A Campaign of Fear

"NO, NO, NO," chanted approximately 650,000 voices in Puerto Rico last Sunday, drowning out the aphonic sounds of the "Si" supporters to close a sorry chapter of our island's history. By opposing amendments to the Puerto Rican constitution, statehooders and their supporters dealt a severe blow to advocates for Puerto Rico's political rights and national identity, defeating them by a seven percent margin.

These amendments, known as the Ley de Derechos Democraticos (Law on Democratic Rights), would have protected our island's culture, identity and Spanish language from any future change in political status. This constitutional amendment package also recognized Puerto Rico's right to international sports representation. Thirdly, it guaranteed the "permanent association" of the island with the United States under the present commonwealth status. A fourth condition assured the irrevocability of United States citizenship, which was granted to island residents through an act of Congress in 1917.

The law protected Puerto Rico's right to establish a dignified political relationship with the United States, without territorial or colonial subjugation to the powers of Congress. The amendments further guaranteed that any future vote on the island's status include the three options of statehood, independence and "enhanced" commonwealth (status quo with more autonomy).

These amendments should have passed.

THE STATEHOODERS pledged, if elected in 1992, to offer a referendum solely around the question of statehood--there-by disregarding the island's commonwealth tradition and pro-independence sentiment. The statehooders claim that commonwealth status can serve as a route to independence. But provisions in the law were offered to safeguard both our American citizenship and the permanency of our association with the United States.

The law offered the various amendments as a single package or block. Hence, if voters felt strongly about all but one condition, to which they were vehemently opposed, the larger set potentially became a sacrificial lamb.

The result of the vote would have been non-binding on Congress. In fact, Puerto Rico has no legal jurisdiction to grant permanency to the commonwealth status nor irrevocability to its American citizenship. No pretenses were made to such expansive authority.

The objective was to force Congress to grapple with the constitutional implications on a concrete, tangible level. No longer would these qualifiers be bandied about in an abstract, questionable plane. If Congress later decided to negate these fundamental rights, for which the Puerto Rican people had expressed such strong feelings, then the U.S. alone would be responsible for discriminating against its own citizens and perpetuating colonialism.

FEAR REIGNED for the larger part of the campaign. In a style that has become far too common on the island, the state-hooders employed defamatory tactics, accusing Governor Rafael Hernandez-Colon and his Popular Democratic Party of rebuffing the United States and pursuing a separatist ideological course. Under the leadership of Dr. Pedro Rosello, the prostatehood New Progressive Party unleashed a campaign of fear, aimed at equating the "Si," or affirmative response, with a vote of confidence to the governor for an additional term as well as an increase in crime, drug-addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, unemployment, social upheaval and so on.

Any rational person can realize that the argument falls flat given that the two issues are wholly incongruous. Yet the Puerto Rican electorate mixed la gimnasia con la magnesia, (apples with oranges) and fell prey to the specter of a worsening social crisis. If their aim was to kick the governor out, they should have waited until the '92 elections, rather than compromise their identity.

Even more important, though, "Dr. No" managed to convince the poverty-stricken sector of the island (approximately 60% of the total population, by U.S. standards) that Congress would discontinue federal aid programs (welfare benefits, food coupons, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare) if they endorsed the amendments.

Understandably, the island's poor panicked and made the rational economic decision of potentially compromising their political rights and national identity to secure their monthly checks from Uncle Sam.

Offering the referendum, no one doubts, was politically motivated. Governor Hernandez-Colon's stakes for issuing it were very high on a personal as well as partisan level. He knew that losing would mean his political death and gravely weaken the Popular Democratic Party. But he had no reason to expect defeat and was pressured to assert the validity of the commonwealth option as an alternative to statehood.

For many voters the decision was made at the last moment. As election day neared, the vote was anybody's ballgame. In a "Schwarzeneggerian" feat, "Dr. No" came from a 30-point deficit in the polls and three "knockouts" on tripartite debates to emerge as the unquestionable leader of a snowballing statehood movement. Even the combined commonwealth and independence forces were unable to stymie the statehooders. It now seems as though no force can come in the way of statehood, except of course the discriminatory power of the United States Congress.

PERHAPS a victorious referendum would have failed to modify our relationship with the United States. Maybe Puerto Ricans felt that constitutional weight was unnecessary to remind them of their culture and their sense of national identity. Yet the opportunity to send a message to Congress that their ties to the United States are not incompatible with pride for their culture and Hispanic-Caribbean origins was lost.

An alert signal has been sent loudly and unavoidably to those opposed to statehood. It remains on their hands to listen to the voice of history and adapt their expectations to reality. They can either resign themselves to the notion that the needy pockets of the island's poor are mightier than their hearts, or they can refuel the struggle for the defense of our national identity and right to self-determination. The hope of Puerto Rico lies in their ability to look intimidatingly at the eyes of fear--and defeat it at its own game.

Tere Riera-Carrion '92, a former president of La Organizacion, is a resident of San Juan, Puerto Rico.