PUERTO RICO
Protesters give U.S. battleship the 'welcome' it
deserves
By
Carlos Rovira
On July 17 in San Juan Harbor, Puerto Rico's colonial police
clashed with demonstrators condemning a visit by the U.S.
battleship Yorktown. This guided-missile cruiser's arrival was
an unwelcome sight to many in the popular struggle to oust the
U.S. Navy from the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
Resident Commissioner Carlos Romero Barcelo, who represents
Puerto Rico's pro-statehood puppet government with a voteless
presence in the U.S. Congress, had invited the Yorktown to San
Juan for four days of festivities.
In a public-relations ploy aimed at changing their hated
image, naval officials allowed civilian visitors on the decks
of the ship. But the political climate in this U.S. colony is
gradually reaching a point where the people perceive these
false gestures as insults added to injury.
Displaying these warships reminds the people of the 1898
U.S. military invasion and the suffering they have endured ever
since.
The Hostos National Congress, a coalition of
pro-independence organizations including the Socialist Front,
called a protest to condemn the Yorktown's visit.
Demonstrators attempted to bring the protest to the platform
of the pier and on board the ship. They based this militancy on
their conviction that it is their sovereign right as a people
to enter the military bases, installations and ships of a
foreign occupying power.
As the protesters approached the Yorktown, one took a U.S.
flag down from a flagpole. As he tried to replace it with a
Puerto Rican flag, colonial police in riot gear viciously
attacked. In response, the protesters defended themselves by
fighting back.
Naval officers--aware and afraid of growing anti-U.S.
military sentiment--ordered sailors on security duty to use
fire hoses to stop the angry protesters from coming on
board.
But some protesters broke through police lines and climbed
on the Yorktown's stern.
To the surprise of Navy officers, a protester skillfully
used spray-paint cans to write "Vieques o muerte" (Vieques or
death!) on the side of the ship.
Yorktown fete a provocation
Posing the entry of a U.S. warship into Puerto Rican waters
as a "festive event" was outrageously provocative.
In the century since the U.S. invasion, the native people
still have not been consulted about the U.S. military presence.
Today the Pentagon controls 13 percent of all Puerto Rican
soil.
U.S. warships like the Yorktown have terrorized the people
of Vieques with their constant bombardment practice over the
two-thirds of the island the Pentagon controls. Washington even
leases the territory to other NATO forces to conduct war
rehearsals and target practice.
Washington first rehearsed its 1991 destruction of Iraq and
its 1999 criminal bombardment of Yugoslavia in Vieques. Many in
Vieques resent this military role, especially since U.S.
imperialist warmongering directly harms the inhabitants.
The "accidental" April 19 bombing from an F-18 jet fighter
that killed a civilian and wounded four others was not the
first such horrifying experience in Vieques.
Sixty years of U.S. Navy presence have threatened the
population's lives and well-being.
Activists working to oust the Pentagon's presence from the
island point to the horrible cancer epidemic and the
environmental destruction in Vieques. Many fishers have been
severely hurt by exploding bombs. Fishing boats have been
damaged by naval gunfire.
Some 72 percent of Vieques' 9,000 inhabitants live below the
poverty level. Meanwhile, U.S. military operations restrict
Vieques' vital fishing industry.
Even a pro-statehood politician like Gov. Pedro
Rossello--who until recently expressed support for the U.S.
Navy in Vieques--now aims to co-opt and pacify the struggle by
deceitfully calling for foreign military withdrawal.
U.S. military presence to grow
The U.S. Army South will establish its base of operations in
Puerto Rico next year. Elite units like Special Forces, Navy
Seals and Air Force Commandos will have greater prominence
there.
An estimated 180,000 active and reserve U.S. military
personnel are expected in Puerto Rico. This means greater
colonial oppression.
But U.S. imperialism's arrogance leads it to underestimate
the fighting will of the peoples it subjugates. A greater
foreign military presence in Puerto Rico will unavoidably
arouse an intensified anti-colonial struggle.
The more strategic the role Puerto Rico plays for U.S.
imperialism, the more important the Puerto Rican
national-liberation struggle will be for the world
revolutionary movement. A growing Puerto Rican struggle would
also have an impact on the class struggle in the United States,
given the close relations between the two countries that is
imposed by colonialism.
Sit-down protests in the military restricted zone of
Vieques, a growing popular movement uniting Puerto Ricans
behind a call to oust the U.S. Navy, and the recent Yorktown
clash are clear signs that Boricuas will rise up with fury.
They will reach out for freedom by putting an end to the
despised military occupation of their homeland.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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