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US Activist Jailed for Life in Peru
US activist jailed for life in Peru
By Fenella Thomas
On March 15, the Supreme Court of Military Justice in Peru
rejected a final appeal and confirmed the sentence of life
imprisonment for US activist Lori Berenson. She was convicted of
treason on January 11 for allegedly being one of the leaders of the
Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA).
Berenson worked for the Committee in Solidarity with the People
of El Salvador (CISPES) in New York, before moving to Nicaragua
and El Salvador where she spent several years teaching English and
translating for human rights organisations. Police sources in Peru
say that Berenson was recruited by the MRTA in Panama and came
to Peru in 1994 with Panamanian agent Pacifico Castrejon
Santamaria. According to the Peruvian government, Castrejon
received international military aid on behalf of the MRTA.
Berenson was arrested last December 1 in a residential area of
Lima, in what the government claims was a MRTA safe house.
Three rebels and one police agent were killed in the 10 hour battle
between rebels and troops. The Peruvian government announced
that Castrejon had planned a MRTA attack on Congress in order to
kidnap leading legislators, and that Berenson had used her press
credentials to enter the building and study the layout. Peruvian
president Alberto Fujimori claimed that the plot was probably
intended to obtain the release of MRTA leader Victor Polay
Campos who has been in prison, and reportedly regularly tortured,
since 1992.
According to her US lawyer Ramsey Clark, Berenson was held
incommunicado by Peru's National Directorate Against Terrorism
after her arrest. Clark said that Berenson had been denied the right
to remain silent and that she was forced to sign a written
declaration without understanding its content and without the
opportunity to consult a lawyer.
Statement
Three days before her trial Berenson was presented to the press, in
street clothes and without handcuffs, in contrast with other MRTA
members who were presented two weeks earlier handcuffed and in
prison uniform. She made a statement in Spanish in which she said,
"I am to be condemned for my concern about the conditions of
hunger and misery which exist in this country... If it is a crime to
worry about the subhuman 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." Berenson's defence lawyer, Guillermo Achahui, said
that the action of presenting Berenson to the public was a
successful attempt to lessen public sympathy for her, and was an
indication of the insubstantiality of the charges laid against her.
Trial
Berenson was tried in a secret military court at which defence
lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine witnesses or rebut key
evidence. After sentence was passed on January 11, Achahui
immediately appealed, saying that the charges had not been
presented at the right time, that the court had given him only two
hours to look over the hundreds of files connected with Berenson's
case, that there was no evidence to support the charge that
Berenson had trafficked in weapons and that Berenson was not
allowed to face Castrejon who had accused her of MRTA
membership.
The US government issued a statement decrying the lack of process
in the trial and asked the Peruvian government to allow the appeal
to be heard in a civilian court. The request was denied. Berenson
will serve her sentence in Yanamayo prison in Puno, southern Peru,
a particularly harsh place for those convicted of terrorism, where
prisoners are not allowed any visitors for the first year of their
sentence and only for 15 minutes per month in subsequent years.
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