UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE RESOLUTION -Via Hand delivery-

Dear Member of Congress:

WHEREAS, there is a Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, contained in General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960,

WHEREAS, the Inter-agency Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status designated by the President of the United States, which submitted its third report on 16 March 2011, reaffirmed that Puerto Rico is a territory subject to United States congressional authority,

WHEREAS, the concern of the people of Puerto Rico regarding violent actions, including repression and intimidation, against Puerto Rican Independence Leaders, including those that have come to light through documents declassified by Federal agencies of the United States,

WHEREAS, the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to Self-Determination and Independence in conformity with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) and the applicability of the fundamental principles of that resolution to the question of Puerto Rico status,

WHEREAS, the Puerto Rican people constitute a Latin American and Caribbean nation that has its own unequivocal national identity,

WHEREAS, THIS RESOLUTION CALLS upon us, the Government of the United States of America, to assume its responsibility to expedite a process that will allow the Puerto Rican people to fully exercise their inalienable right to Self-Determination and Independence, in accordance and in full compliance with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) and the resolutions and decisions of the United Nations Special Committee concerning Puerto Rico,

WHEREAS, the debate in Puerto Rico on the implementation of a mechanism that would ensure the full participation of representatives of all viewpoints prevailing in Puerto Rico, including a constitutional assembly on status with a basis in the decolonization alternatives recognized in international law, and aware of the principle that any initiative for the solution of the political status of Puerto Rico should originate from the People of Puerto Rico and simultaneously exercise on the day of the Declaration of Independence to allow the people to decide for ones and for all the future relationship between the people of Puerto Rico and the United States,

WHEREAS, the people of Puerto Rico are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent,

WHEREAS, THIS RESOLUTION IS BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,

WHEREAS, THIS RESOLUTION IS BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE THAT in the Course of Human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation from another country,

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the United States recognizes the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to full Self-Determination and Independence in honor of our own principle of Freedom and Democracy.

Member of Congress