PUERTO RICO
Youth disrupt ceremony for right-wing Cuban
By
Tom Soto
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Published Apr 8, 2006 1:04 AM
At times what may
seem like an obscure political event can give rise to a course of struggle. This
is especially true when there is a deep economic and political crisis brewing,
such as the current situation in Puerto Rico.
Protesters at capital during ceremony ‘honoring’ Julio Labatut Escarra.
Photos: Alvin Couto
|
On March 29, as members of
the House of Representatives, which is dominated by the right wing pro-statehood
New Pro gres sive Party, attempted to hold a “recognition ceremony”
to thank Julio Labatut Escarra—a right-wing Cuban-born
businessman—for his “philanthropic contributions in Puerto
Rico,” a militant demonstration of “independentistas” marched
outside the capitol building chanting “Labatut, Labatut, asesino eres
tu” (Labatut, Labatut, you are an assassin).
Julio Labatut Escarra
has been publicly tied to the right-wing death squads that operated in Puerto
Rico in the 1970s and 1980s and implicated in the assassination of Carlos
Muñiz Varela in 1979.
Reporter Humberto TrÃas thrown to ground by police.
|
Varela, also born in Cuba, was a worker who
married and lived in Puerto Rico. In 1979, he was 26 and had two children,
Yamaira and Carlos. He operated the Varadero Travel Agency, promoting travel and
dialogue with revolutionary Cuba—a policy that the U.S. government
opposed.
Varela was also active in the Comité Nacional de la
Brigada Antonio Maceo (the National Committee of the Antonio Maceo Brigade),
which organized solidarity trips to Cuba.
According to Milagros Rivera of
the Cuba Solidarity Committee, “With the view of ending travel to Cuba,
Carlos Muñiz Varela was assassinated by the FBI through its agents in
Puerto Rico. Omega 7, a terrorist organization created and funded by the CIA,
took responsibility for the assassination.”
Labatut is protected by
the FBI, which for 26 years has not turned over evidence to the Puerto Rican
Department of Justice regarding the murder.
Repression and economic
crisis awakens militancy
The attempt to honor Julio Labatut Escarra on
the heels of the FBI assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos on Sept. 23
and FBI raids against pro-independence activists in February; in an economic
atmosphere where the prices of all commodities and food stuffs have risen
drastically in the last year; where a 7 percent sales tax is being considered by
the legislature; and in the midst of a fiscal and debt crisis where the Puerto
Rican government refuses to negotiate wages with public employees such as the
Electrical Industry Workers Union and the Federation of Teachers placed the
independence movement in a position to set an example.
The demonstration
on Wednesday, which was called on relatively short notice by family members and
the Movimiento Independentista Nacional Hostosiano (Hostos National Independence
Move ment), the Comité de Solidaridad Con Cuba (Cuba Solidarity
Committee), the Socialist Front and others grew to almost 1,000
people.
Demonstrators marched up to the doors of the capitol building
chanting: “Assassin, assassin,” while police and capitol security
outside and inside the building blocked the entrances.
At one point the
environmental activist Alberto De Jesús Mercado, popularly known as Tito
Kayak, attempted to climb the flagpole in front of the building, which was
flying the U.S. flag. When the police rushed off to stop him, the entrance doors
to the building were left minimally protected, allowing militant youth to
penetrate t he sanctity of the colonial legislature.
In the ensuing
struggle inside the building, windows were broken, furniture was trashed,
paintings were torn off the walls, and the glass encasement holding Puerto
Rico’s (colonial) constitution was cracked. Reporters like Humberto
Trías covering the event were thrown to the ground by the police, and
security personnel used fire extinguishers to repel the demonstrators. All this
thoroughly disrupted the ceremony honoring the terrorist.
Second
disruption
is carried out
After riot police were bused in
to reinforce the building, representative Jennifer González of the
pro-statehood New Progressive Party, who was chairing the event, attempted to
continue with the ceremony, but to the surprise of security officials a loud
bang occurred, again interrupting the event.
This time Kayak had been able
to crash through a window into the offices of Norma Burgos, the senator for the
New Progressive Party. Havoc broke loose in the building as police and security
officials, inside and outside, were seen running in all directions searching for
the origins of the noise, and later for the intruder. Kayak was
arrested.
The action shocked the bourgeois establishment in Puerto
Rico.
According to capitol personnel, $30,000 in damages were sustained.
Ricardo Santos, speaking for the Socialist Workers Movement (Movimiento
Socialista de los Trabajadores), referred to the assassination of Muñiz
Varela, saying, “What is worth more: $30,000 in damages, or the life of a
person?”
Representative González, the main organizer of the
ceremony, later told the press that she had been asked by Carlos Varela
Pérez, son of Carlos Muñiz Varela, not to honor Julio Labatut in
light of his suspected role in the murder of his father.
Addressing the
rally outside the capitol, Carlos Varela Pérez, now 31, reminded the
crowd how in a television interview Labatut was once asked whether he played a
role in the murder of Varela. His reply: “I did not have the honor of
participating in that killing.”
Jorge Farinacci, spokesperson for
the Socialist Front, commented in a written statement, “We repudiate this
act of provocation by the legislature, of organizing a ceremony to honor an
assassin and terrorist, whose hands are stained with the blood of
independentistas and socialists.
“For more than three decades, the
history of Julio Labatut is full of conspiracies to murder and to destroy the
independence and socialist movement, and everything that appears to be like
revolutionary Cuba.”
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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