Puerto Rico’s turn
By
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
On
June 1, primary elections will be held in Puerto Rico. For that
reason, politicians and journalists will travel to the island to pay
to it an attention they never paid before and to turn their visit
into part of the spectacle of marketing of politics that in the
United States is called "democracy." In this case, however,
the spectacle becomes insulting.
The
Democratic candidates will compete there for the favor of voters who
are not part of U.S. society and therefore have no vote in the U.S.
general elections next November. In theory, Puerto Ricans can decide
who the Democratic candidate will be but cannot vote for him, or her,
or the Republican rival, or any other candidate to the presidency of
the United States.
Once
the farce is concluded, politicians and journalists will pack their
bags and go away, not to deal again with Puerto Rico for the next
four years. Once again, they’ll try to ignore the interests and
aspirations of its noble and generous people.
This
time, however, it won’t be so easy. The following week, on June 9,… Rico’s status…
By
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Read Spanish Version
On
June 1, primary elections will be held in Puerto Rico. For that
reason, politicians and journalists will travel to the island to pay
to it an attention they never paid before and to turn their visit
into part of the spectacle of marketing of politics that in the
United States is called "democracy." In this case, however,
the spectacle becomes insulting.
The
Democratic candidates will compete there for the favor of voters who
are not part of U.S. society and therefore have no vote in the U.S.
general elections next November. In theory, Puerto Ricans can decide
who the Democratic candidate will be but cannot vote for him, or her,
or the Republican rival, or any other candidate to the presidency of
the United States.
Once
the farce is concluded, politicians and journalists will pack their
bags and go away, not to deal again with Puerto Rico for the next
four years. Once again, they’ll try to ignore the interests and
aspirations of its noble and generous people.
This
time, however, it won’t be so easy. The following week, on June 9,
the United Nations’ Committee on Decolonization will again discuss
Puerto Rico’s status, as it has done every year since 1972. Many
voices have been raised there, and in other U.N. entities, to demand
that the United States put an end to its colonial regime and return
to the Puerto Rican people the right to decide their fate, a right
that was wrested from them more than a century ago.
It
was not necessary to travel to another country to hear that demand.
It was repeated, one summer after another, for more than three
decades, from the skyscraper on Manhattan’s First Avenue, in the
heart of New York. But the major U.S. media and its politicians
pretended not to notice.
This
year, their disdain will be a bit more difficult. Before the
Committee will speak representatives from the whole of Puerto Rican
society, including representatives of all the parties and political
movements on the island, along with the Socialist Internationale and
the Conference of Political Parties of Latin America (COPPAL), which
brings together the main parties in the continent, including several
parties that now are governments.
They
will raise a petition for the U.N. General Assembly to discuss in
depth the case of Puerto Rico, as we unanimously agreed at the
International Conference of Solidarity with Puerto Rican
Independence, which we held in Panama in 2006 and reiterated this
year in Mexico. In the name of all those who participated in those
two events, Dr. Rodrigo Borja, former President of Ecuador, will
address the Committee.
This
Latin American demand echoes the one made in Havana in 2006 by the
chiefs of state and government of the nonaligned countries.
Latin
America is living through a new era, and Puerto Rico is not absent
from it. Its turn, Puerto Rico’s turn, is very near. It is coming
much faster than some people in the North, drunk with demagoguery and
ignorance, think.
