RIGHTS-PUERTO RICO: The Taíno's Last Stand

[struggle4progress]

Katherine Stapp

NEW YORK, Aug 8 (IPS) - A group of indigenous Puerto Ricans is occupying a cultural centre in hopes of pressuring Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá to meet with them and address what they say are continuing violations of human rights and desecration of sacred sites around the Caribbean island.

On Aug. 4, a judge issued arrest warrants for five protesters at the Caguana Ceremonial Centre in Utuado, in northwestern Puerto Rico. One of them, Naniki Reyes Ocasio, has now been on a hunger strike for 14 days. The police have yet to enforce the warrants, however, and the activists are scheduled to appear in court again Monday.

''What is happening is that as more and more development hits the island, they keep running into Taíno burial sites and old villages,'' said Roberto Borrero, president of the U.S. Regional Coordinating Office of the United Confederation of Taíno People (UCTP) in New York.

''Sometimes the construction stops until an archaeologist can verify if it is an 'important' site or not. What usually happens is that sites are not considered important and the archaeologist takes the artefacts and construction keeps going,'' he told IPS on the eve of International Day of the World's Indigenous People, Aug. 9. <snip>

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