Statement from Congresswoman Jenniffer González -Colón of Puerto Rico on A Letter from The US Department of State to The OAS

Press Release

Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón today issued the following statement regarding the response of a U.S. State Department official to the complaints of Former Governor Pedro Rosselló and Gregorio Igartúa to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the U.S. has violated a right of Puerto Ricans by denying them voting representation in their national government.

"Although I would have liked the letter to have to told the whole truth of Puerto Rico's undemocratic status and our people's rejection of it, the response makes the case for statehood and most of the response was nothing new.

It explained that the U.S. Constitution only permits States to have votes in the Federal government -- democracy at the national government level -- and the U.S. has always maintained that no international rule can make the U.S. change its Constitution.

What is new is that the U.S. has formally recognized internationally that Puerto Rico voted for statehood last year and the U.S. Government sent the important signal of adding that no territory has been denied statehood after asking for it.

We also have to understand that the response is really international politics. For the U.S. Government, the status of Puerto Rico has always been an issue to be resolved between the U.S. and its citizens in the territory. It has seen no constructive purpose in debating the territory's status with foreign adversaries that allow their people less freedom than anyone in the U.S. has.

For these reasons, the U.S. has often been less than forthcoming with international organizations about the territory's lack of democracy and views about our colonial status. It has made statements that do not tell the whole truth in efforts to get questions dismissed and to not make admissions that can be used against it by less democratic foreign governments.

It has been this way since the U.S. agreed with the request of the Munoz Marin Administration to get Puerto Rico removed from the list of non-self-governing territories for which nations have to report annually to the U.N., even though the U.S. considered Puerto Rico to be a territory and was making the islands' national laws without equal voting representation from the territory and retained the power to make its local laws -- as Munoz and Fernos Isern stated in Congress.

In addition to the U.S. recognizing that Puerto Rico has chosen statehood and noting that statehood has been granted to every territory requesting it, what is important for Puerto Rico regarding the territory's status is the reality that all three branches of the Federal government have been especially clear about during the past few years with the Sanchez Valle case and PROMESA -- and that no amount of perfume can cover up. This is that:

* The territorial government only has the authority that the U.S. Government lets it exercise.

* This authority can be taken away, as it has by PROMESA.

* The territory cannot have voting representation - let alone equal voting representation - in the U.S. Government, which makes the territory's national laws and the local laws that it wants to make.

* And the only options for a democratic status are to be a State of the U.S. or a nation, either fully independent from or in an association with the U.S. that either nation can unilaterally end.

I have supported the efforts of Pedro Rosselló and Gregorio Iguatua in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as I have supported any legal efforts to obtain democracy and equality for our more than three million Americans."

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