 Okay, here we are. I think I have us live. Oh my gosh, folks, all of you in the audience. I think this is the first time I've been able to do this with the new restreven zoom protocols so thank you so much for bearing with me and I'm so happy to see all of you live. Oh my gosh, so let me get the program going because I'm really, really excited for you to meet my friend Monisha Rio so we're going to talk about Puerto Rico in this episode, which is part of Latin America and the Caribbean and that we don't talk about enough and that actually the people who in Puerto Rico are US citizens, but not full citizens so let me introduce the program and we can talk about all of all of this. Okay everyone, welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region in partnership with Black Alliance for Peace Haiti Americas team, code pink, common affairs, council on hemispheric affairs, friends of Latin America, interreligious task force on Central America, Massachusetts peace action and task force on the Americas. We broadcast Thursdays at 430pm Pacific 730pm Eastern right here on YouTube live including channels for the Convo couch popular resistance and code pink. The podcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts Spotify, Telegram, radindymedia.com and now under podcast at popular resistance.org. Today's episode, the devastating effects of militarization on Puerto Rico and her people, how one activist is promoting health justice for vehicles and Kulebra. And our guest is Monisha Rios. She is a Puerto Rican psychologist social worker and disabled US veteran. She is also the founder and director of Centro Solidario de Puerto Rico, which is one of the things we're going to be talking about in this episode. So before I have you meet her. Let me give you a little bit of background. So here we are the US has been overtly and covertly intervening in Puerto Rico's internal affairs since 1898. Like the Spanish, British, Dutch and the French, the US understood the strategic value of Puerto Rican of the Puerto Rican archipelago, which would give their expanding empire a military advantage toward enforcing the Monroe doctrine, thereby securing its established intent to dominate the Western hemisphere. A new wave of militarization began soon after the change of colonial ownership, the implications of which would devastate the island's municipalities of Kulebra and be a kiss. Kulebra was militarized in 1901 and expelled the US Navy in 1975, vehicles was militarized in 1941 and expelled the US Navy in 2003. And so in today's episode we're going to discuss this militarization. What it took to remove the US Navy from both of these parts of Puerto Rico and and what has remained of the island since and how the militarization has also affected the citizens of Puerto Rico. So welcome Monisha. Hello, thank you Terry for having me back. I'm so happy or our audience may remember Monisha from gosh we've had you visit us, at least twice I think. So, to talk about specifically to talk about the debt crisis in Puerto Rico but this episode, we're going to talk some about the history of Puerto Rico. And then we're going to talk about how we'll talk about your project, which I'm really excited about I should share with the audience Monisha said you know I'm really kind of nervous to talk tonight and it's, and this is a really very, very personal journey she's going to share with you in this episode, and, and a really fabulous project she has developed to help her, her fellow Puerto Rican citizens and our fellow US citizens so. So with that maybe we should get started. Sure. I'll follow your lead. Okay, so what. What we want to share with the audience in this episode is Monisha has a beautiful PowerPoint presentation that she is using to develop her project, which she's going to tell you about, and also to share some brief history about herself and in Puerto Rico and let me just. I want to just mention that her project is she's the founder and director of central solidarity of the Puerto Rico. And so we're going to do a little bit of personal history on Monisha and a little bit of history on Puerto Rico, so that you understand why she developed this project, what it is, and then what you can do to help. So that'll be your activist hat tonight. When you're done talking watching us you can, you can see you know what you can do to help our fellow US citizens of Puerto Rico. So why don't we start with your PowerPoint presentation. Sure. Let me just one sec. So, okay, before you start. I want everybody to see this beautiful graphic that she's used on on a title page. Whoops, and I want you all to see this beautiful graphic she's used on her title page because it is the graphic that I chose to use for this episodes. Social media shareable. And I have to say, Monisha that we got a lot of comments the last several days that we've been promoting this episode people. I just thought it was really, really beautiful the actual design of it, but also very poignant with, and very, and, and very cynical. Very tied to what you're doing, we're looking at bombs and explosives and then this man planting, which is so perfect for the project we're going to talk about. This piece came from an article in a Ryan magazine around about the food sovereignty programs that's happening in be a case. Currently, particularly La Colmena se Marona, which is an amazing, amazing, amazing effort that encourage everyone to contribute to it's food sovereignty so that we have clean food healthy food, because Puerto Rico as a whole, and especially in be a case in Culebra, we rely on imported food. So, a lot of our health related problems are a direct result of unhealthy food that is imported here. A lot of it has to do with the militarization of the land over time, as well as the other effects of colonization which mean that our land is not available to us to grow food to sustain ourselves. Rather, it's used for tourism it's used for particular industries that actually don't help improve the lives of our people. And it's used also for US military activity. So that's what that image is about. And the link to the article itself should. I'll put that in the chat. Okay, everyone the link. And it's by Indy Maverick, which I think in the program notes I think I shared the link to that website, but I'll put the article link as well for all of you to see. Okay, thanks. Let's hear let's let's let's go through your presentation because it's really really very informative on a lot of levels. Thank you. And before I do I just want to let everyone who's watching and listening know I'm going to have to take coughing breaks so apologies in advance. It's, it's a thing. So, this is about Casa Seba, which is the current iteration of our health justice project that we have at Central Solidario. And particularly we target vehicles in Culebra because of the historic militarization and effects of militarization on the land and lives of the people who live there. I've used this presentation as Terry said for for different groups. This is a little bit about me. That's me as a kid. I love the photo. My dad. Yeah, he's the family. So, my dad's side of the family comes from Vieques. So this is a very personal thing for me. And being someone from the Puerto Rican via can say diaspora is born outside of Puerto Rico and outside of the UK as a result of the military violence that occurred there the poverty that goes along with it in the struggle so there's just tells you a little bit more about my work and then my relevant experience that goes with the project itself, which we'll get to. So, you know, one of the, one of the things I love that you say is that you are a rematriated Puerto Rican, rematriated versus a repatriated Puerto Rican. That's significant. It is. Yeah, it is repatriation is kind of a return to your the nation state, but rematriation is a return to the land to mother earth to. So much more connected than, than simply coming back to a political economic entity you're coming back to the land that your ancestors walked on and suffered on and bled on. And so when did you rematriate yourself. January 2020. Okay. I thought it was in the last, within the last three or five years. So, and what motivated you to do that. Oh, well, I, growing up, I always wanted to be here. I always wanted to know my other relatives and and our culture. And so, you know, there's a lot of conditions in the US, a lot of diaspora, you know, not just from Puerto Rico, but other nations, particularly Spanish speaking. There's a tendency for some families to not teach the culture to not teach the language. It's a way of self pervert self preservation through assimilation. So that is really what my experience was like but in my heart I always felt this longing, and then hurricanes Maria and Irma happened. And it just was like, okay, I have to be there. You know, I went for the first time in the summer of 2019 met family that I hadn't seen since I was a baby some that I had no recollection of meeting. And many of them and many of the community leaders and organizers said, you know, we need your generation to come home. There's work to do. La Lucha continue and it's not over. So if you have some work you can do, come do it. So I was like, okay, commission accepted. So let's go through a little bit of the history of Puerto Rico and then let's talk about the work that you're doing. Yeah. So this folks have heard you say, so it's true. Oftentimes people don't think of Puerto Rico as a separate country because we are colonized by the US and we are considered partial US citizens. But the truth is that the US has treated Puerto Rico in the same way that it treats the other countries in our region through various methods of interventionism. Well, you know, one thing that you and I have talked about, and I'll just throw this out for the audience. You know, when you're south of the US border. People refer to the United States as the United States and Puerto Rico. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I think that's important. And it's throughout, you know, Latin America and the Caribbean that you hear that. Thankfully, not everyone sees us as they don't all identify us as as a US. They understand the situation of the colonialism and what that means for us as a Latin American and Caribbean nation. So yeah, the Monroe Doctrine is coming upon to what is it 200 years now. Yes, this year. 200 anniversary. 1823. Yeah. We don't like the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, the Spanish American War was kind of the first impetus of the US taking action on the Monroe Doctrine. Because the Spaniards were the they were a dying empire at the time, and the US waited until the Bolivarian Revolution kind of took care of business. And then once there was less of a threat and less of a challenge with the Spanish Empire, that's when they decided to come in and rest. The first Bolivarian Revolution led by Simone Bolivar. Exactly. So they decided that, oh, we're going to rescue Cuba. We're going to rescue Puerto Rico and Guam and the Philippines from the horrible Spanish. But they never intended to to have a free Puerto Rico and their intention with Cuba was to have an illusion of independence by like having the first proxy government and Guantanamo, the base in Guantanamo was the first. I'm also with this technicality because I I view all US expansionism, even before that point as a violation of sovereignty of the indigenous peoples and nations in the north. So, outside of those borders, Guantanamo Bay is the first US military base, foreign military base, technically, but the reason why Puerto Rico was so appetizing to the US was because they were able to see how the Spanish used Puerto Rico. They considered Puerto Rico as the US. And Tilly's Cuba as the key to Latin America. So together having possession of Cuba and Puerto Rico was very advantageous for this empire that was wanting to expand. And with that came the militarization. So some of the facts that you read out for folks in the introduction was about how Culebra. And for those who are listening, I'm showing a map of Puerto Rico, which if you look online, you can see where the islands of Culebra and Vieques are situated in relationship to the larger island of Puerto Rico. So Culebra, the militarization process began in 1901, not that long after the Spanish American War ended. Right. So I'm going to kind of go quickly through this because it's a lot of information. And I don't just want to talk at people. So, but the idea, some of the ideas that they had about how to handle the people who already were living in Culebra, which includes, yes, we have the Spanish colonizer blood. We also have our indigenous ancestors. We have our African Puerto Rico is part of the African diaspora as well due to the transatlantic slave trade which began here in the Caribbean because of the Spanish. So a lot of the people who live in these islands are not necessarily in the classes of like the white Spaniard and don't benefit from the same things. They don't benefit in the same way in society. As the US was looking at how they wanted to use Culebra, they were looking at communities that in the US would be considered black and brown and wanting to just expel them. Completely remove and completely displace the entire town, I guess, of Culebra and strictly militarize it, but that got pushed back. Pardon me. And they tried this a couple of times. And the most recent was 1970. And it really, even though Vieques was being militarized, not long after, sorry, jumped ahead. So, the citizens of Culebra were already experiencing bombings, they were already experiencing the contamination and a lot of the things that eventually came to be okay. They were the first to resist successfully through popular resistance and peaceful resistance and they expelled the Navy in 1975. So these are some photos from those early days of the militarization and the lower left you can see just lines and lines of sailors coming into the town. Which of course when you have, and I say this, unfortunately from experience as a veteran when you have large groups of military personnel, you have large incidents of sexual violence. Other kinds of violence that go on in the communities that they are occupying. So the same is true for Culebra and Vieques. Vieques, the militarization began in 1941. Thank you for your patience. I'm sure. So the land theft started in 1941. And that was before Pearl Harbor. And you will hear a lot of people try to justify why this occurred because of World War II. Excuse me once again. What's interesting is that historians who have chronicled this show that the expropriations actually began before Pearl Harbor even happened. So before the U.S. even had an impetus to join World War II, they were already planning to militarize Vieques. So that's one of the false narratives that were used to try and justify their actions. And here are some quotes from the Akences about how the bulldozers were used as a weapon against them to, excuse me. So basically they were told they had 24 hours to leave. This was happening to my grandparents and other relatives. What's happening across the Americas today. Yep. They were literally bulldozed off their land. I personally witnessed that with the Gadifuna community in Honduras on the Atlantic coast of Honduras. Yeah. So, yeah. It's pretty awful. I can't imagine. Like the quote that says we had seven children they threatened us with the bulldozers. I cannot imagine being in that situation and having the threats. And this quote I found to be very impactful, particularly the part that people were afraid to express themselves, to express their opposition. They had no say they had no one backing them up. They felt like they were enslaved and that they had no rights. Which is true. And these maps show the progression of the expropriations. So this here is the island of Vieques. And before the expropriations where it shows like how populated certain areas were. And then through the years how it shows how two thirds of the island were basically taken and much of the population was removed sent to St. Puerto Rico, sent to the States, sent to Hawaii, sent anywhere else in work programs. And the rest were shoved into the center of Vieques to live in the first slums in Santa Maria and then Monte Santo. Those are two communities in Vieque. So basically the people of Vieque with every all of the testing that the US had done there, every single war from that time had been practiced, including the Iraq or Afghanistan. NATO forces were invited to come and use Vieques bombing range and everything else as well. So the western eastern side of Vieques was was reserved as the practice bombing range and that's where they tested all sorts of warfare, including chemical warfare, depleted uranium trap dumps our chaff, cluster bombs, napalm, Agent Orange, cadmium, lead, arsenic, psychological operation, sexual terrorism. And we still don't know what the other countries were using when they were coming for their practices, and there's no way for us to find that out. The Navy isn't talking. So here are some photos from the resistance is up in the upper left is shows some of the struggle in Kulebra. To the right of that is the fishermen in Vieques. And just beneath that is other shots of the fishermen in Vieques going at it with Navy boats police boats. And then the lower right is some success, some celebration. That's a leftover tank that's still there on the beach, running away. So that's them occupying the area. So, even though in both of these two islands the war games stopped the bombing stopped the fight for justice has not stopped because you still have contamination and you still have occupied land because the, the, the lands that were taken back from the Navy were given to the US Fish and Wildlife to manage, and the Navy still has to clean up all of it, including in the water. And, and that's going to take forever. If it ever gets done. Our people want a dignified maritime transportation system because that has been recently privatized. And pretty much the standard operating procedure for privatization is that you divest from public services to the point that they fail that they're no longer serving the people in the way that they should that the workers themselves are not supported in doing the jobs that they many of them, genuinely want to do well for their people. And so you create discontent among the people which then you offer privatization as a solution. So that's what happened with the maritime transportation that brings people from beacons and Culebra to the big islands of Puerto Rico for shopping for access to health care, and so on. We want decontamination. We want the full complete return of the land to the people. Environmental justice, food sovereignty, health sovereignty. We want a hospital. Equal and equitable housing, which is not just for Airbnbs and tourism, or the super rich that come by their mansions or people who come and buy a restaurant or buy a guest house and then bring their own employees with them from the US, and only put beaconses in the kitchen or for cleaning. We want compensation for the harm caused to health, reparations, decolonization, sustainable community development, and a full complete demilitarization, because we still have the relocatable over the horizon radar system and the big island of Puerto Rico. Yeah, so the Navy's not totally gone. How are we doing on time? What's that? How are we on time? We're good. I want to be sure we talk about your project, but no, we're fine. I just, you know, listening to you describe the situation. This is, you know, a whole nother episode in and of itself for the audience, but what the disaster capitalism has created, the privatization of just about everything, and particularly creating, you know, an island that's based on tourism for wealthy people only. And that's a model being used across the hemisphere and across the world. And that, you know, like I said, that's a whole nother conversation, but I think it's important to point that out. The whole disaster capitalism aspect of Puerto Rico, not just the military occupation and what's left behind, but the hurricanes as well. Yeah, and I think looking at Vieques as a case example of how this works everywhere else that the US has militarized as well. You know, like the problems we're facing here are no different than the problems that they're facing in Okinawa, in Vietnam, and you know, go down the list, Jeju islands, everywhere. Marshall Islands, you know, Hawaii. So it is a shared struggle, truly. So in these photos, this shows the ongoing contamination that occurs during open detonation. So over to the left, you can see big clouds of smoke that are explosions from an open detonation of bold ordinance. So they're still releasing the same toxins, the same chemicals, the same compounds of warfare into the air and environment during the cleanup process. And the same matriarchs that led a large portion of the struggle continue to lead a large portion of the struggle for a proper cleanup through enclosed detonation chambers. And they succeeded and now the Navy has, I believe, too. But the issue is, and you can see in some of the other photos, that the ordinance itself, if it's not stable enough to move into an enclosed detonation chamber, sometimes it's just too big. So the only option is an open detonation either in the air or in the water, which continues the contamination, which continues the risks to the health. So this is still, it's not over. Just because the bombing ends. It's almost like it's just beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when you go now to the area that has been taken back, there are signs all over, because these, there's some of this is publicly accessible now it's turned into beaches, which is great for tourism. It's a refuge, a wildlife refuge. Excuse me. But you have to look out for unexploded ordinance. So it's not exactly safe all the time, and they have areas where you're still not allowed to go into because it's definitely not safe. And every now and then they'll close the beaches in order to go through again and do another round of cleanup. And what's, what's really interesting Terry is that recently, the Navy was going to close, once again, the beaches that they had reopened, like they do every now and then. But the predominantly US owned tourism businesses in be a race, he double hockey sticks, and said, this is going to hurt our business, don't close the beaches. So even though the exposure is there. Yeah. So instead of advocating for cleanup and, you know, taking a hit like everybody else does, they said no don't close the beaches because it'll hurt our business this is peak season. So, and these photos are some of the resistance, some of the protests some of the demands for for change that the community has done. So most mask a gentle for 35, which is where more than 100 by 35. That is a collective of people from both Kulebra and be a kid that demand a better maritime transportation service. These cement blocks down here. And these over here to the right that show hospital for vehicles now. That's because the hospital would be a got destroyed by her case Maria and Irma. And still, there's no hospital, and children are dying because of that. And so it's just constant constant struggle. So here's again some images of people expressing, you know, their, their anger their despair their demand their human needs to be to be honored and respected. And this science says this is not a hospital, not one, not another life. And this is a picture of a young woman named Alice Ventura, who she died 13 years old, because there was no ventilator in the hospital. And are in the makeshift hospital. It's called a CDT. It's not actually hospital, but other other kids have died to more images from from the demands and protests education transportation health hospital dignified transportation and food sovereignty. So I'll continue so for these reasons and more. This is why central solidarity with Puerto Rico was formed. I'm a central solidarity for those who are with like a translation that is the Solidarity Center, Puerto Rico. So, and I also want I just want to share with the audience. This is a vision that you have had for a long time and I know on on prior episodes that you have joined us. You've mentioned this vision is how she bought and so for me personally and for for for the audience that's been with us for a while now. And so you will remember this. The story and so it's really just beautiful to watch this, you know, idea come to fruition and hopefully we can, we can help move it along even forward those of us watching tonight. Thank you, I appreciate that as we need all the help we can get. I'll skip ahead a little bit because eventually this this will all be put onto a website for people. And so it's just about our purpose vision and mission. And this is really important so central solidarity is not just the house, it's, it's, it's, it's meant to be kind of like a, like an organism I guess it I'll just read that central solidarity of the Puerto Rico functions as a living organism rather than an organization. It's like an ecosystem. The local solidarity project is the house that houses for what made the house is. So, I'll go ahead and read this out for the folks who are listening and not viewing Casa Saba is central solidarity is pilot project. It's a two story house near the ferry port on the big island located in Saba, Puerto Rico, when fully renovated and equipped it will function as a medical solidarity hospitality house. And these and transportation are provided at no cost to patients and caregivers, animals in need of veterinary care are also welcome. The initiative is made possible by the land trust and international network so the three parts of central solidarity of consistent local national and international solidarity efforts. The local is this medical solidarity house. And the reason why is because without a hospital and be a kid without in Culebra they have a better little treatment center but they still have a lot of unmet needs. So folks have to travel on the ferry here to the big island for everything, including to give birth, including cancer treatment and everything. And when they get here, they have to figure out where am I going to stay. How am I going to get to where I need to go how long do I need to be here can I afford any of this. And oftentimes, no one can. So you have people who sleep in their cars will sleep outside in the street who will find a place to sleep in the hospital. Many of them have to come with their kids. They, if they can't find transportation, you know, so I, I, I couldn't see this happening, you know, and I'm, I'm lucky because I have a disability check that I get each month. So in talking with community leaders, neighbors, friends, family members and really connecting with this lack of access to health care and, you know, seeing the number of funerals that happens just constantly constant funerals and be okay. I, we tried first to establish a medical solidarity network on the big island in the city, the cities of Saba and Fajardo, working with anybody that we could. And while the desire was there for a lot of people that capacity is not because we're not just come, we're competing with the real estate industry, which is fed by the tourism industry. We have colonization and gentrification happening simultaneously. And we also have a very corrupt government. So it is next to impossible just to find a place to rent nevermind to to to get access to land and structures that we can then convert and put to use for our communities for our health and well being. We couldn't get the solidarity network going because nobody had the capacity to do it or the resources to do it. And then when I was sick with COVID and I had to come over here, I had to face the decision to leave be a game and rent a place over here in the big over here being the big island of Puerto Rico. Yeah, yeah, because I needed a long, long term recovery for my lungs. And while I was looking, I found this place. And I reached out to some of the community leaders that I had been working with. We were trying to get that off the ground and I was like, What do you think of this? What if we just do it? I can use my veterans benefits, you know, and, and, and at least if we can get one place and we can fix it up as best as we can, at least we have one place. All we need is one place to start, and we can do it, you know, and so they were like, Yeah, go for it, please, we need this. And even before like this place is not ready. But right away, they were connecting me with people who needed the place to stay who needed transportation, who needed food deliveries who needed whatever I was getting calls in the middle of the night like Monisha. Can you go run and check on this relative, because the hospital is not telling them what's going on and their families worried and be okay, can you just run. And I was like, Yeah, I'll go. So that's how it started. And now we have a council. We have fiscal sponsorship with Alliance for Global Justice. And we're really focused on building our capacity to continue and this is a picture of the house and the van, both the house and the van are in my name. And I don't, I would prefer that not to be, because this is for the community. But that's why the national initiative is the community land trust, which once that is established and becomes a legal entity and then I can transfer ownership to the trust. And then it really becomes community property and not property of Monisha. Yeah, we need a lot of help. We have hurricane damage still from Fiona and FEMA is a big joke. So there's I'm not going to get the help from FEMA that I need. There's also the problem of the electricity like we talked about on previous episodes. So we really need solar we need to roof repaired we need. We need a lot of work on the house and I've been self funding pretty much most of it with occasional like major donors who like help with the down payment on the vehicle, help with paint help with some tools. And I have amazing neighbors that are helping folks come from be a case sometimes to volunteer folks from the veterans anti war movement have come to volunteer but we need a lot. You know, just briefly if we could go back you mentioned, you know, the power grid the electricity for the audience. The Puerto Rico had public. Yes, energy. And then after the hurricane. It was all privatized and the private company services less of the population than the public. Yeah. So, yeah, so that's the whole disaster capitalism model again as well. In fact, we have done an episode once where we weren't sure if you were going to have electricity. So that's the whole for the entire conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And so what's interesting is what's happening now is that was just the privatization of the distribution of the electricity. The generation was still under public control supposedly. Now, it's in the process of privatizing the generation, which is going to add more costs. So, you know, no one's going to be able to afford to live. They barely can now. And, yeah. But this, this is the project this is cast a save up. And once we're able to, to get the necessary legal structure in place for the land trust, then we'll be able to. Move away from the house and then the whole entire house will be put to use for medical solidarity. We want to make it accessible for people with mobility needs, we want to make it safe solar. Have have it be completely off grid, if possible, in such a way that it can sustain life it can sustain like ventilators and keep medicine cold during a storm. And all that things that we were all think are so simple, like medications in a refrigerator. Yeah, the power. Yeah. Yeah, you know, one of the things you and I were talking about before when we were planning with episode, because this episode fell right on the heels after I had visited here in Mexico City. The last three cultures, the Plaza of three of three cultures, meaning Aztec Spanish and modern principally student revel student revolutions in the 60s and 70s here in Mexico. And when we were at the Plaza, I think this was last Saturday. And we were talking about the destruction and the annihilation of the Aztec Empire after and their none go to test was here. And how it was a complete collapse of the culture and society and I, and, you know, there's a lot of things that we had always were raised to think guns, germs, guns, steel and germs and. But how it was explained to me last week, and this is why I mentioned it because it just seems so much to what's happening to Puerto Rico now, 500 years later, that when you take away the infrastructure, people's language, their culture, their trade, their, their ability to network on all levels there is a collapse. And so now in Puerto Rico that, you know, and you could equivocate sanctions, a sanctions regime to that and I think as well. But now in Puerto Rico so, so you have no electricity. So now you have no refrigeration for medicines and, and, and healthy food storage and so now you've got people who have a collapse as well. No, no access to healthy food, or uncontaminated food, your diabetic you can't keep the insulin refrigerated, or whatever else you know medications you're on. And, you know, that's a different it's an it's an insidious form of collapse it's not like this overt military invasion or something of that sort. And like I had shared with you, it's, it's the same. What personally goes seem to is the same exact model of collapse. And 500 years ago, nothing's changed. No. And it's important for people to, to, to remember that what has been done to Puerto Rico from the beginning of us occupation is how the US practice what it's been doing to everybody else in our region in Latin America and the Caribbean. The tactics that they practice on us here through colonialism, which is its own type of sanction and warfare has paved the way for corruption. So, yeah. And I did forget to mention something crucial when I talked about government corruption. I wanted to share exactly how it's impacted the project directly. So what I'm sharing now are a couple of articles that came out right around, literally the same month that I closed on the house. I had discussed the project with people in the community in the neighborhood, as well as the seller of the house because here people are very interested and why are you buying this, you know, are you going to make an Airbnb so I wanted to show that no, this is going to help us will make an Airbnb. No, never. Over my dead body. But it blows my mind that all of a sudden, the mayor of the municipality that this house is in receives $50,000 from the Puerto Rican government to create the Casa de Vieques Equilibre and that is exactly what I was calling the house at the time. The most verbatim everything that I had outlined that I wanted to do with the house suddenly. And then, and this municipality which the, the politics that are here are centered around status and this mayor happens to be in the statehood party which is currently in control which is currently one of the one of the most corrupt parties. And supposedly this was going to be done by January of last year, January February timeframe the doors were going to open on this like grand hospitality house that would provide exactly the same type of relief that I would like to provide with this house. But it's still not open. Community leaders in Vieques are like yeah we saw the article but nobody's talked to us about it. We haven't heard from the Vieques mayor about it there's been no announcement community that this resource is available. So where's the $50,000. Yeah, yeah exactly. You know. And why didn't they come to me and say hey we want to support this how can we help. You know they co-opted your idea. Yeah, which, you know, to me, I'm not proprietary in the way where I'm threatened by that if the government wants to do what it's supposed to be doing and actually take care of the people and provide necessary services I'm all for it. But that's not what they're doing. They're stealing $50,000 would have been very helpful for you know, where is it. I would, I would be very intrigued if a journalist like Bianca Gralau, Puerto Rican independent journalist who's amazing everyone should follow her, investigated that. And even if other journalists independent journalists from the US or from other countries got interested and wanted to poke around, they might find out a few things. Okay, so all of you journalists are watching the same game there you go there's your, there's your next assignment. Yeah. And then you can come on, what the F is going on in Latin America and share with us what you find. Yeah, that'd be great, actually. So, so what else should we talk about let me go through the, the live chat real quick and see do any of you have any questions follow up comments that those of you viewing want to ask Monisha. Let me just see what we have. A lot of people sympathizing with the colonialization of Puerto Rico, Hawaii is going through the same thing you and I talked about that offline. That there's a, let me check one of the other. So why don't we share with the audience again where they can make a donation. Yeah, so now that we have the fiscal sponsorship. That whole donation process is changing. So what I would like to offer folks is for the ease of our transition toward the proper channels of donating, because I had been just receiving the funds myself is instead to if they're willing to reach out to me by email or send me a message on what's up that they want to, and then I can connect them to the proper channels through our fiscal sponsor for that. I will say that. Sorry, Terry. No, go ahead. We would like to pay off the house we would like to pay off the band we would like to have money to continue the renovation to get solar to we have to do a lot of work on the house to make it safe for people with mobility needs. And so we also want to be able to provide stipends for volunteers, people who are driving for transportation because we don't want to be exploitative toward volunteer labor. We want to make sure especially knowing the conditions that we have here. People should not be working for free. So, you know, we want to be able to not just lean on our community but support our community as well as they're supporting our needs. So 300,000 is the big grand goal, which would allow us to do all of that and then give us some leftover to, for example, if the house is full, and we receive calls. Because we receive a lot of calls still and I can't say yes to people at the moment, then we can try to put them up in a hotel, we can pay for their transportation if we can't provide it directly, you know, so we would like to have some padding in the budget to be able to meet additional costs as well as to move the project forward in other areas, accumulate, I mean not accumulated but acquire potentially another property, or another van, you know. And can you share with the audience your, your email address. Yes, it is Monisha. That's M-O-N-I-S-H-A at Centro-S-P-R.org. C-E-N-T-R-O-S-P-R.org. Monisha at Centro-S-P-R.org. And I'll include all of this in the program notes as well for everyone. Thanks. You know, what else? Is there anything that we missed this evening? Anything in closing that you want to share with the audience? It's such a valiant project. I don't even know that's not even the right word to use, but I mean it's just, you know, like you said, come, you're young. I would like to also ask for folks to consider if they're a member of an organization, like, you know, so many of the peace organizations in the U.S. or any other type of org that would be interested in helping us. If people would consider adopting the project, if the organization adopted the project and then committed to helping raise an amount, you know, like 5K, 10K, whatever is feasible, that would be really helpful. And so that's kind of just also, you know, creativity if folks have other ideas on how we can get support. This is not the type of project that's easy to get grants and fellowships for. And also it's decolonial. So we're intentionally avoiding the usual channels of funding that would actually harm us, not help us. There are flexible decolonial options, if possible. A solidarity collective. Yes. Yes, that's great. It's great and it's very humane on all levels. And we also are not going to do the trauma porn, you know, like, we're not going to be plastering people's faces all over the internet to show like, look how great we are, we're helping people. No, we respect our community's privacy. And for people who want to see the evidence of how their money is being used, we will do that in a respectful way, but definitely that will be something that they can feel confident and comfortable that will show our work. Sounds like we should do some fundraising delegations. Come see you. Yeah. Come on down. They have to be small right now. I mean, I understand, you know, they'd have to be fairly small, you know, like, six or eight people, but, but maybe we should look, you know, so for all of you watching this evening, keep that, you know, in mind that that maybe something coming down the road that we could do are some, some fundraising delegated educational and fundraising educational with the fundraising. Yeah, that would be would be really great. And, and to go see, you know, Puerto Rico that part of the Caribbean that is kind of sort of not really us that is not full. Many of us don't want to be. Yeah, well, it's like I said earlier in the program, you know, you travel throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and the US you hear the US and Puerto Rico. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of support for an independent for independence and colonization of Puerto Rico. Yes, statehood is not decolonization contrary to the myth. No, no. It's tightens the vice is tightening the grip. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, everyone, I boy, what a fantastic conversation Monisha and really, really a very honorable project and, and I hope we can, you know, continue to build support for your work for the people of Puerto Rico and and help create something that will service a lot of people in need. And, and create, you know, some non privatized infrastructure is beneficial to everyone. So, so I will let I'll let you go. We've been talking for over an hour. Yeah, I know. No, it went so fast. She was so fascinating. It's such a wonderful. The history is important that you shared and your project is really something beautiful that, you know, a lot of us can get behind. And so yeah, we was a full hour and a really, and went by really fast. Oh, thank you. I love, I love you as a person and I love, I love the time that you contribute to our program to our various episodes I'm very thankful for that. And I'm very, very thankful. Always to have you as a guest and to uplift Puerto Rico which we in the solid Latin America solidarity community in the States we, we always tend, you know to look south we look at Cuba, we look at Haiti, and we look at South America and South America and we just don't even, you know, we so seldom throw Puerto Rico into that mix and it so needs to be there, along with, with all the other Caribbean island nations and, and the rest of the Americans so. So thank you for your time for yours to in your solidarity with us and always Terry. Well, thank you. And thank you to our audience. Yeah. Thank you. If I want to remind all of you you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean were popular resistance broadcast. You can find us on YouTube live every Thursday 730pm Eastern, we broadcast honestly on the YouTube channels for the Convo couch code pink and popular resistance and post broadcast recordings can be found at Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so. So thanks again everyone and we will see you next next week. Bye everybody.