Viewpoint

Clemency move smacks of hypocrisy

Once again, President Clinton did not think his actions through. In mid-August, Clinton offered clemency to 16 members of a Puerto Rican nationalist group called FALN, which is a Spanish acronym for Armed Forces of National Liberation.

Law enforcement officials blame FALN for at least 130 bombings in the United States and Puerto Rico between 1974 and 1983.

As part of the clemency offer, Clinton gave the 11 men and five women until Friday to renounce political violence and pledge to disassociate with FALN.

The separatists have already served between 14 and 19 years for crimes such as bomb-making and conspiring to commit armed robbery.

When criticized, the White House was quick to point out that the clemency offer was extended to only those "not associated with the more violent acts that led to injuries."

With this offer, Clinton has made an abrupt about-face from the terrorism policy he espoused following the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania last year.

Following those incidents, the United States bombed terrorist training headquarters and launched a manhunt for alleged mastermind Osama bin Laden, while Clinton vowed that we would not bow to terrorists.

Now we are going to pardon these terrorists simply because they hail from a U.S. territory?

That is wrong.

Even President Clinton's wife now thinks so.

Speculation abounds that the president offered clemency to this group to help his wife's chances in next year's New York Senate race.

Initially, Hillary Clinton supported clemency, but with a move out of her husband's play book she reversed her position last weekend.

Regardless of the motives, this is simply a bad idea. The United States should not condone terrorism in any form.

Clemency only reinforces terrorists' actions, and any pledge to denounce violence on their part would hardly be worth the paper it was printed on.

-This staff editorial appeared in the Daily Nebraskan, the University of Nebraska's student newspaper, last Wednesday.

09-10-99