By Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press.
The Sacramento Bee, June 22, 2001.
UNITED NATIONS (June 22, 1:02 a.m. PDT) - A U.N. committee approved a
Cuban-backed resolution Thursday calling on the United States to expedite Puerto
Rican independence and order an immediate end to military exercises on the tiny
island of Vieques.
The resolution, which is not legally binding, was approved without a vote by
the 24-member special committee on decolonization issues. Chile expressed
reservations about its scope and Papua New Guinea questioned whether the
committee had authority to deal with the question of Puerto Rico.
Cuba's U.N. Ambassador Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said the world could not
wait for another bomb in Vieques, the site of the U.S. Navy's prized Atlantic
Fleet training ground. Two off-target bombs there killed a civilian security
guard in 1999, sparking protests laced with anti-American sentiment.
Puerto Rico is a U.S. commonwealth with limited local government. The 4
million residents of the Spanish-speaking island are U.S. citizens who serve in
the armed forces, but they do not pay federal taxes, cannot vote for president
and have no vote in Congress.
In 1998, a bill offering U.S. statehood or independence to Puerto Rico
stalled in the U.S. Senate. Later that year, Puerto Ricans narrowly voted to
keep the current commonwealth status in a nonbinding referendum, edging out U.S.
statehood, with only a small percentage favoring independence.
The resolution adopted Thursday calls on the U.S. government "to assume
its responsibility of expediting a process that will allow the Puerto Rican
people to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and
independence."
Last year, the committee adopted a Cuban-drafted resolution with similar
language.
This year's resolution also urged the U.S. government "to order the
immediate halt of its armed forces' military drills and maneuvers on Vieques
Island."
It calls for the United States to "return the occupied land to the
people of Puerto Rico, halt the persecution, incarcerations, arrests and
harassment of peaceful demonstrators, immediately release all persons
incarcerated in this connection ... and decontaminate the impact areas" in
the Vieques bombing range.
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