Puerto Rican Ruling Party To Seek UN Aid In Autonomy Quest

[RPR]

Puerto Rican Ruling Party To Seek UN Aid In Autonomy Quest



SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)--Puerto Rico's ruling party approved a resolution Sunday urging the United Nations to review the island's status, hoping international pressure can help it gain greater autonomy from the U.S.

It was the first time Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila's Popular Democratic Party, which has favored the current commonwealth status, has called for such a change. The approval was announced by Vila, who last week said he will run for re- election next year.

Party officials say they want to maintain U.S. ties, but also to be able to negotiate trade pacts and import products carried on ships not registered in the U.S., among other powers.

The U.N. has no authority to change Puerto Rico's status, but party officials believe it can create dialogue leading to partial autonomy.

The U.N. stopped listing Puerto Rico as a colony in 1953, a year after it became a commonwealth in a symbolic move that did not precipitate any political or economic changes.

Puerto Rico was seized by the U.S. in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War. Its residents have been U.S. citizens since 1917, but are barred from voting for president and have no voting representation in Congress.

Islanders have voted to keep their loose affiliation with the U.S. and rejected statehood in nonbinding referendums in 1967, 1993 and 1998.

[L_F_Miranda]

RPR

The Puerto Rican political hornet's nest has once again been shaken. The PNP has already alerted its 300% pitiyanki legions that the PPD is trying to bring Independence "por la cocina". They are whipping up waves of hysteria by alarming Ricans of a potential loss of American citizenship.

Last Wednesday, El Alacran, a.k.a. Anibal Acevedo Vila, finally acknowledged that Puerto Rico needs sovereign powers to up start its economy. Its taken the PPD 55 years to get to this point!

On another note, the PNP is whipping up our "Mantengo psyche" by announcing that Medicaid and Medicare entitlements will soon be funded by billions of more Federal monies, thus putting us next to parity to American states. Nonetheless statehood will send us MORE! In other words, the closer we get to the U.S.the more Mantengo we'll recieve.