shouldn't the U.N. intervene? CGC I am not sure what you mean by 'intervene.' But, in reality, both Puerto Rico and the Marianas are in what I refer to as the 'dependency periphery' -  a sort of "grey area" as far as the U.N. decolonization process is concerned. Both territories were removed from non self-governing status by U.N. resolution, and can only be re-listed upon the request of the U.N. member states. Until then, they are outside of international scrutiny. In the case of Puerto Rico, the U.N. Decolonization Committee conducts a hearing process on that territory each year, and adopts a committee resolution asking for the U.N. General Assembly to address Puerto Rico decolonization. This was done on the proposal of mainly Latin American countries. The critical mass of political support has not yet been reached, however, for the General Assembly to actually take up the question of Puerto Rico even in the face of repeated calls by representatives of all of the major political parties and civil society organizations on the island, and many in the diaspora. CAR Don't all these groups support independence? CGC Not at all. Even the pro-integrationist party recognizes the dependency nature of the present political status. There are different positions on the solution to the dependency status -- the Puerto Rico Independence Party, for example, supports independence while the New Progressive Party favors full political integration as a state of the U.S. Then there are those, mainly emerging from the pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic