BY JOHN HARDING
BOSTON - A meeting here December 10 kicked off a year of activity in solidarity with the struggle of the Puerto Rican people. Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony in the Caribbean, one of the last official colonial possessions of any of the great imperialist powers. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the struggle against Washington's domination of the country following a U.S. military invasion on July 25, 1898.

The event was sponsored by the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Prisoners of War and Political Prisoners. The program saluted individuals in the Boston area for their efforts in support of political prisoners in the United States, including Puerto Rican nationalists imprisoned for activities in support of the Puerto Rican liberation struggle.

Jaime Rodríguez explained that plans have begun both nationally and in Boston for a march on Washington on July 25 "to denounce the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico." Rodríguez encouraged the 50 participants in the meeting to join these mobilizations.

Rafael Cancel Miranda, a Puerto Rican Nationalist hero and independence fighter imprisoned for 25 years for his role in a 1954 armed attack on the U.S. Congress, spoke at the meeting. He told participants about the role of U.S. imperialism and the struggle of the Puerto Rican people for their liberation. The Boston event was part of a speaking tour by Cancel Miranda from Puerto Rico that also included Lawrence, Massachusetts, a textile town that includes a large Puerto Rican working-class population, and New York City, where hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans live.

The Puerto Rican leader described how when he was six years old in 1937 U.S. troops opened fire on a demonstration, killing 21 people and wounding some 200. His parents participated in the action and returned home covered with blood. The next day he was expelled from school for refusing to pledge allegiance to the U.S. flag. The U.S. government attempted to draft him into the military when he was an 18-year-old high school student, and he was imprisoned in Tallahassee, Florida, for two years for refusing to submit to the draft.

The U.S. government "wanted me to go and kill Koreans during the Korean War," Cancel Miranda said. "I had never even seen a Korean before. Why would I go and kill them for the same government that gunned down my people?" He asked the audience, "Why would you want to go to Iraq and Bosnia to kill, simply to make them richer and more powerful?" referring to the wealthy rulers of the United States. "What is a Puerto Rican doing there when they are expected to kill for those who are exploiting and oppressing our people at the same time?"

Following the meeting Cancel Miranda encouraged working people and youth in the United States to join activities on the 100th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico. "It is the U.S. government that committed the invasion of our country. The persecution, oppression, and exploitation of Puerto Rico is done in the name of the people of the United States. They should find out about this and how it is affecting them too," he said. "The invasion of Panama, of Puerto Rico, of Haiti, and elsewhere is done in their name. We are not an isolated island," he added, "whatever affects us affects working people in the United States as well.

"The capitalist class is the only one that benefits from this oppression," he said. "The working class often has to pay with their lives and blood in wars around the world. The ones who go to war are the children of the poor and workers, not the rich who are the ones who benefit from the wars."  
 
 
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