NEW PROGRESSIVE PARTY

GENERAL ASSEMBLY
FAJARDO, PUERTO RICO

DECLARATION FOR
DECOLONIZATION AND STATEHOOD

RESOLUTION
For the adoption of the Tennessee Plan as an additional
strategy for the decolonization and the claim for the admission
of Puerto Rico as the 51st State of the United States of America

Presented by: Mr. Charles A. Rodríguez, Esq.

STATEMENT OF MOTIVES
The New Progressive Party was founded in order to achieve two fundamental
goals: Statehood and Social Justice for our People. In that sense, we are an
ideological party committed to effect true change in our political relationship with
the United States of America. Our struggle is for political equality through the
admission of Puerto Rico as the 51st State of the Union. Our aspirations are for
our People to be able to stand up and demand what we are entitled to as good
American Citizens, on equal terms, conditions, rights and responsibilities, as our
brothers and sisters of the North. We refuse to continue on our knees, in a
colonial relationship without the complete enjoyment of our American Citizenship.
This Party was not born to manage the Commonwealth Colony, but rather to
apply for and to obtain Statehood.

We recognize that in order to achieve our fundamental purposes we have

assumed successfully and with dedication the governmental direction of Puerto
Rico. The administrations of Don Luis A. Ferré, Don Carlos Romero-Barceló and
Don Pedro Rosselló provided our People with progress and security through
important initiatives for social justice. The granting of property deeds for the
settlers in government-doled parceled lots, the Christmas Bonus for workers in
the public and private sectors, the right to vote for 18 year olds, the immediate
application of the Federal minimum wage to our workers, fair salaries for our
public employees, the rights of our public employees to organize collectively, the
reduction in taxes, and the universal health insurance plan are only some of the
great achievements of New Progressive Party administrations. The last pro-
statehood administration of Dr. Rosselló lowered unemployment, income taxes,
public spending and the governmental gigantism, improved health services, and
public education, and enhanced the economy, employment in the private sector,
grand public works, and made great strides in the war against crime.

Achievements have also been attained in the ideological field. The New
Progressive Party arose as the result of having seized the Statehood standard in
the 1967 plebiscite; it approved the Presidential Primaries Law in 1979 and
promoted two local plebiscites - 1993 and 1998 - in order to resolve our colonial
dilemma. Likewise, it has developed an intense program of education and
lobbying in the mainland United States, particularly in Congress, obtaining in
1998 the approval in the U.S. House of Representatives of the Young bill for a
plebiscite to be held in Puerto Rico, with Federal approval, in order to select the
future status of Puerto Rico from among non-colonial and constitutionally valid
options. At the present time, the efforts of our party President, Dr. Pedro
Rosselló, and of our Resident Commissioner, Luis Fortuño, have achieved the
filing of a bill in both Federal Houses of Congress providing for a viable Federal
plebiscite for the People of Puerto Rico to determine a new non-colonial, non-
territorial political relationship, in which we aspire for Statehood.

After five hundred thirteen (513) years of colonization, four hundred five (405)
years under Spanish rule and one hundred eight (108) under the rule of the
United States of America, it becomes imperative to redouble our efforts to
achieve the equality, progress and security that Statehood represents. With the
passage of time, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, far from improving Puerto
Rico’s political, economic and social situation, has made them worse. In political
terms, our colonial and territorial relationship makes us sink deeper and deeper
into the abyss of political inferiority with every passing day, in view of the
continuous decisions made in Congress and by the President of the United
States, which affect the daily lives of the People of Puerto Rico, without our
having representation in Congress and without our voting for the President. From
an economic standpoint, every day we are more affected by the lack of the
instruments for stability and investments which the fifty states enjoy. Puerto
Rico’s economic panorama is desolate on account of experiencing a reduction
and deceleration, while the United States’ economy is in full growth. Today, the
gap between the poorest of the United States, the State of Mississippi, and
Puerto Rico has increased by comparison of the 1960 statistics with the current
ones. Despair and pessimism are prevalent in all of our People, every day
causing more and more Puerto Rican families to substitute their native soil for
that of one of the fifty states, in search of the financial and social opportunities
which the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico does not offer them. The situation
worsens, in view of the reality of the loss of the talent and intellect of thousands
of compatriots who abandon the Island. The economic problems, in turn, incite
the increase of social problems, which manifest themselves through an
increment in broken families, mental health cases, drug addiction, domestic
violence, crime, and corruption. There is no doubt that many of the political,
economic and social problems were worsened, and they continue to worsen, due
to the bad decisions and mistaken public policies of the administration of
Governors Sila Calderon and Anibal Acevedo-Vila. But the truth is that our
colonial condition compels us to remain as beggars and in servitude, subject to
the Territorial Clause of the Constitution of the United States of America, unable
to demand and enjoy the full rights of our American Citizenship because we do
not live in a State.

The state of affairs and the political, economic and social bankruptcy, in which
the Commonwealth finds itself, compels the statehood movement to seek
additional strategies in order to free our People from the chains that bind us to
inferiority and submission, in order to demand, upright and facing forward, our
political equality. This can be achieved without abandoning traditional efforts.
Nevertheless, we must include in our plans those valiant and daring strategies
which may have been used successfully by territories of the United States in their
struggle to achieve Statehood. This is the case of the Tennessee Plan, which
was put into execution in 1796 by the then-territory of Tennessee, in view of
Congress’ inaction in attending to their claims against colonization. The territorial
Governor convoked a constitutional assembly in order to adopt the Constitution
of the State of Tennessee, which included a provision ordering the election of all
of the officials who would occupy the public offices at the municipal, state and
federal levels, immediately after its approval. As soon as the Legislative
Assembly met under the new Constitution of the “State” of Tennessee, they
proceeded to select its two senators, who traveled to the Federal Congress to
demand their seats and the admission of Tennessee as a State. Tennessee was
admitted as a State of the Union in less than three months after having selected
its congressional delegation. The Tennessee Plan served as a historical
precedent for six (6) other territories which had experienced procrastination on
the part of Congress in attending to their claims to become States. The unilateral
action of the Tennessee Plan was implemented by Michigan, Iowa, California,
Oregon, Kansas and Alaska, who organized themselves as states by adopting a
constitution to those effects; they elected their congressional delegations, and
sent them to demand their seats in Washington D.C. All of these territories were
admitted as States.

To this day, the People of Puerto Rico have been waiting 108 years for the
Congress to act, without our territorial condition having been resolved. As was
said by a member of the 1952 Constitutional Convention, former Chief Justice of
the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, Don Jose Trias-Monge, Puerto Rico is the
oldest colony in the world. This situation is unsustainable in the XXI Century. We
affirm that ever since Congress bestowed United States Citizenship upon the
People of Puerto Rico in 1917, an inalienable right arose for the People of Puerto
Rico to demand the sovereignty of Statehood, with which we may attain the
complete exercise of our rights as citizens. The United States emerged from a
struggle against British colonialism, and therefore our (American) Nation cannot
tolerate to be a colonial master, and must support the decolonization of Puerto
Rico. Our American Nation represents the torch of democracy and liberty. Under
those principles the People of Iraq and Afghanistan were freed from oppression
and tyranny so that they may exercise their right to free determination. For all
these reasons, our Nation must attend to the claim by Puerto Rico, an American
territory inhabited by four million United States Citizens, to demand political
equality of Statehood through an exercise of its free determination. To adopt and
put into execution the Tennessee Plan is a legitimate exercise of the People of
Puerto Rico’s free determination. The time has come to act without hesitation
and with a true patriotic and ideological commitment. Let us honor the memory of
Don Jose Celso Barbosa and Don Luis A. Ferré, reaffirming the most profound
sense of statesmanship, responsibility and respect to the right of human beings
to be equal.

Therefore, the New Progressive Party must adopt the Tennessee Plan as an
additional strategy in its struggle to attain Statehood. Whereas a vote for the New
Progressive Party and/or its candidates in 2008 is a mandate for the New
Progressive Party government which takes office in January of 2009, to
implement the Tennessee Plan. This shall be done through legislation which will
establish a process for the adoption and ratification of the Constitution of the
State of Puerto Rico, and the election of two senators and six federal
congresspersons to appear before Congress in Washington D.C. to claim their
seats and the admission of Puerto Rico as the 51st State of the United States of
America.

Let us celebrate with exuberance the thirty-ninth anniversary of the founding of

our Party by approving this Resolution and Declaration for Decolonization and
Statehood. The Strength is in the Union!

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE NEW PROGRESSIVE PARTY HEREBY

RESOLVES AS FOLLOWS:

Section 1: The New Progressive Party adopts the Tennessee Plan as an

additional strategy for the decolonization and the claim for the admission of
Puerto Rico as the 51st State of the United States of America.

Section 2: A vote for the New Progressive Party and/or its candidates in 2008 is
a mandate for the New Progressive Party government which takes office in
January of 2009, to implement the Tennessee Plan. This shall be done through
legislation which will establish a process for the adoption and ratification of the
Constitution of the State of Puerto Rico, and the election of two senators and six
federal congresspersons to appear before Congress in Washington D.C. to claim
their seats and the admission of Puerto Rico as the 51st State of the United
States of America.

Section 3: This Resolution shall be known as the DECLARATION FOR

DECOLONIZATION AND STATEHOOD.
Section 4: The leadership of the New Progressive Party is instructed to develop
a campaign for the education, training and orientation of the People regarding
Statehood and the Tennessee Plan, as well as the different ways to achieve the
admission of a territory towards Statehood.

Section 5: We add as a requirement that to be certified as an official candidate

for the New Progressive Party in the general elections, said candidate must have
attended a seminar regarding Statehood. This requirement shall be strictly
enforced. The Secretary General shall be responsible for organizing and offering
the seminar and, together with the President, for issuing a certificate of
completion to the participants.

Section 6: This resolution shall become effective immediately upon its approval.

Unanimously approved by the New Progressive Party’s delegates

gathered in a General Assembly held on August 20, 2006, at the El
Conquistador Hotel, Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

(Signed)
DR. PEDRO ROSSELLÓ
President

(Signed)
Thomas Rivera-Schatz, Esq.
Secretary General