[Ppnews] Puerto Rican patriots remain in the empire’s dungeons after 27 years

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/noviembre/lun5/patriotas.html

Havana.  November 5, 2007

WHILE BUSH TALKS ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS...

Puerto Rican patriots remain in the empire’s dungeons after 27 years

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD ­Granma International staff writer­

WHILE George W. Bush was delivering his lecture 
on Cuba on October 24 in the golden rooms of the 
U.S. State Department, his office was receiving 
the text of a resolution from the Puerto Rican 
Senate demanding freedom for the Puerto Rican 
political prisoners held in the United States for the past 27 years.

The island’s senators passed a resolution asking 
the U.S. president to immediately release Carlos 
Alberto Torres, Oscar López and Haydee Beltrán.

Those three Puerto Rican patriots “have been 
imprisoned for 27 years in the United States 
serving sentences for reasons related to the 
Puerto Rican independence struggle,” the resolution reads.

The resolution states that “other political 
prisoners who were serving similarly 
disproportionate sentences have been released, 
first under Jimmy Carter’s presidency and later, 
in 1999, under that of President William J. 
Clinton,” while the Bush regime remains set on 
keeping the last three in prison.

“The cause for the liberation of these 
compatriots has united Puerto Rican men and women 
of all creeds,” the resolution continues. 
“Political, religious and civic institutions have 
called for Carlos Alberto, Oscar and Haydee to return home.”

Their long imprisonment, “far from serving any 
purpose, has become a sign of inhumanity and 
injustice,” the senators say, noting that 
international opinion has joined with the 
consensus that has formed around this cause in Puerto Rico.

According to Senator María de Lourdes Santiago, 
the fight for freedom for Torres, López and 
Beltrán transcends ideological borders in Puerto 
Rico, a country that has been occupied by the 
imperialist power for more than a century.

The three Puerto Ricans have been in prison since 
April 4, 1980, when they were arrested in 
Illinois (USA), accused of “seditious conspiracy” 
and sentenced, in a highly politicized trial, to 
70 and 78 years’ prison time, for Torres and 
López, respectively, and a life term for Beltrán.

None of the three has been charged with any violent crime.

DYNCORP AMONG FILIBERTO’S MURDERERS

The Senate resolution was passed in the context 
of the continuing controversy in Puerto Rico 
surrounding the murder of the pro-independence 
leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos by FBI forces.

On September 23, 2005, Ojeda Ríos was shot and 
left to bleed to death in an attack by hundreds of agents on his home.

It was revealed recently that two attack 
helicopters without registration numbers that 
took part in the assault were not FBI property. 
Spokespeople for the FBI had to admit to that fact.

It is now suspected that paramilitary forces of 
the private company DynCorp participated in the 
operation, which was directed from a command post 
on the old Ramey Field Air Force Base in 
Aguadilla. A private military base belonging to 
that company functions on that site.

Bush’s diplomats have orders to oppose, by all 
means necessary, any UN attention to the colonial 
case of Puerto Rico, much less recognition of 
Puerto Rica as a nation on the part of the corresponding UN agencies.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20071106/e36afccb/attachment.htm>