First Published: Daily World, February 13, 1971.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The conference in San Juan, January 22, between the top leaders of the MPI (El Movimiento Pro-lndependencia de Puerto Rico), headed by its general secretary, Juan Mari Bras, the top leaders of the Communist Party of Puerto Rico headed by its general secretary Felix Ojeda, and the U.S. Communist delegation, headed by Gus Hall, issued the following statement:
In the spirit of internationalist anti-imperialism and in an atmosphere of friendship and cordiality a meeting took place in the office of the National Mission of the MPI.
Present were Juan Mari Bras, general secretary of the MPI; Gus Hall, general secretary of the Communist Party, U.S.A.; Felix Ojeda, general secretary, Communist Party of Puerto Rico. Others present were Julio Vives Vazquez, Pedro Baiges Chapel, Jenaro Rentas, Manuel de J. Gonzalez and Angel Agosto, members of the Political Committee of the MPI; Gertrudis Melendez de Perez, and other members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Puerto Rico, and Pat Toohey, member of the national committee of the Communist Party, U.S.A.
The talks focused on the struggle for Puerto Rican independence, and for the elimination of U.S. military, economic, and political domination and influence over Puerto Rican life. All parties agreed that Puerto Rico is subjected to a direct, classic form of colonialism by the U.S. imperialists.
The talks included a discussion about the developments in the struggle for national liberation throughout the world. The meeting took note of the new and ominous steps of escalation in Southeast Asia by the Nixon Administration. Because of this, all parties present agreed to intensify and heighten the struggle to end the U.S. aggression in Indochina.
The discussion dealt with the movements and struggles for independence in Puerto Rico, and in the U.S., with the various struggles against imperialism and war; with the struggle for black liberation, and against the special oppression of 1,600,000 Puerto Rican people now in the U.S. The talks took note of the serious nature of the present economic crisis and its severe and damaging effects upon the working people of our two nations.
The meeting developed a number of concrete forms and actions, especially around the following issues:
A. To eliminate the U.S. naval presence and its criminal bombardment of the Island of Culebra. We see this struggle as the initial stage in eliminating the presence of U.S. imperialism’s military forces in Puerto Rico.
B. To heighten the struggle for the freedom of Angela Davis. We see this as a struggle to save the life of a beautiful human being and symbolic of the struggle against racism and all other forms of imperialist ideology. We see it symbolic of the need for unity of all victims of imperialist oppression.
C. To expose the hypocrisy of U.S. imperialism in now proclaiming that Puerto Rico is not included in the Tlaltelulco Treaty for Nuclear Free Zone in Latin America. This only shows that the criminal intentions of U.S. imperialism are to continue the economic, military, and political oppression of Puerto Rico; to continue it as a regional military staging area and to have, in Puerto Rico, nuclear weapons bases from which it can threaten the independence of all nations in our hemisphere.
D. The talks canvassed the meaning of the unprecedented mass militancy of the youth of our two nations. The meeting agreed on special steps that are needed to render assistance and mass support to the hundreds who have been arrested or indicted because of their courageous stand against the U.S. military draft.
E. The meeting took special note of the centrality of the need to promote unity and a fighting, militant, fraternal relationship between the workingclass and trade union organizations of our two nations. We will seek ways to put an end to the ability of U.S. corporations to use the working class of one nation against their class brothers of the other.
The conference concluded, strengthening comradeship between us in spite of the different views that each party may have about a number of things, as symbolic of the future ties and friendship that will grow and deepen between our two peoples: based on an end to U.S. imperialist oppression of Puerto Rico, as neighbors in independence, equality and mutual respect.
San Juan, Puerto Rico, January 22,1971