Word: berensons
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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SENTENCED. LORI BERENSON, 31, American citizen convicted on charges of colluding with guerrillas to take the Peruvian Congress hostage; to 20 years in prison; in Lima, Peru. The M.I.T. dropout, sentenced to life in prison in 1996, sought and received a new trial. After the verdict, she defiantly told the court, "I consider this an unjust sentence...
...easy to see how they find the evidence against Berenson pretty damning. She'd rented the safe house; she was working with a woman who was part of the MRTA leadership. There was a map in her handwriting of the congress building (she was accused of reconnoitering it as a target for the MRTA), there were notes apparently by her, in her hand - an MRTA internal document about the Brady plan. Her explanations didn't seem particularly convincing. Her explanation for the safe house was that she rented it, then sublet it; she didn't know the woman...
...there any sympathy for Berenson in Peru...
...first trial was before hooded judges, and she was sent to a high-altitude prison where nobody should be confined. But again, quite a lot of Peruvians found themselves in the same circumstances, and some of them, in their eyes, may have been more innocent than Berenson was. She seemed to have something to do with the MRTA, and they aren't a non-violent group, though they pretended to be. There is a general fatigue in the population with attempts to achieve an armed solution to Peru's problems...
...have much strength. Peru's main problems today, though, are economic. The issue is creating jobs. That's why Toledo was elected. He fought against Fujimori, and he promised to get the country moving again economically. That's where the attention is, not on overthrowing the state. Lori Berenson has said that the people are still oppressed, still poor. Well, they just had democratic elections, but they are still poor. They are certainly oppressed by their economic circumstances. People have a very hard time getting through the day, and that's where their attention is. Peruvians have high expectations...