Vol. 77/No. 40      November 11, 2013

López, who moved to Chicago when he was 14, was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Vietnam in 1966. He returned to the city in 1967 and participated in fights against discrimination in jobs and housing, against police brutality and for bilingual education.

The U.S. government later said López was a member of the Armed Forces for National Liberation, which claimed responsibility for bombings of some businesses and U.S. government offices in the 1970s. Without evidence that he played a part in any bombings, he was arrested in 1981 and convicted on trumped-up charges that included seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 55 years in prison.

Four former Puerto Rican political prisoners who were arrested and convicted in 1980 on similar charges — Luis Rosa, Ricardo Jiménez, Elizam Escobar and Adolfo Matos Antongiorgi — each of whom spent 19-and-a-half years in prison, toured the New York area Oct. 24-26 to campaign for his release.

Students ‘go to prison’ for Oscar

“More than 150 students showed up for a conversatorio with the four former political prisoners,” Ana López, a professor at Hostos and a central organizer of the events for the New York Coordinator, told the Militant. After the event hundreds of students took turns “going to prison for Oscar” in a mock 6-by-9-foot cell set up in the lobby of the college’s main building.

The next day the former political prisoners spoke to more than 60 people at a senior citizen center in East Harlem.

At a Militant Labor Forum that evening, Rosa, Jiménez, Matos and Escobar spoke about their experiences in prison and the importance of the fight to free López Rivera. They were joined on the panel by Seth Galinsky from the Socialist Workers Party.

“Oscar’s case is not just about independence for Puerto Rico,” Rosa told the meeting. “It is a case for all of us and we need to be a voice for the voiceless, those inside.”

Rosa said López’s fight is part of the same struggle as the effort to win freedom for the Cuban Five and others imprisoned in the U.S. and worldwide for political reasons. “There are many fronts and we have the same enemy,” he said.

Matos said that López’s 12 years in solitary was a form of torture. “They have tried to destroy him, and turn him into an object.” But they failed, Matos said, “he turned to painting and writing to strengthen his humanity.”

The four independence fighters were released from prison in 1999, part of a group of 13 Puerto Rican political prisoners whose sentences were commuted by President Bill Clinton. But in the case of López, Clinton required that he serve 10 more years with a “clean” record before his release.

In a reflection of growing international support for their freedom, prison authorities allowed the independence fighters to hold a phone conference to discuss the offer, Escobar said. The prisoners decided that 12 of them would accept the commutation, explained Escobar. López declined because of the additional conditions placed on him and in protest that two prisoners, Carlos Alberto Torres and Haydée Beltrán, were not included in the offer.

If he had accepted the commutation offer and authorities decided to deem his record “clean,” López would have been released in 2009. But in 2011 he was nonetheless denied parole. There won’t be another hearing until 2023. “A decision by Obama is the only way now to liberate Oscar,” Escobar said.

Won respect from fellow prisoners

“The political prisoners won a lot of respect from fellow prisoners of all nationalities,” Jiménez noted.

The fight to free López and for an independent Puerto Rico is in the interest of all working people, Galinsky said, because we face the same enemy. He noted that Puerto Rico’s deep economic crisis is exacerbated by being a colony that is under the boot of U.S. imperialism.

“What kept you going all those years in jail?” one forum participant asked the former prisoners during the discussion period.

“It was the same thing that keeps us and others involved in political struggle going on today,” Rosa replied. “We kept up the fight because there is a need. Because it’s central to our survival. And because we wanted to come out better than when we went in.”

On Oct. 26 more than 500 people attended a “Cantata pa Oscar López,” held at Hostos.

A wide range of musicians and poets from New York and Puerto Rico performed, including many original works about the fight to free López. Master of Ceremonies Ponce Laspina announced that Julio Escalona, Venezuela’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations; Ariel Hernández, first secretary of the Cuban Mission to the U.N.; and a delegation from hospital workers union Local 1199 were in the audience.

Organizers of the event presented the “Oscar López Rivera Human Rights Award” to New York state Assemblyman José Rivera and to Wally Edgecombe, former director of the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture, for their work in backing the fight to release the Puerto Rican political prisoners. They also gave awards to the four former political prisoners who were welcomed at the event.

López Rivera’s niece, Lourdes Lugo, read a letter he sent recently to Ana López.

“I have no doubt that Puerto Rico will become an independent and sovereign nation,” he wrote. “We know a better and more just world is possible if we dare to struggle for it.”
 
 
Related articles:
Who are the Cuban 5?
Meeting, exhibit build support for Five in Albany, NY
 
 
 
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