Spanish American Committee hosts Crime Against Humanity
PLAY CALLS FOR RELEASE OF PUERTO RICAN POLITICAL PRISONERS
by Joe Narkin

(Plain Press, June 2008) At a time of national paranoia regarding terrorism and continuously elevated, color-coded, national security alerts in the U.S., it may not be the best time to call for the release of two Puerto Rican nationalists who have served nearly three decades in federal prison on charges of seditious conspiracy. But a Chicago youth theater group, the National Boricua Human Rights Network, and a small, but committed, group of local activists think that the time is long overdue to release them based upon humanitarian grounds and principles of equitable justice.

On May, 9, 2008, Café Teatro Batey Urbano, a theater troupe consisting of Chicago area high school and university students, presented a performance of their play, Crime Against Humanity, to an audience of 40 people at the Spanish American Committee on Lorain Avenue as part of an East Coast Tour. The play was written by Luis Rosa and Michael Reyes Benevides, and directed by Jose E. Perez. The cast includes Benevides, Samuel Vega, Melissa Cintron, Cindy Laldanado, and Janeida Rivers.

Crime Against Humanity calls for the release of Oscar Lopez Rivera and Carlos Alberto Torres, who are each serving sentences of over 70 years in federal prison. The play tells the story of how these political prisoners have maintained their dignity and humanity, despite being subjected to the torture of isolation, sensory deprivation, physical abuse, demeaning strip searches, squalid conditions, separation from family, and death of loved ones on the outside. As a matter of comparison, it can be noted that Rivera and Torres have now served sentences that are longer than the 27 years served by political prisoner Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

Rivera and Torres (a Vietnam combat veteran) consider themselves to be political prisoners of war due to their struggles on behalf of Puerto Rican independence. The United States considers them to be dangerous supporters of the Puerto Rican People’s Army (familiarly known as the Macheteros) and the now defunct Puerto Rican National Liberation Front (FALN). FALN claimed responsibility for over 100 bombings and armed attacks on government offices and military installations within the U.S. mainland and Puerto Rico during the 1970’s and early 1980”s.  Most of these attacks caused few, if any, injuries, but U.S. authorities have attributed to FALN an unsolved bombing of New York City’s Fraunces Tavern that killed 4 and wounded 60 people in 1975.

Convicted of seditious conspiracy to “overthrow the government of the United States in Puerto Rico by force” during 1980-81, Rivera, Torres, and 14 other alleged “co-conspirators” were given sentences ranging from 35 to 105 years in federal prison, although they were never officially connected with any specific act of violence. Prior to their incarceration, these prisoners were well-respected educators, community organizers, and active citizens within the Puerto Rican community in Chicago and New York City. Luis Rosa, who was 19 years old at the time of conviction and received the longest sentence of 105 years, is a co-writer of the play. All of these prisoners, except Rivera and Torres, have been released subsequent to their reluctant acceptance of a highly restrictive, but highly controversial, 1999 clemency offer of U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Based upon extensive interviews with released prisoners and extensive written correspondence with Rivera and Torres, Crime Against Humanity offers an intimate portrayal of the isolation and personal hardships endured by these Puerto Rican political prisoners during long-term incarceration as well as their efforts to maintain their basic humanity and remain dedicated to the cause of Puerto Rican independence. The play is organized around 28 vignettes of isolated prisoners in their cells, one for each year of incarceration experienced to date by Rivera and Torres. Moments of crushing boredom, monologues of deep emotion, scenes of humiliation, and moments of intense violence are portrayed with passionate subtlety. The violent strip search of a female prisoner by male guards presented a particularly poignant moment in the play. In the darkness between each scene, a clock ticks relentlessly in the background, symbolizing the slow passage of time for inmates.

Cleveland resident, Nozomi Ikuta, Co-Chairperson of the Interfaith Prisoners of Conscience, a national advocacy group, has long advocated for the rights of political prisoners - with a special emphasis of Puerto Rican political prisoners - and helped organize the performance of Crime Against Humanity in Cleveland. Of Rivera and Torres, Ikuta said, “We have got to get them out. It is not just that they are withering away in prison; it is about us doing the right thing. Don’t you think that 27 years is enough?” She also believes that the true gentle nature of the Puerto Rican prisoners is accurately depicted in Crime Against Humanity, where they are shown as striving to recognize the “humanity in their jailers” despite unsuccessful attempts by their jailers to “deprive the prisoners of their human dignity.”

While recognizing that there is disagreement within the Cleveland Puerto Rican community (as there is in Puerto Rico) regarding whether Puerto Rico should become a state, remain a territory, or become independent, local activist Carlos Ivan Ramos believes that, whether guilty or not, there is widespread support for the immediate release of Rivera and Torres as a “matter of basic humanity and proportional justice.” During a meeting at C-Space on West 44th and Clark Avenue on April 17, 2008 that was organized to build public awareness of this issue in advance of the presentation of Crime Against Humanity in Cleveland, Ramos said that the United States has opposed and failed to comply with numerous United Nations resolutions regarding the rights of colonies, including Puerto Rico, to seek self-governance in a climate free of fear and pressure. The United Nations, according to Ramos, recognizes the “right of colonized peoples to resist colonial oppression by any means necessary.”

Clark-Metro neighborhood activist and amateur historian, Moises Cintron, also appeared at the C-Space meeting in April to increase awareness of the historical precedents for the Puerto Rican independence movement and of ongoing U.S. efforts to govern Puerto Rico by fear.  Cintron spoke of the “political assassination” of 72-year-old Macheteros activist Filiberto Ojeda Rios during an military-style F.B.I. assault on his home on September 23, 2005, following 3-days of covert surveillance in Hormmigueros, Puerto Rico. Rios was a fugitive from home arrest in Connecticut on charges of armored car robbery in Hartford during 1985. U.S. authorities believe that most of the proceeds for this heist went, via Mexico and Cuba, to support armed insurrection in Puerto Rico.

During the assault, the FBI fired 107 shots on Rios’ home and one FBI agent received a non-fatal stomach wound in what was believed to be return fire from the home. Doctors were denied access to the home for 12 hours after an FBI sniper shot Rios. An autopsy indicated that Rios bled to death from a single shot. Medical authorities in Puerto Rico believe that Rios was incapacitated by the rifle shot, but that he would have been likely to survive with timely medical care.

Cintron believes that the FBI chose September 23rd for their assault because it was the anniversary of Grito de Lares, a celebration of the day in 1868 that armed Puerto Rican insurgents started an uprising that eventually inspired an agreement that would have resulted in freedom from Spanish colonial rule had the United States not invaded and assumed the governance of Puerto Rico in 1898.  The attack on the Rios home began at the same time that an annual prerecorded Grito de Lares Day independence message from Rios was being broadcast by radio throughout the island of Puerto Rico. Cintron believes that the timing of the assault was a deliberate attempt by U.S. authorities to create a climate of fear and intimidation among the population of Puerto Rico.

When the cast of Crime Against Humanity finished their Cleveland performance, they traveled to New York City and Connecticut to continue their efforts to use “theater as a tool of resistance” to the continuing incarceration of Rivera and Lopez and to help “our families, our brothers and sisters and our community to … see what these prisoners endured.” Future performances are planned for the West Coast and Puerto Rico.

Crime Against Humanity playwright Benevides said that Rivera and Torres would welcome letters from people who are interested in their cause of Puerto Rican independence and their imprisonment. Oscar Lopez Rivera (#87651-024) can be reached at FCI Terra Haute, PO Box 33, Terre Haute, Indiana, 47808. Carlos Alberto Torres (#88976-024) can be reached at FCI Pekin, PO Box 5000, Pekin, Illinois, 61555.

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