Puerto Rican citizens demand the cancellation of the contract with the capitalist Canadian company LUMA Energy.

The Police of the State of Puerto Rico, a dependent territory of the United States, dispersed Thursday night a demonstration of dozens of Puerto Ricans in Old San Juan, who were staging a protest against LUMA Energy due to the constant power outages.

This is the most recent episode of the protests that have been shaking the Caribbean island for days, although it is the first one that culminated with a confrontation between demonstrators and police, and one person arrested.

The demonstrations followed calls made last Monday by a group of legislators from the House of Representatives and social organizations to mobilize as a way to put pressure on the pro-U.S. Governor Pedro Pierluisi to cancel the contract granted to LUMA Energy.

LUMA Energy is the consortium that since last year is in charge of the transmission and distribution of electricity in Puerto Rico, one of the results of the privatization of the network on the island controlled by the United States.

The population’s complaints are due to a spate of blackouts and other service interruptions over the past two weeks, which left hundreds of thousands of people, businesses and even hospitals without electricity.

Source: teleSUR

MINNEAPOLIS—The American Indian Movement (AIM) Grand Governing Council hosted a rally yesterday in Cedar Field Park to kick off a 15-week national walk demanding the release of Leonard Peltier.

The “Walk to Justice: Free Leonard Peltier” will travel from Minneapolis through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, ending in Washington, D.C. on November 14.

“This is not an easy thing to plan a national walk,” Rachel Thunder, lead walk organizer and director of AIM’s True People of Indiana and Kentucky Chapter, said during the rally. “This walk wouldn’t be possible without all of our communities coming together along the way. Our brothers and sisters are going to suffer at this ceremony, just as Leonard has suffered for our people.”

Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, was convicted of aiding and abetting in the murder of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in June 1975. His co-defendants, Dino Butler and Robert Robideau, were charged with two counts of murder and were acquitted under claims of self-defense.

The charge of aiding and abetting allows a court to convict someone guilty of a crime even if they are not the principal offender.

“Who could he have aided and abetted?” Lisa Bellanger, co-director of AIM’s Grand Convening Council, asked yesterday’s crowd. “We asked the federal government to release our elder and to release him now. And we told them that if it doesn’t happen, we’ll lift the spirit of the people, and we’ll walk to D.C.”

Many organizations have advocated for the release of Peltier and consider him America’s political prisoner. The federal appellate judge who oversaw Peltier’s appeal case, Gerald Heaney, later wrote a letter to former Chair on Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs Daniel Inouye in 1991 stating that the FBI conducted an improper investigation in securing Peltier’s extradition from Canada.

“Although our Court decided that these actions were not grounds for reversal, they are, in my view, factors that merit consideration in any petition for leniency filed,” Heaney wrote in 1991.

Peltier has been in prison for 46 years.

“The first time I’ve seen my dad was when I was two years old,” Peltier’s daughter, Kathy Peltier, said at yesterday’s rally.

Kathy was born in November 1975, months after the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation shootout in June of that year that led to Peltier’s conviction.

“I’ve been speaking about my dad since I could speak, and we know in our hearts that our dad is free,” Kathy said.

“The day of the shootout in 1975, the FBI created a narrative that some super soldier killed two FBI agents,” Dr. Nick Estes said during the rally. “But they don’t tell you that the vast majority of people at that shootout were under the age of 18.”

Musicians Mitch Walking Elk and Robby Romero closed the evening with performances and stories on their lifetime advocating for the release of Leonard Peltier. In 1992, both musicians performed at the United States Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.

For more information on the walk, please follow the “Walk to Justice: Free Leonard Peltier” Facebook page. Rallies and events will be hosted along the walk, with a convening in Washington, D.C. on November 14, 2022.

Source: Native News Online

The Biden administration is set to ramp up its arms sales to Taiwan with numbers that suggest Ukraine levels of escalation.

“The Biden administration plans to formally ask Congress to approve an estimated $1.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan that includes 60 anti-ship missiles and 100 air-to-air missiles, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the package,” Politico reports.

According to Politico, the over $1 billion arms package includes “60 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles for $355 million, 100 AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder tactical air-to-air missiles for $85.6 million, and $655.4 million for a surveillance radar contract extension, the people said. The Sidewinder missiles will arm Taipei’s U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets.”

“When it comes to the Taiwan question, the U.S. president is very much like the general sales manager of a big arms dealer,” Global Times writer Hu Xijin commented on Twitter.

The new escalation to send more advanced arms to Taiwan follows a month of four separate U.S. Congressional delegation visits. It started with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s grandstanding arrival Aug. 2 in a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-40 militarized aircraft.

On Aug. 28, the U.S. Navy sent a pair of warships through the Taiwan Strait for the first time since Pelosi’s trip.

U.S. warships in Chinese waters

CNN reported: “The guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville were on Sunday making the voyage ‘through waters where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law,’ the U.S. 7th Fleet in Japan said in a statement.”

A spokesperson for the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command said in response: “Troops of the (Eastern) Theater Command are on high alert and ready to foil any provocation at any time.”

“There is no legal basis for ‘international waters’ in the international law of the sea. It is false to call the Taiwan Strait international waters, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular news conference on June 13 when asked by a reporter from Bloomberg,” says Li Huan of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

Huan adds: “The term ‘international waters’ used by the Bloomberg reporter is not a formal legal term in the international law of the sea, but it is used informally by some countries to refer to ‘high seas.’… Situated between the mainland and the islands of a country, the Taiwan Strait connects the East China Sea and the South China Sea. …

“The Taiwan Strait is approximately 70 nautical miles at its narrowest and about 220 nautical miles at its widest. Under the [1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea] and Chinese law, the Taiwan Strait’s waters comprise China’s internal waters, territorial sea, contiguous zone, and exclusive economic zone. States have different rights and obligations over different waters, and different modes of navigation apply to different waters. …

“U.S. warships this year have been sailing in the Taiwan Strait about once a month on average. … Such [U.S. military] navigation borders on provocation by supporting Taiwan separatists and continually hollowing out and deflating the ‘One China’ policy.

“In accordance with the convention and Chinese law, China’s government enjoys sovereignty and jurisdiction over the waters of the Taiwan Strait, while respecting the legitimate rights of other countries in these waters. If this question is deliberately manipulated using the false claim that China is in violation of the rules of the international law of the sea, China certainly needs” to respond.

The U.S. military already encircles China with a chain of air bases and military ports. It wants to add bases in Taiwan.

Control of computer chip production

“Beyond being a military asset, Taiwan is the global center of production of computer chips, making it crucial for global supply chains and the production of electronics by U.S. companies,” Brendan Devlin reports in Passage, an independent media outlet in Canada.

“While in Taiwan, Pelosi had a meeting with the chairman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. The visit coincides with U.S. efforts to convince the company to set up a manufacturing base in the U.S. and to stop making advanced chips for Chinese companies.”

Under the One China policy, the U.S. — like the rest of the world — recognizes Taiwan as a part of China.

The unification of China has always been seen as an essential part of building socialist China. 

The Chinese constitution states: “Taiwan is part of the sacred territory of the People’s Republic of China. It is the lofty duty of the entire Chinese people, including our compatriots in Taiwan, to accomplish the great task of reunifying the motherland.” The Communist Party of China has always stressed its desire to achieve a peaceful reunification with Taiwan.

The escalation of arms from the U.S. to Taiwan, the expanded U.S. naval operations in the South China Sea and Strait of Taiwan, and the increasing frequency of the exercises by aircraft carrier strike groups threaten peace. These are war provocations and must be stopped.