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Who they are: Those who accepted clemency offer and are eligible for immediate release:
Accepted clemency offer but must serve another five years:
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WASHINGTON -- The White House announced Tuesday afternoon that 12 jailed members of a Puerto Rican nationalist group had accepted President Clinton's conditional offer of clemency. Eleven will be eligible for release within days, while the 12th had his 55-year sentence drastically reduced and will be paroled in five years. Ten of the 12 have decided to move to Puerto Rico when they are released, although many of them have not lived here since they were children. The other two will join relatives in Chicago, where most were living when they were arrested in the early 1980s. The 12 were part of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (the FALN, in Spanish), which set off more than 100 bombs in New York and Chicago in the 1970s and early 1980s to press for Puerto Rican independence from the United States. Though at least six people were killed and scores more wounded in those attacks, none of those offered clemency was convicted of a specific deadly or injurious act. They were convicted of weapons possession and seditious conspiracy. The conditions of their parole include that they commit no further crimes and that they limit their association with other Puerto Rican nationalists who advocate violence. Two other jailed members of the radical group, known as F.A.L.N., the Spanish initials for the Armed Forces of National Liberation, refused to accept the President's offer to commute their sentences. Clinton demanded as one of the conditions of their release that the jailed Puerto Ricans renounce the use of terrorism to achieve their aim of independence for the Caribbean commonwealth. Roberto Maldonado-Rivera and Norman Ramírez-Talavera, who both were released from prison several years ago after serving their sentences in a 1983 armored car robbery in West Hartford, Conn., have not replied to the clemency offer and have until Friday to do so. The clemency offer would forgive the unpaid balance on fines imposed on them in the case. Clinton's Aug. 11 clemency offer applied to 16 FALN members and is set to expire Friday, has mushroomed into a contentious political issue, in part because of his wife's prospective Senate campaign in New York next year. Opponents of the clemency, especially law enforcement personnel injured in FALN attacks, criticized Clinton for sending a signal of leniency toward terrorism and of trying to gain support for his wife among members of New York's Puerto Rican community. But supporters of the clemencies, including former president Jimmy Carter and South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, have framed the issue in human rights terms and argued that the FALN members' sentences were disproportionate to their crimes. The prisoners received sentences of between 35 and 90 years; more than drug dealers, for instance, or even convicted murderers. Most have already served 19 years. "This is not about who will be the next senator in New York," Jan Susler, attorney for the detainees, said at a Chicago news conference. "These people went to prison for the same thing that Nelson Mandela went to prison for," she said, referring to the decades of imprisonment that preceded Mandela's elevation as South Africa's first democratically elected president. "I think it is a tremendous victory and accomplishment for the Puerto Rican people and people who love justice," Ms. Susler said. But she and another lawyer for the F.A.L.N. members, Michael Deutsch, added that they were concerned that after their release the nationalists would be subjected to harassment by law-enforcement officials and denied the right to peaceable political activity. The lawyers said they planned to create a network of monitors in the United States and Puerto Rico to assure that the freed prisoners' rights are not abridged. The two nationalists who rejected the President's grant of
clemency and who will remain in prison are Oscar Lopez-Rivera
and Antonio Camacho-Negrón. Camacho-Negrón was convicted in Connecticut in June 1989 of conspiracy to rob a bank and foreign transportation of stolen money. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Camacho-Negrón had been released on parole but was returned to prison in February 1998 for associating with people active in the independence movement and becoming involved again himself. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton came under continuing criticism from Latino leaders in New York over her announcement Saturday that she opposed her husband's clemency offer. Her position put her on the same side as New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), her likely rival in the Senate race, and sparked an uproar in the politically potent Hispanic community. Mrs. Clinton called the offer a "mistake" and said the absence of a response from the prisoners, especially on the renunciation of violence, "speaks volumes." (A press release dated Sept. 2 and issued by the detainees' lawyer said they had indeed agreed to renounce violence.) Mrs. Clinton's move came a day after White House lawyers had set the Sept. 10 deadline for the FALN to respond. Latino leaders here expressed outrage at Mrs. Clinton's stand, calling it premature and suggesting she took it to counter claims that the administration was pandering to their community. On Labor Day, she tried to assuage their concerns through strategic telephone calls, but that did not appear to lessen the outrage. Both Fernando Ferrer, the Bronx borough president, and Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez (D-N.Y.), confirmed today that they spoke to Mrs. Clinton Monday. Neither, however, would characterize her side of the conversation. But Ferrer said, "I told her she made a huge mistake." Rep. Jose E. Serrano (D-N.Y.), who threatened over the weekend to withhold his campaign support from Clinton and reaffirmed that statement today, said he received no phone call Monday. "They are not calling me," he said. At a Manhattan news conference, Serrano, Velazquez, Ferrer and 11 other Latino elected officials criticized Mrs. Clinton for playing politics with an issue that is near and dear to Latino politicians and should have been beyond political point-scoring. All of these leaders are Democrats and would be hard-pressed to support Giuliani's Senate campaign. But they made their displeasure at Mrs. Clinton well known nonetheless. "Our issue is we are supporting the release," Rep. Carmen Arroyo, a New York State Assembly member, said as emotion rose in her voice. "We are commending the president. Who cares about Hillary Clinton now?" "Or for that matter, Rudolph Giuliani," said Ferrer. "We want to see the prisoners free," Arroyo said. Despite this political dust-up, Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton's exploratory Senate committee, characterized the angered Latino leaders as "friends" of Mrs. Clinton's. Hillary Clinton understands that her friends feel very strongly about this issue," Wolfson said. "But she stands by her [Saturday] statement." |
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