Americas - Diplomatic Relations with the U.S., Prisoners & Accused Persons - Biography, Peru - Politics & Government, Latin America - Diplomatic Relations - General & Miscellaneous, Americans Abroad - Biography, Prisons & Prison Life

Lori

Name: Lori
Author: Noam Chomsky; afterword by Ramsey Clark
ISBN: 9781893956063

by Noam Chomsky; afterword by Ramsey Clark

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Overview

Six years ago, American Lori Berenson was conducting a research project in Peru when the government detained her for high treason. Her inexplicable arrest marked the beginning of an unimaginable nightmare for the Berenson family that continues today.
Declaimed by then President Alberto Fujimori as a threat to national security, Lori was charged as a leader of the Peruvian terrorist group Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA) and tried without due process by hooded military officials. This anonymous tribunal broke four international treaties on legal rights, and even its national constitution, in order to convict Lori-a conviction protested by human rights organizations-and sentence her to life without the possibility of parole. Isolated in a Draconian mountaintop prison with no heat, electricity, or running water and less food than could sustain her, Lori's health swiftly deteriorated.
As told by her mother, this is a journal of Lori's harrowing plight and of Rhoda and Mark Berenson's quest to free their daughter. Both parents gave up promising academic careers to lobby full-time for Lori's release, and Rhoda Berenson vividly records the grueling experiences and emotional roller coaster of their several years struggle. She describes the family's unwavering dedication, the anger, the sadness, and the behind-the-scenes negotiations with politicians. Her gripping account, combined with excerpts from Lori's letters, gives the reader an inside view into a world of sensitive politics, military courts, torture, corrupt prison commandants, terrorist insurgency, and police reprisals.
The dramatic ordeal of this courageous family sheds harsh light on human rights injustices and offers a moving testament to both a family's love and to its strength of spirit and character.

Author Biography: Rhoda Berenson is a retired Professor of Physics at Nassau Community College. Since 1995, she and her husband Mark have devoted their lives to securing the release of their daughter from the Peruvian prison system. They live in New York City. Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ramsey Clark is former Attorney General of the United States.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The grueling experiences described by Berenson constitute a crash course in the arbitrary horrors of human rights abuses. Since December 1995, 30-year-old Lori Berenson, an American citizen from New York, has been imprisoned--in appalling conditions--in Peru. She was found guilty of treason for allegedly conspiring to attack the Peruvian Congress as a member of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and sentenced to life imprisonment by a hooded military tribunal who refused to allow her attorney to present evidence or question witnesses. This dramatic and engrossing account by Lori's mother details the long struggle she and her husband, Mark, have endured in trying to get their daughter's sentence overturned. Both of them have given up their academic careers to dedicate their full-time efforts to a campaign to free Lori. Berenson forcefully argues that Lori was not a terrorist but a journalist, with valid press credentials, who had written about social and economic injustice in Peru. Just last month, Lori's conviction was in fact overturned, and she was granted a civilian trial. Because political conditions are now so unstable in Peru (President Fujimori is stepping down because of a scandal), her fate is uncertain, but her parents are hoping that she will be released. (Nov. 1) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Lori Berenson, a U.S. journalist, has been imprisoned since she was arrested in Lima, Peru in January 1996, charged with being a terrorist and member of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. She was later declared guilty of treason against Peru by a hooded military judge who heard no evidence to support the charge. The prisoner's mother reports on the appallingly severe prison conditions Lori has endured and describes the nightmarish struggle her family has waged with the Peruvian government, the U.S. State Department, the Clinton administration, and Congress to try to secure her freedom. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark has been the family's legal adviser and contributed a moving afterword to the book; Noam Chomsky provided the foreword. Since the author offers an understandably partial viewpoint and the subject's situation could change suddenly in Peru's current volatile political climate, this may be an optional choice for larger public libraries. Nevertheless, this is an instructive if disturbing narrative about the lack of justice in repressive societies.--Jill Ortner, SUNY at Buffalo Libs. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.