Biography
Heriberto Marín Torres (born November 23, 1928, in Barrio Coabey, Jayuya) was one of the youngest fighters of the 1950 Nationalist insurrection — a Nationalist cadet who helped Blanca Canales raise the Puerto Rican flag during the October 30, 1950 Jayuya Uprising. Arrested days later, he was sentenced to life and served about nine years at La Princesa prison in San Juan before his release amid international pressure, and he later chronicled the uprising in his memoir "Coabey: el valle heroico."
One of approximately 1,500 activists arrested between 1999 and 2003 for civil disobedience at the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. The campaign — sparked by the April 19, 1999 death of civilian Navy security guard David Sanes Rodríguez when an errant Marine F/A-18 bomb struck his observation post — drew Puerto Ricans of every political stripe (independentistas, statehooders, the Catholic Church, fishers, environmentalists) into a sustained nonviolent direct-action campaign demanding the Navy leave Vieques. Defendants were prosecuted in U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico under 18 U.S.C. § 1382 (entering a military reservation) and typically served 30 to 90 days in federal custody, most often at MDC Guaynabo. The Navy formally ceased operations on Vieques on May 1, 2003. Listed as a current prisoner in Nuclear Resister Issue #121 "Inside & Out" prisoner roster.
