is very important too. The United States
always says it is only interested in things inside the country. But
that's the public stance. Its internal position is that when other
governments and people begin to question the treatment, etc., things
change.

On the other hand, I think things have worsened since 9/11. For
example, all those tied to my case are Muslims. They were put in
isolation cells because they are practicing Muslims and because they
are political.

Lynne Stewart (3), one of my lawyers, is now facing a possible
30-year sentence, for carrying a message from one of her clients,
sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism. A 65-year-old woman who
might get a 30-year sentence.

As a political prisoner, how many times were you put in isolation, or
moved from one prison to another?

Isolation, two years. I became physically ill, but I'm going to
explain in what type of a hole I was in, or what they call a special
unit. We were three political prisoners: Alejandrina Torres (Puerto
Rican) Susan Rosenbergy (US) and I; we were three in the Special
Underground Unit.

Without any sunlight?

Only when they took us outside for a rest period. The Unit was
inside; all the windows were covered with metal sheeting. One of the
things that they wanted was to destabilize us, creating an artificial
world where there was no difference between night and day; you never
knew the time, since there was only artificial lighting. In these
special units they are always experimenting something different and
later they open a special prison with all that. There is a sort of
progression that began with Marion -which is a prison for men- and
ends in Guantanamo. Guantanamo is the maximum, but aspects of
Guantanamo were experimented first inside the United States.

What violation did you commit to be sent to a special unit?

In my case they said that I was a member of and had helped the Armed
Forces of the Puerto Rican National Liberation, and that this group
was so strong that they could enter a prison to try and free us.
Therefore, supposedly for our own security, they put us in that
special prison.

The judge said that the decision violated the Constitution because
they held us under such conditions not due to our behavior but
because of our political ideals. And that is not permitted under the
Constitution, which should guarantee the political ideas of people.

They said that had ended, but at a time when the three of us were
sick. They took me to the hospital, the others too, because we were
ill, after two years.

Physically ill?

So much so that they operated on me. Alejandrina, for example, had a
heart disease that got worse and Susan ended up anorexic, she played
with her food and didn't eat. That was the result of the conditions.
But I must say that at that time the movement in solidarity with us
was very important in ending the isolation. Of course, that didn't
happen overnight, two years went by, but in this period people
struggled very hard to denounce the conditions. That was also very
important.

One detail. Were you ever caught with a weapon, did you ever harm
anyone, to receive such punishment?

No. I was a public person
 I worked as an assistant to a lawyer
defending political prisoners. They arrested me when I was preparing
to go visit one of the prisoners. They said I participated in the
escape of Assata Shakur. They are still very mad about that escape,
the government hasn't forgiven it, and they still want to force her
return to the United States.

They said it was a conspiracy; of course other defendants were
accused of other things, but the most important charge against me was
for aiding in the escape. At one moment I decided to say: Yes I
participated, because I thought that was the right thing to do.

In the trial, no, I didn't say anything, but after when the people
said to me, you are innocent, I decided to say: no, I am not
innocent, I participated in the escape, that's not the problem, the
problem is something else.

You maintained that the struggle was a just cause


Yes, I did. But I should explain that nobody understands how a
43-year sentence was possible. It needs to be put in a political
context. I had to say, 'yes I participated,' not because she is my
friend, not because I know her, I participated because she represents
certain things in a period of United States history that are very
important from my political point of view.

When you talk about the history of the movement, you can't always say
that all those people who are imprisoned are innocent, because if you
say they are all innocent, you are also saying in a certain way that
the movement doesn't exist. That's why I said I participated in this
movement, because it was just.

In your case, was there an appeals process before the different
levels of courts?

Yes and the result was that the court declared that there was little
proof against me, but they didn't want to overturn the decision in
the totality of the case
 The evidence against me was weak, but for
the overall case they didn't want to change my sentence.

But today we are living in a very different time. Some say that as
long as Bush is in office there is no hope for the Cuban Five. At
this time there are many more people suffering all that you suffered


Yes, that's true, it is a very hard time, but it's not the first time
that this has happened in the United States. I believe it is even
more important to struggle today than in times that were more open,
more democratic. It is also essential to create international
solidarity.

Look how things are changing in Latin America, with governments very
different from 20 years ago. Twenty years before there were
dictatorships in Argentina, Chile
 and now there is Lula, Chavez,
Kirchner; things are changing.

We shouldn't only look at what is happening within the United States.
We should also analyze things internationally, understand better what
is happening, for example in Latin America; because that creates more
possibilities for the solidarity movement with the Cuban Five, that
means things can change.

Do you have a personal message for those who know and admire you?

I only want to tell them that it is always very important to continue
doing what they are doing, defending their ideals, because that is
the only way to create a solidarity movement. In the end, the United
States responds to international pressure. They try to make it seem
that they don't, but if a strong movement is created, political
solutions can be obtained. They are not going to say it in that way,
but that's how it is. I don't know how to explain the contradiction
between public and private action, but it exists and yes, it can
create a movement to obtain their freedom.

SILVIA'S LONG NIGHTMARE

Two years have gone by since our interview. I don't know how much the
expression on Silvia Baraldini's face has changed since she gained
complete freedom, but I remember the one she had when we quickly said
goodbye because it was nearly the hour when she had to report to the
police. A well of pain competed with her magnificent smile. And while
I didn't record her last words, I still remember them as if they were
said only yesterday: "You know what troubles me the most today? That
all of us, who in one way or another were released, are white. The
African-Americans who were part of our cause are still in jail,
without any presidential pardon, without conditional freedom. They
are still imprisoned there or persecuted wherever they go.

1. The United States and Italy are signers of the convention that
allows for citizens of a country to serve their sentences in the home
country.

2. An African-American political activist who escaped from prison and
has lived in exile since 1984. The FBI continues to viciously pursue
her and has offered a million dollars for her capture. See more at:
www.assatashakur.org

3. As a lawyer representing Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman -also known as
the blind Sheikh and who is serving a life sentence on charges of
terrorism for the first (failed) attempt on the Twin Towers- Lynne
Stewart was found guilty of helping her client communicate with his
followers in Egypt. The messages he wrote were asking them for a
cease fire and an end to the violence. Recently a judge sentenced
Steward to 28 months in prison, while she awaits her appeal of a 30
year sentence.

The Freedom Archives
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