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Washington - Gov. Acevedo Vila's claim that Barack Obama's pledge
to actively address several crucial Puerto Rico issues
as president was a "historic" first for any White House
candidate is incorrect, if one reads position papers by
Democratic presidential candidates in 2004.
The Illinois senator's vow to pay "close attention"
to such critical island issues as status, the economy,
federal funds and health matters, if and when he becomes
president, drew more or less the same pledges four years
ago from Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry
of Massachusetts, and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a
Democratic presidential hopeful at the time.
for the island. While Obama said he would propose a
joint U.S.Puerto Rico task force to look for "specific
ways" to address the island's economic woes, both Kerry
and Clark came up with particular programs.
Kerry and Clark indicated they would•move to include
island residents with one or two children in the child
income tax refund program and low-income workers in the
Earned Income ITax Credit program. Clark also proposed
to extend the federal Supplemental Security Income
program to the island, which could result in many
millions of additional dollars to the island's needy,
aged, blind and disabled.
The big difference appears to be, for the governor at
least,that the Illinois senator's position on status was
closer to that held by pro-commonwealth leaders than was
the status stances of the 2004 candidates
Obama said in a letter to the governor that, "As
president, I will actively engage Congress and the
Puerto Rican people in promoting this deliberative, open
and unbiased [status] process that may include a
constitutional convention or a plebiscite:' He said his
administration "would recognize all valid options,
including commonwealth, statehood and independence:'
Almost certainly, the two key points here for the
governor are Obamas mentioning the constitutional
convention as way to resolve status and his implying
that commonwealth, with or without changes, is a valid
permanent political option. Both Kerry and Clark said as
president they would have worked to have Congress
authorize a referendum for island voters to directly
choose among '~constitutionally viable" options. They
did not mention commonwealth as constitutionally viable.
Acevedo Vila could not have been disappointed that
Obama left out as a status choice free association. Many
autonomous commonwealthers would like to see the current
relationship evolve into that option, but current
Popular Democratic Party leaders oppose it. Kerry and
Clark both mentioned free association as a viable status
option.
Kerry and Clark made similar strong vows to move
first thing to resolve status and help get the island's
economy in shape
Kerry vowed "to restore full-time attention to Puerto
Rico issues in the White House:'
But, when discussing status, he noted that: "Puerto
Rico remains an unincorporated territory of the United
States" and said he backed legislation authorizing
voters "to choose whether Puerto Rico would become an
independent country, a sovereign nation in free
association with the United States or a state of the
union:' He did not mention the current commonwealth
relationship as a possible a permanent political future
for the island.
Clark had vowed as president to "engage in an
objective public education campaign on the
constitutionally viable status options:' He mentioned
those options as "national sovereignty, either fully
independent from or in free association with the United
States, or to join the nation as a state:' Commonwealth,
as Puerto Ricans know it, was not among those
constitutionally viable choices.
In a related'matter, former candidate Clark's
national adviser on Hispanic and Latino issues said he
was withdrawing his support for Obama in the upcoming
election because of the senator's letter to Acevedo
Vila.
Yosem Companys, a:Puerto Rican who was offering
advice to the Obama campaign, said he could "no longer
in good conscience" back Obama because of his "misguided!
and factually and historically inaccurate" letter to the
governor. He said that neither Congress nor the United
Nations has accepted the current territorial status as a
permanent solution and that the candidate appears to be
buying . into the PDP's enhanced commonwealth proposal,
which would give the island government such powers as
rejecting federal laws and making trade pacts with other
nations.
Companys said that not one member of the House or
Senate has ever supported the Acevedo Vila
adininistration's plan for an enhanced commonwealth.
Acevedo Vila's boast that Obama . incorporated into
his recent letter to the governor "almost everything"
they discussed during the latter's fund-raising visit to
Puerto Rico, including the senator's "strict neutrality"
regarding territorial commonwealth, raises questions
regarding Obama's capacity to ,make serious legal
judgments, according to a Puerto Rican Independence
Party official.
The PIP chimed in once more on the letter, charging
that by supporting commonwealth "on equal footing" with
the other status options, Obama showed "a lack of
knowledge regarding U.S. constitutional and
international law, or his willingness to ignore the law
for the sake of political expediency:' |
