Puerto Rico's Turn - by Ricardo Alarcon

[magbana]

PROGREWO WEEKLY
May 29 - Jun 4, 2008

http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option
=com_content&task=view&id=482&Itemid=1

Puerto Rico's turn
By Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada

On June 1, primary elections will be held in Puerto Rico. For that reason,
politicians and journalists will travel to the island to pay to it an
attention they never paid before and to turn their visit into part of the
spectacle of marketing of politics that in the United States is called
"democracy." In this case, however, the spectacle becomes insulting.

The Democratic candidates will compete there for the favor of voters who are
not part of U.S. society and therefore have no vote in the U.S. general
elections next November. In theory, Puerto Ricans can decide who the
Democratic candidate will be but cannot vote for him, or her, or the
Republican rival, or any other candidate to the presidency of the United
States.

Once the farce is concluded, politicians and journalists will pack their
bags and go away, not to deal again with Puerto Rico for the next four
years. Once again, they'll try to ignore the interests and aspirations of
its noble and generous people.

This time, however, it won't be so easy. The following week, on June 9, the
United Nations' Committee on Decolonization will again discuss Puerto Rico's
status, as it has done every year since 1972. Many voices have been raised
there, and in other U.N. entities, to demand that the United States put an
end to its colonial regime and return to the Puerto Rican people the right
to decide their fate, a right that was wrested from them more than a century
ago.

It was not necessary to travel to another country to hear that demand. It
was repeated, one summer after another, for more than three decades, from
the skyscraper on Manhattan's First Avenue, in the heart of New York. But
the major U.S. media and its politicians pretended not to notice.

This year, their disdain will be a bit more difficult. Before the Committee
will speak representatives from the whole of Puerto Rican society, including
representatives of all the parties and political movements on the island,
along with the Socialist Internationale and the Conference of Political
Parties of Latin America (COPPAL), which brings together the main parties in
the continent, including several parties that now are governments.

They will raise a petition for the U.N. General Assembly to discuss in depth
the case of Puerto Rico, as we unanimously agreed at the International
Conference of Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence, which we held in
Panama in 2006 and reiterated this year in Mexico. In the name of all those
who participated in those two events, Dr. Rodrigo Borja, former President of
Ecuador, will address the Committee.

This Latin American demand echoes the one made in Havana in 2006 by the
chiefs of state and government of the nonaligned countries.

Latin America is living through a new era, and Puerto Rico is not absent
from it. Its turn, Puerto Rico's turn, is very near. It is coming much
faster than some people in the North, drunk with demagoguery and ignorance,
think.

[Bacchus39]

1. PR independentistas are about 5% of the electorate

the ruling party in PR at the moment, Partido Popular Democratico does not want the UN to declare that PR is a colony because they believe the issue was "settled" in 1952 when the US gave them limited autonomy as a Commonwealth. In PR, the Commonwealth is known as the Estado Libre Asociado, which means Free Associated State. the PPD maintains that the "true" arrangement of the Estado Libre Asociado would give them sovereignty as any other country. US federal courts would be abolished, PR would have the power to veto US federal law as it applies to the island, puertoricans would maintain US citizenship, Federal benefits would continue for the island, Puerto Rico would "delegate" their responsibilities of defense, post office, Coast Guard, and other government services to the US, PR would have the power to make international agreements.

this ideal is NOT what PR is in actually, which is a US territory. The PPD perpetually deny that PR is a territory all the while saying that the Estado Libre Asociado includes all the items listed above, and more, when in actuality it does not.

The Statehood party makes up about 45% of the population and together with the Independentistas claim the island is in fact a territory, which it is, and would like the UN to declare PR a colony. of course, they have two very different ideas on how to resolve their colonial status.

Cuba always tries to raise PR as an issue to embarrass the US for having a colony, however, 95% of the islanders, Statehooders plus PPD, do not want independence.

[roody]

2. Well said. I have hear Sr. Alarcon in person,

speaking eloquently in English.