On Monday, October 2 at 1:00 pm, the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) will be visiting the offices of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. to ask that international human rights observers are sent to Puerto Rico to witness the extent of the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria and whether the recovery efforts are putting poor people before profits or are further contributing to Puerto Rico’s economic crisis. We, the poor, are calling on the international community to witness the U.S. government’s treatment of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, and ensure that our families, friends, and loved ones receive the resources and justice they require.
Even before Hurricane Maria, due to centuries of colonial dispossession, Puerto Rico was facing an economic crisis with high unemployment rates and the highest migration to the mainland in the history of the island. Our Puerto Rican friends and family are now facing the fiscal devastation and physical destruction of Hurricane Maria. They do not have drinking water and their homes, shelters, and hospitals are still without power. There is intense flooding in neighborhoods that do not normally experience floods.
Our loved ones are not receiving the necessary food, water, clothing, medicine, and fuel that they desperately need to survive. Those of us on the mainland of the United States are increasingly worried and frustrated because the resources we are collecting are not getting to those that need them most on the island. The bureaucracy created by the U.S. government is preventing the transport of assistance to Puerto Rico. Eliminating the Jones Act for ten days is not good enough.
The U.S. government needs to bail out Puerto Rico the way they bailed out U.S. banks. We call on the U.S. Congress to sufficiently fund emergency relief efforts, allow for the transport of resources, and stop putting profits over our people and abolish Puerto Rico’s debt immediately. Recovery efforts should also be placed directly in the hands of the Puerto Rican people and Puerto Rican-owned businesses, so that they can rebuild their communities themselves. Failing to provide necessary resources or issuing the contracts to rebuild to companies outside Puerto Rico is setting up our Puerto Rican people for continued economic crisis and displacement from their homes.