Puerto Rico: Students protest gov’t cuts, tuition rise

Thousands of students and campus workers marched in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Feb. 23 to protest government plans to cut the University of Puerto Rico budget by nearly one-third and impose steep hikes in tuition. Ricardo Rosselló, governor of the U.S. colony, instructed the university administration to come up with a plan for the cuts, in response to instructions from Washington’s Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico.

The board, appointed by then-President Barack Obama, has the power to dictate cuts in Puerto Rico’s budget and to override any decision of the Puerto Rican government in order to ensure payment of some $70 billion of debt to bondholders and hedge funds.

The board also ordered a 10 percent cut in public pensions.

“Thousands of people have already left our country for the United States, mostly youth, because of the bitter measures the government has imposed that have done nothing to solve the economic crisis,” Karla Sanabria, a student at the university’s Río Piedras campus, told the Militant by phone Feb. 24. “They’re making cuts in medical care, in payments to pensions funds, workers’ Christmas bonuses. Capital, colonialism is looting the country.”

Fiscal Board Executive Director Ramón Ruiz threatened that if the colonial government of the island doesn’t make deep enough cuts, the board will impose its own plan. Business Insider website reported Ruiz told them the board is not responsible for the consequences.

— SETH GALINSKY