Puerto Rico: ‘It’s not the junta, it’s the colony’

“The problem is not the junta, it’s the colony,” and “the debt is with the people” (above) read banners at protests outside the U.S. District Court in San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 29, after the U.S. Senate approved the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, placing control of the island’s finances in the hands of a seven-member board that will be appointed by President Barack Obama. Since then supporters of independence for Puerto Rico have held daily pickets as well as a tent encampment at the courthouse.

To “restructure” the colonial government’s $72 billion debt and ensure that wealthy bondholders get paid, the board will have the power to enforce a ban on strikes by public workers, reduce the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to $4.25 for workers 25 years and younger, and impose criminal penalties on anyone who fails to carry out its decisions.

“The people have never been part of the decisions that brought the economic crisis,” Gabriela Báez, 18, who has been part of the encampment, told the Militant by phone from San Juan July 5. “It’s time to speak out and tell the whole world: this is a colony and we have to oppose it.”

— ARLENE RUBINSTEIN