First Published: Progressive Labor magazine, Vol. II, Nos. 10-11, October-November 1963.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
(Editor’s Note: Carl Jerome attended the MPI youth conference as a delegate of the Progressive Labor Movement. Below, we print his report on that meeting.)
Some 500 young people packed the Paz Theater in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico on September 9, for the Third National Conference of the youth of the Pro-Independence Movement (MPI). Amid bursts of tumultuous applause, the conference adopted a declaration condemning the domination of Puerto Rico by the U.S. and setting as the principal task of the youth and all Puerto Rican people, the establishment of a free republic.
Highlighting the conference were inspiring addresses by Dr. Juan Mari Bras, secretary-general of the MPI, and Pedro Baiges, MPI youth leader. Dr. Mari Bras was greeted with a tremendous ovation when he declared that the youth would win independence and socialism for Puerto Rico. Just back from a trip to Europe and Algeria, he denounced the so-called peace proposal to establish Latin America as a nuclear-free zone with the exception of Puerto Rico.
The main declaration adopted by the conference named the working people of Puerto Rico as the main source of strength for the independence struggle.
The early part of the conference was taken up with speeches of solidarity by foreign delegates. About 15 guests from the Dominican Republic were present, representing the Dominican People’s Movement (Movimiento Popular Dominicano), the 14th of June Movement (Movimiento Catorce de Junio), Art & Liberation (Arte y Liberacion), and various student organizations. Many of the Dominicans had been searched, and their belongings taken, by U.S. officials at the airport.
The two guests from the U. S. were Pete Camejo from the Young Socialist Alliance, and myself. The remarks this writer made to the conference first expressed PLM’s complete support for the Puerto Rican independence struggle, and emphasized that ’The North American millionaires, headed by John F. Kennedy, that exploit Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, are not only enemies of the Puerto Rican and Dominican peoples, but enemies also of the people of the United States.’ These remarks also outlined PLM’s work to establish a government of the working people in the U.S. and warned against disguises and tricks that people on top may use against a revolutionary struggle.
Camejo told of the persecution of left-wingers in the U.S., citing the case of the three YSA officers in Indiana who face possible jail sentences for their socialist ideas. He also told of the Negro people’s struggle for freedom here.
The conference was officially dedicated to the national hero of Puerto Rico, Don Pedro Albizu Campos. A tremendous painting of the imprisoned 72-year old nationalist leader overlooked the podium.
The delegates cheered when Professor Jose Maria Lima was introduced. Mr. Lima, a mathematics professor at the University of Puerto Rico, was one of the 58 young people who went to Cuba this summer ’to see for themselves.’ He has been under attack by a small, anti-democratic group in Puerto Rico, composed mainly of counterrevolutionary Cubans. To the great pleasure of the Conference participants, Prof. Lima reaffirmed his Marxist-Leninist beliefs.
For several days the anti-Castro group picketed the University demanding Lima’s dismissal from the faculty, but their pickets were greatly outnumbered by progressive counter-pickets, many of whom came from the MPI conference.
* * *
On September 23, declared a day of international solidarity with Puerto Rico, several PLM members attended a rally for independence in New York, sponsored by La Mesa de Lares – a coordinating committee of various Puerto Rican independentist groups, including APU (Unitary Patriotic Action), MPI, and the Nationalist Party. The meeting took place at the Huntspoint Palace.