Annotations for Countries: Puerto Rico

This week's feature deals with the recent discovery of the Nixon administration's collusion with the International Telephone and Telegraph Company, IT&T, to overthrow the government of Chilean President Salvador Allende. But surfacing also is the discovery that the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency massively financed efforts, which led to the defeat of Allende's bid for the presidency in 1964.

Further discoveries have shown that the US government is presently working in collusion with the US-based corporation, Kennecott Copper Company, to affect a worldwide embargo on nationalized Chilean copper in an attempt to ruin the Chilean economy and topple the Allende government. The Guardian reports that US Senate hearings on efforts by the Nixon administration and US corporations to sabotage the Chilean government of Salvador Allende have begun to have repercussions. Two weeks ago, Allende announced the suspension of economic talks between Chile and the US In light of revelations during the Senate hearings on the Nixon administration's collusion with IT&T to overthrow Allende's popular Unity government.

The most important new development has been the report that the top level National Security Council allocated $400,000 to the Central Intelligence Agency for propaganda to be used against Allende during the 1970 Chilean presidential election campaign. Other testimony has revealed that IT&T offered a $1 million fund to help defeat Allende. Edward Gerrity IT&T Vice President for Corporate Relations offered the excuse that the fund was to promote housing and agricultural grants to improve Chile's economy, but former CIA director John McCone testified that he had transmitted an IT&T offer of the money to block Allende's victory to the CIA and the White House. Former US ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry refused to comment on this or other questions at the hearings, including IT&T memos, which claimed Korry was instructed by the White House to do all short of military action to prevent Allende from taking office.

The most important new development has been the report that the top level National Security Council allocated $400,000 to the Central Intelligence Agency for propaganda to be used against Allende during the 1970 Chilean presidential election campaign. Other testimony has revealed that IT&T offered a $1 million fund to help defeat Allende. Edward Gerrity IT&T Vice President for Corporate Relations offered the excuse that the fund was to promote housing and agricultural grants to improve Chile's economy, but former CIA director John McCone testified that he had transmitted an IT&T offer of the money to block Allende's victory to the CIA and the White House. Former US ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry refused to comment on this or other questions at the hearings, including IT&T memos, which claimed Korry was instructed by the White House to do all short of military action to prevent Allende from taking office.

The Guardian further states that IT&T is now trying to collect a $92 million claim with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, OPIC, a US government-sponsored institution designed to reimburse companies which have overseas assets nationalized, but at the subcommittee hearings show that IT&T helped provoke the nationalization. OPIC will not have to pay on the claim. The details of IT&T's 18-point plan designed to ensure that the Allende government does not get through the crucial next six months were exposed in IT&T memos uncovered and released in March, 1972 by columnist Jack Anderson.

At that time, according to both IT&T and the Chilean government, both sides were near agreement on compensation, but the Anderson revelations of IT&T's attempts to overthrow the UP led the Chilean government to break off the talks. The UP government is now preparing to nationalize the Chilean telephone company, in which IT&T owns a major share worth about $150 million dollars. A constitutional amendment allowing for the nationalization is now going through the legislative process, although the government has been operating the company since 1971. In addition to its share in the phone company, IT&T owns two hotels, a Avis car rental company, a small telex service, and a phone equipment plant in Chile.

Talks on renegotiations of the Chilean debt to the US and on the resumption of purchased credits to Chile began last December and resumed in March. The next day the talks were suspended by the Chilean government in response to the latest revelations. Chile owes the US about $60 million for repayments of debt from November 1971 to the end of 1972, out of a total debt of $900 million dollars. Another controversial question, which the Chilean foreign minister says is now holding up an agreement, is the question of compensation for US copper companies whose holdings have been nationalized. Under a 1914 treaty between Chile and the US, the disagreement on copper compensation could be submitted to the international panel for non-binding arbitration. Chile has offered to use this means for arriving at an agreement, but the US refuses. This report is from The Guardian.

But US efforts to thwart the development of socialism in Chile are not a recent phenomenon. In a Washington Post news service feature, the post claims that massive intervention by the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department helped to defeat Socialist Salvador Allende in the 1964 election for president of Chile. American corporate and governmental involvement against Allende's successful candidacy in 1970 has been the controversial focus of a Senate foreign relations subcommittee investigation into the activities of US multinational companies abroad.

But the previously undisclosed scale of American support for Christian Democrat, Eduardo Frei against Allende six years early makes the events of 1970 seem like a tea party according to one former intelligence official, deeply involved in the 1964 effort. The story of the American campaign, early in the Johnson administration, to prevent the first Marxist government from coming to power in the Western hemisphere by constitutional means was pieced together from the accounts of officials who participated in the actions and policies of that period.

The Washington Post concludes, "Cold War ideology lingered, and the shock of Fidel Castro's seizure of power in Cuba still was reverberating in Washington. 'No More Fidels' was the guidepost of American foreign policy in Latin America under the Alliance for Progress. Washington's romantic zest for political engagement in the Third World had not yet been dimmed by the inconclusive agonies of the Vietnam War. 'US government intervention in Chile in 1964 was blatant and almost obscene,' said one strategically-placed intelligence officer at the time. 'We were shipping people off right and left.

Mainly State Department, but also CIA, with all sorts of covers.' A former US ambassador to Chile has privately estimated that the far-flung covert program in Frei's behalf cost about $20 million. In contrast, the figure that emerged in Senate hearings as the amount IT&T was willing to spend in 1970 to defeat Allende was $1 million." This from the Washington Post News Service.

The most recent tactic used against the Allende government by the Nixon administration and the US corporations has been an attempt to impose an economic embargo against Chilean copper. The North American Congress on Latin America, NACLA, reports that, "Since the Kennecott Copper company learned of the Allende government's decision to deduct from its indemnification the excess profits Kennecott earned since 1955, the company's position has been that Chile acted in violation of international law. The Allende government determined the amount of excess profits by comparing the rate of profit the nationalized companies earned in Chile to the return on capital invested elsewhere."

NACLA reports that Kennecott first tried to get satisfactory compensation by litigating in Chilean courts. When this failed, it threatened actions abroad in a letter directed to the customers of El Teniente Copper. In essence, Kennecott resolved unilaterally to try to coerce Chile to pay Kennecott for its properties. Kennecott's strategy has transformed a legal issue into a political and economic struggle. The loss of its Chilean holdings inflicted a heavy loss on Kennecott. In 1970, Kennecott held 13% of its worldwide investments in Chile, but received 21% of its total profits from those holdings. The corporation earned enormously high profits from its El Teniente mine. According to President Allende, Braden's, Kennecott subsidiaries, profits on invested capital averaged 52% per year since 1955, reaching the incredible rates of 106% in '67, 113% in '68 and 205% in '69. Also, though Kennecott had not invested any new capital, it looked forward to augmented profits from the expansion of production in its facilities due to the Chileanization program undertaken by the Frei government.

Although Kennecott was hurt a great deal in losing the Chilean properties, it did not lose all. In February '72, Chile agreed to pay $84 million, which represented payment for the 51% of the mines bought under the Chileanization plan. Chile also agreed to pay off the loans to private banks and to the export import bank that Kennecott had negotiated to expand production in the mines. Further, Kennecott has written off, for income tax purposes, its equity interest of $50 million in its Chilean holdings. Generally, such deductions not only mean that the US taxpayer will absorb the company's losses, but also that attractive merger possibilities are created with firms seeking easy tax write-offs.

Nevertheless, the Chilean expropriations came at a particularly bad moment for Kennecott because the corporation was under attack in other parts of the world. Environmentalist questioned Kennecott's right to pollute the air in Arizona and Utah, and other groups attempted to block Kennecott's plans to open new mining operations in Black Mesa, Arizona and Puerto Rico. On the legal front, Kennecott is contesting the Federal Trade Commission's order to divest itself with a multimillion dollar acquisition of the Peabody Coal Company. In all of these cases, Kennecott has taken an aggressive position to protect its interest at home and around the world. In September, 1972, Kennecott's threats materialized into legal action, asking a French court to block payments to Chile for El Teniente copper sold in France.

In essence, Kennecott claimed that the expropriation was not valid because there had been no compensation. Therefore, Braden was still the rightful owner of its 49% share of the copper. The court was requested to embargo the proceeds of the sales until it could decide on the Braden claim of ownership.

The NACLA report continues, "To avoid having the 1.3 million payment embargoed, French dock workers in Le Havre, in a demonstration of solidarity with Chile, refused to unload the freighter. The ship sailed to Holland where it immediately became embroiled in a new set of legal controversies, which were ultimately resolved. Finally, the odyssey ended on October 21st, '72 when the ship returned to Le Havre to unload the contested cargo. Copper payments to Chile were impounded until the court rendered a decision on its competence to judge the legality of the expropriation. Chile was forced to suspend copper shipments to France temporarily. The legal battle spread across Europe when Kennecott took similar action in a Swedish court on October 30th. Most recently, in mid-January 1973, Kennecott took its case to German courts.

NACLA states that, "It is not easy to ascertain the degree of coordination between Kennecott and the US government on their policy toward Chile." The State Department told us in interviews that Kennecott is exercising its legal rights as any citizen may do under the Constitution, but a reporter for Forbes Magazine exacted a more telling quote. When asked if there had been any consultation between Kennecott and the State Department, the State Department spokesman said, "Sure, we're in touch from time to time. They know our position." The Forbes reporter asked, "Which is?" The spokesman replied, "We're interested in solutions to problems, and you don't get solutions by sitting on your hands."

In fact, US government policies and Kennecott's actions fully compliment each other. They share the same objectives and function on the same premises of punitive sanctions and coercive pressures guised in the garb of legitimate legal and financial operations. Kennecott's embargoes will necessarily serve as a factor in the current negotiations between Chile and the US government. Whether or not the government was instrumental in Kennecott's actions, the United States now has an additional powerful bargaining tool. The Kennecott moves were denounced by all sectors of Chilean political life as economic aggression violating national sovereignty.

Other Latin American nations have also condemned Kennecott. Most significantly, CIPEC, the organization of copper exporting nations, Chile, Peru, Zaire, and Zambia, which produced 44% of the world's copper, met in December 1972 and issued a declaration stating they would not deal with Kennecott and that they would refrain from selling copper to markets traditionally serviced by Chilean exports. Such solidarity is important because it undercuts the Kennecott strategy in the present market where the supply is plentiful. Kennecott cannot deter customers from buying Chilean copper if they have nowhere else from which to buy.

Even within the US, the embargo has not proven totally successful. The Guardian reports that there have been some breaks among the US banks, Irving Trust, Bankers Trust, and the Bank of America are carrying on a very limited business with Chile and various companies continue to trade on a cash and carry basis. In a number of respects, US policy has backfired. If the US will not trade with Chile, its Western European competitors will fill the markets formally controlled by US companies. The US pressure has also helped to intensify the anti-imperialist reactions of a number of South American countries within the US and its multinational corporations. The Panama meeting of the UN Security Council is just one example of this.

Every week brings new defeats for the US strategy in South America. At the recent session of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America in Quito, Ecuador, South American countries unanimously condemned US economic policy toward the continent. The resolution was based on a detailed report showing how South America suffers great economic losses because of unequal trade agreements with the US. This report from The Guardian.

The Miami Herald reports on Puerto Rican opposition to a refinery there. Two Puerto Rican Independence leaders have asked a UN group to help prevent American oil interests from building a giant refining port in Puerto Rico. Senator Ruben Berrios of the Puerto Rico Independence Party and Juan Mari Bras, Secretary General of the Socialist Party, asked the UN Colonialism Committee to demand that the United States government block the plans. Berrios and Mari Bras said that the port would upset the ecology, harm the agriculture and fishing, and turn Puerto Rico into, "An appendage of international oil cartels." That from the Miami Herald. 

There is growing opposition by Puerto Ricans to announce plans for the construction of a petrochemical super port on their island. Juan Mari Brás, secretary General of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, was interviewed this month by The Guardian in New York City. The Guardian asked, "Mr. Mari Brás, I believe you are in the US to discuss several questions with the United Nations. One of the main ones being on the construction of a new super port in Western Puerto Rico. Could you discuss the political and economic significance of this project?" 

"There's a project presented by the government development company to install in the western part of Puerto Rico, a super port and refinery complex, with an initial investment of about $1 billion and to eventually reach about $16 billion. That super port would be a station for embarkment and disembark for crude oil coming to the US from the Persian Gulf and other areas of the Middle East. 

There is talk in the US of an energy crisis and the US oil companies want to install a refineries in the loading facilities in North American territory so as to avoid balance of payment problems. They want to have their oil refined and stored somewhere within the US economic framework, but at the same time export the pollution outside the US. 

This super port is conceived and planned to receive supertankers of 200,000 to 1 million tons. The port would threaten human and marine life. That's why the governments of several East Coast states have decided not to allow the installation of such a port in the states. And that's why they're thinking of the Caribbean islands For the establishment of those ports. They seek to take advantage of the fact that there are natural super port facilities in several places in the northwestern part of Puerto Rico, near Aguadilla and the island of Mona, an island 42 miles west of Puerto Rico." 

The Guardian then asked Mari Brás, "What will be the environmental effects of the proposed super port in Puerto Rico?" 

"The establishment of such a super port would be disastrous to the agricultural production and life in the western part of Puerto Rico. It would take something like 20,000 to 50,000 acres in the first stage of the project. Eventually, it would absorb the whole water production of Puerto Rico. It would signify also the replacement of communities that live in all the places where the super port would be installed. It would destroy completely the fishing industry in the western part of the island, and it would prevent the development of light industry in that part of the island. Thus, opposition to this project has been developing in the last few weeks in Puerto Rico." 

"Why are you appealing to the UN on this issue?"

"We have come to the UN to denounce the project as an attempt to destroy completely the self-determination of the Puerto Rican people. Once the international oil companies established their complexes on Puerto Rico, it is obvious that they will have much greater interest in maintaining the colonial status quo of the island, in view of the large investments of that project. 

We believe this project violates several international principles which are contained in resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly. Such resolutions prohibit administering powers of colonial territories from taking any steps that could undermine the territorial integrity of the colonial territory. That is why we have asked the UN Decolonization Committee to intervene in this question. And specifically to ask the US that while the case of Puerto Rico is being discussed by the Decolonization Committee, it should abstain from establishing that super port and oil complex." This interview by The Guardian from New York.

Thousands of workers from Puerto Rico marched in mid-July to La Fortaleza, headquarters of Puerto Rico's colonial government, to demand the withdrawal of 3,100 National Guard troops occupying fire stations, power plants, and waterworks throughout the island. As the demonstration reached its destination, colonial Governor, Hernández Colón, was lifted out of La Fortaleza by helicopter and military reinforcements were sent into the area.

The Cuban News Agency, Prensa Latina, reported from Puerto Rico that Governor, Hernández Colón, declared a state of emergency in the face of strikes by sanitary workers, firemen, electric power and water service employees. And had ordered the National Guard to break through the picket lines and maintain the service. 

In a later dispatch, the Puerto Rican weekly Claridad stated that the colonial government has begun to withdraw the nearly 5,000 National Guardsmen called in to break strikes by 9,000 public service workers here. Striking firemen and electrical power and water workers returned to the job last week. Their nine-day strike coincided with dozens of other labor conflicts that nearly paralyzed the island's economy and required the government to call in the National Guard for the first time since 1950. 

Claridad claims that scores of guard officers, noncoms and soldiers will be tried for failure to take their post during the recent mobilization. The guard command also announced that about 1500 soldiers will remain on active duty for several more days in different tasks. The firemen returned to work with a number of their demands having been met. All criminal charges and court orders against the firemen and their militant leadership have been dropped.

The government also agreed to commit $230,000 for personal safety equipment and to replace firetruck more than 10 years old. A special commission to study the workers' demands was set up and must report within three months. A spokesman for the union said, "If the commission comes back with a report adverse to the demands of the workers, then we'll go out on strike again." This report from the Puerto Rican Weekly Claridad.

This week's feature is on Puerto Rico.

Hundreds of Puerto Ricans, organized by the Puerto Rican independence movement, demonstrated in front of the United Nations last week, demanding freedom from what they called colonial domination by the United States. While Puerto Rico is officially an American protectorate, many feel that the United States' political and economic control over the Caribbean island gives an effective colonial status. In fact, the United Nations Committee on Decolonialization recently condemned the United States for possessing a colony. 

Our feature this week is an analysis taken from Ramparts magazine, in which Michael Meyerson deals with the colonial status of Puerto Rico and political movements striving to attain independence. 

For Puerto Ricans, colonial status is nothing new. They have spent the last five centuries under the rule of one western country or another. Puerto Rico came close to achieving independence in the late 1800s, winning an autonomous constitution from Spain, only to lose it a year later when the island was ceded to the United States as part of the spoils of victory in the Spanish-American War. 

Ruled first by the US military, then by presidential appointees, and only recently by an elected governor, Puerto Ricans have had little power over the fate of their island. They were even made US citizens over the objection of their one elected body. Today, the island's legislature's powers are limited to traffic regulations and the like. Real political power resides in the US House Committee on Insular Affairs and the Senate Committee on Territorial and Insular Affairs, both of which meet in Washington, DC, some 1,500 miles from San Juan. 

Appeals from Puerto Rican courts are decided in Boston and final jurisdiction rests with the US Supreme Court. US federal agencies control the country's foreign relations, customs, immigration, post office system, communications, radio, television, commerce, transportation, maritime laws, military service, social security, banks, currency, and defense. All of this without the people of Puerto Rico having a vote in US elections. 

The extent of US military control of the country is particularly striking. One cannot drive five miles in any direction without running into an army base, nuclear site, or tracking station. Green berets were recently discovered in the famed El Yunque National Rainforest, presumably using the island as a training ground. The Pentagon controls 13% of Puerto Rico's land and has five atomic bases, including Ramey Air Base. A major base for strategic air command, Ramey includes in its confines everything from guided missiles to radio jamming stations, which prevent Radio Havana from reaching Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo. 

In addition to the major bases, there are about 100 medium and small military installations, training camps, and radar and radio stations. In the late 1940s, Puerto Rico became the target of Operation Bootstrap. Hailed as an economic new deal for the island, Bootstrap bore the kind of name that encourages Americans to believe unquestioningly in their country's selfless generosity to other peoples. In truth, the new program was a textbook, perfect example of imperialism, guaranteeing tax-free investment to US firms, developing the island as a market for US goods. 

As The Wall Street Journal put it, "Two million potential customers live on Puerto Rico, but the hopeful industrial planners use it as a shopping center for the entire Caribbean population of 13 million." 

Ramparts states that while it fed American sense of self-righteousness and brought profits to US investors, Operation Bootstrap left untouched the misery of the majority of Puerto Rico's 2.5 million inhabitants. In fact, by limiting the development of the island's economy and forcing continual dependence on the US, Operation Bootstrap deepened the cycle of poverty in Puerto Rico. Four out of every five Puerto Rican families earn less than $3,000 per year. One-half receive less than $1,000 annually. 

Oscar Lewis puts unemployment at 14%. Knowledgeable Puerto Ricans insist that a figure as high as 30% is more realistic. That is a permanent condition twice as bad as the depths of the Great Depression in this country. Per capita income in Mississippi, our poorest state, was 81% higher than in Puerto Rico in 1960. Whereas wages are a fraction of those on the mainland, the cost of living on the island is higher. Most statistics place island costs at 25% higher than those in New York City, Chicago, or Boston. 

If it does little to improve the luck of the poor, Bootstrap has by any standards been a bargain for investors, offering US firms cheap labor and tax holidays of 10 to 17 years. Bootstrap was hailed by Hubert Humphrey as the miracle of the Caribbean. As the colonial government reports, manufacturers averaged 30% on their investment, thanks to the productivity of Puerto Rico's three-quarter million willing, able workers. 

Profits in electronics run 10.8 times those of the mainland industry's average. Every dollar invested has brought a profit of ¢30 during the first year. US investments in Puerto Rico are the highest after Venezuela in all of Latin America. For every dollar produced in the island's industrial system, only ¢17 is left in Puerto Rico. Only Britain, Canada, Japan, and West Germany import more US goods. This solid of less than 3 million people buys more from us than do Spain, Portugal, Austria, Ireland, and the four Scandinavian nations combined. 

Sugar and petroleum account for most of the country's industry. The sugar industry is controlled by three US companies and accounts for half of the island's agricultural income, a fact determined not by the agricultural needs of the island, but by the US sugar quota. Impoverished Puerto Rican plantation workers drop the cane for tax for US companies, ship the raw product to the United States where is refined, packaged, and taxed, and then buy back the finished product at its opening prices. 

Only the petrochemical industry has seen a bigger growth in Puerto Rico, with heavy investments from every major US petroleum corporations, including Phillips, Union Carbide, Texaco and Standard. Virtually bringing the Caribbean coast of the island in search of oil, they have caused severe pollution in some of the best fishing waters in the world. 

This together with the fact that the Federal Government prohibits Puerto Ricans from maintaining its own fishing crates, has resulted in the island being forced to import 95% of the fish it consumes. 

Since Meyerson's article, in Ramparts was published, it has been announced that large international oil companies intend to construct in the country a deep seaport, or super port, for the receiving, storing, transferring and refining of great quantities of petroleum. The proposed super port, with a capacity of over 300 million tons annually, would initially be accompanied by two to four refineries, each with a capacity of sent 250,000 barrels daily. These would begin operating in late year of 1977. 

Plans also call for linking to the super port a refining capacity of sent 6 million barrels daily of crude oil for the decade of 1980. The new refineries would then be accompanied by new and expanded petrochemical plants. The super port refinery petrochemical plant complex would come to occupy some 33,750 acres of the western coast of the country before the year 2000. Estimates indicate that the industrial complex would triple US investment in Puerto Rico, which already totals $6.8 billion. 

Many Puerto Rican nationalists fear that this would only tighten the grip of the US business interests over the island, and would constitute a formidable obstacle to the application of the United Nations resolutions on colonialism to Puerto Rico. 

In addition to these fears of political and economic control, opponents of the super port project have serious concerns about the effect of the project on the ecology of Puerto Rico. First, according to a study made by the US Army Corp of Engineers, the super port and accompanying developments will require about one billion gallons of fresh water per day by the year 2000. This would exhaust all the water sources and damage them permanently by the introduction of sailing compounds from underground reserves. 

Environmentalists also point out that waters used to cool the complex would reach a total of 30 million gallons of sea water per minute, roughly 12 times the total water discharge by the island's rivers. These salt waters, after going through the machines of the industrial complex, would be returned to the coastline some 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit about normal, seriously affecting the marine life in the area. 

Finally, it is pointed out that the US Army Corp of Engineers study concluded that the discharge of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and particularized matter would be 1,323,000 tons by the year 2000. 

Large as the result of the super port controversy, certain Puerto Rican political groups and newspapers have been denouncing what they call environmental colonialism. These political-economic phenomena, they say, consists of using the land, air, and water of the colonized as receptacles for the poisons and other pollutants that the large industries of the colonized have produced. 

In this manner, the colonizer exports pollution and the cost of combating it outside of his territory, thereby ensuring that a large port of the residue of those industries have no adverse effect on their own economy, public health, and landing environments. While the Meyerson article is published too early to comment on the super port plans, it does deal with the operations of large copper companies. 

Earlier in the 1950s, huge copper deposits were discovered in the interior. American Metal Climax and Kennecott Copper, operating through its auxiliaries, moved in, taking exclusive rights to the deposits. Comparable in size to the largest deposits in this country, the ore value was higher than any in the United States. The deposits are worth at least 1.5 billion. American Metal Climax paid Puerto Rico just $10 for an exploration permit. 

News of the deposits and of the negotiations between the two companies and the government was kept secret, until a pro-independence movement people got hold of word of the talks and began a public campaign. 

Through picketing, diplomatic protests, and local organizing, the Independistas have for four years successfully prevented the companies from starting production. Although the contract has not been signed yet, speculation is that with the 64-year-old millionaire industrious Luis Ferré as the new governor, the signing is imminent. 

Fairly more, Ramparts continues, that Washington propaganda has always held that Puerto Rico has no riches, that it needs the United States; hence, independence is unreasonable. Now Japan has offered the country a better deal on its copper than have a US companies. But its colonial position prohibits Puerto Rico from engaging foreign trade. Undoubtedly, its oil, sugar, tobacco, and coffee could also trade to better prices if offered competitively. 

"There seems no way to check or reverse the depletion of Puerto Rico's riches," says Meyerson, "other than independence." The major argument against independence, aside from lack of natural wealth, has been the size of the country, but Puerto Rico has more people than eight Latin American countries.

In recent years, several groups have appeared which see foreign investors as their principal enemies and have taken extreme actions to combat them. Since New Year's Eve of 1967, at least 75 fires, aimed at North American properties, have caused damages ranging in estimates from $25 to $75 million. No one has been caught, no evidence has been found, and no witnesses have come forth, but a group calling itself the Armed Comandos for Liberation, the CAL, has taken credit for the action. 

To the chagrin of the proper deed, no one can prove who belongs to the CAL. Although the press has attempted to tie the group with the Movement for Puerto Rican Independence. Police have even arrested local members of the Movement for Political Independence in connection with the bombings, but they were forced to release them for lack of anything resembling evidence. 

The island, already blanketed by CIA and FBI agents, has practically suffocated with the massive invasions of reinforcements from those two agencies. "The goal", says the Liberation Movement, "is to make it so costly to stay in Puerto Rico that the corporations will leave. We are in the first stage of operations, our leader said, and in this phase we intend to cause $100 million worth of damage to US concerns. Our idea is to inflict such heavy losses on these enterprises that the insurance companies will have to pay more money in indemnity than they have received in payment, thus upsetting the economy." 

Leading the drive for independence from US domination, the Pro Independence Movement, or MPI, insists that social gestures and independence will not be achieved through the established electoral process, for whatever laws are passed in San Juan are subject to approval by Washington. 

This week's feature was based on the article published in Ramparts magazine, by Michael Meyerson, and augmented by research material provided by the Puerto Rican newspaper, Claridad. 

An article in the Bulletin of the Committee for Puerto Rican Decolonization describes the most recent developments in the growing controversy over the construction of a superport. The Committee comments that, "Responding to pressure from the United States, government Rafael Hernández Colón announced in San Juan in mid-September that the colonial government is going ahead with the construction of the controversial superport complex. However, tremendous opposition to the project has forced him to withdraw his original proposal for building the port in Aguadilla, in northwest Puerto Rico." 

Instead, the plan calls for the construction to begin on Mona Island, a small island 40 miles from Puerto Rican shores. Many experts agree that the project on the island of Mona could be only a first step to be followed by refineries, petrochemical industries, and a metallurgical center on the island of Puerto Rico itself. 

"In his announcement," says the Bulletin, "Governor Colon insisted that the new superport is being constructed solely for Puerto Rican needs. But studies publicized by opposition to the superport indicate that the project will benefit mainly the large US oil companies while doing fatal damage to the Puerto Rican economy and environment." 

The Committee claims that superports accommodating supertankers carrying loads of 200,000 to 1,000,000 tons of crude petroleum from Arab oil fields to the US are essential if the large oil corporations are to maintain the huge profits from the importation of oil from the Middle East. The rate of profit of US oil investments in the Middle East reached 80% in 1971, and US returns on investments in Middle East petroleum have reached 20% of the total return on all US foreign investment. 

As a colony of the US occupying a key geographic position in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico has been singled out for intensive study as a center for the reception and refining of massive quantities of crude petroleum from the Middle East. 

Investigation of these investment plans by independence forces in Puerto Rico has revealed the disastrous effect the superport and refining complex would have on the island, spreading over and contaminating a large land area, totally absorbing for cooling purposes Puerto Rican water resources, and contaminating surrounding seawaters. Independence forces maintain that not only the livelihood, fishing, farming of a large section of the population, but also the very existence of the Puerto Rican nation would be seriously endangered. 

The Committee for Puerto Rican Decolonization concludes by pointing out that massive demonstrations and hundreds of local protests against the superport have taken place on the island, forming an opposition which shows no sign of letting up, despite the Mona decision. 

The issue has also been taken to the United Nations by leaders of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and the Puerto Rican Independence Party, which resulted in a resolution passed by the Committee on Decolonization requesting that the US government, or any corporate body under its jurisdiction, refrain from any measures which might obstruct the Puerto Rican people's right to independence. It is expected that the resolution will be taken up by the U.N. General Assembly in early November. This report from the Bulletin of the Committee for Puerto Rican Decolonization. 

Puerto Rico's 13 university campuses are shut tight in a strike involving 40,000 students and 5,000 clerical and office workers. The San Juan Weekly, Claridad, reports that since October 15th no students, professors or workers have crossed picket lines set up on the campuses of the University of Puerto Rico. 

The students say their goal is to end the divorce between the university and the community. They oppose the low educational standards, the repression, the lack of democratic rights and the exploitation of university workers. 

According to Claridad, students have set up a new university across the street from the major campus of the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras, while the strike continues. Huge open tents are the classrooms and subjects range from medicine to social science and the history of the people's struggles. 

Claridad states that dozens of demonstrations were held throughout the island November 4th, with over 8,000 people taking part in a rally in front of the university in Rio Piedras on the outskirts of San Juan. The Commonwealth's Board of Higher Education and the president of the University of Puerto Rico at first refused to enter into negotiations with the strike leadership, but mounting pressure from the strike has already forced them into two meetings with the president of the student strike organization and other strike leaders. 

The students are proposing, says Claridad, that equal numbers of students, professors and administration personnel be set up as a committee to bring in recommendations for a new procedure for establishing rules and regulations for the universities and the students. 

Among the other demands of the students are, the students shall elect the campus rectors and faculty deans and take part in the election of the university president, a new law regarding the manner of choosing the administrators of the university and a new structure for the university should be approved by the students rather than imposed by the board of higher education. 

The students also demand new procedures to guarantee all political and organizational rights of the students, security guards to be replaced by students, the outlawing of all weapons of any kind in the hands of guards, no Commonwealth police to be permitted on university grounds under any circumstances, a student council elected by the students to make the rules and regulations which will govern the lives of students, and the right of students to engage in all discussions governing the kind of education they will receive.

This report from the San Juan Weekly, Claridad. 

Claridad, a weekly Puerto Rican newspaper, reports the settlement of the 25-day strike against the 13 campuses of the University of Puerto Rico. The 45,000 students and workers evidently won an impressive victory relative to the Administration, which had been controlled by the Puerto Rican Council of Higher Education. The strike succeeded in establishing a special committee to make recommendations subject to student, faculty, and worker approval regarding worker and student and faculty participation in the selection of the university president, chancellors, deans and other administrators, and the duties of the security forces and the working conditions of the staff. 

The strike thereby reestablishes the importance that having a people who work and learn at university determine university policy rather than having some appointed administration determine education. According to Claridad, the committee developing the recommendation for the future structure of the University will consist of six student representatives, 12 professors, and representatives from the brotherhood of nonteaching staff and the union of university workers. 

According to Claridad, formerly all rules and regulations were made by the appointed Administration without any student, teacher or worker participation. According to the strikers, the general rules and regulations were designed to perpetuate the educational mediocrity that results from banning anything of controversial nature and in keeping wages low. Some local newspapers had warned and tried to picture the whole situation as simply a problem of wildeyed revolutionaries out to destroy the university. 

According to the independent newspaper Claridad, the victory of the faculty, students and workers over the appointed Administration was due to the high degree of unity achieved between the professors, students, and workers in the face of the necessity of developing an affirmative educational program. That from Claridad of Puerto Rico. 

Excelsior, one of Mexico City's leading dailies, reports that the United Nations General Assembly, by a huge majority December 14th, approved a committee report declaring Puerto Rico was in fact a colony of the United States, not an independent country. The vote was 104 to five, with 19 abstentions. The opposing votes were cast by the United States, Britain, France, Portugal, and South Africa. The vote showed that the great majority of the world's countries were not persuaded by US propaganda that Puerto Rico is a free-associated state, an independent country whose people voluntarily choose to live under US hegemony. 

Ricardo Alarcón, Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, played a leading role in support of the resolution during the more than three months of diplomatic struggle within the world body prior to the final vote. Juan Marie Bras, head of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, and Rubén Berrios of the Puerto Rican Independence Party spoke to the United Nations Committee on decolonization in late August. The US and its few allies on this question bitterly opposed the campaign at every step. At the last minute, the US succeeded in delaying the general assemblies vote by a few days. But the defeat, when it came, was overwhelming. The vote marks an epic in the struggle by Puerto Rican independence forces for international recognition. 

It signifies that in the view of the world body, Puerto Rico is similar to Angola, Mozambique, and other territories directly ruled and occupied by a foreign power. This according to United Nation principles means the people of the island nation have the same legitimate right to rise up against their foreign rulers, as do the people in Portuguese-occupied Africa and other colonial territories. During the debate, speakers exposed to the whole range of United States domination and exploitation of the island, including manipulation and financing of political parties and governments, military occupation of huge bases, repression of patriots, brutal treatment of prisoners, and wholesale economic pillage by United States Corporation. This story from Excelsior of Mexico City. 

El Nacional of Caracas Venezuela reports that newly elected president Carlos Pérez announced plans on April 30th to nationalize the US-dominated iron ore industry and a broad range of other foreign-owned companies. Among the companies to be nationalized are Orinoco Mining Company, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel, and Iron Mines, a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel. The two mine and export most of Venezuela's iron ore.

Since Pérez's party has a majority in the congress, the nationalization appears certain. Pérez also called for the nationalization of all supermarkets and department stores, including the CADA chain owned by the Rockefeller family and Sears, Roebuck. These and other companies involved in internal services will have three years in which to sell 80% of their stock to Venezuelans. Venezuela already has plans to nationalize foreign owned oil companies in the next few years. 

President Pérez met with labor leaders on April 30th to explain the measures. He said department stores would be nationalized to prevent salaries climbing by stairs, while prices take the elevator. He said salary increases will range from five to 25%, with the highest increases going to those who now have the lowest incomes. And Pérez promised the delivery of free milk to pregnant mothers, babies, and primary school children. This, from El Nacional of Caracas, Venezuela. 

According to Claridad of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the United States is moving the controversial petrochemical superport back to the west coast of Puerto Rico. Last September, a large protest movement against building the port on the western coast prompted the colonial government of Puerto Rico to move the port to Mona Island. The government announced on March 14th, however, that the superport complex will be relocated from Mona to the west coast of Puerto Rico, because the United States Navy requires the islands of Monito, Desecheo, and Mona to continue and expand its military training in the Caribbean.

The Navy has indicated that they will move their target practice from the islands of Culebra and Vieques to the three uninhabited islands, in 1976. However, they will continue to use Culebra and Vieques as training grounds. This move is seen by observers as partly to service the growing needs of the Navy for more land and space for their target practice, and at the same time, in response to the continued fight that the 700 inhabitants of the island of Culebra have been waging to free their island from United States military maneuvers with live ammunition on their doorstep. 

Claridad states that the Puerto Rican Governor has already authorized the Fomento Industrial Corporation to establish direct coordination with the Navy and to try to harmonize the relocation of the naval operations with the proposed superport on the West Coast of Puerto Rico. Fomento has been ordered to initiate simultaneously further studies on procedures for a superport at the Western Coast locations. Plans of the colonial government for the superport were made public by the Puerto Rican independence movement in 1972 and '73. The superport would service the importation by super tankers of massive quantities of Middle East crude oil for refining on the eastern coast of the US. Severe environmental consequences for the island are likely. 

This story from Claridad of San Juan, Puerto Rico.