Jailed U.S. citizen Berenson may be freed in Peru

Jailed U.S. citizen Berenson may be freed in Peru
LIMA
Tue May 25, 2010 1:25pm EDT

(Reuters) - Lori Berenson, a U.S. citizen serving a 20-year sentence in Peru for aiding leftist guerrillas, could be granted parole on Tuesday after some 15 years in prison and deported, an official at the country's justice ministry said. Berenson, 40, a New Yorker who studied at the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology before moving to Latin America as a human rights activist, would be freed a year after giving birth to a baby boy, Salvador. Berenson became eligible for parole this year after serving most of her sentence.

Her husband, Anibal Apari Sanchez, a former member of the radical Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, is now a lawyer and represented her in the parole hearing. Berenson married Apari in 2003 and inmates in Peru are allowed conjugal visits.

Though the justice ministry said it would quickly file to deport Berenson if the judge grants her parole, Peru's human rights agency, the Defensoria del Pueblo, said there would be no legal basis for forcing her to leave the country.

She was arrested on a bus in 1995 on charges of being a leader of the MRTA, a leftist insurgency that was active in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s. She has denied being part of the MRTA. A "faceless," or anonymous, military court jailed her for life, but under pressure from the United States, a civilian court retried her and sentenced her to 20 years.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64O4YA20100525?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

and lucky her. We should thank the generosity of the Peruvian government. She is guilty of aiding terrorists who planned to kidnap and kill gov't officials and others. At her first trial, she basically admitted it, only saying that, well, she was fighting for a righteous revolution. She is lucky to be American as if she were Peruvian she would never see the light of day again.

Most Peruvians are unsympathetic to her.

Peru Frees Lori Berenson. Kind Of
Updated 6:00 PM EDT, Tue, May 25, 2010

A Peruvian judge has granted house arrest to 40-year-old Lori Berenson, a New York woman who has served 15 years in prison for aiding leftist rebels.

Judge Jessica Leon issued an order Tuesday for the conditional release of Berenson, who gave birth to a son a year ago.

Berenson was arrested in 1995 and accused of aiding the leftist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary movement. The former Massachussets Institute of Technology student was sentenced to life in prison by a military court the following year.

A civilian court retried her in 2000, convicting her of the lesser crime of terrorist collaboration and reducing her sentence to 20 years.

Berenson denies any wrongdoing and maintains she is a political prisoner.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Peru-Frees-Lori-Berenson-94869464.html

When Truth Gets You Life
The case of Lori Berenson-and why it matters
by Robin Flinchum
Toward Freedom magazine Sept / Oct 1999

~snip~
In 1995, Lori Berenson went to Peru as a writer and a human rights activist. She was appalled by what she saw, by the poverty and misery that continued long after Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori proclaimed his austerity measures of the early 9()s a success. "Sixty percent of the nation's people live in poverty," she wrote in a letter just after her arrival. She went on to talk about the upcoming elections (in which Fujimori retained his office), calling them a farce to support the country's claim of democracy. "As if picking garbage out of a dump to feed your kids could ever be called democracy," she added.

In early 1998, I was stopped outside the rural village of Acteal in Chiapas, where I had gone to work on a story. (TF, May 1998) I was questioned about my purpose, my visa was taken, and I was ordered to leave the country. It was nerve-wracking, and inconvenient, but all it really meant was that I came home to the US to visit family and friends.

In late 1995, Lori Berenson interviewed members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), a guerrilla group in Peru often confused with the much more violent and incendiary Shining Path. She had also interviewed members of the Peruvian Congress. In November, she was forcibly taken off a public bus in Lima and arrested. She was accused of being a MRTA leader and charged with conspiring with the group to plan a raid on a session of the Congress. Shortly after her arrest, Fujimori went on national TV and condemned her as a terrorist.

Her trial was conducted by military officers whose faces she couldn't see, a practice which has since been outlawed in Peru. If there was any evidence against her, Lori says it was never explained to her or her defense attorney, who was allowed less than two hours to review a 2000-page document covering 22 different cases. She was convicted of treason by this hooded tribunal, and sentenced to life in prison.

BEHIND THE ANGRY WORDS
Before the tribunal passed judgment, Lori was "presented" to the Peruvian media at a press conference of sorts. Told she would have a very short time to make a statement, she was instructed to yell so they could hear her. She had been in custody some 40 days, the last ten spent with another prisoner who was severely wounded and in need of medical attention. Most likely, she was angry beyond belief.

"I am to be condemned for my concerns about the conditions of hunger and misery that exist in this country," she screamed in Spanish. "If it is a crime to worry about the sub-human conditions in which the majority of this population lives, then I will accept my punishment. But this is not a love of violence. This is not to be a criminal terrorist, because in the MRTA there are no criminal terrorists. It is a revolutionary movement. I love this people. I love this people and although this love is going to cost me years in prison, I will never stop loving and never lose the hope and confidence that one day there will be a new day of justice in Peru."

Lori didn't cry for the cameras, proclaim her innocence, or beg for mercy. Many people say this is the reason she was given so harsh a sentence. It's also why she has become a symbol of courage for me.

Consider her situation. She had been a human rights activist in one form or another for most of her life. Her mother, Rhoda Berenson, says Lori was volunteering in soup kitchens when she was in junior high school. She left college before graduation in order to go to Nicaragua, where she worked with refugees from the civil war in El Salvador, and later witnessed the cease-fire and subsequent peace process in that country. She had wholeheartedly devoted her life to international solidarity. It meant something to her; it wasn't just another vacation.

Like many other US human rights activists who travel all over the world, building homes and schools, teaching literacy, or giving workshops on small business skills, Lori believed that all people have a right to justice and dignity, and she supported their struggle to achieve it.

More:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Solidarity/TruthGetsLife_Berenson.html

She went as a "reporter" but never wrote anything or published a story. Instead she visited government buildings posing as a reporter, and bringing a photographer. The photographer was the wife of a head MRTA leader. They were there to take pictures to plan terrorist attacks.

She rented a building. 15 terrorists lived on the top floor, with guns and 8,000 rounds of ammunition. She later claimed she didn't know what was going on up there, despite the fact that she lived in the building.

When she was first tried in front of a military tribunal, she did not deny anything. Instead she claimed she could not have been helping criminals or terrorists because there were no terrorists in MRTA, just revolutionaries.

The US complained about the military trial, so she was given a civilian trial later and sentenced to 20 years.

She appealed to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which upheld the sentence.

She is lucky to be getting out now.

THOSE ARE THE FACTS

Now, I do give her kudos for leaving the coffee shop and actually going to be a revolutionary rather than just being a keyboard commando.

Please post.

---

Will post tomorrow

The three-judge tribunal ruled that Ms. Berenson had rented a house in Lima with a co-conspirator for the express purpose of providing a base for a Marxist terrorist organization, bought various computer and communications gear for the group, and then used press credentials as a cover to scrutinize the halls of Congress and facilitate an eventual attack.

.....

Ms. Berenson was arrested in Lima in November 1995, hours before the police raided a four-story house she rented. The police met stiff resistance from rebels in the house and ultimately found 8,000 rounds of ammunition and 3,000 sticks of dynamite.

.....
The prosecution argued, as it did in her first trial, that Ms. Berenson had posed as a foreign correspondent in order to rent a safe house for the rebels and to gain access to Congress accompanied by a photographer who was herself an underground terrorist.

....

The prosecution showed a forged Peruvian voting identification card bearing Ms. Berenson's photograph that was found in the M.R.T.A. safe house during the 1995 police raid. They showed a coded seating plan of the Congress, as well as printouts of several rebel documents with scribbled editing corrections, which police handwriting experts say are in Ms. Berenson's hand.

...

The prosecution and judges openly expressed skepticism that Ms. Berenson could have rented a house for a year inhabited by more than 15 M.R.T.A. rebels and hired a photographer who was the wife of a terrorist leader without ever suspecting the identities of the people she so closely associated with.

...

Ms. Berenson only apologized for appearing strident when she was first arrested, when she shouted, her fists clenched to her sides, ''There are no criminal terrorists in the M.R.T.A.; it's a revolutionary movement!'' That image has made her an unpopular figure in Peru to this day.

....
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/21/world/20-year-sentence-for-new-yorker-after-2nd-terrorism-trial-in-peru.html?scp=39&sq=lori%20berenson&st=nyt&pagewanted=2

Look, she's guilty. It's been 15 years and I am glad she's out, but I don't see the point in portraying her as some innocent hippie.

and the child has been with her in prison. so it looks like she is going to get another chance, y but she was guilty.

(X-posting from LBN thread)



Lori looking well after spending 15 years in Peruvian prisons.


-- Lori will not be freed from prison tomorrow but in 72 hours which should be around Friday, if the report in El Comercio is correct.

-- The 72 hours, on average, is the time it takes to verify documentation ... that she is not facing additional charges connected to the ones for which she was sentenced in 1995.

--
------------------------------------

Lori Berenson no saldría mañana de prisión, sino recién en 72 horas, según informaron fuentes del Instituto Nacional Penitenciario (INPE) a Radio Programas del Perú (RPP).

Según explicaron, este periodo de tiempo es lo que demora, en promedio, verificar los documentos para que proceda la excarcelación de la condenada a prisión por terrorismo, quien ya cumplió las tres cuartas partes de su pena de 20 años.

Y es que se debe revisar que Berenson no tenga casos pendientes con la justicia por delitos afines al que fue sentenciada en 1995.


Spanish, El Comercio newspaper of Lima

http://elcomercio.pe/noticia/485142/lori-berenson-podri...

----

Btw, a visiting Peruvian friend said a couple of months ago that Fujimori was very ill in a Lima prison. His daughter is one of the leading candidates for the presidency next year.

-----------

And adding:

Keiko Fujimori Higuchi is a Peruvian politician, daughter of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and Susana Higuchi. While in the United States Fujimori attended Columbia Business School in Manhattan for a year and a half and obtained a business degree from Boston University School of Management. In April 2006, while her father was detained in neighboring Chile, Fujimori was elected to the Peruvian Congress, obtaining the highest vote nationwide.


Candidate 10/2009 11/2009 12/2009 01/2010 02/2010 03/2010 04/2010
Luis Castañeda Lossio 22% 23% 23% 23% 22% 20% 22%
Keiko Fujimori 20% 22% 20% 18% 21% 20% 18%
Ollanta Humala 13% 12% 11% 15% 13% 12% 14%
Alejandro Toledo 10% 11% 9% 9% 9% 11% 12%
Jaime Bayly - - - 2% 5% 5% 3%

(Edit to add Jaime Bayly also a candidate for the Peruvian presidency next year. He is the self-proclaimed boy/girl friend of Juan Manuel Santos.)

Lori Berenson, an American citizen who has served 15 years in a Peruvian prison for aiding leftist rebels, has been freed on parole.

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.

>

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.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/latin_america/10159928.stm


Please note last para. above.

Very interesting, to be sure.

~snip~
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.

~snip~
'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.

:scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared::scared:

I think she looks better, as more mature, but still very firm in her beliefs.

From a BBC News Peru timeline:

~snip~
Fujimori era

1990 - More than 3,000 political murders reported; independent centre-right Alberto Fujimori elected president on anti-corruption platform; severe austerity and privatisation programmes launched as inflation reaches 400%.

1992 - Fujimori suspends constitution with army backing; Shining Path leader arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment; new single-chamber legislature elected.

1993 - New constitution adopted, enabling Fujimori to seek re-election.

1994 - Some 6,000 Shining Path guerrillas surrender to the authorities.

1995 - Fujimori re-elected to second term; people convicted of human rights abuses pardoned.

1996 - Tupac Amaru guerrillas seize hostages at Japanese ambassador's residence.

1997 - Peruvian special forces free hostages held at Japanese ambassador's residence.

1998 - Border agreement with Ecuador.

Bribery scandal

2000 September - Intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos embroiled in scandal after being caught on video apparently trying to bribe an opposition politician.

2000 17 November - Peruvian human rights ombudsman's office says 4,000 people had "disappeared" since 1980 in war against left-wing rebels.

2000 20 November - President Fujimori resigns following political and financial scandals.

2000 22 November - Peruvian Congress sacks Fujimori and declares him "morally unfit" to govern; head of Congress Valentin Paniagua sworn in as interim president.

2001 March - Judge orders former president Fujimori, who has since fled to Japan, to face charges of dereliction of duty.

2001 April - New heads of the army, air force and navy sworn in after their predecessors resign over links to former president Fujimori.

2001 May - President of Supreme Court and nine senior judges dismissed over alleged links with fugitive former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos. Deputy treasury minister resigns over allegations that he was instrumental in paying Montesinos $15m to leave Peru.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1224690.stm

The list of candidates in that poll started me. My gosh!

The very thought anyone in Peru would believe this clown's daughter would be an adequate public servant is unfathomnable.

Toledo running again???? He left in disgrace, I thought.

And when I saw "Bayly" after reading remarks from you and Dreyfus about his tv show and persona in Miami, I recognized it immediately, and nearly fell out of my chair! That pool of oligarchic major political figures in Latin America is very restrictive, isn't it? It also goes without saying most of them seem to have extensive ties to the U.S. No wonder the majority of Latin Americans are interested in moving forward, away from their bloody past.

I'll bet Bayly and Santos have had some rare moments leaning their heads together and dreaming of a day when each one would rule over a different South American country.

Candidate 10/2009 11/2009 12/2009 01/2010 02/2010 03/2010 04/2010
Luis Castañeda Lossio 22% 23% 23% 23% 22% 20% 22%
Keiko Fujimori 20% 22% 20% 18% 21% 20% 18%
Ollanta Humala 13% 12% 11% 15% 13% 12% 14%
Alejandro Toledo 10% 11% 9% 9% 9% 11% 12%
Jaime Bayly - - - 2% 5% 5% 3%




Don't think that Keiko can be ruled out at this very early stage. A friend from Lima visited us a few months ago and he said that she is a serious candidate. Note that as of last month she was only four points behind front-runner Castañeda and four points ahead of Humala.

Our friend explained that a lot of Peruvians are sick and tired of the massive corruption in the Garcia government, the rise in crime and poverty in Lima and other cities, the confrontatios between government forces and indigenous people.

Like it or not, Alberto Fujimori practically wiped out the Shining Path (except for a few isolated pockets that have spurted in recent months) and the urban MRTA (Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru). Crime under Fujimori was not as widespread as it is now under Garcia and the APRISTA government.

We will revisit the Peruvian elections next March and April to see how Keiko is doing.

-----------------

P.S. Garcia is to meet with Obama on June 1 in Washington. The Lori B. release appears to be a gift from Two-Breakfasts to Barack. No matter, at least Lori is being released on probation.

-------------
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg, visited Lima earlier this year, and said that President Obama had expressed an interest in meeting President Garcia.

"They have met in many multilateral meetings, thus he is now very interested in welcoming President Garcia in Washington," said Steinberg.

(Looks like Obama really likes Garcia and uribe. Hil at work, I suppose.)
---------------------------

Oh, the Jaime Bayly candidacy is a joke. After all, he is a TV comic. He is now back in Lima after hot-footing it out of Bogota and far away from his pal JM Santos during the campaign.

(edit to correct date of Garcia's buddying up to Obama.)

I'll bet it's true.

We'll probably see Peru get one of those bases they started discussing with _Bush around the time Correa was promising he'd close Manta during his presidential campaign. That promise by Correa no doubt helped get him elected.

Two Breakfasts should snap out of it. Latin Americans don't want MORE of what they've had too much, already. He's facing the wrong direction.

http://delucio.com.nyud.net:8090/blog/wp-content/images/Alan_Garcia_1.jpg http://www.generaccion.com.nyud.net:8090/usuarios/opinion/imagenes/04_03_2010_06_23_39_2036870347.jpg

http://peru.indymedia.org.nyud.net:8090/uploads/2006/05/alan_garcia_-_el_genocida__3_.jpg

El carnicero de Cayara, el hoy presidente Alan García,

inspeccionado la masacre de los comuneros. Ni olvido,
ni perdón, los deudos quieren justicia.

Google translation tool:
"The butcher of Cayara, now president Alan García,

inspected the slaughter of commoners. Neither oblivion,
nor forgiveness, the bereaved families want justice."

to discuss issues of mutual concern and cooperation with allies. like it or not. That's why you see Uribe, Lula, and now Garcia at the White House, and you won't see Chavez, Castro, Morales, and Correa.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/white-house/obama-and-peruvian-president-alan-garcia-to-meet-at-white-house-on-june-1-93453484.html

Look for Obama to visit Colombia and Peru on his next visit to South America. the question will be if he goes before Uribe leaves office or just takes the political expedient move of waiting until the next president is sworn in.