Puerto Rico’s Future: Independence after 108 years under the U.S. flag

Address Before the Hispanic Conference of State Legislators
November, 2006

Puerto Rico has been under U.S. flag for 108 years while there has been an ongoing struggle for independence for 150 years. It is part of the collective testimony that we are a nation. A nation is a community of shared attitudes, traditions, history and believes, being the most important, the belief in one’s identity as a member of such a community. It is a compact between the living , the dead, and those to be born and it entails a collective will to aspire to self government. The fact that at this moment only a minority manifest the will to create a national state does not diminish the fact - no matter what are our differences as to the future of Puerto Rico - that there is a will to be governed by what we believe are Puerto Ricans like us. I am sure that the majority of those that believe in statehood will repudiate any attempt of American citizens not born in Puerto Rico, to represent us in Congress unless they are assured that they have become ‘bona fide’ residents in more than a juridical sense; that they can communicate well in Spanish and have come to share what we believe is our culture.

Our nationalism is not xenophobic. I belong to a party that has had as local leaders and candidates Americans born in the United States, whose Spanish was learned as a second language. They belong to a long standing tradition of solidarity with the cause of the independence of Puerto Rico that started with the sacrifice of Mathias Brugman at the Lares Insurrection of 1868. Our party shares with other Latin American countries the tradition of recognizing the solidarity of those foreign born that have come to share our struggles for independence and social justice. This should not be strange to Americans familiar with their own history. The only important naval victory of France against England in their centuries long struggles set up the American victory at Yorktown.

On November 2006 several Latin American leaders of most major political parties, representing a wide political spectrum are meeting in the Republic of Panama for the First Latin American and Caribbean Congress in Solidarity with the Independence of Puerto Rico. Now more than ever, the cause of our independence is part of the Latin American political agenda it will be difficult for the United States Congress or the State Department to pursue avenues other than the recognition of our sovereignty for the solution of the problem of Puerto Rico 's territorial status.

It is a rule of International Law that every nation has an inalienable right to its self determination and independence. This means that unless a nation becomes independent there is a permanent right to aspire, request or conquer that destiny as long as it remains a nation. Independence is to a nation what adulthood is to an individual. One cannot expect a community of individuals to act as responsible citizens if they are looking for someone else to solve their problems. In Puerto Rico this contradiction is manifest in the current economic and social crisis that feeds what we are calling somewhat euphemistically, our territorial status problem.

From an economic perspective Puerto Rico’s current territorial status is becoming a burden on the Federal Budget and on the Puerto Rican people. As time goes by it is becoming more difficult within the trade and financial limitations imposed by the Law of Federal Relations to increase trade and investment in such a degree as to reduce unemployment to a manageable level of 5% and to strengthen the financial resources of the government needed to improve the management of the Public Debt and ameliorate the social problems that the private sector alone is unable to tackle.

The responsibility of the United States government must not be ignored and that is why it is important that all those sectors that want a concerted and rational solution to the problem urge Congress to act to solve our territorial problem. The Puerto Rican Independence Party proposes an approach similar to that in Senate Bill 2661 - a referendum which boils down to "Colonial territory, Yes or No" - without closing off to other possibilities , including a subsequent constituent convention to consider only non-colonial, non-territorial options.* The current territorial Commonwealth arrangement is an illegitimate option and must be excluded. Besides, it is the problem and it cannot therefore be the solution.

Finally, colonialism demeans both the colonized and the colonizer. In the case of Puerto Rico, it presupposes the superiority of Americans over Puerto Ricans. Everyone should reject this immorality. The United States fought the first anti-colonial struggle in this Hemisphere. It currently holds the oldest colony in the world. Its responsibility to decolonize is a function of its power. Democracy cannot be invoked to sustain or promote a non democratic status like the current territorial Commonwealth.

__________________________________________________

* On January 28, 2008 it is H.R. 900, by congressman Serrano and others, which pursues the same objective but which should also be amended as suggested above.

** Carlos A. Frontera Santana was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan on March 23rd. 1947, of Puerto Rican parents. He grew up in Puerto Rico where he obtained a B.A. in Economics, with Honors, at the University of Puerto Rico in 1967. Between 1970 and 1973 he studied at The New School for Social Research and obtained a M.A. in Economics, with Honors, having completed all the requirements for the Ph.D. but the dissertation. In 1984 he obtained a J.D. at the University of Puerto Rico and has been a member of the Bar since January 1985.

Through the years, Mr. Frontera has also occupied several positions within the Puerto Rican Independence Party, as a member of its Central Committee between 1987 and 1993; as a candidate to the House of Representatives for the elections of 2000, and as the representative of the Puerto Rican Independence Party at the Local Electoral Commission of the district in which he lives. As an economist, he has worked on research related to the economic aspects of Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States in the 1989 to 1991 U.S. Congress process that considered but failed to approve federal legislation on status, the 1993 Status Plebiscite held under Puerto Rican legislation, and the electoral platforms of the Puerto Rican Independence Party for all the elections since 1992. He also has participated as a lecturer in various seminars given by the PIP throughout Puerto Rico on these issues; and as a panelist in several radio talk shows representing the Puerto Rican Independence Party.

During the summer of 2000 he was imprisoned along with dozens of Puerto Rican Independence Party members for participating in the non-violent civil disobedience campaign against the utilization of the Island of Vieques for target practice by the United States Navy.