Waking up to the Colonial situation of Puerto Rico: A response to Melisa Mark Vieverito Column in the Huffington Post

Waking up to the Colonial situation of Puerto Rico:  A response to  Melisa Mark Vieverito Column in the Huffington Post

Carlos Rafael Alicea Negrón

Environmental Activist

Community Activist

NIKEHURA

New York Council woman Melissa Mark Viverito wrote a column in the section of Latino Voices of the Huffington Post, September 15, 2011.  Her article was addressing the meaning of a Justice Department Report about the violation by the Puerto Rico Police Department of Civil rights in Puerto Rico.  She calls this as an event that should serve as a wake up call for Americans to pay attention to the Caribbean Nation.  The politician missed the point forgetting to go to the root of the historical pattern of Civil and Human Rights violations in the colony of Puerto Rico: the USA federal government.  Yes, this should be a wake up call for Americans but it should be the waking up to hold accountable the federal institutions that in their name has been responsible for a long list of human rights violation in the nation of Puerto Rico.  Yes, this should be a wake up call for Americans to begin a deep critical analysis of the actions in their name by their government that created, trained, and funded a police department with the objective of serving and imposing the repressive measures against the most militant sectors of the Puerto Rican community and the more marginalize and poor sectors of our nation.  Councilwoman Viverito lack of historical perspective made her to point to the trees and forget the roots.  The causal root of the entrenched violence in Puerto Rico is the colonial situation of the island under the USA government.  This should not be left out of the analysis. But, I understand very well that you cannot expect pears from an apple tree.    The USA government must be held responsible for the actions taken by the creature of its creation.  Not only the USA federal government created trained and funded the Puerto Rican Police Department but it has been its main protector.  Today the same Justice Department that is calling the police of Puerto Rico a crime enterprise, has covered up the assassination plot by the policemen against Carlos Muñiz Valera, a hit ordered by Cuban Right with terrorist protected by the USA government in the colony of Puerto Rico.  The USA Federal Justice department has been a collaborator and accomplice of the Puerto Rican Police human rights violations.  The USA Federal Justice Department covered up the assassinations of Cerro Maravilla are a good example of the close association between the Justice Department and the Puerto Rican Police.

Furthermore, the USA Federal Justice Department has its own solo pattern of human rights violations.   The use of the Grand Jury panels to persecute in its intent to intimidate those that dare to challenge the colonial situation of Puerto Rico.  The assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos by an FBI raid that until today all the perpetrators has not being prosecuted and are living in impunity.  These are some examples of the actions from where the Puerto Rican Police Department institutionally has draw the inspiration to act in the way that this report is finally recognizing: as an institution that use violence, repression and persecution as a tool to keep in line the sectors of the community deem to be a threat to the establish order.  But this function was inherently present in the design of the police force that was created by the Federal government in Puerto Rico.  Being a colony there is no way that these violations could have occurred without the approval, by action or omission, of the federal government. 

We cannot be fool with the idea that the federal government can clean up this mess, a mess the federal government is responsible for. 

To those offering pats in the back and congratulating the USA Justice Department a warning, stop the ridicule accolades because it reflects either your colonized mind or your lack of understanding of the mean of a colony and the consequences of institutional violence that a colonial situation inherently creates.   

Ms. Viverito completely sidestep the issue of the colonial situation of Puerto Rico and uses this opportunity to attack the actual colonial administration of Luis Fortuño.  This has been one of the worse administrations in violating human rights because the sense of impunity that this government projects in its actions.  But the other colonial party in Puerto Rico, the Popular Democratic Party, has an equal brutal record of human rights violations in Puerto Rico. Only to remember how that party with the support, training and the cover up of the federal government designed a watch police program of citizens active in the community creating a file system that monitor the activities of individuals deem “problematic” to the status quo.

Yes, this is an opportunity for pointing out the situation of Puerto Rico, the poverty, the social disarray, the pollution, the social violence, the pattern of human rights violations that has been present in Puerto Rico since the USA Invasion of the island in 1898 until today.  However for this being a transformational wake up, it need to be discussed in the context of the role, actions and responsibilities of a colonial administration that was created for dependency, for oppression, for holding down the counter hegemonic forces that opposed the colonial regime of the USA in Puerto Rico.  Ms. Viverito missed the ball in her analysis.  She is asking for the fox to watch over the hen house.  That is unacceptable and uninspiring policy measure.   Real allies of Puerto Rico and its decolonization will use this opportunity to call for a critical debate and discussion of the history and consequences of colonial policies of the USA in Puerto Rico.  Allies with a sense of critical thinking will seek to grab this opportunity to demand that Puerto Rico issues are  deal through the international mechanisms that will secure a process that face the consequences of 113 years of colonial rule in our nation.   The human rights violations in Puerto Rico are an international issue not a domestic issue.  Accepting or projecting this as a USA domestic issues just serve to perpetuate and legitimize the colonial regime in Puerto Rico.  Ms. Viverito’s analysis just serve to perpetuate the colonial situation of our nation. 

To resolve the issue of the violation of the human rights and the civil rights in Puerto Rico is necessary to begin a decolonization process as mandated by the United Nations Resolution 1514, this is the beginning. For now to make sure that all aspect of the human rights violations in Puerto Rico I proposed a Commission from the Alliance for People of the Americas, to evaluate the conditions of human rights under the colonial regime of the USA.  But do not let the Justice Department to intervene, do not legitimize the arm of repression as the saviors of Puerto Rican people because they are the purveyors of the violence that we are facing today.   These are times for transformation and we are ready to face these times but t our terms, with our strategies our allies need to listen and not try to proposed ideas that only are going to make the situation worse.