[News] Vía Verde opponents arrested in White House protest

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Vía Verde opponents arrested in White House protest

Sept 4, 2011
Inter News Service
http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.article&id=1315147788

Puerto Rican environmental activists were 
arrested Saturday afternoon after taking their 
protest against the Fortuño administration’s 
controversial Vía Verde gas pipeline to the White House.

Among the protesters arrested by city police were 
Casa Pueblo founder Alexis Massol González and 
his son, Arturo Massol Deyá, who participated in 
the demonstration on White House grounds, 
organized by the group New York Against The Gas 
Pipeline, which includes Puerto Ricans from that 
state as well as from Virginia and Connecticut.

“We still don’t know the whereabouts of Alexis 
and Arturo Massol, as well as that of the other 
[protesters] who were arrested there [and were] 
identified as Carlos de León and David Galarza”, 
professor Vivien Mattei, a spokeswoman for the 
Adjuntas-based Casa Pueblo, said in a press 
release. The environmental and community 
organization has spearheaded the fight against 
the proposed 92-mile gas pipeline that would cut across Puerto Rico.

Before he was arrested, Massol González recalled 
his last visit to the U.S. capital in 2002 to 
receive the Goldman Prize, given to outstanding 
environmental leaders throughout the world.

“In 2002 I came to receive the Goldman [Prize] 
and elevate to international prominence the 
situation that Vieques was going through due to 
the U.S. Navy [bombing] practices there,” he 
said. “Today I come here in solidarity with the 
indigenous peoples of this nation who face the 
threat of an oil pipeline and to demand that 
President Obama keep the pledge he made during his last visit to Puerto Rico.”

The threat Massol González made reference to is 
the construction of a pipeline to transport crude 
oil from Canada that would cross the northern and 
central United States and reach the southern 
coast. The energy megaproject is known as Keystone XL.

“In Obama’s visit [to Puerto Rico], and through 
an interagency report, he pledged to develop our 
economy through an immediate transition to 
renewable energy [sources] and an emphasis on 
ecological tourism,” Massol González said. “It’s 
now a contradiction for his government, through 
the U.S. Corps of Engineers, to even consider 
evaluating a gas pipeline for Puerto Rico.
“The president must keep his word,” he added.

Massol González called on fellow Goldman Prize 
recipients to show their solidarity with Puerto 
Rico and urged islanders to save their patrimony.

“It’s time for the heroes and heroines of Puerto 
Rico to save our waters, our forests and our 
people,” he said. “Now is the moment to develop 
actions and make sacrifices that, with 
creativity, define the defense of our 
geographical fatherland,” said the environmental 
leader, who in the 1970s and 1980s led the 
struggle against plans for strip mining in the 
roughly 873-acre Adjuntas forest that is today managed by Casa Pueblo.

“What’s going on here is the same struggle that’s 
going on in our island and it’s the same one 
being waged in all corners of the Earth in 
rejection of fossil fuels,” he said. “The world 
is clamoring for a change. We, the majority, are 
proposing renewable alternatives that allow us, 
as humanity, to a just and sustainable development.”

David Galarza, spokesman for New York Against The 
Gas Pipeline, said that the Keystone and Vía 
Verde pipelines represent “death and destruction 
for North america, Puerto Rico and the whole 
planet.” He said that people must be willing to 
stand up and assume risks, including being 
arrested, to “defend the only Mother Earth we have.”

“I’m doing this in the nation’s capital and I 
would do it in Puerto Rico at any moment,” he 
said, calling on “all to do the same.”
At the same time this protest occurred in the 
federal capital, the Casa Pueblo Technical and 
Scientific Commission met with scientists and 
experts in environmental law to evaluate the 
inconsistencies in the biological opinion issued 
by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Mattei said in a press release.



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