New York protest denounces U.S.-backed neo-colonial project

New York City 

An estimated 300 attendees gathered at Union Square on a rainy day in New York City on Aug. 5 to denounce 128 years of U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico (Boriquén) during a worsening water and power crisis for the people of the island. The motivation for this militant protest was a multistate defense of Puerto Rico against its newest neo-colonial project, Esencia – and for the ultimate liberation of Puerto Rico from the grip of imperialism and U.S. hegemony. 

A broad and revolutionary coalition of activist and community organizations across the Puerto Rican diaspora coordinated this action.

The Puerto Rican colonial Governor Jenniffer González-Colón sets unrealistic and inhumane rationing policies without any structural improvements in sight. She continues to facilitate the corrupt sale of Cabo Rojo (a city located on the southwest coast of Puerto Rico) to the billionaire-backed Esencia luxury development project, which many experts have decried on environmental, ecological and socio-economic grounds. 

Puerto Rico is a major U.S. military hub in the Caribbean and is critical to its strategic and logistical campaigns surrounding Operation Southern Spear, which has resulted in the deaths of over 200 civilians following a barrage of lethal, extrajudicial strikes on small fishing vessels in the Caribbean Sea. 

The U.S. also continues to draw closer to active war on Cuba and holds Venezuela’s President, Nicolás Maduro, and First Combatant, Cilia Flores, captive in a federal prison in Brooklyn.