Depending on which definition you choose, U.S. state and federal prisons hold from zero to hundreds and even hundreds of thousands of “political prisoners.”

Many countries have politically defined crimes in addition to sedition laws.  In the United States, we also find definition in the intent of the accused and an examination of police misconduct, prosecutorial discretion, sentencing abuse, prison discipline and classification, and a lack of executive action on clemency appeals.

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Many of the political prisoners convicted in federal courts share an opposition to nuclearism as part of their larger opposition to U.S.  imperialism: military, economic, cultural, and political.  What they do not share with many of the nonviolent activists in prison for anti-war and anti-nuclear actions is an opposition to war and violence.  They have not only affirmed, but acted on a willingness to take up arms, even while generally seeking to avoid injuring others by their actions.

The Puerto Rican independence movement, which currently claims 16 partisans in American prisons, has naturally been a force opposed to U.S.  militarism.  And the current resistance on Vieques (p. X) is only the most recent example of Puerto Rican unity - across the divides of independence vs. free association vs. statehood - in opposition to the excessive militarism that brings negative social and ecological consequences for all the people of Puerto Rico.   A revived campaign for these prisoners’ freedom was initiated last year, along with other events observing the 100 anniversary of U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation, 11 Nobel Laureates, members of Congress, leaders of all three Puerto Rican political parties, and even former President Jimmy Carter have called upon Clinton to act affirmatively on the petition now on his desk calling for the immediate and unconditional release of 15 Puerto Rican men and women imprisoned since the 1980s for their activity in the struggle towards decolonizing and demilitarizing Puerto Rico.  All were members of revolutionary organizations - the FALN or the Macheteros - engaged in armed struggle for liberation against a colonial ruler.  Thirteen were convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 35-105 years in prison; two were convicted of a robbery of Wells Fargo and sentenced to 15 and 65 years in prison.  Despite sentences longer than given for most homicides, none of them was charged with any action resulting in bloodshed, and none of them have renounced the struggle for a free Puerto Rico.

A sixteenth Puerto Rican, Dr. José Solís Jordán, was convicted March 12 of charges that he planned and carried out a bombing outside a military recruiting center on Chicago’s Northwest side in 1992.  He is behind bars, awaiting sentencing July 7 in Chicago.  The anti-colonial educator was prosecuted in the context of several decades of police infiltration and instigation targeting the Puerto Rican activist community in Chicago that brought about the 1980s prosecutions.

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In their 1998 introduction to Enemies of the State, a booklet-length discussion with political prisoners Marilyn Buck, David Gilbert and Laura Whitehorn, War Resisters League activists Matt Meyer and Meg Starr write:

“Like John Brown, they are whites who took arms against the U.S.  government, in solidarity with oppressed peoples.  Invisible in the social democratic or liberal histories of the 1960s is the logic of their progression from public to clandestine activism.  These three interviewed here help us to understand an important part of radical history so often distorted.  They stood accused of such “unthinkable crimes” as infiltrating the Klan, robbing money from banks and giving it to Black self-defense patrols, helping to liberate Black Liberation Army (BLA) leader Assata Shakur, and bombing the Capitol in response to the U.S. invasion of Grenada [1983]...

“As radical activists, the political prisoners and prisoners of war are part of our closest roots, our nearest heritage.  This is true whether or not we agree with every part of their analysis.  The coalition work between New Afrikans, euro-american anti-imperialists, Puerto Rican activists, leaders of the American Indian Movement, pacifist plowshares disarmament campaigners, local support committees for individual prisoners, and others continues to this day...

“The suffering of the political prisoners is held over all of our heads as a deterrent.  It is one aspect of the repression and control of our movements, a direct carry over of the FBI Counter Intelligence Program of the 1950s and ‘60s... Connecting with them not only brings us into contact with some harsh current realities, it also gives continuity to our own revolutionary goals...”

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Four men convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1985-86 - Jaan Karl Laaman, Ray Luc Levasseur, Tom Manning and Richard Williams - are serving sentences of 45-53 years.  Part of a group then known as the Ohio 7 (their three women co-defendants have served their sentences and been released), they were convicted for their efforts “to bring the public’s attention to corporate and government criminal activity in South Africa and Central America.”   Regarding this criminality, Levasseur wrote last year in his essay “Honor the Resistance”:

“We opposed it.  We were charged under federal indictment with striking at the legs of the corporate godzilla: IBM, Union Carbide, Motorola, as well as offices of the South African government in New York.  We are called the UFF prisoners because we were convicted of bombings claimed by the United Freedom Front, an anti-imperialist group.  No one was injured in these bombings, though property damage was extensive.  One of these actions followed the Soweto Massacre in 1976.  The others occurred in the early 1980s.

“Those of us convicted of United Freedom Front activities were guided by our political commitment, good conscience, moral obligation and responsibilities under international law, including the Nuremberg Principles.  It was the intent and purpose of the UFF actions to expose U.S. government and corporate complicity with apartheid, and encourage the American people to do everything necessary to end this criminal partnership.”

Contrast their treatment with the international honor given another imprisoned advocate of armed struggle against apartheid, Nelson Mandela.  In March, 1998, President Clinton toured Mandela’s Robben Island prison cell, then told reporters that those who resisted apartheid should be honored.

Levasseur, serving his time with other political prisoners at ADX Florence, the federal maximum security control unit prison in Colorado, asks on behalf of the UFF prisoners, “only that [Clinton] honor our resistance to apartheid with a pardon or amnesty.  We ask nothing more for our sacrifice, but that we be freed from prison and allowed to return to our families and communities.”

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After refusing five formal requests from the Italian government over the last decade, the United States has recently agreed to release political prisoner Sylvia Baraldini to her native Italy to complete her sentence.  Baraldini’s unrepentant anti-imperialism and long-time support for Black and Puerto Rican liberation movements earned her a 43 year sentence in 1982.  She was convicted of planning a robbery that did not take place, aiding the 1979 jail escape of Black revolutionary Assata Shakur (now living in exile in Cuba), and failing to testify in front of a Grand Jury.  She was never accused or convicted of acts that injured others.  The cruel irony is that her extradition under provisions of the Strasbourg Convention - and the early parole it holds hope for - has reportedly come in part as a reward for Italy’s critical and unwavering support for the imperialist war on Yugoslavia.

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We recognize many more political prisoners in the United States than the handful noted here.  At a time when the evolution of imperialism has global environmental, economic and military consequences and is propelled by the only nuclear superpower, anti-nuclear and anti-war activists in prison share a particular connection with these other political prisoners who continue to struggle for justice.  The debate about violence vs. nonviolence is a significant one, but it should not inhibit cooperative support for ALL political prisoners, as we strive to create a world where justice and peace prevail, and neither prisons nor weapons are accepted ways of resolving human conflict.

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The Jericho Movement is working to increase public awareness of political prisoners in the United States and advocating for their freedom.
For more information contact The Jericho Movement, P.O. Box 650, New York, NY 10009, e-mail: jericho98@usa.net
www.thejerichomovement.com/

Enemies of the State is available for $6 from Resistance in Brooklyn, c/o Matt Meyer, War Resisters League, 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012.

Support for the United Freedom Front prisoners is coordinated by the December 16th Committee, P.O. Box 21073, 2000 SW College, Topeka, KS 66621.

Support for imprisoned independentistas  is now focused on a demonstration in Washington, DC, July 22-25, to demand the release of all Puerto Rican political prisoners.  For more information about the demonstration and the Puerto Rican political prisoners, contact the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, 2607 West Division, Chicago, IL 60622, (773)278-0885, email: prpowpp@aol.com

More information is also available on the internet at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/5919/