Carmen Hilda Valentín PérezPuerto Rican member of the FALN who received a sentence of 90 years for seditious conspiracy and other charges. She was sentenced on February 18, 1981, and incarcerated in a U.S. federal prison. However, she was released early from prison, after President Bill Clinton extended a clemency offer to her on September 7, 1999.
Early years
Carmen Valentín Pérez was born in Camuy, Puerto Rico, on March 2, 1946 and emigrated with her family to the U.S. when she was 10 years old. She graduated from Providence/St.Mel High School in 1965, and received a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Northeastern Illinois University and a Masters of Arts in Counselling from Roosevelt University. At the time of her arrest by the U.S. Government on seditious conspiracy charges was completing her Doctorate from Loyala University in Chicago.
Professional career
Teaching
Valentín Pérez became active in the community as a young teacher at Tuley High School/Roberto Clemente High School, where she fought against racism and an educational curriculum based on ignorance of the Puerto Rican reality. While working as a teacher Valentín Pérez came into conflict with the Board of Education because the school was in the midst of a crisis brought about by a racist principal and the lack of a relevant curriculum for Puerto Rican students. The community with the help of Ms. Valentin and other community leaders forced the Chicago Board of Education to transfer the principal, Herbert Fink and introduced Puerto Rican history and culture in the school's curriculum.
Community activist
Valentín Pérez worked at the Central YMCA Community College. She sponsored both the Iranian Student Association and the Organization of Arab Students during an intense period of conflict and controversy which led to many physical confrontations with the local police as well as with the Shah's secret police. In the community she worked to defeat the Chicago 21 Plan. She was a founding member and president of the José de Diego Bilingual Center and was on the board of directors of Aspira of Illinois. Valentín Pérez was also a founding member of the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Puerto Rican Cultural Center. Ms. Valentín Pérez helped develop various educational and cultural programs for inmates at the maximum security prison for men at Stateville, Illinois.
Arrest and jailing
Seditious conspiracy
In 1980 Valentin was arrested, charged with seditious conspiracy and related charges, and sentenced to 90 years. Her release date was scheduled for 2043. Valentín Pérez and 11 others were arrested on April 4, 1980, in Evanston, Illinois. They had been linked to more than 100 bombings or attempted bombings since 1974 in their attempt to achieve independence for Puerto Rico. At their trial proceedings, all of the arrested declared their status as prisoners of war, and refused to participate in the proceedings. None of the bombings of which they were convicted resulted in deaths or injuries. Valentin was given a 90-year federal sentence for seditious conspiracy and other charges. Among the other convicted Puerto Rican nationalists there were sentences of as long as 90 years in Federal prisons for offenses including sedition, possession of unregistered firearms, interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, interference with interstate commerce by violence and interstate transportation of firearms with intent to commit a crime. None of those granted clemency were convicted in any of the actual bombings. Rather, they had been convicted on a variety of charges ranging from bomb making and conspiracy to armed robbery and firearms violations. They were all convicted for sedition, the act of attempting to overthrow the Government of the United States in Puerto Rico by force.
There were reports of human rights violations against the FALN prisoners. Some were sexually assaulted by prison personnel, some were denied adequate medical attention, and others were kept in isolated underground prison cells for no reason. Amnesty International and the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Administration of Justice both criticized the conditions. The conditions were found to be in violation of the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
Political prisoner
The sentences received by Valentín Pérez and the other Nationalists were judged to be "out of proportion to the nationalists' offenses." Statistics showed their sentences were almost 20 times greater than sentences for similar offenses by the American population at large. For many years, numerous national and international organizations criticized Carmen Valentin's incarceration categorizing it as political imprisonment. Carmen Valentín Pérez was finally released from prison on September 10, 1999, after President Bill Clinton extended her clemency. Clinton cited Rev. Desmond Tutu and former President Jimmy Carter as having been influential on his decision to grant Valentin the clemency offer. Cases involving the release of other Puerto Rican Nationalist prisoners have also been categorized as cases of political prisoners, with some being more vocal than others. In criticizing President Clinton's decision to release the Puerto Rican prisoners, the conservative U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee also categorized Valenin as a "Puerto Rican Nationalist", echoing a recent Newsweek article. In 2006, the United Nations called for the release of the remaining Puerto Rican political prisoners in United States prisons.
Today
Today, Valentin Perez works as an English tutor and teacher at the Colegio Universitario de San Juan, where she has worked since 2003. She started at this educational institution one year after leaving prison. “We try to help them so that they can graduate from the university. They come mostly from the public schools of Puerto Rico. The students take two year in the health field and other take four year bachelor degrees in nursing. I really like my work as an educator, and would like to work here until I retire in a few years. Ms. Valentin still makes presentations on Puerto Rican television and radio on the need for Puerto Rican independence and the freedom of the political prisoner, Oscar Lopez Rivera, who has been in prison for 32 years.
Personal life
Her decision to return to Puerto Rico after her release was above all about family and love for her homeland. She said, “I felt like I had work to do here, caring for my mother and grand-daughter, Karina Lopez Valentin. Additionally, I always wanted to come back to live here. I never wanted to live in the United States, which I never liked anything about— not the climate, not the food, not the atmosphere. The only reason I stayed there was my involvement with the struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico.” However, she often still visits the States as her only son, Antonio and the rest of her grandchildren live in Chicago.
Political stance
Valentín Pérez feels hopeful about the self-determination of the Puerto Rican people and its political future. She says that lately the patriotic fervor that people have felt fills her with hope: “There will never be statehood here. Now I feel it, I see it, and I’m living it. This coming year, the situation will be good because there are so many disastrous policies, like firing thousands of people and the sinister plans this administration has for the Ecological Corridor. They’re trying to destabilize and destroy everything, and Puerto Rico will rise up,” said Valentin.
