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Vol. 82/No. 9 March 5, 2018
‘We’ll protest until all the lights are on in Puerto Rico’
Alex Figueroa
More than 200 residents of Aguas Buenas and nearby towns marched outside
Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s central offices in San Juan Feb.
12. They sang, “We come from Aguas Buenas to let you know, if the light
doesn’t come on, we’ll be here [outside your office] forever.”
Five months and counting since hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the island
at least 700,000 people are still without light, and many don’t have
running water.
“At a meeting at the House of Christ the Savior Catholic Church,
community members decided to organize ourselves regardless of political
affiliation or religion and protest,” Father Hipólito Vicens, who helped
organize the action, told the Militant by phone Feb. 16. The Feb. 12
protest was the largest of dozens of similar actions that have been
taking place across the U.S. colony.
“There’s some work being done on the outskirts of the town, but it’s
extremely slow,” Vicens said. “And 10 or 11 trucks from a U.S. company
park here every day, but they don’t do any work.”
How did company bosses respond? “The power company removed all the
brigades that were actually doing any work,” he said. “Now the only ones
that come are the ones from the U.S. that park their trucks and don’t do
anything.
“We’re going to hold another assembly Feb. 26 to discuss what’s next,”
Vicens said. “Our dream is to include people from the rural and
mountainous areas across the central part of the island. These are the
poorer, less developed zones that have been left totally on their own.”
A bankruptcy court Feb. 19 approved a $300 million loan to the Power
Authority, less than a third of what it says it needs to buy enough fuel
to keep running. To help pay the Puerto Rican government’s $74 billion
debt, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló plans to sell off the power company to the
highest bidder.
The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico — tasked
with squeezing Puerto Rican working people to pay as much back to
bondholders as possible — is now demanding the colonial regime strike
down laws there that prevent bosses from firing workers without cause.
— SETH GALINSKY
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