SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Alyson Kennedy, above right, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president in 2016 and a Walmart worker in Dallas, joined a 200-strong demonstration “For our lands” here Aug. 16, at the start of a five-day solidarity and fact-finding party delegation to Puerto Rico, a colony of the U.S. capitalist rulers. She was joined by Seth Galinsky, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New York City public advocate, left, and Linda Joyce, a party supporter from Georgia.
Demonstrators were protesting against proposed zoning changes by the colonial government’s Planning Board that they fear will lead to the destruction of protected agricultural and park land as well as accelerate selling government-owned land to profit-hungry U.S. capitalists. The action was called by a coalition of groups following the massive protests that forced the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.
“Working people in the United States and in Puerto Rico have common interests,” Galinsky told the crowd. “We need to fight together.” He said the SWP campaigns for cancelling Puerto Rico’s $74 billion debt.
Kennedy, Galinsky and Joyce spoke with fishermen, farmers and pharmaceutical, hotel, farm, steel and construction workers here and in Humacao, Yabucoa, Punta Santiago, and Naguabo. Full coverage will appear in next week’s Militant.