Puerto Rico

And my mind started racing, Puerto Rico? What do I know about Puerto Rico?

Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans had played a significant role in United States history.

In a way, Puerto Ricans, especially Puerto Rico residents, were viewed as second class citizens.

Puerto Rico in Crisis

Paradoxically, Congress could send Puerto Ricans to the battlefield but Puerto Ricans could not send representatives to Congress.

What Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans particularly needed was statehood and the same rights as other United States citizens.

Ms. Reveron Collazo (Comité Puerto Rico en las Naciones Unidas) said that early on Puerto Rico's pro independence movement had warned of the serious problems currently facing the Puerto Rican people, and in particular the adverse impact of Puerto Rico's colonial status on its economic, social and cultural development.

Ms. Luz Rexach (National Advancement for Puerto Rican Culture, Inc.) said that the situation in Puerto Rico was very sad.

Puerto Ricans were basically for statehood.

Puerto Ricans considered those claims hypocritical.

Mr. Bhatia (Executive Director, Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration), speaking on behalf of the Governor of Puerto Rico, said that he wished to present his Government's official position regarding the self determination of Puerto Rico.

Accordingly, Puerto Rico's problem was not its alleged colonial status but discriminatory practices that reduced Puerto Ricans to second rate citizens .

In fact, the United States unilaterally concluded and imposed on Puerto Rico arrangements that often ran counter to Puerto Rican interests.

Since the 1970s, the Puerto Rico Bar Association (CAPR) had considered alternative solutions to the problem of Puerto Rico's political status.

The Committee had significantly assisted Puerto Rico in its struggle for demilitarization and for the release of Puerto Rican political prisoners.

Notes the debate in Puerto Rico on the implementation of a mechanism that would ensure the full participation of representatives of all viewpoints prevailing in Puerto Rico, based on the principle that any initiative for the solution of the political status of Puerto Rico should originate from the people of Puerto Rico

His Government was therefore in favour of decolonizing Puerto Rico by way of a mechanism that ensured the full participation of all Puerto Ricans, such as an assembly on the status of the Puerto Rican people where any initiative aimed at resolving the island's political status came directly from the Puerto Rican people.

Puerto Rico is not a sovereign state.

10 Puerto Rico Herald, 9 August 2004.

The artificial problem of Puerto Rico's colonial status could be definitively solved by making Puerto Rico the fifty first state of the United States, whereby Puerto Ricans would automatically enjoy the same rights as other United States citizens.

Such a broad based assembly would enable the Puerto Rican people to unanimously request the United States to grant sovereignty to Puerto Rico.

Accordingly, the decolonization of Puerto Rico required, among other things, returning the land and coastal waters of Vieques to the people of the island, releasing Puerto Rican political prisoners, compensating the people of Vieques for damages and desisting from applying the death penalty in Puerto Rico and recruiting Puerto Ricans to serve in the United States Armed Forces.

The very fact that the Special Committee held hearings of Puerto Rican petitioners even though each of them supported one of three alternative political statuses for Puerto Rico proved the colonial character of Puerto Rico's current relationship with the United States.

Ms. Albizu Campos (Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico (PNPR)) said that decolonization was a key universal requirement under international law.

At the invitation of the Chairman, Ms. Albizu Campos (Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico (PNPR)) took place at the petitioners' table.

Ms. Rexach (National Advancement for Puerto Rican Culture) said that Puerto Rico had an elected Government and could not therefore be regarded as a colony.

The new proposal enjoyed the support of many sectors of Puerto Rican society, members and representatives of political parties in Puerto Rico, elected officials in the United States including several members of Congress and many Puerto Ricans residing in the United States.

Mr. Farinacci García (Socialist Front of Puerto Rico Frente Socialista de Puerto Rico (FSPR)) said that, addressing the Special Committee in past years, the representatives of various bodies defending Puerto Rico's right to self determination and independence had invariably denounced the toughening of the colonial regime and noted the intensification of the Puerto Rican people's struggle against specific manifestations of imperialist domination.

At the invitation of the Chairman, Mr. Farinacci García (Socialist Front of Puerto Rico Frente Socialista de Puerto Rico (FSPR)) took place at the petitioners' table.

Noting the debate in Puerto Rico on the search for a procedure that would make it possible to launch the process of decolonization of Puerto Rico,

Puerto Rico would continue to fight for national liberation.

A representative of the Colegio de Abogados de Puerto Rico emphasized that since 1898 Puerto Rico had been and still was a colony of the United States.

Another source of tension facing the colonial regime was the United States Government's intention to introduce in Puerto Rico capital punishment, prohibited under the Puerto Rican Constitution.

To more than one million Puerto Ricans who were United States citizens that had been raised and lived on the continent, Puerto Rico's independence made no sense.

In that context, the ongoing debate in Puerto Rico on the establishment of a constitutional assembly on the status of the Puerto Rican people was highly significant.

Noting the consensus among the people of Puerto Rico in favour of the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners who are still serving sentences in United States prisons for cases related to the struggle for Puerto Rico's independence and to the Vieques Island struggle for peace,

Mr. Mondriguez Torres (Puerto Rico Bar Association (CAPR)) said that, since the 1951 referendum, Puerto Rico's status had been that of a Commonwealth associated with the United States.

Look at what you Americans are doing in Puerto Rico.

Special Committee decision of 14 June 2004 concerning Puerto Rico6

Puerto Rico could not remain patient for one more century.

Special Committee decision of 14 June 2004 concerning Puerto Rico

Make believe democracy and elections were part of a diversionary tactic that perpetuated Puerto Rico's colonial status, served the interests of the colonial power and destroyed Puerto Rican society.

Accordingly, the United States must withdraw all of its armed forces from Puerto Rican territory, release all political prisoners and assist in Puerto Rico's political, economic and social development.

Thanking the Committee for its interest in Puerto Rico, the speaker asserted that Puerto Rico had ceased to be a United States colony long ago but, regrettably, lacked statehood.