We also denounce the extrajudicial killings committed in international waters and the governor, who is nothing but a colonial administrator, for continuing her complicity with US imperialism.

As we have done since the 1930s, we call on the Puerto Rican people to refrain from joining the United States military. Their armed forces are not ours; they are invading armed forces that have committed crimes around the world.

A list of US interventions in our Americas is presented. This list doesn’t include the assassinations or all the dirty wars the United States has orchestrated.

US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS IN THE AMERICAS:

1898 – Cuba and Puerto Rico: The Spanish-American War marked the beginning of the United States empire in Latin America. The United States entered the war against Spain to rob Cuba of its victory. Cuba was occupied, and Puerto Rico was declared a colony, a status it still retains.

1901 – Cuba: The US forced Cuba to include the Platt Amendment in its constitution. The Platt Amendment granted Washington the «right» to intervene at will, reducing Cuban sovereignty to a fiction.

1903 – Panama: The United States seized Panama from Colombia to take control of the future Panama Canal. The United States signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty without any Panamanians present. This treaty established the terms of the United States’ lease and control of the Panama Canal.

1903–1975 Culebra, Puerto Rico: The Navy seized territory, expelled residents, and used the island as a firing range until massive resistance forced them to leave.

1906–1909 Cuba: US reoccupation to quell unrest and preserve their domain.

1907–1933 Nicaragua: US Marines occupied the country, suppressed popular uprisings, and established regimes allied with US fruit companies and banks. Augusto César Sandino was assassinated. They installed the Somoza regime, which ruled for 49 years, committing countless crimes against the Nicaraguan people.

1912–1925 Honduras: The United States repeatedly invaded Honduras to control banana plantations that exploited peasant labor. Hence the term «banana republic.» The United States destroyed unions and small farmers and stripped the country of its democratic right to self-government.

1914 – Mexico: The US Navy seized the state of Veracruz in Mexico during the Revolution to dictate Mexico’s internal affairs.

1915–1934 Haiti: The US government sent its Marines to occupy Haiti. They took control of the economy, rewrote the Constitution in favor of US corporations, and crushed resistance with brutal violence. The US Marines stole all of Haiti’s gold from its central bank. The gold was taken to Citibank, then a small local bank. Citibank used Haiti’s gold to become one of the largest banks in the United States and continue the bankers’ rule over the country. They established the brutal dictatorship of the Duvalier family (1957–1986).

1916–1924 Dominican Republic: The United States occupied the Dominican Republic and established another puppet government. One of the main objectives was to force the Dominican Republic to pay its massive debts to European creditors with Mafia interests. The US acted as a Mafia hitman, brutally repressing the Dominican people.

1918–1920 Panama: United States, through its minister in Panama and the military directly intervened in the 1918 elections. Washington only allowed candidates who favored it to run and win. American troops were stationed at polling stations and used as intimidation against opposition groups. They guaranteed the victory of Belisario Porras, a pro-American politician who allowed American domination of the Canal Zone and the continuation of land confiscations. In 1920, again, the American occupation forces guaranteed that the elections would go to whomever they favored. No Canadian who challenged American control of the Canal was able to come to power.

Note: Until the 1960s, no Latin American country received ambassadors from the United States; ambassadors only had jurisdiction over other imperialist powers. Latin America received ministers instead ambassadors; as established by the Monroe Doctrine, we were considered part of the United States.

1941–2003 Vieques, Puerto Rico: The Navy took over two-thirds of the island, displacing residents and poisoning the land and people with live-fire exercises until island-wide protests drove them out.

1954 – Guatemala: The United States, through the CIA, orchestrated a coup d’état that overthrew Jacobo Árbenz, who had dared to return land to the peasants. The United Fruit Company and Washington crushed democracy.

1960–Present, Colombia: The United States turned Colombia into a laboratory for counterinsurgency, supporting the creation of paramilitary groups and sponsoring operations. This intensified with Plan Colombia (2000), which channeled billions of dollars in military aid under the guise of a drug war, encouraging displacement and massacres and deepening US control. For decades, Colombia became a central hub for both US military intervention in South America and cocaine production and export.

1961 – Cuba: The US planned the Bay of Pigs invasion: a mercenary army paid and trained by the CIA tried, unsuccessfully, to overthrow the revolution.

1964 – Brazil: The United States supported a military coup that established a brutal dictatorship that lasted 21 years. With the help of the US, the dictatorship ruled Brazil, implemented censorship, and violated human rights. The dictatorship institutionalized torture, extrajudicial executions, and forced disappearances.

1965 – Dominican Republic: 42,000 US troops invaded the country to prevent a supposedly left-wing democratic government from taking power.

1960s – Bolivia: The CIA directed the capture and assassination of Che Guevara. (1967)

1960s-1980s – Uruguay: The CIA advised and trained the regime against the Tupamaro guerrillas, exporting torture techniques.

1970–1973 – Chile: CIA sabotage and destabilization led to the coup against elected President Salvador Allende and the bloody dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

1976–1980 – Operation Condor: Washington coordinated and armed the dictatorships of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil in a continental campaign of terror, torture, and murder, driving nearly 100 million people in South America into poverty and misery.

1979–1990 – Nicaragua: The US armed, financed, and directed the Contra War to destroy the Sandinista Revolution, even after it was condemned by the International Court of Justice. The Sandinistas came to power after 41 years of dictatorship by the Somoza family. The US never attempted to end the Somoza dictatorship but rather financed and supported it. However, it waged war against the Sandinistas in the name of supposed freedom.

1980 – Honduras: The CIA created and trained Battalion 316, a death squad that kidnapped, tortured, and murdered dissidents.

1981–1992 – El Salvador: Billions of dollars in US military aid units promoted massacres such as El Mozote, where those trained by the US massacred entire villages.

1983 – Grenada: The US invaded the country to crush a small socialist government, murdering civilians and establishing a puppet regime.

1989 – Panama: The US invasion killed thousands of civilians in poor neighborhoods to capture former CIA agent Manuel Noriega.

1994 – Haiti: The US sent troops, not to protect democracy, but to maintain control after decades of interference.

2004 – Haiti: The US orchestrated the kidnapping and exile of President Arístide after he defied neoliberal dictates.

2002 – Venezuela: The US planned, financed, and backed a failed coup against Hugo Chávez, revealing its hostility to popular sovereignty.

2009 – Honduras: The US covered up a military coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya, beginning years of repression.

2010s – Mexico and Central America: Under the guise of the “War on Drugs,” the US exported militarization, training, and surveillance to suppress movements and protect elites.

2019 – Venezuela: The US recognized a self-proclaimed “president,” Juan Guaidó, while imposing sanctions that devastated the civilian population.

2016–Present – Puerto Rico: The US Congress imposed a Financial Oversight and Management Board («The Board») with sweeping powers over the island’s budget. This unelected board imposed austerity measures, privatizations, and debt payments on Wall Street at the expense of Puerto Rican schools, healthcare, and public services—a blatant form of colonial economic control. This law revealed the true nature of US control over Puerto Rico, demonstrating that Congress always had absolute control over the island.

2021–Present – Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela: Sanctions and political warfare continue, punishing entire populations for resisting dictates from United States.

From 1898 to the present, the US military has brought nothing but piracy, misery, and terror to the Americas and the world. Do not serve in the US military, a military that brings nothing but misery, poverty and death to our people.

Puerto Rican Nationalist Party– Liberation Movement