Vol. 77/No. 27      July 15, 2013

Distinguished Chairman and honored committee members:
The Socialist Workers Party joins with the thousands who in recent weeks have been speaking out to demand that the U.S. government release Puerto Rican independence fighter Oscar López Rivera.

Oscar has been locked up on trumped-up charges of “seditious conspiracy” for more than 32 years, including 12 in solitary confinement — longer even than South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela was jailed by the apartheid regime.

We also celebrate the fact that René González, one of the five Cuban revolutionaries framed up by Washington, is now free after serving nearly 15 years in the U.S. prison system. René was able to use his hard-won freedom to join a protest in Havana demanding Oscar López’s release. We call on the U.S. government to free the remaining four Cubans: Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Fernando González. The Five are heroes to millions around the world because of their example of unbreakable courage, dignity and integrity.

My independentista brothers and sisters here have effectively described the devastating reality of U.S. colonial rule over Puerto Rico. They have explained why independence from Washington is a necessity for the people of that Latin American nation, if they are to freely determine their own future.

I would like to add one important fact — that a successful fight for Puerto Rico’s independence is also in the interests of the vast majority of the people of the United States.

The people of Puerto Rico and working people in the United States have common interests. We have a common enemy — the U.S. government and the capitalist ruling class it defends. And we share a common struggle — to get those exploiters off our backs. As long as U.S. imperialism controls Puerto Rico, their oppressive hand is strengthened everywhere, putting working people in the United States, too, in a weaker position to fight for our interests.

As the Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Miami, I have been going door to door throughout working-class neighborhoods, discussing the big questions that affect working people. One of the things I’ve noticed is greater receptivity among fellow workers to the fight for the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners and the Cuban Five.

Why? Because millions of working people here have had firsthand experience with the cops, courts and prisons of the capitalist justice system. Among workers, especially those who are Black or of other oppressed nationalities, there is hardly a family that doesn’t have some relative or acquaintance who has been in prison or is on probation or parole.

In the U.S., 97 percent of men and women in federal prisons today have never been tried and convicted of any crime. They were blackmailed with the threat of very heavy sentences into pleading guilty to some crime, often different from the one they were arrested for. This is the process cynically named “plea bargaining.”

At the same time, working people in the U.S. are facing the brunt of the capitalist economic crisis — from persistently high long-term unemployment to the unrelenting efforts by the bosses to drive down our wages and living conditions. The 4 million Puerto Ricans living in this country, who face systematic discrimination, are among those devastated by this crisis.

The bosses’ offensive is beginning to generate some resistance by working people. Coal miners have been mobilizing by the thousands to defend their union, pensions and health care benefits. We have seen similar examples of working-class resistance and solidarity, from school bus drivers in New York City to dockworkers in Oregon and Washington state.

It is among fighting workers in the U.S. that support will be won for the fight to free the Puerto Rican political prisoners and the struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico.

The capitalist rulers never stop trying to convince working people here that we need them in order to run society. Likewise, they try to convince the Puerto Rican people that they cannot survive without dependence on Washington. On both counts, that is a lie.

The Cuban Revolution is living proof that when workers and farmers take political power out of the hands of the capitalist minority, they can use that power to win genuine independence and reorganize society in the interests of the vast majority. For more than 54 years, the Cuban people have successfully defended their freedom in face of Washington’s relentless assaults. The example of Cuba’s socialist revolution offers a way forward to working people everywhere, including right here in the United States.

Mr. Chairman, this committee’s condemnation of U.S. colonial rule over Puerto Rico will serve the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people of the United States, and of those everywhere who fight for self-determination and against oppression.
 
 
Related articles:
Build defense campaign to free the Cuban Five!
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists calls on US gov’t to free Cuban 5
Resolution Approved by Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Convention, May 25, 2013
Support the Repeal of the U.S. Travel Restrictions to Cuba and the U.S. Economic Embargo
Who are the Cuban five?
‘Battle of ideas’ counters influence of capitalist values in Cuba
 
 
 
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