He’s No Kind of Hero

The parade’s not ’til Sunday, but the public adulation of unrepentant FALN terrorist Oscar López Rivera is already under way. OLR got a hero’s welcome at an “NYC Victory Celebration” at Hostos College in The Bronx on Thursday, and he’s made the media rounds to sort-of explain away the FALN’s hundred-plus terror bombings in the 1970s and early ’80s.

OLR waxed defiant, thanking the parade organizers who didn’t allow sponsors “to blackmail it or dictate what it should do” — that is, to make it drop plans to honor him.

In an interview with WABC7, he insisted that he and the FALN “had to protect ourselves, to protect the independence movement, to fight for Puerto Rican independence.” Puerto Ricans, he argued, have a right to fight against the crime of colonialism.

Though he denied having blood on his hands, he also justified violence: “We were doing whatever was absolutely necessary for us to do.” Tellingly, he then cut himself off mid-sentence rather than spell anything out: “We thought it was necessary to . . .”

In fact, violence that killed and maimed innocents was what put OLR and the FALN on the map — no one would bother talking of them as “heroes” if they hadn’t done time for those terrorist crimes. They turned to terror to promote a losing cause.

Nor would US authorities have persecuted them for advocating independence, a perfectly honorable and legal cause. ( Califor

nians are now safely calling for secession.) The minuscule percentages who vote for independence in referendum after referendum is proof enough of the movement’s lack of appeal. And the admirable record of Puerto Rican service in the US military, including the deaths of many real heroes, is ample evidence of how many islanders are proud American patriots.

Melissa Mark-Viverito and her allies are still using the parade to promote their false history and to idolize an evil man.

It’s a cynical, extremist ploy that taints a joyous celebration. For shame.