Jan Susler of NLG Internatio
Jan Susler, co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild International Committee’s Puerto Rico Subcommittee, presented a paper on Monday, June 17 to the United Nations Decolonization Committee during its annual hearing on the status of Puerto Rico.
Susler’s comprehensive presentation addresses Puerto Rico’s ongoing colonial status, federal intervention and repression in Puerto Rico, other challenges to civil and human rights in Puerto Rico, the economy, the environment, the death penalty, Vieques and the role of the military, and the ongoing confinement of Puerto Rican political prisoners in US jails.
Susler’s presentation concludes with recommendations that the General Assembly pass a resolution calling upon the US government to:
* immediately cease the brutality, criminalization and harassment of, and attacks on, the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and all those who exercise their fundamental rights to expression and association;
* immediately release Puerto Rican political prisoners Oscar López Rivera, who has served more than 32 years in U.S. custody, and Norberto González Claudio;
* identify and hold criminally liable all those responsible for the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos (2005), Santiago Mari Pesquera (1976), Carlos Muñiz Varela (1979), and other militants of the Puerto Rican independence movement; * withdraw the FBI, the U.S. court, and all other U.S. police, repressive and military forces and agencies from Puerto Rico;
* withdraw from Vieques, formally return legal property of the land to the people of Vieques, cease detonating unexploded ordnance, completely clean up the pollution left by the U.S. Navy’s 60 year occupation through the use of proven, environmentally friendly clean-up methods, foster and support a sustainable economy, and compensate the people of Vieques for the damage to their health done to them by the same;
* cease and desist from the application of the death penalty in Puerto Rico;
* formally commit to negotiate in good faith with the people of Puerto Rico a solution to the colonial condition; and recognize the proposals that emanate from a Constitutional Assembly, initiated by the people of Puerto Rico, such as that called for by the Puerto Rico Bar Association, as the true expression of the aspirations of the people of Puerto Rico, and respond to them accordingly.
The National Lawyers Guild will be holding its 76th annual Law for the People convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico October 23-27, the Guild’s first international convention. The Puerto Rico subcommittee that Susler co-chairs with Judith Berkan and Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan is working with a team of Puerto Rican lawyers, law students and legal workers to host the Convention.
Click here to download presentation: Presentation to UN Decolonization Committee on Puerto Rico
For more info: http://www.nlginternational.org/news/article.php?nid=536
