LIMA, Peru (AP) – In the five years since she was paroled, Lori Berenson has lived in a limbo of sorts, trying to raise a young son in a society that largely refuses to forgive her for aiding Peru’s No. 2 leftist rebel group in the 1990s.
Now a 46-year-old single mother, the woman who arrived in Peru two decades ago bent on revolutionary change has finally gone home to her native New York.
Berenson was officially expelled late Wednesday. With her 6-year-old son Salvador in her arms, she passed quickly through Lima’s airport terminal ringed by police officers and followed by reporters. Recognizing her, some people shouted “get out of here terrorist!” Her flight to New York was scheduled to leave at midnight.
Berenson was allowed to leave the South American country after her 20-year sentence for “collaboration with terrorism” for her role in the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement lapsed.
Before her departure, in an interview granted on condition it not be published until she was gone, Berenson had harsh words for Peru’s economic and political elite. She accused it of being unwilling to confront the open wounds of the country’s 1980-2000 internal conflict.