Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila last week urged a United Nations committee to help persuade the Bush administration to allow the Caribbean island to decide if it should remain a U.S. territory, become the 51st state in the union, or become an independent nation.
Acevedo Vila, a member of the Popular Democratic Party which favors Puerto Rico’s commonwealth status, testified before the U.N. Special Committee on Decolonization that the current U.S. administration has not allowed the Puerto Rican people to vote on the issue of sovereignty.
“Our political relationship with the U.S., which we deeply appreciate, is not, however, fully democratic,” the governor said before the committee. “The federal government, especially during the Bush administration, has continued to exert new political powers in Puerto Rico without the consent of the governed. That is a democratic imbalance that has to stop as soon as possible.”
Since obtaining its commonwealth status in 1952, Puerto Rico offers businesses the benefits of operating offshore along with the safety of being under U.S. jurisdiction. There are no federal taxes on the island and businesses receive local tax incentives, while at the same time the territory retains U.S. currency and operates under U.S. law and military protection.
In addition, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens yet continue to maintain their cultural identity. Spanish is the main language within the island’s school and court systems, and as it has in the past, Puerto Rico will represent itself in the upcoming 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing.
The majority of Puerto Ricans support maintaining the island’s commonwealth status, although officials would like to see Puerto Rico’s autonomy strengthened.
“I come here to defend our right to grow up under the commonwealth to build on that sovereignty of which we spoke in 1953, to achieve greater economic and social development for Puerto Rico,” Acevedo Vila said.
Yet statehood, which many still support and is the preferred status of the New Progressive Party, would enable Puerto Ricans to vote in presidential elections and obtain voting power in Congress. The NPP currently controls the island’s legislature and Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner, Luis Fortuno, is an NPP member. Fortuno is up against Acevedo Vila in November’s gubernatorial elections.
