On Saturday, April 19, a group of U.S. congressmen convened a
public hearing at the San Juan Fine Arts Theater on the national
fate of Puerto Rico. At issue is a bill filed by Representative
Don Young, an Alaskan Republican, calling for a 1998 referendum
which will pose the options of "statehood" "commonwealth status"
or independence to the people of Puerto Rico.
Under its current commonwealth status Puerto Rico's 3.7
million residents are U.S. citizens, but do not pay federal taxes
and cannot vote in general presidential elections. The island is
described as "belonging to" but "not part of" the United States.
The Spanish-speaking island was colonized by Spain in the 15th
century and ceded to the United States in 1898 after the
Spanish-American War. The island has been turned into a military
base for the Americans and it has suffered the most brutal
devastation on all fronts.
The U.S. economic, political, cultural and military
domination of Puerto Rico has turned the issue of the island's
national status into what the U.S. official circles and their
agents in Puerto Rico call a "contentious issue." This is to say
that there are various forces within Puerto Rico who want to
preserve Puerto Rico's neo-colonial status because they benefit
from it.
"I eagerly await the plebiscite that is sanctioned by this
legislation," Democratic Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode
Island told the meeting. "If we want to talk about equality for
all Puerto Ricans, we should give them a voice." All but those
who favor U.S. statehood say the bill is slanted to favor
Puerto Rico being turned into the 51st American state. They say
the it does not truthfully represent the realities of statehood
for Puerto Rico. Amongst other things, it would result in the
loss of Spanish as its official language.
The defenders of national self-determination in Puerto Rico,
whether they support commonwealth status or independence or even
statehood, argue that a referendum on the nation's fate must be
held within conditions of complete neutrality. Several
referendums have already been held, each in conditions of
outright persecution, intimidation, harassment and arrests of
sovereigntists. Conditions of neutrality would require, amongst
other things, the release of Puerto Rican political prisoners
detained in U.S. prisons for the "crime" of fighting for the
island's independence.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
