"We Have Nothing to Repent"

Four Puerto Rican terrorists go home to a heroes' welcome

For a brief moment last week San Juan's international airport took on the atmosphere of a revolutionary carnival, as some 5,000 Puerto Ricans gathered to welcome an American Airlines jet. Young couples swayed to the rhythm of revolutionary songs, vendors did a brisk business selling tiny Puerto Rican flags, and young leftists passed out leaflets calling for armed struggle.

When the plane touched down, bringing home four nationalist terrorists newly released after more than two decades in U.S. prisons, the crowd tore down protective fences and surged forward, chanting "!Viva Puerto Rico Libre!"

"Home at last," said Rafael Cancel Miranda, 49, as he stepped out of the plane, fist high in the air. Echoed a tearful Oscar Collazo, 67, who had stormed Blair House in an attempt to shoot and kill President Truman in 1950: "I am so happy to be in a place where I am not afraid to express my emotions." (His 45-year-old niece rushed to embrace him, apparently suffered a heart attack, and died minutes later on the way to a hospital.) A third man, Irving Flores Rodriguez, 54, declared that liberty "has to be conquered by blood and fire ... our rights are not to be begged but fought for."

The toughest words came from the darling of the crowd, the still fiery Lolita Lebron, 59, who had been imprisoned along with Cancel Miranda and Flores for a pistol attack on the House of Representatives that wounded five Congressmen in 1954. The unrepentant Lebron told the cheering throng: "We have done nothing to cause us to repent. Everyone has the right to defend his God-given right to liberty."

For nearly an hour the nationalists hammered home the need for unity among independence supporters. The sympathetic audience interrupted frequently with bursts of applause. From the airport, the four nationalists proceeded to a nearby graveyard, where Lebron threw herself on the grave of Pedro Albizu Campos, a nationalist leader who died in 1965 while the four were in prison.

Earlier in the week, at receptions in Chicago and New York City, they had demanded Puerto Rican independence and refused to rule out violence. During a press conference at the U.N., Collazo said, "I decide whether terrorism is necessary after I return to Puerto Rico." Lebron added, "I am a revolutionary and a member of the atomic age ... I hate bombs but we might have to use them."

Such words raised concern on the U.S. mainland and in the island commonwealth, where the independence movement has won few votes and terrorism none. Puerto Rican Governor Carlos Romero Barceloo an ardent proponent of statehood, had opposed the release of the prisoners and pointedly left San Juan for a visit to the mainland to avoid the whole fuss over their return. Their release coincides with the campaign that will culminate in Puerto Rico's first presidential primaries, to be held in February and March of 1980. With straight faces, White House aides deny any link between the release of the prisoners and the island's 41 Democratic convention delegates. Said one aide, speaking of the freed prisoners: "We didn't figure they'd been reformed ... but the fact is they are less a cause celebre outside [of jail] than inside."

President Carter told Hispanics last week at their annual congressional caucus dinner: "I freed them because I thought 25 years was enough." Amid both catcalls and cheers from the audience, he added that the four nationalists had been jailed for their criminal acts, not their political ideas.

Politics in Washington, however, was far from the minds of cheering Puerto Ricans. Even some of those who oppose the words and deeds of the four nationalists were rather pleased by their release. Said one activist: "For Puerto Ricans, the nationalist ex-prisoners represent, even for those of us who are not Independistas, people who lived by principle, people who placed the cause of freedom for Puerto Rico above themselves." Said Commonwealth Founder Luis Munoz Marin: "I share the deep satisfaction for this clemency that all Puerto Ricans must feel."

If reelected, Governor Romero has promised to hold a plebiscite in 1981 to let Puerto Ricans choose between the present commonwealth, statehood and independence. And despite the emotional uproar over the nationalists' release, the pro-independence forces have never won more than 19% in an election--their last tally, in 1976, was less than 7%. As for his Administration's feelings about Puerto Rican statehood--pro-statehood forces won 48% of the vote in the last election --Carter told the congressional caucus dinner last week: -"I would support whatever decision is made by the people of Puerto Rico."

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