First Published: Obreros En Marcha, Vol. 4, No. 6, August 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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On July 20th, 1979 the Puerto Rican National Left Movement (M.I.N.P.-EI Comite) held a forum on the present situation in Puerto Rico and the tasks facing the solidarity movement in the U.S.A. The speakers at the forum were Carlos Pabon from the Movimiento Socialista Popular and Federico Fernandez from the Partido Socialista Revolucionario (PSR, ML). The following are excerpts from the presentations made by each of the speakers.
The most important structural characteristic of the Puerto Rican economy is, without a doubt, its absolute dependency on the U.S. economy. Since 1898 Puerto Rico has been a colony of the United States which implies that all the fundamental powers of the government rest in the Congress of the U.S. This condition expresses in political-juridical terms the domination of the U.S. industrial and commercial corporations over the Puerto Rican working class, as well as other important considerations of a political and military nature. The Yankee investments in Puerto Rico surpass the $18,000 million mark. Annually these corporations obtain profits of up to $3,000 million from the exploitation of the Puerto Rican workers. These huge profits are the reason for the colonial situation in Puerto Rico and explain the importance of the island within Yankee interests in Latin America. The investments in Puerto Rico constitute almost 50% of all the U.S. investments in all Latin America. ...
The economic annexation has been of such magnitude that even the means of controlling the crisis and welfare benefits depend on the transference of federal funds. The food stamps, the benefits for veterans, the social security and the taxes for the construction, education and government constitute mechanisms which contribute not only to the economic dependency but also creates its counterpart of ideological and psychological dependency within the Puerto Rican masses in respect to the government of the U.S.
Puerto Rico has in fact been annexed to the United States through the process of economic development principally in the last 38 years. This process has served as the basis for the growth of the statehood forces which have taken advantage of the precarious economic situation in which thousands of Puerto Ricans–whose only income comes from federal funds–live. This process has led to a structural crisis in the Puerto Rican economy which does not show any signs of recovery in the near future....
Official repression was increased in the last few years with the activation of the Death Squad accused of murdering Juan Rafael Caballero; with the increase of illegal searches and harassment of the left with the imprisonment of Miguel Cabrera and Edgardo Alvelo. The maximum reflection of this increased repression was last year’s massacre of Cerro Maravilla. Everything points to the fact that the government has moved gradually to create the material and the psychological conditions, preparing both the state and the consciousness of the masses for the implantation of a Police State. This state will combine bourgeois legality with the intensification of repression systematically aimed against the labor movement and the left. The objective: to avoid the development of a militant mass movement in response to the deepening economic and social crisis.
Ever since the New Progressive Party (PNP) came into the colonial government in 1976 they have submitted the Puerto Rican people to a constant ideological bombardment in putting forth the political formula that statehood is the most convenient solution for the fundamental problems of the country. Under the slogan of “statehood is for the poor” they have developed an ideological offensive on all levels directed toward identifying statehood as a guarantee of economic and social security for the working class.
Manipulating the difficult economic and social conditions in which the majority of Puerto Ricans live, particularly the sectors marginalized from the productive process, and capitalizing on the ignorance and low level of consciousness of the oppressed masses, the annexationists want the people to believe that statehood is the only alternative we have to change this situation.
The starting point for this offensive has been the increase of the popular support for statehood by important sectors of the masses, victims of extreme dependency of the economy and the government on the United States. We want to emphasize that the material base for this increase in popular support is the total dependency of the Puerto Rican economy on the U.S. economy. Barcelo’s strategy has been based on food stamps and all types of federal funds since these have the effect of consolidating the economic and ideological and political dependency of the masses. The fact that PNP is in the colonial administration gives it enormous economic and propagandistic resources with which to push their offensive. As a matter of fact up to now the statehood leadership has developed good relations with important sectors of the federal government.
Nevertheless this should not be confused with the statement that some sectors have made, that imperialism is presently proposing statehood as the strategy to resolve the Puerto Rican question. This has been the position of the pro-independence petty-bourgeois forces that, in desperation and with a lack of scientific analysis, have identified the PNP annexationist offensive with imperialist strategy elaborated for Puerto Rico. Imperialism may be studying different alternatives in order to reinforce its domain over Puerto Rico, but at the moment the Free Associated State (ELA), even in bankruptcy, serves their interests very well.
The pharmaceuticals, the petrochemicals and the bond holders are sectors that derive enormous benefits from the present political status of Puerto Rico and would be very much affected by a precipitated change in this status. As a result before pushing alternatives such as statehood or neo-colonial independence, they will first push for changes in ELA which will not affect their interests. Therefore, identifying the PNP annexationist offensive with the strategy designed and being argued by U.S. imperialism for Puerto Rico is an incorrect assessment of our present political situation. This assessment also implies incorrect forms of how to take up the political tasks and priorities at the present juncture.
There is no room for doubt that in Puerto Rico the most annexationist and assimilationist sectors of our bourgeoisie are attempting to go to impossible lengths to accelerate the process toward statehood. On the other hand, in the center of the imperialist U.S. bourgeoisie there exist serious contradictions regarding the political status which should be adopted for our country. Each sector is pushing in the direction which will best suit the defense of their class interests. Those that already have their grip in Puerto Rico and want to preserve it, of course, will push the status quo with some cosmetic changes for the colony. Those who wish to become co-partners in the colonial plot will be willing even to pay federal taxes and in that sense are not afraid of statehood. These latter forces are the ones that have made clear to Romero in his political trips that they see very good possibilities and opportunities being offered by the government for further investment in Puerto Rico.
This offensive on the part of the annexationists and assimilationists in Puerto Rico has brought on vacillation and the adoption of opportunist positions among sectors of the radicalized petty-bourgeoisie in the Puerto Rican independence movement. They speak of a “conspiracy” to “annex” Puerto Rico; of the necessity for a “re-allignment of forces” with ex-governor Roberto Sanchez Vilella at the head and other things of a similar nature.
In the first place, it is absurd to speak of conspiracies on the part of imperialism toward Puerto Rico when it has functioned openly, boldly and shamelessly in our country from the very moment of the North American invasion. In the second place, to speak of the “struggle against annexation” as being synonymous with the struggle against statehood is, simply, not to know the difference between both concepts and not to understand the real significance of annexation. ..
Puerto Rico has not been able to be assimilated, but it has been annexed to the U.S. imperialist state. The Puerto Rican economy does not maintain a relation of mere dependency but of integration into the U.S. economy. The imperialists control 85% of the industry; 90% of all commerce; they extract billions in profits every year (in 1978 $1,600 million in net profits); they have converted Puerto Rico into their fifth largest market in the world and the second in Latin America; Puerto Rico is dealt with in the Congress, for all intents and purposes, as if it were another province (“state”); federal programs have been extended to Puerto Rico which at times have budgets larger than many of the other “states,” etc., etc., etc.
In other words, the imperialists have been able to achieve a reality of statehood on Puerto Rico for all practical purposes, with the agreement of the annexationists, colonialists and assimilationists. The “Free Associated State” (ELA) is ultimately statehood in deed without the 7 representatives and the 2 senators that Puerto Rico would have if it were a “state” and without having to pay federal taxes. In essence, what other important elements distinguish Puerto Rico from the rest of the “states”? That is why all the words and arguments of the annexationists and assimilationists from the bourgeoisie regarding the “rights” and “benefits” that according to them, Puerto Rico would have under statehood boil down to a myth.
Statehood would be the culmination of the process of annexation lived by Puerto Rico since 1898. To date, the imperialists have come to agreement and have jointly promoted that process of annexation that we have just described briefly. In Puerto Rico, both the PPD (yesterday) as the PNP (today) formerly the Republican Party, have supported key measures that on an economic, political, and social level have straight-jacketed our country to the United States.
The major contradiction existing in Puerto Rico is among those who want to take the process of annexation to its ultimate conclusion, i.e. to statehood (the present state-hooders) and those other sectors that are opposed to statehood even though they do not oppose other annexationist moves that will deepen annexation further. In recent years, we have had the clearest examples with the “aid” and federal programs at the economic level and with the internal primaries of the Democratic Party of the U.S. at the political level, that both PNP and PPD support and struggle to reap the benefits of federal aid. Both parties are willing to participate in the primaries, even when the PPD retreated opportunistically at the last minute because it knew that their candidates would not be guaranteed an] place.
For this reason it is an opportunist position to speak of a “re-alignment of forces” to combat “annexation” and conceiving that unity with colonialist and annexationist leadership of the PPD. This leads people to believe that the PPD is in actuality “anti-annexationist” when it does no good beyond opposition to statehood. To struggle against statehood and to struggle against annexation are two different issues. The first is a struggle that can be taken up as we have seen, by annexationist sectors and pro-imperialists of the Puerto Rican bourgeoisie–a struggle of this type would lead, given the present situation in Puerto Rico, to the strengthening of the PPD and of colonialism; to the betrayal of the highest interests of the working class and the oppressed masses that objectively stand in contradiction to capitalism and the bourgeoisie, whether they are annexationist, colonialist or assimilationist. To what extent would the cause of the Puerto Rican workers be advanced by an alliance based on opportunism and without principles? In our view, to no other result than to take a step backwards.