Friday, July 26, 2013

An Update on Puerto Rico's Political Status - Resident Commissioner Pedro R. Pierluisi delivered remarks about Puerto Rico's political status in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 24, 2013



Published on Jul 24, 2013
Resident Commissioner Pedro R. Pierluisi delivered remarks about Puerto Rico's political status in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 24, 2013.

Five-Minute Floor Statement as Prepared for Delivery
An Update on Puerto Rico’s Political Status

July 24, 2013 

Mr. Speaker: 

As we approach the birthday of the late Dr. José Celso Barbosa, the father of the statehood movement in Puerto Rico, I rise to update my colleagues on the progress that has been made to resolve the territory’s political status

Last November, Puerto Rico held a referendum. As I described in a floor speech the following week, the results show that a majority of the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico do not support the current territory status, a supermajority favor statehood among the three alternative options, and more voters want statehood than any other option, including the current status. These results are now part of the historical record, and they cannot be dismissed or diminished by those who find them inconvenient. 

Now that American citizens living in an American territory have informed their national 
government, in a free and fair vote, that they do not consent to a political status that deprives them of the most basic democratic rights, it is incumbent upon the federal government to take appropriate action in response. For the President and Congress to do otherwise would be to contravene the principles that have made this country a light to the world. 

Today, I can report that positive steps have been taken—despite the fierce opposition of one party in Puerto Rico, which seeks to preserve the status quo despite its rejection by voters and the overwhelming evidence that it has crushed the island’s political, economic and social advancement. In April, the Administration requested an appropriation of $2.5 million dollars, which would be provided to the Puerto Rico Elections Commission to conduct the first federally funded status vote in the territory’s history, with the specific purpose of “resolving” the issue. 

The Administration’s action was favorably received by Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle who rarely find common ground. Earlier this month, thanks to the leadership of Congressmen Wolf, Fattah and Serrano, that funding was approved by the Appropriations Committee—confirming that the effort to secure fair treatment for Puerto Rico is not, and should never become, a partisan issue. 

The Committee’s report endorses the conditions proposed by the Administration, stating that federal funding will not be obligated until DOJ has certified that the ballot and voter education materials are compatible with U.S. laws and policies, thereby ensuring that the vote will be among one or more status options that can actually be implemented and that would settle the issue. 

I will continue to fight for the approval of this appropriation by the full House and for its retention in any conference negotiation with the Senate. 

There is additional progress to report on another front in this struggle. In May, I introduced standalone legislation that proceeds from the indisputable premise that statehood obtained more votes than any other option in the November referendum. The bill outlines the rights and responsibilities of statehood, and asks voters in Puerto Rico whether they accept those terms. If a majority says yes, the bill provides for the President to submit legislation to admit Puerto Rico as a State after a transition period. 

Two months after its introduction, this bill already enjoys support from 100 Members of Congress from both parties and every region of the country, despite the predictable opposition of the status quo party in Puerto Rico and its allies in Congress. I always find it ironic when some of my colleagues from the states—who, along with their constituents, enjoy all the benefits of statehood—seek to prevent my constituents from exercising those same rights and responsibilities. 

I have concluded that these forces cannot be reasoned with; they must simply be defeated. And they will be. 

Next week, I will appear as a witness at a Senate hearing on the November referendum and the federal response to that vote. Just as I told a United Nations committee last month, I will testify that I have faith that the federal government will fulfill its obligation to facilitate Puerto Rico’s transition to a democratic and dignified status, but that deeds—not words—are required. 

Much work remains to be done. And like any civil rights struggle, it will not be easy. But, through our sound and steady action, we are closer than ever to finally realizing Dr. Barbosa’s dream of equality for the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico. 
Thank you. 

Res. Comm. Pedro Pierluisi - News Review

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News Review - 7.26.13


Bill Clinton en Fortaleza
Published on Jul 16, 2013
El presidente Bill Clinton visitó La Fortaleza durante su viaje a Puerto Rico el 16 de julio de 2013

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» Prohibidos los bonos de productividad en el Ejecutivo
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     Nacionalismo - Fufi Santori 


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Notable la ausencia de Acevedo Vilá y Hernández Colón 


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La aplaudieron con entusiasmo. 


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Dedicó el grueso de su mensaje a repasar su labor en la gobernación durante estos primeros seis meses. 


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El participante de 30 años de edad, se enfrentará a otros 29 candidatos el próximo 4 de agosto. 


Thursday, July 25, 2013

On Questions of Status: Puerto Rico's Relation to the US and Oscar López ... - Huffington Post

» On Questions of Status: Puerto Rico's Relation to the US and Oscar López ... - Huffington Post
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Nation's Largest Latino Organization Backs Puerto Rico Statehood ...

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La relación política de Puerto Rico con Estados Unidos sigue siendo tan controversial como hace 61 años atrás

» La relación política de Puerto Rico con Estados Unidos sigue siendo
25/07/13 10:12 from Opinión – Vocero de Puerto Rico
La relación política de Puerto Rico con Estados Unidos sigue siendo tan controversial como hace 61 años atrás

"Is this guy living in the same Puerto Rico as everyone else?"

"Governor Alejandro García Padilla said that statehood is not necessarily for Puerto Rico economic development."

Comments on Puerto Rico Forum:

" 'The ELA is an anachronism in the 21st century.' Is this guy living in the same Puerto Rico as everyone else?" 

"Im actually starting to feel bad for the guy. He is stuck in another world."

"They want a constitutional assembly so they can impose their will on everyone else in Puerto Rico. A bunch of people in a room should not be able to determine the destiny of 3.5 million people."

Quote:
"I am against narrow nationalism. In Puerto Rico and anywhere in the world, where narrow nationalism manifest, including American Union"
Luis Munoz Marin

» Agapito: Commonwealth is the only "effective movement for change"
25/07/13 11:27 from 
7 Comments, last updated on Thursday Jul 25 by LongIslander1987

García Padilla reitera su postura sobre el estatus

24 de julio de 2013 - PolíticaPuerto Rico, - 
“Ahora bien, lo que necesita el Gobierno de Puerto Rico, el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, la República de Puerto Rico o el Estado de Puerto Rico, es Gobierno que haga que la economía produzca”

Suministrada
El gobernador Alejandro García Padilla aseguró que la estadidad no representa necesariamente un desarrollo económico para Puerto Rico.
“Tu tienes unos estados más pobres que otros porque la estadidad no garantiza desarrollo económico. Tu tienes unas repúblicas independientes más pobres que otras por que la independencia no garantiza desarrollo económico”, expresó García Padilla en conferencia de prensa.
El primer mandatario hizo las declaraciones, cuando la prensa le requirió una reacción de los movimientos del comisionado residente en relación al parlamento expresado por el comisionado residente Pedro Pierluisi en el Hemiciclo Federal, donde aseguró consiguió a cien auspiciadores a favor a una consulta de estatus.
“El programa del Partido Popular es claro y habla sobre cuál va a ser nuestro proceder para atender el asunto del estatus. Los compañeros tienen una visión distina, primero, este es un partido democrático y pueden expresarla”, dijo García Padilla
Asimismo el gobernador abrió la puerta a que cualquiera de las opciones tradicionales de estatus, que promueva el desarrollo económico, sea escogida.
“Ahora bien, lo que necesita el Gobierno de Puerto Rico, el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, la República de Puerto Rico o el Estado de Puerto Rico, es Gobierno que haga que la economía produzca”, sentenció el mandatario.
“El único Movimiento efectivo de cambio social efectivo que ha tenido Puerto Rico es el Estado Libre Asociado”, finalizó García Padilla.
Las expresiones de García Padilla se produjeron en una finca del Valle de Lajas, propiedad de la Autoridad de Tierras, donde se pretende sembrar arroz, el cual producirá para diciembre de 2013, unos 6.5 millones de libras de ese grano, para ser utilizados en los Comedores Escolares con una inversión de 1.2 millones de dólares.
La firma que procesará dicha cosecha es Pan American Grain, reduciendo la importación a 1.5 por ciento.

» García Padilla dice que la estadidad no garantiza desarrollo económico – Metro h...
24/07/13 20:56 from Caribnewss Facebook Wall
García Padilla dice que la estadidad no garantiza desarrollo económico – Metro http://bit.ly/1369UmkGarcía Padilla dice que la estadidad no garantiza desarrollo económicowww.metro.prEl gobernador Alejandro García Padilla aseguró el miércole...

Cerro Maravilla murders is a tragic and dark episode in the history of Puerto Rico and its relations with the mainland

» NSA Surveillance Through the Prism of Political Repression - CounterPunch
23/07/13 05:30 from political status of puerto rico - Google News
NSA Surveillance Through the Prism of Political RepressionCounterPunchJuly 28th marks the 35th anniversary of the political assassination of two Puerto Rican independence activists, Carlos Soto Arriví and Arnaldo Darío Rosado, in the infamo...



Live From Puerto Rico

NSA Surveillance Through the Prism of Political Repression 


by CARLOS BORRERO

July 28th marks the 35th anniversary of the political assassination of two Puerto Rican independence activists, Carlos Soto Arriví and Arnaldo Darío Rosado, in the infamous Cerro Maravillai case. This case, which was widely followed among Puerto Ricans, involved an agent provocateur that led the activists to an ambush that resulted in their brutal murder by paramilitary agents within the colonial police force. The event led to two investigations, the second of which revealed a conspiracy to cover up both the assassination plot as well as the destruction and manipulation of evidence carried out by the colonial police and justice department, and well as the federal justice department and FBI. Cerro Maravilla symbolizes for many the most outstanding recent example of repressive measures, from surveillance to political assassination, unleashed by US imperialism against the anticolonial movement in Puerto Rico.
The recent revelations of NSA spying by Edward Snowden have provoked mass outrage across the globe. Much of the consternation comes from what is commonly understood as a violation of privacy. In the official media, Snowden’s actions have been framed as a debate between ‘national security’ and ‘privacy’. However, framing the question in these terms is pure subterfuge. The Puerto Rican experience shows that the true objectives of surveillance programs by intelligence agencies like the NSA, CIA, and FBI having nothing to do with ‘security’ or ‘protection’ but rather political repression. Systematic surveillance can only be understood as an essential part of state repression, the purpose of which is to intimidate those that question the status quo by promoting a culture of fear. One can never be separated from the other.
The systematic surveillance and repression of Puerto Rico’s anticolonial movement is obviously just one example of many. A brief historical sketch of US imperialism’s repressive efforts against anticolonial forces in Puerto Rico must begin with the political intrigues that preceded the 1898 military invasion as well as the martial law that characterized both military and civilian colonial governments in its immediate aftermath. This history goes on to include the surveillance and repressive attacks against the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and its followers from the 30s through the 50s, which included massacres of unarmed civilians, political assassinations and imprisonments, the harassment and attacks against labor unions and newly emergent socialist organizations of the same period, as well as COINTELPRO operations against resurgent nationalist and socialist political formations during the 60s and 70s.ii Indeed, in 1987 it was revealed that over 130,000 files on individuals and organizations had been accumulated through systematic surveillance on the island. This history is an integral part of the parallel campaigns of systematic state repression unleashed within the United States against groups such as the Black Liberation Movement, the American Indian Movement, the Chicano Liberation Movement, radical labor organizations, progressive students and antiwar activists, as well as communists.iii As such, what constitutes a scandal for the broader public is in fact part of the daily reality for those that fight for freedom and an end to oppression.
Snowden’s revelation that the United States Security Group Command’s Sabana Seca installation, located in the northern coastal municipality of Toa Baja, is part of an international surveillance network, which includes the Fornstat program, comes to no surprise to Puerto Rican anticolonial activists. From Sabana Seca, US naval intelligence monitors and gathers Internet, phone, and other forms of communication. In 1999, Duncan Campbell and Mark Honigsbaum of The Guardian already highlighted the naval intelligence’s “Echelon” operations from Sabana Seca and other locations both in the US and internationally as part of joint US British surveillance programs.iv
What is critical to highlight about US imperialism in Puerto Rico is the continued military character of colonialism on the island. For the benefit of those that may be unaware or who take the position that US militarism characterized only the past history of colonialism in Puerto Rico, a few contemporary examples serve to illustrate the point. Over the past decade and a half, Puerto Ricans have mobilized en masse to oppose a proposed military radar system intended for the Lajas valley in the southwestern part of the island, to end the practice of using the eastern island of Vieques as a bombing range by the US military and its allies (It should be noted that there was also a successful campaign to end the militarization of Culebra island also off the eastern coast of the main island in the 70s), and in more recent times against a system of potentially toxic and environmentally destructive antennas used both by the military and cellular companies that have proliferated across the island. In an article in the current issue of Claridad, the spokesperson for the grassroots Coalition of Communities Against the Proliferation of Antennas, Wilson Torres, sheds light on the US military’s Full Spectrum Dominance program currently being implemented in Puerto Rico. v
Understood in the context of pervasive unemployment, which serves to ensure an ever present pool of recruits used as cannon fodder in US military campaigns throughout the world as well as the structural dependence of large parts of the colonial economy on the Pentagon, this picture constitutes the modified form of US militarism in Puerto Rico in the present context. One may add the militarization of the colonial police force in the ongoing attacks against residents of public housing and other marginalized communities to this reality.
It would not be difficult to draw parallels between much of what is described immediately above and the realities faced by many North Americans. Heavy-handed policing and economically depressed communities dependent upon military or prison industries are a familiar reality for many. Yet the notion that the United States of America is characterized by a repressive state is much more difficult for the average person to accept. The narrative of 9/11 provides the pretext that results in the conflation of national security and state repression in the minds of many.
Notwithstanding, the revelations about the NSA spying program have provoked the condemnation of all except the most recalcitrant sycophants of US imperialism. Yet, it is absolutely necessary to place these programs in the context of the long history of state repression and militarism. Those on the left must push to extend the public discourse beyond questions of personal privacy to a discussion of systematic political repression within increasingly militarized “liberal” democracies. The experiences of anticolonial activists and militant, class-conscious revolutionaries from Puerto Rico lend valuable insights that add to the discussion around the significance of what Snowden’s leaks reveal: systematic surveillance and state repression are two sides of the same coin.
An insightful comment by Marx, writing in the New York Daily Tribune about British imperialism in India during the mid 1800s and often repeated among Puerto Rican comrades, is a useful starting point for the US left:
“The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, moving from its home, where it assumes respectable form, to the colonies, where it goes naked.”
Carlos Borrero is a New York based writer.
___________________________________

Mike Nova comments: 

I probably will be labeled as one of "the most recalcitrant sycophants of US imperialism" also, but I have to say that one of the most troubling aspects of leftist interpretations is their dogmatic character, very narrow and rigid point of view and outlook and preconceived notions of social and political "rights and wrongs". What Marx said (putting aside a rather mechanistic and schematic nature of whatever he said) about almost two centuries ago might have been somewhat of a truth, or partial truth, or his own version of the truth at that time, but it can hardly be applied to our contemporary realities. 

Cerro Maravilla murders is a tragic and dark episode in the history of Puerto Rico and its relations with the mainland, indeed. But to look at it "through the prism of political repression", or through the prism of anticolonial struggle", or through any other ready-made prism only means to obscure the vision and limit our understanding of those events and their historical significance. It is difficult to escape the impression that "leftist" and "anticolonial" interpretations and ideologies only serve as "Trojan horses" in geopolitical strategies of certain powers which exploit them and their adherents cynically and shrewdly, regardless of these powers own "ideological revolutions"; in our days, just as in the days past. 

Besides that, I want to add, the past is the past. It has to be studied and understood, the lessons have to be drawn, but it is the past, we cannot live in it. Presently, more than a half of Island's population prefers the statehood option (and this is a historical shift), which apparently is viewed by them as the best solution of all or most of the Island's problems, and it is. Another issue in this article, which I feel, has to be mentioned, is its irrational, rabid hatred of the US military, which apparently stems, among many factors, from a war mentality. All the wars that the Island was involved in are over a long time ago. This mentality and hatred are the vestiges of the past and should be left in the past. And it is also worth mentioning that these attitudes and sentiments might be deliberately and purposefully stimulated and exploited by outside forces. 

If "conquerors" are perceived and experienced as "robbers" ("A spider is proud when it has caught a fly, and another when he has caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken bears, and another when he has taken Sarmatians. Are not these robbers, if thou examinest their opinions?"), the conquered become in turn the robbers themselves, in their subtle, covert but sophisticated ways. This vicious cycle perpetuates itself until their complete mutual assimilation, after which the "robberies" continue in a different context, not interethnic and military, but social, economic and class. And, as always with antinomies, these "robberies" and antagonisms dialectically coexist with mutual cooperation and mutual cultural enrichment. 


Atrocities inflicted on native populations by conquistadors probably far exceed in their cruelty, brutality and totality any ill effects of "American occupation", which, if anything, can be considered relatively mild and non-oppressive: the island was allowed more or less to run its own internal affairs. If we start counting all the senseless cruelty inflicted on each other by various ethnic groups and peoples (and within them) in the course of wars, conflicts and occupations, the world will not have enough memory and not enough tears. 

George Santayana famously said: "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." 

We can add another paraphrase to it. 

Those who live in the past, those who know and remember only the mistakes and the pains of the past and are not willing or able to break with the shackles of the past, are condemned to perpetual political and historical infancy. 


Links and References 

» A 35 años de los asesinatos en el Cerro Maravilla
25/07/13 10:19 from Metro - Últimas noticias
Un día como hoy, hace 35 años murieron asesinados los jóvenes independentistas Carlos Soto Arriví y...


Pedro Albizu Campos - From Wikipedia



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» Cerro Maravilla murders is a tragic and dark episode in the history of Puerto Rico and its relations with the mainland
23/07/13 13:52 from PUERTO RICO NEWS
» NSA Surveillance Through the Prism of Political Repression - CounterPunch23/07/13 05:30 from political status of puerto rico - Google NewsNSA Surveillance Through the Prism of Political RepressionCounterPunchJuly 28th marks the ...

First Published on 7.23.13     Last Update on 7.25.13