2012.08.27 (three-way fight--statehood vs. independece vs. ... independence)

7/31/2019 2012.08.27 (Three-Way Fight--Statehood vs. Independece vs. ... Independence)

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Three-Way Fight: Statehood vs.Independence vs. Independence?

InCitizenship Equality,Commentary and Analysis,Enemies of Equality,Puerto Rico,Puerto Rico Independence,Puerto Rico

Statehood,Self-Determination,Soberanistas vs. Autonomistas,The Big Lie: The PPD's "Commonwealth"onAugust 26,

2012at4:00 PMHow Puerto Ricos Plebiscite Unfairly Opens the Back Door to an Unwanted Status

The latest status plebiscite in Puerto Rico will be held onElection Day (November 6, 2012). On that

day, the people of theAmerican territorywill be asked to vote yes, or no on whether to keep the

current territorialCommonwealth status. A yes vote would perpetuate thecurrent unequal,

colonial status; a no vote would reject, but would not end, the colonial Commonwealth status per

se. To do that, the voters will have to answer a second question on the same ballot: which sovereign

option do you want?statehood,independence, or independence!

Yes, the independence option appears twice. Why?

First, let us ask a different question: what is the purpose ofall these plebisciteswe all hear about?

The answer: to terminate a territorial status that very few in Puerto Rico believe in, and to achieve

sovereignty for the people of the island. Sovereignty, as such, is the power of a people to make

decisions about its own political future without the interference of outsiders. Sounds like

independence, huh? Well, the American system operates under a sovereignty model we call

federalism. In federalism, the people of a sovereign state (in this case an American stateand not an

independent nation-state) agrees to delegate a degree of its own sovereign powers to the federal

government so that through the collective delegation of 50 sovereigns ALL members of the union

can maximize their own fortunes in an equal union of different peoplespolitically and

economically. The states and their respective peoples retain all sovereign powers NOT delegated to

the federal government, and the other states in the union are not seen as outsiders by each other but

as partnersfamily!

Sovereignty for Puerto Rico, then, comes in two flavors under American and international law: full

annexation through American statehood, or full disintegration through international independence.

What are other forms of sovereignty? There are no others.

There is what in international law is known as free association, which is created betweentwo independent nations and which can be broken at the desire of either nation and at any time and

for whatever reason. The actual treaty that creates the free association status is typically known as

aCompact of Free Association. The U.S. is currently a signatory to three such agreements with the

independent nations of Palau, The Federated States of Micronesia, and The Marshall Islands.
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These free association treaties can last forever, but are not perpetual in-and-of-themselves. They only

can last forever if the two nations that signed the Compact of Free Association remain satisfied with

the association.

In Puerto Ricos November plebiscite there is a third option written into the law as ELA

Soberano.ELA is an acronym that stands forEstado Libre Asociado(Free Associated State) and

it is the official, Spanish name of the islands government, so combined with the word Soberano, it

means Sovereign Free Associated Nation-State. ELA in Puerto Rico means what

Commonwealth means to the rest of the world as it relates to American federal territorial law and

not as it relates to actual states of the union that use the old term. The Commonwealth of Puerto

Rico is notthe same (legally) as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or Massachusetts,

or Kentucky.

So there is the second independence option. Puerto Ricocannotenter into a Compact of Free

Association with theUnited States of Americaunless it declares independence, and nothing could

stop Puerto Rico from entering into a free association treaty with a different country, i.e. Venezuela,

China, or Russia if it so desired. Some say that Puerto Rico can indeed enter into free association

without declaring independence from the U.S., but that belies the fact that the very essence of free

association is that it can only happen between two sovereign, independent nations. A U.S.

territory cannotsign a Compact of Free Association with the U.S. because all sovereign powers

reside on one side: Congress. So, the third option in Puerto Ricos plebiscite makes the island a

republic separate from the U.S. and out of the control of Congress. Why is this important?

The Americans of Puerto Rico do not want independence and they have shown as much in every

plebiscite and poll in the past 114 years. To independence supporters this is just the result of mass

brainwashing. To the vast majority of Puerto Ricans who love their American citizenship and their

Puerto Rican identity this is just the result of democratic sanity and political shrewdness.

The danger is that this third option will confuse the voters. In their minds, ELA

Soberanomustbe something different, or else why would it be there?

The pro-territorial CommonwealthPopular Democratic Party(PPD) in the island has been offering

voterssomething differentfor the past 60-plus years. The PPD contends that neither statehood, nor

independence is good enough. The party has promised something better. The leadership of the PPD

wants the benefits of both statehood andindependence; all the rights and benefits of American

statehood and all the perquisites of international recognitionincluding the ability to veto federal

laws that the governor of Puerto Rico sees as inoperable in the island and the ability to join

international bodies as a nation. The federal government has rejected the proposal as incompatible

with theU.S. Constitution. In other words, if Puerto Rico wants to end the current territorial status it

has twoand only twooptions: statehood or independence.
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2012.08.27 (three-way fight--statehood vs. independece vs. ... independence)

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