Guilt, repentance and innocence: Lori Berenson and her baby might be going back to prison

Editorial By Rick Vecchio
Peruvian Times Editor ~

Lori Berenson could be going back to prison with her baby if a state prosecutor has her way.  The New Yorker, now 40 years old with a 14-month-old baby boy, was released in May after serving nearly 15 years of a 20-year sentence for collaborating with a Marxist guerrilla group.  But political forces threaten a short-lived liberty.

The appeal seeking to rescind Berenson’s parole filed by Prosecutor Edith Chamorro together with the public advocate against terrorism for the Interior Ministry was taken up last Wednesday by a three-judge panel.

This legal development occurred with hardly a mention in English language media.  But several Peruvian news outlets — right-wing daily newspaper Expreso in particular — have dedicated nearly daily coverage to Berenson’s release,  depicting her as unrepentant for her crimes and a continuing threat to Peruvian society.

Berenson and her family had hoped President Alan García would commute the remaining five years of her sentence, allowing her and her baby to return to the United States. The day of her release, Berenson sent a hand-written petition to the Pardons Commission, accepting her guilty verdict and asking to be allowed to leave the country with her son.

“I assume my criminal responsibility for terrorist collaboration,” she wrote in the May 28 letter. “I would also like to say that I very much regret the harm I have caused Peruvian society, and I ask forgiveness from people who have been affected by my actions or words.”

The day the letter was delivered, Cabinet Chief Javier Velásquez said that Peru’s executive would  examine whether to commute her sentence. A few days later, Justice Minister Victor Garcia recommended that President García grant the pardon to permit Berenson to be expelled from Peru in light of strong public opposition to her release.

But García’s administration has decided Berenson’s case is “not a priority.”

In the meantime, Berenson’s iconic image as a symbol of the political violence that plagued Peru is coming back in full force.  This comes ahead of next year’s presidential elections, replete with recriminations, finger pointing and defensive denials over who is responsible for letting the dangerous terrorist Berenson loose on Peruvian society.

Thus the political backdrop to Lori Berenson’s latest legal woes. But there is an element missing in the equation — her son. If the judges rule to put  Berenson back in prison for five more years, they will not be imposing sentence on her (Berenson has already been sentenced) but on her baby. His fate would be to either live in an overcrowded cell to the maximum age of 3 and then be deprived of his mother, or lose his mother now.

A former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student, Berenson was arrested on a public bus in downtown Lima on November 30, 1995, and charged with helping plan a thwarted takeover of Peru’s Congress. Berenson was sentenced to life by a secret military court for “treason against the fatherland,” but that conviction was vacated in 2000 and she was retried and convicted the following year by a civilian court.

There is no doubt that Lori Berenson collaborated with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.  The Tupac Amaru rebels viewed her as an emissary and friend when she arrived in Peru in her twenties in 1994 after serving as a personal aide to a top leader of El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).

She and Panamanian painter Pacífico Castrellón — a key prosecution witness against her — did rent the four- story house that the Tupac Amaru rebels used as their secret base to store a huge arsenal of weapons and house 20 guerrillas. Three Tupac Amaru guerrillas and one policeman died during the 11-hour shootout at that house.

Castrellón returned home to Panama last month after serving 11½ years in a Lima prison and three more years on conditional release.

Clearly Lori Berenson does not have Peruvian public sentiment on her side. She may never erase from the country’s collective  memory her Jan. 8, 1996, appearance before television cameras, when she made her now famous declaration in defense of the guerrilla group. With fists clenched at her sides, her face contorted in anger, she shouted: “There are no criminal terrorists in the MRTA. It is a revolutionary movement.”

In a recent national poll, 74 percent said they opposed her parole, and 73 percent said they did not believe she was repentant for her crimes. But asked if her sentence should be commuted and she should be allowed to go home, 50 percent said yes, 43 percent said no, and 7 percent offered no opinion.

Peruvians found it offensive when Berenson described herself as a political prisoner. But who can deny the mileage Peru’s political class has gotten, and continues to get, as she  is transformed into a latter day Peruvian Willy Horton?

Lori Berenson is not innocent, but who can deny that she has paid a significant debt to Peruvian society? Who can deny that her toddler, who was born in prison and took his first visit to a park and saw his first tree when he was eight months old, is innocent?

Lori Berenson and her baby pose no threat to Peruvian society. Don’t free Lori Berenson. Free Lori Berenson and her baby son.

Apoyo Opinión y Mercado national poll on Lori Berenson:

National poll conducted by Apoyo Opinión y Mercado S.A., published by Diario El Comercio on June 20, 2010. Poll based on interviews from June 16-18 with 1,200 people between the ages of 18 and 70. Margin of error +/-2.8 percentage points in provincial cities and +/-4.4 percentage points in Lima.

Judiciary overturns gov’t decision to deport British missionary

A Peruvian court on Tuesday overturned a decision by the Interior Ministry to deport British missionary Paul McAuley, daily El Comercio reported.

“It has been a great surprise this morning to receive notification that recognizes my right to free transit and that I will not be deported for the moment,” said McAuley, a 62-year-old lay activist with the La Salle Christian Brothers who has spent the last 20 years promoting indigenous rights.

McAuley, who is based in Peru’s northern jungle, heads the environmental organization Loreto Environmental Network.

The Interior Ministry informed McAuley two weeks ago that his residency was canceled and gave him seven days to leave Peru. The ministry charged that McAuley violated regulations governing foreign residents by instigating social unrest.

McAuley filed an appeal in the court of Maynas against the decision to deport him. He has received support from the Legal Defense Institute, IDL, the Peruvian Environmental Law Society, SPDA, the Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas, the National Evangelical Council, and the Human Rights Association, Aprodeh.

McAuley said he will continue with his normal work for the moment. “I am relieved and once again I am thankful for all the support from in the country and abroad,” he said.

It was not immediately clear whether the Interior Ministry planned to appeal the court’s ruling.  Presidential Cabinet Chief  Javier Velásquez reportedly reiterated on Tuesday that Peruvian immigration officials had determined McAuley violated regulations governing his residency in Peru, but accepted the court decision overruling the government’s action.

García administration should end offensive against British missionary

Editorial:

Where is the middle ground for the impoverished inhabitants of Peru’s Amazon region to stand up against the threats encroaching in on them? What is their best option for action in Peru’s fragile democracy? Who do they turn to?

Cocaine traffickers offer them a pittance, which they accept at the barrel of a gun, to cultivate coca. In the bargain, their land is decimated by erosion and their water poisoned with acetone, kerosene and sulfuric acid that leaches from clandestine maceration pits.

The administration of President Alan García, while impotent in its efforts to put a meaningful dent in Peru’s growing cocaine trade, opens the Amazon to unprecedented mining and oil exploration and drilling — eroding the land and poisoning the water with lead, cadmium and hundreds of barrels of raw crude dumped directly into the rivers. Read more…

McAuley one of five priests in the government’s line of fire for defending indigenous rights and the environment

British missionary Paul McAuley has filed an appeal in the court of Maynas this week against the government’s decision to deport him from the country. This step effectively suspends his deportation, and he has 15 days to prepare his rebuttal of the charges made by the Ministry of the Interior, of violating regulations governing foreign residents by instigating social unrest.

McAuley’s legal defense is provided by attorney Rita Ruck, in Iquitos, and the lawyers of the three vicariates in the Maynas province. He has received the full support of leading institutions, including the Legal Defense Institute, IDL, the Peruvian Environmental Law Society, SPDA, the Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas, the National Evangelical Council, and the Human Rights Association, Aprodeh. Read more…

Van der Sloot: Peruvian justice, public passion and the media’s responsibility

By Rick Vecchio
Peruvian Times Editor

The absence of one word left a gaping hole in our story yesterday about Joran Van der Sloot’s interrogation by Peruvian police — and we weren’t alone.

The word was “allegedly,” a somewhat technical, cumbersome term.

Who really ever utters “allegedly” in everyday conversation?  That is why so many editors deplore its use in news stories. Perhaps that could explain why it was absent from much of the mainstream media’s breaking coverage of the Van der Sloot case.

But unlike other abused and misused words in the journalistic lexicon, like “amid” and “mishap,” the judicious application of “allegedly” in news stories is vital. Read more…

Obama: U.S. to continue to support Peru’s democracy, human rights issues

The United States will continue to work with Peru to promote democracy, human rights, press freedoms, economic development and poverty reduction, President Barack Obama told reporters following a meeting on Tuesday with the President of Peru, Alan García.

“These are all issues on which President García has some excellent track records of success in his own country,” Obama said. “We want to continue to be an effective partner with Peru as they continue to grow and develop.” Read more…

OAS agrees to adopt new hemispheric counter-narcotics strategy

The Washington D.C.-based Organization of American States have agreed to adopt a new hemispheric strategy that will call on member states to conduct more periodic and independent evaluations of counter-narcotics efforts.

OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza called on member countries a year ago to reevaluate and reshape the Anti-Drug strategy in the hemisphere.

“The adoption of the new Hemispheric Drug Strategy is the culmination of one year of collective work,” Insulza said in a statement.  He added that the revised strategy constitutes “a gratifying event for me and probably so for the member countries of the OAS, because they can see that their efforts to confront face to face one of the great problems of our continent are not sterile but capable of results such as this.”

The agreement – called the Hemispheric Strategy for Drugs – includes recognizing drug addiction as a chronic illness and proposes a greater emphasis on treatment. Member states will also be required to strengthen national counter-narcotics organizations and boost their support for hemispheric strategies. Read more…

Reader’s comment on Peru lawmaker’s reaction to Arizona’s illegal immigrant law

Dear Peruvian Times Readers,

It has come to our attention that the “Comment” form on our Web site is not working properly, and we are working to fix the problem as soon as possible. In the meantime, we received the following message from one of you concerning our story posted April 29, titled “Peru’s foreign relations commission to analyze controversial Arizona law, “ offering a heart-felt, alternative perspective.

The views expressed below by Mr. Rodriguez in no way reflect the editorial position of the Peruvian Times. Read more…

Prosecutor in Fujimori trial planning to resign

One of the lead prosecutors in the human rights trials of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori said he is planning on resigning due to political pressure from within Peru’s judicial commission.

Avelino Guillén, a highly regarded and incisive state attorney in key cases, told Ideele Radio his decision to resign from Peru’s Public Ministry follows an exam he wrote to obtain tenure at the Supreme Prosecutors Office.  He failed the exam, which was evaluated by the National Magistrates Council, or CNM.  Read more…

Former president of Peru’s Supreme Council of Military Justice arrested in Mexico

Mexican police arrested on Thursday the former president of Peru’s Supreme Council of Military Justice, Guido Guevara, who is wanted in Peru for allegations of embezzlement and criminal conspiracy, the office of Mexico’s Attorney General said in a press release. Read more…

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