By Monica Somocurcio
On August 11, the United Nations' Decolonisation Committee voted in support of a resolution affirming the right of the Puerto Rican people to self-determination and independence. It was the 17th UN resolution supporting self-determination for Puerto Rico.
According to the resolution's sponsor, Cuban ambassador Rafael Dausá, "Puerto Rico must be demilitarised and the political prisoners freed" before self-determination and independence can be achieved. The United States has ignored all calls to withdraw its troops from the island.
Puerto Rico's pro-annexation Governor Pedro Rosselló hopes to deflect the criticism of the island's colonial status by holding a plebiscite on December 13. Puerto Rico's electoral commission and its legislature, dominated by the annexationist New Progressive Party, approved the non- binding plebiscite in mid-August.
Voters will have three options: annexation in the form of statehood, a form of colonial status called "free association" or independence.
The US Congress is currently discussing plans to change Puerto Rico's status, but is not expected to reach an agreement this year. The Young Bill, now before Congress, aims to make Puerto Rico the US's 51st state.
Only Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico will be allowed to vote. The New Progressive Party believes that many Puerto Ricans living in the US would vote for independence.
Many independence organisations oppose the plebiscite because they believe it gives the false impression that Puerto Ricans are being consulted. In fact, the conditions for consultation, as defined by international law, are not present. One such condition is demilitarisation.
The plebiscite will take place at a time of heightened US military presence in Puerto Rico. Military exercises are being held at Camp Santiago, a US base in Salinas, involving troops from Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, as well as the Puerto Rico National Guard.
Washington claims the exercises will train soldiers for UN "peacekeeping" missions, but Puerto Rican peace organisations currently protesting at Camp Santiago explain that the exercises are taking place because later this year the US Army South is moving its headquarters from Panama to Guaynabo in Puerto Rico, making the island the centre of military activity in the region.
In addition, the US Navy is building a new military radar station in Fort Allen. The navy claims the radar will detect "foreign ships carrying drugs", but Washington has used the "war on drugs" as an excuse in other countries to fight revolutionary groups, not drug lords.
The US Department of Defense controls several other bases on the island and directs Puerto Rico's National Guard. Puerto Rico has been used as a base from which to launch US invasions — of Panama in 1989, for example.
The US military has also inflicted extensive environmental damage on Puerto Rico. It tested Agent Orange prior to using it in Vietnam by defoliating sections of the Puerto Rican rainforest, and frequent bomb tests in Vieques have been linked to an incidence of cancer there five times that in the rest of Puerto Rico.
[Abridged from Workers World Service at <ww@workers.org>.]