PR PA ARADE BOYCOTT STIL
‘Dishonor’ or’ not enough
They’re marching all right — in the opposite direction.
None of the boycotters of the Puerto Rican Day Parade are rushing back now that convicted terrorist leader Oscar López Rivera says he won’t accept its first “National Freedom Hero” award but will still participate.
“I am not going to march in any parade that honors a terrorist — I’m not going to do it,” Gov. Cuomo said Friday at an unrelated press conference.
Police Commissioner O’Neill is also standing by his decision to opt out of the parade because it’s honoring a “terrorist.”
Also skipping the event are Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Sen. Chuck Schumer — both of whom marched in the past but scheduled other events for parade day, June 11, according to aides.
López Rivera led the Puerto Rican nationalist group Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional, or FALN, which claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings in the 1970s and ’80s, including one at Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan in 1975 that killed four and injured dozens.
He spent 35 years in federal prison before President Barack Obama commuted his sentence just before leaving office in January. The National Puerto Rican Day Parade tapped López Rivera as a special honoree in this year’s march, planning to confer its firstever “National Freedom Hero” award on him.
But politicians and major sponsors including Coca-Cola, Goya Foods and the Yankees bailed out following a backlash, leaving Mayor de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who both repeatedly defended López Rivera’s inclusion, as the biggest names in the parade.
López Rivera decided not to accept the honor and said in an op-ed published Thursday that “it should go for activists and elected officials who fight for justice and a fair society,” as well as the parade sponsors who backed out but are still contributing to the parade’s scholarship fund.
GOP mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis slammed de Blasio and Mark-Viverito Friday, charging that the former terrorist leader had more backbone than the pols supporting him.
“This terrorist has shockingly shown more integrity in doing what is right for the parade than our own city leadership who refuse to denounce him and instead waited until he declined the award,” she said.
In another slap at the parade, East Harlem’s 116th Street Abrazo Fraternal Puerto Rican Festival — being held June 10, the day before the parade — is dedicating its event to the NYPD, FDNY and the armed forces.