P.R. ‘HERO’
PARADE OUTRAGE Viv: FALN chief a foe of violence
CITY COUNCIL Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito helped spur the polarizing pick of revolutionary Oscar Lopez Rivera to lead the Puerto Rican Day Parade.
“It’s pretty clear that she had a role,” a source told the Daily News. “She’s been the most visible supporter. Her fingerprints are all over it.”
Mark-Viverito refused to back down Thursday in her support for the controversial FALN co-founder — insisting he was a political prisoner, not a terrorist.
“He was not linked to any violence,” she told The News. “His political convictions were the reasons why he was put in jail . . . He is a person who values life.”
Mark-Viverito, asked about her role in the selection process, replied: “Absolutely none.”
The source noted that Mark-Viverito is tight with Lorraine Cortes-Vasquez, a senior advisor to Mayor de Blasio and the head of the parade board. The speaker shrugged off the growing number of groups pulling their support from the 60th annual celebration after the parade committee opted to honor Lopez Rivera.
“They have the right to make their decisions,” said Mark-Viverito. “It’s unfortunately based on inaccurate information . . . You can talk with the facts until you’re blue in the face, and people want to make up their own facts.”
The FALN detonated dozens of bombs in the 1970s and early 1980s. The most infamous killed four people and injured 50 others at the landmark Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan on Jan. 24, 1975. Four police officers were also maimed.
While Lopez Rivera was never convicted of any bombing, he was found guilty of seditious conspiracy for plotting against the government and spent 35 years in prison.