Puerto Rican nationalist radiated, says family

SAN JUAN -- The family of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos, a principal Puerto Rican independence figure of this century, is demanding that the US admit to torturing Campos by radiation.

Campos' son reported that the family knew his father had suffered radiation torture during the beginning of the 1950s. The Nationalist Party Human Rights Commission, directed by Campos from 1930 until his death from cancer in 1965, came forward backing the Campos family allegations.

The accusations are raised in the aftermath of the recent disclosure of US radiation experiments on humans. The US government recently admitted that these experiments had occurred since World War II and is now examining the process and who was affected.

Campos was incarcerated at the beginning of the 1950s after heading an attack with a group of Nationalist Puerto Ricans on Blair House in Washington. In 1953 he was pardoned, but in 1954 was returned to prison after launching an armed action against the US House of Representatives.

Recently, the Puerto Rican Senate approved a petition by a Popular Democratic Party member, Eudaldo Baez Galib, demanding that the US clarify if Puerto Ricans were ever used in radiation experiments. Independent Puerto Rican Party president Ruben Berrios Martinez presented a resolution on January 18 demanding the US make public the names of those affected. Both legislators based their claims on Campos' historical denunciations and knowledge of US birth control experiments in Puerto Rico where massive numbers of women were sterilised and jungles contaminated by Agent Orange. [Radio Havana via Pegasus.]

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