Behind a federal grand jury's "investigation" of a 1992 bombing is the hatred of the U.S. imperial rulers against all those willing to fight uncompromisingly to end colonial rule of Puerto Rico. Just like Irish freedom fighters and Palestinians struggling for a homeland, Puerto Rican independentistas are being branded as terrorists by the employing classes.
At the heart of this sharpening conflict between those who profit from national oppression and those fighting to end it once and for all, is the resurgence of the Puerto Rican movement for self-determination. It is not an accident that Vilar is the national coordinator of the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Prisoners of War and Political Prisoners and one of the main organizers of the July 25 march in Washington, D.C. The action will demand the release of 15 Puerto Rican political prisoners and national self-determination. Chapters of the committee Vilar leads have helped organize meetings across the country this year on the theme of "100 years of struggle against U.S. imperialism." These gatherings have brought together from Minneapolis to Miami Puerto Rican independence fighters, like Juan Mari Bras and Rafael Cancel Miranda, with Cuban revolutionaries, activists opposing U.S. imperialist domination of the Philippines or Haiti, and other fighters.
New generations of Puerto Ricans - both in the United States and on the island - are rediscovering their history, linking up with the living heroes of the independence movement, and reopening this important front in the fight against U.S. imperialism in a new way.
The revitalization of the Puerto Rican nationalist movement coincides with stepped-up struggles by workers in the United States and around the world. These workers - from the New York taxi drivers to strikers in south Korea - are refusing to accept the reality of rapidly deteriorating working and living conditions, resegregation, the exploitation of women, social polarization and rise of incipient fascist movements, and the march toward war that capitalism offers humanity today and tomorrow.
For the same reasons Washington is ratcheting up its attempts to subvert the Puerto Rican independence struggle, class-conscious workers need to redouble their efforts to build the July 25 actions for self-determination and organize public protests now demanding that the U.S. government keep its hands off Vilar and Rivera and end the grand jury attacks on Puerto Rican activists.