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ENGLISH TEXT

EXPLOSIVE POLITICAL SITUATION IN PUERTO RICO

It is 5:00 of the evening of June 30, 2010, groups of students, teachers
and citizens asked for entry to the House of the Laws and they were struck
and tortured by the Police, there are numerous injured people, while the
National Guard is mobilized towards the Capitol Hill. Violent shocks scatter
for the whole zone of the Parliament and the repressions continue.

A constitutional coup has just been established in Puerto Rico.
After a year in which the present time government under the New Progressive
Party (Partido Nuevo Progresista, that attempts to join the Island to the
United States trough statehood) tried to and succeeded taking over many
institutions that form the base of the democratic government of Puerto Rico,
an atmosphere of hostility followed by many reckless actions that threaten
public peace had climaxed in violent and aggressive actions of this
government against the parties of the opposition, the organized student
movement, the labor unions, the press, the environment, as against every
area and institution of Puerto Rico?s civil society.

This constitutional coup springs from the Legislative branch of the
government under the command of Senator Thomas Rivera Schatz, endorsed by
the central government, under the dominance of the Secretary Governor,
counselor Marcos Rodríguez Ema, with the obvious intent of having under
their grasp and without opposition full control of every agency and
organization that rule the judiciary, academic, economic and civil
societies. Before this scenario, Governor Luis Fortuño operates without
volition, has no opinion, appearance nor public responsibility.

With the complete control of the High Court of Puerto Rico, the University
of Puerto Rico Board of trustees, and the alleged control of the news media,
among many others, the genuine participation of the People of Puerto Rico in
all democratic processes protected by our Constitution is jeopardized.

The events started (trough the rush approval of Law 7 by the Legislature)
with more than 20,000 public employee lay-offs, with the allegation that
this would alleviate the gigantism of the government and would find the
solution of the serious public deficit, that has never been properly
evidenced. This decision has caused economical chaos, public services are
worse than ever and it has generated despair and gloominess in every
Puertorrican family. In this same guise there exists a serious persecution
against all artistic institutions of the country, strangling their budgets,
trying with this actions to avoid the propagation of art as dissidence.
This, while the government favors contracts of obscene sums with hundreds of
advisors, contractors and lobbyists associated with their own political
party.

The attacks continued in the form of the appointment to the High Court of
four Judges with a well known affiliation with, and militancy for the
governing political party, achieving a majority of votes in favor of the
actual government on all decisions made in this Forum, on individual basis.
The government went on repressing and eliminating student participation on
the procedures of the State University, suppressing tuition exemption rights
for outstanding athletes and artists, among others; forcing the students
from all eleven campuses of the University of Puerto Rico to declare a
strike that lasted 60 days, generating ample support from the people of
Puerto Rico and around the world.

The students on strike were successful on their achieving their demands
trough negotiations that involved a First Instance Court and an appointed
negotiator; however, these accords were are trying to be invalidated by
Secretary of government Rodríguez Ema who said that these accords ?are not
worth the paper in which they were written?

This event preceded the Central government?s action of proposing a hasty
law, that was signed with no revision within hours, adding four additional
members to the Board of trustees of the University of Puerto Rico. These
additions to the Board are unconditional members of the governing political
party The students of the State university, who on a great majority depend
in Federal grants, now face an annual recurring fee of $800.00, fee they
will not be able to pay and that they will not pay, forcing the students to
return to their strike. With this strategy, the Central government risk the
accreditation of the State University and as a consequence, the government
would be able to privatize it?s assets.

Following this same direction, the government of Puerto Rico will attempt to
sell and to divide for speculation a strip of land where stands the Karst
formation, on the northwest of the Island. This area collects one third of
our water supplies for the entire population; nonetheless, the government
intends to put this area into private hands that would build a toll
expressway over this zone that is rich ecologically and economically.

Passing up many other events, the budget of Puerto Rico was approved,
together with countless laws which favor privatization, the dissolving of
professional associations and the distribution of public funds into private
hands, without the pertaining and compulsory hearings of public
participation, reaching the extreme of turning off the microphones of the
opposing political party members, in a despotic fashion.

The events climaxed last week when the FBI in Puerto Rico arrested Senator
Héctor Martínez, NPP, on charges of bribe, the selling of influences and
other charges. Martinez is Senator?s Rivera Schatz right hand on the Senate.
A public squabble reached the news between the Senator and the FBI, with the
Seantor fending the alleged innocence of Senator Martínez,, who has been
directly associated with drug traffic and who was filmed while committing
bribery.

Then, last in his many violent and reckless acts, the president of the
Senate, Rivera Schatz, using force and a real padlock, censored the access
of the cameras and the news media to the Senate sessions, depriving the
People of Puerto Rico of direct information about the discussions and voting
sessions that were taking place about this year?s budget and other matter).
The events resulted in verbal and physical violence between senators, rising
indignation between the people to a point of and almost unsustainable state
of outrage and wrath.

Counselor Rivera Schatz has taken virtual control of the country with his
tyrannical and fascist ways; and it cannot be discarded that from these same
seats, this same week, acts of persecution and acts of violence will be
started against other sectors of the People, all approved by the Secretary
Governor of Puerto Rico.

*It is 5:00 of the evening of June 30, 2010, groups of students, teachers
and citizens asked for entry to the House of the Laws and they were struck
and tortured by the Police, there are numerous injured people, while the
National Guard is mobilized towards the Capitol Hill. Violent shocks scatter
for the whole zone of the Parliament and the repressions continue.*

This factual deed of control of the political power from within the
Puertorrican Nation violates all elementary principles of democracy and of
participation of the People in the government, for which we proclaim to the
World the actual situation of contained violence that exists in our People
and that is about to explode against these two politicians that had taken by
assault the power in our Country. Even though in Puerto Rico there are no
conditions for an armed struggle of the People because of the obvious
disparity of the opposing sides, a revolution of cultural and of student
affirmation is starting to take the streets and to retrieve the spaces
stolen away by the originators of this coup.

We exhortat all communications media of the World to divulge and expose the
current situation of the Puertorrican Nation and we ask of you, therefore,
your total solidarity.

Composed by Roberto Ramos-Perea, Puertorrican Playwriter
(With the active collaboration, comments and support of more than a hundred
Puertorrican citizens.)