UN Stresses Puerto Ricans’ Right To Self-Determination – Analysis

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By J C Suresh

The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization has welcomed the commutation of the prison sentence of Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar López Rivera, the world’s longest-serving political prisoner confined in a U.S. federal penitentiary since 1981.

Puerto Rico – Spanish for ‘Rich Port’ – is an “unincorporated territory” of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean Sea, with a population of about 3.4 million and San Juan as most populous city.

Rich history, tropical climate, diverse natural scenery, renowned traditional cuisine, and attractive tax incentives make the main island of Puerto Rico – and a number of smaller ones such as Mona, Culebra, and Vieques – a popular destination for travellers from around the world.

The decision to commute the sentence of López Rivera permitting his release in May was announced by President Barack Obama on January 17, three days before Donald Trump’s inauguration as 45th U.S. President.

The jubilation over the commutation – not a pardon – after López Rivera had served 35 years of a 70-year sentence cut across all political tendencies in Puerto Rico, from the socialist left to the Green-ish Independence Party to the centrist Popular Democratic Party to the increasingly hard-right Statehood Party.

The UN Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples said in a communiqué issued on January 24 that it “shares Puerto Rico’s joy over the release of independence leader Oscar López Rivera thanks to the united struggle and solidarity of the Puerto Rican people joined by various international personalities, including Pope Francis”.

The Special Committee on Decolonization had requested of the U.S. Government the release of López Rivera by its decisions on the question of Puerto Rico, approved by consensus on June 16, 2015 and June 16, 2016. The Special Committee transmitted the latter decision to the United States Mission to the United Nations in New York by communication No. 000627 of November 3, 2016.

The communiqué said: “As part of the annual consideration of the question of Puerto Rico, for almost 40 years the Special Committee has been continuously requesting the release of Puerto Rican independence activists serving sentences in United States prisons, while at the same time reaffirming the inalienable right of the Puerto Rican people to self-determination and independence, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV), and the applicability of the fundamental principles of that resolution to the question of Puerto Rico.”

The communiqué added: “The Special Committee on Decolonization, in response to the general outcry of the Puerto Rican population, coupled with the requests of prominent personalities, was unceasing in its demand that justice be done in the case of Oscar López Rivera, who became the longest-serving political prisoner in the world. In that connection, the Special Committee trusts that the release of Oscar López Rivera will take place within the established time frame.”

In the light of this important decision of the U.S. Government, and in line with the need to guarantee the legitimate right of the Puerto Rican people to self-determination and the protection of their human rights, the Special Committee on Decolonization reiterated its unequivocal commitment to the fulfilment of its mandate with regard to the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

Writing in ‘Jacobin’, Ed Morales stated: “The widespread support for someone like López Rivera, a former leader of the militant leftist group, the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), is a reflection of the colonial yoke that Puerto Ricans have suffered under for centuries.”

López Rivera had joined the FALN after working as a community organizer in Chicago and serving in Vietnam. The latter has been cited as a key element in his radicalization, writes Morales. “As the U.S. tried to inherit the burden and spoils of France’s occupation of Southeast Asia, he witnessed firsthand the colonial racism at work and connected it to the what he viewed as the internal colonialism hindering Puerto Ricans, other Latino groups, Asians, and African Americans in the United States.

“Political radicals of color like López Rivera saw antiracist struggle as part of a global confrontation with class-based imperialism and colonialism. Linking up with the FALN was a logical, if not inevitable, next step.”

While López Rivera was never charged with or found guilty of direct involvement in any of the FALN’s violent acts – which included various bombings, some lethal, in New York and Chicago – he was convicted in 1981 of seditious conspiracy (essentially a thought crime) and sentenced to fifty-five years. He spent more than twelve of those years deprived of all human contact.

In 1999, López Rivera turned down a release deal from President Bill Clinton, because (a) it would have required him to serve an additional ten years and (b) it would have left some of his fellow FALN prisoners languishing in prison. (Clinton’s deal ultimately set free eleven of López Rivera’s co-defendants.)

“For the last twenty years, López Rivera and his remaining FALN comrades have renounced violence — a path borne out by other Puerto Rican militants like Dylcia Pagán and Elizam Escobar — making it easier to attract broad swaths of support from Puerto Ricans as well as high-profile supporters like Representative Luis Gutiérrez, Lin Manuel Miranda, San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, LGBTQ activist Pedro Julio Serrano, and rapper René Pérez Joglar (Residente),” notes Morales.

IDN

IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses and viewpoints on topics that impact the world and its peoples. IDN-InDepthNews serves as the flagship of the International Press Syndicate Group

One thought on “UN Stresses Puerto Ricans’ Right To Self-Determination – Analysis

  • January 27, 2017 at 2:32 am
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    Congradulations to Oscar Lopez. But when will self-determination be implemented? Whenever the US government disagrees with international institutions–be it the UN or the World Court–it just ignores it. And it has nothing to do with who the president od the US is. Mr. Obama was only dealing with overwhelming support for the release of Mr. Lopez-Rivera and with his image among “the left”. Certainly some will remember the US ignorning the World Court decision regarding the 1980s decision regarding the US mining the Nicaraguan harbors.

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