BY HILDA CUZCO AND LUIS MADRID
GUANICA, Puerto Rico - In a field of Puerto Rican flags, tens of thousands of independence supporters marched and rallied in this southern town July 25 commemorating the centennial of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico.

Coming from all corners of this Caribbean island, the crowd marched down the July 25 Avenue led by 100 youth each carrying a Puerto Rican flag, which symbolized 100 years since the U.S. takeover.

Held at the very site of the bay where U.S. troops landed on that date in 1898, the event was the first time in years that the annual commemoration was a joint action by all pro- independence forces on the island. The main organizations involved were the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) and the Hostos National Congress. Many pro-independence demonstrators were not affiliated to any organization. Guánica and the highway leading to it became one giant traffic jam as marchers poured in for what PIP leaders said was the largest demonstration of this kind in Puerto Rico.

Chants of "Viva Puerto Rico Libre!" (Long live free Puerto Rico) were heard throughout the rally. Marchers brought banners and T-shirts with slogans such as "Puerto Rico for the Puerto Ricans" and "No more colony." Many carried signs calling for the release of the 15 independentista political prisoners in U.S. jails. Others protested against the policies of Gov. Pedro Rosselló and his pro-statehood party, the New Progressive Party (PNP).

Among the featured speakers were Rafael Cancel Miranda and Lolita Lebrón, who along with two other independence fighters spent a quarter century in U.S. jails after carrying out an armed protest in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954. They received some of the loudest applause and cheers from the audience.

Cancel Miranda highlighted the campaign to free the 15 political prisoners. "If one of us is in prison, we are all in prison," he said to a thunderous ovation. Cancel Miranda read a letter he had sent to Ida Luz Rodríguez, one of the 15 who is serving a 75-year sentence in Dublin, California, that is due to end in 2014.

"They ask me if it was worth spending 28 years in prison. But looking at you here standing up, I'm willing to do it for another 100 years," the independentista leader said. The crowd burst into cheers, clapping and waving flags.

Lebrón recalled how in 1954 she, together with Cancel Miranda, Andrés Figueroa Cordero, and Irving Flores had "planted the seed of patriotism with blood. If it had to be done with blood, we did it" in the effort to win independence. Looking out on the thousands who had come here from different places from around Puerto Rico, she exclaimed, "We are elated with the sea of Puerto Ricans here who have sworn to liberate Puerto Rico."

Luis Nieves Falcón, a prominent leader of the effort to release the Puerto Rican political prisoners, also spoke about this international campaign.

Rubén Berríos, president of the PIP, gave the keynote speech with a call for unity in the fight for independence. He appealed to the audience to focus on opposing the ruling party's efforts to bring about statehood.

The PIP had just held in San Juan an international Congress of Solidarity with Independence for Puerto Rico, attended by representatives of Latin American parties affiliated to the Socialist International, to which the PIP belongs. Some were present and spoke at the Guánica rally, including from Ecuador, Argentina, and Bolivia. Another speaker was Tomás Borge, a leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua. The PIP dedicated the rally to José Francisco Peña Gómez, the recently deceased social democratic leader in the Dominican Republic.

One group of youth carrying Puerto Rican flags had come from the towns of Aibonito and Barranquitas, in the central mountains, and Camuy, on the northern coast. They said they were thrilled to be at the pro-independence event. Laura Morcilio from Aibonito pointed out, "One hundred years - this is a historic date that has united all the nationalist groups. This never happened before."

Supporters of the striking telephone workers were among the marchers. Serafín Amaro, a recently graduated teacher currently working as a waiter in Mayaguez, said he supported the strikers in the fight against the sale of the state-owned Puerto Rico Telephone Co. "We have to save what's ours," he said. Amaro said he was also opposed to the plans by the U.S. military to install radars in Puerto Rico, an issue that sparked several protests on the island.

Judith Conde, a 30-year-old resident of Vieques, an island to the east of the main island, said she was opposed to the continuing encroachment by the U.S. Navy. Vieques, with a population of 8,000, is primarily a fishing community. "It's a beautiful place, but what I don't like is the U.S. military occupation." She said the continous target practice by the Navy on the island is "intolerable."

A Vietnam veteran, Arcadio Cuadrado from Fajardo, described some of the experiences that had made him a supporter of the independence struggle. He said even though he fought in Vietnam he did not agree with that U.S. war of aggression against the Vietnamese people. "I defended a cause that I had nothing to do with."

Many demonstrators commented on the importance of telling the true history of colonial oppression and the struggle against it.

Elizabeth Martínez, 38, from Ensenada, explained, "My father used to work at a sugar mill that was the biggest in the world in the 1930s. The workers who were Puerto Rican were subjected to discrimination [by the U.S. owners] and were paid paltry wages." She added, "There is a library that is close to being destroyed that keeps records of that history."

An exhibit of rate books, drawings, and photographs documenting the Spanish-Cuban-American War and the U.S. conquest of Puerto Rico was held at the Ateneo Puertorriqueño in Guánica.

Enrique Morales Coll, president of the Ateneo, noted that pro-U.S. history books claim the Puerto Rican population welcomed the invading U.S. army. "You have to understand that the populace did not have weapons because they were taken by the Spaniards to prevent a rebellion similar to the one in Cuba," Morales Coll said in an interview with the San Juan Star.

Colonial parties hold rallies
Across town, under the banner "100 Years of Union and Progress," the PNP held a rally of tens of thousands of its supporters to celebrate the U.S. invasion, which pro- statehood forces call the "disembarkment" or even "liberation" by U.S. troops.

Gov. Rosselló used his speech to announce that his administration would organize a plebiscite for December with or without U.S. Congress backing. "If after 100 years, the U.S. Senate does not possess the will to put an end to a century of colonialism, Puerto Rico does," Rosselló told a crowd waving Puerto Rican and U.S. flags.

One typical PNP supporter, a 65-year-old retired teacher, told the daily El Nuevo Día, "We believe in the union with the United States because we are unable to do anything on our own." The PNP leadership views this as a way to get around the stalling by U.S. Congress on a plebiscite proposed by Rep. Donald Young of Alaska, a measure known as the Young bill.

Meanwhile, in San Juan, supporters of the Commonwealth status for Puerto Rico drew a crowd of tens of thousands as well. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, president of the Popular Democratic Party, which advocates an improved version of the current "Commonwealth" status, announced in his speech that his party would probably participate in the plebiscite called by Rosselló.

The PPD rally celebrated the 46th anniversary of the island's Commonwealth status, under which the Puerto Rican government has limited powers and Puerto Ricans hold U.S. citizenship, while Washington holds the real power.  
 
 
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