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May 9, 2005
Lori Berenson: Rebel Without a Clue
Posted by Dave Blount at May 9, 2005 12:09 PM
Yesterday's New York Times dolefully reports the happy news that communist terrorist Lori Berenson is still where she belongs: in a cage, so that civilization can be safe from her.
A US citizen from New York City, Berenson attended MIT before devoting herself to imposing totalitarianism on Latin Americans in the name of her confused leftist politics.
In El Salvador, she worked for the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) during this Marxist guerilla group's attempt to inflict slavery on that beleaguered country.
Later it was on to Peru, where she took part in the terrorist campaign of MRTA (Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement) to replace the democratically elected government with a communist regime. Her admittedly excellent cover was to pose as a journalist for left-wing American magazines. Posing as her photographer was Nancy Gilvonio — the wife of Nestor Cerpa, MRTA's second in command, a sociopathic thug who committed assaults and armed robberies on a regular basis and was leader of the terrorist squad that seized control of the Japanese embassy, causing a major crisis in 1997. Hostages taken by Berenson's colleagues included the Peruvian Foreign Minister, Francisco Tudela, and the Japanese Ambassador, Morihita Aoki.
Berenson and her sidekick Gilvonio were busted for gathering intelligence on the floor plans of the Peruvian Congress, in preparation for another terrorist assault on the government.
Being infinitely more lenient than any country run by Marxists, Peru let Berenson climb onto a soapbox and address the world press. She took the opportunity not to deny her guilt, but to spew leftist rhetoric in defense of her terrorist behavior. As quoted on the unsurprisingly sympathetic World Socialist Web Site, she declared that she is not a criminal terrorist, but only because "in the MRTA there are no criminal terrorists. It is a revolutionary movement."
Zacarias Moussaoui is putting up a better defense, but hopefully won't receive such gentle treatment. She was convicted of treason, but rather than the death sentence she would have received under the sort of government she was trying to inflict on Peru, Berenson got a life sentence, which was later reduced to 20 years. They are actually planning to let her loose in 2015, although they will have the good sense to kick her out of the country before she can contribute to future havoc.
No doubt a lucrative career awaits her, giving commencement addresses on American campuses.
