PR Independence Leader Juan Mari Bras Dies at 82

By MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100910/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_puerto_rico_obit_mari_bras

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Juan Mari Bras, an elder
statesman of Puerto Rico's independence movement who
gave up U.S. citizenship in an act that inspired
hundreds of other activists, died Friday. He was 82.

Mari Bras died at his home in the San Juan suburb of
Rio Piedras, said Elaine Mulet Hocking, a spokeswoman
for his Hostosiano independence movement. He had lung
cancer and had recently taken a fall, she said.

"Puerto Rico has lost a man who deeply loved his
country," said Jose Luis Dalmau Santiago, the minority
leader in the island's Senate.

A writer and law professor, Mari Bras was deeply
involved in the independence cause from his days as a
teenage student activist in the 1940s. He founded the
Puerto Rican Socialist Party and was a co-founder of
the small but influential Independence Party.

He dedicated his later years to seeking unity among the
varied pro-independence factions in Puerto Rico, a U.S.
Caribbean territory whose 4 million residents are
American citizens but cannot vote for president.

Gov. Luis Fortuno, who represents the opposite end of
Puerto Rico's political spectrum as leader of the pro-
statehood party, issued a statement praising Mari Bras
as a legendary leader who fought for his ideals.

In an effort to establish Puerto Ricans' separate
national identity, Mari Bras traveled to the U.S.
Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1994 and renounced
his American citizenship while claiming the right to
continue living in Puerto Rico. His actions inspired
other "independentistas" to do the same.

The State Department initially approved Mari Bras'
petition, but reversed its decision in 1998, the
centennial year of the U.S. invasion that resulted in
the seizure of Puerto Rico from Spain. U.S. officials
told Mari Bras he was again a U.S. citizen because he
hadn't registered as a resident alien.

As the result of legal challenges stemming from that
case, the island government in 2007 issued its first
certificate of Puerto Rican citizenship to Mari Bras.
Some other islanders have also requested the document,
which is valid as an ID on the island but not
recognized as a travel document outside the island
given that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

Mari Bras also became the first Puerto Rican to lobby
the United Nations for the island's independence in
1973, kicking off what has become a tradition at the
U.N.'s special committee on decolonization.

The Independence Party typically receives less than 5
percent of the vote, with most islanders split between
supporting statehood for Puerto Rico and the status quo
as a U.S. commonwealth.

Mari Bras was born in the west-coast city of Mayaguez
on Dec. 2, 1927, and graduated from American University
Law School in Washington.

He is survived by his wife and five children. Another
child, Santiago Mari Pesquera, was murdered in 1976
while Mari Bras was campaigning for governor on a
Socialist Party ticket. The family has expressed
suspicions that he was slain in reprisal for his
father's political activism but the case was never
solved.

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