110 Years Under U.S. Thumb - The Hartford Courant - 25/07/08

Today is the 110th anniversary of the U.S. takeover of Puerto Rico, and, unfortunately, its status as one of the world's oldest colonies seems safe.

The United States invaded the island on July 25, 1898, and claimed it as booty after the Spanish-American War. Long since obsolete as a strategic outpost in the Cold War, the Caribbean island is America's best-kept secret: an unfree state within the land of the free.

The island, which had been a Spanish colony for 400 years, was never seriously considered for statehood. Ugly biases got in the way. For instance, in the early 20th century, Sen. Benjamin Tillman from South Carolina questioned whether the United States should take on "hundreds of thousands of mongrels of Spanish blood imbued with Spanish thought and action."

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Its governor, Anibal Acevedo Vila, has been indicted for corruption by prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department, something considered an intrusive act by many Puerto Ricans.

And the FBI, whose attempt to arrest independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios in his home in 2005 resulted in his death under questionable circumstances, continues to harass and indict independence movement members both on the island and in New York.

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