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dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/14/two-wings-of-the-same-bird-puerto-rico-cuba-hurricanes-and-political-prisoners/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/14/two-wings-of-the-same-bird-puerto-rico-cuba-hurricanes-and-political-prisoners/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Two Wings of the Same Bird – Puerto Rico,
Cuba, Hurricanes and Political Prisoners</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by Diana Block -
February 14, 2018<br>
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<p>Six months after Oscar López Rivera was released from
prison having spent 35 years inside, he traveled to
Cuba. “<a
href="http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2017-11-13/oscar-lopez-rivera-arrives-in-cuba-i-feel-at-home">I
feel at home</a>, this is a dream come true; for many,
many years, I have wanted to come to Cuba and today for
the first time I have arrived,” Oscar told Fernando
Llort González, the President of ICAP (Cuban Institute
of Friendship with the Peoples), who greeted him when he
stepped off the plane.</p>
<p>The last time Oscar had seen Fernando was in the cell
he shared with him for four years in Terre Haute prison
where they became good friends. Their friendship wasn’t
surprising. Oscar was in prison because of his
participation in the struggle to win Puerto Rican
independence from the U.S. while <a
href="http://www.radiorebelde.cu/english/cuban-five/fernando-gonzalez-llort-ruben-campa-biography/">Fernando</a>,
one of the Cuban 5, was in prison for his efforts to
protect a sovereign Cuban nation from U.S. aggressive
interventions. A Puerto Rican and a Cuban freedom
fighter sharing a cell was a twenty-first century
manifestation of the historical bonds between the two
islands, eloquently expressed in the lines that Puerto
Rican poet <a
href="http://ciudadseva.com/texto/a-cuba/">Lola
Rodriguez de Tió <em> </em>wrote</a> in 1893:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Cuba and Puerto Rico are<br>
as two wings of the same bird,<br>
they receive flowers and bullets<br>
into the same heart.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When Oscar arrived in Cuba on November 13, 2017, both
Cuba and Puerto Rico had recently received bullets into
the geographical hearts of their islands. Cuba was hit
by Hurricane Irma, a category 5 hurricane, on September
8, 2017. Two weeks weeks later, on September 20<sup>th</sup>,
Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, a
category 4 hurricane. In Cuba, the electricity was
restored to the entire island <a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/16/a-tale-of-two-islands/">within
a few weeks</a>. In Puerto Rico, over four months
after Maria <a
href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/8/16986408/puerto-rico-blackout-power-hurricane">nearly
40% of the island</a> is still without power. The
scandal-plagued response to the hurricane on the part of
the U.S. and Puerto Rican governments exposes the
operation of disaster capitalism at its worst.</p>
<p>In Cuba, Oscar summed up the situation. “<a
href="http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2017-11-13/oscar-lopez-rivera-arrives-in-cuba-i-feel-at-home">After
Hurricane Maria</a>, Puerto Rico was left devastated
and is now showing the world the poverty that existed
and was hidden; the world is being shown what
colonialism is, because it is perhaps the best example
of what becomes of a country that has been colonized for
119 years by the U.S. government.”</p>
<p>I recently spoke with Oscar to find out what he had
learned during his trip to Cuba and how he saw the
current Puerto Rican reality. He started by telling me
how he had toured Villa Clara, the Cuban province
hardest hit by Irma, with the Director of Civil
Defense. All electricity in the province had been
restored in little over two weeks. The rebuilding of
thousands of structures that had been damaged by Irma
was rapidly occurring with many houses already repaired,
all with government support.</p>
<p>The Cuban government put all available resources into
action before and after the hurricane, prioritizing <a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/16/a-tale-of-two-islands/">the
preservation of life</a> above all else. Days before
Irma hit, the Trump administration renewed the embargo
against Cuba, which has been in place since 1960. This
meant Cuba couldn’t access vital supplies needed for
reconstruction from the U.S. or assistance from many
international financial organizations that are impacted
by the embargo’s sanctions. Fortunately, many other
countries, including Venezuela, China and Bolivia,
provided assistance immediately.</p>
<p>I asked Oscar what he thought was key to Cuba’s
capacity to respond so rapidly and effectively. “It is
their commitment to developing the human resource,” he
answered unequivocally. “They continue to fortify and
strengthen the people and it gave me the most amazing
emotion to see how this was being done on all levels.
Everyone is organized into neighborhood and civic
organizations that get the information out to everyone
very quickly. “</p>
<p>He went on to explain how all parts of the society were
mobilized – neighborhood organizations helped to
coordinate the evacuation of almost one million people
in Havana, civic brigades conducted search-and-rescue
operations across the island, electric workers began
repairing the electrical infrastructure as soon as the
hurricane dissipated, and medical brigades fanned out
through the country to help with health emergencies.</p>
<p>“What’s needed in Puerto Rico is to organize the
people,” Oscar asserted when I asked him about the
failure of the governmental response to Maria. Oscar
described how he was shocked when he returned to Puerto
Rico, after decades of being in prison, by the level of
poverty, the intensifying gentrification, the takeover
of land, buildings and infrastructure by private U.S.
corporations and the strangling dictatorship of the <a
href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/puerto-ricos-double-devastation-hurricanes-and-austerity_us_59ca850fe4b0cdc7733531b0">PROMESA
fiscal control board</a> over all areas of Puerto
Rican economic life. These were the conditions which
contributed to the breakdown of recovery efforts. When
Oscar testified to the United Nations Special Committee
on Decolonization in June 2017, even before the
hurricane, he told them that in spite of the
deteriorating conditions <a
href="https://www.elnuevodia.com/opinion/columnas/oscarlopezattheunitednationswhatusahavedonetopuertorico-columna-2332903/">“many
Puerto Ricans believe this is the best moment to wage
an effective decolonizing process.” </a></p>
<p>As soon as he could after he was free, Oscar jumped
into organizing in Puerto Rico. “I love to figure out
communities and organize at the community level,” he
explained. With Maria, the focus has necessarily
shifted to supporting self-determined survival efforts
of the community. As one example, Oscar described how
the people of San Sebastián in the rural western part of
Puerto Rico were still without electricity two months
after Maria hit. Through the initiative of the town’s
mayor, retired electrical workers formed volunteer
brigades to restore electricity to the town. PREPA (the
Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority<a
href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/19/579196353/after-four-months-without-power-a-puerto-rico-town-strings-its-own-lines">)
accused the town of illegally circumventing its
monopoly</a> but the town refused to stop its work to
turn the power back on. Based upon San Sebastián’s
example, other municipalities began to pressure the
Puerto Rican government to allow them to legally restore
their own power. As a result of the widespread
pressure, a bill has been introduced in the legislature
to allow cities to hire their own contractors.</p>
<p>For Oscar, this type of grassroots action is a core
part of the decolonization project in Puerto Rico at
this moment in time. He has been involved in organizing
town hall meetings in various communities to get input
from the people on how they see conditions and to
support them in developing their own solutions to the
many problems they face. Puerto Rico’s Governor
Rosselló has begun the privatization of PREPA,
marketing privatization as the solution to the corrupt
practices of the agency – a false solution that the
Fiscal Control Board has been promoting. In contrast, a
main focus of the town halls has been alternative energy
projects using renewable energy from the sun, air and
water – real solutions that channel Puerto Rico’s
natural resources towards sustainable self-sufficiency.</p>
<p><a href="http://casapueblo.org/">Casa Pueblo</a> is an
example of a Puerto Rican community-based organization
that has a long history of organizing to protect and
develop Puerto Rico’s natural resources dating back to
1980 when it started as part of the <a
href="http://www.mcall.com/all-environmental0604-story.html">struggle
against open-pit mining</a>. I spoke with <a
href="http://biology.uprm.edu/facultad/?prof=74">Arturo
Massol- Deyá,</a> Professor of Microbiology and
Ecology at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez and
Associate Director of Casa Pueblo. According to Arturo,
the Puerto Rican and U.S. governments set up false
expectations that they would be able to manage the
crisis catalyzed by Maria. In fact, there was a total
collapse of governmental response so that not even tarps
were available for people to protect themselves from the
elements.</p>
<p>To support the people immediately after the hurricane,
Casa Pueblo, which is based in Adjuntas in a mountainous
part of the island, reached out to the Puerto Rican
diaspora in the United States to get tarps and
solar-powered lamps which were flown to Puerto Rico on
charter flights. Casa Pueblo was able to distribute
over 10,000 solar lamps across Adjuntas which helped to
alleviate the crisis of darkness in that area. This
emergency lighting project was rooted in Casa Pueblo’s
long standing commitment to solar power. The
organization’s headquarters has been run on solar power
since 1999. In 2017, ten houses in Adjuntas were
converted to solar and the plan is to create an entire
solar-based community in 2018 which can become a model
for other municipalities around Puerto Rico.</p>
<p>Speaking about the impact of Maria on Puerto Rico,
Arturo explained, “When one system fails, you have to
create another. The new reality means that solar power
is not an alternative but a necessity. Energy is a clear
example of how the colonial model has failed to provide
for the Puerto Rican people….We have to redefine the
energy agenda from the bottom up because from the top
down clearly doesn’t work.” According to Arturo, Maria
has also led to a strengthening of relationships between
Puerto Ricans on the island and those in the diaspora
who have stepped forward to help on an unprecedented
level. “The commitment of the people in Puerto Rico and
on the mainland is from their heart. That makes all the
difference.”</p>
<p>Cuba has also been pushed by the impact of Irma to
accelerate its 100-year plan, <a
href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2017/10/31/unesco-cuba-presenta-tarea-vida-para-enfrentar-cambio-climatico/#.Wm_fPDdG3cs"><em>Tarea
Vida</em></a> , for responding to climate change.
According to Dalia Salabarría Fernández, a marine
biologist at Cuba’s National Center for Protected Areas
(CNAP), <a
href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/cuba-embarks-100-year-plan-protect-itself-climate-change">“The
overarching idea is to increase the resilience of
vulnerable communities.”</a> The plan bans
construction of new homes in threatened coastal areas,
mandates relocating people from communities doomed by
rising sea levels, calls for an overhaul of the
country’s agricultural system to shift crop production
away from saltwater-contaminated areas, and spells out
the need to shore up coastal habitat defenses. Arturo
sees the value of this Cuban initiative for Puerto Rico.
“We might be in different political realities, but
regarding climate change, we are islands in the
Caribbean facing the same environmental challenge…We
[Puerto Rico] have the science, but lack of political
will (or power) to act on climate change is compromising
the security of many communities and critical
infrastructure. Taking a closer look at our neighbors
could be a good reference for our people. “</p>
<p>For Oscar, his visit to Cuba reaffirmed his sense of
the indelible solidarity between the two nations.
During the three decades of Oscar’s imprisonment, Cuba
repeatedly <a
href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2017/gacol3312.doc.htm">introduced
a resolution</a> before the United Nations
Decolonization Committee that recognized Puerto Rico’s
right to independence and self-determination and
demanded Oscar’s release as a political prisoner. This
year for the first time<a
href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2017/gacol3312.doc.htm">,
Oscar himself was able to testify</a> on behalf of the
decolonization resolution. As part of his speech, he
spoke in support of <a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/23/the-most-dangerous-spy-youve-never-heard-of-ana-belen-montes/">Ana
Belén Montes</a> a Puerto Rican who is currently
serving a twenty-five year prison term for relaying U.S.
intelligence information to Cuba, one more example of
the complex political links between the islands. Oscar
has also continually denounced the United States’
economic embargo of Cuba whose goal is to undermine the
right of the Cuban people to determine their own
political system and destiny.</p>
<p>When they were cellmates at Terre Haute prison, Oscar
and Fernando had imagined celebrating their freedom
together many times. Even though there were few
indications that this could ever happen, they both
trusted that the persistent struggles of their peoples
would at some point win their release. On November 14,
2017, Cuba presented Oscar with the Order of Solidarity
in a ceremony held at the José Martí Memorial at the
Plaza de la Revolución in Havana. At the ceremony,
Fernando praised Oscar as a <a
href="http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2017-11-14/oscar-lopez-rivera-receives-solidarity-order-in-cuba">“brave,
modest, educated man</a> with a great artistic
sensibility” and “a concerned father, caring
grandfather, and committed lover of his island and
people.” The flower of shared struggle between Puerto
Rico and Cuba will continue to bloom.</p>
<p><strong>Diana Block</strong> is the author of a novel,
<a
href="https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=738">Clandestine
Occupations – An Imaginary History</a> (PM Press,
2015) and a memoir, <a
href="https://www.akpress.org/armthespiritakpress.html">Arm
the Spirit – A Woman’s Journey Underground and Back</a>
(AK Press, 2009). She is an active member of the <a
href="http://www.womenprisoners.org/">California
Coalition for Women Prisoners </a>and the <a
href="http://www.curbprisonspending.org/">anti-prison
coalition CURB. </a> She is a member of the editorial
collective of <a
href="http://womenprisoners.org/?page_id=1061">The
Fire Inside newsletter</a> and she writes periodically
for various online journals.</p>
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