The original in Spanish can be found here.

Translated by J. Palameda

July 16th, 2019

Official Declaration

San Juan, Puerto Rico

In light of the events of this past Monday, July 15, 2019, the members of Commune Antilla declare that:

• We demand the immediate resignation of Ricardo Roselló, we hold the colonial governor responsible for any act of violence and bloodshed caused by his inaction.
• We denounce that his government did not receive the majority of electoral support, so it is illegitimate in two ways: 1.) it did not have the real support of the people, and, 2.) it is a colonial government under which there is no such thing as democracy. 
• We support all tactics of the struggle undertaken by the Puerto Rican citizenship against the corrupt administration of Ricardo Roselló as long as it favors the working and marginalized classes of the country.
• We condemn any statement or expression on the part of “left” organizations that argues for pacifism and weakens the union of the people in the face of oppression.
• We call on people who wish to take peaceful tactics to do so, without interrupting the work of those who do not find them useful. 
• We condemn the imposition of an “area of ​​demonstration” by the police of Puerto Rico.
• We condemn the use of force by the police as a means of repression and silencing the masses.
• We denounced the abduction of demonstrators last night during which Puerto Rican police denied information to the legal representation of people who had been arrested. 
• We believe in the need for a National Strike as a unifying tactic in the face of the austerity measures of the Fiscal Control Board, government corruption, and the abuses undertaken by both bodies. 
• We call that people be organized under the banners, principles and political positions that they can relate to, so long as these advance the idea that the solution to the colony, will only arise from the masses and not from the legal apparatus of the state, which only encourages the status quo

Last night we saw in front of us the anger, the indignation, and the exhaustion of the masses that met up at the capitol and La Fortaleza. In an indication of the need to change the country, Ricardo Roselló said today in a press release “that is the system” when asked if democracy here is reduced to “a question every four years.” Roselló doesn’t lie; such is the system of representative democracy that the country’s ruling political classes want to maintain. Therefore we make a final call:

Let’s start discussing the scenario  we want when we manage to change the country to the root. Representative democracy is expiring for the masses, the political abstention of the previous electoral year is evidence of that. Let’s start discussing and raising the form of government that we need for a better Puerto Rico and let’s fight for it. Let’s not allow ourselves to be manipulated any more. 

We complement each other for attending each activity convened so that it is possible for us to share the information we have from the various organizations with which we collaborate and have allied. We appreciate the camaraderie demonstrated during yesterday’s demonstrations.

A LA REVOLUCION!

Categories: International, Puerto Rico, U.S. News