The demonstration took place in the predominantly Puerto Rican ghetto of the South Bronx, commencing with a march from St. Mary's Park and winding up with a rally at La Plaza Borinqueña on E. 138 St. and Willis Ave.
This is in the wake of the March 11 police attack on the students at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras. As a pretext for their invasion that day, the police used a confrontation provoked by ROTC cadets with pro-independence students. The incident began when a gang of ROTC cadets stormed into the student center, tossing a chair at the leader of the Juventud Independentista Universitaria (JIU, youth group of the PIP). In the ensuing struggle, the cadets retreated and joined others on top of the military building armed with shields, sticks, shotguns, and other weapons. There, the university guards lined up in front of the building and began firing tear gas at the massing students. The cadets fired shotguns and other weapons at the students, wounding several.
The police riot squad was called onto the campus that afternoon. They came armed with imperialism's latest, the M-16, and proceeded to savagely and indis
criminately beat students and professors. The police and guards roamed all over the university town, breaking into homes and attacking the students. After it was all over, two cops and a student lay dead, with hundreds wounded.
This attack is not the first of its kind. The government has been trying to crush the independence and antiwar movements, which are strongest among the students.
March 30, 1946
After World War I, the food relief policy of the United
States government was based, not on any desire to help the
starving European masses, but on the determination of American
imperialism to crush the rising tide of working-class revolt.
In requesting a $100,000,000 appropriation from Congress on February 24, 1919, President Wilson declared: "Food relief is now the key to the whole European situation and to the solution of peace. Bolshevism is steadily advancing westward.... It cannot be stopped by force, but it can be stopped by food...."
Congress was convinced by the President's arguments. The American Relief Administration headed by Herbert Hoover, was established to carry out this policy.
The American Relief Administration withheld food from all areas in which the workers had taken power. A stringent blockade of the Soviet Union was enforced from 1917 to 1921. The Allies imposed a blockade on starving Hungary when the Hungarian workers established their own government in 1919.