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Puerto Rico Gov. To Take Enhanced Commonwealth Argument to U.N

13:31 H | Topics: Politics - Puerto Rico

I'm with Latino Pundit. I just don't get how Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo can claim that "an enhanced Commonwealth" = a more sovereign Puerto Rico. And yet that is exactly what he will argue when he appears before the United Nations Decolonization Committee on June 9th.

Puerto Rico is not a colony as per a 1952 United Nations decision based on compact between the U.S. and Puerto Rico establishing the Estado Libre Asociado or Commonwealth. Commonwealth and colony have alot more in common than starting with the letter C.

So while I agree with Acevedo's move that would ask that the status of Puerto Rico be changed in the United Nations.

Acevedo announced he would be presenting the same arguments included in a letter he wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in November 2007. In it, he asked her to either convince the White House Task Force on Puerto Rico to change its 2005 findings on the island’s status or tell the U.N. that the U.S. lied about the political relationship between the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

It's his motivations that concern me. This comes at a time where Acevedo is facing Federal corruption charges. I repeat, how does a "New Commonwealth" status change anything besides a name? Latino Pundit sums it up well :

So, what the pro-Commonwealth crew wants is for the federal government to (a) give up its control over P.R., (b) to reach an agreement where U.S. citizenship is non-negotiable, (c) to enter into an agreement about how far the feds can go to apply federal law, and (d) with the government of Puerto Rico having the ultimate say on whether those laws apply to it and its citizens or not.

Via / The Michigan Citizen, Email

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