Distinguished Chairman and Honored Committee Members:
Less than three months ago U.S. warplanes, which use the
Puerto Rican island of Vieques for target practice, killed one
of its residents, David Sanes, during bombing exercises. The
July 4 mobilization of 50,000 people in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, in
response this killing, demanding the U.S. Navy get out of
Vieques, puts the spotlight on the fundamental reality facing
the Puerto Rican people: the fact that Puerto Rico is a U.S.
colony, and the devastating consequences of U.S. domination for
the people of this Latin American nation.
Independence is in the interests not only of the Puerto Rican people, but of the overwhelming majority of the people of the United States. For workers and farmers here, the right of the Puerto Rican people to self-determination and independence is not simply a matter of elementary human solidarity. As long as Puerto Rico is under Washington's colonial boot, as it has been for the past century, the fighting capacity and solidarity of the working-class movement in the United States will be weakened.
We face the same exploiters
Working people in the United States and the Puerto Rican
people face the same exploiters, whose headquarters is in
Washington. A successful struggle for the independence of
Puerto Rico will deal a powerful blow to our common enemy. It
will show that it is possible to stand up to the most brutal
capitalist class in the world and break its domination.
The economic crisis of world capitalism is leading increasing numbers of workers and farmers in the United States to resist the employers' offensive on our wages and on social and political rights. We are seeing a new willingness to struggle from one end of the country to the other: in the strike by shipyard workers in Virginia, the recent unionization victory by textile workers in North Carolina, struggles by small farmers to prevent foreclosures of their land by banks and wealthy landowners, and protests against police brutalization of working people, from New York to California.
The same economic crisis is fueling working-class struggles in Puerto Rico, from the strike by refinery workers in Yabucoa to the participation of unionists in protests against the U.S. Navy in Vieques. The general strike last year by half a million workers has given working people there a greater confidence in their power and a sense of their leading role in the fight for national sovereignty.
With 2.7 million living in the United States, Puerto Ricans are an important component of the working class in this country. They are subjected to systematic racist discrimination, as are Blacks, Chicanos, and other oppressed nationalities and national minorities. U.S. colonial domination of Puerto Rico reinforces racism and every reactionary force in U.S. society - from government attacks on affirmative action to "America First" chauvinism against immigrants.
Colonial rule of Puerto Rico gives the U.S. government a freer hand to attack the democratic rights of those in the United States who struggle in defense of our livelihoods. Forms of repression employed against unionists and independence advocates in Puerto Rico - including the use of grand jury "investigations" to frame up working-class fighters - have often been used against working people here. Such methods will be used more often in the months and years to come, as working people resist the bosses' efforts to make us pay the consequences of sharpening international capitalist rivalry.
Puerto Rican political prisoners
Mr. Chairman,
Tomorrow, Wednesday, July 7, José Solís Jordán, an advocate of Puerto Rico's independence, is being sentenced by a U.S. court in Chicago on fabricated "terrorism" charges, based in large part on the false testimony of an FBI informer and three FBI agents. I will have the honor of joining with others that day in a demonstration in downtown New York - one of many at federal buildings across the United States - to demand the release of José Solís.
Sixteen other Puerto Rican patriots are behind bars in U.S. prisons because of their ideas and their actions on behalf of independence. Among the longest-held political prisoners in the world today, some of them are serving sentences of 98 and 105 years. We call on U.S. president William Clinton to free all 17 Puerto Rican political prisoners immediately, with no conditions.
Spokespeople for U.S. big business cover up their colonial rule of Puerto Rico, labeling it a "commonwealth," to camouflage the true nature of imperialism. Puerto Rico, covered with U.S. military bases, has historically been used as a launching pad for assaults on other countries, from Cuba to Panama - as the fishermen of Vieques have often testified. Puerto Rican youth have been cannon fodder in all imperialist wars of this century, from World War I to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now the Balkans. Many pilots of U.S. planes that rained terror on the people of Yugoslavia practiced their bombing in Vieques. Every aspect of this foreign policy harms the interests of working people in the United States.
In recent months, workers and farmers in the United States are beginning to experience what the people of Puerto Rico have known and lived with for a century, as U.S. army and navy forces conduct military exercises in their own communities. Under the banner "Operation Urban Warrior," the U.S. armed forces have organized mock invasions -from Oakland, California, to Chester, Pennsylvania. In May the U.S. Army conducted so- called counterterrorism operations in working-class neighborhoods of Camden, New Jersey - two hours from where I live - with soldiers storming vacant public housing buildings, detonating bombs, spraying live gunfire, and flying helicopters.
In a related development, Washington is moving toward establishing for the first time a continental military command for North America, also in the name of combating "terrorists." In fact, these steps are part of a pattern of measures aimed at curbing the rights of workers and farmers - longer jail sentences, higher numbers of executions, and police violence against striking workers.
Example of Cuban revolution
Mr. Chairman,
The socialist road taken by the workers and peasants of Cuba is the only one that has proven capable of leading to genuine independence and dignity. The difference between this road and the prospects under U.S. colonial rule was brought into sharp relief by the social catastrophe sparked by the hurricanes that swept the Caribbean and Central America last year. The U.S. government is responsible for the fact that today - nine months after Hurricane Georges battered Puerto Rico - hundreds of working people there are still living in shelters. In contrast, Cuba has mobilized its modest resources not only to protect the lives and livelihood of the Cuban people, but to offer selfless aid to the affected countries in Central America and the Caribbean, including hundreds of volunteer doctors and health- care workers.
The fate of Puerto Rico and that of Cuba are inseparably linked, as they always have been. Today the example of revolutionary Cuba continues to point the road forward for Puerto Rico and for working people worldwide. Forty years ago the Cuban people made a revolution, threw off U.S. domination, and won political and economic independence. Since then they have defended their sovereignty in face of relentless U.S. aggression. Following its tradition of internationalist solidarity, Cuba has steadfastly championed Puerto Rico's right to self-determination.
In summation, Mr. Chairman, the condemnation by this committee of Washington's colonial rule of Puerto Rico will serve the interests of the vast majority of the people of the United States and those fighting everywhere for national self- determination and the future of humanity.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of this committee, for the opportunity to present these views before you here today.