From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Puerto Rico: Dossiers on "subversives"
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 23:33:28 GMT

/** reg.puertorico: 32.1 **/
** Written  6:42 pm  Aug 31, 1992 by caribdoc in cdp:reg.puertorico **
From: Proyecto Caribeno de Justicia y Paz <caribdoc>
Subject: Puerto Rico:Political repression


DOSSIERS RANGE FROM ABSURD TO MALICIOUS.

New Analysis.
By Manny Suarez
Of The Star Staff

[Excerpt]

     The release this week [July 12, 1992] of Police Intelligence 
Division dossiers gathered for decades on people labeled "subversive" 
had tragicomic aspects.

     It was tragic, because in some cases the files cost people 
jobs. It also was comic, because of the nonthreatening nature of 
most of the supposedly "subersive"  activities of the dossiers' 
subjects.

     The Intelligence Division had prided itself that within two weeks 
of a motorist pasting a decal of a Puerto Rico flag on his bumper or 
windshield, it would have a file on the owner of the car.

     The Intelligence Division started in the 1930s as a duty by 
regular policemen to keep track on the Nationalist Party. During World 
War II, it became the Bureau of Internal Security, one of whose primary 
missions was to track down draft dodgers.

     ......some documents go back to the 1930s, but most files appear 
to originate in the 1950s, when the Puerto Rican equivalent of the U.S. 
Smith Act was in force.

     Like its U.S. counterpart, what became known as the Muzzle Law 
permitted the government to jail people without charges on the suspicion 
that they were plotting the overthrow of the government.

     It was also when the Nationalist Party carried out its most dramatic 
acts, including the 1950 uprising on the island that included an attempt 
to [kill] President Harry S. Truman in Washington and the 1954 shooting
attack on the U.S. Congress.

     About 1,000 independentistas- most of whom had nothing to do with the
uprising- were rounded up and jailed without charges in the wake of the
1950 violence. The law was repealed about two years later, but the 
Intelligence Division continued building its files.

     Over the past week(1), the dossiers have taken on the aspects of a status
symbol, and the bigger the file the subjects were seen carrying away, the
more admiring were the glances of those in the corridors.

     But there was little to laugh about how the intelligence unit went 
after WKAQ radio journalist Alberto Gonzalez Molina, delving deeply into 
his personal life. But humor could be found when he was categorized as "very
dangerous" by an anonymous sleuth "because he is the quiet type."

     Puerto Rican Journalists Association President Laura Candelas was 
surprised to learn that covering a hearing in federal court was considered 
subversive by the agents of the Intelligence Division. Among the suspicious 
activities the division said she was involved in was a hearing in U.S. 
District Court while she was a reporter for the nowdefunct newspaper, 
El Reportero.

     Candelas, who now works for The Associated Press, was categorized as 
"very dangerous for the country."

     When WKAQ-TV reporter Jose Esteves got his dossiers, he was surprised 
to find that he was also considered "very dangerous to the country" because
he was critical of the police government.

(1)The week before July 12th.

[THE SAN JUAN STAR, July 12, 1992, p. 8]
** End of text from cdp:reg.puertorico **
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive