political_status

Guam's Political Status

For over 400 years, from one colonizer to the next...

-6 March 1521... Portugese explorer Ferdinand Magellan "landed" on Guam.
-26 January 1565... Miguel Lopez de Legazpi "claimed" Guam in the name of King Philip II of Spain.
-16 June 1668... Father Diego Luis de San Vitores landed on Guam under a royal edict he manipulated from
         queen regent of Spain "Mariana" (from which derives the name "Marianas Islands") to begin "militant"
         conversion of the "infidels"... and therein began nearly 30 years of Spanish-Chamorro Wars.
-10 December 1898... the ending of Spanish-American War brought the "Treaty of Paris" and Guam became a
         spoil of war and was ceded to the United States of America. Thus began another era of colonization of
         Guam, ruled by U.S. Naval captains who had total discretion over Guam and her people.
-8 December 1941... After evacuation of American personnel and their families, Guam became the only U.S. soil
         under brutal and horrific occupation by enemy forces and Japan held Guam for the next two and a half
         years of World War II.
-21 July 1944... the United States "liberated" Guam from Japan and once again Guam became a "possession" of
         the United States. Under a treaty with Japan, these superpowers "forgave" one another of the atrocities
         committed against Guam and her people, and to this day Chamorros plead for war reparations.
-1 August 1950... the Organic Act of Guam was passed by Congress, a legislative document that has been
         Guam's governing document, providing for limited second-class U.S. citizenship... and providing for a
         non-voting representative to Congress and no right to vote for the President of the United States.

...Chamorro self-determination is inevitable!

Excerpt from "An Overview of Guam's Status and Options," a document by Mr. Leland Bettis, Executive Director of the Government of Guam's Commission on Decolonization, published in March 2000:

"...Guam's colonial status is clear in the legal standards and the practices that flow from the United States' relationship with Guam. The "internal" U.S. legal standards and the "external" international standards both identify Guam as being non-self-governing. Guam is not only a colony in legal terms, but also in the way in which the U.S. administers Guam.

"Internal" (U.S.) Legal Standards

     The "internal" (U.S.) legal standard that applies to Guam is the status of "unincorporated territory." This status in U.S. law was created by the U.S. Supreme Court (Insular Cases, beginning 1901, see Bidwell v. DeLima and Downes v. Bidwell) specifically for those islands that were ceded to the United States at the end of the Spanish-American War (1898).

     The "Territories Clause" of the U.S. Constitution provides, "The Congress shall have the Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory and other property belonging to the United States (U.S. Constitution, Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2)."

     The provisions of the Treaty of Paris provide, "The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the islands hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress (Article IX, 1898)."

     Based on the above, the U.S. Supreme Court found that former Spanish territories (unlike earlier territories which had been acquired by the United States), were not promised to become a part of the United States. Where the U.S. Constitution had been the standard of governance in earlier acquisitions (later called "incorporated territories"), Congress, not the Constitution, was the guide for governance in the island territories. The creation of the status of "unincorporated territory" provided for one-sided colonial governance. As the United States considered the extension of civil government to Guam, along with limited U.S. citizenship, a Congressional report openly stated the colonial nature of the relationship:
               "Guam is appurtenant to the United States and belongs to the United States but is not a part of
             the United States (H.R. No. 1365, 81st Congress, 1st Sess. 8, 1949)."

     The 1950 Organic Act of Guam provided for a civilian appointed Governor (elected Governor in 1970), an elected Legislature, and a judicial branch. The Organic Act also provided for U.S. citizenship to those "native inhabitants" who traced their ancestry to the Treaty of Peace [Paris] between the U.S. and Spain. By granting U.S. citizenship, the U.S. government established the mechanism to claim title to over one-third of the real property in Guam. Also, for the first time in U.S. law, Guam was declared an "unincorporated territory" of the United States (Organic Act, Section 3).

     The legacy of Guam's status as a possession of the United States has been repeated time and again in judicial reviews of the applicability of the U.S. legal standards to Guam.

     "Guam marches squarely to the beat of the federal drummer; the federal government bestows on Guam its powers and, unlike the states which retain their sovereignty by virtue of the Constitution, Guam's sovereignty is entirely a creation of federal statute (Ngiraingas v. Sanchez, 858 F.2d 1368, CA9 1988, aff'd U.S. Supreme Court on other grounds)."

     "Congress has granted [Guam] far fewer powers of self-government than the state of Colorado has granted the city of Boulder (Sakamoto v. Duty Free Shoppers, 9th Circuit Court)."

     After over a century of American colonial rule, the structure of the legal relationship between Guam and the United States remains unchanged. Guam is an "unincorporated territory" subject to the plenary [absolute] authority of the U.S. government.

"External" (International) Legal Standards

     The United Nations is a Treaty of Nations. Article IV, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution says that "all treaties made... shall be the supreme Law of the Land."

     Guam was voluntarily inscribed by the United States on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories (NSGT's) in 1946 and became Guam's administering power (U.N.G.A. Resolution 66-1). Today, Guam remains one of 16 territories that have yet to attain full self-government."

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