Among the small group of Puerto Ricans favoring independence, most of whom do not live in Puerto Rico, the most common vision of an independent Puerto Rico is that of a prosperous capitalist country, financially supported by the United States and strongly connected with trading partners around the world. The predictions about how this will come about are not clear, but they tend to include the industries, like bioscience manufacturing and financial services, that are currently doing well in Puerto Rico. Unfettered by the colonial relationship with the United States but for some reason still bankrolled and shored up by the U.S., the proposed new Republic of Puerto Rico is culturally and financially rich and politically progressive.
This is not what the Independence Party foresaw in the 20th century.
Berrios’s predictions
Current President of the Puerto Rican Independence Party Ruben Berrios was quoted in the New York Times in 1972 as saying, “By 1976, we will declare the Republic. The United States will have to negotiate with us. We will become the Socialist Republic of Puerto Rico.”
The Times had their own vision: “It is 1984. The Socialist Republic of Puerto Rico has sealed its borders; thousands of people besiege the American Embassy seeking flights to the mainland. The Ambassador is helpless. But there is dissension in the five‐party coalition which brought President Ruben Berrios to power. Economic Minister Juan Mari Bras is demanding immediate exproprigtion of all American‐owned businesses and the expulsion of all North Americans. Education Minister Antonio Gonzalez is urging restraint; he is known to favor maintenance of ties with the U.S. However, in two long, impassioned, televised speeches Berrios has coupled his routine attacks on American ‘imperialism’ with boasts of support from the Communist bloc.”
We’re guessing they chose 1984 as the target date because of the classic novel of that name. 1984 was a dozen years into the future when the article was written, and independence for Puerto Rico was polling at about 5% on the Island. “It is not likely to happen,” the Times admitted, “but it is not entirely fiction, either. The men are real, plucked from the spectrum of Independentista leaders of 1972, and their projected views are fairly derived from those they hold today.”
Berrios also prophesied the method by which Puerto Rico would gain independence: ““There may be a civil war, but that will depend on the empire [the U.S.]. We think it will be a massive confrontation, not civil war. We can paralyze the American empire through mass strikes, mass boycotts, noncooperation, civil disobedience, refusal to pay taxes. We won’t fall into the trap of the imperialists who want us to use violence.”
The reality
What would an independent Puerto Rico be like? Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Syria — all the nations that support independence in front of the UN Decolonization Committee — would probably welcome a Socialist Republic of Puerto Rico. The residents of Puerto Rico? Probably not.
The current governor of Puerto Rico is a Republican supporter of statehood. Would she be the President of a new Republic of Puerto Rico? Ruben Berrios is still the President of the Independence Party. He laughingly said, in a Senate hearing, that the Governor of Puerto Rico would be more powerful than the President of the Republic of Puerto Rico. He was probably right –0 but would he be the President of the Socialist Republic of Puerto Rico?
The truth is, a vote for independence is a vote for uncertainty. There is no real plan for what a government of the Republic of Puerto Rico would be like. We can look at the 50 current states and have a pretty good idea of what the state of Puerto Rico would be like. But when we look at independent nations, we have nearly 200 of them to choose from, and they are often very different from one another. We tend to look at the Philippines, which used to be a U.S. territory called the Commonwealth of the Philippines,. It seems likely that Puerto Rico’s experience might be similar. We could look at the Marshall Islands, which used to be part of the Trust Territory but is now an independent nation with a Compact of Free Association with the United States. We could look at Singapore, just because it is a successful recently independent nation, though it doesn’t have much else in common with Puerto Rico.
It is actually impossible to predict what might happen if Puerto Rico were ever to vote for independence. It’s unlikely, but if it happened, Congress would need to take action. Puerto Rico has voted for statehood four times in this century, and Congress has not yet admitted Puerto Rico as a state. Would they be more likely to take action on a vote for independence? It’s hard to see any gain for the United States as a whole, let alone any individual state. If Congress did agree to independence for Puerto Rico, we just don’t know what would happen next.
It’s a moot point, really. Statehood has been and continues to be the majority position in Puerto Rico. Contact your legislators and let them know that you also support statehood. It’s time to get on the right side of history.
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