HOUSTON Puerto Ricans, U.S. citizens whose homes, schools, hospitals, businesses and island were smashed by devastating Hurricane Maria last Sept. 20 plus Hurricane Irma -- are still powerless due to federal government inaction and indifference to their suffering, the Mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto, says.
In videoed remarks from her city, the commonwealths capital, Cruz Soto declared 40 percent of the islands 3.5 million residents still do not have electricity, months after the storm. And thats not all.
Other reports put the real death toll from the hurricanes at more than 1,000 people, and damage at $95 billion and counting. And more than 30,000 people were added to the jobless rolls on an island already suffering from double-digit unemployment.
Cruz Soto described the conditions on Jan. 14 while accepting, by video, the Justice, Peace and Freedom Award at the AFL-CIOs annual Martin Luther King commemorative conference, held this year in Houston. She headlined a list of honorees which also included union leaders and Texan battlers for human rights and civil rights.
This award is not about me, she told the 1,000 conference attendees. This is about the 40 percent who do not have power and who are powerless even though all men and women are created equal.
You cannot pursue happiness when you are shackled in poverty, the mayor declared.
Cruz Soto hit the national spotlight last year after the storms when she walked the devastated streets of her city and described how the GOP Trump Administration, especially its Federal Emergency Management Agency, was and is failing Puerto Ricans. President Donald Trump came to the island later and drew scorn by throwing rolls of paper towels to a crowd.
Congress ruling Republicans have been no help, either. Past federal disaster relief legislation went through Capitol Hill without lawmakers demanding offsets cuts elsewhere before aid could flow. But Trump said Puerto Ricans want everything given to them and congressional Republicans have delayed the aid until they make those cuts.
Aid to Texas and Florida, which Hurricane Maria also hit and which Trump carried in the 2016 election has also been delayed. But theres been no talk of offsetting cuts. Puerto Ricans, as residents of a commonwealth, not a state, cant vote for president and dont have voting representation in Congress.
The federal response has been so inadequate, Cruz Soto said, that the United Nations has declared the failure a violation of human rights and the human condition. Then she thanked the nations unions, who have also sent thousands of volunteers and tons of practical aid, to Puerto Rico.
Help us and never forget us, because we still have a long way to go before we can say, as Dr. King did, Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, were free at last, she added.
By contrast, American Federation of Teachers Secretary-Treasurer Loretta Johnson told the crowd of results so far of the unions Operation Agua, to get potable (drinkable) fresh water and water filtration systems to the island, where water as well as power was knocked out. Johnson said 3,849 water filters have been distributed to schools serving 270,000 students and were halfway to our goal of 1.6 million filters for individual homes.
Source: PAI