The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.45           December 14, 1998 
 
 
Free Puerto Rican Patriots  
Working-class fighters and other supporters of democratic rights should participate in and build the upcoming December 10 rally at the United Nations to demand the U.S. government free Puerto Rican patriots held in U.S prisons.

For workers in the United States, fighting to end Washington's colonial domination of that Caribbean island is not only just; it is a necessity. The imperial subjugation of the Puerto Rican nation reinforces racism, national chauvinism, anti-immigrant prejudice, and other divisions that weaken the labor movement. It stifles the political consciousness, human solidarity, and fighting capacity of workers in struggle.

The U.S. rulers use their iron-fisted rule over Puerto Rico to rationalize the erosion of democratic rights of working people in the United States. FBI spying and harassment of Puerto Rican independence fighters, unionists, and other supporters of Puerto Rican self-determination is well documented. This is a familiar scenario to striking coal miners in Illinois today, who are facing FBI probes aimed at choking their battle to maintain their union. The bosses and their media try to slander independence fighters as terrorists, just like they attempt to smear the miners and other striking workers with accusations of violence.

"U.S. imperialism controls our country socially, politically, and economically," said Puerto Rican independentista Rafael Cancel Miranda in the Pathfinder pamphlet Puerto Rico: Independence Is a Necessity. "We are a militarily occupied country - we're saturated by U.S. military bases."

An advance in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence is in the interests of all working people, especially those in the United States, much like the battle to defeat Jim Crow racist segregation imposed on Blacks in the South. Building the December 10 rally and getting Cancel Miranda's pamphlet in the hands of working people are important ways to boost the struggle for Puerto Rican self-determination.

 
 
 
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