Original: Spanish
The SI Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean expresses its solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico over the devastation caused by the Hurricane Maria.
Added to the physical, economic and social devastation in Puerto Rico, already suffering more than ten consecutive years of economic and demographic contraction, is added the intensification of the colonial domination by the US Congress via the so-called Financial Oversight and Management Board imposed by the United States Congress.
The crisis unleashed by the hurricane has served to underline and expose the enormous economic, social and institutional decomposition into which colonialism has plunged Puerto Rico.
The Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, in harmony with the many expressions of the Socialist International for more than thirty years, as in the resolutions of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization, reiterates its call to the United States government to promote a consensual mechanism that allows the people of Puerto Rico to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence, and to set in motion a process that makes possible the urgent political and economic decolonization of Puerto Rico.
The people of Puerto Rico have already expressed themselves strongly in favor of ending the existing relationship of political subordination; it is now up to the United States to discharge its decolonization responsibilities without delay in accordance with international law.
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