[News] After 100 years of citizenship, Puerto Ricans know that their homeland was invaded, wealth exploited, patriots persecuted and jailed

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.thenation.com/article/after-a-century-of-american-citizenship-puerto-ricans-have-little-to-show-for-it/ 



  After a Century of American Citizenship, Puerto Ricans Have Little to
  Show for It

By Nelson Denis - March 2, 2017

One hundred years ago today, on March 2, 1917, more than one million 
Puerto Ricans were granted United States citizenship. It wasn’t exactly 
a gift. Exactly one month later, on April 2, President Woodrow Wilson 
asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany 
<http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wilson-asks-for-declaration-of-war>. 
The point of extending citizenship to Puerto Ricans was to get about 
20,000 more bodies into the World War.

The centennial of that dubious bestowal makes now a good time to kick 
the tires and see whether citizenship ended up being a vehicle for human 
development or a beat-up car that only benefited its dealer.

After one hundred years of citizenship, US federal agencies 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/harvard-political-review/> 
control the island’s currency, banking system, international trade, 
foreign relations, shipping and maritime laws, TV, radio, postal system, 
immigration, Social Security, customs, transportation, military, 
import-export regulations, environmental controls, coastal operations, 
air space, civil and criminal appeals, and judicial code.

After one hundred years of citizenship, the per capita income 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/us/economy-and-crime-spur-new-puerto-rican-exodus.html?_r=2> 
of Puerto Ricans is roughly $15,200—half that of Mississippi, the 
poorest state in the union. Yet in the last five years alone, the 
government raised the retirement age 
<http://www.reuters.com/article/puertorico-debt-pension-idUSL2N0CS0KG20130405>, 
increased worker contributions, and lowered public pensions and benefits 
<http://www.reuters.com/article/puertorico-debt-pension-idUSL2N0CS0KG20130405>. 
It also hiked the water rates 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/us/economy-and-crime-spur-new-puerto-rican-exodus.html?_r=2> 
by 60 percent, raised the gasoline 
<https://panampost.com/panam-staff/2015/03/17/puerto-rico-stakes-economic-recovery-on-gas-tax-hike/> 
and sales taxes (the latter to 11.5 percent), and allowed electricity 
rates 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/12/puerto-rico-cost-of-living> 
to skyrocket. In 2013–14 alone, 105 different taxes 
<https://panampost.com/belen-marty/2015/01/19/running-on-empty-puerto-rico-ups-gas-tax-amid-falling-oil-prices/> 
were raised in Puerto Rico. But this was not enough.

After one hundred years of citizenship, Puerto Ricans are prohibited 
from managing their own economy, negotiating their own trade relations, 
or setting their own consumer prices. Puerto Rico has been little more 
than a profit center for the United States: first as a naval coaling 
station, then as a sugar empire, a cheap labor supply, a tax haven, a 
captive market, and now as a a municipal bond debtor and target for 
privatization. It is an island of beggars and billionaires: fought over 
by lawyers, bossed by absentee landlords, and clerked by politicians.

After one hundred years of citizenship, Puerto Ricans enjoy the media 
images of the American dream and the underside of the US Constitution. 
They are free to be poor, under-educated and unemployed; free to be 
invisible and unheard; free to lose their homes to Wall Street; free to 
flee the island in utter desperation, as hundreds of thousands have done 
in recent years.

Sure, Puerto Ricans are free—free to be poor, under-educated, 
unemployed, invisible, unheard. 
<http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Sure%2C+Puerto+Ricans+are+free%E2%80%94free+to+be+poor%2C+under-educated%2C+unemployed%2C+invisible%2C+unheard.%20http://bit.ly/2le7Eua> 


After one hundred years of citizenship, Puerto Ricans know that that 
their homeland was invaded, its wealth exploited, its patriots 
persecuted and jailed. But they continue to suffer in solitude, their 
cause largely ignored even by those in the United States who generally 
pay attention to such suffering “abroad.” Separated by an ocean, a 
language, and a century of propaganda, they are more unnoticed than 
Ralph Ellison’s /Invisible Man/, and more forgotten than Macondo, the 
town in Gabriel García Márquez’s /One Hundred Years of Solitude/.

For Puerto Rico, the legacy of the American Century is a schizophrenic 
existence. Puerto Ricans are both citizens and colonial subjects of the 
United States. They have a legislature whose will can be vetoed by 
Congress. They have been conscripted to take up arms and die on foreign 
shores for the United States, but they are not permitted to vote for its 
president. Now a board elected by nobody, either in the United States or 
in Puerto Rico, will govern the island as a de facto collection agency 
for hedge funds and Wall Street speculators.

The 20th century opened with lavish promises for Puerto Ricans. On July 
28, 1898, General Nelson Miles 
<https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/puerto-rico/history3.html> 
of the United States Army hoisted the Stars and Stripes atop the 
municipal flagpole in Ponce, on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, and 
told the island’s inhabitants that the United States had arrived “to 
bring you protection, not only to yourselves but to your property, to 
promote your prosperity…and to give…the advantages and blessings of 
enlightened civilization.”

The words were magnificent, but their delivery depended upon the United 
States Congress, which has jurisdiction over the entire government and 
economy of Puerto Rico. In effect, Puerto Ricans are perpetually subject 
to the moods and whims of a few hundred politicians, over 1,500 miles 
away, in Washington, DC.

The politicians were indeed whimsical. On the floor of the Senate 
<https://books.google.com/books?id=WzvRDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=WAR+AGAINST+ALL+PUERTO+RICANS+SENATOR+BATE&source=bl&ots=J7GaDU-n_n&sig=5PUlSTVtf52N4C2r2giTXtuqitc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCjbnVtKzSAhUI7GMKHZfIBewQ6AEINzAF#v=onepage&q=WAR%20AGAINST%20ALL%>, 
Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio insisted that Puerto Ricans “have no 
experience which would qualify them for the great work of government 
with all the bureaus and departments needed by the people of Porto 
Rico.” William B. Bate 
<http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/30903-the-united-states-liberated-puerto-rico-only-to-brutally-colonize-it>, 
a Democrat from Tennessee who had served as a major general in the 
Confederate Army, shared the most precise information. Puerto Ricans and 
Filipinos, he said, were “heterogeneous mass of mongrels…hostile to 
Christianity,” as well as “savages addicted to head-hunting and 
cannibalism.”

 From the very outset, then, a herd of misinformed senators viewed 
Puerto Ricans as too brown, dumb, and foreign to qualify as human 
beings, let alone United States citizens. This early de-humanization of 
an entire island was the precursor to a century and more of theft, 
usury, and deception.

In a textbook illustration of Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine 
<https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312427999?_encoding=UTF8&isInIframe=0&n=283155&ref_=dp_proddesc_0&s=books&showDetailProductDesc=1#product-description_feature_div>,” 
Puerto Rico suffered an immediate barrage of economic hits. An 1899 
hurricane leveled the island, destroying thousands of farms and an 
estimated $7 million worth of the year’s coffee crop. Rather than send 
relief, the United States government devalued the island’s currency 
<http://digital.ipcprintservices.com/publication/frame.php?i=37506&p=&pn=&ver=html5&view=articleBrowser&article_id=387415> 
by 40 percent 
<http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1988-12-04/news/0090000072_1_puerto-rico-foreign-ownership-colonialism>. 
Overnight, by congressional whim, every Puerto Rican lost nearly half 
their net worth. In 1901, Congress imposed an unprecedented assortment 
of land and property taxes in order to pay for the “bureaus and 
departments” of Charles Herbert Allen 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2016/03/07/the-man-who-stole-puerto-rico/>, 
the island’s first US-appointed civil governor.

Allen ruled for just over a year. Within weeks of sending his First 
Annual Report 
<https://books.google.com/books/about/First_annual_report_of_Charles_H_Allen_g.html?id=rj8vAAAAYAAJ> 
to President William McKinley, Allen resigned and rushed to Wall Street. 
As a vice president of two House of Morgan subsidiaries, he built the 
largest sugar syndicate in the world with a little help from his friends 
in Puerto Rico. By 1907, Allen’s company controlled 98 percent of the 
sugar refining capacity in the United States. Today his company is known 
as Domino Sugar 
<https://longislandweekly.com/war-comes-to-garden-city-nelson-lectures-on-puerto-rican-economic-situation/>. 


In short, Allen hard-wired the entire Puerto Rican economy for his own 
personal benefit, and injected over 600 US expatriates into the 
government of Puerto Rico. These expats then returned the favor, by 
delivering Allen a sugar kingdom 
<https://www.amazon.com/American-Sugar-Kingdom-Plantation-Caribbean/dp/0807847887>. 


With crippled farms, higher taxes, and 40 percent less cash than they 
had before, Puerto Rican farmers soon lost their land. By 1928, 80 
percent <http://press.princeton.edu/titles/2468.html> of Puerto Rico’s 
sugar cane farms were US-owned; four US-owned cane syndicates covered 
over half the island’s arable acreage. The insular railroad systems, 
trolleys, and the San Juan seaport were also US-owned, along with much 
of the island’s infrastructure.

Thus, within one generation of the American occupation of the island, 
the promises to Puerto Rico regarding the protection of property, 
promotion of prosperity, and “blessings of enlightened civilization” 
were exposed as a complete sham.

The financial control board is now the de facto government, banker, 
judge, jury, and executioner of Puerto Rico. 
<http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=The+financial+control+board+is+now+the+de+facto+government%2C+banker%2C+judge%2C+jury%2C+and+executioner+of+Puerto+Rico.%20http://bit.ly/2le7Eua> 


The crony capitalism of the early 1900s was quickly institutionalized by 
the US Congress. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920—also called the Jones 
Act 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2016/09/30/end-the-jones-act-in-puerto-riconow/>—required 
that all ships delivering goods to Puerto Rico had to be built in the 
United States and owned by United States citizens. The Jones Act is a de 
facto price-fixing scheme 
<https://palmer.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/forward-thinking-solution-puerto-rico> 
which enables US corporations to charge up to 20 percent more for all 
goods sold on the island. Due to this scheme, the same car costs $6,000 
more in San Juan than on the mainland. The scheme has made this tiny 
island, smaller than Connecticut, a captive consumer market for US 
products. There are more Walmarts and Walgreens 
<http://www.walmartnewsnow.com/puerto-rico-has-more-walmarts-walgreens-per-square-mile-than-anywhere-else-in-the-world-latino-fox-news/> 
per square mile in Puerto Rico, than anywhere else on the planet, all 
selling US goods at a hyper-inflated profit.

Until 2006, IRS code 936 
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/936> provided US 
manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies in Puerto Rico with tax 
abatement deals. Now, in 2017, Acts 20 and 22 
<https://www.the2022actsociety.org/> passed by the Puerto Rico 
legislature provide US corporations and wealthy investors with /another 
/tax abatement on all interest, dividend, and capital gains income. This 
tax haven status has enabled John Paulson—the hedge-fund billionaire, 
subprime mortgage speculator, and fervent supporter of Donald Trump—to 
buy the AIG building 
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-15/paulson-co-adds-to-puerto-rico-real-estate-with-aig-building> 
in Hato Rey, the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel, La Concha Renaissance Hotel, 
St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort, and the San Juan Beach Hotel. He has also 
invested in Banco Popular 
<http://www.barrons.com/articles/SB51005578970899454132304580142130668645828>, 
the island’s largest bank 
<http://prospect.org/article/how-hedge-funds-are-pillaging-puerto-rico>.

After the expiration of IRS 936 in 2006, municipal bonds became all the 
rage. Their triple tax-exempt status—from federal, state, or local 
taxes—offered a quick financial return with robust annual yields. Many 
of them violated Puerto Rico’s constitutional debt ceiling 
<http://blogs.reuters.com/muniland/2014/02/13/puerto-ricos-debt-limit/>. 
Others were naked Ponzi schemes 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2016/04/09/4-billion-securities-fraud-in-prepa-will-be-paid-by-the-people-of-puerto-rico/>, 
issued as interest payments to well-connected bondholders. Still others 
were purchased for pennies on the dollar, by vulture funds 
<http://www.salon.com/2016/07/01/watch_sanders_blasts_colonial_puerto_rico_bill_and_wall_street_vulture_funds_in_powerful_senate_speech/> 
that now insist on a full dollar’s profit. These financial 
instruments—as dubious as the “credit default swaps” and “collateralized 
debt obligations” of the subprime mortgage meltdown—have plunged Puerto 
Rico into a public debt of $72 billion, a daunting figure that amounts 
to almost three-quarters of the island’s gross domestic product.

For over a century, one “economic development” scheme after another has 
been rolled down a red carpet stretching from Wall Street to San Juan. 
The latest caper is the Financial Control Board.

Last year, through some celestial alchemy or Beltway coincidence, all 
three branches of the US federal government confirmed, on the very same 
day 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2016/10/09/the-death-of-puerto-rico-as-a-commonwealth/>, 
that Puerto Rico is still a colony. On June 9, 2016, in /Puerto Rico v. 
Sanchez Valle/ 
<http://harvardlawreview.org/2016/11/puerto-rico-v-sanchez-valle/>, the 
US Supreme Court agreed with the Obama administration’s argument that 
Puerto Rico is a territorial possession 
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/09/supreme-court-puerto-rico-independent-sovereign/85155382/> 
of the United States, with no political or juridical sovereignty 
whatsoever. That same day, the House of Representatives passed the 
Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) 
to create a financial control board 
<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/puerto-rico-news-ruling-promesa/486392/> 
empowered to manage the entire Puerto Rican economy.

The financial control board is now the de facto government, banker, 
judge, jury, and executioner of Puerto Rico. It will supervise and 
approve the entire Commonwealth budget 
<https://www.thenation.com/article/orwell-in-puerto-rico-congress-promises-a-new-dictatorship/>; 
reduce or eliminate public pensions; restructure the public workforce 
(meaning, fire government employees); preside over all leases, union 
contracts and collective bargaining agreements; and ensure the payment 
of debt obligations. 
<http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35274-no-more-colonialism-disguised-as-financial-assistance-the-us-must-relinquish-puerto-rico> 


The financial control board also has prosecutorial powers 
<https://www.thenation.com/article/orwell-in-puerto-rico-congress-promises-a-new-dictatorship/>. 
It can hold hearings, demand evidence, secure government records, and 
subpoena witnesses—and anyone who fails to testify or appear can be held 
in contempt of court. This includes any public official in Puerto Rico, 
up to and including its governor.

The stakes are higher now than ever. Get The Nation in your inbox.

Astoundingly, the financial control board can also receive gifts 
<http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/28/in-puerto-rico-bill-gift-giving-encouraged/> 
with no restriction on who gives them or in what amount. That this is an 
influence peddler’s dream apparently did not trouble the drafters of the 
PROMESA bill, or the 297 congressional representatives 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/06/09/puerto-rico-fiscal-rescue-is-poised-to-pass-house-as-july-deadline-looms/?utm_term=.e218bbabb9ff> 
and 68 senators 
<http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/congress-passes-promesa-act-puerto-rico-debt-crisis-n601291> 
who voted for it. Equally astounding is that several members of the 
financial control board are the same bankers who helped to create 
<https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/16/pirates_of_the_caribbean_bankers_who>, 
and profited from, the island’s current debt crisis.

In their very first meeting, the financial control board announced its 
jurisdiction over the entire Commonwealth government and about two dozen 
state agencies 
<http://www.noticel.com/noticia/195419/estas-son-las-entidades-gubernamentales-bajo-la-junta-de-control-fiscal.html>, 
including the University of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Electrical and 
Power Authority, the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, the 
central bank, the public retirement systems, the Housing Finance 
Authority, and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company.

Under financial control board pressure, the Commonwealth has already 
announced the closure and sale of over 300 public school buildings 
<http://elvocero.com/gobierno-vendera-escuelas-en-desuso/> and an 
impending cut of $300 million 
<http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn&id=9769&SEO=impossible-for-puerto-rican-state-university-to-cut-us-300-million> 
from the University of Puerto Rico budget. The financial control board 
has also requested 
<http://www.wipr.pr/junta-de-control-fiscal-pide-mas-recortes-en-gastos-del-gobierno/> 
a 10 percent cut in the government retirement system 
<http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-rico-see-painful-budget-measures-warns-federal-control-board-n724076>; 
an increase in tax collections and penalties; and cutbacks in health, 
education, and pension expenditures. A minimum wage cut 
<http://www.coha.org/promesa-the-puerto-rican-debt-crisis-and-its-restructuring/> 
to $4.25 for those between the ages of 20 and 24 is under discussion, 
and since Puerto Rico recently defaulted 
<http://newsok.com/puerto-rico-defaults-on-multimillion-dollar-debt-amid-crisis/article/feed/1159918?articleBar=1> 
on bond payments of $312 million on February 1, 2017, a further wave of 
austerity demands is expected from the board.

These cuts will still not be enough. The debt service alone on the 
island’s $72 billion debt will be nearly $6 billion annually: $4 billion 
on its general obligation bonds and $1.81 billion for the electric power 
authority and the aqueduct and sewer authority. With a population of 
more than 3.4 million, this means that every man, woman, and child in 
Puerto Rico will be paying more than $1,500 per year just to cover the 
interest on Puerto Rico’s public debt. Since per capita income barely 
exceeds $15,000, this would represents 10 percent of everyone’s personal 
income.

With a shrinking tax base, Puerto Ricans are unable to meet this 
crushing debt burden. Eventually the FCB will convert any institutions 
burdened by unpaid debt into so-called P3s—public private partnerships 
<http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/>—which should actually be 
called P5s: public-private partnerships for the plunder of Puerto Rico 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2015/10/07/the-first-public-private-partnership-between-the-us-and-puerto-rico-where-the-whole-island-was-stolen/>. 
One of these is already providing an outrageous return on investment to 
Goldman Sachs 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2016/12/07/goldman-sachs-steals-1-25-billion-from-puerto-ricoand-uses-two-governors-to-cover-it-up/> 
for the next 30-plus years, from tolls on the island’s busiest highways. 
By the time the FCB completes its mandate, the entire public 
infrastructure will likely be privatized 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2016/07/14/will-puerto-rico-be-privatized/>, 
turning the island into one giant ATM in the Caribbean.

Within six months of its creation, the extent of FCB power, 
jurisdiction, and willingness to inflict austerity have earned it a new 
and more intuitive name: Junta Colonial 
<http://www.elnuevodia.com/opinion/columnas/juntacolonial-columna-2180194/>. 


On the island, opposition to the financial control board is vocal and 
widespread. As of June 2016 a /campamento/ 
<http://dialogoupr.com/tag/campamento-contra-la-junta/> against the 
board, similar to the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park, has 
occupied the capitol grounds in San Juan. The /campamento/ has grown 
continuously, spoken loudly 
<http://dialogoupr.com/arrestos-frente-al-caribe-hilton-en-protesta-contra-la-jueza-sotomayor/>, 
and is drawing international attention 
<http://www.wipr.pr/campamento-contra-la-junta-llama-atencion-de-organismos-internacionales/>. 


Virtually every town in Puerto Rico—including San Juan 
<http://www.primerahora.com/noticias/puerto-rico/nota/milesprotestancontrajuntadecontrolfiscal-1161189/>, 
Fajardo 
<http://eldiariony.com/2016/11/18/en-vivo-primera-reunion-de-la-junta-de-control-fiscal-en-puerto-rico/>, 
Ponce 
<http://vocesdelsurpr.com/2016/10/protestan-ponce-la-junta-federal-control-fiscal/>, 
Mayagüez 
<http://informacionaldesnudo.com/mayaguez-y-las-grandes-mayorias-contra-la-junta-control-fiscal/>, 
Arecibo 
<http://www.primerahora.com/elnorte/noticias/gobierno-politica/nota/temenjuntadepasoaincineradoraenarecibo-1188524/>, 
Aguadilla 
<http://wole12.com/2016/07/29/ciudadanos-protestan-en-contra-de-la-junta-de-control-fiscal-en-aguadilla/> 
and the island of Vieques 
<http://www.primerahora.com/noticias/gobierno-politica/nota/truenanlideresdeviequescontralajunta-1147895/>—has 
seen massive protests against the financial control board. Over 50 
non-profit organizations 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2016/04/23/fifty-organizations-in-puerto-rico-form-a-coalition-against-the-us-financial-control-board/> 
and 18 labor unions 
<http://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/locales/nota/unionesiranawashingtonacabildearcontralajuntadecontrolfiscal-2183192/> 
have rallied and organized against it.


        Related Articles

In a speech to the Puerto Rico Bar Association, Judge Juan Torruella—the 
longest-sitting federal judge in Puerto Rican history—thundered that 
“the main purpose of PROMESA is to establish a collection agency to 
collect the monies owed to the bondholders 
<https://waragainstallpuertoricans.com/2016/09/15/federal-judge-juan-r-torruella-puerto-rico-is-in-a-political-apartheidwe-need-to-organize-a-civil-resistance/>” 
and the imposition of a financial control board “represents the most 
disrespectful, anti-democratic, and colonial act that has ever been seen 
in the course of our relationship with the US.” Both statements received 
an equally thunderous standing ovation, from over 400 attorneys in 
attendance.

During a rock concert in front of over 20,000 people 
<http://www.elnuevodia.com/entretenimiento/musica/nota/arrestanatitokayakduranteconciertodeculturaprofetica-2247194/> 
last October, a man was arrested for replacing a United States flag with 
a Puerto Rican one, in protest against the FCB. As recently as February 
23, thousands of demonstrators 
<https://www.facebook.com/CampamentoContraLaJunta/posts/1270380783049949> 
surrounded the capital building in San Juan to protest the FCB budget 
cuts to the University of Puerto Rico.

In every corner of the island, public resentment is growing, and the 
strains of police containment along with it. It’s a flammable 
combination. The island is in turmoil, and with each new FCB austerity 
announcement, it comes closer to exploding.

If it occurs, this explosion will be kindled by decades of frustration 
and a century of colonial solitude. After 100 years of citizenship, 
Puerto Ricans are being patronized to death. Exploited by bankers, 
deceived by politicians, ignored by journalists, they have nowhere left 
to turn.


-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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