Guam

The island bustled with activity on many fronts this last year—continuing efforts toward decolonization, electing island leadership, preparing for the role of hosting the 12th Festival of Pacific Arts in 2016, facing ongoing militarization as well as numerous other issues such as the return of the El Niño weather patterns, which has meant once again contending with typhoons on a regular basis.

On 1 August 2014, the United States and the Federated States of Micronesia signed a treaty that formally gave ownership of the deepest part of the Marianas Trench to the Federated States (mv, 12 Aug 2014). Guam, as an unincorporated territory—or, according to the United Nations, a non-self-governing territory—was not consulted, even though this treaty affects an area that many have historically considered part of the Mariana Islands. Some of the frustration over Guam’s political status is that the people of Guam are generally not included in discussions about what happens in their region, as the island is legally a possession of the United States.

This frustration was manifested in the 2015 State of the Island Address by Guam Governor Edward “Eddie” Baza Calvo; a large portion of his speech was devoted to “unfunded mandates and colonialism” (Office of Governor, 16 Feb 2015). Calvo denounced the ways in which Guam, despite being excluded from US democratic processes, is nonetheless subject to essentially all federal laws and decisions. He called for new energy to be infused into the movement for decolonization on Guam, invoking the legacy of his great-grandfather, who in 1917 gave a speech calling for a similar political status change. Calvo proposed holding a decolonization plebiscite in 2017, the one-hundred-year anniversary of his great-grandfather’s speech.

The past two administrations (including Calvo’s first term) accomplished very little with regard to moving this process forward. The Commission on Decolonization was formed in 1997; this body is meant to guide the decolonization process locally and to educate those qualified to vote about the three different future political status options for Guam: integration, free association, and independence. The work of the commission has long been hampered by lack of funding. In recent years, international lobbying efforts, website development, public meetings, and a series of high school debates on the topic were all proposed but never implemented.

The rhetoric of decolonization is nothing new, but there were two developments that made the governor’s 2015 State of the Island speech significant. First, when advocating decolonization, Calvo broke with a long-standing unwritten rule that the chief executive of the island not express a personal preference on the matter. In the past, governors and other elected officials have avoided expressing their personal choice regarding Guam’s future political status and instead stated support for whatever choice the native inhabitants of the island might make. In his speech, Calvo diverted from his prepared remarks and added that he personally supported statehood. He did note, however, that he considered any status other than the current one an improvement.

Second, whereas in the past the Calvo administration only offered words of support, this year it allocated $100,000 to the Commission on Decolonization to be used for the development of educational materials and programs to precede a plebiscite on decolonization. Democratic Party members of the Guam Legislature had been critical of Calvo for providing funding only for commission staff members, the majority of whom were detailed elsewhere in the Government of Guam despite being listed as working for the commission. In June 2015, the Commission on Decolonization voted to provide $30,000 to each of the three political status task forces in order to begin their outreach and advocacy work.

The work of the Commission on Decolonization and the movement for decolonization in general has been overshadowed since 2011 by a lawsuit filed on behalf of Arnold “Dave” Davis, a Caucasian US citizen living on Guam, who has long argued that the plebiscite for political status violates his 14th amendment rights related to voting, as he does not fit the category of “native inhabitant” (Marsh and Taitano...