“On Return From Cuba, an Arrest in ’68 Hijacking”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/nyregion/12hijack.html?hp
Summary of the article
On November 24, 1968, there was an incident of airline hijacking. The incident occurred in the airplane that toward to Puerto Rico from Kennedy international airport in New York. On October 11, 2009, the U.S. federal authority arrested the suspect after an interval of about 40 years. The name of suspect is Louis Armando Peña Soltren, and he is 66 years old now. He was a fugitive who has been living in Cuba for four decades to avoid prosecution for his role in an airline hijacking. According to the decades-old indictment, nearly 40 years ago, Mr. Soltren and accomplices threatened the crew and passengers with the gun and the knife and ordered the pilot to change course for Havana, capital city of Cuba. Two of accomplices were sentenced to 15 and 12 years in prison respectively for threatening the lives of flight crew members. That two accomplices were arrested when they returned to the United States. But Mr. Soltren never left Cuba, where he was protected from prosecution. However, On October 11, 2009, Mr. Soltren was arrested. Mr. Soltren is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday. According to the article, their aim of hijacking is “Long live free Puerto Rico”. This sentence had scrawled by one of the hijackers inside the plane. In 1968, there were many people who had thinking like the hijackers had, so, more than 30 planes were hijacked or attempted to have been hijacked to Cuba. There were many people who wanted the freedom and wanted to escape to Cuba at that time.
My respond to the article
Interesting is that the reason of why the suspect of this hijacking, Mr. Soltren, had arranged his return to Kennedy International Airport with the F.B.I and State Department. The reason is that he wanted to see his family, including his wife, who lived in either Puerto Rico or Florida. I think he had many confused or mixed feeling while he was in Cuba for four decades to avoid prosecution because he left his family in the U.S. This means he chose freedom rather than his family. I think he had a strong feeling to get his freedom because he left his family and chose to do hijacking. However, from the action that he returned to the U.S., it is easy to imagine that Mr. Soltren was starved for affection. In addition, it is easy to imagine his feeling of loneliness in Cuba. I definitely do not agree with the thing which he did. However, I think it is good just for me that he returned to the U.S. with having the feeling of loneliness and the feeling of starvation to affection which are one of the core shaping the human feelings in spite of he did the crime against humanity. This is only my personal feeling, but, Mr. Soltren should strongly expiate the crime that he committed.
登録:
コメントの投稿 (Atom)
Well, to my mind, the high jacking of an airplane is a horrific crime, a crime that in a very direct way threatens the lives of all the people on the plane. In fact, as I think about it, the people in the plane must be so absolutely frightened that we can say that they are being psychologically tortured in an extreme manner. Frankly speaking, I don’t care about Luis Armando’s loneliness or homesickness.
返信削除But there is an issue concerning Puerto Rico that is perhaps even bigger than a single high jacking. It is an issue that certainly needs dramatic attention brought to it by the larger public. It is the issue of Puerto Rico statehood. Now Puerto Ricans have the status of American citizens, and this has been the case for many decades, perhaps since the U.S. colonized the Caribbean island over one-hundred years ago—I am not quite sure about this last point. Anyway, I know that the people of Puerto Rico have the rights of American citizens but the island itself doesn’t have the status of a state (like Hawaii, Texas, Oregon, etc.) and thus has neither the political influence on the country as these other states do nor does it share the same sorts of federal benefits that they do. It is simply unfair. And it has been unfair for the people of Puerto Rico for over one hundred years. Yes, this situation still requires attention, but committing the barbaric act of high jacking a plane is not the way to get the job done.