It's hard to know where to begin for people who haven't heard of Lori Berenson and don't know anything about the nearly 15-year ordeal in Peruvian prisons that this American citizen has endured.
I guess the only thing to do is start at the beginning: In 1995, Berenson was a 26-year-old New York native on a humanitarian and journalistic mission to Peru, a country with a great deal of poverty, two vicious rebel groups whose political tactics were kidnappings and murder, and an authoritarian, right-wing president of Japanese descent named Alberto Fujimori.
Ms. Berenson was there to investigate conditions in Peru - with a particular interest in the widespread poverty and the political repression of the Fujimori regime - and write articles about it. She had press credentials from two small, New York-based magazines.
The two left-wing rebel groups were both engaged in bloody battles with Peruvian police and soldiers. In December of 1995, there was an armed confrontation between the police and MRTA (the so-called Tupac Amura Revolutionary Front....or something like that). Police claimed that they had broken up a plot to attack and bomb the halls of the Peruvian congressional building in Lima.
It was this "plot" to which Berenson was accused of being linked. She was literally taken off a bus in Lima and arrested not long after the gun battle with MRTA. She was hastily tried - before a military tribunal, no less - and given a life sentence.
Now, keep in mind, this was a young woman who was very political and certainly of a left-wing bent. But she had never, ever, advocated violence as a political solution. In fact, she deplored it. She understood what a lousy choice most Peruvians faced if they only had to pick from Fujimori's right-wing views or the violence of MRTA and the "Shining Path" guerillas.
Also, authorities never had anything in the way of hard evidence to link her to any alleged plot to attack the Congress. She'd been based in Lima, and lived in an apartment building where some MRTA members or sympathizers also apparently lived. If I remember correctly, she was implicated by a MRTA member who survived the gun battle. This person certainly "testified" under coercion, if not outright torture. But Lori Berenson insisted to family and friends - and certainly to the Peruvian authorities - that she was not a member or sympathizer of MRTA, and had no knowledge of or role in any plans for violence. It would have been entirely out of character for her to participate in anything violent.
That's the nuts and bolts of what landed her in prison. If some of the details seem fuzzy, it's been a long time since many of us who have tried to get her released have heard much about the case.
The Clinton administration seemed generally receptive to attempts to get her freed, or at least get her a civilian trial. But the terrorist attacks in this country in 2001 left Berenson languishing in jail indefinitely. She had been branded a "terrorist" by the Peruvian government, and anyone with that albatross around their neck didn't officially exist for the Bush and Cheney crowd, even if it was an American.
After her imprisonment, her parents, Mark and Rhoda Berenson, with the help of family friends, set up the "Committee to Free Lori Berenson." That's how I stumbled onto the case sometime around 1999...I volunteered my services to do whatever I could locally to make people aware of her plight. Living in the Lynchburg area at the time, I spoke about it once at Lynchburg College, and got a local columnist to write about it. I went to one or two meetings in D.C. But after 9/11, it was hard to get much sympathy for anyone linked in any way whatsoever to "terrorism."
Lori did eventually get a civilian trial, and the life sentence was reduced to 20 years. She became a model prisoner. A few years back, she married a Salvadoran man. She also struggled with health problems, especially back problems.
But here is what has changed....President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have promised new levels of engagement with the other nations of the world. Now that there's a new team in Washington that seriously wants a better global reputation for the United States, there could well be a new opportunity for the adminstration to reach out to Peru on Lori's behalf.
There's been a serious change in Lori's situation, too. She's pregnant. Eight months pregnant (yep, conjugal visits). But her pregnancy is complicated due to her back problems. Being 39 years old is not making it any easier. She was recently moved to a better prison facility in Lima, where her pregnancy can be monitored more easily. It is said, too, that she will need back surgery sometime after the baby is born.
I'm convinced, as many others are, that this woman did not deserve what happened to her. She has now served 13 years. If she was guilty of anything beyond being naive, well, she has certainly paid for it. Most of her youth has been passed in squalid, remote, mountaintop prisons where she has endured her imprisonment with grace and intelligence, while at the same time insisting upon her innocence.
I urge you to go to the Web site, www.freelori.org and decide for yourself. If I understand the intentions of the committee, there's going to be a new push for Lori's release. There is a page on the Web site where you can print out and sign a letter to Secretary Clinton encouraging new efforts to get her out.
I'd also recommend her mother's book: "Lori: My Daugher, Wrongfully Imprisoned in Peru," by Rhoda Berenson. Copyright 2000. Published first by Context Books, then by Northeastern University Press two years later.
A great injustice was done to an American citizen in a foreign country in 1995. Justice has still not been done all these years later.
It's time Lori Berenson was set free.
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