The world leaders attending the funeral of Mr. Mandela will know of the injustice of the excessive incarceration of our fellow Puerto Rican Mr. Oscar López-Rivera. We want him home for Christmas time.

December 6, 2013

Mr. Michael Elliot
ONE CAMPAIGN
151 Wardour Street
London
W1F 8WE

Dear Mr. Elliot:

Greetings from Puerto Rico. I acknowledge receipt of your electronic message regarding the greatness of the accomplishments of late Nelson Mandela.  His high sense of justice ended in the unification of his country, South Africa. His extraordinary message was an inspiration to all humanity. He is undoubtedly a hero for his country and for the world even after having spent 27 years in prison. We should honor his memory convinced that our generation can be the one to end extreme poverty, injustice and inequality.

Since you are a world leader and CEO of ONE CAMPAIGN, I would like to bring to your attention to a particular situation involving a political prisoner with the highest number of years imprisoned in the United States of America—Mr. Oscar López-Rivera.  Mr. López-Rivera is a Puerto Rican-American Citizen, raised in Chicago. He is a  Vietnam War veteran bestowed with decorations. He aspires for the independence of Puerto Rico.  He has never used firearms, killed or assaulted nobody.  He is accused of sedition and has been in jail for 32 years: five years more than Mr. Mandela’s  imprisonment.  

We Puerto Rican-Americans of all political ideologies unanimously claim for the liberation of this political prisoner with the highest number of years in prison in the world for sedition. Why a single man who has never used firearms, except while in military service in Vietnam, merit such a long imprisonment? How can a single unarmed man topple the government of the United States?  Multiple manifestations have been held in the past and recently in San Juan, Puerto Rico, New York and Washington asking for the liberation of Mr. Oscar López-Rivera for Christmas time.

President Obama, a Nobel Prize in Peace, up to the present has been unresponsive. As President of the United States, he is the most powerful political figure in the country and the only one empowered to sign the release of our prisoner. How do you explain that for each Thanksgiving Day President Obama pardons the life of the White House turkey while on the other hand he does not liberate Mr. Oscar López-Rivera whose only sin is the love for his Island--Puerto Rico.

You are an Englishman, and you are aware that both South Africa and the United States were former United Kingdom colonies. Puerto Rico has been a non-incorporated territory (colony) of the United States since they took our Island as a war booty at the end of the Hispanic-American War in 1898.

As a sequel and based on the extraordinary accomplishments for justice and equality of the recently deceased Mr. Nelson Mandela, I suggest that you transmit our claim to the world through your social network so that during the bereavement of Mr. Mandela in South Africa with all the world leaders present, even after his death, he will help in the liberation of another political prisoner who surpassed his years of imprisonment.  (Remember the Cid Campeador who won battles after his death).

The world leaders attending the funeral of Mr. Mandela will know of the injustice of the excessive incarceration of our fellow Puerto Rican Mr. Oscar López-Rivera. We want him home for Christmas time.  That would be President Obama’s best present for the people of Puerto Rico and we will be grateful to him forever. I personally admire President Obama for his sense of social and personal justice.

Respectfully yours,

Enrique Vázquez-Quintana, M.M., FACS