Letters to the editor

OPINION:

Keep Puerto Rico a commonwealth

Rep. Luis G. Fortuno ignores Puerto Rico’s economic progress and the opportunities available as a commonwealth that would be eliminated by statehood (“What Puerto Ricans want,” Letters, Oct. 11). He decries Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States and says it is “not working.”

Like many other proponents of making Puerto Rico the 51st state, Mr. Fortuno tries to undermine commonwealth status with the hope that statehood will gain acceptance by default.

After previous governors’ runaway spending, current Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo-Vila has spent two years putting Puerto Rico’s fiscal house in order, cutting government deficits and strengthening our bond rating, which Mr. Fortuno incorrectly identified as junk status. More than $4 billion in recent investment in the life sciences and pharmaceuticals hardly speaks to an economy “in shambles,” as Mr. Fortuno describes Puerto Rico’s situation. Rather, it validates our position as a rising hub for those industries. As Puerto Rico develops high-tech sectors such as aerospace, biotechnology and information technology, newly created jobs will keep Puerto Ricans at home (after they graduate from our competitive universities, which claim top-15 rankings for engineering, for example).

Mr. Fortuno also seeks to confuse readers by offering myriad definitions for “commonwealth,” and he overlooks unanswered questions about statehood, such as whether the use of Spanish in courts, government agencies and schools would be eliminated or whether Puerto Rico would lose its Olympic teams. His effort to divide the electorate does not acknowledge that each time statehood has been placed on a ballot line, it has failed to earn majority support. Furthermore, he underestimates our 4 million citizens’ desire to cut through manipulative politics, as in 1998, when statehood was handed a convincing defeat in an islandwide referendum.

As The Washington Times stated in its editorial, Puerto Rico is moving in the right direction, largely because of its commonwealth status and the fact that Puerto Rico’s current governor, Mr. Acevedo-Vila, is focused on economic development, not politics. Forcing another option on Puerto Rico wouldn’t be right for the island or our country. With his talk about democratic values, how does Mr. Fortuno defend the paternalistic effort to mandate statehood when a majority of Puerto Ricans simply do not want it?

EDUARDO BHATIA

Executive director

Puerto Rico Federal Affairs

Administration

U.S. representative of the government of Puerto Rico

Washington

Sea treaty would help U.S. interests

Frank Gaffney had one thing correct (“LOST justice,” Commentary, Tuesday). He’s not a lawyer. That can explain why he favors the existing global lawlessness regarding the use of the world’s oceans. Without any “law” of the sea, we can go on making up whatever rules we want about the oceans and their limited resources.

However, a lawyer has the skill to see things from another person’s perspective. In the case of the Law of the Sea Treaty, that would mean another nation’s interests. With most nations having competing interests related to oceanic passage and access to ocean resources, many have no set laws governing conflicts.

We may have the upper hand now in dealing with those conflicts and doing what we want on the high seas, but that dominance will last only as long as we have the strongest military in the world. That might not always be the case.

Our military could have complete control of the seas and the sky, and our nation could still be hit by al Qaeda. We need friends and allies in all nations to help us find and bring its fanatical mass murderers to justice. However, Mr. Gaffney appears still to worship national sovereignty over national security.

The problem with national sovereignty is that it condones the same chaotic, creative rule-making for every nation that fuels tensions, instead of reducing them.

We Americans have to choose how we will deal with other nations. Will we follow the rule of law or use force? Mr. Gaffney need not be a lawyer to comprehend the value of the most basic of all rules. Such “justice” is not a function of national sovereignty. It is a function of law. National sovereignty is no more than the illusion or delusion of national superiority.

In reality, it will be far easier to deal with any “legal train wreck” that might occur from yet another unenforceable global treaty than it will be to try to maintain our own security in an increasingly interdependent world. Our insistence on independence only makes us more enemies and makes us more vulnerable to the lawless chaos in which mass murders thrive.

CHUCK WOOLERY

Rockville

Armenian genocide a reality

I was appalled to read Bruce Fein’s column regarding the Armenian genocide (“Armenian crime amnesia?” Commentary, Tuesday). It shows a lack of sensitivity as well as a lack of research on what took place during the reign of Mehmet Talaat Pasha.

He should have taken the time to look up the archives of our State Department and read the dispatches of our then-diplomatic representatives of the period in Istanbul and elsewhere, or review the more than 120 lead articles published by your paper’s nemesis in New York or consider that the Anti-Defamation League declared the event in question was indeed “tantamount to genocide.” Mr. Fein obviously has ulterior motives for not considering what Franz Werfel saw and wrote about in his book, “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.”

He writes about the bombing of a “scholar’s home by Armenians” for the latter’s denial of the genocide, yet he conveniently omits the fact that on balance, the vast majority of objective historians who have expressed opinions without an ax to grind are entirely different from Mr. Fein’s misguided conclusions.

Although I believe in the freedom of the press, I feel there has been a major journalistic failure in that Mr. Fein has failed to be a lot more diligent in an attempt to “sing along” with the official Turkish view.

I rather believe both of my grandparents who survived the ordeal in which they witnessed the interminable marches of women and children across the Syrian desert with no food, no water, no mercy and rape. They were lucky to barely make it to live and tell their stories.

Shame on Mr. Fein and shame on you for having allowed such an article to appear in your highly respected publication.

KHACHIG KONYALIAN

Forked River, N.J.

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While Helle Dale honestly presents the Armenian Genocide of 1915 (“Armenian folly,” Op-Ed, yesterday), she fails in noting the long-term dangers of Turkey’s genocide denial by claiming that the timing is wrong.

Denial of the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust is on the rise in America, the Middle East and Europe. The Turkish government’s international industry of denial, financed to the tune of millions of dollars worldwide and extending into American universities and Congress’ corridors, is countered by the existence of the dwindling survivors who remain to give living testament to the crime.

Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, New York Democrat, whose district covers familiar territory in Queens, such as Flushing, pretty much told it like it is last week. He said he felt so sorry for the survivors in wheelchairs, who traveled through airports, from different parts of the country. Gesturing to them, he said, “What time can they come back?”

Meanwhile, Turkey can go on forever denying the slaughter of Kurds, denying its occupation of Cyprus, denying its genesis in genocide.

NIKOLAOS TANERIS

Press officer

Cyprus Action Network of America

New York