None of the Puerto Rican patriots had a criminal record prior to their incarceration, yet they were given maximum sentences - up to 105 years. These prison terms are among the longest in the world, which underscores their political character. Their imprisonment has been a marked by physical abuse, denial of medical treatment, restricting physical contact with relatives, and frequent transfers - making visits by family members almost impossible. Many have served years in solitary confinement.
Oscar López Rivera spent the last 12 years in solitary confinement. He was kept in a bathroom-sized cell 22 hours a day and could only talk to his visitors through Plexiglas and a telephone. His only crime was acting on the conviction that Puerto Rico is a nation and its people should decide their own destiny - not Washington, which seized Puerto Rico at gunpoint in 1898. He and the other Puerto Rican fighters refuse to give up their ideas.
His recent transfer to the general prison population at the U.S. penitentiary in Indiana was a victory in the campaign to free all 15 independentistas. Thousands of people had sent letters demanding his transfer.
Workers in the United States have a fundamental interest in backing the struggle to free Puerto Rico. Washington's colonial domination of the island nation reinforces racism, national chauvinism, anti-immigrant prejudice, and other divisions among workers that serve the interests of the employers. Working people in the United States can never be free as long as their brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico remain chained by Yankee domination.
Puerto Rican independence fighter Rafael Cancel Miranda remarked in a recent interview how he and other Nationalists walked out of the U.S. prisons "standing, not on our knees," after more than 25 years' incarceration. Their refusal to buckle to Washington's dictates is testament of working-class resistance to imperialist oppression and of the broad campaign that won their freedom.
Supporters of Puerto Rican rights have a new tool to reach out to other fighters and explain the stakes in this struggle. The Pathfinder pamphlet Puerto Rico: Independence is a Necessity - Rafael Cancel Miranda on the Fight against U.S. Colonial Rule, is hot off the press.
Opportunities are open to win broader support for the Puerto Rican political prisoners in the labor movement. A range of public figures have signed petitions calling for their release. Supporters of the campaign can use this to help build the December 10 national day of protests actions among co-workers, at actions against cop brutality, on college campuses, in working- class communities, at political events, and on picket lines.