NY Puerto Rican Parade welcomes Oscar López

NEW YORK — A "Welcome Oscar López-Decolonize Puerto Rico" contingent of several hundred people marched prominently in the National Puerto Rican Day Parade here June 11. Many, including independence fighter López, recently released after nearly 36 years in U.S. prison, wore shirts with the Puerto Rican flag depicted in black and white. This has become a symbol in Puerto Rico of widespread protests against savage cutbacks decreed by a U.S. fiscal control board empowered by Washington to make the island's people pay on the $74 billion debt to bondholders and hedge funds. Among the marchers were pro-independence groups, members of the UGT health care workers union in Puerto Rico, and Osborne Hart, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New York mayor.

A campaign against the fight to end U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico and López's participation in the parade — led by the New York Post, the Daily News and a number of area politicians — resulted in the parade being smaller than in past years. Major corporate sponsors, including Goya, Coca-Cola, AT&T and JetBlue, along with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, withdrew support. Many along the parade route cheered as López passed by, while a smaller number booed.

Nearly 900 people heard López speak June 8 at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, part of his four-day tour in New York. Others attended a dance in his honor in El Barrio and a cultural program at El Maestro Cultural Center in the Bronx.

— SARA LOBMAN