PIP to Obama: U.S. not ‘innocent bystander’ on status

Robert Friedman - Daily Sun Washington Bureau
Washington - August 11, 2009

President Obama got it right when he said last week that it was up to Puerto Ricans to choose how to decide the status issue, but he spoke as though the United States was just an “innocent by-stander” in an issue that involves the nation’s moral and legal obligations, the Puerto Rican Independence Party said Monday in response to an interview the president gave to the Spanish-language media that was published over the weekend.

For the first time since he became president, Obama spoke for the record about island status during the White House event. While he seemed basically to be skirting the issue, anything the president says about the U.S.-Puerto Rico relationship invariably becomes grist for the island’s political mill.

“I have always been clear that the people of Puerto Rico should decide their status”, Obama said. “I have not studied the details of the House [status] bill [filled by Resident Commissioner, Pedro Pierluisi] and since this is a complicated issue, I want to be sure that I hear all sides. But there has to be a mechanism that includes the direct participation of Puerto Rico in the status decision”.

He added: “I’m confident that the people of Puerto Rico are going to want to maintain a close relationship with the United States… The key is to let the people decide how they want to approach this issue”.

The president’s remarks on allowing the people to decide on how the plebiscite process should unfold could be interpreted as similar to a proposal made by PIP President Rubén Berríos during a recent U.S. House hearing on the Pierluisi bill. Berríos had proposed that the process for resolving status be put to a vote.

“We have been saying all along that the people should decide on how to approach status decision, whether through a constitutional assembly, a direct vote or direct negotiations”, PIP official Manuel Rodríguez Orellana said.

The Pierluisi bill calls for status to be resolved through a plebiscite process. If voter in a first plebiscite choose to change the current relationship, they would vote a second time on whether the island should be a state, an independent nation or sovereign in association with the United States.

Rodríguez Orellana, meanwhile, criticized Obama for “washing his hands of responsibility” by not making any suggestions on the next step toward settling status.

“The U.S. is not an innocent by-stander” in the status dilemma, said the PIP secretary for North American affairs.

Obama, he said, gave the impression that the status was “exclusively a Puerto Rico issue, which it is not. The U.S. has a moral and legal obligation to promote self-determination for Puerto Rico”, he said.

Also, chiming in Monday was Rep. José Aponte, NPP-at large, who insisted that the solution to the problem of status is in Puerto Rico”. This, he said makes it “urgent” that his status bill is approved.

Aponte said the president’s statement on status showed that Washington would not act on status unless urged by Puerto Rico.

Aponte’s measure, similar to legislation unanimously approved in the last Legislature but vetoed by then-Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, calls for a vote in Puerto Rico to demand that Congress and the White House take immediate action on status.