Vol. 79/No. 20      June 1, 2015

The government of Puerto Rico — a U.S. colony since 1898 — has a $1.5 billion budget deficit and is $73 billion in debt, mostly to U.S. bondholders. Under Puerto Rico’s constitution, bondholders must get paid first.

Gov. Alejandro García Padilla says students and workers must choose between a steep “value-added” sales tax of 13.25 percent or face cuts of $500 million in social programs, including $166 million at the university.

“Many students are working two or three jobs to pay their tuition,” university student Tania Hernández said by phone from San Juan May 15.

“We never took out the loans. It was the government,” Hernández said. “The $70 billion debt is unpayable. Why should an entire island be put in danger so that the bondholders get paid? We are always left out of the decision-making. They say Puerto Rico is autonomous, but we’re a colony.”

Because of the possibility of default, bond yield is “unbelievably high,” Jeffrey Gundlach, founder of DoubleLine Capital, told Bloomberg News. The fund doubled its holdings in Puerto Rico debt to $45 million from March to April.

Puerto Rico’s colonial subjugation has worsened the impact of the worldwide capitalist economic crisis on the island. Official unemployment is above 13 percent, more than double the U.S. rate. Over the past five years the government has laid off some 30,000 workers, slashed pensions, raised the retirement age, sold control of the airport and toll roads to foreign corporations, and closed more than 150 schools and says it may close hundreds more.

Workers and professionals are leaving the island in droves. From 2010 to 2014 the population dropped 5 percent to 3.5 million. More Puerto Ricans live in the U.S. than in Puerto Rico.

“The multinational corporations, the banks, they’re the ones who are responsible for this crisis,” Karla Sanabria, a spokesperson of the General Council of Students at the Río Piedras campus, told the Militant. “This government works for the rich, while the poor are practically forced out of the country.”

Many students have also been part of the fight to free Puerto Rican independence fighter Oscar López, jailed in the U.S. for nearly 34 years. Before his arrest López was active in Chicago fighting for bilingual education, ending discrimination in jobs and hiring and against police brutality.

“Many of us see Oscar as a fighter for Puerto Rico,” Sanabria said. “What he was doing in Chicago is what we are doing today in Puerto Rico.”
 
 
Related articles:
Oscar López: ‘Emulate revolutionary Cuba!’
May 30: March to free independence fighter Oscar López
 
 
 
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