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Peru Frees US 'Rebel' Lori Berenson After 15 Years
Lori Berenson, an American citizen who has served 15 years in a Peruvian prison for aiding leftist rebels, has been freed on parole.
U.S. citizen Lori Berenson, jailed in Peru on terrorism charges, is seen during her trial in Lima in this March 2001 file photo. (REUTERS/Pilar Olivares/Files) Ms Berenson, 40, was arrested in 1995 for her alleged role in a plot to attack the Peruvian Congress.
A military court found her guilty of collaborating with the left-wing Tupac Amaru rebel group and sentenced her to life imprisonment, later reduced to 20 years in prison.
She has always denied the charges.
The judge ordered her to stay in Peru for five years in order to serve out the remaining years of her sentence on conditional release.
The daughter of university professors, Ms Berenson broke off her studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston to travel to Central and South America.
'Kidnap plot'
During her travels, she is believed to have made contact with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, a Marxist rebel group active in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s.
Tupac Amaru guerrillas became notorious for taking more than 70 people hostage in the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima in 1996 and holding them for 126 days.
Ms Berenson was arrested after she gained access to the Peruvian Congress on false journalist credentials alongside the wife of MRTA leader Nestor Cerpa.
Military prosecutors accused her of gathering information for a rebel plot to kidnap members of Congress and exchange them for imprisoned rebel leaders.
Her original life sentence was reviewed by a civil court in 2001.
She was convicted on the lesser charges of terrorist collaboration and her sentence reduced to 20 years.
In 2003, Ms Berenson married fellow prisoner Anibal Apari, who was serving 13 years for his affiliation to the same rebel group. She gave birth to their son a year ago. Mr Apari is also her lawyer.
Her parents have been fighting for her release since her arrest and have always maintained her innocence.
23 Comments so far
Show AllIf a Peruvian in America did the same thing.............
S/he would be in Gitmo for .................years? Without even a trial....
I am glad for Lori, but such injustice is hard to take. U.S. support for the dictator Fujimori kind of puts things into context, though.
One would think that the example of Peru would inspire U.S. citizens to resist the erosion of long-standing U.S. legal precedents, such as habeas corpus and prohibitions against cruel punishments (Lori was held in a freezing prison for years), but I'm not so sure. People are pretty passive here, and they voted for Obama anyway - even after he excused the telecom companies for spying on the U.S. public, violating the FISA law and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
We still have the uncontested claim that people can be declared enemy combatants by the President, denying them any rights at all. And this asserted power even applies to U.S. citizens.
Peru is corrupt, but the United States is halfway there too, or worse.
-TIA
Have you ever seen the tape of the speech she gave in Peru that prompted her arrest? She supported a group that supported the overthrow of the government and that is considered treason in the USA and punishable by death.
I travel a good bit and have had several foreigners ask me why we did not imprison Bush, Cheney, Powell et al after the Iraq invasion. Some people actually believe in justice.
Hmmm, speech about overthrowing the U.S. government is punishable by death? I don't think so. The U.S. Constitution has language stating that the citizenry can dissolve the government should it no longer uphold Constitutional principles.
Of course, technically speaking, many of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights are now suspended by the USA PATRIOT Act.
I guess your point is that violent revolution is never the answer. It's a good precept, but certainly even the U.S. Constitution acknowledges that governments can become tyrannical. Peru under Fujimori was basically a dictatorship with secret police, which is maybe something to consider. Maybe that would change your mind too, but its sounds like you'd maybe go with the flow.
-TIA
My heart goes out to frightened faces but she really sounds engenui. This is not a compliment. Look at it and we can see why America is in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The spirit of her face shows a younger Hillary Clinton even if the politics differ radically.
US citizens must grow up.
The best way to do that would be to renounce allegiance to the USA. The construct is proving to be an adolescent nightmare.
Most other peoples on earth would have rejected the likes already. The Russians did in a situation of vastly greater complexity.
At first I thought: What the heck is this guy talking about? But then I read further and thought: this person should not be doing analysis after midnight.
Seriously, tho' I am really glad Lori is out. She has had a rough fourteen-plus years in some rather harsh conditions. Reflecting on the profound political changes in Latin America since her arrest, she is coming out into a new world. The eyes of the US media are elsewhere, what with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with those wars it is quite likely the US government hasn't been able to provide the...shall I say guidance...that it had in the past. A Green Party person leading in the polls in Colombia??!? Amazing times.
The Green Party person leading in Colombia polls is a Obama-like fake.
Try to organize a union, or a socialist party in Colombia and see how long you stay alive. None of this will change under the new guy.
Still falling for the "lesser of two evils" argument eh?
Got him!
There he is now, encouraging all to hide in the comfort of general news, 'Reflecting on the profound political changes in Latin America---'
The USA has become saturated with buffoonery.
Good news for a change : ) FREE THEM ALL...MUMIA, LEONARD, ALL THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOLKS WHO ARE S T I L L BEING DRAGGED INTO COURT ALL THESE YEARS LATER... NEXT UP JALIL BOTTOOMS AND SETH HAYES.... FREE THEM ALL !!!!!!!!!!
Horray for Lori Berenson! She did no more or less than cast her lot authentically with the oppressed. She could have played it safe, avoiding the barrios and doing her research through establishment channels, but the establishment in Peru was fascistic, infinitely more culpable for the violence in Peru than the revolutionary groups who swam in the sea of Peru's vast poor. Throughought her abduction, torture, fake trial, and long imprisonment, Lori has steadfastly maintained that she is not the issue; that the plight of Peru's legion political prisoners and victims of state violence are what her supporters should be worried about.
The article regurgitates the canards disseminated by the Peruvian govenment, such as that her journalistic credentials were fake. They were not. The were issued by two small left-wing publications. You could equally call internet journalists fake because they don't work for the corporate media.
Along with her parents, I rejoice.
Next president: Rand Paul, Airhead from Alaska, Rush Fatso, Jon Bonner,
you have been weighed in the scales and found wanting.
Since her release a few days ago Lori's neighbors have been holding signs and screaming "no terroristas" in front of her 3 story house (I think she is renting) in upscale Miraflores, Lima where she is to serve out the last 5 years of her sentence.
She had (has) to pass through a screaming mob with the help of friends to get past the gate into her house. For the past few nights the local news has shown a rabid mob (always easily incited by a News camera) eager to see her not living next door to them.
I wouldn't expect her to get a good reception in a rich neighborhood in Lima. She shold have found a house in the poor part of town.
Rich Latin Americans supported by a powerful corporate media (even, still, in Veneziuela), are all right-wing arrogant scumbags that make the Tea Party look moderate. If Lori were in Bogota', her neighbors would have already hired a death-squad for her and her baby.
And isn't it fumy how the word "terrorist/terrorista" is now used against any sort of troublemaker these days. The word was probably not used once at Lori's trial 15 years ago (The scare-word of choice being "communist!"). If it were the 1890's, Mother Jones would be a "terrorist", Joe Hill would be a "terrorist" and the Pinkertons would have taken the steelworkers at Homestead out with drones and hellfire missiles.
During the protestant reformation Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Servetus---along with the rest of the crowd all accused each other of 'Being an Atheist'
I believe there are some distortions in this report. As someone else noted, her press credentials may not have been from a big outfit, but she WAS reporting for a small magazine--and the report makes it sound like she was in the Peruvian Congress, ready to assist in kidnappings. Perhaps she was involved in such a plot but the actual arrest came when she was dragged off a bus in Lima, and was based on her using her own money to buy or rent a house used by the guerrillas. It seems pretty clear she was involved with them but hard to say in what context. Much of the hostility springs from the violence of a different group, the Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path. Also, she spent the night in a jail cell with a commadre who had been wounded when police raided that house after she was arrested. The woman had been injured, was given no treatment, and was screaming in pain all night--it's not surprising if Lori's nerves were on edge. Then she was told that she would have to shout into the mike to be heard, hence the screaming that turned the public against her.
Did you ever see a more desperate, dangerous enemy of the people?