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<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"> <font
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href="http://www.enclavemag.com/puerto-rican-revolution-will-not-corporate-sponsors/">http://www.enclavemag.com/puerto-rican-revolution-will-not-corporate-sponsors/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">The Puerto Rican Revolution Will Not Have
Corporate Sponsors</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by Hector Luis Alamo -
May 25, 2017<br>
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<p>The only thing shocking about all the <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/nyregion/more-corporate-sponsors-abandon-puerto-rican-day-parade.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">corporate
sponsors pulling their support for the 60th
annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade</a> is that
people are actually shocked.</p>
<p>These Wall Street patrons — Goya, AT&T, JetBlue,
Coca-Cola, Constellation Brands (makers of Corona,
Modelo and an ocean of wine), the Yankees, the <a
href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/news-parade-article-1.3193480"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Daily
News</em></a> and their ilk — were never <em>really</em>
backing the pride of the Puerto Rican people so much as
hoping to get some of their dollars.</p>
<p>But then again, that’s the history of Puerto Rico in a
nutshell. A <em>yanqui</em> yearning for Puerto Rican
pesos lies at the root of the $74 billion bond debt —
plus <a
href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-03/puerto-rico-governor-wants-board-to-file-bankruptcy-like-case"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">another $50
billion in pension funds</a> — which the island has no
way of paying back.</p>
<p>It’s why the new governor, Ricky Rosselló, <a
href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-puerto-rico-bankruptcy-20170505-story.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">will close
184 schools</a> across <em>la isla del desencanto</em>,
and why anyone with the means is abandoning ship like
first-class passengers on the <em>Titanic</em>, leaving
Puerto Rico’s lower classes to contend with the rising
water.</p>
<p>It’s why the newly released <a
href="http://www.enclavemag.com/bad-puerto-rican/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Oscar López
Rivera</a> has spent more time in federal prison — 36
years — than I’ve been a Puerto Rican.</p>
<p>The announcement earlier this month that López Rivera
would lead the procession down New York’s Fifth Avenue
this year as the first “<a
href="http://observer.com/2017/05/oscar-lopez-rivera-puerto-rico-nationalist-honor-rican-parade-mark-viverito/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National
Freedom Hero</a>” designated by the parade’s board is
what sparked the firestorm now swirling around the
upcoming event on June 11.</p>
<p>That there’s arguably no living Puerto Rican more
deserving of the title “National Freedom Hero” than
López Rivera is lost on the likes of Bronx state Senator
Ruben Diaz, who called the current controversy a “mess …
created by the board of directors of the National Puerto
Rican Day Parade.”</p>
<p>“Instead of naming Oscar López Rivera a National Puerto
Rican hero and joining elected officials together to do
this, the Board of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade
should be concentrating better on bringing attention to
the fiscal situation in Puerto Rico,” Diaz <a
href="https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/articles/ruben-diaz/weird-things-are-happening-new-yorks-political-environment"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote on the
New York State Senate’s website</a>.</p>
<p>On Monday <a
href="http://nypost.com/2017/05/22/nypd-commissioner-refuses-to-march-in-puerto-rican-day-parade/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NYPD
Commissioner James O’Neill</a> joined the NYPD
Hispanic Society, the Sergeants Benevolent Association,
the <a
href="http://nypost.com/2017/05/23/another-big-time-sponsor-pulls-out-of-puerto-rican-day-parade/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">FDNY
Hispanic Society and the Uniformed Fire Officers
Association</a> in boycotting this year’s Puerto Rican
Day Parade, referring to López Rivera as a “terrorist.”</p>
<p>“[Oscar López Rivera] is a convicted felon, plain and
simple, and one who has not apologized or repented for
his cowardly attacks,” said Jake Lemonda, president of
the fire officers union.</p>
<p>For his part, state Senator Diaz at least admits that,
while “many accuse Oscar López Rivera of being involved
in terrorist acts where people lost lives … [he] was
never found guilty of killing anyone, and always
maintained his innocence in any criminal act.”</p>
<p>For my part, I do believe Oscar, as a member of the
Puerto Rican <em>Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional</em>, had
something to do with the bombings attributed to the
clandestine revolutionary group in the 1970s and ’80s.
Whether he himself made the bombs or set the fuses, and
whether that should make him <em>persona non grata</em>
in New York, San Juan or anywhere else, is up for
debate.</p>
<p>But at the heart of Oscar’s involvement with the FALN
is a commitment to seeing Puerto Rico — as well as all
the colonized and oppressed peoples of the world — freed
from under Lady Liberty’s sandal by any means necessary,
including armed struggle, which is the right of all
colonized peoples as outlined by the Declaration of
Independence and the <a
href="http://www.un.org/en/decolonization/declaration.shtml"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1960
UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to
Colonial Countries and Peoples</a>.</p>
<p>By refusing to participate in the parade and directing
funds toward programs benefiting the Puerto Rican
community, as most of the corporations and unions have
decided to do, Goya, Coca-Cola and the rest are making a
political statement that, while they’re more than
willing to help a few Puerto Rican kids pay for college,
they won’t endorse Puerto Rico’s right to decide for
itself its own political and economic future.</p>
<p>The corporate boycott of this year’s parade only
reaffirms the rationale stated by the FALN in its <a
href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/puertorico/PR-Peoples-War.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">very first
communiqué</a>, dated October 1974, in which the group
announces its presence and declares war on the “Yanki
corporations in New York City … responsible for the
murderous policies of the Yanki government in Puerto
Rico, Latin America, and against workers, peasants and
indios throughout the world.”</p>
<p>Coca-Cola, particularly, is one to talk of terrorism.
The company has been <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/26/world/union-says-coca-cola-in-colombia-uses-thugs.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">accused by
human rights organizations and union leaders</a> of
hiring members of the United Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia, a right-wing paramilitary group, to kill and
intimidate workers in South America.</p>
<p>So it would seem that these corporations aren’t opposed
to terrorism per se, merely terrorism in the service of
human rights — which gives a sinister, Orwellian feel to
the lyrics “I’d like to teach the world to sing in
perfect harmony.”</p>
<p>This year’s boycott isn’t about the acts Oscar López
Rivera may or may not have committed, but about why he
did them. The corporate sponsors have pulled their
support because this year’s parade will be led by a man
who has declared himself a lifelong enemy of U.S.
imperialism and global corporate interests.</p>
<p>Looks like the parade’s board of directors created a
real problem for itself by naming López Rivera
its inaugural National Freedom Hero this year — namely,
finding an equally suitable candidate for next year.</p>
<p><em>Featured image: Oscar López Rivera during his trial
for seditious conspiracy, c. 1981 (Chicago Tribune)</em></p>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
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415 863.9977
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