disobedience, frame-ups, and draft resistance, so
the parole conditions
deliberately affect their ability to attend
meetings of the
independence movement. The restrictions have an
outrageous personal
side: Two sisters, Alicia Rodríguez and Ida Luz
Rodríguez may now be
forbidden to see each other. Luis Rosa had to
request permission to
meet his own brother, Felix, in Chicago after his
release. Juan Segarra
may be forbidden from seeing his wife when he
gets out--since she
too was once convicted of a political "felony."
It is a bitter irony
that Puerto Rican independentistas may have had
more freedom of speech
and association inside prison than they will now
have on the outside.
After his release, Adolfo Matos said: "My jail
now turns into one
with invisible bars and my words are like those
of a caged bird."
A Just Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism
The release of these prisoners has been
accompanied by a
huge media offensive of misinformation about the
status of Puerto
Rico and the activities of revolutionary forces.
The released
prisoners were constantly referred to as
"terrorists" in
headlines. Article after article claims that
Puerto Rican people
benefit from U.S. domination. There are constant
claims that U.S.
colonial authorities have created a "democratic
process" where
Puerto Rican people can determine their own
future. And it is
said that these elections and plebiscites prove
that dreams of
independence have faded in the hearts of Puerto
Rico's people.
But these votes take place under the guns of the
U.S. military.
They take place under conditions where organized
forces for Puerto
Rican independence have been infiltrated,
disrupted, imprisoned,
murdered--and are now gagged by federal parole
rules. And they take
place after the economy of the island has been
twisted to serve U.S.
corporations. Throughout its history, the Puerto
Rican revolutionary
movement has correctly exposed colonial elections
on their island.
There is no "democratic process" in Puerto Rico.
There is a colonial
dictatorship of the U.S. imperialists. Elections staged in Puerto Rico
are mechanisms for legitimizing U.S. domination of the island.
The three "status options" the U.S. "offered" in
their latest plebiscite
statehood, commonwealth or neocolonial
"independence" all
represent a continuation of the U.S. domination
of Puerto Rico.
The last year has seen an upsurge of struggle in
Puerto Rico the
general strike against privatization and the
exciting struggle
against the U.S. Navy in Vieques. There is deep
hatred among the
people for the Americanization of their island,
and the creeping
imposition of English in their schools, public
institutions, highways
and communities.