VOXXI: Two Puerto Rican nationalists attempt to assassinate President Truman

Two Puerto Rican Nationalists attempt to assassinate President Truman
W. Alejandro Sanchez
VOXXI
October 31, 2013
Originally published: http://voxxi.com/2013/10/31/puerto-rican-nationalists-harry-truman/

 This Friday, November 1, marks the 63rd anniversary of the 1950 assassination attempt on President Harry Truman by two Puerto Rican nationalists: Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola. Their goal was to call attention to the Puerto Rican independence movement and, although it ultimately failed, this attempt serves as a stark reminder of how volatile Puerto Rico’s relations with the mainland were at the time.

Times have certainly changed since 1950, but occasional tensions (such as the controversy over Vieques Island) remain, and independence is still viewed sympathetically by many Puerto Ricans.

The history

In 1950, the White House was undergoing renovations (1948-1952) and President Truman lived in the Blair House (known as the President’s Guest House, this building is located across from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue). On that fateful November morning 63 years ago, Collazo and Torresola approached the building from two different directions but were repelled by policemen and security agents. Due to the ensuing firefight the nationalists were not able to enter the Blair House.

The incident resulted in the death of one policeman, with two others wounded. As for the nationalists, Torresola was fatally shot in the head, while Collazo was shot in the chest but survived.

Oscar Collazo was put on trial and sentenced to death, but in 1952 Truman converted the sentence to life imprisonment. In September 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted the life sentence, and the Puerto Rican was freed. Collazo died in Puerto Rico at the age of 80 on February 1994.

PR – Mainland relations then and now

The website of the Harry S. Truman library and museum summarizes Collazo’s and Torresola’s intentions: “They thought the assassination would call attention to Puerto Rico and advance the cause of Puerto Rican independence.” This statement, while true, fails to fully address the tensions between the Caribbean island and the rest of the U.S. at the time.

Due to space limitations, it is impossible to properly analyze this complex historical relationship. Suffice it to say that there was, and still remains, conflicting views regarding the kind of relationship Puerto Ricans would like to see their island have with the U.S.

Several bloody incidents in recent history that exemplify these diverging points of view. Most notable is thePonce Massacre. On March 21, 1937, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party organized a peaceful protest to commemorate the abolition of slavery on the island in 1873. However, the protest quickly turned violent when police forces cracked down on the march, resulting in the death of 19 Puerto Ricans with hundreds more wounded.

The Hays Commission (named after the lawyer Arthur Garfield Hays), ultimately found the U.S.-appointed governor Blanton Winship responsible for the massacre.

Moreover, the timing of Truman’s assassination attempt by the two Puerto Rican nationalists is noteworthy. This incident occurred only days after the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party started its October 1950 Revolution, attempting to create an independent republic.

To be fair, it would be wrong to simply view Puerto Rico-mainland relations through the prism of independence issues. Other factors that need to be taken into account for such a discussion include the current trade of goods and services, investment by mainland companies in Puerto Rico, as well as the movement of individuals, including the migration of Puerto Ricans to major metropolitan areas in the mainland.

Nevertheless, there have been more recent sources of tension. Most notably is the case of Vieques Island (part of Puerto Rico), on which the U.S. Navy carried out military exercises and stored weapons in an ammo depot from the 1940s until 2003. Puerto Ricans have long protested that there is still plenty of explosive ordinance in that territory and its immediate waters.

Moreover, there is valid concern regarding the health effects of the Navy’s operations in the island, ascancer rates in Vieques are alarmingly high. In addition, there is also the ecological disaster caused by decades of live-fire exercises. “At $180 million so far, the cleanup is already the most expensive in military history,” stated a May 2013 Daily News article.

The 2012 referendum

Certainly, Puerto Rican feelings towards the island’s legal relationship with the rest of the U.S. (it currently is an associated state) have improved over the past decades. Most notably, during Election Day in November 2012, as the U.S. re-elected President Obama, Puerto Rico had a nonbinding, but very significant, referendum.

As CNN explains, “First, by a 54% to 46% margin, voters rejected their current status as a U.S. commonwealth. In a separate question, 61% chose statehood as the alternative, compared with 33% for the semi-autonomous ‘sovereign free association” and 6% for outright independence.’”

Nevertheless, it should be stressed that this referendum has been marred by controversy due to the methodology used to interpret the data, including the fact that the results do not show that nearly half a million voted blank on the referendum’s second question. Hence, critics of the referendum argue that the 61% rate does not necessarily mean that 61% of all voters voted in favor of statehood.

Nevertheless, the referendum’s results are important, as previous referenda to determine if Puerto Ricans wanted their homeland to attain statehood failed in 1967, 1993 and, most recently, in 1998.

The November 1950 assassination attempt on President Truman is one of the most extreme examples of radical Puerto Ricans attempting to bring about political change in their island. Hopefully, such transformations will only happen through elections and other non-violent initiatives.

Blouin Beat: World: What the Sutay release means for the FARC

What the Sutay release means for the FARC
W. Alejandro Sanchez
Blouin Beat: World
October 29, 2013
Originally published: http://blogs.blouinnews.com/blouinbeatworld/2013/10/29/what-the-sutay-release-means-for-the-farc/

On Sunday, the Colombian insurgent movement FARC released Kevin Scott Sutay, a former Marine who had been in captivity since June 20.

Sutay served with the Marine Corps in Afghanistan from November 2009 to March 2013. After leaving the service, he traveled throughout Latin America on his own, venturing to Mexico and Central America before arriving in Colombia. He reportedly reached Bogota on June 8, and by June 11 he was in the Guaviare department, which is known for still being a conflict area between the FARC and the Colombian military. A July report in the Colombian magazine Semana interviewed Colombian police officials, who apparently unsuccessfully warned the U.S. citizen not to travel through Guaviare. The ex-Marine was captured by the FARC in the municipality of El Retorno, close to the Barrancon military base.

The FARC’s justification for detaining Sutay was their belief that the U.S. citizen was an intelligence officer for the U.S. and Colombian governments. In July, FARC negotiator Rodrigo Granda argued: “What would you think of a man who is in a war zone, who has a secret camera in his watch, who is carrying [global] positioning equipment … who has a military uniform in his suitcase?” According to the FARC, Sutay was apparently on his way to visit the aforementioned Barrancon military base (where the Colombian Army’s Special Forces training center is located). On the other hand, a Colombian military source told the Colombian daily El Colombiano that it was “nearly impossible” that Sutay could be on active duty, as American military advisors do not operate alone in the country, much less in an infamously violent area like the Guaviare department.

In July, a month into Sutay’s captivity,  the FARC released a statement declaring that they had decided to free him “even though [they had] the right to retain the soldier Kevin Scott as a prisoner of war.” The insurgent movement also said it would free the U.S. citizen as a goodwill gesture to support the peace negotiations that are taking place in Havana, Cuba, between the rebel movement and the Colombian government. Ultimately, Sutay was not freed in July. On September 28, the FARC’s website published a declaration in which it accused the Colombian government of not inhibiting the liberation of the U.S. citizen because the FARC were “not requesting anything in return.”

From what is known, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos objected to the participation in Sutay’s liberation of a controversial former Colombian Congresswoman, Piedad Cordoba (widely accused of being sympathetic towards the FARC).  The situation became more complicated as U.S. Reverend Jesse Jackson became part of the negotiations in September, as he travelled to Cuba in September to lobby for Sutay’s freedom to the FARC delegation.

The former U.S. Marine — after all this back-and-forth — quietly released over the weekend. Santos insisted in avoiding a “media show” of the American’s release, preventing the obtainment of photographic evidence. After the release was made public, the U.S. State Department’s websitepublished a very brief press release, stating that it welcomed Sutay’s release from captivity and expressing gratitude towards the Colombian government, President Juan Manuel Santos, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and various other actors.

In February 2012, the FARC promised that it would cease the use of kidnapping as a tool for extortion, a technique which had become a staple of its “revolutionary” actions. Over the years, the FARC had held hostage hundreds of civilians and members of Colombia’s security forces. One of the most high-profile kidnappings in recent years was Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian politician who was running in the presidential elections of 2002. She was detained by the insurgents until 2008, when she and several other hostages were freed in a daring rescue operation by Colombian security forces.

Given the U.S. involvement in the Colombian conflict for the past decades, it makes some sense why the FARC would have regarded the presence of a U.S. citizen (a former Marine on top of all) deep in a conflict area as a potential threat.  It may have been that the FARC were finally convinced that Sutay was not an intelligence operative and that it would improve their image at the negotiating table in Cuba if they freed him. Moreover, if the U.S. citizen had been kept in captivity, the Colombian insurgents risked a potential increased U.S. presence in the country to try to free him.

As a final point, it should be stressed that the Sutay incident is not the first time that the FARC breaks their promise to abandon kidnapping as a tactic. In May 2012, the same group freed French journalist Romeo Langlois, who had been in captivity for around a month. If nothing else, Sutay’s captivity highlights that (unsurprisingly) promises made by narco-insurgent groups are largely matters of expedience.

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Entrevista: El Comercio: Destacan cooperación peruana en contingentes de paz de ONU

"Destacan Cooperacion Peruana en Contingentes de Paz de ONU"
W. Alejandro Sanchez
El Comercio - Peru
Por: Miguel Vivanco
Octubre 25, 2013
Publicado en: http://elcomercio.pe/actualidad/1649814/noticia-destacan-cooperacion-peruana-contingentes-paz-onu

La participación de los “cascos azules” peruanos en una veintena de misiones de paz convocadas por Naciones Unidas fue destacada en un reciente análisis de la organización Providing for Peacekeeping Project, que cuenta con el auspicio de las universidades George Washington y Griffith University, así como del Instituto Internacional de Paz.

Alex Sánchez, analista de seguridad internacional del Consejo de Asuntos Hemisféricos en Washington (COHA) y colaborador de El Comercio, fue el encargado de revisar el apoyo de prestado por el Perú desde 1958, comenzando con su participación el Líbano, pasando por las misiones en Chipre, Sahara Occidental, Sudan, hasta la actual presencia en Haití.

En el artículo se destaca de manera especial que el próximo 6 se celebra el cuadragésimo aniversario de la creación del Batallón Especial “Perú”, que fue enviado de 1973 a 1975 para participar en las operaciones de paz luego del conflicto Arabe-Israeli del Yom Kippur de octubre de 1973.

“Esa es una fecha significativa que trae a la luz la importante historia que Perú ha tenido en las operaciones de paz de la ONU. Desde 1958 hasta el presente, Perú ha participado en 20 misiones de manera exitosa”, aseguró Sánchez.

Dijo que las estadísticas de la ONU indican que el Perú tiene un total de 404 personal militar en diferentes operaciones de paz, de los cuales 25 son observadores militares, mientras que 379 son tropa. Sánchez en su análisis indica que el Perú no contribuye más en las operaciones de paz debido, en gran medida por los problemas ligados al narcotráfico y a los remanentes de Sendero Luminoso.

“En estos momentos la ONU discute la creación de una operación de paz en la República Centroafricana, mientras que la crisis en el Congo continua. El presidente Ollanta Humala debería discutir con el Ministerio de Defensa y el Comando Conjunto si existe la posibilidad de ofrecer a Naciones Unidas una mayor presencia peruana en dichas misiones”, concluyó el analista de COHA.

COHA: REMEMBERING OCTOBER 25: THE THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE U.S. INTERVENTION IN GRENADA (AND THE LEBANON BOMBINGS)

Remembering October 25: The Thirtieth Anniversary of the U.S. intervention in Grenada (and the Lebanon Bombings)
W. Alejandro Sanchez with COHA Research Associate Thomas Abbot
Council on Hemispheric Affairs
October 25, 2013
Originally published: http://www.coha.org/remembering-october-25-the-thirtieth-anniversary-of-the-u-s-intervention-in-grenada-and-the-lebanon-bombings/

Today, Friday, October 25, marks the 30^th anniversary of the U.S. intervention in Grenada. While this American military deployment is but a brief footnote in U.S. military history during the Cold War (and the premise of a 1986 Clint Eastwood film,Heartbreak Ridge), the operation, codenamed Urgent Fury, is a milestone in the Caribbean island’s history. The way in which the events of October 25 are remembered in Grenada, the rest of the Caribbean, and in the United States couldn’t vary more. While the intervention in Grenada arguably never represented a direct security threat to the U.S., it did help to divert attention from the Beirut barrack bombings, which had occurred two days earlier and which killed 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel. Given the large degree of disagreement throughout the world about the legitimacy of the invasion and the nature of the threat it represented at the time, the anniversary marks a very useful opportunity to bring together different strands and perspectives on the event.

A Brief Summary

Maurice Bishop, the charismatic leader of the Marxist “New Jewel Movement,” led a coup against the Grenadian government in 1979, and ruled until 1983, when Deputy Minister Benjamin Coard seized power, putting Bishop under house arrest and eventually presiding over his execution. [1] The government was then instantly dissolved and was replaced by a military junta, which implemented such draconian policies as a “shoot on sight” curfew and a shutdown of the country’s airport. [2] At the time, there were some 1,000 American citizens living on the island, many of them students at St. George’s School of Medicine. Reportedly, the Reagan Administration had become concerned that these citizens would likely be harmed or used as hostages, and had also expressed concern about the construction of an airbase on the island, which, in the words of Reagan, “looked suspiciously suitable for military aircraft, including Soviet-built long-range bombers.” [3] An October 2003 commentary by Stephen Zunes, then-associate professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco, explains that a reason for Reagan’s portrayal of the airport was because it had been built with Cuban assistance. Zunes points out that many construction workers were Cuban, but the contractor was British. Moreover, as Zunes correctly highlights, the airport could not have been used for military purposes because it lacked crucial infrastructure, such as “bomb-resistant underground fuel tanks, sheltering bays for parked aircraft, or fortified control towers.” [4]

The buildup, both in military readiness and in public relations, occurred in the context of a worsening situation for U.S. interests in Lebanon. On October 23, 1983, two trucks exploded at a Marine base in Beirut, ultimately killing 241 U.S. military personnel and 58 French soldiers, the worst attack sustained by the Marines since 1945. [5] The climate of anger and uncertainty created by these, in Reagan’s words, “hideous and insane attacks,” seems to have instilled a hunger for military victory at any cost in the American people. [6] Reagan’s justification for action in Lebanon, namely that “we are a nation with global responsibilities,” was just as easily applied to Grenada. [7]

The United States mobilized its military and on October 25, invaded the island with 1900 Marines  that did battle with Grenadian and Cuban forces. The total number of U.S. troops eventually reached 7,000.  The U.S. military suffered 18 casualties, the Cubans 24 (Fidel Castro had deployed Cuban military personnel to the island, but the exact number is unclear), and the Grenadians 45.  The result was a total defeat for Grenada, after which authority over the island was awarded to the former British Governor General of the island, Paul Scoon.

The backlash was immediate both internationally and, to a lesser extent, domestically. While the decision to invade was on the whole popular among the American public, it was lambasted in the U.N. and other international forums. [8] The U.N. General Assembly said that it “deeply deplores the armed intervention in Grenada, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of that state.” [9] Many nations, including Vietnam, Poland, and Algeria, said that the claimed U.S. motivations for invasion were merely a pretext. [10]

The invasion ultimately resulted in reform in the United States military, which had a “glaring lack of advance intelligence about Grenada,” and reportedly made numerous errors in the operation, including unnecessary troop movements that warned the defenders of Grenada of the invasion, and a lack of intelligence that the students they were rescuing were located on two different campuses. [11]

How Grenada and the Caribbean Remember 1983

The 30^th anniversary of the U.S. intervention has understandably stirred emotions in Grenada. Over the past several days a number of commentaries have been published in the Caribbean media discussing the intervention, often issuing interpretations quite different from those found in the U.S. The difference between perceptions in the U.S. and those in Grenada primarily rests on the fact that U.S. scholars often situate the operation in the wider context of Cold War geopolitics at the time, including serving as a reason for critiquing then-U.S. foreign policies as well as domino-theory in the Caribbean—meaning whether Cuba and Grenada could have been the beginnings of an expansion of Soviet satellite-states in the region.

But for Grenadians and citizens of the Caribbean in general, the operation has a more personal significance. For example, the journalist Lincoln Depradine published a commentary in the news agency Caribbean News Now on October 21 discussing whether the “truth” will ever be known about how many individuals died during the U.S. operation in Grenada. [12] Depradine also muses that, “For the Americans, they call it an invasion. Grenadians’ reference swings from invasion, to intervention, to rescue mission. The more creative among us coined new descriptors, such as ‘intervasion’ and ‘rescuvasion’.” [13]

Also recently published to commemorate the 1983 events is a book by House of Nehesi Publishers. It is the work of two authors, “Maroon Lives – Tribute to Maurice Bishop & Grenadian Freedom Fighters” by Lasana M. Sekou and “Revolution As Poetic Inspiration: Grenada in ‘Maroon Lives” by Fabian Adekunle Badejo. [14]  The first part of the book is a collection of poems by Sekou, in which he touches on the Bishop assassination, the U.S. invasion, and tensions generated by revolutionary struggles and the search for justice; while Badejo contributes with an in-depth study of the critical relationship between literature, revolution, and the transformation of societies. [15]

Unsurprisingly, many analyses of the U.S. intervention in Grenada are not kind to Washington. For example, an October 19 op-ed by author Jai Parasram for Caribbean News Now began by arguing, “I am deeply offended by American writers who, after 30 years, continue to push the propaganda that America saved the Grenadians and that the people welcomed the invasion of their island.” [16] Parasram goes on to argue,

The Americans who subsequently invaded the island were not the angels they claim to be. They were an invasion force acting on behalf of their government to crush what Washington viewed as a dangerous threat to “democracy” in the Caribbean and the Americas. It was part of a plot that was hatched long before Bernard Coard moved against Maurice. [17]

U.S. and 1983

The U.S. military operation in Grenada was a part of a series of plots that Washington carried out in liaison with others in the the region in order to prevent the spread of potential Moscow-friendly governments across the Caribbean. After the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the Castro government tried to promote regime change in the Caribbean and Latin America (i.e. via the iconic revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s attempt to carry out his “foco” insurgency in Bolivia). Due to the successful Cuban revolution and the failure of the U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, Washington then carried out military interventions in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and then Grenada in order to prevent Soviet satellites from spreading throughout its “historical backyard.”

Moreover, as previously mentioned, the Reagan administration and the U.S. intelligence community had suffered a huge blow in the form of massive attacks against U.S. military personnel in Lebanon during that Middle Eastern nation’s civil war. The fact that only two days passed between the attack in Lebanon and the invasion of Grenada is not necessarily a coincidence. Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, argues that the invasion of Grenada was “a military operation that was not meant to do what it said it would do.”

Ergo, given the plethora of (mostly infamous) military operations that the United States carried out throughout the Cold War, it is understandable that the brief intervention in Grenada occupies only a remote footnote in the history of U.S. military and international affairs during the Cold War.

Conclusions

At the time of this writing, neither the website of the U.S. embassy in Grenada, nor Grenada’s embassy in Washington, DC, have issued press statements regarding the upcoming anniversary.  As for how the three-island Caribbean nation is doing in 2013, as an October 21 op-ed by Lloyd Noel published by the news agency Now Grenadastated,

“We have had a variety of leaders, and their party machinery in control of the Nation’s affairs over the years – and here we are in the thirtieth year, with a leader and his team who had been in control for thirteen of those years, and for the second time winning all the seats in Parliament, and therefore no one in opposition in the Lower House.” [18]

The leader that Noel refers to is Prime Minister Mitchell. Incidentally, and to highlight currentU.S. – Grenada relations, Prime Minister Keith Mitchell was in Washington in early October [19] to participate in the annual meetings at the World Bank and the IMF in Washington. He had previously visited Washington and New York in July. [20]

In his October 21 commentary, the journalist Depradine wrote: “was it an invasion by invitation or an invasion by coercion?” [21] The final ruling is still out on how to accurately remember the events that led to October 25, 1983, and what happened on that fateful day and after.

W. Alejandro Sanchez, Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and Thomas Abbot, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

[1] Wheeler, Laura K. “The Grenada Invasion: Expanding the Scope of Humanitarian Intervention.” 8 B.C. Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 413 (1985). Accessed October 23, 2013. http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/iclr/vol8/iss2/5

[2] Rubner, Michael. “The Reagan Administration, the 1973 War Powers Resolution, and the Invasion of Grenada.” Political Science Quarterly. Volume 100, No. 4. Winter 1985-1986.

[3]  “Address to the Nation on Events in Lebanon and Grenada.” October 27, 1983. Accessed October 23, 2013. http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/102783b.htm

[4] Zunes, Stephen. “The US invasion of Grenada.” Global Policy Forum. October 2003. Accessed October 24, 2013. http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/155/25966.html

[5]  “Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing Fast Facts.” CNN Library. June 13, 2013. Accessed October 23, 2013. http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/13/world/meast/beirut-marine-barracks-bombing-fast-facts/index.html

[6]  “Address to the Nation on Events in Lebanon and Grenada.” October 27, 1983. Accessed October 22, 2013. http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/102783b.htm

[7] Ibid

[8] Ibid: Wheeler. 1985

[9]  “The Situation in Grenada.” UN Resolution 38/7. November 2, 1983. 43^rd plenary meeting.

[10] Ibid: Wheeler. 1985

[11] Magnuson, Ed. “Getting Back to Normal.” Time. November 21, 1983. ; Drummand Ayres Jr. B., “Grenada Invasion: A Series of Surprises.” The New York Times. November 14, 1983

[12] Depradine, Lincoln. “Reaching a convergence of truths and facts on the 1983 ‘intervasion.’” Caribbean News Now! Commentary. October 21, 2013. Accessed October 22, 2013  http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Commentary%3A-Reaching-a-convergence-of-truths-and-facts-on-the-1983-%27intervasion%27-18232.html

[13] Depradine, Lincoln. “Reaching a convergence of truths and facts on the 1983 ‘intervasion.’” Caribbean News Now! Commentary. October 21, 2013.  Accessed October 23, 2013. http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Commentary%3A-Reaching-a-convergence-of-truths-and-facts-on-the-1983-%27intervasion%27-18232.html

[14] SMN News Team. “Sekou and Badejo’s new book tribute on 30th anniversary of Maurice Bishop’s assassination and US invasion of Grenada.” St. Martin News Network.  October 21, 2013. Accessed October 25, 2013. http://www.smn-news.com/st-maarten-st-martin-news/13548-sekou-and-badejo-s-new-book-tribute-on-30th-anniversary-of-maurice-bishop-s-assassination-and-us-invasion-of-grenada.html

[15] SMN News Team. “Sekou and Badejo’s new book tribute on 30th anniversary of Maurice Bishop’s assassination and US invasion of Grenada.” St. Martin News Network.  October 21, 2013. Accessed October 23, 2013. http://www.smn-news.com/st-maarten-st-martin-news/13548-sekou-and-badejo-s-new-book-tribute-on-30th-anniversary-of-maurice-bishop-s-assassination-and-us-invasion-of-grenada.html

[16] Parasram, Jai. “Maurice Bishop was my friend and I know the Grenada Story.” Caribbean News Now! Commentary. October 19, 2013.  Accessed October 22, 2013. http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Commentary%3A-Maurice-Bishop-was-my-friend-and-I-know-the-Grenada-story-18223.html

[17] Parasram, Jai. “Maurice Bishop was my friend and I know the Grenada Story.” Caribbean News Now! Commentary. October 19, 2013.  Accessed October 23, 2013. http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Commentary%3A-Maurice-Bishop-was-my-friend-and-I-know-the-Grenada-story-18223.html

[18] Noel, Lloyd. “We must remember 25 October 83.”  Now Grenada. October 21, 2013. Accessed October 24, 2013. http://nowgrenada.com/2013/10/must-remember-25-october-83/

[19] Caribbean Journal Staff. “Grenada PM heads to Washington.” Caribbean Journal. October 10, 2013. Accessed October 24, 2013. http://www.caribjournal.com/2013/10/10/grenada-pm-heads-to-washington/

[20]  “Prime Minister to visit New York and Washington DC: Minister Nimrod to Act.” Official Website of the Government of Grenada. July 19, 2013. Accessed October 23, 2013. http://www.gov.gd/egov/news/2013/jul13/19_07_13/item_2/pm_visit_ny_washington_nimrod_act.html

[21] Depradine, Lincoln. “Reaching a convergence of truths and facts on the 1983 ‘intervasion.’” Caribbean News Now. Commentary. October 21, 2013. Accessed October 22, 2013.  http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Commentary%3A-Reaching-a-convergence-of-truths-and-facts-on-the-1983-%27intervasion%27-18232.html

VOXXI: Brazil: Who is not protesting these days?

Brazil: Who is not protesting these days?
W. Alejandro Sanchez
VOXXI
October 23, 2013
Originally published:  http://voxxi.com/2013/10/23/brazil-who-not-protesting-these-days/

A new wave of protests has erupted, this time by teachers demanding an increase in salaries, oil workers protesting the government’s auction of off-shore oil deposits, and by a group of anarchists called the Black Bloc. Adding fuel to the fire, the Brazilian police has been accused of using excessively repressive force to quell protesters. If President Dilma Rousseff was hoping that the NSA surveillance scandal would rally her citizens to support her, she is gravely mistaken.

A June 19 commentary for VOXXI by this author addressed the demonstrations that had swept Brazil. At the time, thousands of citizens took to the streets to protest an increase in public transportation prices and the indiscriminate expenditure on construction projects in preparation for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Protests by teachers and oil workers

Over the past couple of weeks, Brazilian teachers have rallied across the country in demand of better wages and school conditions. Recent protests can be seen as two-pronged. For example, a peaceful march by some 5,000 teachers took place in Rio de Janeiro; ironically the demonstration occurred on October 15, which is Teachers’ Day in Brazil. The protest was followed that same night by a smaller but more violent protest by individuals identifying as members of the loosely-organized anarchist movement called the Black Bloc.

To add mayhem to chaos, another discontented segment of the population is made up of oil workers, who are protesting the auction of an offshore oil field and demanding salary increases. Over the past few days, oil production in this South American nation has been affected by the recent strike, as up to 90% of employees of the state oil company, PETROBRAS, have carried out protests in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia.

“Our aim is not to hurt the population, but we will carry on with the strike for an indefinite period, until our demands are met,” said José Antonio de Moraes, president of the Unified Federation of Oil Workers (FUP), according to a BBC report.

Nevertheless, the protests by the oil workers have not been successful in their ultimate objective, as the Libra offshore field (in the Santos Basin) was recently auctioned to a partnership of five oil companies. Those entailed within this transaction are: PETROBRAS (Brazil), Shell (Anglo-Dutch), Total (France) as well as CNPC and CNOCC (both from China). President Rousseff qualified the auction as a success, as the Brazilian government is counting  on the Libra field to pump up to 1.4 million oil barrels a day, which would mean huge revenues for Brazil.

Fuel to the fire: Police brutality and the black hand?

Referring to the protests of the oil workers vis-à-vis the auction of the aforementioned Libra field, Brazil’s Energy Minister Edison Lobao has diplomatically stated “We’re a democratic country, so people have the right to voice their thoughts.” While this is certainly a positive declaration, media coverage over past weeks of the protests has brought to light a number of instances in which unnecessary force was used by Brazilian police officers.

In a textbook example of the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words,” in early October, a Brazilian police officer posted a photograph of himself holding a broken police baton on his Facebook profile, with the title “My bad Teach!” The photo quickly became news headlines and it is assumed that the officer took part in the cracking down of protesters by police officers in Rio de Janeiro.

On the other hand, a third actor that has an increasingly prominent role in support of both the teachers and oil workers is the Black Bloc. The group is an unorganized collective of individuals, who wear black clothing and stage protests.  Due to its lack of infrastructure, the group does not seem to have a universal set of principles or beliefs, but it gained international prominence during the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle.

As for its current role in Brazil, the group has had a mixed record so far regarding its involvement in recent protests. For example, an October 22 article by the Associated Press portrayed the movement in a positive light. The AP report quoted a teacher who participated in a recent protest in Rio, explaining, “The police came in firing tear gas, hitting us with clubs. A young Black Bloc stepped right in between me and the police. If it weren’t for them, the police would have destroyed us.”

On the other hand, other alleged Black Bloc members have been involved in violent acts during the ongoing protests and have been accused of acts of vandalism, such as attacking shops, setting fire to a police car and throwing petrol bombs.

The situation in Brazil is becoming increasingly complex. If anyone in the Brazilian government hoped that the country’s bout of protests had (finally) quieted down after the popular discontent in June, they were sadly mistaken. Nevertheless, the protesters may not emerge victorious, other than gaining international notoriety.

The auction and privatization of the Libra offshore oilfield is an example of President Rousseff exercising resilience to the pressure of the protesters and their demands but perhaps the teachers’ coalition will have more success in pursuing their objectives.