When the United States invaded Puerto Rico 125 years ago in 1898, it took away the freedom of the Puerto Rican Nation to exist. At the time, Puerto Ricans were already moving towards a process of self-determination. For the three previous decades, patriotic Puerto Ricans had been fighting for freedom from Spain. They had carried out an armed insurrection in 1868, known as El Grito de Lares (The Lares Uprising), where they issued a declaration of independence and elected the leaders of a free republic. These freedom fighters believed in a proclamation, akin to a Puerto Rican Bill of Rights, known as Los Diez Mandamientos de los Hombres Libres (The Ten Commandments of Free Men), which abolished slavery and guaranteed civil liberties and political rights. Although Spain fought back and refused for many years to relinquish its colonial control, in November of 1897, it was forced to grant Puerto Rico a very advanced form of home rule government, known as La Carta Autonómica (The Autonomy Charter).
On the morning of July 25, 1898, Puerto Rico’s journey towards freedom was violently interrupted when U.S. forces disembarked in the Bay of Guánica, taking possession of the Puerto Rican archipelago. Since that day, the United States has held Puerto Rico captive, converting it into one of the oldest colonies in the world.
For the past 125 years, Puerto Ricans have resisted United States domination. During this time, they have struggled for independence under the most adverse and lopsided circumstances faced by any colony in history. They have survived all forms of political persecution, including discrimination, harassment, surveillance, incarcerations, beatings, assassinations and massacres.
In response to pressure from different political sectors, the United States’ Congress has come up with several proposals to develop a decolonization process for Puerto Rico. Although many in the Puerto Rican independence movement see these proposals as a step in the right direction, these Congressional bills have been marred by several imperialistic misconceptions. One of these misconceptions is the erroneous notion that what is wrong with colonialism in Puerto Rico stems from the fact that Puerto Ricans cannot vote for the President of the United States and for members of Congress. Advocates of this poorly conceived viewpoint allege that the granting statehood would solve Puerto Rico’s colonial problem because, through the granting of these voting rights, its people would acquire full civil rights as citizens of the United States. Those who follow this stance, claim that the movement to make Puerto Rico a state of the United States is, supposedly, tantamount to a struggle for “civil rights”.
It is fundamentally flawed to see statehood as a process that would confer civil rights to Puerto Ricans. On the contrary, by annexing Puerto Rico, the United States would be trampling over the right of the Puerto Rican People to self-determination and independence, which is an inalienable right that takes preeminence over other rights such as the right to vote. The right to vote cannot supersede the right to self-determination and independence, because it is a right that is secondary to the creation of a free nation. Without a free and independent nation, the right to vote is extremely limited and it primarily serves the needs of the colonizer. For this reason, it is truly absurd to pretend that by Puerto Ricans voting in a nation that is not their own, they would be gaining any kind of civil right.
In order to better explain the incongruity of the civil rights argument advanced by the proponents of statehood, it is appropriate to use an example of a hypothetical scenario between the United States and India. India will be used for purposes of this illustration, in part, because its population is approximately 4 times larger than that of the United States. With this in mind, let us suppose a hypothetical scenario where India offered to confer to the People of the United States full voting rights in the Indian political system but, in exchange for these voting rights, the United States would have to relinquish all of its sovereign rights to the government of India. Would anyone in the United States give this absurd proposal, even the slightest consideration? Would anyone, for a second, think that India would be conferring civil rights to the people of the United States when it is promises to give them voting rights in India? Clearly, it is absurd to pretend that the annexation of the United States to India would confer any civil rights to the People of the United States. Likewise, it is just as absurd to argue that statehood would confer civil rights to Puerto Ricans because it gives them the right to vote for the President of the United States and to elect members of Congress. Furthermore, it is evident that, with annexation, the nation being absorbed always ends up being dominated by the larger imperialistic nation and that, no electoral college system, nor any other invention of federalism, can ever remedy this inequality.
Despite the absurdity behind the idea of annexation, proponents of statehood are whimsically trying to associate their cause with the civil rights movement. They hope that this political spin will give a progressive façade to a movement that has always been reactionary in nature. Unfortunately, statehooders are Puerto Ricans who have traded off their right to be free, in exchange for the opportunity to sit inside the house of their masters. Instead of demanding freedom, they are begging for crumbs by the side of their master’s dinner table. The right to vote for the President and for Congress does not solve Puerto Rico’s lack of freedom; it is just a crumb, or a mere token, that is being used to appease a Nation that has been held captive for 125 years.
On the 125 anniversary of the invasion of Puerto Rico, the world demands freedom for the Homeland of the men and women of the Lares Uprising. It is from their declaration of independence, -- from the Declaration of Puerto Rican Independence and not from any foreign source--, that the true civil rights of Puerto Ricans emanate. These rights, unlike the so-called rights imposed by the colonizer, are inalienable, which signifies that they can never be extinguished or put out. Despite all the obstacles in this past 125 years, the light of the right to independence has never been extinguished from the hearts and souls of the Puerto Rican People. This everlasting light will continue to shine and will show them the way to freedom.