On Friday, March 12 1999, a new name was added to the list of fifteen Puerto Rican political
prisoners currently held in American jails:
José Solís. That day, a federal jury in Chicago found Solís, a professor at the University of
Puerto Rico and father of five, guilty of bombing a US Army recruitment office in that city in
1992. No one was killed or hurt in the bombing.
The other fifteen political prisoners, arrested between 1980 and 1985, were jailed for their
membership in clandestine revolutionary organizations of the Puerto Rico independence
movement, namely the Macheteros and the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN).
However, Solís claims he�s innocent and that the case against him is a COINTELPRO-style
political frameup whose ultimate targets are the independence movement and the Puerto
Rican community in Chicago.
The prosecution�s case was based mostly on the testimony of FBI agentswho claimed that
Solís confessed to carrying out the bombing. However, they did not present any written
statement signed by the accused or any audio or video tape proving that he made such a
confession.
The jurors were swayed by the closing arguments of the prosecutor, according to Linda
Backiel, one of Solís�s attorneys. �He told the jurors that the case was about the good
people of Chicago versus outsider terrorists who had come to violently disrupt the
community�, she said.
The jury�s 14 members included three black Americans, one Filipino and the rest were all
white anglosaxons. The complete absence of latinos outraged the Puerto Rican community.
Furthermore, the jury foreperson was a woman who works at the US Department of Justice.
Mervin Méndez, president of the Chicago-based Committee in Solidarity with José Solís, was
aghast. �How is it possible that the jury included an employee of the Justice Department?�,
he asked.
�In a case like this, which is similar to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing because we�re talking here
about a bomb attack against a federal building too, who is she going to believe? The accused
or the FBI agents?�, asked Méndez.
After the verdict was read, Solís was taken to the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC),
where he is supposed to remain until his sentencing hearing in July 7.
Solís�s lawyers are appealing the verdict, arguing that the colonial nature of the Puerto
Rico-US relationship invalidates the US court system�s jurisdiction in the case. They are also
calling for a new trial.
The Chicago Puerto Rican community�s support for Solís was overwhelming. So many
supporters came to the trial that many had to stand in the hallways outside the courtroom, and
on Saturday, March 13, over 200 people participated in a vigil in front of the MCC.
�The campaign in support of Solís has enjoyed the support and solidarity of other ethnic communities in
Chicago, including progressive african americans, whites, jews and palestinians�, said
Méndez. �He stood up for his principles throughout the trial. It would have been easier for him
to declare himself guilty and cut a deal with the prosecutor in order to shorten his sentence.�
�The prosecutor made an issue of Solís�s political beliefs�, said professor Nellie Zambrana, co-worker
of Solís at the University of Puerto Rico. �His ideas were criminalised�.
According to members of the Chicago Puerto Rican community, the case against Solís is part
of a much larger underhanded offensive by right-wing forces that aim to destroy the community
and discredit its leaders.
The mysterious role of Rafael Marrero, the prosecution�s star witness, has raised many
eyebrows.
Marrero, who admitted to carrying out the bombing that Solís is accused of, was the main
source for a 1997 series of articles in the Chicago Sun Times that blared titles like �School
funds used to push terrorists� release� and �Puerto Rican politics overtake classrooms,
education being ignored�. According to the articles, written by Michael Sneed, the teachers of
the Roberto Clemente school, located in the Puerto Rican barrio and associated with the
Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC), were indoctrinating students with Puerto Rican
nationalist ideas and that some of them were FALN members.
As the Sun Times published its �expose�, Marrero was secretly taping conversations with
Solís and his wife for the FBI. Sneed�s articles make no mention of the fact that his main
source was an FBI informer who was actively involved in an operation against a member of
the PR independence movement.
Marrero is also the person behind El Pito, an anonymous publication that slanders the
Chicago Puerto Rican community and its leaders, in particular PRCC director José López,
alderman Billy Ocasio and Puerto Rico-born US congressman Luis Gutiérrez. El Pito is
distributed free and contains no advertising, leaving community members wondering just who
is funding the publication.
After denying it vehemently on several occasions, Marrero finally admitted to working for El
Pito during cross-examination by Solís� lawyers. He also admitted to receiving $119,000 and
complet inmunity from the FBI.
The 1997 Sun Times articles provoked an investigation by the Illinois state legislature, led by
right-wing representative Edgar López, a political foe of Ocasio, Gutiérrez, the PRCC�s José
López (no relation), and the PR independence movement. The star witness in this
investigation, described by many in the Puerto Rican community as a McCarthyist witch hunt,
was none other than Marrero himself.
In the legislative hearings, Marrero claimed that Illinois state funds were being used to fund
pro-independence propaganda and to campaign for the release of the Puerto Rican political
prisoners. However, after more than a year of highly-publicized public hearings, the Edgar
López investigation did not find a single illegal act in the Roberto Clemente school.
According to José López and the members of the PRCC, Marrero and Edgar López are
working hand-in-glove with real estate and developer interests who want gentrify the Puerto
Rican community and turn it over to white well-to-do tenants. In order for that to happen, the
community�s leaders and political allies must first be slandered and discredited. And what
better way to do so than by associating them with terrorism?
Everything indicates that the FBI plans more arrests of Puerto Rican pro-independence
activists. When Solís was arrested in 1997, theagents showered him with questions about
specific �independentistas�in Puerto Rico and Chicago, and had a particular interest in José
López. They offered Solís inmunity and protection if he agreed to become an informer and
testify against them, which he refused to do.
Solís�s friends and allies believe that his refusal to cooperate with the FBI�s witch hunt cost
him his freedom.
WRITE TO HIM!:
José Solís
#08121424 Metropolitan Correctional Center
71 West Van Buren Chicago, IL 60605
Donations to help Solís�s wife and children cover the enormous legal fees and the expenses
of flying to and from Chicago for the trial and pre-trial hearings can be sent to UPRASO,
Urbanización Round Hill, calle violeta 676, Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico 00976. You can also send
donations directly to bank account #033021597 of Banco Popular.
For more information about this case: http://www.defendsolis.org/
If you want to know more about the nefarious Rafael Marrero:
http://www.uic.edu/~mhanse2/Rafabio.html
For general info about our political prisoners: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/5919/ |
