Lori Berenson paroled

May 28, 2010 6:14 AM

Almost 15 years after her arrest, Lori Berenson is being paroled.

Lori Berenson was an MIT undergraduate who travelled to South America to work with the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). In 1996, she was sentenced to life in prison by a hooded military tribunal that found her guilty of treason and of being a leader in the Peruvian the MRTA, a terrorist organization, although her level of involvement was disputed. Her case was retried by a civilian court in 2000, and in 2001 the court found her innocent of being a terrorist leader, but guilty of collaboration. She spent time incarcerated in the notorious Yanamayo prison in the Peruvian Andes, and later spent time in several other prisons. She will be required to remain in Peru until 2015 as part of her conditional release. Previously.

posted by rmd1023 (60 comments total)

Thanks for the links. I do want to mention, just briefly, that there was a reason behind the ominous-sounding "hooded military tribunals" - the very real threat of retribution against those who testified against or ruled for the prosecution of MRTA and Sendero Luminoso members. That doesn't mean that the tribunals weren't biased or even "extra-judicial" (in the parlance of our day), but rather just keep in mind that there was a very good reason why these trials were conducted with men in hoods. Also, it was my understanding that MRTA was a much less violent group than Sendero Luminoso, and it's interesting that they were planning on a takeover of Congress - I wonder if this was before or after their takeover of the Japanese Embassy which, you know, didn't really go over so well. As it stands, I don't have much sympathy for a wealthy American play-acting rebel with a bunch of uneducated (but legitimately impoverished) communist terrorists; then again, I haven't read all the links, so perhaps I'll change my mind on this one, and it does seem like an overly harsh amount of prison time for a crime that didn't happen.

(Raises fist in the air.)
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:31 AM on May 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

I liked the quote from her mother in this article:

Yet Ms. Berenson does not hide her leftist convictions. Through her writings, she has criticized a Peruvian trade deal with the United States and the persistent economic inequality in Peru.

“I don’t think she’d be a Tea Partier,” said her mother, Rhoda Berenson, a physicist at New York University, when asked about her daughter’s ideological evolution.

On the one hand, I think she was an idiot to think she could dabble in revolution in Peru and not have to deal with the consequences. On the other hand, she's now spent some 14 years in some incredibly non-luxurious prisons (several years in one up at 12,000 feet), and was never directly involved in the violence. So maybe it's time for the parole, and time for her to move on. Good for Peru for resisting the pressure to release her from two US presidents, though -- she might have been naive, but just being American shouldn't be enough to bail you out of your own dumbassery.
posted by Forktine at 6:49 AM on May 28, 2010

The problem with having a military tribunal like this is that no one will trust the results. Which is why it's so good we decided to start doing them here!
posted by delmoi at 6:56 AM on May 28, 2010

The problem with having a military tribunal like this is that no one will trust the results.

**Resident expert alert!!**

Actually, most people in Peru trusted the results and were absolutely in love with Fujimori for going bad-ass on MRTA and SL. Problem came when he ran for the third term, bribed half of Congress, and set up death squads to terrorize remote SL outposts. But the tribunals? No, the tribunals were actually peachy-keen, top-notch, just what the doctor ordered to the great majority of Peruvians.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:02 AM on May 28, 2010 [5 favorites]

I think she was an idiot to think she could dabble in revolution in Peru and not have to deal with the consequences.

This reminds me of a 1982 movie called Missing, starring Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon, and concerning the disappearance of a young American man in Chile in 1973. I saw it on TV one night a couple of years ago. The guy had been interested in learning what exactly was going on during the military coup and had been talking to people and asking questions in an effort to discover whatever he could, and got arrested. His wife could learn nothing from the authorities, and his father flew to Chile from the States. A successful businessman and a fairly conventional man, he went about the task of finding his son exactly as he would have in the States. When the police asked for a list of his son's friends, he thought his daughter-in-law should comply. She would not, because she knew it was very likely that giving the police such a list would only result in their friends being rounded up too. One moment has always stuck with me. An American military officer told the father, "I don't know where your son is. But he was taken because he didn't mind his own business and asked too many questions of the wrong people. It's as though he went to New York and started asking questions about the Mafia."

It's a comparison that really shed light on North American privilege and attitudes towards authority. We're so used to officials who have to more or less play by the rules that we assume other countries will be the same, and they aren't. Another moment in the movie that I remember is two friends of the couple's who were arrested. One was insufferably cocksure that they could not be seriously harmed because they were Americans, and would backtalk his captors even when they had a gun pointed at him. The other was terrified out of his wits. Guess which one got a bullet through the head.
posted by orange swan at 7:17 AM on May 28, 2010

Article from 2000 about the Berensons.
posted by lalochezia at 7:37 AM on May 28, 2010

A quote from the article lalochezia posted:

"I got a letter from her [in Socabaya] this summer," says Lori's friend Daniel Radosh. "She said that a woman on her wing had just gotten radio privileges, but that she was only playing disco. Lori wrote, 'I can deal with the isolation and the repression and the altitude. but I don't know if I can handle 12 hours of "Ring My Bell."'"

Is Peru subject to international human rights laws? Because damn, that's harsh.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:00 AM on May 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

How did the nice Jewish intellectual daughter of a nice East Side family end up in a barbaric South American jail cell?

Because she went looking for it? I wonder what kind of press she would've received if she'd been caught scoping out the Capitol for muslim terrists.
posted by jsavimbi at 8:04 AM on May 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

orange swan, the Missing comparison isn't really right. Lori Berenson joined a paramilitary rebel group in Peru when the country had already transitioned to a democracy after several painful years of authoritarian regimes. She was given a trial and put in jail. In Missing the young man is arbitrarily disappeared under a dictatorship, never to be seen again.

I find it difficult to have any sympathy for people who join these kinds of violent marxist groups. A lot of them end up selling drugs to finance their operations and become outright drug cartels; in general, they undermine the strained efforts to bring democracy to the region.
posted by Omon Ra at 8:05 AM on May 28, 2010

I was on a bus in Peru leaving Lima for Trujillo late at night and we were stopped by what appeared to be military police... they went through the passenger list and took the passports of all the foreign passengers including me and my wife. We were shitting bricks. I don't know what they were looking for but it wasn't us. We got our passports back and the bus continued on its way.

I'm told it's bad luck to give your passport to the authorities in some countries in South America but when armed guys in swat gear swarm your bus it doesn't seem like a good idea to be saucy either. Anyhow you absolutely do not want to fuck around with the authorities in Peru.
posted by fleetmouse at 8:06 AM on May 28, 2010

Fujimori had gone far wrong well before his third term hadn't he? Thinking of the La Canuta massacre which was one of the main crimes he was eventually arrested for IIRC.
posted by Abiezer at 8:09 AM on May 28, 2010

Fujimori had gone far wrong well before his third term hadn't he?

Oh, definitely. But it was the third term thing that got him in trouble. Had he just hung it up after two terms he'd probably be hailed as a hero today (well, actually, Montesinos and his pesky tapes would have probably kept causing trouble for Fujimori regardless of whether or not he held on to power). It's all very fascinating. By so aggressively targeting and going after MRTA and SL, the government and military ended up perpetuating their own horrible atrocities (and, yes, Captain Obvious, the parallels to the War on Terror are painfully apparent). What's interesting is that even with everything that is known, Fujimori is still lauded by a great many Peruvians, and his 35-year old daughter is poised to make a competitive run at the Presidency next year.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:15 AM on May 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Very little sympathy for her and her kind: privileged westerns who live out their romantic freedom fighter fantasies and work out their daddy issues and end up playing a role in the legitimization process of those who should be considered mere common criminals. They're all over the place and run the whole gamut of radicalization: from Rachel Corrie to the shoe bomber. Good intentions not required.

Still, 15 years in a Peruvian clink may have been enough. Hopefully she has learned a lesson (unlikely).
posted by falameufilho at 8:18 AM on May 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

well as long as 14 years later, she has no regrets, bring on the agents and lets get some book deals and a TV movie of the weel so Lori, myself and the good people of Peru can get their closure on.
posted by Fupped Duck at 8:21 AM on May 28, 2010

Very little sympathy for her and her kind: privileged westerns who live out their romantic freedom fighter fantasies and work out their daddy issues and end up playing a role in the legitimization process of those who should be considered mere common criminals. They're all over the place and run the whole gamut of radicalization: from Rachel Corrie

You're right, the Palestinians should be considered mere common criminals because
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:26 AM on May 28, 2010

The first thing that struck me is this woman got married to a member of the MRTA, and then got pregnant by him in prison (apparently Peru allows people convicted of terrorism conjugal visits). I'm glad she's been paroled, if for no other reason than the welfare of her child, but good grief... why would a woman even consider having a child under her circumstances, locked up in a maximum security prison? It absolutely boggles the mind.
posted by mstefan at 8:27 AM on May 28, 2010

> "The Palestinians" shouldn't be considered common criminals more than the Peruvians should. Your interesting synecdoche kinda proves my point about legitimization, by the way.
posted by falameufilho at 8:33 AM on May 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm glad she is finally out.
posted by caddis at 8:37 AM on May 28, 2010

why would a woman even consider having a child under her circumstances

Well, it's not clear if they have access to contraceptives, and also there is the simple fact that in some cases having the child means access to better conditions/parole. Kids make great bargaining chips.
posted by aramaic at 8:40 AM on May 28, 2010

I find it bitterly ironic that Obama had the sheer unmitigated gall to criticize her incarceration on the grounds that she was subject to a military tribunal rather than a real trial...

As for the woman in question, I don't really care what the context is I figure anyone tossed into a cage after facing a masked and secret military tribunal should be released, with an apology, on general principal. Stupid she may have been, but a masked and secret military kangaroo court does not justice make.
posted by sotonohito at 8:47 AM on May 28, 2010

I remember her trial. Me and my college buddies knew she'd been stupid, but we also admired her for not just talking. We were also pretty convinced that her chances of living more than a few months in Fujimori's Peru after conviction were minimal.

Things were so messed up then, a college leftie didn't know where to start. Nukes in England, the US training torturers from South American militaries, Reagan, Ollie North and their incredibly convoluted and oppressive foreign policy, the rise of the Christian Right...we were always marching against something. But you know the marching does no good, so the temptation to do something like run off to Peru and fight for the people is strong. At least it is something, something concrete.

Not saying that Lori Berenson wasn't a privileged, arrogant white kid from the US. She was. But at least she had the ovaries to do something besides hold a placard on the National Mall.
posted by QIbHom at 8:48 AM on May 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

The temptation to do something like run off to Peru and fight for the people is strong

Seriously, "the people" in most cases can fight their own battles themselves and make their own history. They don't need help from the white westerner with no sense of context to go into the jungle. Sometimes it is better to do nothing, than to do the wrong thing for the "right" reasons. That's how the Iraq thing got started.
posted by Omon Ra at 8:59 AM on May 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

* But you know the marching does no good, so the temptation to do something like run off to Peru and fight for the people is strong

By that you mean fighting for the leaders of MRTA and Sendero Luminoso and their plans of genocide and enslavement. Because the *people* of Peru probably had a very different opinion of what was good for them.
posted by falameufilho at 8:59 AM on May 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

I wonder how many people in this thread are conflating Chile with Peru. Though orange swan's comment above about Missing is interesting, the two scenarios (Chile 1970s vs. Peru 1980s/90s) are vastly different.

As for sotonohito's comment about the military tribunals being unjust: well, yeah, they had this whole Truth and Reconciliation Commission thingamabob about them and have since retried many of those cases in civilian courts.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:04 AM on May 28, 2010

* That's how the Iraq thing got started.

Not really:

1) The potential benefit for the Iraqi people was considered (even by the biggest hawks) to be a collateral effect of the Iraqi invasion. The invasion didn't happen "for the people", but because of U.S. security concerns.

2) Even if you disregard (1) and these secondary benefits are to believed as the main driver, the proposal of the replacement of an unfair, brutal regime with a western-style democracy versus the a Khmer Rouge inspired regime are not equivalent propositions, morally.
posted by falameufilho at 9:09 AM on May 28, 2010

"The Palestinians" shouldn't be considered common criminals more than the Peruvians should. Your interesting synecdoche kinda proves my point about legitimization, by the way.

You're the one that brought up Rachel Corrie, genius.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:36 AM on May 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

why would a woman even consider having a child under her circumstances

As aramaic pointed out, better conditions. One of the articles pointed out that the pregnancy is what got her transferred out of the Andes and into Lima. So, even though apparently the romantic relationship is over now, this was a pretty big gift. And I might have been high on allergy drugs but remember reading that the husband is also her lawyer?

About moving on:
1) in a way she can't, because she is required to stay in the country until her 20-year sentence finishes (2014 or so).
2) one of the conditions of parole was publicly renouncing revolutionary "stuff" and declaring violent revolution wrong
3) my favorite article on this said that while she remains there she will be working in translation and to follow her dream of opening a bakery. Their words, not mine. Talk about moving on...!
posted by whatzit at 9:41 AM on May 28, 2010

falameufilho, I was being slightly facetious about that, but that was the way the Bush administration sold the invasion. The Khmer Rouge is an extreme case and at the time the UN probably should have intervened.
posted by Omon Ra at 10:03 AM on May 28, 2010

I wonder how many people in this thread are conflating Chile with Peru. Though orange swan's comment above about Missing is interesting, the two scenarios (Chile 1970s vs. Peru 1980s/90s) are vastly different.

My point was really much more about the North American tone deafness to political climates in countries other than their own than about comparing 1970s Chile to 1990s Peru, or even about comparing the actions of Charlie Horman to Lori Berenson, because of course it's a vastly different scenario.
posted by orange swan at 10:09 AM on May 28, 2010

As it stands, I don't have much sympathy for a wealthy American play-acting rebel with a bunch of uneducated (but legitimately impoverished) communist terrorists;

I have nothing in common with Lori Berenson politically, but I don't see any reason to mock her with condescending terms like "play-acting rebel". I'm skeptical that you would ever describe her acts in the same terms that you would a Peruvian's. But maybe I'm wrong, how would an upper class, educated, white woman have participated with the rebels in Peru, for reals? Does her background condemn her to the label of "dabbler" no matter what she does?

Also, is there such a thing as being illegitimately impoverished?
posted by BigSky at 10:11 AM on May 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

* Pope, you missed my point. What I am saying is that people like Rachel Corrie, Lori Berenson and the Shoe Bomber run a very broad range of radicalization but are actually part of the same problem: by reliving this perverted Buda/St. Francis of Assisi myth of self-denial, they give a degree of legitimacy to groups like Hamas, MRTA, Al-Qaeda, etc.

And this has nothing to do with "the Palestinians", "the Peruvians", "the Muslims", because the end goals of these groups are in no way related to universal benefit, as none of these murderous collectivisms are.

Genius.
posted by falameufilho at 10:19 AM on May 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

murderous collectivisms

Hahaha, oh god, I didn't know, I'm so sorry.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:21 AM on May 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

* Does her background condemn her to the label of "dabbler" no matter what she does?

Sorry for the manichaeism, but she's either a dabbler (i.e. an useful idiot) or a terrorist. There's not much of an alternative here. If I were here, I'd try my best to look stupid lest other people think I was malicious. There's less jail time to be served that way.
posted by falameufilho at 10:25 AM on May 28, 2010

This reminds me of a 1982 movie...

I was reminded of this film, personally.
posted by kaibutsu at 10:25 AM on May 28, 2010

* Hahaha, oh god, I didn't know, I'm so sorry.

what's so funny, bub?
posted by falameufilho at 10:28 AM on May 28, 2010

But maybe I'm wrong, how would an upper class, educated, white woman have participated with the rebels in Peru, for reals? Does her background condemn her to the label of "dabbler" no matter what she does?

In the case of fighting for/with a group that 1) advocated the destruction of a foreign government she (I'm assuming) knew little about and 2) hoped to replace it with indigenous leadership who aimed for reconstruction of "the fatherland"? Yeah, I'd say that puts you in dabbler territory. Unless she had some intuitive understanding of the deep racial/ethnic frustration of a group of Andean villagers who suffered the humiliation of military defeat and economic impoverishment for hundreds of years and who desired the resurrection of an ethnically homogeneous Incan empire.

Anyway, I stand by "play-acting rebel." I think it fits nicely.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:37 AM on May 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Anyway, I stand by "play-acting rebel." I think it fits nicely.

It doesn't fit at all. She wasn't playing at being a rebel, acting a part, or more bluntly put, pretending. She did it. There's no condition that one has to have an ideology that makes sense to some third party in order to be an "authentic" rebel or insurgent.
posted by BigSky at 11:11 AM on May 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

omonra and falameufilho, I was trying to describe the political climate on US campuses in the 1980's. I appreciate you were cherry picking parts of my comment to object to, but you are fighting a battle that ended 15 years ago.
posted by QIbHom at 11:39 AM on May 28, 2010

QIbHom, that's kind of the point. 10 years ago was 1994, not the Reagan 80s. She seemed anachronistic even back then. The Marxist insurgents of the 60s and 70s were a logical (if misguided) reaction to autoritarianism, but in the 90s they were just a step removed from millenial end of the world waco nuts. She really had no idea what she was getting into, or any sense of Preus history.
posted by Omon Ra at 11:55 AM on May 28, 2010

One of the articles pointed out that the pregnancy is what got her transferred out of the Andes and into Lima.

It makes one wonder how much of a threat the Peruvian government really thought she was. I mean, I'm pretty sure Richard Reid and Umar Abdulmutallab aren't getting any booty calls in the Colorado supermax (or wherever the heck they're being held).
posted by mstefan at 12:03 PM on May 28, 2010

It makes one wonder how much of a threat the Peruvian government really thought she was. I mean, I'm pretty sure Richard Reid and Umar Abdulmutallab aren't getting any booty calls in the Colorado supermax (or wherever the heck they're being held).

Do you suppose that prison-originating pregnancies, particularly in notoriously brutal shitholes, originate consensually?
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:44 PM on May 28, 2010

U.S. demands civilian trials -- except in the U.S.
posted by homunculus at 12:51 PM on May 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I am from Peru. I was born and raised there and left at the end of the 90's. I lived through all of the terrorism activity happening in my country from 1980 through the 90s. We lived in Lima, in an upper class, hoity toity residential district and even then you lived in fear and hearing out your window for bombs being set off every night and electricity and water rationing because of said bombs destroying electric plants and water plants. We lived amongst uncertainty and fear and listening day after day the accounts of yet another village being burned and their residents killed all. My father had a bus business and had to pay a determined sum to terrorists every month to be able to work, otherwise they would kill you. You didn't know who was involved in terrorist activity, we even had the niece of a family friend come work for us as a nanny and the girl was later captured for setting a bomb at an admiral's residence, killing him and some of his family.

Granted, SL or Shining Path, was the terrorist group that did most of the killings in the andes, burning entire villages, killing parents and taking young children to train for combatants. Most of the terrorist soldiers were teenagers or younger. SL had a maoist philosophy and truly wanted to oust the government and implement communism. They either killed you or had you serving them, you had no choice.

But MRTA was organized for extortion, blackmailing and kidnapping. They didn't quite have a leftist agenda, they wanted money. Having said that, they were terrorists as well. These 2 groups hurt our country in so many ways, leaving emotional scars in every peruvian. We were all affected in one way or another. It was either losing someone at the hands of these murderers or losing your home or belongings.

I remember the day she was captured, it was on live tv and she was chanting, raising her fist, being defiant and insulting. She was captured carrying floor plans of the congress building with marks on where bombs were to be set. She had procured a fake journalist pass to be admitted into the building as someone doing research. It would be naive to say that the color of her skin didn't matter for her to be able to go into the congress building, she was a foreigner with real-looking credentials and thus, inspired a little higher level of trust.

What I remember the most, was her being so vocally insulting towards us, towards our country and culture. She used profane language and didn't show any remorse or shame for what she had been caught doing.

Killing innocent civilians isn't what someone who wants to "liberate" people does. She joined the one group whose philosophy was to get as much money as they could while they went in kidnapping and killing sprees. Tell me what kind of "philosophy" does that.

Glad the peruvian government had the cojones to keep her there at least all this time, as she has collaborated directly to the murder of many people and thus, collaborated to the genocide that occurred in my country.

Is she apologetic? Does she realize to what she was contributing to? Doesn't seem like it. She still believes that what she was doing was right.

Someone who wants to change the world for the better doesn't go contribute in the killing of others. So activist, my ass.
posted by ratita at 12:57 PM on May 28, 2010 [13 favorites]

So that would be the "anybody who would do [thing I disapprove of] isn't really a Christian" argument.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:03 PM on May 28, 2010

And btw, she does have access to contraceptives, has had spousal visits (obviously, otherwise, how do you explain getting pregnant and getting married) and has access to much more than other prisoners due to her being a foreign individual and the international relations and concessions that have to be maintained. Also, this is not such an uncivilized country as many seem to think here, she may not be in the Sheratons of prisons, but she has medical care, clean living conditions and 3 square meals plus learning and cultural activities. The US should revise their own prison system, starting with the state of immigration prisons. No one seems to have a problem when a foreign person commits a crime here and is detained and put on trial here, especially terrorism. Why should the US expect otherwise from other countries?
posted by ratita at 1:04 PM on May 28, 2010

I'm not christian. And my father is palestinian. Born and raised there, then moved to Chile in the 60s. He witnessed all the chilean conflicts and also the argentinian conflicts. The moved to Peru and had to go through witnessing terrorism. People who haven't been there or had any sort of connection to Peru to that time, cannot imagine what it was nor have the right to tell those who did go through it that what these groups were doing were somehow justified.
posted by ratita at 1:09 PM on May 28, 2010

My point was that you are using the same structure. I don't agree with what she did, I just disagree with how she was being characterized upthread.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:18 PM on May 28, 2010

ratita, I don't have any stake in this story one way or the other (besides its being an unusual one), but I really appreciated your comments as they relate to other things in my life that I am just learning about. Thank you for sharing.
posted by whatzit at 1:58 PM on May 28, 2010

brava, ratita. (from one upper-class hoity-toity latin american to another)
posted by falameufilho at 2:43 PM on May 28, 2010

I'm very happy that she's out of jail. I've never believed that she was guilty of anything other being young, naive, and unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think that her being out of jail and Fujimori being in jail is just.
posted by rdr at 2:47 PM on May 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm very happy that she's out of jail. I've never believed that she was guilty of anything other being young, naive, and unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yes, so unlucky to have lived in an apartment that secretly housed members of a terrorist organization. And oh my, by what unfortunate chance did that huge cache of weapons appear! Drat, what luck, indeed!
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:54 PM on May 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Do you suppose that prison-originating pregnancies, particularly in notoriously brutal shitholes, originate consensually?

While I'm certainly aware that women are raped by male guards, etc. in her particular case, she was impregnated by her husband. If you actually read some of the articles about her, you'd know that she was granted conjugal visits. And that was my point ... in the United States, a convicted terrorist is typically going to be held in a SHU (isolation) and have very resitricted contact with the outside world (primarily their lawyer). I'd say their chances of getting laid (consentually) is nil. Yet, the Peruvian justice system allowed her to get married and get knocked up by her husband. I just find that to be rather odd.
posted by mstefan at 5:57 PM on May 28, 2010

For a contrasting story of another foreign revolutionary in Latin America, check out this article about a Dutch woman in Colombia.
posted by Forktine at 10:54 PM on May 28, 2010

I've always thought of her as a kindred spirit--yes she was naive, and yes she got into it with people who were advocating and even perpetrating violence. We are nearly the same age, and when she was arrested I too was on the edge of wanting to *do something real* rather than holding signs and organizing pathetic little activist organizations in the US. Her arrest was a sort of wake-up call to my consciousness.

She took the path I'd have taken if I'd been just a little more reckless and a lot more brave. There are times in your life where the complexities of a fight for the poor/oppressed just doesn't reach the inner reaches of your brain, especially if you weren't brought up in those sorts of circumstances. You don't expect that you might be doing something that isn't exactly right, because you believe in the fight of those around you who are so persuasive and so obviously in need and asking for your help. Violence seems a means to a better end, because of the incredible injustices you see being perpetrated around you against people you love. Sure, she was privileged. And sure, her fire to help may have been derailed by people who took advantage of her. This doesn't make her any less intelligent or good-hearted. She stepped off a cliff because she believed it was something that had to be done. I admire her for that. And I admire her for holding herself to sleeping in the bed she made, rather than turning around and becoming a weepy, please-help-me-America-I-was-so-stupid-I-hate-commies-now-really sad shell of herself.

She is older. She is wiser. She still wants to advocate for oppressed people, but she also wants to bake and live in peace. Good for her. We should all hope our youthful fire doesn't lead us to a Peruvian prison.
posted by RedEmma at 2:01 AM on May 29, 2010

Let's not forget that guerrillas are different than terrorists. The Shining Path and the MRTA - which this woman was part of - were terrorist groups. (More like violent mafia thugs, if we speak of the MRTA) Also, she hasn't been the only one allowed to get married while incarcerated.

She doesn't get much sympathy in my country for being the arrogant, mouthy, insulting, blabbering idiot she showed us on live tv. We still remember it. The people the MRTA killed, maimed, assaulted, traumatized and their families and their friends do not empathize with her either.

She was an adult who was collaborating willingly and knowingly with a terrorist group. End of story. There was no confusion or mistake about that. She said it herself. No wrong place or wrong time crap here. Maybe "right place, right time" or else, we would have had our congress building blown to pieces and hundreds of dead people.

Maybe next time, when she's free to do whatever she wants, she'll think twice before "liberating" people by blowing them to pieces.
posted by ratita at 2:07 AM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

RedEmma The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I have an aunt an uncle and three cousins who had to leave Peru because of the violence. When did Lori Berenson think of them? Frankly, I applaud you more for doing the sensible thing and not joining a guerilla group.
posted by Omon Ra at 7:27 AM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of this guy who ended up dating a member of a right-wing colombian death squad.
posted by delmoi at 8:11 AM on May 29, 2010

RedEmma. She wasn't advocating for anything. Except for a group that was know primarily for assaulting, kidnapping, robbery, bombings, murder of civilians and extortion. She wasn't even with SL which if anything, had an ideology. The MRTA was know for these thuggish things and protecting the drug trade in the border with Colombia. They were thugs pretending to be terrorists. They abused and terrorized people in rural areas. How is that liberating and advocating for a better life of the poor if those are your targets?

Either group wasn't fighting oppression, they wanted power and money.

Or are you going to tell me that targeting the incredibly poor, isolated villages in rural areas, killing indigenous people, wiping entire villages, abusing their children and taking them hostage amongst other despicable things they did to them is liberating? Because that's who they primarily attacked, defenseless, peaceful, remote areas. We peruvians didn't need liberation of anything, we are a democratic country and the only thing we wanted was liberation from these 2 groups that made life a nightmare for 20 years.

Please inform me what superb ideology and liberation from what exactly is that we're talking about here.

My family had to pay extortions from these thugs to be able to live, one of my uncles was shot by these people without good reason except that he looked white and therefore he must be rich. He wasn't. I lived 2 blocks from my school, yet, I was dropped off by car with security because they were afraid that we were going to be kidnapped. We were friends with a family that had a little farm outside of Lima, they had to give almost every cent of what they earned, which wasn't much, to them. Being an "activist" without knowing the facts first doesn't do anyone any good. It's easy and comfortable to be advocating from far away.
posted by ratita at 8:54 AM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

And a "good hearted" person doesn't advocate for violent murderers and insults the people that supposedly she's trying to help.
posted by ratita at 9:43 AM on May 29, 2010

I am in Lima right now, people are angry about her release, the lack of remorse and the mockery she has showed towards our country. She was on tv the other night, literally laughing at the interviewer and any questions people had. People say that if she was truly concerned about the poor, she wouldn't have rented an apartment in the heart of Miraflores, one of the ritzy neighborhoods in Lima. Worse, the apartment where she lives is in a building next to one that was blown to the ground back in the 90s.
posted by ratita at 2:50 PM on May 30, 2010