BY MARTÍN KOPPEL
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A number of political actions took place in Puerto Rico July 4 to demand the release of jailed Puerto Rican independence fighters, call for the U.S. Navy to get out of the island of Vieques, and support the strike of 6,400 telephone workers.

The same day, supporters of Gov. Pedro Rosselló and the ruling New Progressive Party (PNP) rallied to advocate statehood for this U.S. colony and celebrate the U.S. independence day.

Several hundred people, mostly supporters of independence for Puerto Rico, rallied at the gates of Fort Buchanan here. Dozens carried bright orange pennants declaring "It's time to bring them home," referring to the 15 Puerto Rican independence fighters being held in U.S. jails for their political views. The demonstrators also protested the U.S. Navy occupation of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

One of the protesters, Estelí Capote, 17, expressed her outrage at the harassment of independentistas by the U.S. political police, which has railroaded the 15 fighters to long prison terms. "In Puerto Rico people are being persecuted for their ideas. For a century they [the U.S. government] have tried to suppress us. But that's also been enough time for people to wake up. The struggle around the telephone company was the straw that broke the camel's back."

Originally the action had been planned to take place in Ceiba, on the eastern coast, near the Roosevelt Roads U.S. naval base. After the telephone workers strike developed into the central political battle in this Caribbean nation today, the organizers of the protest changed the site to San Juan to link up with the strikers.

Che Paralitici of the Hostosiano National Congress, Julio Muriente of the New Puerto Rican Independence Movement, and Ricardo Jordán, of the Committee to Save and Develop Vieques, addressed the demonstrators. Paralitici noted that the U.S. Southern Command, previously based in Panama, is being transferred to Fort Buchanan despite opposition in Puerto Rico to the massive U.S. military presence on the island.

Fight against U.S. Navy in Vieques
Jordán, who is also a member of the UTIER electrical workers union, explained that the U.S. Navy occupies two- thirds of the land in Vieques, using it for target practice and in the process ruining the livelihood of many fishermen. He pointed out that cancer rates among Vieques residents are unusually high, a fact many attribute to Navy pollution of the area.

As the rally took place in San Juan, 25 fishermen held a protest against the U.S. Navy near the Roosevelt Roads base. They took their boats from Vieques and entered restricted waters used by the U.S. military. After the rally at Fort Buchanan, the demonstrators marched a few blocks over to the main picket lines at the Puerto Rico Telephone Co., where the protest swelled from 400 to nearly 1,000.

Angel Ramos, 32, a striker and member of the Independent Union of Telephone Workers (UIET), said, "I'm glad to see people here from groups demanding the release of the political prisoners." His assignment is to help guard one of the entrances to the phone company to prevent supervisory personnel from coming in. He said strikers had received "incredible support" from all kinds of individuals and organizations who join them on the picket lines.

One such individual was his friend Jeffrey Rodríguez, 21, a student at the Technical College who met Angel on the picket lines. "I come here every night. That's usually when the phone company tries to slip supervisory personnel in."

Later that day, in the southern city of Ponce, unions organized a fund-raising radiothon to support the telephone strikers. In the southwestern town of Sabana Grande, the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) Youth took part in an action naming a street after the pro-independence leader and hero Pedro Albizu Campos. The PIP Youth publicized a pro- independence conference it is sponsoring in July

Meanwhile, the July 4 PNP rally drew 2,000 people. The pro-government San Juan Star remarked that "the crowd was noticeably smaller than last year's turnout of 7,000 people, police said."

Addressing a crowd waving U.S. flags, Gov. Rosselló argued for Puerto Rico becoming the 51st U.S. state. He described the island as "a colony of the [U.S.] nation that has not had a real opportunity to exercise its self- determination and has not achieved the full extent of self- rule." The solution to this colonial status, he said, is statehood, "a status we have earned after 100 years of shared history," referring to the century since the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico on July 25, 1898.

The PIP, National Hostosiano Congress, Federation of Pro- Independence Youth (FUPI), and other pro-independence organizations are building a united event on July 25 to mark 100 years of resistance to U.S. colonial rule. The action will take place in the southern city of Guánica, the site where the invading U.S. forces landed. This is the first time in years there will be a single pro-independence action; in the past, groups had held separate events.

FUPI is sponsoring a pro-independence youth walk crossing Puerto Rico from July 14 to 24. The youth will start in Vieques, where fishermen will take them to the main island. They will stop in different towns along the way, and end up in Guánica on the eve of July 25.  
 
 
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