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20.04.2015 Opinion

Why Can’t ELA Be Improved?

By Jose Lopez
Why Cant ELA Be Improved?
20.04.2015 LISTEN

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico can't be improved, because it is a colony of the United States (US). Some Puerto Ricans, like Alfredo Hern'ndez Mayoral, at least publically, refuses to accept it. He says that the United Nations (UN) determined in 1953 that Puerto Rico is not a colony.

In order for a colony to stop being it, the colony must acquire its sovereignty. Sovereignty will permit it to design the kind of government it wants. This is called decolonization. That is not what happened in 1952, when the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was established.

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was constructed on United States Law 600. When Puerto Ricans drafted their constitution, Washington had to approve it. In fact, Puerto Ricans had to change certain parts of their constitution, because the US government refused to accept them.

The following year, the US government, with the help of some Puerto Ricans, tricked the United Nations into believing that Puerto Rico had achieved self-government. This is why Puerto Rico is not on the UN's list of colonies.

The US government has no desire to change Puerto Rico's colonial relationship, because Puerto Rico has served the US government fantastically well! Colonialism has only been a disaster for Puerto Ricans for the past 116 years.

That is why the Nobel Peace Prize winner and United States President Obama refuses to release Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar L'pez Rivera from jail. Freeing him would mean to the US government that it is willing to decolonize Puerto Rico. And that is also why the US government has ignored 33 UN resolutions asking for the immediate decolonization of Puerto Rico. What do we do, when what is just is not done?

We need to form a tsunami of people to make the US government comply with the 1960 international law that says that colonialism is a crime against humanity. We need to peacefully and permanently march, because those who maintain colonies don't believe in justice for all!

ELA is another name for colony

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