In the name of statehood, D.C. joins obscure international group
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Version 0 of 1. Nearly 8,000 miles of travel and almost $3,000 in city funds has landed Washington, D.C., a spot on the membership roster of a little-known organization of ethnic and religious minorities. And how that benefits the District — or anyone else — is entirely unclear. The District’s elected “shadow senator” Paul Strauss, who has a budget to promote D.C. statehood, traveled to Brussels last week to secure the District’s admission to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) — not to be confused with the United Nations or its affiliates — to draw attention to the cause. D.C. residents pay federal income taxes but do not have the right to elect representatives to Congress. All D.C. laws and budgets are subject to congressional approval. “This was an important opportunity to highlight D.C.’s status on the international stage,” Strauss said Monday after his return. Does it matter? The UNPO is a loose coalition of parties and separatist groups that have little to no power within their own countries, no formal commitment to one another’s causes, and little to no media coverage. Membership does not guarantee the support of other members — like the Balochistan National Party or the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan — for D.C. statehood, nor does it lend any new support to the plight of those groups. The UNPO is, in fact, so obscure that several international experts who specialize in minorities the UNPO ostensibly represents said they had never heard of the organization. Strauss was unable to describe what kind of action the group might now take to further District statehood. But the bar is low. For years, D.C. lawmakers and activists have struggled and failed to mobilize popular support for statehood in Congress — or even sustained mass protest among District residents. “Even if there was nothing more than the mere recognition by them that we are an unrepresented territory that it was a worthwhile effort,” Strauss said. |