Editorial
October 1999

Clinton's selective clemency

In granting clemency, albeit with some outrageous strings attached like the denial of the right of free association, Pres. Clinton cited the example of former President Carter's release of Puerto Rican Nationalists during his administration. It would be helpful to go back to Carter's own motives for that act of clemency in order to understand better why Clinton has acted. At that time, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that release would be seen as a good will gesture toward Latin America, as well as "remove a propaganda issue from the agenda of various international fora which is used each year against us and is increasingly used as an example of the inconsistency of our human rights policy."

This kind of strategic thinking surely goes much farther toward explaining Clinton's current decision than does the Right's speculation about winning Puerto Rican voters for Hillary Clinton's senatorial campaign. The 1998 general strike in Puerto Rico and the large demonstrations against the U.S. military presence in Vieques probably have much more to do with the timing of it.

The current House committee hearings on this issue are of a piece with the earlier maneuvers of Kenneth Starr, Henry Hyde and their cohorts-with violence now in place of sex to juice up their reactionary agenda. The massacre in Waco is being used for the same ends, with the authoritarian Right screaming so hypocritically about the perfidy of Clinton's Justice Department.

The truth is far better revealed in this event by silence, that is, the silence which is surrounding the case of José Solís. The Right is saying absolutely nothing about the Justice Department's conduct in this regard-of the terrifying invasion by heavily armed FBI commandos of the Solís family home; of a trial in which no evidence was actually presented but the word of a paid informer-who received $119,000-and an alleged accomplice who couldn't remember names or dates; or of a jury with no Spanish speakers which was asked to judge a taped conversation conducted largely in Spanish.

Who would have expected any better from the Right? They aren't the friends of human freedom. The real surprise is how little the broad Left has had to say on the Solís case. His fate should be of importance to all those who care about human rights, the rights to think, speak, and write as one chooses without having to fear imprisonment. Prof. Solís is a significant academic and thinker, for whom decolonization begins with the mind. He is being unjustly persecuted by the U.S. government for his views in favor of Puerto Rican independence, which were used against him at his trial.

Prof. Solís is as well a person of the Left. He has received support from labor unions in Puerto Rico and was a participant in the 1998 general strike, walking the picket lines in an effort to create unity between intellectuals in the academic community and workers. True internationalism would compel an interest on the part of U.S. activists in a case like this.

Perhaps the relative silence about this can be explained if we look at how so much thinking on the issues of internationalism and revolution mirrors the same tired rhetoric of the Right and how much needed rethinking remains undone. A COINTELPRO document from 1960, from J. Edgar Hoover, shows the roots of today's campaign against INDEPENDISTAS in the effort to combat the influence the Cuban Revolution was having in Puerto Rico and elsewhere and, as well, the "inevitable communist and/or Soviet effort to embarrass the United States."

The Right has today replaced Communism with so-called "terrorism," or whatever else, as the demon that drives its historical agenda. These are the counsels of the living dead. But movements for human freedom can't be satisfied just to be the reversed mirror image of the Right; they need to embody creativity and a real vision of the future. In this respect, some of the most hopeful signs have come from the willingness of the FALN prisoners to openly question some aspects of their political past.

As Alberto Rodríguez put it, "We thought we either held on to our old views and became dinosaurs and obsolete, or we adapted to reality. It was not that we sort of had this spiritual transformation and renounced violence. But from a political perspective, to influence the process of Puerto Rico's decolonization, we had to change."

Even earlier, a statement was released by Oscar López Rivera, a founder of the FALN who isn't included in the clemency, calling on the independence movement to give greater support to José Solís. It also called for some serious rethinking in the independence movement.

A question for the future is, can some needed dialogue and rethinking, an effort to work out new pathways to freedom and self-determination, begin to be worked out at the same time as we work to build solidarity with José Solís? It isn't just about breaking down a silence in general, but breaking down internal and historic barriers within the movement itself.

We urge our readers to begin by showing solidarity with the Solís family, which has been hit very hard by legal costs and loss of income. Checks can be sent to:

Martha González-Solís
Urb. El Senoral
Calle Fray Granada #2006
San Juan, PR 00926

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