Rosa Martinez’s anti-imperialist organizing is in their blood -- raised in Miami by Colombian immigrants, their grandfather was Manuel Marulanda, the founder and leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). So when they set sail from Italy towards the Gaza Strip in an attempt to break the Israeli siege, with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition as a part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, they viewed their participation as a part of a family legacy of direct action. In this interview, Rosa tells the in-depth story of joining the flotilla, acting as a translator and boat organizer on their vessel, being intercepted and boarded by the Israel Occupation Forces off the coast of Greece, being transferred by war ship to an Israeli prison, their four days of imprisonment and torture including a propaganda video from Itamar Ben-Gvir… and the comrades they met along the way.
“We sailed to the heart of darkness. And I’m lucky to come back and tell you what it’s like. And I would hope that in being able to tell people what it’s like, it would wake us up out of this stasis -- and I do feel like the Palestine movement is in a bit of stasis right now -- to keep organizing.”
“I’ll never forget just having this gun pointed at me. Any sudden movement I’m getting shot in the head, probably multiple times. I think I was just so overcome with emotion, not necessarily fear, but just this litany of emotions. To me it is a grand honor to face your enemy eye to eye. Call me crazy but it’s something I’ve always wanted. But throughout this whole situation to know that I’m completely powerless in this situation, and that I’m probably going to be powerless and won’t have any control over my body for X amount of days, but also just realizing that every single decision that I’ve made in my life has led me to this and that’s okay.”
“I’m in this stress position on my knees, zip ties behind me, I’m losing circulation in my hands, my knees are starting to bleed, my forehead’s bleeding and I just have my eyes closed. I hear people screaming, asking for zip ties to be loosened or begging for water or for the beatings to stop. And I’m just crying. I can’t help myself, I can’t help anyone.”
“For us it’s really important to engage in direct action, and this one specifically, because it also offers this very important educational moment where I get to come back home, and I get to talk about the fact that this very much predates the 7th of October. I get to talk about the history of the flotilla movement. I get to talk about the history of Palestine even before 1948… Seeing something so spectacular like the flotilla mobilizes people.”
Host/Producer/Editor: Reed Dunlea
Executive Producer: Ash Tyner
Music: Jesse Crawford Martinez
Logo: Theresa Escobedo
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