URGENT. URGENT.URGENT.

IMPORTANT NEWS TO DIVULGE TROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

EXPLOSIVE POLITICAL SITUATION IN PUERTO RICO

It is 5:00 of the evening of June 30, 2010, groups of students, teachers and citizens
asked for entry to the House of the Laws and they were struck and tortured by the
Police, there are numerous injured people, while the National Guard is mobilized
towards the Capitol Hill. Violent shocks scatter for the whole zone of the Parliament
and the repressions continue.

A constitutional coup has just been established in Puerto Rico.

After a year in which the present time government under the New Progressive Party (Partido
Nuevo Progresista, that attempts to join the Island to the United States trough statehood) tried
to and succeeded taking over many institutions that form the base of the democratic
government of Puerto Rico, an atmosphere of hostility followed by many reckless actions that
threaten public peace had climaxed in violent and aggressive actions of this government
against the parties of the opposition, the organized student movement, the labor unions, the
press, the environment, as against every area and institution of Puerto Rico’s civil society.

This constitutional coup springs from the Legislative branch of the government under the
command of Senator Thomas Rivera Schatz, endorsed by the central government, under the
dominance of the Secretary Governor, counselor Marcos Rodríguez Ema, with the obvious
intent of having under their grasp and without opposition full control of every agency and
organization that rule the judiciary, academic, economic and civil societies. Before this
scenario, Governor Luis Fortuño operates without volition, has no opinion, appearance nor
public responsibility.

With the complete control of the High Court of Puerto Rico, the University of Puerto Rico
Board of trustees, and the alleged control of the news media, among many others, the
genuine participation of the People of Puerto Rico in all democratic processes protected by
our Constitution is jeopardized.

The events started (trough the rush approval of Law 7 by the Legislature) with more than
20,000 public employee lay-offs, with the allegation that this would alleviate the gigantism of
the government and would find the solution of the serious public deficit, that has never been
properly evidenced. This decision has caused economical chaos, public services are worse
than ever and it has generated despair and gloominess in every Puertorrican family. In this
same guise there exists a serious persecution against all artistic institutions of the country,
strangling their budgets, trying with this actions to avoid the propagation of art as dissidence.
This, while the government favors contracts of obscene sums with hundreds of advisors,
contractors and lobbyists associated with their own political party.

The attacks continued in the form of the appointment to the High Court of four Judges with a
well known affiliation with, and militancy for the governing political party, achieving a majority
of votes in favor of the actual government on all decisions made in this Forum, on individual
basis. The government went on repressing and eliminating student participation on the
procedures of the State University, suppressing tuition exemption rights for outstanding
athletes and artists, among others; forcing the students from all eleven campuses of the
University of Puerto Rico to declare a strike that lasted 60 days, generating ample support
from the people of Puerto Rico and around the world.

The students on strike were successful on their achieving their demands trough negotiations
that involved a First Instance Court and an appointed negotiator; however, these accords were
are trying to be invalidated by Secretary of government Rodríguez Ema who said that these
accords “are not worth the paper in which they were written”

This event preceded the Central government’s action of proposing a hasty law, that was
signed with no revision within hours, adding four additional members to the Board of trustees
of the University of Puerto Rico. These additions to the Board are unconditional members of
the governing political party The students of the State university, who on a great majority
depend in Federal grants, now face an annual recurring fee of $800.00, fee they will not be
able to pay and that they will not pay, forcing the students to return to their strike. With this
strategy, the Central government risk the accreditation of the State University and as a
consequence, the government would be able to privatize it’s assets.

Following this same direction, the government of Puerto Rico will attempt to sell and to divide
for speculation a strip of land where stands the Karst formation, on the northwest of the
Island. This area collects one third of our water supplies for the entire population;
nonetheless, the government intends to put this area into private hands that would build a toll
expressway over this zone that is rich ecologically and economically.

Passing up many other events, the budget of Puerto Rico was approved, together with
countless laws which favor privatization, the dissolving of professional associations and the
distribution of public funds into private hands, without the pertaining and compulsory hearings
of public participation, reaching the extreme of turning off the microphones of the opposing
political party members, in a despotic fashion.

The events climaxed last week when the FBI in Puerto Rico arrested Senator Héctor
Martínez, NPP, on charges of bribe, the selling of influences and other charges. Martinez is
Senator’s Rivera Schatz right hand on the Senate. A public squabble reached the news
between the Senator and the FBI, with the Seantor fending the alleged innocence of Senator
Martínez,, who has been directly associated with drug traffic and who was filmed while
committing bribery.

Then, last in his many violent and reckless acts, the president of the Senate, Rivera Schatz,
using force and a real padlock, censored the access of the cameras and the news media to
the Senate sessions, depriving the People of Puerto Rico of direct information about the
discussions and voting sessions that were taking place about this year’s budget and other
matter). The events resulted in verbal and physical violence between senators, rising
indignation between the people to a point of and almost unsustainable state of outrage and
wrath.

Counselor Rivera Schatz has taken virtual control of the country with his tyrannical and fascist
ways; and it cannot be discarded that from these same seats, this same week, acts of
persecution and acts of violence will be started against other sectors of the People, all
approved by the Secretary Governor of Puerto Rico.

It is 5:00 of the evening of June 30, 2010, groups of students, teachers and citizens
asked for entry to the House of the Laws and they were struck and tortured by the
Police, there are numerous injured people, while the National Guard is mobilized
towards the Capitol Hill. Violent shocks scatter for the whole zone of the Parliament
and the repressions continue.

This factual deed of control of the political power from within the Puertorrican Nation violates
all elementary principles of democracy and of participation of the People in the government,
for which we proclaim to the World the actual situation of contained violence that exists in our
People and that is about to explode against these two politicians that had taken by assault the
power in our Country. Even though in Puerto Rico there are no conditions for an armed
struggle of the People because of the obvious disparity of the opposing sides, a revolution of
cultural and of student affirmation is starting to take the streets and to retrieve the spaces
stolen away by the originators of this coup.

We exhortat all communications media of the World to divulge and expose the current
situation of the Puertorrican Nation and we ask of you, therefore, your total solidarity.

Composed by Roberto Ramos-Perea, Puertorrican Playwriter

(With the active collaboration, comments and support of more than a hundred Puertorrican
citizens.)