First Published: Challenge, November 16, 1973.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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PUERTO RICO–The imperialist war for oil in the Middle East brings home the importance of this black gold for all bosses, and the many evils suffered by workers from all lands because of Imperialism’s desire for oil. The Middle East is the clearest example but the workers of Puerto Rico are going to be victims of this imperialist rivalry for oil.
U.S. OIL RESERVES ARE RAPIDLY BEING depleted. By next decade, the U.S. will get 80% of its oil from the Persian Gulf area. To transport this oil, the oil bosses need the big ships known as supertankers (which will be bigger than the Empire State building). These ships will employ only about 80 men and are built to last for only a few years, therefore it is impossible to avoid that they break apart in the middle of the ocean, spilling the oil and polluting the seas.
These supertankers need a port of 90 to 120 feet of depth (contrary to the regular harbors of 35 to 45 feet of depth). They need these superports because the supertankers sink to about 80 to 100 feet when they are loaded with oil. The U.S. oil bosses, after being rejected by the states of New Jersey and Delaware, chose Puerto Rico as their site for the superport. Their lackey governor Rafael H. Colon is pushing all kinds of lies to make the people buy the superport. But, the truth is that the people ain’t buying it. Let’s look at the reasons why;
• THE SUPERPORT MEANS THE BUILDING of several refineries that will refine by 1990 3 million barrels of crude oil per day. Refining oil means to throw all the poisons to the air and the sea. The U.S. Army Engineering Corps estimates that a superport and its refineries will throw an estimated 1.3 million tons of sulphur and other pollutants into the air. In 1970, the 3 refineries operating in Puerto Rico (Sun Oil, Gulf Oil, and Commonwealth-Corco) only refined 250,000 barrels per day and threw 341,000 tons of these pollutants into the air. The School of Medicine of the Univ. of P.R. made a study in the town of Guayanilla (where Corco is situated) and discovered that 19 of each 100 inhabitants suffered from damaged lungs due to the pollution. The inhabitants of LaPaya-Magas (where a small refinery is situated–PPG) suffer from emphyzema, asthma and bronchitis. Imagine with 3 million barrels per day, it will be impossible to live in Puerto Rico. And this super-port will have a chain of branches all over the Caribbean.
• The superport will create unemployment. To solve the unemployment situation in Puerto Rico, it will be necessary to create 400,000 more jobs by 1990 (an impossible thing under capitalism). The superport will only employ 7,800 highly technical workers according to the expert M. Huston (El Mundo, Sept. 20). These 7,800 jobs for college graduated technicians will replace the 10,000 jobs that will be lost because of the closing of the Coloso and Igualdad sugar mills. These mills will be closed because the pollution will make growing sugar cane impossible. There is only one obvious answer: smash capitalism.
• THE SUPERPORT WILL CONSUME ONE billion gallons of fresh water per day by the year 2000. This will deplete P.R. sources of fresh water.
• The superport will occupy 17.5% of the few fertile lands left in the island (already the U.S. military bases occupy 30% of these lands). The pollution caused by the superport will destroy all the arable land in the West part of the island. Agriculture and fishing will be destroyed completely.
These are just some of the evils that the superport and the oil bosses greed for profits will bring to the workers of Puerto Rico. The P.R. Socialist League (a revolutionary Communist organization) has proposed the invasion of all the present refineries by workers working in and outside of these refineries as a first step to stop these imperialists. The P.R.S.L. calls for that as a beginning to the final and only sure answer to stop the bosses–a workers’ revolution for socialism.