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PIP Celebrates Filed Bill Acknowledging Sovereignty

By on February 7, 2017

SAN JUAN – The Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) celebrated Tuesday a bill that Democratic Party Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) presented to the U.S. Congress to acknowledge Puerto Rico’s sovereignty under “independence” or “free association,” or “commonwealth.’

“First of all, we want to extend our satisfaction and acknowledgement to Luis Gutiérrez for having welcomed from the beginning, late December, and without hesitation our proposal for a legislative initiative in Congress that would propose Puerto Rico’s decolonization and to present independence and free association as the alternatives of national sovereignty to achieve it,” PIP President Rubén Berríos said in a press conference at PIP headquarters in Puerto Nuevo.

PIP President and former Senator Rubén Berríos (Jaime Rivera/CB)

Rubén Berríos, PIP president and former senator (Jaime Rivera/CB)

The bill filed Tuesday by Gutiérrez decrees that, in order to safeguard the legitimate interests of Puerto Rico and the United States, acknowledging that Puerto Rico’s territorial condition represents an “unsustainable” status of “political subordination,” and that Puerto Rico’s annexation as a state would be detrimental for both parties.

As such, the bill establishes that Congress must acknowledge Puerto Rico as a sovereign nation, and provide a transition process toward independence or free association.

Accompanied by PIP leaders Fernando Martín, María de Lourdes Santiago and legislators Juan Dalmau and Denis Márquez, the party president said that “the bill represents a great step to establish discussion in Washington about Puerto Rico’s colonial problem, unprecedented in recent times.”

See also: PIP to Defend Independence in Status Referendum

Berríos said that, contrary to “the pretense of statehood,” this bill makes way for “real decolonization.” He affirmed that this measure will force Congress to tackle the matter “in a real sense.”

Likewise, the former senator maintained that Congress won’t approve the annexation bill filed by Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González at the beginning of the year.

On the other hand, the pro-independence party stated that if the U.S. Justice secretary agrees with the Popular Democratic Party’s (PDP) request to introduce the “territorial commonwealth” as a status option in the June 11 plebiscite, without resistance from the New Progressive Party (NPP), then it would reevaluate its participation in the referendum. “We would be facing a futile event,” Berríos said.

 

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