Below is the statement presented July 25 by Laura Garza, representing the Socialist Workers Party, before the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization. Garza is the Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. vice president. nguished Chairman,

Members of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization,

A week and a half ago I joined some 125,000 Puerto Ricans at two rallies in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. The marchers were there to affirm Puerto Rican nationhood, stand up for self-determination, and, for many, to express the desire of the Puerto Rican people for an independent country. Fishermen from the island of Vieques also protested the U.S. Navy's use of their island and surrounding waters for military exercises and target practice.

The marches were held at the site of the conference of U.S. governors - representatives of the power that colonizes Puerto Rico, the U.S. government. At the meeting, the governors discussed the ways in which the Democratic and Republican parties would press forward their assault on the social gains and democratic rights of working people both in the United States and Puerto Rico. Concurrent with similar moves by the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, the governors discussed how to deny welfare payments and food stamps to hundreds of thousands of workers, how to organize the attacks on the rights of immigrants and terrorize those without legal papers in the United States, and how to expand the use of the death penalty.

These two events symbolize the growing tensions and conflict involved in the question of the U.S. colonial domination of Puerto Rico.

On the one hand, the Puerto Rican people desire to end the national oppression they face, and working people in Puerto Rico seek to defend themselves against the ravages of the capitalist economic crisis.

On the other hand, the billionaire owners of banking and industry are driving to resolve the crisis of their system on the backs of those who labor for a living, of those who through their labor create all wealth in society. This wealthy minority controls the reins of power in the United States. In order to press forward this assault they must reinforce national oppression, drive down the standard of living, deal blows to union organization, push back affirmative action programs, and widen the layers in society who are considered outside of constitutional protections and therefore fair game for superexploitation-be they immigrant workers, members of oppressed nationalities, or victims of the so-called criminal justice system.

During the 1993 plebiscite on the status of Puerto Rico, wealthy powers and their dependents in Puerto Rico cynically pointed to the paltry "benefits" of commonwealth status as a reason to reject independence. They contrasted the standard of living in Puerto Rico with conditions in other Latin American countries - those most decimated by imperialism - to try to prove that Puerto Ricans should be thankful for the fruits of the oppressive relationship. They fail to point out, of course, that Puerto Rico is a source of profits for U.S. corporations, that the country's natural resources benefit these same corporations, and that Puerto Rico remains a strategic staging ground for U.S. military policing and intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In addition, opponents of democratic rights and social justice in the United States, getting wind in their sails from the rightward drift of the big-business parties, are pushing for English-only legislation in states across the country. This reveals truly how unwilling the ruling powers are to incorporate a Spanish-speaking country on an equal basis into the United States of America.

Distinguished Chairperson,

The U.S. government denies and attempts to camouflage the fact that Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States. The show of strength at the protests in Fajardo and the testimony given here today once again richly document the fact that Puerto Rico is indeed subject to colonial domination.

Denial of sovereignty and independence

The oppressive character of the U.S. domination of Puerto Rico stands out in the world today - despite attempts to paper it over - because of Washington's direct economic, military, and political hold over the island. To grasp the full burden of 500 years of colonial domination of Puerto Rico is to understand why the fight to free Puerto Rico from this yoke must be the utmost concern for working people and fighters for social justice in the United States.

Colonial rule means the Puerto Rican people are subject to glaring inequality and abuse. I witnessed U.S. National Guard patrols and tanks stationed at the entrances to housing projects in working-class neighborhoods. Residents have protested widespread mistreatment at the hands of the National Guard. Puerto Ricans have no equal hand in making the U.S. laws that govern them. They are subject to U.S. courts over which they have no control.

Puerto Ricans were made citizens of the United States in 1917 so that thousands of men from the island could be drafted into the U.S. army to fight and die for the few dozen ruling families of the United States. Ever since, Puerto Ricans have served as cannon fodder for their colonial masters-in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.

The Pentagon occupies 13 percent of Puerto Ricós most arable land with army and naval bases where it trains military personnel, tests new weapons, and conducts large-scale surveillance operations. These operations pose a constant reminder to Puerto Ricans and all working people in the region of what Washington's response will be to independence and liberation struggles.

Washington uses its secret police and court system to perpetuate this oppression and to disrupt actions for the liberation of the country. Fifteen Puerto Rican patriots remain in U.S. jails, a situation that has led many to ask, "Why are the 15 still in prison?" A majority of these fighters have been behind bars for 16 years on charges of seditious conspiracy, which is more than the average time served for murder. Washington has not freed these activists for political reasons: the striving for independence has not been broken and a warning needs to be sent to others who consider setting out on the road of the freedom struggle.

The fight in Puerto Rico against colonial oppression today is intertwined with the struggle against the economic and social conditions the big majority of people face as a result of the massive social transformation of the island over the last 50 years.

The economy has changed from predominantly agricultural to heavily industrial. A majority of the producers today are wage workers in manufacturing and other industries. This working population faces the same problems as workers in other countries, including the United States-deteriorating wages, high unemployment, speedup and safety hazards on the job, industrial pollution, assaults on the unions, and cop and goon violence against strikes.

The inequalities resulting from colonial subjugation combined with imperialist exploitation have made these conditions substantially worse in Puerto Rico. Unemployment is more than three times as high as in the United States; median family income is less than one-third that in the United States; 50 percent of families have an income of less than $10,000 a year, compared with 9.6 percent of families in the United States; 35 percent of the population over 25 years of age has less than a ninth grade education, compared with 10 percent in the United States. The country is a reserve army of labor for the industrial giants.

The struggle for the defense of the Puerto Rican nationality and its integrity as a Latin American nation deserves the active support not only of other peoples of Latin America, but of all those in the Americas, especially workers and farmers in the United States. To support self-determination and independence for Puerto Rico is to strengthen the hand of all those fighting for a world in which all nations are able to make their own social and economic decisions free of imperialist coercion.

This is more true today, as Washington, faced with a world capitalist disorder, more and more uses its military might and economic weight to attempt to dictate to nations less powerful than itself. This is true in the case of Cuba, where Washington has stepped up its economic war against the Cuban people and their revolution; in Yugoslavia, where tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops reinforce the division of that country while seeking to reestablish the political and economic rule of imperialism over the Balkans; in Iraq, where a criminal blockade has devastated the lives of millions of workers and peasants; in the case of the Palestinians and Lebanese, where Washington's backing of the Israeli state is a crucial component of the denial of self-determination for those peoples; and in the case of China, where a massive military show of force was organized to deny the unification of China and Taiwan.

Defense of Puerto Rican nation

The struggle, then, by the working class for social advances against the designs of the employers and the government goes hand in hand with the fight against colonial oppression. This fight is accelerating today as the onerous conditions resulting from the world capitalist economic crisis become more pronounced and as the employers drive to squeeze more out of Puerto Rican workers.

The colonial oppression of Puerto Rico reinforces this same assault on working people and oppressed nationalities inside the U.S. It helps to keep the working class divided and to keep its most oppressed and combative layers outside the organized labor movement. Colonial status is used to bolster chauvinism and prejudice, weapons the employers use to prevent workers in the United States from seeing workers in Puerto Rico-as well as elsewhere in the world-as fellow fighters in the same struggle.

If the labor movement accepts the subjugation of another people and does not unconditionally oppose it, political consciousness, a sense of justice, and elementary human solidarity will be sapped. Progress in our struggles is consequently weakened and the fighting strength of the labor movement undermined.

Example of Cuba

Cuba and Puerto Rico have shared a common history of colonial subjugation. The Cuban people were able to free their country in 1959, and since then the Cuban government has consistently spoken out against the denial of self-determination to the Puerto Rican people. p> The Cuban people and their revolution more and more stand as an example of the road to independence. Washington, the most powerful and heavily armed empire ever on the face of the earth, cannot destroy the Cuban revolution despite 37 years of trying everything at its disposal. Today Cuba shows the way forward in the battle for sovereignty, independence, and dignity, and in the struggle for a social system based on human solidarity and cooperative labor - socialism. The Cuban revolution has shown the power of working people and their capacity to break out of the backwardness imposed by imperialism to chart a road forward for humanity. p> The White House and U.S. Congress have consistently opposed the efforts of international organizations like this one to place their moral weight behind the fight for Puerto Rican independence. This hearing today is one small part of the fight to get out the truth about one of the few remaining peoples who live under direct colonial rule. While hundreds of millions of people have broken from their imperialist masters and established scores of independent countries, the 500 years of domination of Puerto Rico is still enforced. This is contrary to the interests of the people of Puerto Rico, the people of the United States, and indeed to all the world's peoples.  
 
 
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