Lurs

Lurs (also Lors, Lurish: لورَل, Persian:لُرها) are an Iranian people living mainly in western and south-western Iran. Their population is estimated at around five million. They occupy Lorestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Khuzestan and Fars (especially Lamerd, Mamasani and Rostam), Bushehr, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Hamadan, Ilam and Isfahan provinces. The Lur people mostly speak the Lurish language (sometimes called "Luri"), a Southwestern Iranian language related to Persian and Kurdish. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Lurish language is the closest living language to Archaic and Middle Persian. According to the linguist Don Still, Lori-Bakhtiari like Persian is derived directly from Old Persian.Michael M. Gunter states that Lurs people are closely related to the Kurds but that they "apparently began to be distinguished from the Kurds 1,000 years ago."

Lurs are the demographic majority of the provinces of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Ilam, Lorestan and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari. Half of Khuzestan's population is Lurs and 30% of Bushehr's population is Lurs.

El Comité-MINP

El Comité, or MINP, was a 1960s militant organization that sought independence for Puerto Rico from the United States. Together with several other organizations, it formed the nucleus of the Movimiento Pro-Independencia that formed at a time when the United States was coming under increasing international criticism for holding onto one of the world's last colonies.

History

El Comité was born on the West Side of Manhattan around 1970. It slowly began to spread to other cities, originally as a militant, community-based organization protesting so-called urban renewal programs that were replacing low income housing with high-rise developments El Comité filled the vacuum left by the decline of the Young Lords. In 1975 El Comite was renamed MINP, Movimiento para la Independencia Nacional Puertorriqueña (Movement for Puerto Rican National Independence).

Operational Model

El Comité sought to be a multi-issue organization, offering a comprehensive program for the community. Besides its community roles, the group organized a student sector, the Puerto Rican Student Union (PRSU), and a workers organization, and initiated a process that eventually led to the formation of the Latin Women's Collective. Though iots publication Unidad Latina, it addressed the gamut of issues affecting the community, linking local issues to international forces.