independence was […] only 6.5 per cent.’ 35 The nationalists passionately ‘waged a sustained campaign of liberation with bombs and bullets,’ but it did not achieve the independence of their homeland. 36 This escalation was truly one of violent and dramatic proportions and as the issue of independence is yet to be resolved, it is an issue that still lies dormant within the American political sphere. Little has occurred following the events of the 1970s, a time in which ‘the United states has viewed Puerto Rico as […] at worst, dangerous subversives and revolutionaries,’ their progressive silence has reduced the threat posed by them to the United States as international threats became more prominent and prevalent. 37 Due to rising tensions in Latin America and the Middle East notions of anti-colonialism grew exponentially on an international level. Terrorism was no longer only a domestic issue for the United States. Various terrorist organisations employed international tactics, such as airline hijackings and hostage-taking, to highlight their cause. ‘Hijackings are not a new phenomenon,’ as Brenda and James Lutz suggest, yet during the 1960s and 1970s they became a key tool in the arsenal of terrorists. 38 The use of airline hijackings would significantly increase during the period 1968-1972 under the necessities of two typographies as identified by Robert Holden; transportation hijackings, and hijackings for extortion. 39 Transportation hijackings were significantly employed by Cuban exiles in the wake of the Cuban revolution, as a means of returning to
35 Bell and Gurr, p. 338. 36 Ibid, p. 338.
37 Pedro A. Malavet, America’s Colony: The Political and Cultural Conflict between the United States and Puerto Rico (New York: New York University Press, 2004) p. 147. 38 Lutz and Lutz, p. 26. 39 Ro bert T Holden, ‘The Contagiousness of Aircraft Hijacking’, American Journal of Sociology , 91 (1986), p. 874-879.
13
Made with FlippingBook HTML5