[Ppnews] San Sebastian Embraces Oscar Lopez Rivera: 25 Years of Resistance

[Political Prisoner News]

San Sebastián Embraces Oscar López Rivera: 25 Years of Resistance

"Our mother died of Alzheimer’s. By the time of 
her last visit to Oscar, she was already 
beginning to forget. He was in the Control Unit. 
All of his visits were behind glass; you talked 
with him on the telephone. What did she say after 
that visit? ‘I couldn’t touch him.’" From the 
audience, an audible sound of anguish as they 
listened to Oscar’s brother, professor José 
López, recount some of the family’s experiences 
as they marked the 25th anniversary of Oscar’s arrest.

The Comité Pro Derechos Humanos (West) sponsored 
the "Abrazo Pepiniano" at the Coliseo Luis Aymat 
Cardona in San Sebastián, Oscar’s hometown, and 
still the family’s home. After Sra. Fela 
Sotomayor gave the invocation, Mayor Javier 
Jiménez welcomed the gathering, which included 
Oscar’s sister Mercedes and many other members of 
the López family, former political prisoners Luis 
Rosa, Adolfo Matos, Alicia Rodríguez, and Orlando 
González Claudio, as well as people from 
Aguadilla, Aibonito, Cayey, Adjuntas, Lajas, 
Aguada, Mayagüez, and other parts of the island. 
He urged people to act with passion, regardless 
of their political persuasion, in the face of 
such abuse of fellow Puerto Ricans. Comité Pro 
Derechos Humanos spokesperson Eduardo Villanueva echoed the mayor’s sentiments.

As keynote speaker, Professor López placed the 
family’s migration to Chicago in the context of 
the mass Puerto Rican migration of the 1950's, 
and explained Oscar’s role in developing the 
community of resistance, embodied today in Paseo 
Boricua’s many community based institutions. He 
recalled how Oscar returned from experience in 
Viet Nam to protest the war, leading to his 
expulsion from Roosevelt University, how he 
struggled to improve the miserable conditions in 
which Puerto Ricans lived, how the resulting 
repression ultimately led to clandestine 
activity. "The last time I saw Oscar in 1976, he 
said to me, ‘I have to go away, but I want you to 
promise me to keep the struggle alive.’ I didn’t 
see him again until he was arrested in 1981. We 
have a huge family... my mother was one of 21 
children. We had family we had never met, but in 
1976, after Oscar left, the FBI tracked them all 
down. And in Chicago they served us with subpoenas for the grand jury."

Oscar’s years in prison have not been easy: "He 
was 12 years in Control Units, longer than any 
other prisoner. Do you know what it is to be in a 
cell, all alone, 23 ½ hours a day? When they 
first put him into the Control Unit, he refused 
visits, all visits, even from Jan [Susler, his 
attorney], for a year. He wanted to learn to live 
with solitude. When he was ready to have visits 
again, he let us know. He learned to resist in a 
new way." But, explained Professor López, the 
visits were difficult. "My mother visited him 
with Karina [Oscar’s granddaughter], who was six 
years old at the time. Karina put her hand up on 
the glass and said, ‘Grampa, put your hand up on 
the other side of the glass, so we can hold 
hands.’ She was able to imagine, something her great grandmother couldn’t do."

He spoke of other manifestations of resistance by 
Oscar and Carlos Alberto Torres, who has served 
26 years behind bars, including their art. 
Professor López had just returned from San 
Francisco, where he spoke at Mission Cultural 
Center’s opening of "Not Enough Space," the 
traveling exhibit of their paintings, drawings 
and ceramics, noting that hundreds of people attended.

In closing, master of ceremonies, Aguadilla 
attorney Juan Crespo, invited all to participate 
in the campaign for the release of Oscar and 
Carlos Alberto. Yomaira Lugo Vélez gave a 
dramatic recitation of Juan Antonio Corretjer’s 
Distancias, and the activity ended with an 
emotional rendition of La Borinqueña.

Jan Susler

May 29, 2006

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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