05 June 21
Please Don’t Wait for “Condition Dire”
The single biggest factor extending the length of these fundraising drives: waiting until the situation is dire to chip in.
If you can afford a donation, put it in the hat early.
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Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
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05 June 21
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Jesse Jackson | Republicans Just Say No, but Later Will Claim Credit
Jesse Jackson, Chicago Sun-Times
Jackson writes: "Just say no. That seems to sum up the position of Republicans in the Congress these days. For all the talk about bipartisan compromise or about the two parties working together, at the end of the day, the Republican position is simply to say no."
The scope of what they won’t do is breathtaking.
They say no to expanding support for day care, vital in an economy where both parents must work. They say no to investing in renewable energy and electric cars. They say no to renovating America’s decrepit and outmoded infrastructure, including clean and safe drinking water. They say no to democracy reforms and ending secret money in politics. They just say no.
It doesn’t matter how popular the issue is. Most Americans want sensible gun control laws. According to the Pew Research Center, 70% of Republicans support background checks for all sales of guns, including those at gun shows. When it comes to passing the reforms, Republicans in both Houses just say no.
It doesn’t matter if it is simply about basic fairness. Fifty-five of America’s biggest corporations paid no federal income taxes last year and the wealth of just 650 billionaires rose by 50%, all while millions of working Americans suffered. Two-thirds of Americans support raising taxes on those making more than $400,000 a year, as Joe Biden has proposed. Republicans in both Houses reject any tax increase on corporations or the wealthy, including the 82% benefit that went to the top 1% and 63% that went to the top one-tenth of 1% of Trump’s only major legislative accomplishment in 2017.
It doesn’t matter if the reform is about meeting a threat to our existence. Catastrophic climate change already takes lives and costs this country billions of dollars each year - and it gets worse annually. Scientists give us about 10 years to make the transition to renewable energy. Joe Biden has proposed a modest investment in renewable energy, electric cars and retrofitting homes. His proposal is far less than scientists say is needed, far less even from what he promised during his campaign. He’s already compromised in the face of expected Republican opposition. But Republicans just say no.
It doesn’t matter if the reform is essential to human life and to equal justice under the law. Most Americans support police reform, including a federal ban on chokeholds (71%), a prohibition of racial profiling (71%), and an end to “qualified immunity” for officers in legal cases (59%). For decades and currently Congress hasn’t been able to pass an anti-lynching law. Efforts to pass reforms meet with — no surprise now — almost universal Republican opposition.
It doesn’t even matter if the measure is a bipartisan bill to have an independent bipartisan commission investigate sacking the Capitol and the attempt to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6. Even though their lives and limbs were at risk, Senate Republicans lined up in support of a filibuster to just say no.
Republicans use efforts to find common ground to stall progress before lining up to say no. They make big gestures that turn out on inspection just to be jive. For example, the biggest “bipartisan” negotiations are over Joe Biden’s Americans Jobs Bill, which Republicans oppose. Biden called for $2.3 trillion over eight years to invest in rebuilding America, kickstarting the transition to sustainable energy, and ensuring quality affordable day care, essential if parents are to go back to work. In April, Republicans offered a laughable $568 billion over five years, stripping virtually everything but roads and bridges from their proposal (and most of that was already in the budget).
Biden compromised, cutting $552 billion out of his proposal. Republicans got headlines for going up to $953 billion — only that was a feint. As the analysis of the invaluable Congressional Progressive Caucus Action Fund showed, the second Republican offer was spread out over eight years. And they proposed to pay for most of that by taking funds previously appropriated to deal with the pandemic and its victims over the next years. In spending per year, the actual change in the second proposal over the first was just $2 billion a year. That isn’t a good faith negotiation; that’s a joke.
Republicans don’t want corporations or the wealthy to pay more in taxes. They don’t want to raise the minimum wage. They oppose reforms that would make it easier for workers to organize and bargain collectively. In 20 states, Republican governors are cutting off federal unemployment insurance, hoping to force people to take low-paying jobs. They don’t want to revive the Voting Rights Act; they want to further suppress the vote. They don’t want to limit the role of big money in elections or end gerrymandering of districts to their benefit. This list can go on.
Republicans celebrate the economy of 2018 under Donald Trump before the pandemic. Yet that was an economy in which 40% of Americans had negative net incomes, and were forced to borrow to pay for basic household needs. That was an economy that subsidized fossil fuels and ignored the threat posed by climate change. That was an economy that forced parents into debt to pay for day care, forced students into debt to pay for college, and forced Americans to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, even those that were created on the taxpayer’s dime.
Of course, when they run for re-election, Republicans will take credit for Biden’s American Rescue Plan that was passed without one Republican vote. No one should be fooled. At a time when America faces cascading crises, Republicans just say no. If we want even to begin to address the troubles we have, voters will have to say no to those who are standing in the way.
An internally displaced Afghan man sits with his children at a temporary home in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Herat, Afghanistan, Sept. 2, 2020. (photo: Hoshang Hashimi/AFP/Getty Images)
Nick Turse | Pentagon Undercounts Civilian Casualties in New Report, Experts Say
Nick Turse, The Intercept
Nurse writes: "The US Military killed 23 civilians and injured another 10 in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia during 2020, according to a Pentagon report on civilian casualties that was released on Wednesday and immediately faced charges of being a whitewash."
The annual report vastly understates civilians killed by the U.S. military, and condolence payments are not offered even in confirmed cases.
he U.S. military killed 23 civilians and injured another 10 in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia during 2020, according to a Pentagon report on civilian casualties that was released on Wednesday and immediately faced charges of being a whitewash. Experts said the report vastly undercounts the dead and wounded from U.S. military operations, and they noted that the Pentagon failed to provide condolence payments even in the handful of cases where it acknowledges causing deaths or injuries.
“The failure to accurately account and make amends for civilian harm does a disservice to civilians already suffering unimaginable loss, as well as to the Americans who deserve fuller transparency into the ways that U.S. operations have harmed civilians,” Annie Shiel, the senior adviser for U.S. policy and advocacy at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told The Intercept. She also noted an “enormous discrepancy between DoD’s civilian casualty numbers and those published by civilian harm tracking organizations, human rights groups, the United Nations, and the media.”
A conservative accounting of civilians killed by the U.S. military in 2020, according to Airwars, a U.K.-based airstrike monitoring group, is almost five times higher: 102 noncombatant deaths resulting from U.S. attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. And as Chris Woods, the director of Airwars, pointed out, “The Pentagon’s failure to pay out any compensation to affected civilians during 2020 – despite several million dollars being available for that purpose — suggests a lack of interest in the devastating aftermath of those U.S. actions which go wrong.”
The Pentagon’s dramatic undercount does not include any of the secret attacks carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency, which the U.S. government does not acknowledge. Nor does it take into account the civilian toll resulting from assistance to allies, such as Saudi Arabia, whose bombing campaign has killed thousands of civilians in Yemen.
In past years, the U.S. has provided condolence payments to civilians it acknowledged harming in its operations. Payouts can vary widely, from $125 to $15,000 for a civilian killed in Afghanistan. From 2015 to 2019, the U.S. paid $2 million in condolence payments to civilians there.
Despite a dedicated annual Department of Defense fund of $3 million for payments for deaths, injuries, or damages resulting from U.S. or allied military actions, the new report notes that the Defense Department “did not offer or make any such ex gratia payments during 2020.”
The reasons behind the lack of payments and whether any are pending remain opaque. Michael Howard, a Defense Department spokesperson, told The Intercept that “numerous factors can affect a commander’s decision to offer an ex gratia payment” and “details on the numbers of payments planned or in progress are not available on short notice.”
Experts were vexed by the failure to provide payments. “Congress has repeatedly authorized funding for ex gratia payments for civilian harm, and, confoundingly, the DoD has repeatedly failed to make substantial use of those funds despite the large number of cases where the department has confirmed civilian casualties,” said CIVIC’s Shiel.
This latest annual report covers U.S. military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, as well as Nigeria, where a hostage rescue mission was conducted in 2020. It also adds to the Pentagon’s official toll an additional 63 civilian deaths and 22 injuries during 2017 to 2019, mostly in Iraq and Syria.
The Pentagon, Howard noted, continues to “assess new reports concerning past operations after they are received and reconsiders previous assessments if new relevant information comes to light.”
Rather than deploying its sizable resources to conduct comprehensive investigations, experts said that the Pentagon appears to be outsourcing the legwork to human rights groups and journalists — and then only deeming a few cases credible.
“It appears many of the civilian casualties acknowledged in the report come from outside groups or sources asking the military to review its strikes or actions,” Priyanka Motaparthy of Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute told The Intercept. “We just don’t see the signs that there’s a serious effort to understand the full impact of U.S. military operations on civilians.”
The Pentagon report marks only the third time the U.S. has acknowledged killing or wounding civilians in Yemen. Last May, the Pentagon stated that it “did not identify any civilian casualties resulting from U.S. military operations in Yemen” in 2019, but the new Defense Department report now acknowledges the killing of one civilian in Al Bayda, Yemen, on January 22, 2019.
An investigation by the Yemen-based Mwatana for Human Rights, published earlier this year, revealed that an airstrike in Al Bayda on January 21 or 22, 2019, killed Saleh Ahmed Mohamed Al Qaisi, a 67-year-old farmer and painter who locals said had no terrorist affiliations. A witness told Mwatana that a “drone” conducted an airstrike on Saleh’s car. “We are being killed in cold blood,” said a family member.
“The U.S. military has spent nearly 20 years killing people in Yemen but still hasn’t worked out how to properly investigate and ensure accountability,” said Radhya al-Mutawakel, the chairperson of Mwatana for Human Rights. “This new, belated admission by the U.S. military shows how inadequate initial US assessments of its own operations are. Its records cannot be trusted.”
Over four years, the Trump administration conducted at least 181 attacks in Yemen, nearly the same total as President Barack Obama carried out during eight years in office. Attacks under Trump resulted in an estimated 76 to 154 civilian deaths, according to Airwars. The Defense Department, however, claims that as few as 13 civilians may have been killed and two wounded in three attacks during that same four-year span.
U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, only acknowledged the January 2019 civilian death about five months after Mwatana presented evidence that Saleh Ahmed Mohamed Al Qaisi was a noncombatant. It’s become a pattern: The Pentagon’s previous Yemeni civilian casualty admissions, both stemming from attacks in 2017 under Trump, followed reporting by The Intercept of a massacre of Yemenis by Navy SEALs and an Airwars investigation of an airstrike that the Pentagon later said wounded two civilians.
“There’s no evidence of CENTCOM ever having reported civilian harm from its actions in Yemen, unless first prompted by media or NGOs. That suggests in our view a lack of command prioritization on this vital issue,” Woods said. “Airwars was shocked to learn for example that — despite reported civilian harm having escalated sharply in Yemen under Donald Trump — no permanent civilian casualty assessment team was created to review such claims.”
Earlier this year, the Biden administration suspended looser Trump-era targeting “principles,” imposed temporary limits on counterterrorism “direct action” operations, requiring White House approval for drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional war zones like Afghanistan, and launched a review of such operations. This changes nothing for victims of past attacks, however.
Mwatana reported that Saleh Ahmed Mohamed Al Qaisi was his family’s primary breadwinner and his car, on which his relatives relied, cost thousands of dollars. Other families have also experienced financial hardship in the wake of attacks where the U.S. has admitted civilian casualties but offered no ex gratia payments, despite funds being available in the Pentagon’s budget.
“It is astonishing that the U.S. military has acknowledged new reports of civilian deaths but has not made a single payment to an affected civilian, or as far as we know, any offer of assistance,” said Motaparthy of Human Rights Institute. “Acknowledging errors is an important step but those harmed are left to rebuild their lives and recover from losses with nothing.”
Immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. (photo: Eric Gay/AP)
US Taps Humanitarian Groups to Determine Which Asylum-Seekers Should Gain Entry
Associated Press
Excerpt: "The Biden administration has quietly tasked six humanitarian groups with recommending which migrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. instead of being rapidly expelled from the country under federal pandemic-related powers that block people from seeking asylum."
The government aims to admit up to 250 asylum-seekers a day who are referred by the humanitarian groups and is agreeing to the system only until July 31.
he Biden administration has quietly tasked six humanitarian groups with recommending which migrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. instead of being rapidly expelled from the country under federal pandemic-related powers that block people from seeking asylum.
The groups will determine who is most vulnerable in Mexico, and their criteria has not been made public. It comes as large numbers of people are crossing the southern border and as the government faces intensifying pressure to lift the public health powers instituted by former President Donald Trump and kept in place by President Joe Biden during the coronavirus pandemic.
Several members of the consortium spoke to The Associated Press about the criteria and provided details of the system that have not been previously reported. The government is aiming to admit to the country up to 250 asylum-seekers a day who are referred by the groups and is agreeing to that system only until July 31. By then, the consortium hopes the Biden administration will have lifted the public health rules, though the government has not committed to that.
So far, a total of nearly 800 asylum-seekers have been let in since May 3, and members of the consortium say there is already more demand than they can meet.
The groups have not been publicly identified except for the International Rescue Committee, a global relief organization. The others are London-based Save the Children; two U.S.-based organizations, HIAS and Kids in Need of Defense; and two Mexico-based organizations, Asylum Access and the Institute for Women in Migration, according to two people with direct knowledge who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not intended for public release.
Asylum Access, which provides services to people seeing asylum in Mexico, characterized its role as minimal.
The effort started in El Paso, Texas, and is expanding to Nogales, Arizona.
A similar but separate mechanism led by the American Civil Liberties Union began in late March and allows 35 families a day into the United States at places along the border. It has no end date.
The twin tracks are described by participating organizations as an imperfect transition from so-called Title 42 authority, named for a section of an obscure 1944 public health law that Trump used in March 2020 to effectively end asylum at the Mexican border. With COVID-19 vaccination rates rising, Biden is finding it increasingly difficult to justify the expulsions on public health grounds and faces demands to end it from the U.N. refugee agency and members of his own party and administration.
Critics of the new selection processes say too much power is vested in a small number of organizations and that the effort is shrouded in secrecy without a clear explanation of how the groups were chosen. Critics also say there are no assurances that the most vulnerable or deserving migrants will be chosen to seek asylum.
Some consortium members are concerned that going public may cause their offices in Mexico to be mobbed by asylum-seekers, overwhelming their tiny staffs and exposing them to potential threats and physical attacks from extortionists and other criminals.
The consortium was formed after the U.S. government asked the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees’ office in Mexico for the names of organizations with deep experience and capacity in Mexico, said Sibylla Brodzinsky, a spokeswoman for the U.N. office.
“We’ve had long relationships with them and they’re trusted partners,” she said.
The groups say they are merely streamlining the process but that the vulnerable migrants’ cases can come from anywhere.
In Nogales, Arizona, the International Rescue Committee is connecting to migrants via social media and smartphones to find candidates. It plans to refer up to 600 people a month to U.S. officials, said Raymundo Tamayo, the group’s director in Mexico.
Special consideration is being given to people who have been in Mexico a long time, are in need of acute medical attention or who have disabilities, are members of the LGBTQ community or are non-Spanish speakers, though each case is being weighed on its unique circumstances, Tamayo said.
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said advocacy groups are in “a very difficult position because they need to essentially rank the desperation” of people, but he insisted it was temporary. The government, he said, “cannot farm out the asylum system.”
Migration experts not involved in the process have questioned how the groups determine who is eligible.
“It has been murky,” said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute who believes the administration is trying to quietly be humane without encouraging more people to come, a balancing act she doubts will succeed.
“Setting out clear and accurate information about how and who might get in might lead to fewer migrants making the trip, so there’s not this game of chance that kind of seems to be in place right now,” Bolter said.
U.S. border authorities recorded the highest number of encounters with migrants in more than 20 years in April, though many were repeat crossers who had previously been expelled from the country. The number of children crossing the border alone also is hovering at all-time highs.
Against that backdrop, some advocates are seeing the makings of the “humane” asylum system that Biden promised during his campaign. Details have been elusive, with administration officials saying they need time.
Susana Coreas, who fled El Salvador, was among those identified as vulnerable and allowed into the United States last month. Coreas spent more than a year in Ciudad Juarez waiting to apply for asylum but was barred by the public health order.
She and other transgender women refurbished an abandoned hotel to have a safe place to stay after they felt uncomfortable at a number of shelters in the rough Mexican city.
But they continued to have problems. One woman had a knife pointed at her. Another had a gun pulled on her.
There was so much anxiety,” Coreas said. “I now feel at peace.”
Police stand guard after protesters set fire to dumpsters after a vigil was held for Winston Boogie Smith Jr. on June 5, 2021. (photo: Christian Monterrosa/AP)
Protests Erupt in Minneapolis Over Man Fatally Shot by Deputies
Associated Press
Excerpt: "Protesters faced off with police officers in Minneapolis early on Saturday over the shooting of a man by members of a US Marshals taskforce."
Nine arrested on possible charges including suspicion of riot and arson after Thursday shooting of Winston Boogie Smith Jr
rotesters faced off with police officers in Minneapolis early on Saturday over the shooting of a man by members of a US Marshals taskforce.
It was the second night of protests in response to the fatal shooting on Thursday in the Uptown neighborhood.
Photos from the scene following a vigil for Winston Boogie Smith Jr, who was 32, showed dumpster fires in the street and a line of officers standing guard.
Members of the US Marshals Fugitive Task Force were trying to arrest Smith on a warrant for allegedly being a felon in possession of a gun.
Authorities said Smith fired a gun before two deputies shot him while he was inside a parked vehicle.
Family and friends described Smith as a father of three often harassed by police. They demanded transparency in the investigation and asked that anyone who might have video footage should come forward.
Police said some people vandalized buildings and stole from businesses after the shooting on Thursday. Nine people were arrested on possible charges including suspicion of riot, assault, arson and damage to property.
Minneapolis has been on edge since the killing of George Floyd just over a year ago, and the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright by an officer in nearby Brooklyn Center in April.
Wright was killed as the city awaited a verdict in the trial of the officer who killed Floyd when he knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.
Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder.
A hand typing on a computer keyboard. (photo: Westend61/Imago Images)
The FBI Is Trying to Get IP Addresses and Phone Numbers of People Who Read a USA Today Article
Mitchell Clark, The Verge
Clark writes: "The FBI is trying to get a list of IP addresses, phone numbers, and other information on people who read a USA Today article about the deaths of two of its agents (via Politico)."
The Bureau wants info on who read a specific article at a specific time
he FBI is trying to get a list of IP addresses, phone numbers, and other information on people who read a USA Today article about the deaths of two of its agents (via Politico). The subpoena (PDF) says it relates to a criminal investigation, and is seeking the information of readers who accessed the article in a specific 35-minute timespan, but it’s unclear who or what the Bureau is trying to track down. USA Today is fighting back against handing over the information, calling the request unconstitutional.
“We were surprised to receive this subpoena particularly in light of President Biden’s recent statements in support of press freedom. The subpoena is also contrary to the Justice Department’s own guidelines concerning the narrow circumstances in which subpoenas can be issued to the news media,” USA Today publisher Maribel Perez Wadsworth said in a statement emailed to The Verge.
The article in question was one published on February 2nd, 2021, about a shootout that occurred when FBI agents tried to execute a search warrant in a child pornography case, resulting in the deaths of two FBI agents and the suspect. The subpoena, filled by an FBI special agent, requests a large amount of information about the devices that accessed the article from 7:03PM ET to 7:38PM ET on the evening it was published.
It’s unclear why the request was made, given that the suspect described in the article was, by the time the article was published, reported to be dead. Whatever the FBI is looking for, USA Today says in its court filing (PDF) that the request violates the First Amendment, citing multiple rulings from previous cases where the government was not allowed access to similar records. It also argues that the FBI accessing the general records of who read a story could put a cooling effect on its journalistic efforts — as a Supreme Court Justice cited in the motion put it in 1953, the government asking for this kind of information can make people feel like someone is reading over their shoulder.
Perez Wadsworth said in the statement that USA Today’s attorneys attempted to contact the FBI before moving forward to fight the subpoena in court. “Despite these attempts, we never received any substantive reply nor any meaningful explanation of the asserted basis for the subpoena,” she said. “We intend to fight the subpoena’s demand for identifying information about individuals who viewed the USA TODAY news report. Being forced to tell the government who reads what on our websites is a clear violation of the First Amendment.”
She added that USA Today has asked the court to quash the subpoena “to protect the important relationship and trust between USA TODAY’s readers and our journalists.”
Protesters carry signs during the plantón or sit-in in San Juan, May 3, 2021. (photo: María B. Robles López/NACLA)
Gender Violence in Puerto Rico: Where Is the State of Emergency?
Aurora Santiago Ortiz, NACLA
Santiago Ortiz writes: "On May 3 at 3pm, hundreds of feminists of different genders and ages gathered at the intersection of Calle de la Resistencia and Calle del Cristo in colonial Old San Juan."
In Puerto Rico, two recent femicides sparked renewed feminist organizing to demand concrete action on gender violence.
n May 3 at 3pm, hundreds of feminists of different genders and ages gathered at the intersection of Calle de la Resistencia and Calle del Cristo in colonial Old San Juan. Puerto Rico was reeling from the recent femicides of Andrea Ruiz and Keishla Rodriguez at the hands of their intimate partners, and the Black feminist organization La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción had convened a march. Masked participants carried signs with messages such as “Vivas y libres” (alive and free), “Estoy harta = Ni una más” (I’m fed up, not one more), and “Queremos vivir en paz, no descansar” (We want to live in peace, not rest).
As the sun began to set, the demonstrators remained in front of La Fortaleza, the governor’s mansion. With chants of “De aquí no nos vamos/esta noche nos quedamos” (We’re not leaving/we’re staying the night), the plantón, or sit-in, began. By 7:30pm, there was still a large crowd banging pots rhythmically with tambourines, facing the line of police guarding the colonial bastion. Tents were set up to house those spending the night, and a tarp nearby provided shelter to others. In the early hours of May 4, Zoan Tanis Dávila, spokesperson of La Cole, read a statement that demanded accountability from Governor Pedro Pierluisi and his administration. The day marked 100 days since Pierluisi had declared a state of emergency to address the crisis of femicides and gender violence in the archipelago, where a woman is killed every seven days. La Cole, along with other feminist organizations demanded: “Where is the state of emergency?”
After the femicides of Andrea Ruiz and Keishla Rodriguez, collective rage and indignation engulfed the feminist movement. Activists condemned the media’s sensationalizing of the cases, and in the case of Andrea—and many other women and femmes—the failure of the criminal justice system to protect her. Two judges in the Caguas court had denied Andrea’s petition for a restraining order against the man that took her life.
La Cole has been at the forefront of direct action demanding that the government declare a state of emergency to address the femicides. In 2018, La Cole held a plantón in front of La Fortaleza, demanding that former Governor Ricardo Rosselló implement a state of emergency. He did no such thing, and neither did his successor, Wanda Vázquez Garced. Vázquez Garced instead declared a weaker state of national alert that ordered government agencies to prioritize prevention, protection, and security services for all women. However, La Cole denounced that this measure did little to concretely address the state of emergency.
The May 3 plantón kicked off a series of protests all around the archipelago coordinated by La Cole. Although the government formed a committee to implement the state of emergency, there have been no notable action steps, as Melody Fonseca explains to me in this interview. Fonseca is a member of La Cole, as well as assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras and researcher at the Institute of Caribbean Studies.
I interviewed Fonseca, 35, along with two collaborators of La Cole, Thalia Fajardo Crespo and Verónica del Carmen Figueroa Huertas, who organized demonstrations in the towns of Mayaguez and Caguas, respectively. For Fajardo Crespo, 27, a doctoral student in physical education and recreational therapist, this was her first time organizing a demonstration. She is a resident of the town of Hormigueros, located on the Western coast of the main island. Figueroa Huertas, 26, a former student movement activist and leader known for her participation in the 2017 student strike at the University of Puerto Rico, was a core member of La Cole in 2018-19 and remains a collaborator of the organization. She is originally from Caguas, although she currently lives in San Juan. Our exchanges have been edited for length and clarity.
Aurora Santiago Ortiz: What steps has the government taken to implement the state of emergency?
Melody Fonseca: It doesn’t seem like a state of emergency has been declared in Puerto Rico to address gender violence. We’re not seeing massive educational campaigns to address the issue. We’re not seeing any streamlining of the restraining order process or in the way data or statistics regarding gender violence is collected. There is also a lack of transparency and communication about what steps the government appointed committee is taking to address the issue.
The series of protests were meant to demand that the state and its institution—the executive, department of state, police headquarters, and the municipalities—[take action], and [to] hold them accountable. That is part of our role as a political organization, to hold these institutions accountable for their lack of transparency and implementation of the state of emergency.
ASO: Who is the most affected by the state of emergency?
MF: As a Kilómetro Cero report noted, data on gender violence is so sparse, it is impossible to cross-reference data for variables such as income and race. But we don’t need the statistics to know that gender violence is always exerted upon brutalized, hypersexualized, and dehumanized bodies. In Puerto Rico, those racial and gender dynamics are much more violent towards Black and poor women, and manifest in a lack of resources and support to address gender violence, but also the lack of seriousness they experience when going to the police to file a report or restraining order.
The lack of data to cross-reference constitutes violence against Black and poor women. Even with the declaration of a state of emergency and public policy, many issues are excluded because they are not treated with the specificity they deserve. We need education with a gender perspective that is transversal and intersectional to develop more specific proposals.
ASO: When did the series of protests begin and what specific institutions were impacted?
MF: We began on Monday, May 3 with the feminist plantón and camped in front of La Fortaleza and ended on Friday, May 7. As a result of the call to action, the PARE (the gender violence Prevention, Support, Rescue, and Education) committee called an emergency meeting, and Governor Pierluisi released a statement acknowledging that in effect, the state of emergency had to be implemented.
Wednesday, May 5, we held a demonstration in front of the Justice Department. We were told that the Justice Secretary wanted to meet with Shariana [Ferrer Núñez] and Zoan [Dávila], spokespeople for La Cole. However, one thing that we were adamant about during the week of protests was that we were not holding closed door meetings with any public officials. If the Justice Secretary wanted to meet with La Colectiva, he had to come down because the meeting was not with La Cole, but with all those that were convened that day. We wanted to know what he was doing as attorney general to ensure that prosecutors and their staff address gender violence cases correspondingly. In that exchange, we demanded concrete action steps the next day that he accepted. One of these steps was to immediately begin designing mandatory gender perspective workshops for prosecutors and Justice Department personnel in order to work with survivors of gender violence.
On Thursday, May 6, we went to the PR Police Bureau Headquarters and a similar dynamic occurred. The Police Chief came down to talk to us but the exchange with him was more violent. We wanted to know what the police have been doing to address the state of emergency, what changes are happening internally to better deal with calls reporting gender violence, and how they are addressing the issue of gender violence within the police force. The Police Chief had a sort of “All Lives Matter” discourse that was also violent and placed the burden on women to help the police.
Since that was his approach, the possibility of concretizing actionable steps was null. When we challenged the accuracy of what he said, and that it reproduced that same violence that we want to eradicate, he got angry and left. The only point he agreed to was to expedite the processes, whatever that means.
The next phase was on Friday, May 7, when the sal pa fuera (go all out) happened in different towns. This campaign was interesting because La Cole put out a call for autonomous organizing, so comrades not formally part of La Cole or participating in other organizations took part. We prepared an organizing kit with a checklist, protest chants, and general guidelines. We also urged those organizing the demonstrations to find out the specific context of each municipality—for example, if there are ordinances that specifically address gender violence—in preparation for the demonstration. Thirty-nine demonstrations were organized in different municipalities all over the archipelago, most of them simultaneously. The common demand was: “Where is the state of emergency?”
ASO: Thalia, what led you to organize the May 7 demonstration in Mayaguez?
Thalia Fajardo Crespo: It was a pressure cooker that exploded. I knew we were going to do something in the west coast because I knew comrades were already organizing in the area. After La Colectiva held a large demonstration, we began meeting to coordinate from our own localities, and I became the point person in Mayaguez. It was a special moment because we were able to collaborate with others such as las Alacenas Feministas, and Siempre Vivas, who joined the protests. About 50 people attended the demonstration. One comrade provided the tent, the other the sound system, and I set up an area so that the kids that attended the demonstration could paint and express themselves.
The first thing the police asked us was if we had a permit. We were prepared for this kind of encounter and knew that we didn’t need one. When we tried to hang up signage in city hall, the police told us we could not because they were blocking the entrance. We held the signs in the main entrance. More police arrived, including state police, as well as the press. We then moved to the town square, where we had an altar for the dead and poured red ink in the fountain. The municipal employees came and were upset and told us they had to clean up the fountain. There were children, mothers, and very few men.
ASO: Did anyone in city hall meet with you?
TFC: No one came to talk to us, even though they were there.
ASO: Verónica, tell us about the demonstration in Caguas.
Verónica Figueroa Huertas: Everything happened very quickly. I was part of the organizing committee that had contact with folks in different municipalities. Even though I was born and raised in Caguas, I haven't lived there in a while, which produced mixed feelings about whether or not to coordinate a demonstration, but I know a lot of folks doing grassroots work there. Urbe Apie, the Caguas Mutual Aid Center, and the Community Kitchens are groups doing organizing work in the urban hub of Caguas. Various organizations held a demonstration Thursday, May 6, before La Cole had convened protests. That demonstration was highly attended, but we decided to do [another] one anyway because folks wanted Caguas to join the national call to action. During Thursday’s protest we passed out flyers that listed our main demands. About 25-30 people attended Friday’s protest.
ASO: Did the mayor come out to talk to you?
VFH: He did not because he had another commitment. A representative from the Caguas Office of Women’s Services (Oficina de la Mujer) came out and talked to us. They provide reports and direct services, but they don’t have a gender violence prevention campaign and the rep explained that this was due to lack of funding. I was more interested in what still needs to be done because in the case of Andrea, two judges denied issuing a restraining order, and she was later killed by her ex-partner.
The [Oficina de la Mujer] representative agreed to five of our demands, two of which have been met. One was calling for a public statement by the mayor of Caguas calling for the release of the recordings and documentation of the hearings where Ruiz requested a restraining order against her ex-partner, Miguel Ocasio Santiago. And he did. They also made good on our demand that the municipal government make available statistics on gender violence in the city. They are available on the municipality’s website. Another point that the mayor’s rep agreed to verbally was that the mayor publish a letter to the governor demanding that the funds allocated to address the state of emergency be expedited. We also scheduled a follow up meeting during the first week of June to address the remaining three demands.
The educational campaign is the main demand, and it’s doable since they already have one around Covid-19 prevention. We also got the mayor’s rep to agree to adapt a Senate Bill that codifies street harassment as a criminal offense as a municipal ordinance.
I think gender violence will continue to increase. The more feminists take to the streets, there will be confrontations in the domestic sphere, aggressors will become emboldened, and women empowered. Cases will rise. It doesn’t end with these demonstrations.
ASO: Looking ahead, what are the ultimate goals of these protests and what gives you hope to continue doing this work?
TFC: We are going to continue organizing to reach other spaces, such as the mall, to bring the message. The goal is to destroy the patriarchy. Live in peace. Short term, to implement the state of emergency.
VFH: I think that La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción is and will continue to be a key organization in the country’s struggle because it is foregrounding antiracist discourse. This is something that maybe other organizations do in their study circles, or in passing, but not as an issue to be incorporated in the struggle and in everyday life. I think more and more young people, particularly women and femmes, will become part of these activist spaces.
MF: Looking ahead, there are various phases. The most immediate is that the state understand the organized feminist political struggle in Puerto Rico, particularly from La Colectiva, is one of constant demand for accountability. Even if the state of emergency is implemented, we will continue to organize.
I think that, post-state of emergency, [the horizon] has to do with work anchored in communities, towards a society that articulates itself from an abolitionist praxis and perspective. We know this is complicated because, in the context of Keishla and Andrea, there is a push towards punitive governance, where the full weight of the law has to be applied, including the death penalty for Felix Verdejo [Keishla’s presumed killer]. How do we manage that rage and indignation and re-channel them as something liberatory against systems of oppression, not in a way that reinforces those systems?
Giant Sequoia National Monument on Oct. 28, 2020, in Springville, California. The Castle Fire burned through portions of about 20 giant sequoia groves on the western slopes of the Sierra. (photo: Al Seib/LA Times)
Monarch Sequoias Can Live 3,000 Years, but Earth Lost 10% of Them All in 2020
Climate Nexus
cientists have known last year's Castle Fire was probably the most destructive for California's famously fire-resilient sequoias in at least 700 years, but a draft National Park Service report obtained by the Visalia Times-Delta puts a quantitative measurement on that fire's climate-fueled toll.
Between 7,500 and 10,000 monarch sequoias — about 10% to 14% of the world's mature sequoia population — perished in the fire. "I cannot overemphasize how mind-blowing this is for all of us. These trees have lived for thousands of years. They've survived dozens of wildfires already," Christy Brigham, chief of Resources Management and Science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, told the Times-Delta.
Redwood forests are some of the world's most efficient when it comes to removing carbon from the atmosphere, and also provide critical wildlife habitat and watershed protection for farmers and communities in the San Joaquin Valley. The loss numbers, derived from satellite data, will be confirmed visually when scientists are able to hike the high-elevation groves still covered in snow.
"Not much in my life in the natural world has made me cry, but this did," Nate Stephenson, a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey who works in the park and has been studying sequoias for years, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It hit me like a ton of bricks."
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