Original: Spanish
The Socialist International Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, SICLAC, reiterates its support for the struggle of the Puerto Rican people to bring an end to the US military exercises on the island of Vieques and for the return and clearing of all the land occupied by the US Navy.
The Committee expresses its solidarity with Rubén Berríos Martínez, leader of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, PIP, and Honorary President of the Socialist International, and with the hundreds of Puerto Ricans of all political parties who along with him have also been convicted and who remain detained by the US authorities for their acts of peaceful civil disobedience in Vieques.
SICLAC also recognises that the struggle which Rubén Berríos has led in Vieques and which today includes the vast majority of the Puerto Rican people and its government, constitutes not only a profound affirmation of the national identity of Puerto Rico and a demand for a respect for human rights, but also a demonstration of the urgent need to overcome the political subordination which that Latin American and Caribbean country is subject to.
Finally, SICLAC trusts that the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation, which is due to convene on 21 June to discuss the case of Puerto Rico, will once more reiterate — as it did last year in a historic unanimous resolution — the call for an end to the military occupation of Vieques and the reaffirmation of the inaliable right of the Puerto Rican people to free determination and independence.
