Puerto Rico’s former governor and current candidate for that post, Pedro Rossello has announced a shift in strategy in obtaining Puerto Rican statehood as a means of ending the islands centuries-old colonial dilemma. The former Governor now says that it will be necessary to take a page from the lessons of the civil rights movement of the 1960’s “I believe,” Rossello has stated, “that history is clear in the need to demand your rights rather than merely assuming a passive posture.”

According to Rossello, Puerto Rico’s quest to end its territorial status also mirrors the suffrage movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which ultimately recognized the right of women to participate in the nation’s political process through the act of voting. Furthermore, the governor now believes that the the topic of Puerto Rico present colonial status has to be more effectively brought before international forums, as well as, within the halls of Congress. (more…)