BY ROSE BAKER
NEW YORK - Hundreds of people took part in a day of actions
here December 10 to demand the release of 15 Puerto Rican
political prisoners held in U.S. jails, and to support
independence for Puerto Rico. The action was the culmination of
a year of political activities marking 100 years of resistance
to U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico and stepping up the
worldwide campaign for the release of the imprisoned
independence fighters. Many of them have been locked up for 18
years, making them among the longest-held political prisoners
in the world. The date marked the 50th anniversary of the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and 100
years since the signing of the Treaty of Paris, when the rising
imperialist power in Washington forced Madrid to codify the
U.S. colonial conquest of the Spanish colonies in Puerto Rico,
the Philippines, and Guam.
The protests took place three days before residents of Puerto Rico voted in a nonbinding plebiscite conducted by the colonial government on that nation's status. Voters were supposed to indicate their preference on five choices: for Puerto Rico to remain a "commonwealth;" to be a "free association," a variant of the commonwealth, with limited autonomy under U.S. colonial rule; to become the 51st U.S. state; to become independent; or none of the above. In a rebuff to the pro-statehood administration, slightly more than 50 percent of those voting chose "none of the above," a protest vote advocated by pro-commonwealth forces.
The day's events here began with a meeting at Baruch College. About 60 people, mostly students, came to hear Rafael Cancel Miranda, the well-known Puerto Rican anti-imperialist leader. The meeting was sponsored by the Black and Hispanic Studies Department and the Hispanic Society.
Cancel Miranda said the U.S. government had no right to go around the world posing as a champion of human rights, when Washington has a blood-soaked history of invasions of other nations - from Panama to Iraq and Bosnia - and repression against Puerto Rican independence advocates, holding 15 of them in U.S. jails today. Yet anyone who fights back against their brutality "is a terrorist, according to them."
"They talk about human rights!" said Cancel Miranda, who spent 28 years in U.S. jails for his pro-independence actions. "When I was in prison in Marion federal penitentiary, they kept me 18 months in a `behavior modification' program. They used drugs on us. When that didn't work, it was the big stick. But with all that power, they couldn't break us. They broke my jaw, but they couldn't break my spirit."
Cancel Miranda noted that in 1979, under growing worldwide pressure, the U.S. government freed him and three other imprisoned Nationalists. "They had to release us unconditionally. We didn't ask them for a pardon because we had nothing to be pardoned for - they are the ones who invaded our country," he underlined.
One of the meeting's hosts, Ana López, coordinator of the New York chapter of the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Prisoners of War and Political Prisoners and a professor at Baruch, recalled the broad international campaign that won the release of Cancel Miranda and the other Nationalists, and the impact that these fighters had on her as a youth. She urged the audience to attend an afternoon picket line in front of the United Nations to call for the release of the political prisoners and show support for independence for Puerto Rico. Several students from the audience went to the event.
Some 200 people, overwhelmingly high school and college students, marched in the UN protest, many with large photos of the 15 prisoners and signs that said "Free them now!" or "Independence for Puerto Rico!" About 100 of them drove the 17 hours from Chicago to take part in the day's activities, said Marcos Vilar, national coordinator of the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Prisoners of War and Political Prisoners.
Judy Madrid, a 17-year-old student who came to the events with classmates from Antonia Pantoja High School in Chicago, said she was protesting "the inhuman treatment that the political prisoners suffer in prison. They shouldn't be in prison for exercising their right to freedom of speech, press, and assembly."
Among those who addressed the rally were Vilar; New York City Councilman José Rivera; Sen. Angel Santos of Guam, who is active in the fight by the Chomoru people for the independence of that U.S. colony in the Pacific; several students from Chicago; Kazi Toure, a Black former political prisoner; and John Fogarty, a leader of the Irish-American Unity Conference in California who helps organize efforts to win the release of Irish Republican political prisoners known as the H-Block Four. Fogarty read greetings to the rally from the H-Block Four.
Many at the rally, including activists from Pro-Libertad and the coalition Comité 98, had helped organize activities throughout the year to mark 100 years of resistance to U.S. colonialism and to call for the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners.
Young people at the rally used the opportunity to meet other fighters and organize future activities. Michelle Reteguiz and other students from Manhattanville College said they wanted to bring Puerto Rican and Irish freedom fighters together to their college.
A student at City College of New York, Carlos Torres, said he and other members of the Puerto Rico Collective are part of organizing a March speaking tour in New York of Cancel Miranda and fellow Nationalist hero Lolita Lebrón, along with Puerto Rican author Ronald Fernandez. The Puerto Rico Collective is a pro-independence youth group in the New York area.
That evening, a meeting of about 150 people was held at the UN Church Center, where a number of prominent figures and dozens of others signed a declaration calling on President William Clinton to release the Puerto Rican political prisoners immediately by granting them a pardon and general amnesty.
At the meeting, José López, director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and the brother of political prisoner Oscar López Rivera, introduced several speakers, including New York City Council member José Rivera as a longtime supporter of the campaign to free the Puerto Rican political prisoners.
One of the featured speakers and signers of the declaration was Angel Santos, the independence fighter from Guam.
"What right did the U.S. have to claim ownership of our lands and of our people?" Santos asked. Washington stole two- thirds of the richest agricultural lands, and military fences surround a lake used as a source of drinking water, he said. He cited the high levels of unemployment and alcoholism, similar to the oppressive conditions that Native Americans are subjected to in the United States. His graphic account had a visible impact on many in the youthful audience who expressed amazement at the similarities with the colonial conditions facing Puerto Rico.
"They have tried to destroy our language and culture," Santos said. "We have a moral and legal obligation to do what we need to survive." He described several mass protests in which he had taken part over the last eight years against the U.S. military presence on Guam, including an ongoing "illegal" occupation of federal lands by the people of Guam and a successful fight to win universal access to beaches that were used by U.S. base personnel but that had excluded native residents.
To cheers from the audience, Santos said, "In the end, the spirit of our people will conquer the sword of the colonizer."
López pointed to U.S. government attempts to use grand jury investigations to frame up pro-independence activists. Marcos Vilar and others have been targeted in a grand jury investigation in which U.S. officials are seeking to frame University of Puerto Rico professor José Solís in relation to a 1992 bombing at a military recruitment center in Chicago. López is the director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, which is the object of an "investigation" by several state agencies that claim misappropriation of government funds.
"There is a history of colonialism and a history of anticolonial resistance," López said. "But there is no way to stop the struggle, no matter how many grand juries or threats."
Cancel Miranda, the main speaker, said the U.S. rulers underestimate the capacity of the Puerto Rican national struggle. "They don't understand our strength. Just like they don't understand the strength of the Vietnamese people, who beat the hell out of them."
The Puerto Rican leader explained that the plebiscite in Puerto Rico was a farce designed to give legal cover to colonial rule. "How can you hold a free plebiscite in a country that is militarily occupied?" he asked. "They control our social, political, and economic life." Only through struggle against the U.S. colonial rulers will Puerto Rico win its freedom. Cancel Miranda expressed disagreement with a comment by councilman Rivera, who had said the Puerto Rican political prisoners "sit rotting in jail."
"They are not rotting in jail," Cancel Miranda said. "They will never rot because they are fighting, because they are free men and women."
"We have to fight back and win," Cancel Miranda said, "by whatever means necessary, because they use whatever means to smash us. If we fight, we will win."
Among those who signed the declaration calling for the release of the 15 political prisoners, in addition to Cancel Miranda, were representatives of the GABRIELA Network, a Filipina women's group; the War Resisters League; Comité 98; ASPIRA; Pro-Libertad; the Coalition to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; Confederación Taíno ; the Committee to Defend José Solís; the Socialist Workers Party; several religious figures; and students from Columbia College in Illinois; and University of California at Berkeley.
Vilar reported that the petition would be taken to the White House the following week by Rivera and a delegation of other elected officials.
Esperanza Martell, a leader of Pro-Libertad, reported that as a result of a phone calling and post-card campaign, the White House had received hundreds of thousands of requests for the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners.