On  January 15, 2021, Elizam Escobar passed away, a former member of the Liga Socialista Puertorriqueña and of the  Progresive Labor Party (PLP).  Elizam was a great cartoonist and artist whose political commitment was expressed through his art work in CHALLENGE during the early 1970s.  They are of lasting value and a tribute to the communist spirit he showed during those years. We have reproduced one of them here (see cartoon).
Unfortunately, Elizam quit PLP and joined the terrorist FALN independence group. He was arrested in 1980 and spent almost 20 years in prison for planning  terrorist acts to gain Puerto Rican independence. After his release he became a well-known art teacher in Puerto Rico.
A friend remembers him this way:
Elizam and I were roommates for a number of years. I still remember us attending the Saturday morning rallies in New York’s Upper West Side, selling CHALLENGE, the PLP  revolutionary communist newspaper. Back then, we were arrested several times. I remember one particular occasion when the New York Police Department police beat the (crap) out of us - they thought that they could beat us into submission, but our fighting communist spirit was greater! We were placed in two separate cells next to one another.
We were trying to keep our spirits lifted so we started to sing from the TOP OF OUR LUNGS protest songs in Spanish and English. This pissed off New York’s “finest” to say the least! We sang “Bella Ciao”, the “International” and “Mírala que Linda viene la revolución obrera que no da ni un paso atrás!” This infuriated the NYPD and they handcuffed us to the cell bars and beat and pepper sprayed us again!
This is the spirit that I remember of Elizam, bold and militant, a true comrade , fighter and communist who was always ready for combat!  Throughout the struggle in our cells we never stopped singing!
Thanks to Elizam, I met Juan Antonio Corretjer, general secretary of the Puerto Rican Socialist League, fraternal organization of PLP. We both joined PLP in 1971.
Elizam was arrested April 4, 1980 for seditious conspiracy as a member of Las Fuerzas Armada de Liberación Nacional (FALN) and sentenced to 68 years in prison. Elizam served 19 years and 6 months in state and federal prisons. In 1999 he and 10 other combatants of the FALN had their sentence commuted and he served an additional five  years on probation in Puerto Rico .
We can still hear on the PLP-LP Elizam singing loud and proud: “Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Ciao,Ciao!”
Long live Communism! La clase obrera no tiene frontera! (The working class has no borders!)