The widespread jubilation when it was announced that Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera would be released in May shows that liberation struggle still resonates in the Caribbean island that remains a United States colony.
Puerto Rico
The United States government announced on January 17 the release of Oscar Lopez Rivera, who has been jailed in the US for 36 years for his struggle to free Puerto Rico from US colonial rule.
Outgoing US President Barack Obama commuted Lopez' sentence, which will expire on May 17, according to a White House source, consulted by the EFE news agency.
The Congressional, executive and judicial wings of the United State government recently clarified for all — despite Washington's claims to the contrary — that Puerto Rico is a US colony.
A law known as PROMESA was passed by Congress with bipartisan support and signed by President Barack Obama on June 30. It creates an unelected seven-person control board that has sweeping powers to take over Puerto Rico's economy.
Last year, Puerto Rico's governor announced it simply did not have the money to repay its US$72 billion debt — on bonds owed mainly to US financiers. On May 2, the US's Caribbean colony defaulted on $400 million that was due on that day. A further $2 billion is due on June 1.
In a move that has shocked Wall Street and Washington, the Puerto Rican Senate and the House of Representatives have passed an emergency declaration authorising the governor to suspend payments on US$72 billion in public debt, Democracy Now! said on April 6.
This sets up dramatic showdown between the United States colony and hedge funds amid the Caribbean island's historic debt crisis.
For the first time in its history, the US colony of Puerto Rico has gone into default, Moody's Investors Service said on August 3.
The news comes after years of economic turmoil in the island, produced mainly by the 2007-2010 recession and housing crisis that have affected the US.
The default came soon after the island's Government Development Bank announced that it was only able to make a partial payment on its US$72 billion debt.
This debt crisis directly hurts the Caribbean island's residents, since the debt is mostly owned by residents through credit unions.
“Billionaire hedge fund managers have called on Puerto Rico to lay off teachers and close schools so that the island can pay them back the billions it owes,” the Guardian said on July 28 on the debt crisis facing the United States' Caribbean colony.
The world has been focused on the spectacle of the “Troika” of the International Monetary Fund, European Union and the European Central Bank crushing the Greek people, but it is far from the only example of strong nations using a “debt crisis” to extract more wealth from those that are weaker.
A case in point is the US colony of Puerto Rico. In a June 28 New York Times interview, the governor of the Caribbean archipelago nation declared its debt of US$73 billion “is not payable. There is no other option. I would love to have an easier option. This is not politics. This is math.”
After speaking at the United Nations climate change summit on September 23, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro seized the chance to visit community leaders, local activists and grassroots groups in an event hosted by Hostos Community College of the South Bronx in New York City. About 1000 people attended the event, which was organised by Citgo, a subsidary of Venezuela's state-own oil company. Many arrived early to wait outside for good seats and to hold signs welcoming Maduro as “president of the people”. The Bronx community
“I don’t have any blood on my hands,” Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera wrote in February.
“I haven’t victimized anyone. And I’ve devoted most of my life serving a just and noble cause and struggling to help make this world a better and more just one.”
For 30 years, Lopez Rivera has been imprisoned in the United States for his activities in support of freedom and independence for Puerto Rico, which is still claimed by the US.
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