Juan Mari Brás

Juan Mari Brás (born December 2, 1925 in Mayagüez , Puerto Rico , † September 10, 2010 in Río Piedras , San Juan , Puerto Rico) was a Puerto Rican politician who campaigned for the independence of his homeland.

Life

His father was an active representative of the independence movement in Puerto Rico and often took him to political meetings. In 1943, at the age of 15, Mari Brás founded a corresponding movement in his high school in Mayagüez and directed the political radio program Grito de la Patria .

In 1944 he enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico . In 1946 he was a founding member of the Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP) by Gilberto Concepción de Gracia and became president of the party's youth department. Two years later, the university students invited nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos as a guest speaker on the Río Piedras campus. When the president of the university, Jaime Benítez, refused entry to Albizu Campos, the students responded with a strike. Mari Brás led the group that shouted anti-American slogans and marched with a Puerto Rican flag in hand. As a result, the protesting students were expelled from the university for attacks on the US government, which was in control of the island at the time.

Mari Brás went to Florida , where he earned his bachelor's degree and studied at Georgetown University . In 1954 he was at the Law School of the George Washington University Law study, but was rejected and eventually earned his degree from the American University .

In 1959 he founded the Pro-Independence Movement and the political newspaper Claridad , which was left-wing and was under his direction for three decades. In 1971 the Pro-Independence Movement was transformed into the Partido Socialista Puertorriqueño (PSP). In 1973, in a speech to the United Nations , Mari Brás described Puerto Rico as a "colony" of the United States and called for an end to this situation. He was the first Puerto Rican to bring up the subject. In March 1976, his son Santiago Mari Pesquera was murdered while he was on a campaign trip himself; the crime was never solved.

On July 11, 1994, he caused a legal controversy when he at the US Embassy in Caracas ( Venezuela turning down the US) citizenship explained. In court he was charged with renouncing his citizenship and giving up his right to vote in Puerto Rico. The courts ruled twice in his favor. The issue continues to cause debate.

Mari Brás retired from active politics and no longer became president of the defunct PSP, but appeared at independence events and taught law at the Eugenio María de Hostos School of Law , which he co-founded in his hometown of Mayagüez more than a decade ago.

On October 25, 2006, he became the first person to receive a certificate of Puerto Rican citizenship from the Puerto Rico State Department, which the US State Department has since questioned. He received the certificate after renouncing US citizenship and more than ten years of litigation claiming he was a citizen of Puerto Rico. Former Puerto Rico Supreme Court Associate Justice and Secretary of State Baltasar Corrada del Río questioned the validity of the certificate, citing a law passed in 1997 and authorized by current Senate President Kenneth McClintock that establishes U.S. citizenship and nationality as a requirement for Puerto Rican citizenship. Mari Brás' efforts have sparked a public debate on the subject.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=365954&CategoryId=14092
2. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20100913032036/http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hWqwXRtHVo2u_FYiYrru5WzaI2VQD9I57J500

Web links

• Certificación ( PDF , Spanish)
• Juan Mari Brás at peacehost.net (English)