En el día de ayer el diario The New York Times informó que el Presidente de EE. UU., Barack Obama, conmutó la sentencia a 46 presos federales convictos por delitos relacionados al trasiego de drogas.
Acto seguido, y reconociendo la disparidad entre este acto de clemencia y el que aún no se ha otorgado a Oscar López Rivera, PEN de Puerto Rico Internacional reclama al presidente Obama la excarcelación sin condiciones de Oscar López Rivera. El Sr. López Rivera cumple una condena por conspiración para derrocar al gobierno de los Estados Unidos, hace 34 años, seis más que los que estuvo convicto por el mismo delito Nelson Mandela por su lucha armada contra el gobierno de África del Sur.
Oscar López Rivera perteneció a un grupo que escogió la lucha armada como una estrategia legítima para procurar la independencia de Puerto Rico, nación invadida por Estados Unidos en el 1898. La lucha armada que legitimaron las trece colonias de Norteamérica contra Gran Bretaña en 1775, fue la misma que libraron Puerto Rico y Cuba contra el imperio español durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, la cual los Estados Unidos apoyó y que resultó en la independencia de nuestra isla hermana tras la guerra cubano-hispano-estadounidense. Puerto Rico, fue retenido por EE. UU. como compensación por los daños y los gastos incurridos en dicha guerra sin el consentimiento de los puertorriqueños, y convertido en un “territorio no incorporado” que hoy día la mayoría de las naciones del mundo rechazan y lo catalogan por lo que es: una colonia.
Mensaje al Presidente Obama:
Dear Mr. President:
Oscar López Rivera is the longest held Puerto Rican political prisoner in the history of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, having served 34 of a 70 year sentence in U.S. prisons for seditious conspiracy, for his commitment to the independence of Puerto Rico. Mr. López-Rivera was never convicted of a violent crime.
On the day after you have chosen to commute the sentences of 46 out of a total 89 federal prisoners convicted of nonviolent drug offenses who, in your words, have received “punishments [that] didn’t fit the crime”, PEN de Puerto Rico Internacional, requests the unconditional ex-carceration of Oscar López Rivera, whose punishment definitely does not fit the offense for which he was convicted.
PEN de Puerto Rico Internacional, affiliated to PEN International based in London, is an 48 year old writers’ organization dedicated to the defense of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religious, political and gender-partnership preferences, arguably the true cornerstones of democracy beyond suffrage. PEN International sponsors 150 centers in 105 countries world-wide, including the U.S.
We are aware that Mr. López-Rivera previously declined President Clinton’s pardon, in an act of self-less solidarity, because other Puerto Ricans convicted for the same acts were not offered the same commutation. Since then, both Federal prisoners have been released, yet Mr. López-Rivera has not been considered for Presidential clemency even though he has accepted the conditions dictated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
We ask that you exercise the “power to grant pardons for offenses against the United States” without conditions to a man who wishes to return to his nation, to his daughter, family and friends, and just like other political prisoners excarcerated for offenses against Congress and the Presidency of the United States in the past, continue to exercise their freedom of speech on behalf of Puerto Rico’s independence.
“Mr. President, at a time in both our nations’ histories in which Hispanic citizens of the United States seek to earn the same responsibilities and benefits that all other immigrants have achieved through hard work and faith in the right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness, granted by the U.S. Constitution to all its citizens, conferring unconditional freedom to Oscar López Rivera, will become yet another of the still unfathomed legacies of your presidency”, said José E. Muratti, President of PEN Puerto Rico.
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PEN International is a global organization based in London, comprised of 150 centers in 105 countries dedicated to the defense of freedom of speech and the defense of human and cultural rights of all nations. The Puerto Rico Center is presided by writer José E. Muratti-Toro, elected on June 14, 2014.
El Pen Internacional es una organización mundial con sede en Londres, compuesta de 150 centros en 105 países, que aboga por la libertad de expresión de los escritores y la defensa de los derechos humanos y culturales de todas las naciones del mundo. El centro de Puerto Rico lo preside el escritor José E. Muratti Toro, electo a la presidencia de dicha organización el 14 de junio de 2014.