Rosa Clemente is a community organizer, independent journalist, and hip-hop activist. She recently returned from Puerto Rico where she and other independent journalists are documenting the rapidly deteriorating conditions on the island.
Journalist Amy Goodman and JUAN GONZÁLEZ interviewed her recently. She has important information to share about the ghastly conditions occurring on the island. A few highlights below of the interview published by Democracy Now.
Welcome back to Democracy Now! You’ve been in Puerto Rico now for the past 13 days. Tell us what you saw on the ground.
ROSA CLEMENTE: Yeah, well, PR on the Map is an intergenerational, unfiltered group that I put together in less than 10 days, because I knew no one could tell the stories like we could tell.
So, look, the people of Puerto Rico are dying. They want a Puerto Rico without Puerto Ricans. So, from contaminated water to mothers who are not lactating, to babies having to eat mashed bananas because baby food cannot be found, to people getting on ice lines from 3 a.m. in the morning to 1 p.m. waiting for two bags of ice, this is massive violations of human rights. This is a colonial problem that began 119 years ago. And in my opinion, from what we’ve seen, the government has collapsed in Puerto Rico.
And we were able to get to places that the military said they couldn’t get to, in a Kia and a Hyundai Accent, all the way to Aguadilla, Moca, Utuado. People have not even seen one-tenth of what is happening in all these places
snip
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s turn to San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, her message to the Puerto Rican diaspora, the many Puerto Ricans living here in New York, in Florida, across the United States.
MAYOR CARMEN YULÍN CRUZ: When you are more than 50 years old, you’re afforded the opportunity of getting a little emotional. So I will say this the only way I know how to say it. To the young people out there, the diaspora: Coño, no nos dejen solos, usen su voz para que sean el eco de nuestras voces. Without you, we are done. The world will not know what is happening here, because the twists and turns of a man that knows nothing more but to tweet his hate away will take over. And we cannot let that happen. So it’s on us, but it’s on you, because, after all, we’re one nation. One nation.
snip
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was the San Juan mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz, in an interview with our guest, Rosa Clemente, for the project PR on the Map. Rosa, if you could talk about that? Because Carmen Yulín Cruz has been a target of President Trump for daring to question the relief effort of the federal government.
ROSA CLEMENTE: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you talk about her role?
ROSA CLEMENTE: Yeah. First, let’s just say that 45 is a megalomaniac white supremacist, and that’s what we’re dealing with, plain and simple. But Carmen Yulín Cruz has been—has become de facto the leader of Puerto Rico. She’s also the voice for the mayors that, to this day, have not received walkie-talkies, People might not understand, there’s 78 municipalities in Puerto Rico. That’s a political problem. There’s 77 mayors, and Mayor Cruz has become kind of the leader of Puerto Rico. She gave us an audio interview the day before, while she was getting a respiratory breathing thing, because she’s so overworked. And that next day, she gave us over an hour, and that exclusive video will drop on Friday. But there have been a little bit of critiques from, I think, people in San Juan who are saying she’s going to other places. But when we have more an extended conversation, we go, “Well, maybe because the mayors are completely isolated.” There is no FEMA.
When we were in Utuado, we went to the FEMA location. They weren’t trying to tell us where it was. There’s no signage of how to get there. A national guard, off the record, said, “Go here, go here.” We got there. There were over 40,000 meals that had not been distributed to the people in Utuado, but there was a complete military occupation of that town. And people said, “Why?” We asked, “Why do you think?” They said, “There’s copper. There’s potential uranium in these mines. And they want to take this city, you know, this part of the island, for that.”
One more snip
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to a clip.
MISTY, NATIONAL NURSES UNITED: How do I tell a mom whose 2-year-old can’t stop the diarrhea not to give her 2-year-old water because that’s what’s making her sick? And I don’t have anything to offer them. There’s no one coming. She lives up on a mountain using a car battery for electricity to try and put a fan on the baby. A car battery.
AMY GOODMAN: She was?
ROSA CLEMENTE: One of the many nurses that were there. One of the things that they’re saying is that they’re actually feeling a—fearing a cholera outbreak, the leptospirosis from all the rats, dead animals, that’s in the water. As well, they let us know that the U.S.S. Comfort, that is there, that can hold 3,000 patients—
x xYouTube VideoThe full interview can be read here and includes clip.
DONATION LINKS
Here’s some great agencies with aid-workers hard at work on the ground in PR right now:
You can donate right to the José Andrés’s Chef’s group at https://www.worldcentralkitchen.org
Hurricane Maria Community Recovery Fund
Catholic Relief Services Hurricane Relief (Caribbean-wide)
Here is a GoFundMe we can get behind as well. To help those in the most need, celebrities and others started sending their private planes to pick up cancer patients, elderly, people needing medical care, etc.
More donation sites worthy of contributions. Thanks for posting them bfitzinAR
DK ACT BLUE (and other) DISASTER RELIEF DONATION LINKS:
Hurricane Harvey relief organizationsHurricane Irma relief organizationsHere’s a link from Bill McKibben for an org to help Puerto Rico:
Hurricane Maria Community Recovery FundFrom Vetwife, Former Presidents Working for All Americans:
One America AppealAnother choice, from Denise Oliver Velez:
Unidos Fund, from the Hispanic Federation (After you click the orange DONATE button on the Unidos page, you’ll see a dropdown below your name & address. You can choose to donate to hurricane relief for PR, and also to Mexican earthquake relief.)And of course, h/t TexMex:
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