By Eva Golinger*
Documents reveal multimillion-dollar funding to journalists and media in Venezuela
US Thursday, Jul 15, 2010.State Department documents declassified under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) evidence more than $4 million USD in funding to journalists and private media in Venezuela during the last three years. This funding is part of the more than $40 million USD international agencies are investing annually in anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela in an attempt to provoke regime change
The funding has been channeled directly by the State Department through three US agencies: Panamerican Development Foundation (PADF), Freedom House, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
In a blatant attempt to hide their activities, the State Department has censored the names of organizations and journalists receiving these multimillion-dollar funds. However, one document dated July 2008 mistakenly left unveiled the names of the principal Venezuelan groups receiving the funds: Espacio Publico (Public Space) and Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad (Institute for Press and Society "IPYS").
Espacio Publico and IPYS are the entities charged with coordinating the distribution of the millions in State Department funds to private media outlets and Venezuelan journalists working to promote US agenda.
The documents evidence that PADF has implemented programs in Venezuela dedicated to "enhancing media freedom and democratic institutions" and training workshops for journalists in the development and use of "innovative media technologies", due to the alleged "threats to freedom of expression" and "the climate of intimidation and self-censorship among journalists and the media".
According to the documents, PADF's objective is to "strengthen independent journalists by providing them with training, technical assistance, materials and greater access to innovative internet-based technologies that expand and diversify media coverage and increase their capacity to inform the public on a timely basis about the most critical policy issues impacting Venezuela".
However, while on paper this may appear benign, in reality, Venezuela's corporate media outlets and journalists, together with US agencies, actively manipulate and distort information in order to portray the Venezuelan government as a "communist dictatorship" that "violates basic human rights and freedoms".
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Not only do media and journalists in Venezuela have a near-absolute freedom of expression, during the past decade, under the Chavez administration, hundreds of new media outlets, many community-based, have been created in order to foster and expand citizens' access to media. Community media was prohibited under prior governments, which only gave broadcasting access to corporations willing to pay big money to maintain information monopolies in the country.
Today, corporate media outlets and their journalists use communications power to publicly promote the overthrow of the Venezuelan government. The owners and executives of these media corporations form part of the Venezuelan elite that, under the reigns of Washington, ran the country for forty years before Chavez won the presidency in 1998.
What these documents demonstrate is that Washington not only is funding Venezuelan media, in clear violation of laws that prohibit this type of "propaganda" and "foreign interference", but also is influencing the way Venezuelan journalists perceive their profession and their political reality.
The State Department funding is not just used to create and aid media outlets that promote anti-Chavez propaganda, but also to capture Venezuelan journalists at the core - as students - in order to shape their vision of journalism and ensure their loyalty early on to US agenda.
FUNDING FOR ANTI-CHAVEZ WEB PAGES
One of the PADF programs, which received $699,996 USD from the State Department in 2007, "supported the development of independent media in Venezuela" and "journalism via innovative media technologies". The documents evidence that more than 150 Venezuelan journalists were trained by US agencies and at least 25 web pages were created with US funding.
During the past two years, there has been a proliferation of web pages, blogs, and Twitter, MySpace and Facebook users in Venezuela, the majority of whom use these media outlets to promote anti-Chavez messages and disseminate distorted and false information about the country's political and economic reality.
Other programs run by the State Department have selected Venezuelan students and youth to receive training in the use of these new media technologies in order to create what they call a "network of cyber-dissidents" against the Venezuelan government.
For example, in April 2010, the George W. Bush Institute, together with Freedom House and the State Department, organized an encounter of "activists for freedom and human rights" and "experts in Internet" to analyze the "global movement of cyber-dissidents". Rodrigo Diamanti, anti-Chavez youth activist, was present at the event, which took place in Dallas, Texas and was presided over by George W. Bush himself, along with "dissidents" invited from Iran, Syria, Cuba, Russia and China.
In October last year, Mexico City hosted the II Summit of the Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM), an organization created by the State Department to bring together select youth activists from countries of strategic importance to the US, along with the founders of new media technologies and representatives from different US agencies. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presided over the event, and anti-Chavez youth activists Yon Goicochea (Primero Justicia), Rafael Delgado, and Geraldine Alvarez, attended as special guests. All three are members of Futuro Presente, an organization created in Venezuela in 2008 with funding from the Cato Institute in Washington.
FUNDING TO UNIVERSITIES
The declassified State Department documents also reveal more than $716,346 USD in funding via Freedom House in 2008, for an 18-month project seeking to "strengthen independent media in Venezuela". This project also funded the creation of a "resource center for journalists" in an unnamed Venezuelan university. "The center will develop a community radio, website and training workshops", all funded by the State Department.
Another $706,998 USD was channeled through PADF to "promote freedom of expression in Venezuela" through a two-year project focusing on "new media technologies and investigative journalism". "Specifically, PADF and its local partner will provide training and follow-up support in innovative media technologies and formats in several regions throughout Venezuela...This training will be compiled and developed into a university-level curriculum".
Another document evidences three Venezuelan universities, Universidad Central de Venezuela (Central University of Venezuela "UCV"), Universidad Metropolitana (Metropolitan University) and Universidad Santa Maria (St. Mary's University), which incorporated courses on media studies into their curriculums, designed and funded by the State Department. These three universities have been the principal launching pad for the anti-Chavez student movements during the past three years.
PADF also received $545,804 USD for a program titled "Venezuela: The Voices of the Future". This project, which allegedly lasted one year, was devoted to "developing a new generation of independent journalists through a focus on new media technologies". PADF also funded various blogs, newspapers, radio stations and television stations in regions throughout Venezuela, to ensure the "publication" of reports and articles by the "participants" in the program.
USAID and PADF
More funds have been distributed to anti-Chavez political groups in Venezuela through USAID's Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Caracas, which has an annual budget between $5-7 million USD. These millions form part of the more than $40 million USD given annually to opposition organizations in Venezuela by US, European and Canadian agencies, as evidenced in the May 2010 report, "Venezuela: Assessing Democracy Assistance" published by the National Edowment for Democracy's World Movement for Democracy (WMD) and Spain's FRIDE Institute.
PADF has been active in Venezuela since 2005 as one of USAID's principal contractors. PADF was created by the State Department in 1962 and is "affiliated" with the Organization of American States (OAS). In Venezuela, PADF has been working to "strengthen local civil society groups", and is "one of few major international groups that has been able to provide significant cash grants and technical assistance to Venezuelan NGOs". (Postcards from the Revolution)
*Eva Golinger, winner of the International Award for Journalism in Mexico (2009), named "La Novia de Venezuela" by President Hugo Chávez, is an Attorney and Writer from New York, living in Caracas, Venezuela since 2005 and author of the best-selling books, "The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela" (2006 Olive Branch Press), "Bush vs. Chávez: Washington's War on Venezuela" (2007, Monthly Review Press), "The Empire's Web: Encyclopedia of Interventionism and Subversion", "La Mirada del Imperio sobre el 4F: Los Documentos Desclasificados de Washington sobre la rebelión militar del 4 de febrero de 1992" and "La Agresión Permanente: USAID, NED y CIA".
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Ecuador, Argentina join Mexico in legal fight against SB 1070
Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services
Two more Latin American countries added their own objections Tuesday to Arizona's new immigration law.
In legal papers filed in federal court, Luis Gallegos, the ambassador to the United States from Ecuador, said his country wants to join Mexico in the fight to convince U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton to block the state from enforcing the law.
"Similar to Mexico, Ecuador has a substantial and compelling interest in ensuring that its bilateral diplomatic relations with the government of the United States of America are transparent, consistent and reliable, and not frustrated by the actions of individual U.S. states, in this case, Arizona," Gallegos wrote. He said SB 1070 "raises substantial challenges" to relations between the two countries.
Gallegos also echoed the fears expressed by Mexico that the Arizona law will affect its citizens.
"Ecuador has a substantial and compelling interest to ensure that its citizens are accorded human and civil rights when present in the United States in accordance with federal immigration law," he wrote. "Ecuador is gravely concerned that SB 1070 will lead to racial profiling and disparate treatment of its nationals."
A virtually identical brief was filed Tuesday by Jose Perez Gabilondo, charge d'affairs in Washington for Argentina.
Brewer said that both diplomats are wrong, both on the issue of racial profiling and the question of Arizona interfering with international relations. And she said both objections ignore the issues and problems of illegal immigration.
"The bottom line is America and Arizona live by laws," she said. Brewer said SB 1070 mirrors federal immigration laws, giving state and local police tools to enforce them.
"We will continue to live by those laws," she said.
The new legal filings were made in connection with the challenge to the law filed by attorneys for three civil rights organizations.
That case, filed before the U.S. Department of Justice decided to bring its own claim, has become the focal point for individuals and organizations across the state, country and internationally to weigh in on the question of whether the law is constitutional.
The heart of the statute requires police to seek documents showing legal status from those they have stopped if there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in this country illegally. Another section makes it a state crime for a foreign national not to carry certain documents, a provision which could result in arrest and prosecution of illegal immigrants for violating Arizona laws.
The lawsuit contends the law unconstitutionally infringes on the exclusive right of the federal government to regulate immigration. It also charges that the law is bound to result in racial profiling despite language in the statute specifically forbidding race, ethnicity or national origin from being used to decide who to question.
Ecuador and Argentina were not the only interests Tuesday seeking to influence the case.
Also objecting to the law was Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, an organization made up of lawyers who represent clients in criminal matters. In its legal brief, the attorneys said SB 1070 is unconstitutional because it effectively makes it a crime for people who are stopped to refuse to answer police questions and produce identification.
"The failure to answer questions about immigration status could be used as a basis for further detention," the filing reads. "Mere inability to prove one's lawful presence cannot rise to the level of reasonable suspicion to believe the person is in the country illegally."
But the American Unity Legal Defense Fund, a national group that intervenes in immigration cases, said in its own brief that states are entitled to target illegal immigration, "even through measures that go beyond federal law" as long as the state laws are "consistent with the objectives Congress established." And attorney Barnaby Zall said Congress has not preempted the kind of things in SB 1070.
"If plaintiffs wish to overturn the (Arizona) law, they must turn to Congress, not the courts," Zall wrote.
The filings come just ahead of the first of a series of hearings on requests that Bolton issue an injunction to block the law from taking effect as scheduled July 29.
On Thursday she will hear arguments by David Salgado, a Phoenix police officer.
He said his rights are violated by a requirement in the law that he ask those he has stopped about their immigration status when there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in this country illegally. Salgado also said another section of SB 1070 puts him at risk of being sued if he doesn't enforce the law "to the fullest extent permitted by federal immigration law."
Bolton is slated to hear two separate requests for injunction July 22, one from the civil rights groups and the other from the Department of Justice.
Two more Latin American countries added their own objections Tuesday to Arizona's new immigration law.
In legal papers filed in federal court, Luis Gallegos, the ambassador to the United States from Ecuador, said his country wants to join Mexico in the fight to convince U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton to block the state from enforcing the law.
"Similar to Mexico, Ecuador has a substantial and compelling interest in ensuring that its bilateral diplomatic relations with the government of the United States of America are transparent, consistent and reliable, and not frustrated by the actions of individual U.S. states, in this case, Arizona," Gallegos wrote. He said SB 1070 "raises substantial challenges" to relations between the two countries.
Gallegos also echoed the fears expressed by Mexico that the Arizona law will affect its citizens.
"Ecuador has a substantial and compelling interest to ensure that its citizens are accorded human and civil rights when present in the United States in accordance with federal immigration law," he wrote. "Ecuador is gravely concerned that SB 1070 will lead to racial profiling and disparate treatment of its nationals."
A virtually identical brief was filed Tuesday by Jose Perez Gabilondo, charge d'affairs in Washington for Argentina.
Brewer said that both diplomats are wrong, both on the issue of racial profiling and the question of Arizona interfering with international relations. And she said both objections ignore the issues and problems of illegal immigration.
"The bottom line is America and Arizona live by laws," she said. Brewer said SB 1070 mirrors federal immigration laws, giving state and local police tools to enforce them.
"We will continue to live by those laws," she said.
The new legal filings were made in connection with the challenge to the law filed by attorneys for three civil rights organizations.
That case, filed before the U.S. Department of Justice decided to bring its own claim, has become the focal point for individuals and organizations across the state, country and internationally to weigh in on the question of whether the law is constitutional.
The heart of the statute requires police to seek documents showing legal status from those they have stopped if there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in this country illegally. Another section makes it a state crime for a foreign national not to carry certain documents, a provision which could result in arrest and prosecution of illegal immigrants for violating Arizona laws.
The lawsuit contends the law unconstitutionally infringes on the exclusive right of the federal government to regulate immigration. It also charges that the law is bound to result in racial profiling despite language in the statute specifically forbidding race, ethnicity or national origin from being used to decide who to question.
Ecuador and Argentina were not the only interests Tuesday seeking to influence the case.
Also objecting to the law was Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, an organization made up of lawyers who represent clients in criminal matters. In its legal brief, the attorneys said SB 1070 is unconstitutional because it effectively makes it a crime for people who are stopped to refuse to answer police questions and produce identification.
"The failure to answer questions about immigration status could be used as a basis for further detention," the filing reads. "Mere inability to prove one's lawful presence cannot rise to the level of reasonable suspicion to believe the person is in the country illegally."
But the American Unity Legal Defense Fund, a national group that intervenes in immigration cases, said in its own brief that states are entitled to target illegal immigration, "even through measures that go beyond federal law" as long as the state laws are "consistent with the objectives Congress established." And attorney Barnaby Zall said Congress has not preempted the kind of things in SB 1070.
"If plaintiffs wish to overturn the (Arizona) law, they must turn to Congress, not the courts," Zall wrote.
The filings come just ahead of the first of a series of hearings on requests that Bolton issue an injunction to block the law from taking effect as scheduled July 29.
On Thursday she will hear arguments by David Salgado, a Phoenix police officer.
He said his rights are violated by a requirement in the law that he ask those he has stopped about their immigration status when there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in this country illegally. Salgado also said another section of SB 1070 puts him at risk of being sued if he doesn't enforce the law "to the fullest extent permitted by federal immigration law."
Bolton is slated to hear two separate requests for injunction July 22, one from the civil rights groups and the other from the Department of Justice.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Obama should take guidance from Latin leftists
By MARK WEISBROT
WASHINGTON
Imagine that Barack Obama, upon taking office in January 2009, had decided to deliver on his campaign promise “to end business-as-usual in Washington so we can bring about real change.”
Imagine that he rejected the architects of the pro-Wall Street policies that had led to economic collapse, such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and the stable of former Goldman Sachs employees that runs the U.S Treasury Department, and instead appointed Nobel laureate economists Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz to key positions, including the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve.
Instead of Hillary Clinton, who lost the Democratic presidential primary because of her unrelenting support for the Iraq war, imagine that he chose Sen. Russ Feingold (D.-Wis.) for secretary of state, or someone else interested in delivering on the popular desire to get out of Afghanistan. Imagine a real health-care-reform bill, instead of health-insurance reform, that didn’t give the powerful pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies a veto.
It goes without saying that President Obama would be vilified in the major media outlets. The seething hostility from right-wing blowhards such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would be matched by more mainstream media outlets, who would accuse the president of polarizing the nation and “dangerous demagoguery.” With almost all of the establishment media and institutions against him, Obama would likely face a constant battle for political survival — although he might well triumph with direct, populist appeals to the majority.
This is what has happened to a number of the left-of-center governments in Latin America.
• In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa was re-elected by a large margin in 2009, despite strong opposition from the country’s media.
• In Bolivia, Evo Morales has brought stability and record growth to a country that had a tradition of governments that didn’t last more than a year — despite the most hostile media in the hemisphere and unrelenting, sometimes violent opposition from Bolivia’s traditional elite.
• Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez survived a U.S.-backed military coup attempt and other efforts to topple his government, winning three presidential elections, each time by a larger margin.
All of these presidents took on entrenched oligarchies and fought hard to deliver on their promises. Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president in a country with an indigenous majority, re-nationalized the hydrocarbons — mostly natural gas — industry and created jobs through public investment, as well as getting a new, more democratic constitution approved. Correa doubled spending on health care and cancelled $3.2 billion of foreign debt found to be illegitimate. Chávez cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by more than 70 percent after getting control over the country’s oil industry.
These presidents faced another obstacle that Obama wouldn’t have — they had to fight with the most powerful country in the world in order to deliver on their promises. This was also true of President Nestor Kirchner in Argentina (2003-07), who had to battle the Washington-dominated International Monetary Fund in order to implement the economic policies that made Argentina the fastest growing economy in the hemisphere for six years.
Of course, Hugo Chávez has been the most demonized in the U.S. media — but that is not because of what he has said or done but because he is sitting on 500 billion barrels of oil. Washington has a particular problem with oil-producing states that don’t follow orders — whether they are a dictatorship like Iraq, a theocracy like Iran, or a democracy like Venezuela.
All of these leaders — including President Lula da Silva of Brazil — had hoped that President Obama would pursue a more enlightened policy toward Latin America, but it hasn’t happened. It seems that Washington, which was comfortable with dictators and oligarchs who ran the show for decades, still has problems with democracy in its former “backyard.”
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank.
WASHINGTON
Imagine that Barack Obama, upon taking office in January 2009, had decided to deliver on his campaign promise “to end business-as-usual in Washington so we can bring about real change.”
Imagine that he rejected the architects of the pro-Wall Street policies that had led to economic collapse, such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and the stable of former Goldman Sachs employees that runs the U.S Treasury Department, and instead appointed Nobel laureate economists Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz to key positions, including the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve.
Instead of Hillary Clinton, who lost the Democratic presidential primary because of her unrelenting support for the Iraq war, imagine that he chose Sen. Russ Feingold (D.-Wis.) for secretary of state, or someone else interested in delivering on the popular desire to get out of Afghanistan. Imagine a real health-care-reform bill, instead of health-insurance reform, that didn’t give the powerful pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies a veto.
It goes without saying that President Obama would be vilified in the major media outlets. The seething hostility from right-wing blowhards such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would be matched by more mainstream media outlets, who would accuse the president of polarizing the nation and “dangerous demagoguery.” With almost all of the establishment media and institutions against him, Obama would likely face a constant battle for political survival — although he might well triumph with direct, populist appeals to the majority.
This is what has happened to a number of the left-of-center governments in Latin America.
• In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa was re-elected by a large margin in 2009, despite strong opposition from the country’s media.
• In Bolivia, Evo Morales has brought stability and record growth to a country that had a tradition of governments that didn’t last more than a year — despite the most hostile media in the hemisphere and unrelenting, sometimes violent opposition from Bolivia’s traditional elite.
• Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez survived a U.S.-backed military coup attempt and other efforts to topple his government, winning three presidential elections, each time by a larger margin.
All of these presidents took on entrenched oligarchies and fought hard to deliver on their promises. Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president in a country with an indigenous majority, re-nationalized the hydrocarbons — mostly natural gas — industry and created jobs through public investment, as well as getting a new, more democratic constitution approved. Correa doubled spending on health care and cancelled $3.2 billion of foreign debt found to be illegitimate. Chávez cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by more than 70 percent after getting control over the country’s oil industry.
These presidents faced another obstacle that Obama wouldn’t have — they had to fight with the most powerful country in the world in order to deliver on their promises. This was also true of President Nestor Kirchner in Argentina (2003-07), who had to battle the Washington-dominated International Monetary Fund in order to implement the economic policies that made Argentina the fastest growing economy in the hemisphere for six years.
Of course, Hugo Chávez has been the most demonized in the U.S. media — but that is not because of what he has said or done but because he is sitting on 500 billion barrels of oil. Washington has a particular problem with oil-producing states that don’t follow orders — whether they are a dictatorship like Iraq, a theocracy like Iran, or a democracy like Venezuela.
All of these leaders — including President Lula da Silva of Brazil — had hoped that President Obama would pursue a more enlightened policy toward Latin America, but it hasn’t happened. It seems that Washington, which was comfortable with dictators and oligarchs who ran the show for decades, still has problems with democracy in its former “backyard.”
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank.
Monday, July 12, 2010
PUERTO RICO: OPERATIONS CALCULATED TO RESTRICT CIVIL RIGHTS
Jesús Dávila
translated by Jan Susler
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, July 1, 2010 (NCM) – A calculated police operation, according to sworn testimony this morning by one of the agents, left yesterday afternoon in front of the Capitol dozens of demonstrators injured and journalists attacked, and served as a framework so that behind closed doors the legislature could annul the university students’ constitutional rights of assembly and freedom of speech.
The sworn statement— a copy of which NCM News obtained— specifies how the order to disperse the crowd was given at least two hours before more than a hundred Puerto Rico Police, among them the anti-riot force, the horses of the mounted unit and a helicopter, swept with batons, kicks and gas hundreds of demonstrators who insisted on asserting the right that the legislature be open to the public.
To make matters even worse, the first to be violently dispersed were the reporters from the student media, who had gone to the Capitol to cover the events, and whose press credentials the government refused to recognize. Several member of the general press and at least two legislators ended up injured as well.
At the close of this edition, a statement was expected from the media guilds as well as an urgent press conference by the Puerto Rican Independence Party, calling the Puerto Rico Police action “gorilla-like.”
Without knowing that it had all happened in a calculated way by police commands, Capitol employees last night expressed their indignation at the picture of some of their vehicles overturned by the mass of students, professors, and support groups that faced the onslaught of batons and gas by police who had no fear of punishment. A little later, the legislature announced the approval of a new measure that eliminated student assemblies and substituted them with a remote electronic voting system, which any public expression by an official student leader must also be subjected to.
The measure substitutes for another which had proposed the system of internet voting for assemblies of every university organism, including professors, and which a source in the industry estimated would cost over $50 million to establish. That measure would have exempted only the Board of Trustees, which would be the only organism capable of deliberating and decision making without being subjected to the restrictions.
But in fact, a source of the ruling New Progressive Party— which in the past has provided reliable information and even confidential documents— assured days ago that the objective was to change the project to the one that was ultimately adopted. The source indicated that it’s all part of a broader agenda to eliminate in Puerto Rico the old constitutional right of freedom of assembly and substitute it with electronic voting, which would guarantee the preponderance of the so-called silent majority.
Minutes before the new restriction on constitutional rights was approved, the minority opposition Popular Democratic Party had withdrawn from the Senate floor, as a sign of protest. Senate president Thomas Rivera Schatz proclaimed that they had managed to be able to complete the final work of the ordinary session of the Legislature “in this peaceful environment.”
Rivera Schatz himself was an important piece in the entire operation when on Friday last week, in an action for which officials provided contradictory explanations, he ordered the expulsion of all journalists from the Senate sessions. To accomplish this, he used armed police and locks that blocked the press from entering, and it stood out in public opinion that the public galleries in the third floor had been closed since the end of last year.
The PDP minority and the journalists turned to separate legal recourse, still pending in court, while a group of students from the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez campus called for a demonstration yesterday, at which the student collectives from several campuses throughout the country came together. The Senate, meanwhile, which had gone back to permitting journalists to enter and which had opened its galleries, put the locks back on, and starting early in the afternoon the anti-riot squads, known as the “Shock Troops” entered the building.
The problem of civil rights is crucial for the statehood movement, which has been complaining for years that the social and political institutions don’t recognize its overwhelming majority, as a result of which they have taken steps such as last year’s elimination of compulsory bar association membership for attorneys, because statehood has never gotten a majority at its conventions. On the other hand, the government understands that the student movement carried out a successful two month strike that paralyzed the eleven UPR campuses.
Similarly, the legislature approved another measure, to criminalize any social protest that paralyzes public or private construction sites.
But the isolation of the NPP, barely a year and a half after having won the most sweeping electoral victory in its history, isn’t limited to the student revolt or the political opposition. The party is already showing signs of division, such as growing complaints from important business sectors such as the hotel and insurance industries, as well as small town governments.
The situation has a lot to do with the attempts to increase government funds, while the country continues to be submerged in a galloping economic crisis, with more than 100,000 jobs lost since the beginning of last year. In this context, the divided labor movement continues to be paralyzed, and in the social sphere, only groups like the students present an articulate opposition to governmental plans.
With great difficulty, at the end of the night, the legislature managed to approve a deficit budget for state agencies, from the marble and alabaster building of the Capitol, in whose shadow, even hours after the incidents, the acrid odor of tear gas could still be breathed.
translated by Jan Susler
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, July 1, 2010 (NCM) – A calculated police operation, according to sworn testimony this morning by one of the agents, left yesterday afternoon in front of the Capitol dozens of demonstrators injured and journalists attacked, and served as a framework so that behind closed doors the legislature could annul the university students’ constitutional rights of assembly and freedom of speech.
The sworn statement— a copy of which NCM News obtained— specifies how the order to disperse the crowd was given at least two hours before more than a hundred Puerto Rico Police, among them the anti-riot force, the horses of the mounted unit and a helicopter, swept with batons, kicks and gas hundreds of demonstrators who insisted on asserting the right that the legislature be open to the public.
To make matters even worse, the first to be violently dispersed were the reporters from the student media, who had gone to the Capitol to cover the events, and whose press credentials the government refused to recognize. Several member of the general press and at least two legislators ended up injured as well.
At the close of this edition, a statement was expected from the media guilds as well as an urgent press conference by the Puerto Rican Independence Party, calling the Puerto Rico Police action “gorilla-like.”
Without knowing that it had all happened in a calculated way by police commands, Capitol employees last night expressed their indignation at the picture of some of their vehicles overturned by the mass of students, professors, and support groups that faced the onslaught of batons and gas by police who had no fear of punishment. A little later, the legislature announced the approval of a new measure that eliminated student assemblies and substituted them with a remote electronic voting system, which any public expression by an official student leader must also be subjected to.
The measure substitutes for another which had proposed the system of internet voting for assemblies of every university organism, including professors, and which a source in the industry estimated would cost over $50 million to establish. That measure would have exempted only the Board of Trustees, which would be the only organism capable of deliberating and decision making without being subjected to the restrictions.
But in fact, a source of the ruling New Progressive Party— which in the past has provided reliable information and even confidential documents— assured days ago that the objective was to change the project to the one that was ultimately adopted. The source indicated that it’s all part of a broader agenda to eliminate in Puerto Rico the old constitutional right of freedom of assembly and substitute it with electronic voting, which would guarantee the preponderance of the so-called silent majority.
Minutes before the new restriction on constitutional rights was approved, the minority opposition Popular Democratic Party had withdrawn from the Senate floor, as a sign of protest. Senate president Thomas Rivera Schatz proclaimed that they had managed to be able to complete the final work of the ordinary session of the Legislature “in this peaceful environment.”
Rivera Schatz himself was an important piece in the entire operation when on Friday last week, in an action for which officials provided contradictory explanations, he ordered the expulsion of all journalists from the Senate sessions. To accomplish this, he used armed police and locks that blocked the press from entering, and it stood out in public opinion that the public galleries in the third floor had been closed since the end of last year.
The PDP minority and the journalists turned to separate legal recourse, still pending in court, while a group of students from the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez campus called for a demonstration yesterday, at which the student collectives from several campuses throughout the country came together. The Senate, meanwhile, which had gone back to permitting journalists to enter and which had opened its galleries, put the locks back on, and starting early in the afternoon the anti-riot squads, known as the “Shock Troops” entered the building.
The problem of civil rights is crucial for the statehood movement, which has been complaining for years that the social and political institutions don’t recognize its overwhelming majority, as a result of which they have taken steps such as last year’s elimination of compulsory bar association membership for attorneys, because statehood has never gotten a majority at its conventions. On the other hand, the government understands that the student movement carried out a successful two month strike that paralyzed the eleven UPR campuses.
Similarly, the legislature approved another measure, to criminalize any social protest that paralyzes public or private construction sites.
But the isolation of the NPP, barely a year and a half after having won the most sweeping electoral victory in its history, isn’t limited to the student revolt or the political opposition. The party is already showing signs of division, such as growing complaints from important business sectors such as the hotel and insurance industries, as well as small town governments.
The situation has a lot to do with the attempts to increase government funds, while the country continues to be submerged in a galloping economic crisis, with more than 100,000 jobs lost since the beginning of last year. In this context, the divided labor movement continues to be paralyzed, and in the social sphere, only groups like the students present an articulate opposition to governmental plans.
With great difficulty, at the end of the night, the legislature managed to approve a deficit budget for state agencies, from the marble and alabaster building of the Capitol, in whose shadow, even hours after the incidents, the acrid odor of tear gas could still be breathed.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Monsantos Gift Not Needed In Haiti
Contributed by The Epoch Times (Reporter)
Monsanto Company sent more than 60 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to help with relief efforts in Haiti in May, but the gift was not entirely welcomed. According to numerous media reports, 10,000 members of The Movement of Papay (MMP) lead by Chavannes Jean-Baptiste took to the streets to protest the planting of Monsanto’s crops, which were accepted by the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture.
Monsanto—an American giant of agricultural produce—has a reputation of producing large amounts of hazardous pollution and dispersing branded herbicides, like Roundup, around the world to make resource-poor countries dependant on Monsanto’s supply of the chemical.
Hybrid seeds donated by Monsanto will allow farmers to grow crops for only one year as the plants do not reproduce, thus making the farmers dependent on buying the same crops the following year.
“The aim of Monsanto is to have complete control of the market, the intention is to open markets all around the world for their plants,” said Brenda Biddle, resource faculty for Evergreen State College.
The MMP is the largest grass-roots organization of Haitians in Port-au-Prince, which helps aid organizations bring food, shelter, and resources to locals. MMP leader, Chavannes said “The Haitian government is using the earthquake to sell the country to the multinationals," according to AFP.
Monsanto states that there are no business ties with this gift, and the crops grown can bring in a profit for the farmers. Then the money can be used to buy the next batch of seeds, and so create a market.
Some of the seeds shipped to Haiti were treated with pesticides. Karl Tupper, a staff scientist at Pesticide Action Network of North America, explained that once the pesticide-treated crops enter local markets it will be very hard to go back and this crop will harm the soil.
Monsanto wants to drop off the rest of the 475-ton donation over the next 12 months.
“Big companies try to get farmers to grow the crops but it has devastating effects on the local economies,” said Tupper, who added that companies might be donating seeds that are not the best of quality or are banned in the country where they are produced.
However, there is a possibility for light at the end of the tunnel for Haitian agriculture. “They can rebuild their agricultural market” said Biddle.{mospagebreak}
According to Biddle, Haiti will need help organizing an autonomous farming system that will be able to feed the families first, then the produce can be put on the local market and support whole communities.
Problems of Unwanted Aid
Monsanto seeds are not the only case of unwanted aid. According to relief workers, Haiti received inappropriate, unsolicited supplies that have become a logistical burden to deal with.
Donations that are not used in time, such as food and foreign medicine, also need to be properly disposed of, which takes time, manpower, and funds.
Claire Durham from the Red Cross, described in her blog how fresh food delivered to Haiti sometimes lays in piles for days and rots, while unnecessary medical supplies are stored for long periods of time and expired.
“Unwanted donations create chaos, waste, and confusion for an already stricken country,” according to Durham.
Many cases have been documented where the intent to support a devastated country is initially good, but in the end does not turn out too well. A similar approach to the problem in Kenya was initiated by research and development organization Drumnet in 2008.
The goal of the program was to establish a market for exporting crops, which would bring in more profit for the country as a whole. A year later, because of a change in E.U. regulations, the exporting company stopped buying the crops. The crops were then undersold on the local market, thus creating loans.
Another example of a failed initiative was in Lesotho, which aimed to help locals manage crops and livestock, and build new roads for market access, according to Give Well, an evaluation site for charity work. The project fell apart because farmers were few, weather conditions were inept for crop growth, and the roads which were constructed helped foreign markets to establish themselves and put local farmers out of work. Photo Caption(s) & Photo Location(s)
Monsanto Company sent more than 60 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to help with relief efforts in Haiti in May, but the gift was not entirely welcomed. According to numerous media reports, 10,000 members of The Movement of Papay (MMP) lead by Chavannes Jean-Baptiste took to the streets to protest the planting of Monsanto’s crops, which were accepted by the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture.
Monsanto—an American giant of agricultural produce—has a reputation of producing large amounts of hazardous pollution and dispersing branded herbicides, like Roundup, around the world to make resource-poor countries dependant on Monsanto’s supply of the chemical.
Hybrid seeds donated by Monsanto will allow farmers to grow crops for only one year as the plants do not reproduce, thus making the farmers dependent on buying the same crops the following year.
“The aim of Monsanto is to have complete control of the market, the intention is to open markets all around the world for their plants,” said Brenda Biddle, resource faculty for Evergreen State College.
The MMP is the largest grass-roots organization of Haitians in Port-au-Prince, which helps aid organizations bring food, shelter, and resources to locals. MMP leader, Chavannes said “The Haitian government is using the earthquake to sell the country to the multinationals," according to AFP.
Monsanto states that there are no business ties with this gift, and the crops grown can bring in a profit for the farmers. Then the money can be used to buy the next batch of seeds, and so create a market.
Some of the seeds shipped to Haiti were treated with pesticides. Karl Tupper, a staff scientist at Pesticide Action Network of North America, explained that once the pesticide-treated crops enter local markets it will be very hard to go back and this crop will harm the soil.
Monsanto wants to drop off the rest of the 475-ton donation over the next 12 months.
“Big companies try to get farmers to grow the crops but it has devastating effects on the local economies,” said Tupper, who added that companies might be donating seeds that are not the best of quality or are banned in the country where they are produced.
However, there is a possibility for light at the end of the tunnel for Haitian agriculture. “They can rebuild their agricultural market” said Biddle.{mospagebreak}
According to Biddle, Haiti will need help organizing an autonomous farming system that will be able to feed the families first, then the produce can be put on the local market and support whole communities.
Problems of Unwanted Aid
Monsanto seeds are not the only case of unwanted aid. According to relief workers, Haiti received inappropriate, unsolicited supplies that have become a logistical burden to deal with.
Donations that are not used in time, such as food and foreign medicine, also need to be properly disposed of, which takes time, manpower, and funds.
Claire Durham from the Red Cross, described in her blog how fresh food delivered to Haiti sometimes lays in piles for days and rots, while unnecessary medical supplies are stored for long periods of time and expired.
“Unwanted donations create chaos, waste, and confusion for an already stricken country,” according to Durham.
Many cases have been documented where the intent to support a devastated country is initially good, but in the end does not turn out too well. A similar approach to the problem in Kenya was initiated by research and development organization Drumnet in 2008.
The goal of the program was to establish a market for exporting crops, which would bring in more profit for the country as a whole. A year later, because of a change in E.U. regulations, the exporting company stopped buying the crops. The crops were then undersold on the local market, thus creating loans.
Another example of a failed initiative was in Lesotho, which aimed to help locals manage crops and livestock, and build new roads for market access, according to Give Well, an evaluation site for charity work. The project fell apart because farmers were few, weather conditions were inept for crop growth, and the roads which were constructed helped foreign markets to establish themselves and put local farmers out of work. Photo Caption(s) & Photo Location(s)
Friday, July 9, 2010
Washington Still Has Problems With Democracy in Latin America
By Mark Weisbrot
This op-ed was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services on July 7, 2010 and published by the Sacramento Bee (CA) and other newspapers. If anyone wants to reprint it, please let CEPR know, by replying to this message.
Imagine that Barack Obama, upon taking office in January 2009, had decided to deliver on his campaign promise to "to end business-as-usual in Washington so we can bring about real change." Imagine that he rejected the architects of the pro-Wall Street policies that had led to economic collapse, such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and the stable of former Goldman Sachs employees that runs the U.S Treasury Department, and instead appointed Nobel laureate economists Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz to key positions including the chair of the Federal Reserve.
Instead of Hillary Clinton, who lost the Democratic presidential primary because of her unrelenting support for the Iraq war, imagine that he chose Senator Russ Feingold for Secretary of State, or someone interested in delivering on the popular desire to get out of Afghanistan. Imagine a real health care reform bill, instead of health insurance reform, that didn't give the powerful pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies a veto.
It goes without saying that President Obama would be vilified in the major media outlets. The seething hostility from right-wing blowhards such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would be matched by more mainstream media outlets, who would accuse the president of polarizing the nation and "dangerous demagoguery." With almost all of the establishment media and institutions against him, Obama would likely face a constant battle for political survival - although he might well triumph with direct, populist appeals to the majority.
This is what has happened to a number of the left-of-center governments in Latin America. In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa was re-elected by a large margin in 2009, despite strong opposition from the country's media. In Bolivia, Evo Morales has brought stability and record growth to a country that had a tradition of governments that didn't last more than a year - despite the most hostile media in the hemisphere and unrelenting, sometimes violent opposition from Bolivia's traditional elite. And President Hugo Chavez survived a U.S. backed military coup-attempt and other efforts to topple his government, winning three presidential elections, each time by a larger margin.
All of these presidents took on entrenched oligarchies and fought hard to deliver on their promises. Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president in a country with an indigenous majority, re-nationalized the hydrocarbons (mostly natural gas) industry and created jobs through public investment, as well as getting a new, more democratic constitution approved. Correa doubled spending on health care and cancelled $3.2 billion of foreign debt found to be illegitimate. Chavez cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by more than 70 percent after getting control over the country's oil industry.
These presidents faced another obstacle that Obama wouldn't have - they had to fight with the most powerful country in the world in order to deliver on their promises. This was also true of President Nestor Kirchner in Argentina (2003-2007), who had to battle the Washington-dominated International Monetary Fund in order to implement the economic policies that made Argentina the fastest growing economy in the hemisphere for six years.
Of course, Hugo Chavez has been the most demonized in the U.S. media - but that is not because of what he has said or done but because he is sitting on 500 billion barrels of oil. Washington has a particular problem with oil-producing states that don't follow orders - whether they are a dictatorship like Iraq, a theocracy like Iran, or a democracy like Venezuela.
All of these leaders - including President Lula da Silva of Brazil - had hoped that President Obama would pursue a more enlightened policy toward Latin America, but it hasn't happened. It seems that Washington, which was comfortable with dictators and oligarchs who ran the show for decades, still has problems with democracy in its former "back yard."
This op-ed was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services on July 7, 2010 and published by the Sacramento Bee (CA) and other newspapers. If anyone wants to reprint it, please let CEPR know, by replying to this message.
Imagine that Barack Obama, upon taking office in January 2009, had decided to deliver on his campaign promise to "to end business-as-usual in Washington so we can bring about real change." Imagine that he rejected the architects of the pro-Wall Street policies that had led to economic collapse, such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and the stable of former Goldman Sachs employees that runs the U.S Treasury Department, and instead appointed Nobel laureate economists Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz to key positions including the chair of the Federal Reserve.
Instead of Hillary Clinton, who lost the Democratic presidential primary because of her unrelenting support for the Iraq war, imagine that he chose Senator Russ Feingold for Secretary of State, or someone interested in delivering on the popular desire to get out of Afghanistan. Imagine a real health care reform bill, instead of health insurance reform, that didn't give the powerful pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies a veto.
It goes without saying that President Obama would be vilified in the major media outlets. The seething hostility from right-wing blowhards such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would be matched by more mainstream media outlets, who would accuse the president of polarizing the nation and "dangerous demagoguery." With almost all of the establishment media and institutions against him, Obama would likely face a constant battle for political survival - although he might well triumph with direct, populist appeals to the majority.
This is what has happened to a number of the left-of-center governments in Latin America. In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa was re-elected by a large margin in 2009, despite strong opposition from the country's media. In Bolivia, Evo Morales has brought stability and record growth to a country that had a tradition of governments that didn't last more than a year - despite the most hostile media in the hemisphere and unrelenting, sometimes violent opposition from Bolivia's traditional elite. And President Hugo Chavez survived a U.S. backed military coup-attempt and other efforts to topple his government, winning three presidential elections, each time by a larger margin.
All of these presidents took on entrenched oligarchies and fought hard to deliver on their promises. Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president in a country with an indigenous majority, re-nationalized the hydrocarbons (mostly natural gas) industry and created jobs through public investment, as well as getting a new, more democratic constitution approved. Correa doubled spending on health care and cancelled $3.2 billion of foreign debt found to be illegitimate. Chavez cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by more than 70 percent after getting control over the country's oil industry.
These presidents faced another obstacle that Obama wouldn't have - they had to fight with the most powerful country in the world in order to deliver on their promises. This was also true of President Nestor Kirchner in Argentina (2003-2007), who had to battle the Washington-dominated International Monetary Fund in order to implement the economic policies that made Argentina the fastest growing economy in the hemisphere for six years.
Of course, Hugo Chavez has been the most demonized in the U.S. media - but that is not because of what he has said or done but because he is sitting on 500 billion barrels of oil. Washington has a particular problem with oil-producing states that don't follow orders - whether they are a dictatorship like Iraq, a theocracy like Iran, or a democracy like Venezuela.
All of these leaders - including President Lula da Silva of Brazil - had hoped that President Obama would pursue a more enlightened policy toward Latin America, but it hasn't happened. It seems that Washington, which was comfortable with dictators and oligarchs who ran the show for decades, still has problems with democracy in its former "back yard."
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
University of Puerto Rico Student Strike Victory Unleashes Brutal Civil Rights Backlash
Maritza Stanchich, Ph.D.
As so many Americans gear up for Fourth of July fireworks this weekend, the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico roils from a brutal civil rights showdown unleashed by a far-right wing government, now seemingly hell bent on destroying the recent unprecedented victory of a two-month long student strike against privatization of higher education at the University of Puerto Rico.
The broader implications are crucial on numerous fronts, including the struggle to maintain broad access to public higher education and efforts to rein in runaway neoliberal policies that have wreaked havoc on the global economy, resulting in draconian austerity measures worldwide. For the violence and repression seen in Greece and at the G20 in Toronto appears to now be visiting this Caribbean island nation of about four million U.S. citizens, the homeland of more than an additional four million Puerto Ricans in the United States, the second largest U.S. Latino group.
While the economic crisis in Puerto Rico--the worst since the 1940s, if not the 1930s-has been deepening for years, and the current right wing government has aggressively implemented a hard-line, unpopular neoliberal agenda since its broad electoral victory last November, it appears as if the recent UPR student strike victory has touched off a firestorm, with a police attack on peaceful demonstrators at Puerto Rico's Capitol building on Wednesday injuring dozens, some seriously.
The UPR strike concluded June 21 after a tense, two-month shut down of 10 campuses in a system serving nearly 65,000 students at the end of the academic year, with an accord that by all accounts was an unprecedented strike victory, in historic, hemispheric terms. A widely-supported student movement remarkable for its coalition building across traditionally distinct and even contentious social and political sectors coalesced against threatened erosion of broad public access to the widely-regarded state university, as well as its increasing privatization.
With tensions high after police and riot squads had attacked and injured students, their parents and journalists on at least three occasions, an agreement finally reached through judicial mediation met with the students' basic demands, reinstating cancelled tuition waivers, temporarily forestalling a tuition hike or imposition of student fees, and protecting strike leaders from summary suspension reprisals. The accord, signed by a majority of the Board of Trustees, though those refusing included the university and board presidents, was hailed as an achievement in civil conflict resolution, especially in light of the history of previous UPR strikes that had ended in deadly violent repressions.
Immediately after however, the Puerto Rico state legislature, dominated by the extreme right of the local Pro-Statehood party, rapidly expanded the university Board of Trustees, with the governor approving four new appointees, and a new but divided board quickly imposed a $800 student fee starting in January, and made it permanent, reminiscent of the imposition of fees at University of California by then Gov. Ronald Reagan. The legislature also quickly dismantled a long-standing UPR tradition of student assemblies, replacing them with private electronic computer voting devoid of open debate. Other cuts were also implemented affecting professors and adjunct instructors, who now make up about 40 percent of the UPR faculty, following trends in the United States, where 60 percent of all professors occupy such increasingly precarious positions.
In a far worse economic straits than the states of California or Michigan, Puerto Rico is confronting its worst fiscal crisis in decades, and UPR the biggest fiscal crisis of its 100-year existence. As throughout much of the world facing related circumstances, virulent and organized opposition to drastic cuts principally directed at the working and deteriorating middle classes has mushroomed, especially since the current global crisis, in Alan Greenspan's own befuddled words, was caused by greed-induced corruption among the highest echelons of the world economy.
While the neoliberal agenda of Puerto Rico's current political leaders look back to the very doctrines now being challenged in the United States and throughout Latin America, the UPR student movement embodies the vanguard of the contemporary 21st Century, as reflected by their symbols and tactics, including the democratizing internet, egalitarian rainbow flags, sustainable organic farming, an effervescence of alternative arts, and new coalition building among center, right and left, in tandem with occupation practices inspired by international student movements as far as California, Spain, France and Greece.
Though a shocking collective trauma, the violent crackdown at the Capitol Wednesday was not entirely surprising given the current administration's assault on all fronts since coming into power, targeting progressive, cultural and social welfare institutions and agencies with crippling budget cuts, attempting to dissolve Puerto Rico's bar association, lifting environmental protections to whole swaths of protected lands, and passing a now notorious law, called Ley 7, that not only dismisses 20,000 public employees, but declares null and void all public sector union contracts for three years, with the only recourse to challenging the law being to petition the local Supreme Court, now stacked with new appointments in the administration's favor. The governor has also activated the National Guard, amidst criticism from groups such the Puerto Rico chapters of the ACLU and Amnesty International.
Common in Puerto Rico, however, though unusual at most U.S. state universities, is the way political parties assume control of UPR leadership by appointing a new president, also recently achieved. This is in part because the UPR is widely regarded as national patrimony, and is one of the few places left in the country where dissent may be cultivated.
As opposition to these policies expands, as seen in a massive national strike in October which drew a quarter of a million workers into the streets, so has the government's seeming intolerance to any opposition, as Gov. Luis Fortuño, Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz and UPR president José Ramón de la Torre commonly resort to Cold War era red-baiting with media campaigns labeling protestors as Socialists, Communists, and professional rabble rousers out to destabilize the country. The clamp down has so far gone as far as banning journalists from Senate chambers for four days last week during the country's budget sessions, prompting media organizations to petition in court to regain access.
"I don't think there is any doubt that the intention of this government is to set back civil rights," said Judith Berkan, a long-time civil rights attorney and a law professor at University of Puerto Rico and InterAmerican University in San Juan, adding that the administration has enacted a staggering number of measures to neutralize and debilitate all those perceived as a threat to a local oligarchy acting in concert with U.S. interests.
Attempts were made to reach Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico's non-voting representative in the U.S. Congress, and UPR President José Ramón de la Torre for comment, but they were not available at press time.
The irony that the Pro-U.S. Statehood party of Gov. Fortuño is now curtailing the most basic press and civil liberties is not lost on UPR student strike leaders who witnessed and were injured at Wednesday's melee, including those who belong to the pro-Statehood party themselves, and voted for the sitting governor.
"It pains me as a statehooder that this government has not learned the lessons of U.S. civil rights struggles of decades ago," said Aníbal Núñez, a student at the UPR law school and a member of the student negotiating committee.
Núñez acknowledged the participation of students affiliated with Socialist groups among strike leaders and the student negotiating committee, and said they overcame their differences via universal concerns for education as a social necessity, as they gained each others' respect while coalition building together, adding that if he could not overcome ideological differences enough to collaborate, he would still believe in their right to pluralistically exist.
The notion that accessible, quality higher education contributes to economic recovery runs counter to the widening U.S. trend of students graduating with crippling debt, as public education has for years now faced diminishing state support. A common argument used by the administration during the UPR strike was its affordable tuition, at less than $2,000 per year for undergraduates before the recently imposed fees. But while tuition is cheaper than probably any other state university in the United States, average income in Puerto Rico is also far lower than any other U.S. state, with about 48 percent of the population living in poverty as defined by U.S. federal standards, and the cost of living in San Juan at least, far higher than at oft compared institutions in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, or Oxford, Mississippi. This tradition of maintaining broad public access to a quality state institution of higher learning is a hard earned point of pride at UPR, compared to institutions that have recently reneged their public mission with sudden and steep fee/tuition increases, such as at University of California, where students also opposed, occupied and met with police repression, but could not stave off a 32% fee hike imposed in November.
As UPR administrators continue to grapple with what was a nearly $200 million budget shortfall for next year going into the strike, in search of additional or alternative money saving and raising sources, an emboldened student movement will also regroup and weigh all its options. Future conflicts may be averted by altering the very style of governance at UPR, a top-down and paternalistic holdover from the past, as this could go a long way toward making students, as well as professors and staff who also have large stakes at play, part of a give-and-take process.
For come what may in the global fiscal crisis in the coming decade, these students are the future of new Americas of increasingly porous borders and dramatic, rapid demographic, political, cultural, informational and economic shifts, as the old order, the vestiges of the Cold War in Puerto Rico and in South Florida for example, fade into the proverbial sunset.
"We may not hold the power but we have the will power," stated law student Núñez, "and given the choice, I prefer the latter."
UPR administrators and Statehood party leaders would do well to recognize and reach out to the productive potential of this new power, shift gears and learn to act on the principles they purportedly hold dear.
As so many Americans gear up for Fourth of July fireworks this weekend, the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico roils from a brutal civil rights showdown unleashed by a far-right wing government, now seemingly hell bent on destroying the recent unprecedented victory of a two-month long student strike against privatization of higher education at the University of Puerto Rico.
The broader implications are crucial on numerous fronts, including the struggle to maintain broad access to public higher education and efforts to rein in runaway neoliberal policies that have wreaked havoc on the global economy, resulting in draconian austerity measures worldwide. For the violence and repression seen in Greece and at the G20 in Toronto appears to now be visiting this Caribbean island nation of about four million U.S. citizens, the homeland of more than an additional four million Puerto Ricans in the United States, the second largest U.S. Latino group.
While the economic crisis in Puerto Rico--the worst since the 1940s, if not the 1930s-has been deepening for years, and the current right wing government has aggressively implemented a hard-line, unpopular neoliberal agenda since its broad electoral victory last November, it appears as if the recent UPR student strike victory has touched off a firestorm, with a police attack on peaceful demonstrators at Puerto Rico's Capitol building on Wednesday injuring dozens, some seriously.
The UPR strike concluded June 21 after a tense, two-month shut down of 10 campuses in a system serving nearly 65,000 students at the end of the academic year, with an accord that by all accounts was an unprecedented strike victory, in historic, hemispheric terms. A widely-supported student movement remarkable for its coalition building across traditionally distinct and even contentious social and political sectors coalesced against threatened erosion of broad public access to the widely-regarded state university, as well as its increasing privatization.
With tensions high after police and riot squads had attacked and injured students, their parents and journalists on at least three occasions, an agreement finally reached through judicial mediation met with the students' basic demands, reinstating cancelled tuition waivers, temporarily forestalling a tuition hike or imposition of student fees, and protecting strike leaders from summary suspension reprisals. The accord, signed by a majority of the Board of Trustees, though those refusing included the university and board presidents, was hailed as an achievement in civil conflict resolution, especially in light of the history of previous UPR strikes that had ended in deadly violent repressions.
Immediately after however, the Puerto Rico state legislature, dominated by the extreme right of the local Pro-Statehood party, rapidly expanded the university Board of Trustees, with the governor approving four new appointees, and a new but divided board quickly imposed a $800 student fee starting in January, and made it permanent, reminiscent of the imposition of fees at University of California by then Gov. Ronald Reagan. The legislature also quickly dismantled a long-standing UPR tradition of student assemblies, replacing them with private electronic computer voting devoid of open debate. Other cuts were also implemented affecting professors and adjunct instructors, who now make up about 40 percent of the UPR faculty, following trends in the United States, where 60 percent of all professors occupy such increasingly precarious positions.
In a far worse economic straits than the states of California or Michigan, Puerto Rico is confronting its worst fiscal crisis in decades, and UPR the biggest fiscal crisis of its 100-year existence. As throughout much of the world facing related circumstances, virulent and organized opposition to drastic cuts principally directed at the working and deteriorating middle classes has mushroomed, especially since the current global crisis, in Alan Greenspan's own befuddled words, was caused by greed-induced corruption among the highest echelons of the world economy.
While the neoliberal agenda of Puerto Rico's current political leaders look back to the very doctrines now being challenged in the United States and throughout Latin America, the UPR student movement embodies the vanguard of the contemporary 21st Century, as reflected by their symbols and tactics, including the democratizing internet, egalitarian rainbow flags, sustainable organic farming, an effervescence of alternative arts, and new coalition building among center, right and left, in tandem with occupation practices inspired by international student movements as far as California, Spain, France and Greece.
Though a shocking collective trauma, the violent crackdown at the Capitol Wednesday was not entirely surprising given the current administration's assault on all fronts since coming into power, targeting progressive, cultural and social welfare institutions and agencies with crippling budget cuts, attempting to dissolve Puerto Rico's bar association, lifting environmental protections to whole swaths of protected lands, and passing a now notorious law, called Ley 7, that not only dismisses 20,000 public employees, but declares null and void all public sector union contracts for three years, with the only recourse to challenging the law being to petition the local Supreme Court, now stacked with new appointments in the administration's favor. The governor has also activated the National Guard, amidst criticism from groups such the Puerto Rico chapters of the ACLU and Amnesty International.
Common in Puerto Rico, however, though unusual at most U.S. state universities, is the way political parties assume control of UPR leadership by appointing a new president, also recently achieved. This is in part because the UPR is widely regarded as national patrimony, and is one of the few places left in the country where dissent may be cultivated.
As opposition to these policies expands, as seen in a massive national strike in October which drew a quarter of a million workers into the streets, so has the government's seeming intolerance to any opposition, as Gov. Luis Fortuño, Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz and UPR president José Ramón de la Torre commonly resort to Cold War era red-baiting with media campaigns labeling protestors as Socialists, Communists, and professional rabble rousers out to destabilize the country. The clamp down has so far gone as far as banning journalists from Senate chambers for four days last week during the country's budget sessions, prompting media organizations to petition in court to regain access.
"I don't think there is any doubt that the intention of this government is to set back civil rights," said Judith Berkan, a long-time civil rights attorney and a law professor at University of Puerto Rico and InterAmerican University in San Juan, adding that the administration has enacted a staggering number of measures to neutralize and debilitate all those perceived as a threat to a local oligarchy acting in concert with U.S. interests.
Attempts were made to reach Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico's non-voting representative in the U.S. Congress, and UPR President José Ramón de la Torre for comment, but they were not available at press time.
The irony that the Pro-U.S. Statehood party of Gov. Fortuño is now curtailing the most basic press and civil liberties is not lost on UPR student strike leaders who witnessed and were injured at Wednesday's melee, including those who belong to the pro-Statehood party themselves, and voted for the sitting governor.
"It pains me as a statehooder that this government has not learned the lessons of U.S. civil rights struggles of decades ago," said Aníbal Núñez, a student at the UPR law school and a member of the student negotiating committee.
Núñez acknowledged the participation of students affiliated with Socialist groups among strike leaders and the student negotiating committee, and said they overcame their differences via universal concerns for education as a social necessity, as they gained each others' respect while coalition building together, adding that if he could not overcome ideological differences enough to collaborate, he would still believe in their right to pluralistically exist.
The notion that accessible, quality higher education contributes to economic recovery runs counter to the widening U.S. trend of students graduating with crippling debt, as public education has for years now faced diminishing state support. A common argument used by the administration during the UPR strike was its affordable tuition, at less than $2,000 per year for undergraduates before the recently imposed fees. But while tuition is cheaper than probably any other state university in the United States, average income in Puerto Rico is also far lower than any other U.S. state, with about 48 percent of the population living in poverty as defined by U.S. federal standards, and the cost of living in San Juan at least, far higher than at oft compared institutions in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, or Oxford, Mississippi. This tradition of maintaining broad public access to a quality state institution of higher learning is a hard earned point of pride at UPR, compared to institutions that have recently reneged their public mission with sudden and steep fee/tuition increases, such as at University of California, where students also opposed, occupied and met with police repression, but could not stave off a 32% fee hike imposed in November.
As UPR administrators continue to grapple with what was a nearly $200 million budget shortfall for next year going into the strike, in search of additional or alternative money saving and raising sources, an emboldened student movement will also regroup and weigh all its options. Future conflicts may be averted by altering the very style of governance at UPR, a top-down and paternalistic holdover from the past, as this could go a long way toward making students, as well as professors and staff who also have large stakes at play, part of a give-and-take process.
For come what may in the global fiscal crisis in the coming decade, these students are the future of new Americas of increasingly porous borders and dramatic, rapid demographic, political, cultural, informational and economic shifts, as the old order, the vestiges of the Cold War in Puerto Rico and in South Florida for example, fade into the proverbial sunset.
"We may not hold the power but we have the will power," stated law student Núñez, "and given the choice, I prefer the latter."
UPR administrators and Statehood party leaders would do well to recognize and reach out to the productive potential of this new power, shift gears and learn to act on the principles they purportedly hold dear.
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