Puerto Rico

Vulture Capitalists Circle Above Puerto Rican Prey

October 3, 2017 Bill Moyers, www.billmoyers.com Educate! Capitalism, Hurricane, Puerto Rico

By Bill Moyers for Moyers and Company - As people in Puerto Rico are dying and President Trump lashes out at San Juan's mayor, Bill talks with social anthropologist Yarimar Bonilla about the challenges Puerto Ricans face in the wake of the storm. Puerto Rico is devastated. Two hurricanes plunged the island into darkness and despair. Crops perish in the fields. The landscape of ruined buildings and towns resemble Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped on it. Over 3 million people are desperate for food, water, electricity and shelter. After a slow start, the Trump administration is now speeding up the flow of supplies to the island. A top US general has been given command of the relief efforts. And, like so many others, Yarimar Bonilla watches with a broken heart as her native Puerto Rico struggles. This noted social anthropologist — a scholar on Caribbean societies — says the hurricanes have made an already bad fiscal and economic crisis worse, and she sees darker times ahead unless major changes are made in the structure of power and in Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States. Last night on NBC, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz made a spontaneous statement expressing her frustration with insufficient relief efforts that went viral. Before you read my interview with Yarimar Bonilla please take two minutes to watch this video.

Puerto Rico Needs More Hurricane Relief Now

October 3, 2017 Mark Weisbrot, www.buzzfeed.com Create! Debt, Hurricane, Natural Disasters, Puerto Rico

By Mark Weisbrot for Buzz Feed News - More than 40 percent of Puerto Rico is without clean water, and the vast majority has no electricity. Many hospitals and operating rooms are not functioning, and the threat of a public health crisis looms. On Wednesday, 145 members of Congress took the unusual step of writing to President Trump and asking for more Department of Defense resources to be immediately deployed. Puerto Ricans are US citizens, and Puerto Rico is legally entitled to the same federal relief and reconstruction aid as Texas or Florida. But Puerto Rico is also an “unincorporated territory” of the United States ― or, as many would say, a colony. Although Puerto Ricans can be drafted to serve in the US military, and are subject to other obligations of US citizenship, they do not have voting representation in the US Congress. Therein lies the problem: Puerto Rico’s political status not only prevents these US citizens from securing their legal rights, but even worse, it allows them to be treated very badly, over and over again, and not have the sovereignty to chart a different course. That different course is desperately needed, because if Puerto Rico is to have a future, it will need a whole new economic plan that allows it to recover. This would include, at a minimum, the cancellation of most of its debt, which is not going to be paid in any case.

Stand With Puerto Rico — Not The Banks

September 29, 2017 Wenonah Hauter, www.foodandwaterwatch.org Resist! Banks, Hurricane, Natural Disasters, Puerto Rico

By Wenonah Hauter for Food and Water Watch - It’s been one week since Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, and nearly half of Puerto Ricans now lack access to safe drinking water and much of the island is still without power. This is a calamity that means lives are still at risk today, long after the disaster itself. Hospitals there are running off of generators, and fuel to power them is running out. Puerto Rico needs immediate humanitarian assistance before many more lives are lost thanks to America’s latest climate catastrophe, and reconstruction aid to help them rebuild their infrastructure. The hurricane only made a bad situation much, much worse: Puerto Rico has been reeling from austerity measures for years that were put in place by Wall Street, which has been calling to recoup the debt. One of Donald Trump’s first responses to the mounting humanitarian crisis was to remind people of the “billions of dollars” the territory owes to the bank, “which must be dealt with” – signaling what the priorities will be. Given the role the banks have played in guiding our decision makers to put profits before people, it’s not surprising. For the past 100 years, Wall Street and the massive corporations they back have guided policy on everything from energy to agriculture, with disastrous effects for our food and water. It has come with toxic pollution, higher prices for consumers, massive wealth inequality and a warming planet.

PR Accuses Hedge Funds Of Trying To Profit Off Hurricanes

September 29, 2017 David Dayen, www.theintercept.com Educate! Hurricane, Natural Disasters, Puerto Rico

By David Dayen for The Intercept - PUERTO RICO HAS rejected a bondholder group’s offer to issue the territory additional debt as a response to the devastation of Hurricane Maria. Officials with Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority said the offer was “not viable” and would harm the island’s ability to recover from the storm. The PREPA (Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority) Bondholder Group made the offer on Wednesday, which included $1 billion in new loans, and a swap of $1 billion in existing bonds for another $850 million bond. These new bonds would have jumped to the front of the line for repayment, and between that increased value and interest payments after the first two years, the bondholders would have likely come out ahead on the deal, despite a nominal $150 million in debt relief. Indeed, the offer was worse in terms of debt relief than one the bondholder group made in April, well before hurricanes destroyed much of the island’s critical infrastructure. Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority suggested that profit motive rather than altruism was the bondholder group’s real goal. “Such offers only distract from the government’s stated focus and create the unfortunate appearance that such offers are being made for the purpose of favorably impacting the trading price of existing debt,” the agency said in a statement.

Vieques to Protest Explosions, Contamination by US Navy

August 25, 2017 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Colonialism, Imperialism, pollution, Puerto Rico

By Staff for Telesur. Myrna Pagan, spokesperson of “Vidas Viequenses Valen” or “Vieques Lives Matter,” reported a round of detonations from the former U.S. Navy military site and announced in a press release Saturday the organization’s plans to hold a protest at 5:00 p.m. Monday outside the U.S. Navy’s Restoration Advisory Council building. “After six decades of bombardment and contamination, this town rises up to denounce this practice and to demand the use of existing alternatives for the cleaning of our lands and sea,” she stated. On July 25 and 27, two separate explosions shook the island, releasing poisonous chemicals into the air, 300 units closer to the community’s border and its 9,000 residents. “Smoke columns were seen from our windows and workplaces spreading toxic gas waste into the air from the explosions caused by the (U.S.) Navy … It was one of the strongest explosions we’ve ever felt, but it’s our daily bread,” Pagan said.

Honoring Oscar Lopez Rivera, Now More Than Ever

June 12, 2017 Johanna Fernandez And Carlito Rovira, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Nationalism, Political Prisoner, Puerto Rico

By Johanna Fernandez And Carlito Rovira for Counter Punch - Recently released Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera has announced that although he will march at the Puerto Rican Day Parade this Sunday, June 11, 2017, he will not accept the recognition bestowed on him by event organizers as the parade’s principal honoree. Lopez Rivera gracefully declined the award in response to the political controversy orchestrated by right-wing forces over his expected decoration. His public statement asserted that the honor should go to “those confronting the fiscal, health care and human rights crisis Puerto Rico is facing at this historic juncture.” But those who believe in the right to self-determination of all people who face military, economic, and/or political subjugation should continue to uphold that honor and defend the right of colonized people to determine for themselves, without outside pressure, who among them should be honored and why. In 1981, US federal courts convicted Oscar Lopez Rivera for seditious conspiracy and sentenced him to life in prison. Approximately 20 years before Lopez Rivera was so convicted and imprisoned, Nelson Mandela was convicted and sentenced of the same crime.

From Bad To Worse For Puerto Rico

March 12, 2017 Joseph E. Stiglitz and Martin Guzman, www.project-syndicate.org Educate! Finance and the Economy, Poverty, Puerto Rico, Wall Street

By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Martin Guzman for Project Syndicate. SAN JUAN – Puerto Rico’s deep and prolonged recession has led to a severe debt crisis. And the combination of economic contraction and massive liabilities is having dire consequences for the island. Everywhere in the United States commonwealth, private-sector jobs are being lost. Total employment in Puerto Rico has fallen from 1.25 million in the last quarter of the 2007 fiscal year workers to less than a million almost a decade later. Without employment, large numbers of Puerto Ricans (who are US citizens) have emigrated. But, despite this flight, the unemployment rate is now 12.4%. Without job prospects, the labor participation rate has plummeted to 40%, two-thirds of the level on the US mainland. About 60% of Puerto Rico’s children live in poverty.

Thousands Of Puerto Rican Students Mobilize Against Budget Cuts

February 23, 2017 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Budget Cuts, Puerto Rico, Student Protests, Students

By Staff of Tele Sur - Puerto Rico has US$70 billion in total debt, a 45 percent poverty rate and unemployment more than twice the U.S. average. Thousands of students from the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras approved a 48-hour strike inside the university Wednesday to protest against the massive budget cuts announced by the government last Thursday. About 3,500 students gathered at 7 a.m. as a General Assembly in several amphitheaters against the US$300 million budget cuts ordered by the U.S. Financial Control Board. The vote for the strike concluded the session, with 2,788 in favor of a strike and 91 against, while the first resolution approved a better inclusion of the transgender and transsexual community in the various services provided by the university.

Massive Blackout Hits Puerto Rico

September 28, 2016 Talia Tirella, www.pix11.com Organize! Electricity, Puerto Rico

By Talia Tirella for PIX 11 - PUERTO RICO — Classes at public schools has been canceled for the second day in a row in Puerto Rico as power is slowly being restored following a massive blackout that struck the island Wednesday. About 375,000 customers throughout the island have power restored, Gov. Alejandro Garcia-Padilla said in a news conference Thursday night. Since some Puerto Ricans remain in the dark on Friday, the governor has canceled classes for public schools for the second day in the row.

Protests Against ‘Colonial’ PROMESA Debt Plan Rock Puerto Rico

September 4, 2016 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Austerity, Debt, Pensions, Puerto Rico, Wages

By Staff for Telesur. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in San Juan Wednesday to block the first scheduled conference on the installation of a financial control board to remedy Puerto Rico’s crippling debt crisis but slammed by critics as an anti-democratic, neo-colonial policy that will redistribute wealth from the island nation to Wall Street. Demonstrators formed protests lines and blocked roads with rocks and bricks to disrupt the conference at San Juan’s Condado Plaza Hilton. They carried signs and shouted slogans against the federal control board, whose authority will supercede that of Puerto Rico’s democratically-elected governor, effectively handing budgetary decision-making over to unelected appointees, many of them bankers. The U.S. law creating the control board, known by its acronym PROMESA, grants the oversight panel the power to cut pensions, labor contracts with civil servants, and social services, to restructure its US$73 billion debt load. Despite lines of riot police and occasional use of pepper spray, the protests managed to block conference-goers on their way to the venue and forced organizers to re-arrange the meeting agenda, local media reported.

Fiscal Board Protestors, Riot Police Clash On San Juan Bridge

September 3, 2016 Staff, www.caribbeanbusiness.com Resist! Protests, Puerto Rico

By Staff of Caribbean Business - SAN JUAN – A group called Concertación Puertorriqueña Contra la Junta de Control Fiscal Federal began just after 6:30 a.m. a series of protests and demonstrations near the Condado Plaza hotel, where the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce was holding its first conference on the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (Promesa). Shouting slogans and carrying signs against the establishment of the Financial Oversight & Management Board, which Promesa creates, protesters blocked Ashford Avenue, prompting the intervention of police in the area.

Black Flags And Debt Resistance In America’s Oldest Colony

August 4, 2016 Max Haiven, www.roarmag.org Resist! Colonialism, Debt, Puerto Rico

By Max Haiven for ROAR Magazine - Sunday midnight in Santurce, the old downtown working-class neighborhood of Puerto Rico’s capital San Juan which, like seemingly all such neighborhoods around the world, struggles with the uneven brutalities and gifts of gentrification. Old men sit on decaying swivel chairs outside small bars pumping local music, faded newspapers line the insides windows of shops long-shuttered by the island’s ongoing economic crisis. Yet here and there new businesses and experimental social spaces are also flourishing

Puerto Rico: 500 Years Of Colonial Bondage & Resistance

June 30, 2016 AbMartin, www.mediaroots.org Resist! Colonialism, Puerto Rico

By Abby Martin for Tele Sur - Puerto Rico’s massive debt has been discussed at length in Congress and the media, all omitting the most important fact: the history of being a colonial subject for over 500 years, still owned and controlled by the United States. Abby Martin talks to two professors of Latin American studies, Luis Barrios and Danny Shaw, about the long struggle of Puerto Rico to break the shackles of U.S. and Spanish colonialism—from indigenous resistance to the Young Lords in Harlem.

The Takeover Of Puerto Rico

June 27, 2016 Jose L. Flores, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Puerto Rico

By Jose L. Flores for Counter Punch - The Island of Puerto Rico is currently in the midst of an economic crisis. It has been reported that Puerto Rico’s government owes over 70 billion dollars in debt, mostly to investors holding state issued bonds, living in the continental United States. Unable to repay such a huge sum of debt Puerto Rico has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court attempting to restructure its financial obligations. This appeal was quickly denied, thereby provoking the U.S. Congress to step in and attempt to resolve this dilemma.

Puerto Rico Students Shut Down University Over Austerity Cuts

March 18, 2016 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Austerity, Education, Higher Education, Puerto Rico, Student Protests

By Staff of Tele Sur - The students are calling for people all over the country to join the protest against "unpayable debt" and austerity. Thousands of college students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) approved a three-day, full-campus shutdown Tuesday to protest recent austerity measures, which they say endanger the higher education system. The students held a general student assembly, after which they marched through the university and closed all entrances to the campus.

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