On June 1, primary elections were held in Puerto Rico. For that reason, politicians and journalists will travelled to the island to pay to it an attention they never paid before and to turn their visit into part of the spectacle of marketing of politics that in the United States is called "democracy." The Democratic candidates competed there for the favor of voters who are not part of U.S. society and therefore have no vote in the U.S. general elections next November. In theory, Puerto Ricans can decide who the Democratic candidate will be but cannot vote for him, or her, or the Republican rival, or any other candidate to the presidency of the United States.

On June 9, the United Nations' Committee on Decolonization will again discuss Puerto Rico's status, as it has done every year since 1972. Many voices have been raised there, and in other U.N. entities, to demand that the United States put an end to its colonial regime and return to the Puerto Rican people the right to decide their fate, a right that was wrested from them more than a century ago. Before the Committee will speak representatives from the whole of Puerto Rican society,
including representatives of all the parties and political movements on the island. They will raise a petition for the U.N. General Assembly to discuss in depth the case of Puerto Rico, as we unanimously agreed at the International Conference of Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence, which we held in Panama in 2006 and reiterated this year in Mexico.

Latin America is living through a new era, and Puerto Rico is not absent from it.Its turn, Puerto Rico's turn, is very near. It is coming much faster than some people in the North, drunk with demagoguery and ignorance, think.

SOURCE: Progreso Weekly