US flags replaced with black & white PR flags in PAD implementation protest
By John McPhaul
jpmcphaul@gmail.com
Jocelyn Velázquez, the spokeswoman for No More Promesas (Se Acabaron las Promesas), said that on Monday morning the group held a protest at the entrance to Old San Juan in which they paralyzed traffic and replaced the United States flags with black and white flags of Puerto Rico.
The protest was aimed at the implementation of the commonwealth debt adjustment plan (PAD by its Spanish acronym), which was expected to take place no later than today.
“We hold the United States government responsible for the impoverishment of our people and the terrible social, human and economic crisis that this debt adjustment plan will cause,” Velázquez said in a written statement. “It is time for the U.S. government to take responsibility for this crisis. Those who impose the policies of the U.S. government on the island are its courts, its Congress and its institutions. It is a crime that those who administer, negotiate and control the future of our people are foreign entities that do not advocate in favor of our interests.”
“The call to the people is to mobilize, take to the streets and defend ourselves from the looting of our resources that will be perpetrated with this plan,” she added. “The colonial debt is the responsibility of the United States and its imperial policies in Puerto Rico; they are the ones obliged to respond to this crisis. In addition to that, they will be responsible for deepening it, since it is widely known that the criminal terms of the payment of this debt will lead us to a second bankruptcy that will further aggravate poverty on the island.”