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- from Guaynabo
by Ismael Guadalupe Torres
Message before the Federal Court in Puerto Rico, Monday, February 3, 2003 (translated by the CRDV)
...this building, a silhouette called tribunal, has been witness, accomplice, guilty of the thousands of sacrifices for peace and the overflowing of emotions, anguish, anger, and happiness that has kept our people afloat throughout our struggle. This tribunal is witness, accomplice, and guilty by omission and decision; in the omission of real justice and deciding to be immoral.
The history of my people [Viequenses] is sweet and sour; sweet in its cultivation of just ideals, but sour in its slavery of gunpowder and traitors. This history of the struggle of our heroic people serves as an example for the poor and humble peoples of Latin America. This historic struggle is the expression of the force and the pulse of the faith for peoples that have been humiliated by militarism. We are the light, we are the example; and because of that, today, this tribunal breathes mists of fear.
Today, this tribunal adheres to the negation of recognizing that our voice of conscience can take more than the beating by its canons; that our gun of justice can do more than your metallic birds of prey; that our will, expressed in civil disobedience, can do more than your millions and your foolish military intelligence; that our flag of Peace and of what is Moral has covered all our people from Punta Arenas to Salinas, from Fajardo to Mayagüez, Ponce, Cayey, and Arecibo...
Today I find myself here with my people, my family, and friends in this cage of concrete and iron made by outside and foreign interests; that respond to the plagues of capitalism and militarism that seeks to, under a slave-like force, make the rich even more richer on top of the ashes of humble and poor people. Today I find myself under this lens, accused of crossing a fence; but my action of crossing that nonexistent fence carries a major purpose; accusing me has another purpose. Mine alludes to what is moral and to the rescue of our civil rights, but your purpose alludes to your fear of seeing your powerful Navy defeated...
I come for peace and love for my people; as a people, we have been able to deter the gallop of the beast, war. War and shrapnel, the beating of our beaches, the wake of blood left by the ships, not only Viequense-Puerto Rican blood, but also of brother countries; shrapnel and mortar that will not quiet, but we shall make quiet, that insists on penetrating our land, yet hides behind war, death, and the green cash that quiets the voices of the weak... I armed myself with civil disobedience, disobedience to war, obedience to peace, and as such, I will never deny that I was and will continue being on that piece of Vieques defined as a restricted zone. Restricted to those who love her and want to free her; accessible for those that hate her and want to destroy her. Restricted, violated, asphyxiated, and contaminated zone. How many times have I entered that restricted area? The answer is very simple: We have never left it, we have always been there and will continue to be there. That metallic wall that used to be a fence does not exist anymore. Vieques is one single heart. You can impose on us your sentences and imprison us, but we will never be prisoners; our conscience makes us free. I borrow the liberationist poetry of Juan Antonio Corretjer:
I will never be imprisoned,
in enemy hands, so oppressed,
that my chest will not breathe freely...
-Ismael Guadalupe Torres
[Ismael Guadalupe Torres is serving a 140 day sentence for occupying the bombing range on Vieques, Puerto Rico.]
