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From Pacifica, this is Democracy Now!

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We will compromise, we will compromise,

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and we will compromise,
in order to come to a speedy agreement.

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But we are not going
to end up being compromised.

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This is not what we were elected for.

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Greece in crisis.

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Will Athens be forced to leave the euro?

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We’ll speak to Greece’s finance
minister, Yanis Varoufakis, in Athens.

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Then, Puerto Rico
marks the 50th anniversary of the death

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of independence leader
Pedro Albizu Campos.

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It’s not easy to give a speech
when we have our mother laying in bed

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and an assassin
waiting to take your life.

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Such is the present situation
of our country,

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our mother, of Puerto Rico.

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The assassin is the power
of the United States of North America.

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We’ll speak
to New York Congressmember José Serrano;

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Nelson Denis, author of the new book,

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War Against All Puerto Ricans;

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and Puerto Rican Independence Party
member Hugo Rodríguez in Puerto Rico.

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All that and more, coming up.

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Welcome to Democracy Now!,
democracynow.org,

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The War and Peace Report.

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I’m Amy Goodman.

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The United Nations has estimated up
to 850 migrants perished when their boat

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capsized en route to Europe Sunday,

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confirming its place

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as the worst migrant disaster
in the Mediterranean Sea.

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Survivors have put the death toll
between 400 and 950 people,

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with reports hundreds
were locked in a hold by smugglers.

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Italian authorities have arrested
the captain and another crew member.

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On Monday, at least three people

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died when another boat ran aground
off the Greek island of Rhodes,

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while Italian authorities
said they rescued over 600.

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As the European Union vowed to launch
military efforts against smugglers,

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protesters gathered in Paris, France,
to demand urgent action.

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Amnesty International director

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Stephan Oberreit
called for a robust rescue program,

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similar to Italy’s
discontinued Mare Nostrum.

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Stephan Oberreit: "We are saying
that they need to take action now.

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They can’t just look the other way

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with hundreds
of people dying in the Mediterranean.

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It’s non-assistance to people in danger.

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They need to take action
and bring about an operation of rescue,

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like Mare Nostrum
was an operation of rescue."

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The United States
has deployed two additional warships

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off the coast of Yemen
in what officials call a signal to Iran

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over its shipments of arms
to Shiite Houthi rebels.

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The move is also seen as a show
of support for Saudi Arabia

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over its bombing campaign
against the rebels in Yemen.

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On Monday, a Saudi-led strike

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set off an earthquake-like blast
in the Yemeni capital Sana’a,

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killing at least 25 people.

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Oxfam meanwhile has condemned a strike

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Sunday which hit one
of its humanitarian storage facilities.

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As tensions
between the U.S. and Iran increase

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over the conflict in Yemen,

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Iranian authorities have charged jailed
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian

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with espionage.

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U.S. paratroopers have begun
training Ukrainian forces

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who are battling pro-Russian rebels
in the country’s east.

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About 300 U.S. troops
will train 900 Ukrainian counterparts,

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despite Russia’s warning the move
could "destabilize" the situation.

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In Oklahoma,
Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz

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has apologized to the family
of Eric Harris,

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the unarmed African-American man fatally
shot by reserve deputy Robert Bates,

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who claims he mistook his gun
for a Taser.

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Following a Tulsa World report
three supervisors

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were reassigned after refusing
to falsify Bates’ training records,

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Glanz said he was "not aware
of" any falsification,

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but acknowledged records are missing.

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In Baltimore,
Maryland, six police officers

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have been suspended over the death

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of a man
whose neck was broken in police custody.

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Freddie Gray died Sunday a week
after his arrest.

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Police say an autopsy confirmed Gray
died of spinal cord injuries

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and said he was apparently
injured while inside a police van.

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Police said Gray was arrested
after he ran away

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after a lieutenant "made eye contact"
with him.

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He was charged with carrying a knife,

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although authorities
acknowledged neither possessing a knife

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nor running away
are necessarily crimes.

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Officials say Gray asked officers
for an asthma inhaler,

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but a medic wasn’t called
until over 40 minutes later.

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In Illinois,
an off-duty Chicago police detective

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who opened fire on a group of people,

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killing an unarmed,

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22-year-old African-American woman,

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has been acquitted.

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Dante Servin killed Rekia Boyd

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and injured her friend Antonio Cross
in 2012,

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claiming he thought Cross had a gun.

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No gun was found.

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The judge dismissed the case before
the defense even called a witness,

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saying Servin’s actions
were "beyond reckless,"

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but prosecutors

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failed to prove their case.

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Rekia Boyd’s brother, Martinez Sutton,
mourned outside the courthouse.

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Martinez Sutton: "She will never come
back.

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We’ll never be able to hug
and kiss her no more.

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We’ll never be able to say,

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'Rekia, I love you.

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' We’ll never be able to say,

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'Can you watch my children for me?

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You want to go here?'

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We’ll never be able to see that smile

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again."

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Over 50 disability rights activists

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have been arrested at a protest
in Washington, D.C.

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The group ADAPT is demanding
President Obama issue an executive order

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to end the "inhumane warehousing
of people in nursing facilities"

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and implement policies

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to ensure living wages for healthcare
attendants under Medicaid.

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Wal-Mart workers have accused
the retailer of closing down five stores

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in order to suppress growing calls
for a living wage and benefits.

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The United Food
and Commercial Workers

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union filed a complaint before
the National Labor Relations Board

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over the closures,
which include the California store

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that was the site of
the first U.S. Wal-Mart strike in 2012.

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Wal-Mart says the closures
are for plumbing issues.

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And the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winners
have been announced.

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Winners include The Post and Courier
of Charleston, South Carolina,

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which took the gold medal
for public service

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for its series
on domestic violence homicides;

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the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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for breaking news photography
of protests in Ferguson;

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and writer Elizabeth Kolbert
in general nonfiction

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for her book The Sixth Extinction,
about climate change.

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To see our interview with her,
you can go to democracynow.org.

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And those are some of the headlines
this is Democracy Now,

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Democracynow.org,
the War and Peace Report.

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I’m Amy Goodman.

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: With the debt clock
ticking,

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Greece is fast running out of money.

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The country has ordered all state bodies
to place their cash reserves

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in the nation’s central bank,

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the Bank of Greece,
as it struggles to stay afloat.

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Greece is supposed
to receive the last installment

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of its bailout funds
from European creditors,

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but the country’s new leftist,
anti-austerity Syriza party

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has expressed concerns about its terms.

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The creditors
are reportedly pressuring the country

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to restructure its labor market
and curtail its pension system;

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Syriza has instead done the opposite

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by increasing pension payments
to lower-wage workers.

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Speaking in Washington, D.C.,

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last week, the head
of the International Monetary Fund,

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Christine Lagarde,
urged Greece to restore stability.

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CHRISTINE LAGARDE: What needs to happen
now is that the political views

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need to actually deliver
the measures, the tools,

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the reforms
that will actually reach the objectives

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that have been set
between the international community

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and Greece:

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restore stability, improve the economy,

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make sure that one of these days Greece
re-accesses the financial market

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on its own and without support.

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So that’s what needs to happen.

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And we are completely available to work
with the Greek authorities

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on those objectives.

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AMY GOODMAN: On Friday,
eurozone finance ministers

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will decide whether to release
emergency funds to Greece.

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Without the funds, Greece may default
on its debt payments in coming weeks

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and put its membership
in the eurozone at risk.

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For more,
we go directly to Athens, Greece,

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where we’re joined by Greece’s finance
minister, Yanis Varoufakis.

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He’s not only a political economist,

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but also something
of a global celebrity.

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Prospect magazine lists him
as number two on its list

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of the world’s leading thinkers,

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right after French economist

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Thomas Piketty
and before Canadian author Naomi Klein.

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Yanis Varoufakis,

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welcome back to Democracy Now!

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Can you tell us
what you are calling for right now?

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How high are the stakes?

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YANIS VAROUFAKIS: I would like
to phrase my answer in terms

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that do not resemble a Hollywood movie
and a kind of conflictual confrontation.

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The way I see it is this.

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Greece has been in the clasps
of a major crisis

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for the last five years.

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We had a very serious recession
that led to a depression.

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So the question
is: How can we put an end

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to this never-ending downward spiral

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so as to stabilize our economy,

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create conditions for the return
of a degree of social justice,

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and also repay our debts
to our creditors?

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And there are two narratives here,
two competing narratives.

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The official version,

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until we got elected,
was that Greece was on the mend,

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that austerity was working.

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Our proposition to the Greek people—

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on which basis

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we were elected, were given a mandate—

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was the opposite,
that the medicine wasn’t working.

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It wasn’t just that it was bitter

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and we didn’t want to take it;

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it was that it was toxic

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and it was making a bad thing worse.

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It was worse than the disease.

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So, this is what’s at stake here.

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You asked me, "How high are the stakes?"

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It’s a question of establishing

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what needs to be done in order
to return Greece to a sustainable path.

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, Yanis Varoufakis,

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you’ve talked, in your speech that you
gave at the Brookings Institution,

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of the design failures
of the European Union.

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Could you talk about that?

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YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Look,
this is an open secret,

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it’s a common secret,

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that the eurozone was never designed
in order to sustain the shockwaves

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of the major financial markets
earthquake of 2008.

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So it was like all monetary unions
that lack a shock-absorbing mechanism,

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a mechanism for recycling surpluses.

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Let me give you an example
in the American context.

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Remember what happened in 1929?

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There was a global currency of sorts,
the gold standard,

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that created very sharp, very quick
flows of capital, even back then,

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even though the Internet
was not available at the time

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and there were no computers.

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And that created bubbles
that eventually burst,

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beginning of course with Wall Street.

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And the result was that the burden
of adjustment

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went onto the devastated nations
and the devastated parts

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within the United States.

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So, what did FDR do?

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What did the Roosevelt administration
do with the New Deal?

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It created mechanisms
for recycling deficits and surpluses

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within the United States of America

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through Social Security,
through the Fed, the FDIC,

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so that when the next crisis
happened in 2008,

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which was of course monumental,

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even in the United States—

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the next 1929 in 2008 happened,

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the state of Nevada

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did not have to bail out the banks
domiciled in Nevada,

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and the state of Nevada

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did not have to worry about paying
for the unemployment benefits.

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You had these shock-absorbing
mechanisms.

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You had the FDIC
looking after the banks of Nevada,

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and you had Social Security
at the federal level

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paying, through surplus recycling, by—

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automatically,
without even a political decision.

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Taxes from New York state

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and California were diverted to pay
for the unemployment benefits in Nevada.

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These are the kinds of mechanisms

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00:12:46.250 --> 00:12:49.800
that you need in order
to render a monetary union stable,

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00:12:49.800 --> 00:12:51.200
and Europe never had those.

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00:12:52.020 --> 00:12:55.540
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn
to the opposition lawmaker,

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00:12:55.540 --> 00:12:58.970
Kyriakos Mitsotakis
of the New Democracy party,

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00:12:58.970 --> 00:13:01.430
which is the former governing party
of Greece.

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00:13:01.430 --> 00:13:04.470
He criticized your party,
the governing party,

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00:13:04.470 --> 00:13:08.390
Syriza’s party’s approach
to Greece’s financial troubles.

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00:13:08.390 --> 00:13:10.370
KYRIAKOS MITSOTAKIS: 
[What the government is doing]

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00:13:10.370 --> 00:13:12.090
is devastating for economic activity

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00:13:12.090 --> 00:13:14.280
in Greece,
all this uncertainty, the downgradings,

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00:13:14.280 --> 00:13:18.060
the fact that the government
is using all the available cash,

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00:13:18.060 --> 00:13:19.870
paying no one, the fact that the banks

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00:13:19.870 --> 00:13:22.890
are funneling all their liquidity
to support the government.

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00:13:22.890 --> 00:13:25.600
It’s completely catastrophic
for the real economy.

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00:13:25.600 --> 00:13:27.760
So, inaction has a real cost.

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00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:32.530
AMY GOODMAN: Yanis Varoufakis,

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00:13:32.530 --> 00:13:33.780
your response?

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00:13:37.880 --> 00:13:42.880
YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, look,
if it were true that the Greek economy

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00:13:42.880 --> 00:13:45.120
was on the mend
prior to our election

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00:13:45.720 --> 00:13:48.390
and that it was on a sustainable path,

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00:13:48.390 --> 00:13:50.610
then my colleague would be right.

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00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:52.900
Unfortunately, it isn’t true.

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00:13:53.470 --> 00:13:59.460
The debt deflationary crisis
was continuing, inexorably.

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00:14:00.470 --> 00:14:02.350
Nominal incomes continued to fall.

269
00:14:02.980 --> 00:14:05.530
Private and public debt
continued to rise.

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00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:11.430
The banks could not function
as credit-providing institutions.

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00:14:11.430 --> 00:14:13.230
Investment was negative.

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00:14:13.230 --> 00:14:15.430
And generally speaking,

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00:14:15.430 --> 00:14:22.310
the Greek economy was like a drug addict
that relied on the next dose

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00:14:22.310 --> 00:14:26.610
of loans from its international
and European creditors.

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00:14:27.410 --> 00:14:28.890
And what we tried to do

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00:14:28.890 --> 00:14:32.410
was to say to our international
and European creditors,

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00:14:32.410 --> 00:14:35.730
to our partners in Europe
and to the whole world

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00:14:35.730 --> 00:14:39.830
that this recipe was simply not working.

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00:14:39.830 --> 00:14:45.800
And we took a very considered view
and a very principled position.

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00:14:45.800 --> 00:14:47.250
We said that, look,

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00:14:47.860 --> 00:14:51.420
if we sign on the dotted line
of this existing program,

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00:14:51.420 --> 00:14:54.210
IMF-inspired program, then, of course,

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00:14:54.210 --> 00:14:56.130
we will secure another $5-7 billion—

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00:14:56.130 --> 00:14:59.000
this is a new dose, if you want—

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00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:01.130
and our addiction will continue,

286
00:15:01.130 --> 00:15:03.480
but at least we will have our dose
for a few more months.

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00:15:04.280 --> 00:15:05.710
We didn’t take that dose.

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00:15:05.710 --> 00:15:07.050
We didn’t sign on the dotted line,

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00:15:07.050 --> 00:15:08.490
because we want to get rid
of the addiction.

290
00:15:09.060 --> 00:15:11.280
We want to stabilize the Greek economy.

291
00:15:11.280 --> 00:15:14.680
And if this means that there’s going
to be a standoff for a few months

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00:15:14.680 --> 00:15:16.130
between us and our creditors,

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00:15:16.130 --> 00:15:19.990
who don’t like to hear that the program

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00:15:19.990 --> 00:15:22.530
they have been enforcing
and implementing in Greece

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00:15:22.530 --> 00:15:23.750
for the last five years was a failure—

296
00:15:23.750 --> 00:15:24.950
nobody likes to be told

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00:15:24.950 --> 00:15:27.000
that whatever you’ve been
doing for five years is a failure—

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00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:28.840
well, this is the price, however,

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00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:31.940
we had to pay in order
to reboot Greece

300
00:15:31.940 --> 00:15:34.370
and to reboot our relationship
with our creditors.

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00:15:35.090 --> 00:15:35.690
The only way

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00:15:35.690 --> 00:15:37.600
you could be heard was to say,

303
00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:39.160
"We are not interested in getting

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00:15:39.160 --> 00:15:43.570
this loan tranche until and unless
we have a rethink of the whole program,

305
00:15:43.570 --> 00:15:48.600
so that Greece stops going down
the path of the downward spiral

306
00:15:48.600 --> 00:15:49.670
of debt deflation."

307
00:15:50.250 --> 00:15:51.900
And if, in the meantime,

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00:15:51.900 --> 00:15:55.980
this means that our bonds
have been downgraded, well, from what?

309
00:15:55.980 --> 00:16:00.690
From minus a million
to minus one million and one, right?

310
00:16:00.690 --> 00:16:02.430
Then, so be it.

311
00:16:02.430 --> 00:16:03.880
We were not elected to lie.

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00:16:03.880 --> 00:16:08.270
We were elected to say to our own people
and to the people around the world

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00:16:08.270 --> 00:16:10.890
that this medicine has not been working,

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00:16:10.890 --> 00:16:11.950
we need a new treatment.

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00:16:12.970 --> 00:16:15.890
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well,
but meanwhile, many world leaders

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00:16:15.890 --> 00:16:17.940
keep putting pressure on Greece.

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00:16:17.940 --> 00:16:23.020
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned
that a full-blown crisis in your country

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00:16:23.020 --> 00:16:25.990
would impact the wider European
and global economy.

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00:16:25.990 --> 00:16:27.280
This is what he said.

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00:16:27.280 --> 00:16:31.070
TREASURY SECRETARY JACK LEW: If there is
a crisis, it will first hit Greece,

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00:16:31.070 --> 00:16:33.460
and it will hit the Greek people
very hard,

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00:16:33.460 --> 00:16:38.640
but it is something that the European
and global economy do not need,

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00:16:38.640 --> 00:16:40.380
to have another crisis.

324
00:16:40.380 --> 00:16:43.520
So, it’s in everyone’s interest
to find that space,

325
00:16:43.520 --> 00:16:49.280
but the Greek government needs to come
forward with the kinds of details

326
00:16:49.280 --> 00:16:53.710
that the institutions and they
can work through to find the kind

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00:16:53.710 --> 00:16:56.790
of program
that can have that kind of confidence.

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00:16:57.870 --> 00:17:00.570
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Your response
to Treasury Secretary Lew?

329
00:17:05.070 --> 00:17:09.240
YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, Secretary Lew
is absolutely spot-on, quite right.

330
00:17:09.240 --> 00:17:11.500
This is a crisis we don’t have to have.

331
00:17:11.500 --> 00:17:15.950
It’s a standoff
that we should have ended some time ago.

332
00:17:15.950 --> 00:17:21.860
It is completely correct
to say that if this negotiation

333
00:17:21.860 --> 00:17:24.820
fails to achieve
a mutually advantageous outcome,

334
00:17:25.350 --> 00:17:28.440
then the repercussions
will be dire, not just, of course,

335
00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:31.120
for the Greek people,
but for the international economy.

336
00:17:31.120 --> 00:17:32.860
We are completely
in agreement with that.

337
00:17:32.860 --> 00:17:36.040
And what I believe that Jack Lew
has been doing over the last few days

338
00:17:36.040 --> 00:17:38.250
and weeks is he’s been applying pressure

339
00:17:38.250 --> 00:17:40.480
to both the Greek government,
of course, but,

340
00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:41.950
on the other hand, the institutions—

341
00:17:41.950 --> 00:17:44.860
the IMF, the European Central Bank,
the European Commission,

342
00:17:44.860 --> 00:17:45.990
European partners—

343
00:17:45.990 --> 00:17:47.690
to get to an agreement.

344
00:17:48.210 --> 00:17:51.250
On the question of proposals
to settle this agreement,

345
00:17:51.250 --> 00:17:54.300
I can assure you now,
for quite a few weeks—

346
00:17:54.300 --> 00:17:55.620
actually, months—the Greek government

347
00:17:55.620 --> 00:17:59.060
has very clear proposals
on how to settle this.

348
00:17:59.600 --> 00:18:00.620
It is a matter

349
00:18:00.620 --> 00:18:03.610
of convincing the institutions,
the three institutions—

350
00:18:03.610 --> 00:18:05.060
the ECB, the European Central Bank;

351
00:18:05.060 --> 00:18:06.190
the International Monetary Fund;

352
00:18:06.190 --> 00:18:07.500
the European Commission—

353
00:18:07.500 --> 00:18:12.490
that the ways of yesteryear,
the ways of the last five years,

354
00:18:12.490 --> 00:18:16.030
were not solving the problem,
that we need deeper reforms.

355
00:18:16.030 --> 00:18:19.900
We need to get rid of the idea

356
00:18:19.900 --> 00:18:22.890
that austerity
is going to end the debt crisis.

357
00:18:22.890 --> 00:18:25.440
We need an investment package
for Greece.

358
00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:29.850
And we need, together with our partners
and institutions,

359
00:18:29.850 --> 00:18:31.990
to agree on a reform mechanism,

360
00:18:31.990 --> 00:18:33.320
a reform package,

361
00:18:33.320 --> 00:18:36.540
that attacks here in Greece
the worst cases

362
00:18:36.540 --> 00:18:38.230
of rent-seeking, the oligarchy,

363
00:18:38.230 --> 00:18:39.570
the various cartels,

364
00:18:39.570 --> 00:18:42.190
instead of targeting the little people,

365
00:18:42.190 --> 00:18:46.640
the pensioners
who are living on $600 a month,

366
00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:49.080
as if that is a reform that would work.

367
00:18:49.850 --> 00:18:51.300
AMY GOODMAN: Again, Yanis Varoufakis,

368
00:18:51.300 --> 00:18:55.180
what will you do
if Europe expels you from the euro?

369
00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:02.250
YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Europe is not going
to expel us from the euro.

370
00:19:02.250 --> 00:19:06.290
I refuse to believe
that Europe would ever operate that way.

371
00:19:07.300 --> 00:19:11.570
Remember that since the end
of the Second World War,

372
00:19:11.570 --> 00:19:14.530
European peoples and their governments

373
00:19:14.530 --> 00:19:20.060
have been working tirelessly
to bring closer integration together.

374
00:19:20.060 --> 00:19:23.700
Nobody in Europe wants to begin
the process of disintegration,

375
00:19:23.700 --> 00:19:25.430
over what is, after all,

376
00:19:25.430 --> 00:19:27.760
a very small philosophical difference
of opinion

377
00:19:27.760 --> 00:19:30.940
regarding how to stabilize
a small economy like Greece.

378
00:19:30.940 --> 00:19:34.640
Our position is that,
folks, the last five years

379
00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:37.220
offered decisive proof that this program

380
00:19:37.220 --> 00:19:41.280
that you had agreed with previous
governments was not working,

381
00:19:41.280 --> 00:19:43.740
and now we need to reboot it,
we need another one.

382
00:19:43.740 --> 00:19:45.700
And we need one
that makes perfect sense,

383
00:19:45.700 --> 00:19:47.980
that is completely undogmatic,

384
00:19:47.980 --> 00:19:50.210
and which does two major things:

385
00:19:50.210 --> 00:19:56.390
Firstly, it removes the austerity-driven
logic from the scene,

386
00:19:56.390 --> 00:19:59.120
because it’s self-defeating
and it’s pushing debt

387
00:19:59.120 --> 00:20:02.800
up rather than down by attacking incomes
from which

388
00:20:02.800 --> 00:20:04.270
the debts will have to be repaid;

389
00:20:04.990 --> 00:20:06.570
and secondly, deep reforms

390
00:20:06.570 --> 00:20:09.030
that attack the malignancies
of the Greek social economy,

391
00:20:09.030 --> 00:20:10.230
and in particular,

392
00:20:10.230 --> 00:20:12.860
the oligarchy and the very gross level

393
00:20:12.860 --> 00:20:13.900
of inequality,

394
00:20:13.900 --> 00:20:15.490
which is adding to the crisis.

395
00:20:15.490 --> 00:20:19.040
When you are turning a society
like Greece into less equal,

396
00:20:19.040 --> 00:20:21.160
into a more unequal society,

397
00:20:21.160 --> 00:20:23.790
and you reduce the tax base

398
00:20:23.790 --> 00:20:27.070
by allowing the rich to get away
without paying their taxes,

399
00:20:27.070 --> 00:20:29.020
to have tax immunity,

400
00:20:29.020 --> 00:20:36.400
and constantly to be looking
at small-scale parasitic behavior

401
00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:40.450
while neglecting
the grand-scale parasitic behavior,

402
00:20:40.450 --> 00:20:42.680
then you’re simply making
a bad thing worse.

403
00:20:42.680 --> 00:20:48.670
And believe you me,
our proposals are eminently sensible.

404
00:20:48.670 --> 00:20:51.430
We are bombarding the other side
with reasonableness.

405
00:20:51.430 --> 00:20:54.020
We want to come to a conclusion
very quickly.

406
00:20:54.020 --> 00:20:57.120
We were prepared months ago
to come to an agreement.

407
00:20:57.120 --> 00:21:00.180
We’re working tirelessly
to forge this agreement,

408
00:21:00.180 --> 00:21:01.840
for the benefits of Greeks,

409
00:21:01.840 --> 00:21:04.000
of Europeans and the global community.

410
00:21:04.860 --> 00:21:07.190
AMY GOODMAN: Yanis Varoufakis,
we want to thank you for being with us,

411
00:21:07.190 --> 00:21:09.000
the finance minister of Greece.

412
00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:11.540
In the January 2015 general election—
YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Thank you.

413
00:21:11.540 --> 00:21:13.290
AMY GOODMAN: —he was elected
to the Greek Parliament,

414
00:21:13.290 --> 00:21:14.500
representing Syriza,

415
00:21:14.500 --> 00:21:18.730
and took office in the new government
of Alexis Tsipras soon afterwards.

416
00:21:18.730 --> 00:21:21.860
He’s a political economist,
professor and author of some 15 books,

417
00:21:21.860 --> 00:21:23.490
including The Global Minotaur:

418
00:21:23.490 --> 00:21:25.160
America, the True Origins

419
00:21:25.160 --> 00:21:28.940
of the Financial Crisis
and the Future of the World Economy,

420
00:21:28.940 --> 00:21:32.930
as well as the book, A Modest Proposal
for Resolving the Euro Crisis.

421
00:21:32.930 --> 00:21:34.200
This is Democracy Now!

422
00:21:34.200 --> 00:21:37.690
When we come back,
we remember Pedro Albizu Campos.

423
00:21:37.690 --> 00:23:24.860
Stay with us.

424
00:23:25.380 --> 00:23:28.390
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Commemorations are being
held across Puerto Rico today

425
00:23:28.390 --> 00:23:31.900
to mark the 50th anniversary
of the death of Pedro Albizu Campos,

426
00:23:31.900 --> 00:23:34.470
popularly known to many as Don Pedro,

427
00:23:34.470 --> 00:23:36.920
the former head
of the Nationalist Party and leader

428
00:23:36.920 --> 00:23:38.820
of the Puerto Rican independence
movement.

429
00:23:39.340 --> 00:23:41.730
Albizu Campos spent some 26 years

430
00:23:41.730 --> 00:23:44.930
in prison for organizing
against U.S. colonial rule.

431
00:23:44.930 --> 00:23:46.880
He was born in 1891,

432
00:23:46.880 --> 00:23:49.470
seven years before the U.S.
invaded the island.

433
00:23:49.470 --> 00:23:51.870
He would go on
to become the first Puerto Rican

434
00:23:51.870 --> 00:23:53.780
to graduate from Harvard Law School.

435
00:23:53.780 --> 00:23:55.490
Once he returned to Puerto Rico,

436
00:23:55.490 --> 00:23:58.580
he dedicated the rest of his life
to the independence movement,

437
00:23:58.580 --> 00:24:02.200
becoming president of the Puerto Rican
Nationalist Party in 1930.

438
00:24:02.200 --> 00:24:06.300
It was a position
he held until his death in 1965.

439
00:24:06.300 --> 00:24:08.010
AMY GOODMAN: In 1936,

440
00:24:08.010 --> 00:24:11.390
Albizu Campos was jailed
along with other Nationalist leaders

441
00:24:11.390 --> 00:24:13.930
on conspiracy and sedition charges.

442
00:24:13.930 --> 00:24:17.070
His jailing led to protests
across Puerto Rico.

443
00:24:17.070 --> 00:24:22.980
On Palm Sunday, March 21st,
1937, police shot and killed 21 Puerto

444
00:24:22.980 --> 00:24:27.130
Ricans and wounded over 200 others
taking part in a peaceful march

445
00:24:27.130 --> 00:24:30.160
to protest Albizu Campos’s imprisonment.

446
00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:33.120
The event became known
as the Ponce massacre.

447
00:24:33.120 --> 00:24:35.060
After his eventual release,

448
00:24:35.060 --> 00:24:38.340
Albizu Campos
was arrested again in 1950,

449
00:24:38.340 --> 00:24:43.130
just days after a Nationalist revolt
began on October 30th.

450
00:24:43.130 --> 00:24:46.790
This is how his arrest
was reported at the time.

451
00:24:52.070 --> 00:24:52.960
UNIVERSAL-INTERNATIONAL NEWS BRIEF: 
Puerto Rico rounds

452
00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:54.330
up its Nationalist fanatics,

453
00:24:54.330 --> 00:24:56.750
following the wounding
of five U.S. congressmen.

454
00:24:56.750 --> 00:24:58.820
Ringleader of the group, Pedro Campos,

455
00:24:58.820 --> 00:25:01.560
is subdued after a two-hour gun battle
with police,

456
00:25:01.560 --> 00:25:05.670
which ended when his barricaded hideout
was the target for a tear-gas barrage.

457
00:25:05.670 --> 00:25:08.110
In all, 37 of the party are arrested.

458
00:25:08.110 --> 00:25:09.770
Several hundred rounds of ammunition

459
00:25:09.770 --> 00:25:13.240
were fired during the battle before
the barricaded hideout was crashed.

460
00:25:13.240 --> 00:25:17.090
Campos now faces the original 89-year
sentence imposed at the time

461
00:25:17.090 --> 00:25:19.460
of the attempt
on former President Truman’s life,

462
00:25:19.460 --> 00:25:21.090
from which he had been paroled.

463
00:25:21.090 --> 00:25:22.130
Linked to communists,

464
00:25:22.130 --> 00:25:25.560
the Nationalist arsenal is believed
to have been supplied by Reds,

465
00:25:25.560 --> 00:25:27.320
now being hunted throughout the island.

466
00:25:29.460 --> 00:25:32.080
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Pedro Albizu Campos

467
00:25:32.080 --> 00:25:34.580
would spend almost the rest
of his life in prison,

468
00:25:34.580 --> 00:25:36.800
where he repeatedly charged
that he was the subject

469
00:25:36.800 --> 00:25:39.090
of human radiation experiments.

470
00:25:39.090 --> 00:25:42.710
Photos taken of him in prison
show his body covered with welts.

471
00:25:42.710 --> 00:25:47.010
This is an excerpt of a speech
Pedro Albizu Campos gave just a month

472
00:25:47.010 --> 00:25:50.590
before one of his arrests,
the arrest in 1950.

473
00:25:50.590 --> 00:26:07.940
PEDRO ALBIZU CAMPOS: [translated]

474
00:26:07.940 --> 00:26:12.190
Mr. President of the Lares Municipal
Council, ladies and gentlemen,

475
00:26:13.820 --> 00:26:17.320
it’s not easy to give a speech
when we have our mother laying in bed

476
00:26:18.330 --> 00:26:20.330
and an assassin
waiting to take your life.

477
00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:25.910
Such is the present situation
of our country,

478
00:26:25.910 --> 00:26:28.070
our mother, of Puerto Rico.

479
00:26:28.070 --> 00:26:32.730
The assassin is the power
of the United States of North America.

480
00:26:33.810 --> 00:26:40.640
One cannot give a speech
while the newborn of our country

481
00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:41.760
are dying of hunger;

482
00:26:43.320 --> 00:26:45.090
while the adolescents of our homeland

483
00:26:45.090 --> 00:26:48.580
are being poisoned
with the worst virus of them all,

484
00:26:48.580 --> 00:26:49.850
the virus of slavery;

485
00:26:50.790 --> 00:26:53.280
when the adults of our homeland

486
00:26:53.280 --> 00:26:56.250
must leave their hometown
of Lares in fear,

487
00:26:59.010 --> 00:27:02.820
and they don’t even have exit
to countries other than the enemy power

488
00:27:02.820 --> 00:27:08.170
that binds us.

489
00:27:08.170 --> 00:27:12.790
They must go to the United States
to be the slaves of the economic powers,

490
00:27:12.790 --> 00:27:14.230
of the tyrants of our country.

491
00:27:14.930 --> 00:27:17.270
They are the slaves
who go to Michigan out of need,

492
00:27:17.860 --> 00:27:20.310
to be scorned and outraged and kicked.

493
00:27:24.070 --> 00:27:28.310
One cannot easily give a speech
when this tyrant has the power

494
00:27:28.310 --> 00:27:31.500
to tear the sons right out of the hearts
of Puerto Rico mothers

495
00:27:32.090 --> 00:27:33.560
to send to Korea,

496
00:27:33.560 --> 00:27:35.730
or into hell,

497
00:27:35.730 --> 00:27:38.120
to kill, to be the murderers
of innocent Koreans,

498
00:27:39.530 --> 00:27:43.040
or to die covering a front
for the Yankee enemies of our country,

499
00:27:45.250 --> 00:27:48.960
for them to return insane
to their own people

500
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:52.200
or for them to return
mutilated beyond recognition,

501
00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:53.450
even by their own mothers.

502
00:27:53.450 --> 00:27:54.790
It’s not easy.

503
00:27:54.790 --> 00:27:55.880
Our blood boils.

504
00:27:56.450 --> 00:28:00.740
Impatience beats at our hearts
and tells us that patience must end,

505
00:28:00.740 --> 00:28:02.060
it must disappear,

506
00:28:03.240 --> 00:28:07.300
and that the day of Lares
must be the day of Lares,

507
00:28:07.300 --> 00:28:11.080
which is to say it must be the day
of the Puerto Rican revolution.

508
00:28:26.340 --> 00:28:29.960
This year is the hundredth anniversary
of the creation of the Cuban flag.

509
00:28:31.320 --> 00:28:34.760
And in the beautiful,
deeply profound speech

510
00:28:34.760 --> 00:28:39.880
our illustrious secretary-general
made in homage to the flag of Cuba,

511
00:28:40.800 --> 00:28:44.800
he compared it and called it the womb
of our own flag,

512
00:28:44.800 --> 00:28:49.460
for this centennial
of the Cuban flag is also the centennial

513
00:28:49.460 --> 00:28:52.190
of the Puerto Rican flag
in the sense of origin.

514
00:28:56.370 --> 00:29:00.110
We have called together here those
who want the union of our brothers,

515
00:29:00.110 --> 00:29:02.140
of our Latin American brothers,

516
00:29:02.140 --> 00:29:04.290
and, very specially, the Cubans,

517
00:29:04.870 --> 00:29:08.940
all the people of the Antilles,
the Haitians, the Dominicans,

518
00:29:10.520 --> 00:29:14.880
for all of them
who love the independence of Puerto Rico

519
00:29:15.640 --> 00:29:16.650
as their very own,

520
00:29:21.800 --> 00:29:24.460
because as long
as Puerto Rico is not free,

521
00:29:24.460 --> 00:29:27.380
every single one
of those nations feels mutilated

522
00:29:28.030 --> 00:29:29.750
AMY GOODMAN: That was
Puerto Rican independence leader

523
00:29:29.750 --> 00:29:34.550
Pedro Albizu Campos speaking in 1950,
shortly before he was arrested.

524
00:29:34.550 --> 00:29:39.660
He died 50 years ago today,
on April 21st, 1965.

525
00:29:39.660 --> 00:29:42.870
We’re joined here in New York
by José Serrano,

526
00:29:42.870 --> 00:29:44.740
Democratic congressman from New York,

527
00:29:44.740 --> 00:29:46.590
who successfully pushed the FBI

528
00:29:46.590 --> 00:29:47.910
to declassify records

529
00:29:47.910 --> 00:29:51.660
regarding the Bureau’s activities
targeting independence activists.

530
00:29:51.660 --> 00:29:53.540
He was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

531
00:29:53.540 --> 00:29:54.660
Also here in New York,

532
00:29:54.660 --> 00:29:58.960
Nelson Denis is author of a new book,
War Against All Puerto Ricans:

533
00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:01.310
Revolution and Terror
in America’s Colony.

534
00:30:01.310 --> 00:30:03.210
He’s the former New York state
assemblyman

535
00:30:03.210 --> 00:30:05.720
and former editorial director
of El Diario,

536
00:30:05.720 --> 00:30:09.010
the largest Spanish-language newspaper
here in New York City.

537
00:30:09.010 --> 00:30:12.410
And joining us from San Juan,
Puerto Rico, Hugo Rodríguez,

538
00:30:12.410 --> 00:30:14.480
undersecretary of relations
with North America

539
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:16.450
for the Puerto Rico Independence Party.

540
00:30:16.450 --> 00:30:20.850
He’s joining us via Democracy Now! video
stream from the party’s headquarters.

541
00:30:20.850 --> 00:30:23.560
We welcome you all to Democracy Now!

542
00:30:23.560 --> 00:30:25.610
Let’s start off
with Congressmember Serrano,

543
00:30:25.610 --> 00:30:30.030
why you feel Pedro Albizu Campos
is so important,

544
00:30:30.030 --> 00:30:31.730
not only for Puerto Ricans,

545
00:30:31.730 --> 00:30:33.890
but for people throughout this country.

546
00:30:33.890 --> 00:30:36.560
REP. JOSÉ SERRANO: Well,
because it’s a historical situation.

547
00:30:36.560 --> 00:30:38.310
First of all, you know,

548
00:30:38.310 --> 00:30:40.900
one of the things
I hear in Congress a lot is,

549
00:30:40.900 --> 00:30:42.880
we can’t resolve the status
of Puerto Rico

550
00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:45.150
until Puerto Ricans
decide what they want.

551
00:30:45.150 --> 00:30:46.820
Well, no, they didn’t invade us;

552
00:30:46.820 --> 00:30:48.200
we invaded them.

553
00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:49.270
And in my case,

554
00:30:49.270 --> 00:30:52.640
"we invaded them" gets very complicated,
since I was born there,

555
00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:54.760
and now I’m a member
of the U.S. Congress.

556
00:30:54.760 --> 00:30:57.950
So—but part of me invaded the other part
of me, I guess.

557
00:30:57.950 --> 00:31:01.900
And Pedro Albizu Campos was a man

558
00:31:01.900 --> 00:31:04.380
who stood up
for what he believed was right

559
00:31:04.380 --> 00:31:08.550
and what a lot of Puerto Ricans
felt was right, if not necessarily—

560
00:31:08.550 --> 00:31:09.890
and this is a tricky thing to say—

561
00:31:09.890 --> 00:31:14.030
if not necessarily outright
independence, then outright respect

562
00:31:14.030 --> 00:31:20.230
and outright dignity and understanding
that we’re a colony.

563
00:31:20.230 --> 00:31:22.290
And I believe that a lot of people

564
00:31:22.290 --> 00:31:26.830
who may not support independence act
and demand from Washington

565
00:31:26.830 --> 00:31:31.210
based on his desire
to act and demand from Washington.

566
00:31:31.210 --> 00:31:33.860
He asked for independence.

567
00:31:33.860 --> 00:31:34.940
Others ask for statehood.

568
00:31:34.940 --> 00:31:37.050
Others ask for an enhanced commonwealth.

569
00:31:37.050 --> 00:31:40.710
But I think it all stems from the fact
that there was this Puerto Rican

570
00:31:40.710 --> 00:31:42.730
who dared challenge the system.

571
00:31:42.730 --> 00:31:45.960
So now it’s easier
to challenge Washington,

572
00:31:45.960 --> 00:31:47.930
because he dared do it
such a long time ago.

573
00:31:47.930 --> 00:31:51.160
And so, I, as a person
who came here when I was very young,

574
00:31:51.160 --> 00:31:53.870
grew up in New York,
living in the state,

575
00:31:53.870 --> 00:31:56.710
being born in Puerto Rico,
I have the highest respect for him.

576
00:31:56.710 --> 00:31:58.210
And I’ve said it forever.

577
00:31:58.210 --> 00:32:00.470
And some people criticize you for that.

578
00:32:00.470 --> 00:32:03.440
But he stood up
when people would not stand up,

579
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:04.950
and he paid a big price.

580
00:32:04.950 --> 00:32:06.800
We’re still trying to find out—

581
00:32:06.800 --> 00:32:08.450
when we got those FBI files—

582
00:32:08.450 --> 00:32:10.640
and Juan González was the first person

583
00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:11.710
I called to look at the files,

584
00:32:11.710 --> 00:32:14.330
because I don’t know
how to read that kind of stuff, he does—

585
00:32:14.330 --> 00:32:17.640
you know, we found a lot
of things we didn’t know.

586
00:32:17.640 --> 00:32:19.760
And there are still things
we don’t know.

587
00:32:19.760 --> 00:32:22.290
We don’t know
how much he was tortured in prison.

588
00:32:22.290 --> 00:32:26.460
We don’t know other people that were
killed during that period of time.

589
00:32:26.460 --> 00:32:29.060
And we also, sadly, found something out,

590
00:32:29.060 --> 00:32:30.400
and I’ll close with this,

591
00:32:30.400 --> 00:32:32.500
that a lot of names were crossed out,

592
00:32:32.500 --> 00:32:34.330
because a lot of people we thought,

593
00:32:34.330 --> 00:32:37.880
or they thought, were with them
were actually not with them,

594
00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:41.760
and those names are of people
who at that time were still alive.

595
00:32:41.760 --> 00:32:46.530
But the FBI gave to me
over a million documents,

596
00:32:46.530 --> 00:32:50.400
of which my—two sets.

597
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:53.190
One set I sent to Hunter College,

598
00:32:53.190 --> 00:32:54.810
which has done great work with,

599
00:32:54.810 --> 00:32:57.200
and one set
I sent to Senate of Puerto Rico,

600
00:32:57.200 --> 00:32:59.590
which I understand
has sitting somewhere in a basement,

601
00:32:59.590 --> 00:33:01.460
doing nothing with it.

602
00:33:01.460 --> 00:33:03.080
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Congressman Serrano,
I’d like to ask you about how

603
00:33:03.080 --> 00:33:06.540
those files got released,
if you could tell the story.

604
00:33:06.540 --> 00:33:07.580
You, at the time,

605
00:33:07.580 --> 00:33:12.030
were the head of the House committee
that oversaw the FBI budget.

606
00:33:12.030 --> 00:33:14.580
Exactly how did you come
upon those files?

607
00:33:14.580 --> 00:33:17.590
REP. JOSÉ SERRANO: Well, I was a member
of the Appropriations Committee,

608
00:33:17.590 --> 00:33:18.960
and I was what’s called
a ranking member.

609
00:33:18.960 --> 00:33:20.170
I was the top Democrat.

610
00:33:20.170 --> 00:33:24.700
We were not in the majority,
so the Republican was the chairman.

611
00:33:24.700 --> 00:33:27.640
And I was asked by my friends
from the Independence Party—

612
00:33:27.640 --> 00:33:30.290
Manuel Rodríguez Orellana,
a dear friend of mine,

613
00:33:30.290 --> 00:33:35.220
said, "Why don’t you ask him
about the behavior towards Puerto Rico?"

614
00:33:35.220 --> 00:33:37.010
We both thought that we

615
00:33:37.010 --> 00:33:40.930
would get a hemming and hawing
from the director of the FBI.

616
00:33:40.930 --> 00:33:42.210
Instead—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Who at that time was?

617
00:33:42.210 --> 00:33:43.470
REP. JOSÉ SERRANO: Louis Freeh.

618
00:33:43.470 --> 00:33:46.880
Louis Freeh shocked me off my chair
and left me, the first time

619
00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:50.100
in a long time in politics,
without a follow-up question,

620
00:33:50.100 --> 00:33:54.170
because I said, "About the belief

621
00:33:54.170 --> 00:33:57.380
that the Puerto Ricans
have been persecuted for years

622
00:33:57.380 --> 00:33:59.610
and the independence movement
persecuted,

623
00:33:59.610 --> 00:34:01.060
is there anything you can tell us?"

624
00:34:01.060 --> 00:34:02.680
He says, "It was true,

625
00:34:02.680 --> 00:34:05.010
and I’ll release the documents to you.

626
00:34:05.010 --> 00:34:06.250
" And that shocked me.

627
00:34:06.250 --> 00:34:09.900
And that started that whole thing
that led to your investigation,

628
00:34:09.900 --> 00:34:11.130
to your reporting.

629
00:34:11.130 --> 00:34:15.050
And I understand Nelson
has been kind enough to say

630
00:34:15.050 --> 00:34:17.710
that some of that research
went into his books also.

631
00:34:17.710 --> 00:34:21.880
AMY GOODMAN: Nelson Denis, for people
who don’t know who Pedro Albizu Campos

632
00:34:21.880 --> 00:34:25.720
is, can you give us a thumbnail sketch
of his life?

633
00:34:26.310 --> 00:34:27.580
NELSON DENIS: Well, Albizu Campos

634
00:34:27.580 --> 00:34:30.180
was the greatest patriot
in Puerto Rican history.

635
00:34:30.180 --> 00:34:31.390
He was a series of firsts.

636
00:34:31.390 --> 00:34:34.090
He was the first Puerto Rican
to graduate from Harvard,

637
00:34:34.090 --> 00:34:35.740
first Puerto Rican
to graduate from Harvard—

638
00:34:35.740 --> 00:34:37.640
AMY GOODMAN: But he didn’t give
the valedictory address, did he,

639
00:34:37.640 --> 00:34:38.920
even though he was the valedictorian—

640
00:34:38.920 --> 00:34:39.670
NELSON DENIS: From the law school.
AMY GOODMAN: —from the law school?

641
00:34:39.670 --> 00:34:40.840
NELSON DENIS: He was the valedictorian
of the law school.

642
00:34:40.840 --> 00:34:42.430
And there was just a prevailing—

643
00:34:42.430 --> 00:34:44.580
and it wasn’t even perceived as racism;

644
00:34:44.580 --> 00:34:47.800
it was just the modus operandi
of the time.

645
00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:50.700
I was just almost considered a given
that we’re not going to have

646
00:34:50.700 --> 00:34:53.740
a person of color
delivering the valedictorian speech.

647
00:34:53.740 --> 00:34:56.880
And so, that was sort
of a defining moment for him,

648
00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:01.000
when he could see, you know,
basically how things were run.

649
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:06.200
He started—he refused all sorts
of corporate sinecures

650
00:35:06.200 --> 00:35:10.940
and very, very elegant offers
to open up a one-man office in Ponce.

651
00:35:10.940 --> 00:35:13.390
He basically practiced poverty law,

652
00:35:13.390 --> 00:35:16.120
but he also became the head
of the Nationalist Party.

653
00:35:16.640 --> 00:35:21.020
He advocated, organized, editorialized,
but he was ignored.

654
00:35:21.020 --> 00:35:22.400
It’s like he didn’t exist,

655
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:26.440
until in 1935 he
led an islandwide agricultural strike

656
00:35:26.440 --> 00:35:29.800
that ended up
doubling the sugarcane workers’ wages.

657
00:35:29.800 --> 00:35:33.960
And then the United States
took very serious attention.

658
00:35:33.960 --> 00:35:35.110
It was at that point

659
00:35:35.110 --> 00:35:37.960
that they completely
militarized the island police force.

660
00:35:37.960 --> 00:35:39.840
They sent in a new governor,
General Blanton—

661
00:35:39.840 --> 00:35:42.350
an Army general, Blanton Winship,

662
00:35:42.350 --> 00:35:46.070
a policeman named E. Francis Riggs,

663
00:35:46.070 --> 00:35:49.760
whose father was the president
of the Riggs National Bank,

664
00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:53.220
which had colonial investments
all over South and Central America.

665
00:35:53.220 --> 00:35:57.520
This—and just very quickly,
to get to the title of the book,

666
00:35:57.520 --> 00:36:00.040
the violence
started immediately thereafter.

667
00:36:00.040 --> 00:36:02.650
In 1935, they shot—

668
00:36:02.650 --> 00:36:04.570
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Before you go
into the actual violence,

669
00:36:04.570 --> 00:36:08.990
I found fascinating in your book
the story of the Riggs Bank

670
00:36:08.990 --> 00:36:10.640
that you talked about and its role.

671
00:36:10.640 --> 00:36:12.310
Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

672
00:36:12.310 --> 00:36:15.220
NELSON DENIS: The Riggs Bank
was finally defunded,

673
00:36:15.220 --> 00:36:16.730
and it was terminated,

674
00:36:16.730 --> 00:36:20.140
when it got caught laundering money
for Augusto Pinochet in Chile.

675
00:36:20.720 --> 00:36:21.760
It was—

676
00:36:21.760 --> 00:36:23.280
there was a term called filibustering.

677
00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:26.450
The word "filibuster,"
which you’ll appreciate, Congressman,

678
00:36:26.450 --> 00:36:30.210
meant to go down to South America
and start a fake revolution,

679
00:36:30.210 --> 00:36:33.320
which was actually
a disguised right-wing takeover.

680
00:36:33.320 --> 00:36:35.300
Those revolutions had to be financed.

681
00:36:35.300 --> 00:36:39.790
An the Riggs Bank was one of
the principal sources of money exchange

682
00:36:39.790 --> 00:36:43.170
to finance these revolutions,
so places like the United Fruit Company

683
00:36:43.170 --> 00:36:45.160
could come in and take over
a government.

684
00:36:45.160 --> 00:36:46.760
So, E. Francis Riggs

685
00:36:46.760 --> 00:36:51.250
comes to basically oversee
the colonial investments in Puerto Rico.

686
00:36:51.250 --> 00:36:53.240
And when his police force shot,

687
00:36:53.240 --> 00:36:56.900
assassinated three Nationalists
in broad daylight in Río Piedras—

688
00:36:56.900 --> 00:36:58.830
it became known
as the Río Piedras massacre—

689
00:36:58.830 --> 00:37:00.660
he had an immediate press conference

690
00:37:00.660 --> 00:37:04.730
to explain and contextualize
to the island what this was all about.

691
00:37:04.730 --> 00:37:10.320
And he said, nakedly, bluntly,
to everybody, this was his intent.

692
00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:14.540
He told the entire island
that if Albizu Campos continued to,

693
00:37:14.540 --> 00:37:18.070
quote-unquote,
"agitate" the sugarcane workers,

694
00:37:18.070 --> 00:37:21.330
there would be war to the death
against all Puerto Ricans.

695
00:37:21.330 --> 00:37:22.950
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you also note,
though,

696
00:37:22.950 --> 00:37:26.620
that he also tried to buy Albizu Campos—

697
00:37:26.620 --> 00:37:28.040
NELSON DENIS: Yeah.

698
00:37:28.040 --> 00:37:30.500
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —in a luncheon
at the most—

699
00:37:30.500 --> 00:37:33.280
the wealthiest club in San Juan.

700
00:37:33.280 --> 00:37:34.790
Could you talk about that?
NELSON DENIS: Yeah.

701
00:37:34.790 --> 00:37:36.990
It was the equivalent
of Mount Quarantania,

702
00:37:36.990 --> 00:37:40.520
where the devil
takes you to the top of the mountain

703
00:37:41.190 --> 00:37:43.830
and says, "All this shall be yours,

704
00:37:43.830 --> 00:37:45.810
if you will just come with me."

705
00:37:46.490 --> 00:37:48.540
And they took him to El Escambrón,

706
00:37:48.540 --> 00:37:50.520
this very famous, as you said,

707
00:37:50.520 --> 00:37:53.010
a very elaborate casino in San Juan,

708
00:37:53.010 --> 00:38:00.090
and E. Francis Riggs, the police chief,
offered Albizu Campos $150,000.

709
00:38:00.090 --> 00:38:03.520
And this is not apocryphal,
it’s not fringe journalism.

710
00:38:03.520 --> 00:38:05.690
It was reported in the pages
of El Imparcial

711
00:38:05.690 --> 00:38:07.360
and El Mundo the next day,

712
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:09.170
and there were multiple witnesses there.

713
00:38:09.170 --> 00:38:11.970
It was written
in his wife’s autobiography.

714
00:38:11.970 --> 00:38:14.370
A hundred and fifty thousand dollars

715
00:38:14.370 --> 00:38:19.510
if he would basically back off
of the sugarcane strike and sort

716
00:38:19.510 --> 00:38:21.770
of soften his nationalist demands.

717
00:38:21.770 --> 00:38:26.250
Albizu Campos rightfully and politely
refused the offer

718
00:38:26.250 --> 00:38:28.190
and said that his island
wasn’t for sale.

719
00:38:28.190 --> 00:38:32.020
That offer was repeated
to Luis Muñoz Marín,

720
00:38:32.020 --> 00:38:33.150
and he took it.

721
00:38:33.150 --> 00:38:35.130
He became the governor of Puerto Rico.

722
00:38:35.130 --> 00:38:36.950
REP. JOSÉ SERRANO: You know, very—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Joe Serrano?

723
00:38:36.950 --> 00:38:38.000
REP. JOSÉ SERRANO: Just very briefly,

724
00:38:38.530 --> 00:38:41.630
when we looked at those documents,
that you looked at with me,

725
00:38:42.220 --> 00:38:46.660
the first page is unique
and shows the sickness of the people

726
00:38:46.660 --> 00:38:48.990
they were dealing
with at the FBI at that time.

727
00:38:48.990 --> 00:38:51.330
It’s a gentleman,
whose name I forget,

728
00:38:51.330 --> 00:38:54.270
writing to Herbert Hoover and saying,

729
00:38:54.270 --> 00:38:56.100
"Keep an eye on Albizu Campos.

730
00:38:56.100 --> 00:38:57.890
This man speaks many languages.

731
00:38:57.890 --> 00:38:59.130
He’s very intelligent.

732
00:38:59.130 --> 00:39:01.030
He could win the next election.

733
00:39:01.030 --> 00:39:02.410
He was in—

734
00:39:02.410 --> 00:39:04.360
he knows about Army intelligence."

735
00:39:04.360 --> 00:39:06.620
In other words,
if you take all that today

736
00:39:06.620 --> 00:39:10.910
and present it for a candidate running
for president, he’ll get elected.

737
00:39:10.910 --> 00:39:12.980
So, the first question is:

738
00:39:12.980 --> 00:39:14.440
So where was the problem?

739
00:39:14.440 --> 00:39:19.430
The problem obviously was that he
was intelligent enough to alert people.

740
00:39:19.430 --> 00:39:21.230
And that was considered making trouble,

741
00:39:21.230 --> 00:39:24.100
when in fact they were simply
alerting people to the suffering

742
00:39:24.100 --> 00:39:26.660
and the mistreatment
of Puerto Rico as a colony.

743
00:39:26.660 --> 00:39:31.540
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’re also joined
by Hugo Rodríguez in Puerto Rico

744
00:39:31.540 --> 00:39:34.180
of the Puerto Rican Independence Party.

745
00:39:34.970 --> 00:39:39.730
Now, Albizu Campos is generally regarded
as a terrorist in the United States,

746
00:39:39.730 --> 00:39:44.170
and the war of the Nationalists
for independence is considered part

747
00:39:44.170 --> 00:39:46.890
of the terrorist movement
here in the United States.

748
00:39:46.890 --> 00:39:51.850
But yet you’ve got a high school
in Toa Baja named after Albizu Campos.

749
00:39:51.850 --> 00:39:55.630
You have an elementary school
in Ponce named after Albizu Campos.

750
00:39:55.630 --> 00:39:58.770
You’ve got a high school in Chicago
named after Albizu Campos.

751
00:39:58.770 --> 00:40:02.210
You have a middle school right here in
New York City named after Albizu Campos.

752
00:40:02.210 --> 00:40:03.820
You have a public housing project

753
00:40:03.820 --> 00:40:07.220
in the Lower East Side
named after Albizu Campos.

754
00:40:07.220 --> 00:40:13.380
So, what is the significance of Campos
still, of Albizu, on the island?

755
00:40:17.390 --> 00:40:20.890
HUGO RODRÍGUEZ: Yes, Pedro Albizu Campos
is very important in Puerto Rico

756
00:40:20.890 --> 00:40:26.510
because he, Pedro Albizu Campos,
gave us back our worth for the identity.

757
00:40:26.510 --> 00:40:30.690
Remember that when the United States
invaded us,

758
00:40:30.690 --> 00:40:34.570
they tried to colonize us
not only through the economics,

759
00:40:34.570 --> 00:40:39.180
but as well in the education process.

760
00:40:39.180 --> 00:40:42.600
They tried to press on us
American values

761
00:40:42.600 --> 00:40:48.070
and to erase all Puerto Rican
and Spanish inheritance from us.

762
00:40:48.070 --> 00:40:51.240
The tried to take our Spanish language.

763
00:40:51.240 --> 00:40:55.480
And in that point in time,
Don Pedro Albizu Campos

764
00:40:55.480 --> 00:40:59.330
gave us back that pride
of being a different identity,

765
00:40:59.330 --> 00:41:01.470
of being a different nationality.

766
00:41:01.470 --> 00:41:03.600
And the politics in Puerto Rico,

767
00:41:03.600 --> 00:41:07.060
not only for the advocates
of independence,

768
00:41:07.060 --> 00:41:09.910
but for all the politics in Puerto Rico,

769
00:41:09.910 --> 00:41:14.860
are to be written
before and after Pedro Albizu Campos,

770
00:41:14.860 --> 00:41:17.800
because no one,
even the advocates for statehood,

771
00:41:17.800 --> 00:41:20.950
will deny the value of our identity,

772
00:41:21.470 --> 00:41:27.570
will deny the value
of our cultural values and our language.

773
00:41:27.570 --> 00:41:31.910
And that is one of the most
important contributions

774
00:41:31.910 --> 00:41:35.150
that Pedro Albizu Campos
did to Puerto Rico.

775
00:41:35.150 --> 00:41:38.350
I believe it is important, as well,

776
00:41:38.350 --> 00:41:40.950
that in order
to understand Pedro Albizu Campos

777
00:41:40.950 --> 00:41:44.080
and those characterizations of terrorism

778
00:41:44.080 --> 00:41:47.900
that have surrounded some media
around him,

779
00:41:47.900 --> 00:41:51.710
you have to understand the time
in which he lived.

780
00:41:52.300 --> 00:41:57.570
The 1950 event,
the insurrection of 1950,

781
00:41:57.570 --> 00:42:03.910
and the attack to the Congress in 1954
was in the context of the establishment

782
00:42:03.910 --> 00:42:07.510
in that decade
of the Estado Libre Asociado.

783
00:42:07.510 --> 00:42:09.660
That was not another thing that—

784
00:42:09.660 --> 00:42:11.770
a disguise of the colony.

785
00:42:12.400 --> 00:42:16.580
And let me tell you something,
to accentuate the farce,

786
00:42:16.580 --> 00:42:21.790
they gave a name in Puerto Rico
for the colony, Estado Libre Asociado.

787
00:42:21.790 --> 00:42:24.600
But the proper translation to that name,

788
00:42:24.600 --> 00:42:27.790
that would be Free Associated State.

789
00:42:27.790 --> 00:42:31.800
They didn’t give that name in English;

790
00:42:31.800 --> 00:42:35.530
they put commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

791
00:42:35.530 --> 00:42:37.670
And together with that effort,

792
00:42:37.670 --> 00:42:40.830
the United States
were trying to take out Puerto Rico

793
00:42:40.830 --> 00:42:45.160
from their list of territories
and colonies of the United Nations.

794
00:42:45.160 --> 00:42:46.900
And in that context,

795
00:42:46.900 --> 00:42:49.380
and in the context
of a cruel persecution

796
00:42:49.380 --> 00:42:51.370
of the independence movement,

797
00:42:51.370 --> 00:42:56.290
is that Don Pedro Albizu Campos
made the insurrection of 1950

798
00:42:56.290 --> 00:43:02.590
and that happened the events
of the attack to the Congress in 1954.

799
00:43:02.590 --> 00:43:06.870
Of course, Don Pedro knew that he
would not defeat the United States

800
00:43:06.870 --> 00:43:09.490
by sending four people to the Congress,

801
00:43:09.490 --> 00:43:11.140
revolvers at hands,

802
00:43:11.140 --> 00:43:13.830
and open fire once inside the building.

803
00:43:13.830 --> 00:43:21.170
But what he wanted was to focus
the attention of the world on the farce,

804
00:43:21.170 --> 00:43:24.760
on the deceit
that was happening in Puerto Rico,

805
00:43:24.760 --> 00:43:29.220
and to demonstrate before the world,
and to show before the whole world,

806
00:43:29.220 --> 00:43:31.550
the colonial regime of Puerto Rico.

807
00:43:31.550 --> 00:43:34.260
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back a step
to Nelson Denis,

808
00:43:34.260 --> 00:43:36.250
talking about the attack on Congress,

809
00:43:36.250 --> 00:43:39.160
also on Vice President Truman.

810
00:43:39.160 --> 00:43:42.380
Can you talk about the actions
of Pedro Albizu Campos,

811
00:43:42.380 --> 00:43:43.780
why he did what he did,

812
00:43:43.780 --> 00:43:46.550
for those who are not at all familiar
with this history?

813
00:43:46.550 --> 00:43:48.940
NELSON DENIS: Well,
there was—at that time, you have to—

814
00:43:48.940 --> 00:43:52.410
if you make an empathic leap
to the '50s and earlier,

815
00:43:52.410 --> 00:43:54.900
you have to realize
that Puerto Rico was—

816
00:43:54.900 --> 00:43:56.240
let's call it a nation.

817
00:43:56.240 --> 00:44:00.710
It was a nation separated
by an ocean, a language, a culture,

818
00:44:00.710 --> 00:44:03.760
400 years of Ibero-American history.

819
00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:06.870
If you say that what happens
in Vegas stays in Vegas,

820
00:44:06.870 --> 00:44:09.460
what happened in Puerto Rico
never happened at all.

821
00:44:09.460 --> 00:44:12.680
You could literally shoot 17 people
during the Ponce massacre

822
00:44:12.680 --> 00:44:14.760
and then deceive the mainland,

823
00:44:14.760 --> 00:44:17.540
claiming that the police
had acted in self-defense.

824
00:44:17.540 --> 00:44:19.330
They even rearranged the corpses.

825
00:44:19.330 --> 00:44:23.950
They choreographed the setting,
à la Leni Riefenstahl,

826
00:44:23.950 --> 00:44:28.130
and created a different reality
and told—and somehow created the reality

827
00:44:28.130 --> 00:44:30.500
that the Puerto Ricans
were shooting themselves.

828
00:44:31.100 --> 00:44:34.150
Similarly, in the 1950s context,

829
00:44:34.150 --> 00:44:35.830
President Truman said that this was—

830
00:44:35.830 --> 00:44:36.870
dismissed everything,

831
00:44:36.870 --> 00:44:40.180
even though there had been
an assassination attempt against him,

832
00:44:40.180 --> 00:44:42.960
as a incident between Puerto Ricans.

833
00:44:42.960 --> 00:44:45.540
Well, this incident
involved the deployment

834
00:44:45.540 --> 00:44:47.980
of 5,000 National Guard troops,

835
00:44:47.980 --> 00:44:51.480
the arrest
of 3,000 Puerto Ricans and the bombing,

836
00:44:51.480 --> 00:44:54.000
in broad daylight, of two towns.

837
00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:56.830
The New York Times reported it as—

838
00:44:56.830 --> 00:45:00.500
that Jayuya looked
like an earthquake had hit it.

839
00:45:00.500 --> 00:45:02.210
Yeah, the earthquake was a bombing.

840
00:45:02.210 --> 00:45:06.360
But The New York Times said that the
Nationalists had burned their own town.

841
00:45:06.360 --> 00:45:09.610
Within this context of repression,

842
00:45:09.610 --> 00:45:12.430
there was an additional law,
La Ley de La Mordaza,

843
00:45:12.430 --> 00:45:13.570
Law 53,

844
00:45:13.570 --> 00:45:16.460
which made it,
from 1948 to 1957,

845
00:45:16.460 --> 00:45:18.450
illegal to utter a word,

846
00:45:18.450 --> 00:45:20.330
sing a song, whistle a tune,

847
00:45:20.330 --> 00:45:23.920
say anything with respect
to the independence of Puerto Rico.

848
00:45:23.920 --> 00:45:27.960
Even if you had a flag
in your own home, that was a felony,

849
00:45:27.960 --> 00:45:29.980
and you could be arrested for 10 years.

850
00:45:29.980 --> 00:45:32.330
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A Puerto Rican flag.
NELSON DENIS: A Puerto Rican flag.

851
00:45:32.330 --> 00:45:33.800
You had carpetas.

852
00:45:33.800 --> 00:45:38.100
Over 100,000 Puerto Ricans
had secret FBI files open on them.

853
00:45:38.100 --> 00:45:41.180
They’re the ones
that Congressman Serrano had released,

854
00:45:41.180 --> 00:45:45.040
1.8 million pages
of secret police surveillance.

855
00:45:45.040 --> 00:45:49.200
Under these conditions, you
couldn’t even get word off the island.

856
00:45:49.200 --> 00:45:51.490
The information was controlled by, say,

857
00:45:51.490 --> 00:45:54.820
half a dozen AP
and UPI wire service reporters.

858
00:45:54.820 --> 00:45:58.170
So, within that context,
Albizu Campos realized—

859
00:45:58.170 --> 00:46:00.570
he had FBI agents following him
all over the island,

860
00:46:00.570 --> 00:46:03.430
about a series
of 25 of them, in platoons,

861
00:46:03.430 --> 00:46:06.610
so at any given time
there were six FBI agents.

862
00:46:06.610 --> 00:46:08.600
They had to do something very striking.

863
00:46:08.600 --> 00:46:11.400
They had to engage
in some dramatic gesture

864
00:46:11.400 --> 00:46:13.490
to galvanize the world’s attention.

865
00:46:13.490 --> 00:46:14.560
It was modeled, actually,

866
00:46:14.560 --> 00:46:18.140
after the Easter
Rising in Ireland in 1916.

867
00:46:18.140 --> 00:46:21.760
So the idea wasn’t to defeat
the most powerful empire on Earth;

868
00:46:21.760 --> 00:46:23.760
it was just to confront that reality

869
00:46:23.760 --> 00:46:26.720
and have especially
the U.N. decolonization committee

870
00:46:26.720 --> 00:46:29.880
realize that there was a serious problem
in Puerto Rico,

871
00:46:29.880 --> 00:46:33.660
because there was a referendum vote
coming up to create the commonwealth.

872
00:46:33.660 --> 00:46:36.010
So there was a great urgency
that kicked in.

873
00:46:36.010 --> 00:46:37.480
It wasn’t fanaticism.

874
00:46:37.480 --> 00:46:38.750
It wasn’t Reds.

875
00:46:38.750 --> 00:46:41.190
It wasn’t the way
that even we heard it on this newscast.

876
00:46:41.190 --> 00:46:44.340
It was a very specific
and necessary action

877
00:46:44.340 --> 00:46:47.960
to let the world know the seriousness
of the conditions in Puerto Rico.

878
00:46:47.960 --> 00:46:49.190
AMY GOODMAN: So explain what they did.

879
00:46:49.190 --> 00:46:51.230
NELSON DENIS: They had an islandwide—

880
00:46:51.230 --> 00:46:53.820
islandwide, I’d say eight towns.

881
00:46:53.820 --> 00:46:58.100
They tried to secure guns
by attacking police precincts.

882
00:46:58.100 --> 00:47:00.270
It started with a prison breakout,

883
00:47:00.270 --> 00:47:04.260
led by Correa Cotto,
a somewhat famous criminal.

884
00:47:04.260 --> 00:47:06.910
As the police
were then chasing these fugitives,

885
00:47:06.910 --> 00:47:09.140
110 fugitives, around the island,

886
00:47:09.140 --> 00:47:13.570
they attacked in these eight towns,
particularly in Utuado and Jayuya.

887
00:47:13.570 --> 00:47:18.260
The idea was to attack the police
precincts and then retreat to Utuado,

888
00:47:18.260 --> 00:47:22.060
which is a very centrally located
town nestled in some mountains,

889
00:47:22.060 --> 00:47:25.090
and hold out for a period
of a week or two,

890
00:47:25.090 --> 00:47:28.580
so that they could get word out
during that period of time to the world.

891
00:47:28.580 --> 00:47:30.430
It was more of a symbolic act.

892
00:47:30.430 --> 00:47:31.890
It wasn’t really a military act.

893
00:47:31.890 --> 00:47:33.740
So, the point was to get that word out.

894
00:47:33.740 --> 00:47:37.640
And it was for that reason that the
United States suppressed it immediately.

895
00:47:37.640 --> 00:47:40.740
The reprisals were across the board.

896
00:47:40.740 --> 00:47:42.970
Three thousand Puerto Ricans
were arrested.

897
00:47:42.970 --> 00:47:45.670
Two towns were bombed in broad daylight.

898
00:47:45.670 --> 00:47:48.430
And the only word
that you heard in the United States

899
00:47:48.430 --> 00:47:51.240
was that they were these fanatics
in Puerto Rico

900
00:47:51.240 --> 00:47:53.180
and that it was an incident
between these fanatics.

901
00:47:53.180 --> 00:47:55.750
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, not only that,
but that was in that context

902
00:47:55.750 --> 00:47:59.490
that the attack of the Nationalists
on Blair House occurred.

903
00:47:59.490 --> 00:48:01.620
It was during that same—
NELSON DENIS: Exactly

904
00:48:01.620 --> 00:48:02.990
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —the same uprising.
NELSON DENIS: Yeah.

905
00:48:02.990 --> 00:48:05.080
AMY GOODMAN: And, Juan, what happened
there, the Blair House attack?

906
00:48:05.080 --> 00:48:07.930
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: When Oscar Collazo
and Griselio Torresola,

907
00:48:07.930 --> 00:48:09.700
two Nationalists,

908
00:48:09.700 --> 00:48:12.930
because communication
had been cut from the island

909
00:48:12.930 --> 00:48:15.180
to the United States
about what was happening,

910
00:48:15.180 --> 00:48:18.160
they figured
they would go to Washington

911
00:48:18.160 --> 00:48:20.540
and attempt
to assassinate President Truman,

912
00:48:20.540 --> 00:48:22.420
who at that time
was staying at the Blair House,

913
00:48:22.420 --> 00:48:25.800
because the White House
was under reconstruction.

914
00:48:25.800 --> 00:48:30.830
And they had a shootout right outside
of the Blair House with a couple—

915
00:48:30.830 --> 00:48:36.460
and actually killed one officer
and wounded another.

916
00:48:36.460 --> 00:48:40.610
NELSON DENIS: Yeah, the ironic context
of this is that George Orwell’s 1984

917
00:48:40.610 --> 00:48:43.130
had been published just in 1949,

918
00:48:43.130 --> 00:48:46.460
and it was a huge, best-selling hit
in both the United States

919
00:48:46.460 --> 00:48:48.990
and Great Britain in 1949.

920
00:48:48.990 --> 00:48:50.800
And yet, in 1950,

921
00:48:50.800 --> 00:48:54.120
we have this Orwellian circumstance
in Puerto Rico,

922
00:48:54.120 --> 00:48:57.610
where you
have this islandwide revolution,

923
00:48:57.610 --> 00:49:01.560
and you have President Truman napping
in his underwear up in Washington,

924
00:49:01.560 --> 00:49:03.270
and people
try to come—try and shoot him.

925
00:49:03.270 --> 00:49:06.610
And yet they dismiss it as an incident
between Puerto Ricans,

926
00:49:06.610 --> 00:49:09.700
as if nothing was wrong in Puerto Rico.

927
00:49:09.700 --> 00:49:12.770
It was an Orwellian situation
on the island,

928
00:49:12.770 --> 00:49:14.780
and people didn’t even realize it.

929
00:49:14.780 --> 00:49:17.860
AMY GOODMAN: We are talking
about Pedro Albizu Campos.

930
00:49:17.860 --> 00:49:21.280
It is the 50th anniversary
of his death today.

931
00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:22.470
This is Democracy Now!

932
00:49:22.470 --> 00:49:57.950
We’ll be back in a minute.

933
00:49:57.950 --> 00:50:04.250
[break]

934
00:50:04.250 --> 00:50:43.820
AMY GOODMAN: Roy Brown’s "Canción
a Pedro."

935
00:50:43.820 --> 00:50:45.260
That’s "Song for Pedro."

936
00:50:45.260 --> 00:50:46.860
That’s right, song for the Puerto

937
00:50:46.860 --> 00:50:49.940
Rican independence leader, Don Pedro,

938
00:50:49.940 --> 00:50:52.250
who is being honored today

939
00:50:52.250 --> 00:50:55.110
throughout Puerto Rico and other places
in the United States.

940
00:50:55.110 --> 00:50:56.530
Our guests are Nelson Denis—

941
00:50:56.530 --> 00:50:58.950
a new book,
War Against All Puerto Ricans:

942
00:50:58.950 --> 00:50:59.970
Revolution and Terror
in America’s Colony.

943
00:50:59.970 --> 00:51:03.030
Hugo Rodríguez joins us from Puerto
Rican Independence Party headquarters.

944
00:51:03.030 --> 00:51:05.850
He’s about to head off
to a commemoration in San Juan.

945
00:51:05.850 --> 00:51:09.090
And we’re joined
by New York Congressmember José Serrano.

946
00:51:09.090 --> 00:51:11.560
I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzalez.

947
00:51:11.560 --> 00:51:12.910
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Hugo Rodríguez,

948
00:51:12.910 --> 00:51:16.070
I’d like to ask you
about those commemorations

949
00:51:16.070 --> 00:51:21.110
and also what the legacy is today
of Albizu Campos and the Nationalists,

950
00:51:21.110 --> 00:51:23.970
who are basically virtually
forgotten these days,

951
00:51:23.970 --> 00:51:25.440
even in Puerto Rico.

952
00:51:26.830 --> 00:51:28.870
HUGO RODRÍGUEZ: Today,
the Puerto Rican Independence Party

953
00:51:28.870 --> 00:51:33.560
will unveil a plate in a building
that is located at Old San Juan,

954
00:51:33.560 --> 00:51:34.570
in the streets—

955
00:51:34.570 --> 00:51:36.550
in the corner of the streets Sol

956
00:51:36.550 --> 00:51:38.210
and Luna.

957
00:51:38.210 --> 00:51:41.260
That building was the headquarters
of the Nationalist Party

958
00:51:41.260 --> 00:51:43.260
in the decade of 1950s.

959
00:51:43.260 --> 00:51:46.450
Afterwards, there will be a mass
in the cathedral

960
00:51:46.450 --> 00:51:49.230
in honor of Don Pedro Albizu Campos.

961
00:51:49.230 --> 00:51:52.760
I believe that Pedro Albizu Campos
is not forgotten here.

962
00:51:52.760 --> 00:51:54.420
We have him very present,

963
00:51:54.420 --> 00:51:58.810
because Don Pedro is a symbol
for all of us.

964
00:51:58.810 --> 00:52:06.880
His lessons, enriched by a life
full of sacrifice, is an inspiration

965
00:52:06.880 --> 00:52:11.320
and is an example for all of us,
the advocates for independence.

966
00:52:11.320 --> 00:52:15.720
He suffered jail.

967
00:52:15.720 --> 00:52:18.430
He suffered torture in jail.

968
00:52:18.430 --> 00:52:24.700
The body of evidence demonstrates that
he was burned with radiation in jail.

969
00:52:24.700 --> 00:52:27.290
And he never took a step

970
00:52:27.290 --> 00:52:30.340
back in his struggle
in favor of independence.

971
00:52:30.340 --> 00:52:32.900
So that example of perseverance

972
00:52:32.900 --> 00:52:36.440
is an inspiration
for all of us in Puerto Rico.

973
00:52:36.440 --> 00:52:37.650
AMY GOODMAN: Now, that is a key point,

974
00:52:37.650 --> 00:52:40.650
and we want to go to an excerpt
of an interview with then

975
00:52:40.650 --> 00:52:42.930
Puerto Rico Governor Luis Muñoz Marín,

976
00:52:43.490 --> 00:52:46.670
an interview he gave on U.S. television
in the '50s.

977
00:52:46.670 --> 00:52:48.860
He was interviewed by Drew Pearson.

978
00:52:48.860 --> 00:52:53.190
The governor called into question
Pedro Albizu Campos's sanity.

979
00:52:53.190 --> 00:52:54.250
Let’s go to a clip.

980
00:52:54.750 --> 00:52:59.950
GOV. LUIS MUÑOZ MARÍN: His mental state
was—was not good.

981
00:52:59.950 --> 00:53:03.700
He spent all the time
wrapped in cold towels,

982
00:53:04.380 --> 00:53:08.230
saying that some mysterious machines

983
00:53:08.230 --> 00:53:11.800
were throwing nuclear rays
at him from a great distance.

984
00:53:12.460 --> 00:53:18.640
And since it would be unbelievable
that anybody believe that,

985
00:53:18.640 --> 00:53:21.170
if he were locked up
and nobody could see him,

986
00:53:21.170 --> 00:53:24.170
I thought that if he were
outside of the jail,

987
00:53:24.170 --> 00:53:28.050
people would realize
how his mind was operating,

988
00:53:28.050 --> 00:53:31.560
and he would be able
to get less young people—

989
00:53:31.560 --> 00:53:32.020
DREW PEARSON: Does he still—
GOV. LUIS MUÑOZ MARÍN: —

990
00:53:32.020 --> 00:53:35.660
even less than he has
in this terrible state of mind

991
00:53:35.660 --> 00:53:37.310
that we observed here recently.

992
00:53:37.310 --> 00:53:40.640
DREW PEARSON: Does he still wear the
cold towels now that he’s out of jail?

993
00:53:41.240 --> 00:53:44.080
GOV. LUIS MUÑOZ MARÍN: He lives
in a house

994
00:53:44.080 --> 00:53:46.530
about four or five blocks
from where I live.

995
00:53:46.530 --> 00:53:51.210
And all my information is that he
continues to wear the cold towels.

996
00:53:51.210 --> 00:53:53.410
DREW PEARSON: He wears the cold towels
to prevent the atomic rays

997
00:53:53.410 --> 00:53:54.720
from coming from the United States

998
00:53:54.720 --> 00:53:55.970
to kill him.
GOV. LUIS MUÑOZ MARÍN: That’s right.

999
00:53:55.970 --> 00:54:00.310
And you can see—you can see
how fantastic this whole thing is,

1000
00:54:00.310 --> 00:54:02.450
when you think of a government

1001
00:54:02.450 --> 00:54:05.520
that would prepare
such an incredible machine

1002
00:54:06.260 --> 00:54:08.760
to burn up this important personage.

1003
00:54:09.520 --> 00:54:12.030
They never thought
of applying it to Joe Stalin,

1004
00:54:12.030 --> 00:54:15.640
and also they never thought
of taking the cold towels away from him

1005
00:54:15.640 --> 00:54:16.700
when he was in jail.

1006
00:54:16.700 --> 00:54:20.000
DREW PEARSON: So now that he’s out
of jail, he still wears the cold towels.

1007
00:54:20.800 --> 00:54:24.140
AMY GOODMAN: That was
U.S. journalist Drew Pearson

1008
00:54:24.140 --> 00:54:28.470
joking with the then-governor
of Puerto Rico, Luis Muñoz Marín,

1009
00:54:28.470 --> 00:54:32.950
talking
about Pedro Albizu Campos’s claim

1010
00:54:32.950 --> 00:54:36.810
that when he was in jail
he was irradiated.

1011
00:54:36.810 --> 00:54:38.780
He didn’t quite understand
what they were doing,

1012
00:54:38.780 --> 00:54:41.820
but, Nelson Denis,
you write very vividly about this in War

1013
00:54:41.820 --> 00:54:43.620
Against All Puerto Ricans,
your new book.

1014
00:54:43.620 --> 00:54:46.210
What happened to Pedro Albizu Campos
in jail?

1015
00:54:46.210 --> 00:54:48.050
NELSON DENIS: Well,
as you can see from that clip,

1016
00:54:48.050 --> 00:54:50.910
George Orwell was alive
and well in Puerto Rico.

1017
00:54:50.910 --> 00:54:54.650
You have a situation
where a man is in jail for 25 years

1018
00:54:54.650 --> 00:54:56.780
and followed by FBI agents.

1019
00:54:56.780 --> 00:55:02.620
His body was so stripped
with or striped with burns

1020
00:55:02.620 --> 00:55:05.830
that he looked like he had been
flipped over on a barbecue grill.

1021
00:55:05.830 --> 00:55:07.580
You had Orlando Damuy,

1022
00:55:07.580 --> 00:55:10.090
the head of the Cuban radiology—

1023
00:55:10.090 --> 00:55:13.440
Cuban Cancer Association,
a world-renowned radiologist,

1024
00:55:13.440 --> 00:55:17.930
who went and diagnosed him
as having been undergoing radiation.

1025
00:55:17.930 --> 00:55:20.760
You had a Geiger counter
that broke when it was approached—

1026
00:55:20.760 --> 00:55:22.620
when it was put in proximity
to his body.

1027
00:55:22.620 --> 00:55:24.770
You had an X-ray film
with a paper clip on it,

1028
00:55:24.770 --> 00:55:29.210
that when it was placed on his skin,
the paperclip irradiated on—the image,

1029
00:55:29.210 --> 00:55:31.090
onto the X-ray film. It was incredible.

1030
00:55:31.090 --> 00:55:33.260
AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly,
what happened in the jail cell?

1031
00:55:33.260 --> 00:55:36.090
He described what it was
like with lights flashing,

1032
00:55:36.090 --> 00:55:37.880
and this would be at night, he thought.

1033
00:55:37.880 --> 00:55:40.960
NELSON DENIS: Well, there’s a woman
named Eileen Welsome,

1034
00:55:40.960 --> 00:55:44.320
who won the Pulitzer Prize
for a book called The Plutonium Files.

1035
00:55:44.320 --> 00:55:48.730
She found, and the United States
government disclosed, and they agreed,

1036
00:55:48.730 --> 00:55:49.870
that there had been

1037
00:55:49.870 --> 00:55:53.710
undisclosed experiments
conducted for about 40 years,

1038
00:55:53.710 --> 00:55:55.670
from the 1940s—or 30 years,

1039
00:55:55.670 --> 00:55:59.050
to the '70s, of 16,000, that were found,

1040
00:55:59.050 --> 00:56:01.070
16,000 unwitting subjects,

1041
00:56:01.070 --> 00:56:02.840
including many prisoners,

1042
00:56:02.840 --> 00:56:05.420
of, specifically, radiation studies.

1043
00:56:05.420 --> 00:56:08.630
It was called TBI,
total body irradiation.

1044
00:56:08.630 --> 00:56:11.670
And Albizu Campos
apparently was one of those subjects.

1045
00:56:11.670 --> 00:56:15.730
And you see how cravenly,
how the governor of Puerto Rico—

1046
00:56:15.730 --> 00:56:17.210
who, by the way, La Princesa,

1047
00:56:17.210 --> 00:56:20.690
the prison where he was
at, is almost directly contiguous

1048
00:56:20.690 --> 00:56:22.030
with the governor's mansion.

1049
00:56:22.030 --> 00:56:23.960
They’re within a hundred feet
of each other.

1050
00:56:23.960 --> 00:56:26.000
This was happening in full knowledge

1051
00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:28.500
and complicity
of the United States government.

1052
00:56:28.500 --> 00:56:30.590
I read the FBI files,

1053
00:56:30.590 --> 00:56:34.590
where you had a Chinese wall
around Albizu Campos

1054
00:56:34.590 --> 00:56:36.450
so that nobody can get through it,

1055
00:56:36.450 --> 00:56:40.280
so no doctor could come
and confirm what everyone knew,

1056
00:56:40.280 --> 00:56:43.900
which was that he was
being slowly killed in this island.

1057
00:56:43.900 --> 00:56:46.710
And they wanted to do it under
conditions where it wouldn’t be known,

1058
00:56:46.710 --> 00:56:48.420
because they didn’t want
to create a martyr.

1059
00:56:48.420 --> 00:56:52.210
This is how they treated—they figured
if they could declare Albizu "

1060
00:56:52.210 --> 00:56:53.890
the King of the Towels,

1061
00:56:53.890 --> 00:56:58.060
" "El Rey de las Toallas,"
and treat him like a madman,

1062
00:56:58.060 --> 00:57:01.170
then, by inference,
the Nationalists were also crazy.

1063
00:57:01.170 --> 00:57:03.610
But now the truth is very evident,

1064
00:57:03.610 --> 00:57:05.540
that there was a widespread—

1065
00:57:05.540 --> 00:57:07.380
it was a—unfortunately,

1066
00:57:07.380 --> 00:57:08.500
it was a conspiracy.

1067
00:57:08.500 --> 00:57:10.390
And this is not a conspiracy theory.

1068
00:57:10.390 --> 00:57:13.740
It is now known
that this was the attitude and the way

1069
00:57:13.740 --> 00:57:15.980
that they treated our leadership
in Puerto Rico.

1070
00:57:15.980 --> 00:57:18.080
REP. JOSÉ SERRANO: You know, and one
of the things that’s painful there,

1071
00:57:18.080 --> 00:57:20.270
when you see, is no one can deny

1072
00:57:20.270 --> 00:57:24.100
the importance of Luis Muñoz Marín
in Puerto Rican history

1073
00:57:24.100 --> 00:57:26.580
and in economic issues and so on,

1074
00:57:26.580 --> 00:57:29.470
but there you see
what the FBI was able to do—

1075
00:57:29.470 --> 00:57:31.820
and it was the FBI
more than anyone else—

1076
00:57:31.820 --> 00:57:33.460
to divide Puerto Ricans,

1077
00:57:33.460 --> 00:57:37.210
to where Albizu
could have been a natural ally

1078
00:57:37.210 --> 00:57:40.710
for the very liberal Muñoz Marín,

1079
00:57:40.710 --> 00:57:42.190
yet it didn’t turn out that way.

1080
00:57:42.190 --> 00:57:45.470
It turned out that Muñoz Marín
basically snitched on him

1081
00:57:45.470 --> 00:57:48.490
and told on him and sort
of hurt him in so many ways.

1082
00:57:48.490 --> 00:57:50.370
And the other thing, too,
which is interesting,

1083
00:57:50.370 --> 00:57:53.990
is, for good
or for bad—and I think for good—

1084
00:57:53.990 --> 00:57:55.580
how much we’ve grown.

1085
00:57:55.580 --> 00:58:00.320
In those days, to say anything positive
about the flag or Albizu Campos

1086
00:58:00.320 --> 00:58:02.050
would have gotten you
into a lot of trouble.

1087
00:58:02.050 --> 00:58:03.700
Here we are discussing it today.

1088
00:58:03.700 --> 00:58:06.220
Here there are commemorations
in the Bronx,

1089
00:58:06.220 --> 00:58:09.670
you know, in Washington, in Puerto Rico,

1090
00:58:09.670 --> 00:58:12.170
and it’s not seen as anything.

1091
00:58:12.170 --> 00:58:18.800
And lastly, Albizu’s legacy
allows for people then to go to Congress

1092
00:58:18.800 --> 00:58:23.150
and to the president
and get political prisoners out of jail—

1093
00:58:23.150 --> 00:58:26.760
the first group that Bobby García
worked on; the second group

1094
00:58:26.760 --> 00:58:29.000
that Nydia, Luis Gutiérrez
and I worked on,

1095
00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:31.460
the Oscar López situation,

1096
00:58:31.460 --> 00:58:33.240
Rivera López situation.

1097
00:58:33.240 --> 00:58:34.750
All those things
would have not have happened—

1098
00:58:34.750 --> 00:58:35.160
AMY GOODMAN: Five seconds.
REP. JOSÉ SERRANO: —

1099
00:58:35.160 --> 00:58:37.930
if he had not set that kind of mode
and that kind of tune.

1100
00:58:37.930 --> 00:58:39.410
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank
you all for being with us.

1101
00:58:39.410 --> 00:58:41.300
We’re going to continue
this conversation after the show

1102
00:58:41.300 --> 00:58:42.960
and post it at democracynow.org.

1103
00:58:42.960 --> 00:58:44.440
New York Congressmember José Serrano;

1104
00:58:44.440 --> 00:58:47.480
Nelson Denis, author of War
Against All Puerto Ricans:

1105
00:58:47.480 --> 00:58:50.180
Revolution and Terror
in America’s Colony; Hugo Rodríguez,

1106
00:58:50.180 --> 00:58:52.930
joining us from Puerto Rico from
the Puerto Rican Independence Party.