The impossibly low official death count of just 64 people killed from Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico last September has now been shown to be a politically manipulated fabrication. Fight Back! challenged this official count in an article last October, a month after the hurricane, as did many other media at the time. But in the absence of a thorough and scientifically-sound review of post-hurricane deaths in Puerto Rico there was no other count to rival the government’s lowball number.

But now a new study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has changed that. The study takes a scientific approach to reviewing post-hurricane deaths in Puerto Rico, and also compares the death rates to prior years, rather than just taking the government’s own count of hurricane-related deaths at face value.

It’s important that they didn’t take the government’s numbers at face value because the government acknowledged that they didn’t have a consistent, nationwide standard to determine what deaths to count as hurricane-related, so their numbers have no consistency. Something counted as a hurricane-related death in one part of Puerto Rico could be counted as not hurricane-related in another part of the country. Also, the U.S. federal government under President Trump had a self-interest in keeping official death counts low to make it look like they handled the disaster in a way that somehow prevented massive loss of life. Trump’s narcissism and thin-skinned response to any criticism also meant that Puerto Rico’s Governor Rosselló had a self-interest in providing the low numbers Trump wanted to hear in order to not anger Trump and cause him to skimp on federal aid in retribution, as he threatened to do when San Juan’s mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto criticized the federal government’s efforts in the aftermath of the hurricane.

The researchers who wrote the New England Journal of Medicine study conclude that, contrary to the government tally of just 64 hurricane-related deaths, at least 4645 deaths can be directly linked to the hurricane, making the storm exponentially deadlier than previously reported.

The official death count matters. Not just because every Puerto Rican life lost during this catastrophe matters. And not just because Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. colony means that post-hurricane deaths are squarely the responsibility of the U.S. government. But also because these low numbers have been used politically by the Trump administration to put forward a fairy tale about a great recovery in Puerto Rico that erases the dire reality that continues on the ground nearly a year later and allows a massive injustice to continue without the outcry there would be if the true scale of devastation were more widely understood.

Flouting the grim reality on the ground in Puerto Rico, President Trump used the low official death count to laud himself and his administration’s post-hurricane relief efforts as somehow being great. On Oct. 3, 2017 he said, “If you look at a real catastrophe like [Hurricane] Katrina and you look at the tremendous – hundreds and hundreds of people that died – and you look at what happened here with, really, a storm that was just totally overpowering ... no one has ever seen anything like this.” On Oct. 19 he also bizarrely said, “I would give myself a ten” out of ten for his administration’s relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

But now the fiction that President Trump spun about his administration’s post-hurricane relief effort in Puerto Rico is unraveling. Not only is the real death count from Hurricane Maria not lower than that of Hurricane Katrina like Trump claimed last October, it is almost three times higher. Recall that the Bush administration’s criminal mishandling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi is universally considered to have been a massive disaster that compounded the natural disaster with deadly consequences. What conclusion can be drawn about the Trump administration’s actions in Puerto Rico other than that it is an even worse disaster than Bush’s handling of Katrina with even more mortal consequences?

Scott Barbés Caminero is a leader of the Puerto Rican organization Jornada: Se Acabaron Las Promesas that builds mass struggle against U.S. colonial control of Puerto Rico and helped mobilize tens of thousands of people to strike and march on May 1 in San Juan to protest the ‘disaster capitalism’ austerity measures being imposed on Puerto Rico since the hurricane. Regarding the newly reported death count he said, “The deaths are the responsibility of the federal government. Since the invasion they unilaterally control, give, and take our resources as they want...There are many more than 5000 dead in 120 years of pillaging of our intellectual and material wealth. The deaths, whatever the final amount are, fill me with rage. What I want is to stop the country again and for us to force the world to hear us, see us, and...respect us for what we are: a great people who have resisted for 520 years, not the docile and defenseless victims of a catastrophic climate event that happened less than a year ago.”

#PuertoRico #HurricaneMaria

San Juan, Puerto Rico – In an escalation in their fight to stop the government from closing or privatizing public schools in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation occupied Education Secretary Julia Keleher’s office Nov. 7 in an act of civil disobedience. 21 teachers were arrested standing up in defense of public education in Puerto Rico.

All 21 teachers were released late the night of Nov. 7. In a press conference the morning of Nov. 8, the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation called on school communities to intensify the struggle to demand that their schools be reopened. The majority of public schools still have not been reopened a month and a half after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico Sept. 20. Secretary Keleher has said they plan to close and consolidate schools after the hurricane.

The Teachers Federation called on teachers, families and students to join them in a national protest on Nov. 9 at 1 p.m. in front of the Education Department. They are calling for all public schools to be reopened and for an end to the agenda of privatization. Mercedes Martínez, president of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation, said, “Secretary Keleher should know that if she continues her plans to close our kids’ schools, our communities will continue to build resistance. She must reopen all schools!”

The Teachers Federation has been warning that the government is opportunistically taking advantage of the chaos after Hurricane Maria to close hundreds of public schools. The government has tried to close and privatize public schools for a decade but has been thwarted by teachers, students and communities organizing to defend their schools and public education. They warn that the government is trying to copy what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when 7000 teachers were fired and all public schools were converted to charter schools overnight. The Teachers Federation is working to prevent that ‘disaster capitalism’ from dismantling public education in Puerto Rico.

#SanJuanPuertoRico #SanJuan #PuertoRico #HurricaneMaria #FederaciónDeMaestrosDePuertoRico

The official death count matters. Not just because every life lost during this catastrophe in Puerto Rico matters. And not just because Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. colony means that post-hurricane deaths are the responsibility of the U.S. government. But also because these low numbers are being used politically by the Trump administration to put forward a fairy tale about a great recovery in Puerto Rico that erases the dire reality that continues on the ground and allows a massive injustice to continue without the outcry there would be if the truth were more widely understood.

Over a month after the hurricane the vast majority of people still don’t have electricity and many still don’t have water. Large numbers of many vulnerable populations, like elderly people and people with illnesses, are fleeing Puerto Rico for the U.S. because after more than a month without electricity and water, a cascading series of problems make basic survival extremely difficult.

Despite this grim reality on the ground in Puerto Rico, President Trump continues to use the low official death count to laud himself and his administration’s relief efforts. On Oct. 3 he said, “If you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous — hundreds and hundreds of people that died — and you look at what happened here with, really, a storm that was just totally overpowering ... no one has ever seen anything like this.” On Oct. 19 he also bizarrely said, “I would give myself a ten” out of ten for his administration’s relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

Trump’s attempt to play at ‘which catastrophe was worse’ is a twisted game. In both Hurricane Maria and Katrina, many thousands of people have faced dire life-and-death circumstances because of a criminal lack of response from the U.S. government in the aftermath of hurricanes. It is not a coincidence that those affected were overwhelmingly Black people in the case of Katrina and Puerto Rican people in the case of Maria. This is a direct result of U.S. colonialism and institutionalized white supremacy.

The puzzlingly low official death count of 51 is now coming under increasing scrutiny. What counts as a hurricane-related death? Clearly more than 51 people have died in Puerto Rico between Sept. 20 and Oct. 18. On Oct. 27 the Puerto Rican government acknowledged that 911 people died of supposed ‘natural causes’ after Hurricane Maria. None of those have been counted in the official post-hurricane death toll. They also admitted that none of those people’s bodies were examined by a medical examiner (needed for consideration to be included in Hurricane Maria’s death toll) before being cremated.

At the same time, Karixia Ortiz Serrano, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety, admitted that there are in fact no official criteria for what qualifies as a hurricane-rated death. This has caused inconsistencies in what has been counted as a hurricane-related death. Do people who died from not receiving needed medications or care due to lack of electricity post-hurricane count as hurricane-related deaths or as deaths due to natural causes? The reporting of such deaths has reportedly varied.

With those 911 people’s bodies having been cremated who supposedly died of natural causes since the hurricane, there would seem to be no way to now review and conclude definitively how many of those deaths were in fact hurricane-related. And that is a very convenient thing for the Trump administration and the Puerto Rican government’s propaganda efforts to paint a rosy but false picture of the harsh reality in Puerto Rico. Additionally, there are still 69 people reported missing since Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, a fact rarely mentioned in official reports.

#PuertoRico #HurricaneMaria

This is an interview done on Oct. 22 with Noelanie Fuentes, vice president of the Rio Grande Local of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation and a social studies teacher at Liberata Iraldo Middle School. Her school is one of many across Puerto Rico that is still being used as a shelter for people whose homes were destroyed in the hurricane. Here she discusses the work teachers have been doing to support families living in their school, and her perspective on reopening schools while many in Puerto Rico are still living in shelters, including shelters at schools, or have no electricity or water. Interview and translation from Spanish by Brad Sigal. Fight Back!: Let's start with who you are and what you do here.

Noelanie Fuentes: Good afternoon. My name is Noelani Fuentes Cardona. I’m a middle school social studies teacher. We’re here at the school where I’ve been working for three years, the Liberata Iraldo middle school. In the time since Hurricane Maria passed, the school is serving as a shelter for all the people that lost their homes in the town of Rio Grande. It’s the central shelter for the town of Rio Grande.

Fight Back!: So the people that are here have been living here since September?

Fuentes: Yes, since September, since a few days after Hurricane Maria passed. They’ve now been living here approximately a month in our classrooms that have been converted into their homes. And here we’re struggling day-by-day.

Fight Back!: So you’re saying that your classroom has a family living in it?

Fuentes: It has a large, extended family living in it. This week we were collecting donations for all the people sheltered here because they have needs, basic hygiene needs, needs for kids’ clothes and toys, so us teachers took on the task to support these families, support the community and other schools. We collected as many donations as we could in the week and brought them the donations. They won’t have all that we have but at least they’ll feel a little bit of stability in this space they have which is already quite difficult.

Fight Back!: And now the Department of Education is announcing that they’re going to reopen many schools. What’s going to happen at your school?

Fuentes: Well, that’s a big question that all teachers have, and that we have specifically at the Liberata Iraldo school. Because the Department of Education has put out some memos but none of them specify what’s going to happen with the schools that are serving as shelters. All the memos are very general, addressing the level of all the schools. But this is a school where approximately 120 people are living. It’s understood, or it has been said, that they’ll be relocated to a closed factory. A factory where as of now there are no dividers, it’s a space where everyone would be out in the open. They’re in the process of creating divided sections and separated bathrooms. How long will that take? It’s unknown. So due to that, as long as they haven’t finished preparing this factory to relocate the people who have taken refuge in the school, we are meeting here in the school lobby Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 12:00, waiting for direction from the education secretary.

Fight Back!: Anything else you’d like to add?

Fuentes: Yes. People have the need to return to normalcy or something approximating that. But you also have to think about these students, this generation, who are going through a process they’re not used to. They’ve never lived through this. To demand starting their classes, to demand that they comply with an extended schedule of 8:00 to 3:00, which the secretary of the Department of Education had to change at the last minute to 8:00 to 12:00, I understand that’s a lot.

As teachers we want to work and we want to attend to our students. But not in a situation where there’s no water in many communities, where there’s no electricity. Many people say, “why can’t you teach classes that way?” Well, sure, fantastic! You walk into a classroom with a 105-degree temperature with 30 students in a classroom. 30 students who very likely didn’t sleep well the night before because of the heat, who didn’t sleep well because of their parents’ worries, who didn’t sleep well because they didn’t eat well because if you go now to the supermarket the shelves are empty. You have to stand in line for everything, to withdraw money, to buy things. And these are worries that we as adults often can’t even handle.

Imagine children, imagine young people, many of whom are in a transition period which is much more difficult for them. I understand that things that are elective shouldn’t be imposed above emotional wellbeing. You have to work on it all, but it shouldn’t be a situation where to avoid not completing a fixed number of hours [as set by Department of Education policy for hours required in the classroom for a school year], they say we have to start classes right away. It needs to be done wisely and in a humanitarian way.

#RioGrandePuertoRico #RioGrande #PuertoRico #HurricaneMaria #FederaciónDeMaestrosDePuertoRico #PuertoRicanTeachersFederation

We demand Puerto Rico get all aid needed to rebuild and that Puerto Rico gets full independence for Puerto Rico – ending the island’s status as a U.S. commonwealth. Never has it been clearer what the island’s status as a U.S. commonwealth means – more wealth and influence for the top 1% in the U.S., and misery for Puerto Rico.

The recent insults by Donald Trump posted on Twitter, many directed at San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, are not the first or worst abuses suffered by Puerto Ricans at the hands of the U.S. There is a long history of economic, political and civil rights violations at the hands of the U.S. in Puerto Rico dating back to the late 1800s when the U.S. gained control of the island after the Spanish-American War. Since that time, the struggle for independence from the U.S. has been met with brutal repression, including active U.S. backed death squads in the 1950s, and a heartless neglect for the island’s nearly 3.5 million residents. Never has this neglect and abuse been more apparent in recent times than following Hurricane Maria’s destruction of so much on the island.

The terrible truth is that U.S. abuse and neglect will continue until Puerto Rico enjoys full independence and Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. win full equality. Earlier this year the struggle for a free Puerto Rico saw a major victory with the release of long-time political prisoner Oscar Lopez Riviera, and today the struggle to rebuild Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria must have the full support of all those who love peace and justice.

The U.S. response to the destruction of so many homes and lives on the island is shameful, and comes as no surprise with Trump in office. It stands in stark contrast to the post-hurricane experience of socialist Cuba. Opposing Trump’s agenda means activists around the world should support the struggle to rebuild a prosperous and free Puerto Rico by any means necessary.

#PuertoRico #HurricaneMaria

Minneapolis, MN – Puerto Ricans in Minnesota whose families are suffering on the island after Hurricane Maria organized rally on Oct. 4 to demand immediate and sufficient aid to relieve and rebuild Puerto Rico. The 50 person rally was part of a day of action in several cities across the country to highlight the plight of 3.4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico who have no electricity or drinking water, face shortages in fuel and food, and who are dealing with severely destroyed telecommunications.

The Coalición de Boricuas en Minnesota, in coordination with VAMOS4PR – a national coalition of community, labor and civil rights organizations fighting for an economy fair for all Puerto Ricans – organized the rally. Their statement said, “It’s immoral to insist that before Puerto Rican families can rebuild their homes, their hospitals, their schools and their roads, they must first pay back the banks.”

The devastating damage that Hurricane Maria brought to Puerto Rico has come on top of the storm caused by the public debt crisis and the recession that has made Puerto Rican families suffer for decades by cutting vital funds from the commonwealth’s infrastructure and leaving the fragile island especially vulnerable to hurricanes like Maria.

Speakers specifically called on Minnesota investors like Varde Partners and Whitebox Advisors to cease their fight to profit off the misery of Puerto Ricans.

Olivia Levins Holden, a Minneapolis-based Puerto Rican artist, spoke to the crowd of protesters: “I’m feeling this rage, fear, deep sadness, as I have to varying degrees my entire life when I see the harmed caused by our status. But I am not hopeless. And I’m not confused. Puerto Rico has the right to life, health, sovereignty, and our colonial status is a direct violation of that right, one that has caused and continues to cause a great deal of harm. We know that harm. I won’t go into a litany of historical crimes of colonization.

“Needless to say, it is not Puerto Rico who owes a debt to the U.S., but the U.S. that owes a massive reparation to Puerto Rico’s people, land and creatures. These reparations are much more vast than our immediate need, but that need is urgent.

“To start – we demand the immediate distribution of aid to those who desperately need it across the island. We demand the permanent abolition of the Jones Act, which serves to further sever Puerto Pico from the possibility of building relationship and solidarity, and any measure of autonomy. We demand aid in building and recovery. We demand the cancellation of this false debt and of the Junta Fiscal. These are essential and we will not back down,” Levins Holden continued.

This protest follows up on the new coalition’s press conference at the Minnesota State Capitol Oct. 2 and an effort to fundraise supplies to send to Puerto Rico. For future protests, supporters can follow the Coalición de Boricuas en Minnesota on Facebook.

Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony that has waged a long struggle for independence.

#MinneapolisMN #PuertoRico #HurricaneMaria