Puerto Rico: 120 Years of Oppression and Exploitation

Abraham Lincoln said “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.” I wish more people would heed that advice. However, lately I’ve observed an excess of misinformation on the internet regarding Puerto Rico’s political and economic status. Although my first instinct is to dismiss this on the premise that no amount of accurate information will matter to these people, my sense of pride and decency tells me I should at least try to disseminate some pertinent information that might reach the average reader. Puerto Ricans have remained silent for far too long, and that includes me. First of all, here’s a page you can visit to find out the reality of the Puerto Rican people; https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/ Also, the webpage http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/30925-how-the-united-states-economically-and-politically-strangled-puerto-rico features an interview given by Nelson A. Denis, the author of a well-researched, informative book titled War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony. “Although Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship in 1917, the United States continued to exploit, oppress and eventually launch a "war" on the people of Puerto Rico to gain land and resources. The book, War Against All Puerto Ricans, is a vivid, detailed account of the brutal treatment of a people "liberated" from Spain only to be subjugated by the US.” (2) Contrary to what I’ve read recently on the internet, Puerto Ricans are not lazy and opportunistic, and Puerto Rico is not a welfare state. Instead, it is Puerto Rico that has been the victim of opportunism, both at the federal and corporate levels. In 1898 the US government invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War and claimed to be liberating the island from Spain. However, Puerto Rico had already received autonomy from Spain in 1897 via the Charter of Autonomy (Carta de Autonomia). After invading Puerto Rico, the US declared that the island's residents would never be independent and have required that only the US Congress can grant the island a different politico-economic status (statehood or independence). The Puerto Rican people have little say in the matter despite the so-called plebiscite (direct vote by the people of a country or region in which they say whether they agree or disagree with a particular policy, such as independence or statehood). Since the invasion, the US has denied all of the sovereign elements of the 1897 Carta de Autonomia granted by Spain and has held Puerto Rico prisoner. The following list enumerates all of the “benefits” the US has bestowed upon Puerto Rico since 1898.

• As opposed to the Spanish Charter of Autonomy of 1897, the US controls ALL rights to Puerto Rico's foreign relations, customs, immigration, postal system, communications, radio, television, commerce, transportation, social security, military service, maritime laws, banks, currency, judiciary, tariffs, trade relations, shipping industry and cabotage (the transport of goods or passengers between two places in the same country by a transport operator from another country).

• 1899 to1900 - the US forced Puerto Ricans to exchange their currency for US dollars and devalued the Puerto Rican peso by 40 percent. Therefore, every Puerto Rican lost 40 percent of savings, wealth, and property overnight. Farms went into default all over the island and because there was no law restricting usury, the American Colonial Bank engaged in predatory lending throughout the island. By 1930, eighty percent of all sugar cane farms in Puerto Rico were owned by a few US companies.

• May 1, 1900 through September 15, 1901 - Charles Herbert Allen was the first US appointed civilian governor and economic hit man to run amok in Puerto Rico. His only "Governor's Report to the US President" was an undisguised plan for economic exploitation of the entire island. Using racist and abusive language, he wrote, "Porto Rico is really the 'rich gate' to future wealth ... the yield of sugar per acre is greater than in any other country in the world ... the cost of sugar production is $10 per ton cheaper than in Java, $11 cheaper than in Hawaii, $12 cheaper than in Cuba, $17 cheaper than in Egypt, $19 cheaper than in the British West Indies, and $47 cheaper than in Louisiana and Texas." (1)

Weeks after handing in his report, Allen left the governorship, “scurried up to Wall Street, and became a vice president of Morgan Guaranty Trust. He built the largest sugar syndicate in the world, and his hundreds of political appointees in Puerto Rico provided him with land grants, tax subsidies, water rights, railroad easements, foreclosure sales and favorable tariffs. By 1907 Allen's syndicate, the American Sugar Refining Company, owned or controlled 98 percent of the sugar-processing capacity in the US and was known as the sugar trust. By 1910, Allen was treasurer of the American Sugar Refining Company, by 1913 he was its president and by 1915 he sat on its board of directors. Today his company is known as Domino Sugar.” (1)

• 1917 – US grants “citizenship” to Puerto Ricans only weeks before they draft 18,000 Puerto Rican men to fight in World War I.This was not a coincidence. Puerto Ricans were given second-class citizenship in exchange for 18,000 lives.

• Furthermore, the Jones–Shafroth Act (A.K.A, Jones Act), exempts interest payments from bonds issued by the government of Puerto Rico and its subdivisions from federal, state, and local income taxes (triple tax exemption) regardless of the bond holder's residence. This drove Wall St. greed to all-time high resulting in today's economic crisis in PR.

• 1921 - Warren Harding appointed Emmet Montgomery Reily as Governor of Puerto Rico. Reily then placed his own friends in prominent positions throughout the island’s government and decreed the U. S. flag to be the only flag flown throughout the island. He also declared that Spanish would no longer be used in schools, which were to teach exclusively in English. The Puerto Rican people opposed this so forcefully, that the "English-only" rule was downscaled. Puerto Ricans nicknamed Reily, Moncho Reyes (“Moncho” is an uncivilized moron). He was forced to resign in 1923, under a growing cloud of corruption charges.

• The US government "lied to Puerto Ricans with respect to the de facto membership in American Society: declaring US citizens in 1917, then ruling that the US Constitution 'did not apply' to Puerto Rico (Balzac v. Porto Rico 1922).(2)

• In 1922, the US Supreme Court held that the US Constitution did not apply to Puerto Rico (Balzac vs. Porto Rico). As such, any US minimum-wage legislation, or other federal protections, privileges and immunities, "did not apply" to Puerto Ricans on the island. (2)

Without money, crops or land, Puerto Ricans had to seek work in the cities. When the Puerto Rican legislature enacted a minimum-wage law like the one in the USA, the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. This decision was made despite AFL-CIO President Samuel Gompers’ testimony in the mid 1930’s that “the salaries paid to Puerto Ricans are now less than half what they received under the Spanish.” U.S. finished products, from rubber bands to radios, are priced 15 to 20% higher on the island than on the mainland. Islanders are powerless to enact any legislation against price-fixing.

• 1931, historian and Yale professor Bailey W. Diffie wrote;"The sugar industry, tobacco manufacturing, fruit growing, banks, railroads, public utilities, steamship lines, and many lesser businesses are completely dominated by outside capital. The men who own the sugar corporations own both the US Bureau of Insular Affairs and the Legislature of Puerto Rico ... practically every mile of public carrier railroad belongs to two companies - the American Railroad Company and the Ponce & Guayama Railroad Company ... which are largely absentee owned ... about half the towns depend on absentee companies for their lights and power, and more than half the telephone calls go over wires owned by outsiders ... ." (See: Bailey W. Diffie and Justine Whitfield Diffie, New York: Vanguard Press, 1931, pp. 199-200.) (2) This is a direct quote from Mark Karlin’s interview.

• In January-February 1934, Pedro Albizu Campos led an agricultural strike that succeeded in raising the sugarcane workers' wages from 75 cents a day to $1.50 per day. The US government’s reaction was to send Army General Blanton Winship and Col. E. Francis Riggs as the new governor and Chief ofPolice respectively. They immediately proceeded to militarize the Police force with machine guns, grenades and riot gear, and trained them with Thompson submachine guns.

• In July 1936, (within 15 months of the agricultural strike) Albizu Campos was imprisoned under horrific conditions in one of the most notorious prisons in Puerto Rico. He spent 25 years in prison being irradiated, for standing up to against injustice and abuse. After he was released, he was surrounded by a 6-man FBI agent detail for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 4 years. The 6-man rotation required 25 FBI agents.

• Palm Sunday, 21 March 1937 – A peaceful march to commemorate the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico, turned into a bloody massacre in which 21 people were killed (19 civilians and 2 officers). This became known as the Ponce Massacre. The US Commission on Civil Rights blamed Blanton Winship (governor), which made F.D. Roosevelt remove him from office in 1939. However, no one has ever been prosecuted for this crime; not even the cops that admitted to the shootings. The Ponce massacre remains the largest massacre in post-Spanish history in Puerto Rico.

“In his five years as Governor of Puerto Rico, Mr. Blanton Winship destroyed the last vestige of civil rights in Puerto Rico. railroaded to prison. Men, women, and children were massacred in the streets of the island simply because they dared to express their opinion or attempted to meet in free assemblage.” —Vito Marcantonio, U.S. Congressman Congressonal Record of April 14, 1937, page 4499

• 1939 - The U.S. began using Culebra for gunnery and bombing practice.

• 1941 - The US establishes military bases in the Islands of Vieques and Culebra. The Roosevelt Roads Naval Station is one of the largest naval facilities in the world covering 32,000 acres, three harbors, and two-thirds of the island of Vieques. (3) For mare than 60 years the people of Vieques suffer napalm, Agent Orange, and between 300 and 800 tons of depleted uranium-tipped ammunition. Until 2003, the US Navy dropped nearly 3 million pounds of bombs on Vieques annually.

• In December 1947—when Albizu Campos was released from prison—Public Law 53 (the Gag Law) was passed to quiet him. The right to free speech was taken from more than 2 million Puerto Ricans in order to keep one from exercising it. Ironically, Puerto Rico was already a totalitarian Orwellian US colony when George Orwell’s1984 was published (1948-49) and became an instant bestseller in the UK and US. The gag law was in effect from 1948 to 1957.

Note: Pedro Albizu Campos was the first Puerto Rican to attend Harvard Law School, where he was class valedictorian. He spoke 6 languages and helped Eamon de Valera draft the Constitution of the Irish Free Republic. He was president of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, where he organized, advocated, and editorialized. He spoke throughout South and Central America; but it wasn’t until he took aim at Wall Street’s collective purse that the US government noticed him.

• From 1930 to 1970 extensive testing of birth control methods were conducted on Puerto Rican women and about 1/3 of the female population was surgically sterilized. This was done under the supervision of a Dr. William Hutton. Many of the women underwent "the operation" without knowledge or consent and many surgeries occurred shortly after birth.

The available research and documentation of this colonial genocide is extensive. See: http://womenst.library.wisc.edu/bibliogs/puerwom.htm “The Human Betterment Association of America promotes Eugenics (a thinly-veiled version of Nazi racial cleansing) as a basis for sterilizing blacks in the U.S. mainland, and Puerto Ricans on the island.“ (1)

• In 1931 Pedro Albizu Campos investigated rumors regarding the San Juan Presbyterian Hospital, and confirmed that a Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads was injecting Puerto Rican patients with live cancer cells; killing at least 13 people. When the scandal of Puerto Rican guinea pigs erupted, a letter from Dr. Rhoads containing the following words was discovered: “The Porto Ricans (sic) are the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere…I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing off eight and transplanting cancer into several more…All physicians take delight in the abuse and torture of the unfortunate subjects.” (1)

• From the 1930s to the 1990s, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent hundreds of FBI agents to "collect intelligence" on Puerto Rican Nationalists—particularly Albizu Campos. Since then, a secret FBI file program, knows as “carpeteo”, collected information on more than 100,000 Puerto Ricans; totaling more than 1.8 million pages in the 6-decade period.

“The suppression of the Puerto Rican independence movement by the US, orchestrated in large part by Herbert Hoover, was massive, bloody and something akin to the actions of a police state. You quote World War I hero General Smedley Butler about his fighting in Latin America as writing, ‘I was a gangster for capitalism’.” (2) In summary, the following list of terrors have been imposed on Puerto Rico by its purported benefactor:

• Invasion and forced colonialism

• The unscrupulous, massive land grab

• Imposed extreme poverty on Puerto Ricans for the benefit of Wall St.

• The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed Puerto Rican citizenship in Gonzales v. Williams (1904), which labeled Puerto Ricans as non-citizen US nationals.

• March 1917, while preparing to enter World War I, Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones–Shafroth Act, which gave Puerto Ricans US “citizenship” and exempts interest payments from bonds issued by the government of Puerto Rico and its subdivisions from federal, state, and local income taxes (triple tax exemption) regardless of bond holder residence.

• After the President declared war in April 1917, thoisends of Puerto Ricans were drafted.

• The Rio Piedras Massacre - October 24, 1935 at the University of Puerto Rico; 4 killed, 1 wounded for attending a student assembly

• The Ponce Massacre - 21 March 1937; 21 killed and more than 200 wounded

• 1939 – US Armed Forces begins to bomb Culebra

• 1941 - The U.S. establishes military bases in the islands of Vieques and Culebra.

• The Utuado Massacre – 30 October 1950, five Nationalists executed in a police station without a trial.

• 1950 - The arrest of Puerto Ricans as "suspected Nationalists"; 3,000 Puerto Ricans were arrested and two towns were bombed.

• 1950 - US “citizens” in the towns of Jayuya and Utuado are subjected to an attack with P-47 Thunderbolts of the U.S. Air Force , .50 caliber machine guns and 5 inch rockets. No word got out to the world about this attack.

• The "disappearance" of Nationalists (desaparecidos); throughout the island people disappeared without explanation or trace.

• The passage of Public Law 53 (Ley de la Mordaza, the Gag Law), which eliminated the First Amendment in Puerto Rico.

• The torture of prisoners in Aguadilla, near Ramey Air Base.

• The use of Puerto Rican helpless patients as guinea pigs.

• The inhuman prison conditions as La Princesa penitentiary, particularly for Nationalist prisoners.

• The prison torture and total body irradiation of Pedro Albizu Campos.

• The “carpetas” program, under which secret FBI files were maintained on more than 100,000 Puerto Ricans over a period of six decades.

• The illegal mass sterilization and research performed on Puerto Rican women.

• 1972 – US Army takes possession of almost the entire island of Culebra.

• 1976 – Section 936 ofthe IRS allows US companies operate in Puerto Rico without paying taxes.Until 2006 US pharmaceutical companies use the tax loophole to generate huge profits and contaminate the island’s natural resources.

• 1978 – Two young, pro-independence men are ambushed and executed in a mountain known as Cerro Maravilla with a subsequent cover-up involving high-ranking government members

• 2006 – Bill Clinton phases out law 936 causing US companies to leave Puerto Rico and take with them the meager salaries they provided and employee retirement savings.

• 2014 to 2016 – Puerto Rico finds itself in crushing debt because the government had issued an unusually large number of bonds, aided by dubious underwriting from financial institutions such as UBS, Citigroup, and Spain's Santander Bank. The burden became so great that the island was unable to pay interest on the bonds it had issued. (4)

• 2016 - Barack Obama signs PROMESA into law; thereby appointing an oversight board with ultimate control over the island’s budget and debt restructuring. (4) Said board seems to be more interested in protecting corrupt officials and Wall Street's interests than helping the people of Puerto Rico get out of the economic abyss.

• 2017 – The Puerto Rican people suffer devastation from hurricanes Irma and Maria that is compounded by the insufficient, mediocre, and deliberately inept response of the US government.

Currently, Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate is about 12% and per capita income is less than half that of Mississippi—the poorest of the fifty states. U.S. federal agencies still control Puerto Rico’s foreign relations, customs, immigration, postal system, radio, TV, transportation, Social Security, military, maritime laws, banks, currency, commerce and defense. Drive in any direction and you’ll run into an Army base, nuclear site or tracking station. Nearly 25% of the total US pharmaceutical shipments are made from Puerto Rico.Drug companies profit about $35 billion annually. This is greater than the combined budgets of every Puerto Rican government agency. More than a century after the U.S. invasion, Puerto Rico is one of the few classic colonies still in existence. Its “commonwealth” status is a smoke screen for a one-sided, abusive relationship. After 120 years of bombings, economic exploitation, a massive land grab, massacres, a gag law, the execution of leaders, the sterilization of its women, and deliberately inept aid during a humanitarian crisis, Puerto Rico is not just a colony; but the battered wife of a huge bully that doesn’t want her and is squeezing the life out of her. References:

1. Nelson A. Denis, WarAgainst All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony; 2015, Nation Books, Copyright 2015 by Nelson A. Denis

2. Mark Karlin, How the United States Economically and Politically Strangled Puerto Rico Sunday, May 24, 2015 Truthout | Interview

3. https://nelsondenis.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/puertorico/

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_government-debt_crisis