One hundred kilometers long, fifty kilometers wide, the island of Puerto Rico is not as big as its political importance as a juridical status model: Free Associated State. An intermediate status between independence and union with its “Godfather” and “Big Brother”: the United States of America.
First of all let’s come back in time and remember those times when sovereignty changed of hands with the indifference and the non participation of the local population: 1898 crisis. Many of the Caribbean islands were Spanish possessions. At least until the day when the weakness of the Spanish Empire was so big to make possible another Europeans nations “hunt and capture” of some of them (United Kingdom, Netherlands, France). Many of them (the majority) still remain being part of those states. But in the case of Puerto Rico, the island “resisted” being an Spanish possession. But not for much more time…
In 1898 a liking of war in the United States crystallized in the USS Maine auto explosion in Havana Harbour (At the same time an Spanish cruiser, the Biscay, was in the City of New York). In those times when war between President McKinley and King Alfonso XII the communications were not so long delivered over the world because many of them were recently invented (re discovered): Telephone, Telegraph and others. There was a line between the United States and United Kingdom, and other lines inside Europe, but there still was a hard, dangerous and slow communication (by boat) with the Spanish peninsula and its colonies (like Puerto Rico). Including the Spanish administration abroad, whose members received the official news by the newspapers, many time after it happened…
When war began the colonies had “recently” (April, more or less, in Puerto Rico and Guam, for example) received some metropolitan newspapers talking about some controversy within the Spanish Government and the United States, that they hope to overcome. They couldn’t suspect that in a few weeks from that visit to the islands with the mailing and some goods from the peninsula was the last ordinary one and war was a certain fact. One day some months after that, in Guam, a very big fleet that concentrated in the British colony of Hong Kong appeared on the coast. The local Spanish administration thought that it was a courtesy visit, so the Governor (after its breakfast) went into its encounter on the Beach. United States General told him that there was a war. That there were some destroyers, cruisers… and 4 000 men. With a very small number of Spanish troops and the impossibility of taking a so risk decision defense with so little time (with no previous news), the island surrounded to the invader.
In the case of Puerto Rico the United States modus operandi was similar than Guam one. Some day the fleet appears and they says that there is a war. The local administration has no way to defense itself in the great confusion and the no knowledge about it. And it all ends in the fall of the position. An incident that started about Cuba Was extended into the whole lands of Spain abroad… or maybe not. The United States was only interested in some of them. Like Guam, to control the far East of Asia or Puerto Rico as a way to control the future Panama channel, that was, in those days, projected and delineated. The rest of the Spanish “empire” was sold out to Germany (needed of colonies). That is the way how Puerto Rico became a part of United Sates, after the Paris treaty between the United States and Spain (excluding, “of course”, the leaders of Cuba, Philippines, Puerto Rico…).
Puerto Rico entered to be a part of United States. But it did not became an state, because there was no land contact with the continent. And it was very close to another Caribbean places (opposite to Hawaii case). But it was very important to the United States. And in the road of Monroe doctrine (America for Americans), it settles that one day in the future, all the rest America states and lands would be a part of the United States (like the AFTA / ALCA really wants). So the middle way chosen was settle the Free Association State (in the 50’s of the XX Century, of course, in the days when Cuba was close to real independence and Puerto Rico could go on the same way…).
It is a curious and new form of co sovereignty. It is a formally nation for some occasions, like the public international institutions. Olympic games. And similar things. They elect a local Governor, like the United States federate states. In November 2004 there are general elections for choosing this Charge. But the citizens of Puerto Rico can not vote in the United States elections. They have no representation in the Senate (there is one member in the House of representatives, as I remember…). They have to pay some taxes to the United States. There is a complex and very interesting way (maybe not to Puerto Rico) for many lands in conflict of sovereignty.
There is now in Puerto Rico two or three specific movements. Politically. The most powerful one is the independentist one. Consisted in the conquest of the full Republic. But it is not the only one. The other movements takes place for the “no change” option and for the full integration in the United States as the 51st state (so many states “applies” for that “honor”…). Soon we shall see what the people, at least, decides for its own nation. Including the polemic Vieques islands, where the United States Marine makes military exercises.
A legal type of limbo is actual situation of Puerto Rico. And if I say the word “Balsero” everyone would look forward, straight to Cuba. But it is a ridiculous “traffic” of humans comparing with the Dominican strength, where miles of Dominicans (richer than its neighbor Haiti) loose their live in the vane trial to reach the “United States“. Many citizens of the FSA of Puerto Rico live in the United States… in a strange situation between being considerate members of the community or simply migrants (as Spanish or “Chicano” minority they are, instead of the actual WASP majority).
Anyway, as a Basque politician would say, no one except the people of Puerto Rico shall decide the future of the nation. And it is (or will be) real for Washington DC.
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