The San Juan Star - LOCAL NEWS
2 OPPOSING POLITICAL FORCES SPEAK ON CITIZENSHIP RULING
Mari Brás rejects it, but Ramírez says it's late
By JULIO VICTOR RAMIREZ FERRER
Of the STAR Staff
(06/06/98, Copyright © 1998 The San Juan Star)
MAYAGUEZ - Two politically antagonistic figures - pro-independence leader Juan Mari Brás and pro-statehood leader Miriam Ramírez de Ferrer - are mulling over the U.S. government's decision to revoke Mari Brás' renunciation of U.S. citizenship.
Mari Brás on Friday reiterated that he does not recognize the decision by the U.S. government, saying that it is ridiculous, something you might find in a Third World country.
"It speaks ill of a great power like the United States, the dominant power in the world today, that it has such bureaucratic deficiencies that it has to undo a decision that has already been made and has taken effect", said Mari Brás.
After the U.S. Department of State accepted his renunciation of citizenship, Mari
Brás' ballot cast in the 1996 general elections was recognized as valid by the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, which ruled that despite having renounced his U.S. citizenship he remained a "Puerto Rican citizen" entitled to vote.
"Don't count on me to put those shackles back on, I freed myself from the indignity of a false citizenship, that of the country that invaded mine, which continues to keep the only country that I owe allegiance to as a colony. There is no force that could force me to be a citizen of that country again", Mari Brás said.
He said he would continue to act as a citizen of Puerto Rico. "My only national loyalty is to Puerto Rico".
Meanwhile Ramírez de Ferrer - though satisfied with the federal decision - responded that "things were put to rights a little late in the game".
"For us, it has been painful to have to accept the decisions of certain judges here in Puerto Rico who have not kept to the rules ordering our political circumstances as a territory of the United States, in which the federal government has the last word", Ramírez de Ferrer said.
She said Mari Brás will not let this stand, and the lawyer confirmed the fact. "The first call I made was to my lawyer", she said. "Watch him, because I want to stay on him".
Mari Brás responded to Ramírez de Ferrer that her way of looking at things has been "deformed". Her values have become so deteriorated that she thinks she is American… like those crazies who say, "I am Napoleon."
Mari Brás said he will go to the Interamerican Human Rights Commission in Washington to file a complaint, then to the Interamerican Court on Human Rights in Costa Rica.
He argued that the United States has meant to violate his human rights because he has renounced the citizenship "it imposed on me".
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