Pro-independence activists hold march in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican pro-independence organizations and parties held this Sunday the march "No to statehood, Yes to decolonization" against a change in the island's status with respect to the United States.

The demonstration took place in the Puerto Rican capital, San Juan, and headed towards the state Capitol followed by a caravan of vehicles, according to information from the organizers.

The organizing group included the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), the Puerto Rican Front, the Movimiento Independentista Nacional Hostosiano (MINH), the Movimiento Unión Soberanista, the Movimiento Diálogo Soberanista, VAMOS and the Gran Oriente Nacional de Puerto Rico.

The demonstrators point in particular to the colonial condition that Puerto Rico has been suffering since 1898, when at the end of the Spanish-Cuban-American War, the island was occupied by the U.S. until the present day, although at this moment it is cloaked under the status of a "Free Associated State."

The organizers expect to have similar demonstrations of support in New York and other U.S. cities coordinated by the Frente Independentista Boricua.

A bill is currently before the U.S. House of Representatives, which if passed, would mean the admission of statehood for Puerto Rico, that is, its formal annexation.  

The march took place a few days before commemorating, on September 23, the cry of Lares, an event that marked the beginning of the struggles for independence against Spain in 1868, and the murder, at the hands of the FBI, of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos in 2005.