Puerto Rico: It works. So don't fix it

Puerto Rico: It works. So don't fix it

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and Kenneth L. Adelman The New York Times

FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2006. Copyright International Herald Tribune



Of all the problems plaguing the White House, Puerto Rico was the least among them. That is, until the president's Task Force on Puerto Rico's Status created waves in December.

Quite unbelievably, the task force raised questions about Puerto Rico's status that reminded us of what we heard from the Cuban delegation and its communist allies when we served at the United Nations 25 years ago.

Back then, in the Reagan administration, Puerto Rico was doing just fine - as it is now - under its commonwealth status. The arrangement was instituted by President Harry Truman and Congress and then approved in March 1952 by more than 80 percent of Puerto Rican voters.

Through that vote, the United Nations recognized that Puerto Rico had exercised its right of self-determination. Nonetheless - to stir up trouble and play off the anti-Americanism reeking in the General Assembly - Fidel Castro's delegate would annually lambaste U.S. imperialism and colonialism in Puerto Rico.

The Cuban ambassador would lecture the assembly on the glories of self-government - everywhere but on his island - and the United Nations' responsibilities toward free peoples - except those not free under communism. (Cuba has since been joined in this bizarre ritual by the envoy of Hugo Chávez's regime in Venezuela.)

With just as much grit and more success, our delegation would fight to keep Puerto Rico off the agenda, as the United Nations obviously had graver items to harangue over.

The crux of the Cuban argument was that Puerto Rico's status was unsettled, that a "commonwealth" agreement between a superpower and its former colony couldn't possibly be mutual and enduring.

Unfortunately, the new White House argument runs perilously close to the old Cuban one. At least that's how it sounded when two task force members - Ruben Barrales, the president's director of intergovernmental affairs, and Kevin Marshall, deputy assistant attorney general - said they were recommending that Congress set yet another voting procedure for the islanders to decide their future.

Four times Puerto Ricans have voted to retain commonwealth status (the most recent referendum was in 1998). Nonetheless, Marshall said: "Some of the prior votes, I think we'd all agree, have not provided clear guidance."

No clear guidance? Over the last 40 years, the vote for independence never got more than 5 percent. In most elections, that's considered a fringe vote. Statehood got a higher tally than independence, but commonwealth or the status quo always won.
On a path to stir up problems where none existed, the task force recommended a two-step process. Puerto Ricans would vote on whether they wanted a "permanent solution" to their status. This initial vote would throw together Puerto Rican fringe voters for independence with those wanting the opposite - statehood - and anyone else discontented.

If that initial plebiscite were to pass, there'd be a second vote - for either independence or statehood. Oddly, preserving commonwealth status wouldn't even be on the ballot.

Commonwealth has been the clear preference because it's been a good deal. Puerto Ricans are American citizens - but with a few exceptions.

They get no vote for president and have no voting representation in Congress, yet pay no federal income taxes. Given that deal, many of us stateside might seek commonwealth status.

Is there a way out? A recently introduced Senate bill calls for Puerto Ricans to convene a constitutional convention on their status, which is clearly better than a two-step vote.

But the damage has been done. During the task force briefing back in December, Barrales explained that the administration was simply "trying to help move the process forward."

What for? It seems just fine to us, where it's been for more than five decades. And forward to what? Fidel Castro's position?
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick was the United States' chief delegate to the United Na- tions under President Ronald Reagan. Kenneth L. Adelman, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1983 to 1987, was her deputy. He is also a part-time consul- tant for a public relations firm that represents Puerto Rico but is not in- volved in that account.