The Speech of Colonel Enrique De Orbeta
By P. Albizu Campos
Colonel Orbeta’s speech before the Rotarians is a public call for civic cooperation with the Insular Police and deserves serious consideration.
Colonel Orbeta has the immense privilege of having been born in Puerto Rico. That transcendental fact obliges him to give attention to national questions from the point of view of Puerto Ricans, notwithstanding the fact that he occupies the position of Chief of the Insular Police under the present regime.
His speech reveals a promise: the reorganization of the Insular Police. Although no armed institution that serves as the instrument of the North American intervening power is reformable in principle — due to the fact that the current regime is absolutely unaccountable to the Puerto Rican nation, and it is from this irresponsibility that all the evils of any armed institution emanate — he is nevertheless the chief charged with carrying out orders in the name of that same intervening power, and if he feels accountable to his own conscience, his intention for reform is not trivial. For this reason we consider Colonel Orbeta’s statements about the organization of the Insular Police to be important.
Since the fulfillment of that purpose is necessary to restore public confidence in the Insular Police — as Colonel Orbeta himself recognizes in his speech — the public interest that exists in the situation created by the acts of violence and terrorism carried out by the police obliges us to comment on the needs of said reorganization.
[…] the public has contemplated with astonishment the presence in the streets, rendering service, of said individuals, and the effort made by the North American executive power in Puerto Rico to crystallize in reality its desire to promote the officers involved in that horrendous crime that took place in the very General Headquarters of the police.
That norm has inevitably led the police to commit murders in Ponce, in Utuado, and to show disrespect for the law throughout the nation. The police have become a body that gives the appearance of organized disorder.
The reform must begin with the change of that norm, and given the gravity of events — whose consequences no one can measure — great clarity in the exposition of this situation is necessary.
The suppression of common crimes is a police obligation everywhere, but the police cannot be used as a political instrument. In Puerto Rico it has been used as a political instrument.
First: to disrupt the authentic socialist movement that began in the country, resorting to police force to dissolve the socialists with gunfire and clubs. Many people died in that struggle. The regime did not worry. The socialist leadership was forced to opt for a governmental policy that ended up being a sugar policy, which effectively killed the socialist organization in Puerto Rico, notwithstanding the existence of a party with that name. The police officers who intervened in those criminal cases were also rewarded with promotions by the executive power of the United States.
Second: the same tactic has been attempted against nationalism. It suffices to read the general order of the insular police of March 14, 1936, marked “Strictly Confidential,” giving very detailed instructions for persecuting […]
In the present situation in which the nation of Puerto Rico is living, a policeman arrests a citizen under any pretext and regardless of how unjustified the arrest, if the chief of the North American intervention in Puerto Rico exonerates him, even though a Grand Jury accuses him, he goes unpunished for his crime. In the case of the commission of a murder such as that of Beauchamp and Rosado, this conclusion has been fully confirmed. Moreover, it is taken for granted that if the Petit Jury convicts the individuals involved in that horrendous crime, they will be pardoned by the Governor of Puerto Rico. That is to say, the so-called civil courts existing in Puerto Rico are useless in the face of official crimes.
To justify organized official crime, an atmosphere has been sought against nationalism to justify what can never be justified. In the North American press, a libelous campaign against nationalism and its leaders is maintained. As an example, it suffices to cite the edition of the Literary Digest, dated May 2, 1936. This magazine has a wide circulation in the United States. This edition reproduces the photograph of the speaker at the trial of Pearson, one of the victims of the police in the “massacre” of Río Piedras, when the speaker, as defense attorney for this gentleman, was cross-examining a prosecution witness about a caliber 45 pistol that had been presented as evidence by the prosecutor. At the moment the speaker took the pistol in hand, he was photographed. The photograph is known to everyone in Puerto Rico. Well, that photograph was reproduced by said magazine with the following caption: Pedro Albizu Campos; kill, burn, destroy. This is a gross libel.
Recently the outrage of the arrest of Carlos Juan Marchand, an adolescent, as the presumed killer of policeman Colón has been committed. This young man was arrested solely for being a nationalist. He has been assigned an exorbitant bail of twenty-five thousand dollars for his provisional release. An attempt has been made to suggest that the death of Colón — who confessed his participation in the “massacre” of Río […]
[…] of the colonial, regular and police troops, to carry out a coup as soon as a Constituent Convention of the Republic of Puerto Rico is formalized, with the purpose of establishing a military government for an indefinite period in the name of the Republic, for twenty-five or thirty years at least, one that would be pleasing to these selfish interests. This is organized official turbulence.
That this will harm the United States as a nation in its great vital interests throughout the continent is beyond doubt. But what do these gentlemen care about the future of the American nation? What interests them is a few more dollars. The opposition to the holding of the Constituent Assembly lies in that noted fact.
The sugar barons, acting with unheard-of blindness, are the sworn enemies of the Republic. They say they are prepared to spend whatever is necessary to prevent the advent of independence. Money is flowing. They have armed forces with machine guns in their factories to impose their will. And what is a great irony, they speak in the name of the United States and dispose of the force of the United States for the realization of this perversity. They suggest that the “good neighbor” policy of the North American Government is a perfidy. We shall see.
Of course they do not stand in front. It is the conspiracy. But they organize violence. They have even obtained the goodwill of prosecutors who dream of the moment they can destroy nationalism by suppressing its leadership.
Colonel De Orbeta, organized crime does not exist in the nation of Puerto Rico. It never will. This is a Christian nation. We are in the reconstruction of nationhood. Valor and sacrifice are the dogmas of action of the builders of nationhood. They must keep their hands clean of corrupting gold and of the blood of their fellow man.
To the call of honor, they will never fail.