1/7/08

The Latin America Solidarity Coalition demands:

· Stop using the Grand Jury process to harass and intimidate the Puerto Rican people!

· Stop the FBI harassment of Puerto Rican independence activists!

· End the US occupation of Boricua (Puerto Rico)!

The Latin America Solidarity Coalition condemns the FBI harassment of Puerto Rican independence activists. This reached tragic proportions when agents assassinated Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, Commander in Chief of the Ejército Popular Boricua, on September 23rd, 2005. Ojeda was 72 years old and had suffered a non-life threatening wound. However, he was left to bleed to death slowly by the FBI, which denied him medical assistance. The significance of this date was intentional: the 137th anniversary of the “Grito de Lares” and the beginning of the organized Puerto Rican independence movement. Since then, there have been continuing escalations by the FBI against advocates of independence.

The subpoena to appear before a Grand Jury of three Puerto Rican community members in New York is an example of this. These three are Tania Frontera, Christopher Torres and Julio Pabon, Jr. The FBI had previously visited each of these persons, and others, in their homes, asking questions about independence activists the FBI wanted to brand as “terrorists”. The FBI is trying to infiltrate and shut down the Ejército Popular Boricua, also known as the Macheteros, an organization, which has participated in an armed struggle for liberation. However, the Macheteros haven't participated in armed actions for 15 years, pursuing alternative ways to combat

US aggression and imperialism. Nevertheless, the response of the FBI and other armed agents of the occupying government has been to increase its use of violence and repression.

Some of those visited were not even involved in the independence movement, but were only friends or relatives of people who were. They were shown pictures of activists and asked to identify the people in the pictures and provide other information about them. These FBI visits and the subsequent serving of these subpoenas are designed to put those who refuse to cooperate with this “fishing expedition” in jail, and to intimidate the Puerto Rican community as a whole.

Frontera, Torres, and Pabon are scheduled to appear before the Grand Jury on Friday, Jan. 11th, 2008. This date, too, is significant and, as such, constitutes an insult to the Puerto Rican people. January 11, 1839 was the birthday of the great educator, philosopher, and independence activist, Eugenio María de Hostos.

The US occupation of Puerto Rico has been going on for 109 years. That occupation has produced unacceptable conditions in Puerto Rico. The “citizenship” the US government grants to Puerto Ricans is a second-class citizenship comparable to Apartheid in South Africa. Puerto Ricans have no representation in Congress and no vote for the President. The per capita income is about half that of the poorest state; almost half of Puerto Ricans, and a majority of its children, live in poverty; a third of its population is unemployed.

Meanwhile, US corporations, especially an influx of pharmaceutical companies, have been able to set up headquarters in Puerto Rico to avoid paying taxes, while paying lower wages to workers than they would pay in the United States. Because of high unemployment and low wages, Puerto Rico provides a cheap labor force not only in Puerto Rico, but also in the US. There is a new trend emerging in some US industries of replacing undocumented workers with workers flown in from Puerto Rico.

This is what the US occupation of Puerto Rico has lead to: poverty for the Puerto Rican people, profits for big corporations, and repression of Puerto Rico’s patriots. Just as we must end the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the US funded Israeli occupation of Palestine, we must end the even older US occupation of Puerto Rico. LASC joins with supporters of liberation around the world to offer our solidarity with those working for the liberation of Borinquen (Puerto Rico) and with all Puerto Ricans being repressed as a result of the colonial occupation of their nation.

The Latin America Solidarity Coalition is a coalition of US grassroots organizations that support the right to self-determination for all peoples and oppose US military, political and economic intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our web page is www.lasolidarity.org