The following is a full English transcript of the AL PUNTO March 13, 2011 segment between host Jorge Ramos and Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner and pro-statehooder Perdo Pierluisi.
JR: What is happening in Puerto Rico? On this very same program Congressman Luis Gutiérrez announced that the island was in danger of losing its “fiber of democracy” and also said that for the first time in 30 years the police had entered the University of Puerto Rico and that young students were beaten. The Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner Perdo Pierluisi criticized Guitérrez and said that it was not fair to make comparisons between the protests against the Egyptian dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak and the protests against the Governor of the island Luis Fortuño. The Commissioner joins us right now via satellite from Washington, DC. Thanks for being with us.
PP: Good morning, Jorge, and good morning to the entire Hispanic community in the United States.
JR: Commissioner, I saw the images. I saw the Puerto Rican police beat the students. I saw the repression at the University of Puerto Rico. How can you justify this?
PP: Really, in the case of Puerto Rico, it is not different from other protests that we have seen of students when they confront increases in tuition. We saw it in the state of California in March of last year, thousands of students, hundreds of arrests, in cities such as Oakland, Sacramento, and in other cities in California. We saw it in Great Britain during November of last year when thousands of students suddenly, there were even fires, arrests, wounded…
JR: Yes, but in Puerto Rico…
PP: It’s sad.
JR: Commissioner, but how would you explain the violence of the police against Puerto Rican students? How can you justify this?
PP: No, well, there were isolated incidents that I saw myself where maybe there was use of excessive force by the police in managing these demonstrations and each time that happens in Puerto Rico in Puerto Rico we have the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of Puerto Rico, two legal systems—the federal one and the state one—that focus on responding and attending to the concerns of civil rights violations for all Puerto Ricans, including students…
A University of Puerto Rico student beaten by police and security forces
JR: The problem is that this doesn’t appear to be isolated in nature…
PP: In the case of Puerto Rico…
JR: They don’t appear to be isolated in nature…
PP: Yes, they were.
JR: The ACLU is talking about an investigation about possible violations of human rights. The spokesperson for the Division of Civil Rights for the federal Justice Department of the United States said that investigation is still pending from the year 2008 due to excessive force, actual unconstitutional events by the police of a discriminatory nature. These don’t appear to be isolated incidents.
PP: Well, once again, in cities like Los Angeles, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, the United States Justice Department has conducted similar investigations and they were completed with decrees and orders. In the case of Puerto Rico, as you state yourself, that comes from 2008 and it’s possible that they investigate particular incidents y recommend improvements in the way we mobilize the members of the Puerto Rican police force in a way that, well, they are pre-, that for example, when one of these police members exceeds because then measures are enforced so that this conduct does not repeat itself or they get kicked out of the police force. But Puerto Rico can be an example of democracy for the rest of the world. In Puerto Rico, we have, civil rights are respected, we have exemplary elections every four years. And to compare Puerto Rico with totalitarian and dictatorial regimes is nonsense, an insult to the Puerto Rican people.
JR: Commissioner, actually, Luis Gutiérrez, Congressman Luis Gutiérrez said the following on this program. Let’s listen to him:
Congressman Luis Gutiérrez
LG: But to see these attacks against the basic human and civil rights of the Puerto Rican people, if I don’t speak out, I am an accomplice and I permit that what is happening right now continues. They cannot continue with impunity destroying the fiber of democracy in Puerto Rico.
JR: This is something very different from what you are telling us, Commissioner. For Congressman Gutiérrez, democracy is at risk right now in Puerto Rico.
PP: That is completely false. It is really nonsense. In Puerto Rico we have exemplary elections. 80% of all Puerto Ricans votes every four years. And we have, like I said, two Constitutions, two legal systems, a Puerto Rican human rights commission, plus the federal one that protect the rights of our people. And it is clear that in the latest protests from the students, there was aggression against the university’s chancellor. And when what the police does, when there is no other alternative, well, you call the police to intervene and I am the first to note that if I saw the use of excessive force, I will condemn it. One thing is to denounce any incident where there is excessive use of force, it is another thing to come out and paint Puerto Rico as if it were a dictatorship like the one we have seen in Egypt for the last thirty years.
JR: I understand the differences, Commissioner.
PP: That is unsustainable.
JR: I understand the differences, but if there is not an environment of repression, if there is not an environment against the freedom of expression, why then was the President of the Puerto Rican Bar Association jailed?
PP: Oh, no, that is something totally different and separate…
JR: I understand, but that is the environment of life in Puerto Rico, what happened there?
PP: No, but let’s talk about that case in particular. There we are talking about a case that is in the United States courts and not Puerto Rico’s. It reached the 1st Circuit of Appeals of the United States. It’s a case that has to do with a lawsuit brought by a group of lawyers that became a class action suit from lawyers against that Bar Association and the federal judge, who was nominated by the President of the United States, that, that made that decision to order the jailing of the President of the Puerto Rican Bar Association, what he did was when they didn’t pay, the Bar Association refuses to pay and the President refuses to pay a $10,000 fine that the judge imposes on him for not following the orders of the federal court then it proceeds to this…
JR: But why put him in jail?
PP: Incarceration.
JR: But why put him in jail? You can’t have a dialogue with him?
PP: That is a decision of the federal judge, the court of the United States in Puerto Rico. It has nothing to do with the student protests, it has nothing do with the environment on the island…
Governor Luis Fortuño
JR: I understand, but this event occurred after a law was signed by the very own Governor, that is what I am referring to. Commissioner, do you think there is an environment of unrest in Puerto Rico? The Governor, during his campaign, clearly said that he wouldn’t fire public employees and at this moment at least 26,000 public employees have been fired, this is a, the Governor broke his promise, is there not unrest on the island for this also?
PP: No, look, in Puerto Rico this is what happened: in Puerto Rico Governor Fortuño inherited a government that was completely bankrupt, discredited in the finance markets in all of the United States and only after two years of reconstructing the government, put the house in order, the same houses that evaluate the credit of all the governments in the United States are giving him very positive grades saying that what is being profiled is a promising future in Puerto Rico…
JR: But…
PP: The environment in Puerto Rico is an environment of change. As to the employees who were fired, the exact number is 12,505 and we are seeing that other states that are having financial crises…
JR: But…
PP: They are proceeding to do the same thing because they have no alternative.
JR: But the Governor broke a promise because he did fire employees in the first place and you say that there is a promising future. The statistics that I have, tell a different story. In 2009, there was an unemployment rate of 13.3% and now the unemployment rate is at 15.9%. That doesn’t sound promising.
PP: Well, if we talk about the promise, it is very different to talk about a promise when one, well, the Governor made the promise, he does it under a premise. When he arrives to govern, he realizes that there is no…
JR: But you have to complete the promise…
PP: Money to pay for the first salaries…
JR: You have to complete the promise…
PP: Of public employees in fifteen, it was, impossible, impossible to complete the promise because the government didn’t have the money to pay…
JR: Then he shouldn’t have made the promise then.
PP: To make the first biweekly payment.
JR: If the politician doesn’t want to complete the promise, then why make it?
PP: When he does it… When he does it, he doesn’t understand the enormous financial crisis that he discovered when he came to the Fortaleza, when he came to govern. So then when it comes to the future, Puerto Rico has had more than five years under economic recession, but now we are starting to see how the economy is starting to experience a revival, finally. So that is why we are talking about, that we are seeing, the ship right itself again. This hasn’t been easy. What occurred to Governor Fortuño hasn’t occurred to any other Governor of Puerto Rico since the Great Depression. In other words, the important thing is that it maintains, that this gets evaluated in the given context. And so we will be having elections next year and once again our people will demonstrate that we do know about democracy and we do know how to choose our governor.
JR: Commissioner, thank you for being with us and thank you for answering all of our questions.
PP: Thank you, Jorge. Good morning to everyone.
JR: Thank you.
