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Rev. Acad. Puert. de Jur. y Leg.
in support of its position before the United Nations that there was no longer a need to file reports on Puerto Rico.‖ … ―Considering Trías Monge‘s participation in the ‗creation‘ of the ‗commonwealth‘ status and its aftermath, including the MORA episode and the resulting representations before the United Nations, his open confession that not all of these endeavors changed Puerto Rico‘s colonial condition constitutes a reason for puzzlement and admiration. At a minimum, Trías Monge‘s revelation was an act of intellectual bravery. The bravery of Trías Monge‘s history aside, the solutions the book offers to the cutting of Puerto Rico‘s Gordian knot are disquieting. With an eye on influencing the committees set to hear the Young Bill, Trías Monge shifted gears in the later chapters to argue in favor of what, in Puerto Rican political parlance, is commonly referred to as ‗enhanced‘ or ‗culminated‘ commonwealth status. Under enhanced commonwealth status, a bilaterally binding compact would be negotiated between the United Sates and Puerto Rico, the terms of which would probably include continued United States citizenship for residents of Puerto Rico, a common defense and currency, and inclusion of the island within the United States‘ custom unions. Additionally, Puerto Rico would have the right to veto the application to itself of laws passed by Congress, would have separate representation in various international entities, the right to negotiate commercial treaties separate from the United States, and would have control over immigration into Puerto Rico.‖ … ―Puerto Rico has been left to be held and governed indefinitely by an unrepresentative group of political actors in Washington, D. C. Although the United States is a relatively benign colonial power, it is nevertheless at the controlling end of a political equation in which 3.7 million citizens of the United States have no substantial say regarding the truly fundamental issues that control their daily lives. Although there has been local self-government since 1952, such limited, parochial self-government activities merely serve to distract the populace from more fundamental goals. For example, that Puerto Rico has a