Issue Index: Domestic Terrorism

Background: The United Church of Christ has been active in challenging laws they may prevent terrorism, but has also been predictably silent on ways to proactively discourage domestic terrorism. Prior to September 11, when sensitivity to domestic terrorism was low, the UCC actively supported the release of a group of Puerto Rican terrorists known as FALN (Armed Forces of National Liberation).

What is the FALN?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (Armed Forces of National Liberation) is a Puerto Rican clandestine revolutionary organization that advocates complete independence for Puerto Rico. FALN was responsible for more than 50 bomb attacks on US political and military targets between 1974 and 1983, but has since calmed down.

Here is an exhaustive chronology of the FALN bombings and details the lives they have injured and killed:

A Chronology of F.A.L.N. Activities In The United States

How did the United Church of Christ help these criminals?

In the 1990's, Paul Sherry, UCC president, Rev. Thomas A. Dipko, Executive Vice President of the United Church
Board for Homeland Ministries and Rev. Nozomi Ikuta of the United Church Board of Homeland Ministries actively lobbied and consulted with President Clinton, the Department of Justice and Congress on releasing the FALN terrorists from prison.

According to notes from an April 1998 meeting in a candid discussion with Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, Rev. Paul Sherry was asked whether or not they (the FALN terrorists) had renounced violence. "Rev. Sherry said they would not change their beliefs. This probably meant they would not change their beliefs about Puerto Rican independence, although he gave a carefully phrased answer that did not make it entirely clear that they had renounced the use of violence."

On August 11, 1999 President Clinton offered clemency to the FALN terrorists and on September 7, 1999, 12 of the terrorists accepted the terms of the clemency. Clinton offered the clemency over the objections of the Anti-Defamation League, Sen. Patrick Moynahan and his wife, Hillary Clinton.

On September 15, 1999, Rev. Nozomi Ikuta testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the clemency process and her lobbying activities. What became very clear through her own testimony is that the United Church of Christ did not, at any point, try to communicate with the victims of the terrorism. This prompted Rocco Pascarella, a former New York city policeman disabled by FALN bomb in 1982, to respond at the same hearings: "Did I understand correctly that some people from the group trying to gain clemency for these individuals met with somebody from Justice or the White House? If that's the case then, I really think that that has to be the most outrageous thing I've ever heard in my life. Because as a victim I was never contacted by anyone."

On September 21, 1999, Reverend Dr. Thomas Dipko, executive vice president, United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, United Church of Christ testified before House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform. In a stunning exchange with Rep. Bob Barr, Dipko tap danced around direct questions as they relate to the church's honoring of terrorists. This led Rep. Barr to actually show Dipko a surveillance video of one of the terrorists, Alejandrina Torres (herself the wife of UCC minister Jose A. Torres) making a bomb:

*****
    Mr. BARR. Were you here earlier when we showed the tape of this honored——
    Rev. DIPKO. Yes, I was.
    Mr. BARR. That didn't impress you at all? You still believe this is an honored person?
    Rev. DIPKO. That tape would have to have a lot more unpacking for me to understand where it came from and   the circumstances under which it were made.
    Mr. BARR. Let's look at it any way.
    [The videotape was played.]
    Mr. BARR. The woman at the bottom is your honoree, Alejandrina Torrez. They are manufacturing bombs

        designed to kill, maim, injure and destroy property.
    Rev. DIPKO. If that is an accurate record of the happening and that is in fact what she was doing, the church

        would wish to, of course, disassociate from it.
    Mr. BARR. In other words, she would no longer be considered an honored person?
    Rev. DIPKO. I would think so.
    Mr. BARR. Thank you.

****

Conclusions

As made clear in Dipko's testimony to Congress, the UCC leadership had chosen to honor a woman who was seen on a surveillance video making a bomb... yet no remorse, no apologies and no consultations with the victims before lobbying for the release of the FALN terrorists. The twisted rationalization for the UCC is simple: So what if they made the bombs, prove to us that they detonated them. So what if they killed and maimed people? From the notes of the meeting between UCC President Paul Sherry and the Deputy Attorney General, there is also no reason to believe that the terrorists were remorseful for their activities or that they had even renounced violence. The UCC response: So what?