Winds of change sweeping America south
Chavismo of the IMCista's - SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican nationalist's killing by FBI shakes up old movement
Students add shouts to elderly's murmur for independence
They looked like boys, not revolutionaries. But the two University of Puerto Rico students pulsed with grim purpose as they held forth on a lush campus lawn on a recent afternoon.
"If you are going to be a repressive imperialist power, don't expect us to sit here and do nothing," said Gamelyn Oduardo, 19, a political-science major in a knitted Rastafarian hat. "When you kick an anthill, all the ants are going to come out."
The anthill, in Oduardo's analogy, is Puerto Rico. The ants are Puerto Ricans who share his bristling hostility toward the United States. The kick was the killing in September of Filiberto Ojeda Rios, a fugitive Puerto Rican nationalist, in a gunbattle with agents of the FBI.
The death of Ojeda Rios, who was cornered in a farmhouse, was a jolt to an independence movement that had seemed all but dead, or at least settled into wistful, toothless old age.
Here and there in San Juan, a city of colonial antiquity as well as Burger Kings and Church's Chickens, wrathful graffiti has turned up on storefronts: "FBI Asesinos" (FBI Assassins) and "Vive Filiberto" (Filiberto Lives).
Independentistas have long pointed out that as residents of a U.S. commonwealth, Puerto Ricans cannot participate in federal elections or send voting members to Congress.
More recently, independentistas have argued that the minimum-wage law and other U.S. regulations put Puerto Rico at a disadvantage with its neighbors in the Caribbean and Central America, where businesses can run far more cheaply.
At Plaza Las Americas, a giant mall, shoppers can buy Brooks Brothers suits and Tiffany jewelry, as well as baby clothes stamped with the face of Pedro Albizu Campos, the island's first nationalist leader, who wanted Puerto Ricans to wage an armed struggle against the United States.
"Friday evenings, buy us a couple drinks and everyone is an independence supporter," said Angelo Falcon, the president of the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy in New York, repeating a well-known joke. "It's something that Americans don't quite feel comfortable with or understand."
Outside the university gates, the graffiti was fading, and Puerto Rico had reverted to its usual partisan bickering.
Nonetheless, independentistas say they feel a new energy since Ojeda Rios' death. A change in political status could come sooner now, they insist.
Puerto Rican nationalist's killing by FBI shakes up old movement
Students add shouts to elderly's murmur for independence
They looked like boys, not revolutionaries. But the two University of Puerto Rico students pulsed with grim purpose as they held forth on a lush campus lawn on a recent afternoon.
"If you are going to be a repressive imperialist power, don't expect us to sit here and do nothing," said Gamelyn Oduardo, 19, a political-science major in a knitted Rastafarian hat. "When you kick an anthill, all the ants are going to come out."
The anthill, in Oduardo's analogy, is Puerto Rico. The ants are Puerto Ricans who share his bristling hostility toward the United States. The kick was the killing in September of Filiberto Ojeda Rios, a fugitive Puerto Rican nationalist, in a gunbattle with agents of the FBI.
The death of Ojeda Rios, who was cornered in a farmhouse, was a jolt to an independence movement that had seemed all but dead, or at least settled into wistful, toothless old age.
Here and there in San Juan, a city of colonial antiquity as well as Burger Kings and Church's Chickens, wrathful graffiti has turned up on storefronts: "FBI Asesinos" (FBI Assassins) and "Vive Filiberto" (Filiberto Lives).
Independentistas have long pointed out that as residents of a U.S. commonwealth, Puerto Ricans cannot participate in federal elections or send voting members to Congress.
More recently, independentistas have argued that the minimum-wage law and other U.S. regulations put Puerto Rico at a disadvantage with its neighbors in the Caribbean and Central America, where businesses can run far more cheaply.
At Plaza Las Americas, a giant mall, shoppers can buy Brooks Brothers suits and Tiffany jewelry, as well as baby clothes stamped with the face of Pedro Albizu Campos, the island's first nationalist leader, who wanted Puerto Ricans to wage an armed struggle against the United States.
"Friday evenings, buy us a couple drinks and everyone is an independence supporter," said Angelo Falcon, the president of the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy in New York, repeating a well-known joke. "It's something that Americans don't quite feel comfortable with or understand."
Outside the university gates, the graffiti was fading, and Puerto Rico had reverted to its usual partisan bickering.
Nonetheless, independentistas say they feel a new energy since Ojeda Rios' death. A change in political status could come sooner now, they insist.
posted by professor rat at 7:12 AM
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