SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Elizam Escobar searched deeply into his past as he greeted friends and relatives whose faces had aged and voices had changed during the nearly two decades he'd been away in prison.
"Do you remember me?" asked a man who hugged Escobar in his first hours of freedom Saturday in his homeland of Puerto Rico. There was a glint of recognition, then an avalanche of memories, as Escobar, a graphic artist from New York, gave his friend a bear hug at his mother's house.Joy and bewilderment filled Escobar and six other Puerto Rican nationalists who came home to this Caribbean island over the weekend. They were among 14 who had accepted a controversial clemency offer from President Clinton.
All had been imprisoned on sedition and weapons convictions stemming from their involvement in the Armed Forces of National Liberation, a pro-independence group blamed for 130 bombings in the United States that killed six people and wounded dozens of others from 1974 to 1983.
In the first public expression of remorse from one of the freed prisoners, Ricardo Jimenez, who arrived in San Juan Sunday night, said on NBC's Meet the Press that he regretted the deaths.
"In anything that has happened, the precaution that we've always taken is the preservation of human life -- you know, we're deeply sorry that other things have happened contrary to that," he said.
Like the other prisoners, Jimenez was welcomed at the airport Sunday night by a crowd of jubilant independence supporters. "Freedom! Freedom!" they shouted as Jimenez raised a Puerto Rican flag in salute.
As they returned home to a flurry of hugs and home-cooked meals, the former prisoners were able to forget, for the moment, the political firestorm surrounding their case.
However, the criticism continued unabated on the mainland.
Republican presidential contender Steve Forbes said Saturday that the releases amounted to a "terrorists-for-votes deal" to help Clinton's wife, Hillary, in her possible campaign to win a U.S. Senate seat from New York. He challenged Vice President Al Gore, also a presidential contender, to say where he stands on the issue.
In the middle-class suburb of Bayamon, Escobar tugged at the cheek of 11/2-year-old Anel Rios, brought to him by his cousin Elizam Rios.
"She's never seen him. I've never seen him," said Rios, who was five when Escobar was imprisoned.
Relatives and friends crowded into the sweltering house, where a 1991 poster honoring Escobar and his paintings hung on a wall. Curious neighbors watched the gentle celebration from their porch across the street.
"So much time. So much time. But here we are," a beaming friend said.
In the kitchen, relatives prepared the national dish of rice and beans, mashed plantains, oven-baked bread, fish and salad.
The festivities lasted into Sunday, the anniversary of two important nationalist events. It was the birthday of Pedro Albizu Campos, the founder of Puerto Rico's independence movement.
Sunday was also the anniversary of the 1983 robbery of a Wells Fargo truck in which militants of Puerto Rico's Macheteros guerilla group stole $7.1 million that officials said was to fund terrorist attacks against the United States. Three of those convicted in that robbery were forgiven outstanding fines under Clinton's clemency.
A reflective Escobar -- thinner than in a portrait displayed on a table -- took it all in stride, watching a television report on the freed prisoners' return to Puerto Rico.
Escobar said that he and the other prisoners were going to continue struggling for independence. Escobar also wants to expel the U.S. Navy from the outlying island of Vieques, where the Navy maintains a live-fire bombing range within miles of some 10,000 inhabitants.
Another freed activist, Adolfo Matos, showed little remorse and expressed adamant support for Puerto Rico's independence in a phone conversation recorded by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons last April, Newsweek reported in its upcoming issue.
"For the justice of my people . . . my desire has gotten stronger," Matos said in the conversation, Newsweek said.
Escobar said parole conditions prohibiting him from associating with fellow convicts "are more proof of our colonial condition."
A former art teacher at New York's Museo del Barrio, Escobar said he planned to promote Puerto Rican art and culture as a way to defend the island's nationality and champion its independence.
He was undeterred by the minuscule support that cause has in Puerto Rico, a territory that has grown relatively rich under 101 years of U.S. rule.