The News and the parade
The National Puerto Rican Day Parade is a hallowed New York tradition. On June 11, for the 60th year running, thousands who trace their roots to the island commonwealth will raise their voices and their flags in an exuberant cultural celebration with millions watching along Fifth Ave.
It’s a wonderful event, as stirring a show of the city’s spirit as the West Indian parade, Columbus Day Parade or St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Which is why the Daily News has proudly participated as a media sponsor, both with a float and by donating to the parade’s scholarship fund.
To register our appreciation for the many among our readers with deep connections to and passion for Puerto Rico.
To honor the contributions of Puerto Ricans to New York and the nation in every conceivable field of endeavor.
To extend support for American citizens too often forgotten, who live on an island territory with a rich history and bright future, despite present struggles.
But this year, an ill-advised decision by parade organizers forces us to withdraw. We follow other previously steadfast backers, including Goya Foods, JetBlue, Coca-Cola and the Yankees, in pulling out.
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the NYPD’s Hispanic Society, the Uniformed Firefighters Association and the FDNY Hispanic Society have also withdrawn.
The reason: The organizers chose to give highest honors — the newly coined appellation of National Freedom Hero — to Oscar López Rivera, one-time leader of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional terror band, and to place him at the head of the procession up Fifth Ave.
Known as the FALN, the group bombed government buildings, banks, restaurants and stores in cities across the country, including New York, in the 1970s and early 1980s. The blasts killed five people, injured dozens and caused millions of dollars in property damage.
Most infamously, the FALN bombed Fraunces Tavern on Jan. 24, 1975. That single strike injured 50 people and killed four. Their names were Alejandro Berger, Frank Connor, James Gezork and Harold Sherburne.
Other FALN explosions maimed four police officers. Richard Pastorella was blinded and lost five fingers on his right hand. Anthony Senft lost an eye. Angel Poggi lost an eye and was permanently disabled. Rocco Pascarella lost a leg below the knee.
Eventually, a federal jury convicted López Rivera of participating in seditious conspiracy and use of force to commit robbery. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison, a term that was truncated in January, after 35 years, when President Obama commuted the sentence.
López Rivera was never charged in direct connection with a bombing. But it is beyond dispute that he proudly oversaw the unrepentantly violent movement. It is also beyond dispute that he has never expressed remorse or worked with authorities to hold accountable those responsible for unsolved crimes.
Some Puerto Ricans revere López Rivera as a man who steadfastly fought for their island’s independence from the United States. In a statement, parade organizers said honoring him was “a recognition of a man and a nation’s struggle for sovereignty” and “not an endorsement of the history that led to his arrest.”
Regardless, by lionizing López Rivera as the parade’s preeminent figure, organizers have inescapably compelled sponsors and participants to join in honoring a man convicted of abetting violent terror to achieve his aims.
As Police Commissioner Jimmy O’Neill aptly said in declining to participate: “I cannot support a man who is a co-founder of an organization that engaged in over 120 bombings.”
We second that rationale. Regretfully, the Daily News must break from the parade this year while wishing the best to the marchers and spectators who will gather in salute to the people and legacy of Puerto Rico.
We are delighted in the meantime to again donate to the National Puerto Rican Day Parade scholarship fund, which each year helps 100 exceptional students of Puerto Rican descent afford the cost of college.
And we hope to be back on the march in 2018.