STATE HOOD OR COMMON-WEALTH

[IDeJesus]

Esto es lo que hace el gobierno Federal tan admirado por los estadistas puertorriquenos!!

San Juan Questions Spy Settlement
15:23EST

By CHRIS HAWLEY
Associated Press Writer
12/15/99

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- When the Puerto Rican police department released more than
135,000 secret dossiers on suspected independence supporters, it laid bare a landscape of
deception in this U.S. territory.

Shocked islanders found that friends and co-workers had been spying on them in part of a vast
effort to quash anti-U.S. sentiments. Students found themselves unaccountably linked to
terrorists. Businessmen and women found evidence that they had been denied jobs and
scholarships.

On Tuesday, after 10 years of legal battles, the government apologized and offered $5.7 million
to compensate them. Many say that's not enough.

"You can't heal people's lives so easily,'' said Felix Colon Morera, 47, who was stunned when he
saw the 1,000-page file on his militant activities during his college days.

Inside were photos, descriptions of the inside of his house, interviews with neighbors and
employers, careful notes from rallies he had attended and comments linking him to a terrorist
group of which he says he had never heard. The last and most chilling item, filed in 1983, was a
picture of his newly wed wife.

"It made you feel like ... something in a government laboratory,'' Colon said. The surveillance
was declared unconstitutional and the files released to their subjects in 1989.

On Tuesday, Gov. Pedro Rossello offered "a solemn and sincere apology ... for the concoction
and maintenance of these files.''

In an attempt to settle lawsuits by thousands of victims, he offered to pay $6,000 to each
plaintiff with more than 30 pages in their files. Others with more than 30 pages who had
expressed interest in suing but have not yet filed claims would receive $3,000.

The announcement comes amid a surge in nationalistic sentiment fostered by a battle with the
U.S. Navy over a bombing range on an outlying Puerto Rican island. President Clinton's recent
release of 11 pro-independence militants jailed for seditious conspiracy has also reopened debate
on Puerto Rico's relationship with the United States, which won the island from Spain in 1898.

Police began collecting information on suspected independence activists after the government
passed a 1948 law making it illegal to show the Puerto Rican flag, sing nationalist songs or hold
independence rallies.

It was part of government efforts to rein in radicals as it negotiated its current commonwealth
arrangement with Washington. Later, FBI-trained agents expanded the program to track
suspected communists and terrorists.

The operation was exposed during investigations into an undercover agent's role in a the police
killing of two young independence supporters in 1978.

"An extraordinary amount of effort went into following people and maintaining these files, and
the damage they caused was enormous,'' said civil rights lawyer Judith Berkan, whose own
dossier contains hundreds of pages.

Former psychologist Carmen Rios Rivera trembled with anger when she read one typewritten
1972 entry from her dossier: "Several patients of the psychiatric hospital escaped and the
person above was identified as an employee of this institution with separatist tendencies.''
Another entry has her boss giving undercover agents permission to watch her.

"These kinds of implications are shameless,'' Rios said. She blames the dossier for a string of
missed promotions and denied transfers that prompted her to quit psychology.

Thousands of unclaimed files -- as well as lists of undercover agents, informants and the people
who read the dossiers -- remain sealed in a building in central San Juan.

Many activists say the surveillance hobbled the independence movement, which has won less
than 5 percent of votes in recent referendums.

"The dossiers linked being pro-independence with being a criminal,'' said Javier Colon, 43, who
wrote a book about the dossiers, including surveillance of him that began when he was 15. "You
get the feeling that there will always be people who mean well but have an agenda against you,
and that fear stays with you for the rest of your life.''


Copyright 1999 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[a_carleone]

La noticia de arriba ya ha sido contestada por mi. Porque dañan el foro poniendo la misma cosa en todos los lugares. por favor seamos creativos y desmostremos nuestro talento sin copiar noticias de otro. Todos aquí tenemos computadoras e Intenenet gratis en toda la Nación Americana ( también en Puerto Rico por ser parte de ella) y vemos los periódicos.

[Jose_Luis]

This message is for El Boricua.

This whole dispute over Puerto Rico becoming the 51st state of America has nothing to do with the United States government. It solely involves the people of Puerto Rico. they have to speak out and have their voice heard the loudest. I agree with every statement you make. But in order for us puertoricans to be heard, our voice and opinion must be united, louder, and stronger than that of the American people. It is time for us to put aside our differences and start agreeing to certain things. Compromise and patience are the only keys for us to have our people united and loud and strong.

God Bless

[keeptrying]

Unfortunatly this one issue is not as easy to agree upon. I agree that when people come together they will be heard, but unfortunatly this one issue has totally divided the people. The last few referendums have shown the split among the population with roughly 38% favoring commonwealth, 36% statehood, and 3-4% independence. That isn't even half the population favoring one party. This means that if the people are not united, nothing will be done.

[El_Criollo]

InesDeJesus:

Sweetheart, do you know that your beloved Cuba has an INFORMER COMMITTEE in every Barrio? And to this very day they still do this in Cuba. At least the Carpetas are almost 20 years old, while in Cuba you still have to whisper every time you talk. What is worse, the "Carpetas" or the Neighborhood Informers?

However, when one is fanatic about Socialism, reality is only seen through very distorted glasses.

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desde_el_Jurutungo_de_Bairoa

[EL_BORICUA]

WHY SOMEONE WHO WANTS INDEPENDENCE FOR PUERTO RICO HAVE TO BE A SOCIALIST OR
A MARXIST,MAOIST OR WHATEVER I BELIEVE
IN THE INDEPENDENCE OF PUERTO RICO I AM
NOT A COMMUNIST I SERVED IN THE ARMED FORCES
AND I AM NOT ANTI AMERICAN I JUST THINK IT'S TIME TO PART WAYS.

[J_Vargas]

Hi people! I just wanted to say Feliz Navidades a todos mis hermanos y hermanas! Enjoy the holidays and take care and be safe. Don't drink and drive!