National Independence Hostosiano Movement of Puerto Rico (MINH)

Presentation by Julio Muriente Perez, Co-president of the National
Independence Hostosiano Movement of Puerto Rico (MINH), before the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United Nations (UN), on the colonial case of Puerto Rico. 14 of June of 2007, New York, USA

Your Excellency, Mr. President of the Special Committee of Decolonization of the UN, Members of the Special Committee: My name is Julio Antonio Muriente Perez. I appear again before you in representation of the National Independence Hostosiano Movement of Puerto Rico (MINH). I thank you for the opportunity given to present some points on Puerto Rican self-determination and independence, particularly at the international level.

First, I must state the inescapable fact that next July 25 will be the 109th anniversary of the United States military invasion of Puerto Rico during the Hispanic-Cuban-American War. This illegal, violent act originates the colonial condition existent in Puerto Rico today.

During all of these years, the United States government has not taken a single step to advance the decolonization of Puerto Rico. On the contrary, it has fortified its presence and its control on Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans in all the facets of our lives.

This has been particularly true in the period starting in 1945, founding year of the UN, through 1960, the year in which UN Resolution 1514 (XV) was approved by the General Assembly and 1962, the year in which the Special Committee was founded.

The United States government has flagrantly slighted resolutions 43/47 from 1988 y 55/146 from 2000, in which the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the first and second International Decades for the Elimination of Colonialism. We are still in the Second Decade and the United States has yet to recognize that a unsustainable colonial situation exists in Puerto Rico, a situation that the United States should contribute to resolve.

The official political condition, which prevails in Puerto Rico, is called a Free Associated State or Commonwealth --founded significantly on July 25, 1954--the 56th anniversary of the invasion. It is a fraud promoted as a de-colonizing process that the international community has never legitimized.

We must be more cautious when evaluating the reach of the initiatives-- US Congressional or Executive-- which appear every occasionally, presumably to attend to the political condition of Puerto Rico. No one should trust these spurred and treacherous initiatives from interagency groups and Congressional committees, which are only conducive to the perpetuation of the colonial domination of Puerto Rico.
What has been demonstrated faithfully for more than a century is that the only things for which the United States Government has demonstrated a will to dominate the people of Puerto Rico, to exploit its labor force, to utilize its lands and its youth for military purposes (more than sixty Puerto Ricans have died and dozens more have been wounded in Iraq) as U.S. soldiers, and to restrict our right to free determination and independence.

We demand that established international law be complied with, especially United Nations Resolution 1514 (XV) and its requirement that powers be transferred to the people of Puerto Rico, in order that we might freely decide our destiny.

Whoever believes that the dominant power--the United States-- will proceed graciously towards our independence, cultivates a vain illusion, totally alien to the precepts of international law, which have cost us so much effort to forge and re vindicate.

With respect to international law and the matter of self-determination and decolonization, the government of the United States is a compulsive violator. Until now it has acted with open impunity and barefaced defiance of the principals approved by the international community

We should not permit international law to be reduced to a dead letter; Resolution 1514(XV), the twenty-five resolutions that this committee has approved on the colonial case of Puerto Rico, the forceful resolution of the Movement of Non Aligned Nations in favor of our self determination and independence, and the voice of the representatives of dozens of Latin American political parties in Panama recently asking for the same thing.

This Special Committee of the General Assembly has the opportunity to demonstrate the sovereign will of the international community. It has for its consideration before it an ample resolution, firm and equitable, reaffirming the right of Puerto Rico to its self determination and independence, in compliance with Resolution 1514(XV), whose general content we subscribe, particularly to the reclamations of the people of Vieques and to the release of our Puerto Rican political prisoners.

Resolution number seven of this Resolution "Asks the General Assembly to examine in an ample manner all the aspects of the Puerto Rican question." The approval of this resolution and possible future consideration of the colonial case of Puerto Rico by the United Nations General Assembly constitutes a very significant contribution in the route towards self-determination and independence of Puerto Rico.

We are conscious that as affirmed by resolution number five of the already mentioned Resolution..."All the initiatives for the solution of the political status of Puerto Rico should be taken by the people of Puerto Rico."

We reaffirm that this should take place in a constitutional assembly of status that is ample, representative and inclusive. It is the instrument to mold the fundamental initiative of the people of Puerto Rico and that will permit us to overcome the prevalent colonial condition.

We are not asking you to substitute for us in this liberation endeavor; this is our responsibility and no one else's. All we are asking for is solidarity in a just cause authenticated as such by this committee on innumerable occasions.

Proceed as it corresponds this committee and embrace the path so that the international community might evaluate and express itself on this centuries old colonial case. In this way might the Second International Decade for the Elimination of Colonialism definitively and successfully be crowned.

That is the challenge that history imposes upon us and that no man or woman of good will should evade. Thank you very much.