Victim’s Son Decries Obama’s Commutation of Puerto Rico Terrorist Group Leader

Joe Connor celebrated his ninth birthday four days before his father was killed in a bombing at New York’s landmark Fraunces Tavern in 1975.

The bombing was the most notorious act of violence committed by Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional, or FALN, a terrorist group that in the 1970s and early ’80s waged an unsuccessful, violent campaign to win independence for Puerto Rico, a territory of the U.S.

Connor, 50, grew up to be a New York City banker like his father, Frank Connor.

In an interview with The Daily Signal, Connor said he never really has been able to escape the day of the Fraunces Tavern bombing, in which his father and three others died and more than 60 were injured. His father was 33.

On Tuesday night, Connor’s memories became especially raw when President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentence of a FALN leader, Oscar Lopez Rivera, the last remaining member of the group still incarcerated.

“What it does to our family is it brings back all the wounds again,” Connor told The Daily Signal.

In 1999, Lopez Rivera declined a previous opportunity for freedom that would have required him to renounce terrorism.

FALN, which translates to Armed Forces of National Liberation, claimed responsibility for more than 120 bombings between 1974 and 1983.

Law enforcement authorities such as the FBI have considered the organization to be a terrorist group, and The New York Times has described it as such.

Lopez Rivera was not charged directly in the Fraunces Tavern bombing, or in any of FALN’s attacks.

But some people, like Connor, still hold Lopez Rivera responsible because of his ties to the group.

“My father deserved better,” Connor said. “He deserves justice. He got nothing.”

“I would love to ask people who support his release and say, ‘If he’s not a terrorist, what has Oscar Lopez done to help the Puerto Rican people and to fight for their independence?’”

Obama’s commutation will allow Lopez Rivera, 74, to leave prison by May 17.

As Connor mourned Obama’s decision, Lopez Rivera’s supporters cheered.

In recent years, religious leaders, pop culture figures, and U.S. politicians of Puerto Rican descent, among others, rallied for Lopez Rivera.

They include former President Jimmy Carter; Pope Francis; Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.; and “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Supporters argue that FALN members incarcerated by the U.S. government were political prisoners of war and they question the nation’s authority to prosecute them.

After Obama commuted Lopez Rivera’s prison sentence, Miranda tweeted that he was “sobbing with gratitude.”

Sanders also expressed gratitude to Obama.

Lopez Rivera, born in Puerto Rico, moved to Chicago as a teenager. He was drafted into the Army in the Vietnam War. When he returned to Chicago, he became involved with Puerto Rico’s independence movement.

In 1981, a federal court in Chicago sentenced Lopez Rivera, then 37, to 55 years for convictions on charges of seditious conspiracy, armed robbery, interstate transportation of firearms, and conspiracy to transport explosives with intent to destroy government property.

According to The Washington Post, FBI agents discovered dynamite, detonators, and firearms at two residences occupied by Lopez Rivera. A witness from FALN testified at trial that Lopez Rivera personally trained him in making bombs.

At Lopez Rivera’s sentencing to 55 years in prison, a federal judge called him an “unrehabilitated revolutionary.”

He later was sentenced to an additional 15 years in 1988 for plotting to escape prison.

By the time he becomes free, Lopez Rivera will have served 35 years in federal prison.

Connor concedes that Lopez Rivera, at 74 years old, is likely no longer a threat to society.

Yet he says he can’t forgive the FALN leader because he doesn’t think Lopez Rivera has shown appropriate remorse.

“If he had shown contrition for the things he did, if he had shown remorse, I can forgive,” Connor said. “There was nothing there we could grasp onto.”

In 1999, President Bill Clinton offered clemency to 16 FALN members, including Lopez Rivera.

Clinton’s decision was opposed by law enforcement groups, some politicians such as then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and the first lady, Hillary Clinton.

While 12 prisoners accepted Clinton’s offer and were freed, Lopez Rivera rejected the chance to reduce his sentence. As a condition of clemency, FALN members had to renounce terrorism.

Jan Susler, Lopez Rivera’s attorney, said at the time that her client did not accept the clemency offer because it did not include all of the group’s members.

Susler did not respond to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment for this story.

“I don’t think he is a danger to society,” Connor said. “He has been in prison a long time. I am not fearful. I hope he does do good. But I worry about the precedent of releasing someone I consider to be a terrorist. Where is the upside? What are we doing this for?’”

Josh Siegel / @SiegelScribe /
Victim’s Son Decries Obama’s Commutation of Puerto Rico Terrorist Group Leader

Will Obama Grant Clemency to Puerto Rican Independence Activist Oscar López Rivera?

Congressmember Luis Gutiérrez says he has lobbied for President Obama to grant clemency to Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar López Rivera, but has so far not received a strong response. López Rivera has been in prison for about 35 years, much of the time in solitary confinement. In 1981, he was convicted on federal charges including seditious conspiracy—of conspiring to oppose U.S. authority over Puerto Rico by force. He was accused of being a member of the FALN, the Armed Forces of National Liberation, which claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings to call attention to the colonial case of Puerto Rico. In 1999, President Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of 16 members of the FALN, but López refused to accept the deal because it did not include two fellow activists, who have since been released. In a rare video recording from prison, Oscar López Rivera said the charges against him were strictly political.

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TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: And I just want to clarify the clemency petition for the Puerto Rican independence activist. Oscar López Rivera, for people who don’t know, has been in jail for 35 years, much of the time—

REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —in solitary confinement.

REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: His sentence was commuted by President Clinton. He refused to leave, because others were staying in prison. Those people have left now, and you are asking for that pardon for him.

REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ: So, when I got to—so, Amy, when I got to Congress in ’93—

AMY GOODMAN: For clemency.

REP. LUIS GUTIÉRREZ: I began petitioning then-President Clinton. And Clinton was very different than Obama. Clinton would sit down and talk to you as a member of Congress when you went to petition him for a pardon, and he would talk about the political situation, as the rest of his staff. Unfortunately, Obama isn’t quite as forthright and as open in talking about these issues. But today we will stand, and I’m so happy that you put Oscar López’s case in. Yes, so what President Clinton did in 1999, and he said, "I’m releasing 12 of them." And he offered a release to Oscar López, but there was a 13th, and Oscar López said, "Until all of us are released, I cannot accept the release." And so he remained in jail.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to—I wanted to end the show with Reverend Barber responding to the farewell address of President Obama.

REV. WILLIAM BARBER: Well, thank you so much, Amy. And I want to say, really quickly, I do believe—just jumping back a little bit—that Senator Sessions still believes in assaulting women, because he refused to stand by Loretta Lynch and blocked both of the women, tried to block both of the women that President Obama wanted to appoint to the Supreme Court, including a Latino. So, that’s a form of political assault.

You know, I take the tradition of Martin Luther King and others. The goal of the faith and moral leaders is to challenge and to push our leaders. And President Obama last night tried to say some things to America that weren’t about left and right and conservative versus liberal. Number one, we have to deal with race and class together. You can’t separate the two. When you have—

AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds, and then we’ll continue after.

REV. WILLIAM BARBER: OK.

AMY GOODMAN: But in your final 10 seconds?

REV. WILLIAM BARBER: Well, that’s the first one I just want to say: You can’t separate them. When you have, for instance, 64 million people making less than a living wage and 54 percent of African Americans making less than a living wage, that’s not a race issue and a class issue. It’s both. And we have to have the courage to deal with them both.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s continue this discussion in a web exclusive. People can go online. Reverend William Barber, Congressmember Luis Gutiérrez, thanks so much.

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Rev. Dr. William Barber
Luis Gutierrez
Will Obama Grant Clemency to Puerto Rican Independence Activist Oscar López Rivera?

Puerto Rican Oral History Project records now open to researchers [Radio]

This collection includes recordings and transcripts of oral histories narrated by those in the Puerto Rican community of Brooklyn who arrived between 1917 and 1940. The Long Island Historical Society (now Brooklyn Historical Society) initiated the Puerto Rican Oral History Project in 1973, conducting over eighty interviews between 1973 and 1975. The oral histories often contain descriptions of immigration, living arrangements, neighborhood ethnicities, discrimination, employment, community development, and political leadership. Since their creation in the 1970s, the recordings had not been fully processed and have been inaccessible to researchers until now.

Program cover for “¿Por Que Brooklyn?” The Puerto Rican Oral History Project was a source for this 1991-92 exhibition. Illustration by David Diaz.

Access to Brooklyn Historical Society’s oral history collections is now made possible through a generous grant by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) for Voices of Generations: Investigating Brooklyn’s Cultural Identity, a project to digitize, process, catalog, and make accessible nearly 500 interviews from BHS’s earliest oral history collections that document the histories of Brooklyn’s diverse ethnic and cultural communities. With a goal of improved accessibility via thorough description, Oral History Project Archivist Brett Dion assists and supervises an intern team processing the collections, with project management by Oral Historian Zaheer Ali and Managing Director of the Library and Archives Julie I. May.

The Puerto Rican Oral History Project began with grant funding from the New York State Council on the Arts. Sixty-nine individuals were interviewed as part of the original scope of the project. The number of participants later expanded due to the continued interest of project interviewer John D. Vazquez. Interviews were conducted in Spanish, English, or both.

Winter of 2017 brings a momentous, yet fraught, centennial anniversary for the United States government and the island territory of Puerto Rico. It was March 2, 1917 when President Wilson signed the Jones Act; a piece of legislation applying to the U.S.’s obligation to Puerto Rico (and vice-versa) and U.S. citizenship for the island’s inhabitants. I say fraught because, in comparison to statehood vs. independence for Puerto Rico, the Jones Act introduced half-measures of autonomy, thereby ushering in decades of political frustration and economic challenges (some of which persist a century later).

In broad strokes, some of this frustration is addressed by Brooklyn political leader and Puerto Rican migrant Ramón Colón towards the end of his multifaceted, two-hour oral history recorded in 1973. As a teenager, Colón had arrived in Brooklyn by steamship in 1918 and went on to work in New York State’s Division of Human Rights and with the Republican Party of Kings County. A short time after this interview, Colón authored two books related to the Puerto Rican experience in urban America. Here, Colón laments the U.S. congressional pull on Puerto Rico’s government, but urges the second-generation of Puerto Rican-American citizens to sort out the 1970s-era morass with greater representation and legislation by and for the Puerto Rican community.

This month, BHS will launch the Oral History Portal, an online access website that combines the detailed interview descriptions and the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer player to seamlessly intertwine a descriptive index with the listening experience.  The portal was funded by the New York Community Trust.  For an overview of the Puerto Rican Oral History Project records and descriptions of narrators and oral history content, please see our guide which is available online via our finding aid portal. You can also visit the Othmer Library to listen to oral history interviews during research hours Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org.

Puerto Rican Oral History Project records now open to researchers

Puerto Rico files bill in quest to obtain statehood by 2025

Puerto Rico's new congressional representative has filed a bill that would turn the island into the 51st U.S. state by 2025.

Jenniffer Gonzalez said Wednesday that she wants equality for the more than 3 million U.S. citizens who live in Puerto Rico. She says the bill is the first step in a process that would include a referendum offering voters a choice of statehood or independence.

Many say that Puerto Rico's status as U.S. territory has contributed to a dire economic crisis that has prompted more than 200,000 people to move to the U.S. mainland in recent years.

Puerto Rico's new Gov. Ricardo Rossello said during his inaugural speech on Monday that securing statehood is one of his priorities.

Pro-statehood supporters await the arrival of Puerto Rico's new governor at the seaside Capitol in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Monday, Jan. 2, 2017. Ricardo Rossello was sworn in Monday as the U.S. territory prepares for what many believe will be new austerity measures and a renewed push for statehood to haul the island out of a deep economic crisis. (AP Photo/Danica Coto)  (The Associated Press)
Puerto Rico files bill in quest to obtain statehood by 2025

Puerto Rico celebrates 1st female U.S. Congress representative

A woman is for the first time serving as Puerto Rico’s representative in U.S. Congress.

Jenniffer Gonzalez was being sworn in on Tuesday and says she plans to submit a statehood bill shortly afterward. She says she also plans to submit measures to give Puerto Rico obtain the same Medicaid and Medicare benefits as U.S. states.

The measures are aimed in part at alleviating the U.S. territory’s decade-long economic crisis that has prompted more than 200,000 people to leave for the U.S. mainland.

Gonzalez is allowed to serve on committees but has limited voting powers as Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner. She is a Republican and once served as speaker of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives.

For the first time serving as Puerto Rico's representative in U.S. Congress is a woman. Jenniffer Gonzales was being sworn in on Tuesday.  (JENNIFFER GONZÁLEZ/TWITTER) 
Jenniffer Gonzalez was being sworn in on Tuesday and says she plans to submit a statehood bill shortly afterward.
Puerto Rico celebrates 1st female U.S. Congress representative

President Ford to ask Congress to make Puerto Rico the nation’s 51st state in 1977

President Ford said yesterday that he would ask the new Congress to make Puerto Rico the nation’s 51st state.

In a bombshell announcement, Ford said that the move would permanently seal “bonds of friendship, tradition, dignity and individual freedom” between the Caribbean commonwealth and the mainland.

Ford’s decision caught Puerto Ricans by surprise. It was an unwelcome move to many who favor either independence or continued commonwealth status.

The President’s plan rejected a 1975 proposal by a joint U.S.-Puerto Rican commission that called for a “compact of permanent union” providing “maximum self-government and self-determination” to the island, which was ceded to the United States by Spain after the Spanish-American War in 1898.

Rejected by Voters

Puerto Rico, with a population of 2.8 million, was a U.S. territory until it became a commonwealth on July 3, 1952. In 1967, the island’s voters soundly rejected statehood in favor of remaining commonwealth status.

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens but cannot vote for President.

Submission of the legislation Ford promised yesterday would be the first in a long series of steps needed to make Puerto Rico a state. Ford leaves office Jan. 20.

The announcement came two days before the inauguration of Puerto Rico’s new governor, Carlos Romero Barcelo. The outgoing governor, Rafael Hernandez Colon, an opponent of statehood, issued a statement saying that Ford’s plan “does not correspond to the will of the Puerto Rican people.”

“Appropriate Status”

(In an interview in San Juan with the Associated Press yesterday, before Ford’s announcement, Romero Barcelo said that his administration would “try to convince people this (statehood) is best for them.” But he added: “I have a commitment not to be pushing for statehood until we are well on the way to economic recovery.”)

“I believe that the appropriate status for Puerto Rico is statehood,” Ford said in a written statement issued at his vacation headquarters in this ski resort.

“I propose, therefore, that the people of Puerto Rico and the Congress of the United States begin now to take those steps which will result in statehood for Puerto Rico.

“I will recommend to the 95th Congress the enactment of legislation providing for the admission of Puerto Rico as a state of the Union.”

Ford was asked why he was proposing statehood now, rather than leaving the issue to President-elect Carter.

“Because I’m President until Jan. 20,” Ford said.

“It seems to me it was a very apropos time, so no one could accuse me of any political — not ambitions — but political motives. And I certainly hope it will be well received there (in Puerto Rico) and well received by the American people.”

Ford said that he decided to recommend statehood because “it seemed to me that the people of Puerto Rico had spoken in the last election, with a candidate for governor, a candidate for the House of Representatives.”

President Ford confers with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Treasury Secretary William Simon at Economic Summit Conference at Doroado Beach, Puerto Rico.

“Bonds of Friendship”

“Both (candidates) prevailed, and they both were sympathetic (to statehood), which would be a good reflection of the attitude of the Puerto Rican people,” he said. “So it seemed to me that we ought to take an initiative… in Washington to indicate our full support for statehood for Puerto Rico.”

In his statement, Ford said: “The common bonds of friendship, tradition, dignity and individual freedom have joined the people of the United States and the people of Puerto Rico.

“It is now time to make these bonds permanent through statehood, in accordance with the concept of mutual acceptance which has historically governed the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States.”

As outlined by Deputy Press Secretary John Carlson, the legislation would be submitted first to the House and Senate Interior committees for extended hearings.

Passage of the legislation would require a simple majority of both the House and the Senate, Carlson said. He said that Puerto Rico would have to adopt a state constitution and that Puerto Ricans, would have to vote to join the union.’

The final step would be for the President — by then, Carter — to issue a declaration granting Puerto Rico statehood.

Published via News wire services

(Originally published by the Daily News on Jan 1, 1977.)
President Ford to ask Congress to make Puerto Rico the nation’s 51st state in 1977