Challenges to Further Militarization in Guahan (Guam)

Living at the 'Tip of the Spear'
April 15, 2010
by Koohan Paik

Koohan Paik is an Hawaii filmmaker and co-author, with Jerry Mander, of The Superferry Chronicles: Hawaii's Uprising Against Militarism, Commercialism and the Desecration of the Earth (Koa).

I was born in Pasadena in 1961 but raised in South Korea and other Pacific Rim locales, finally settling in Hawaii. During my coming-of-age years, between 1971 and 1982, my family lived on a beautiful small island in the western Pacific: lush jungles, remote waterfalls and mysterious freshwater caves. I remember riding horses through abandoned coconut groves and balmy nighttime spearfishing in some of the most abundant reefs in the world.

That place was Guam, at the southern tip of the Northern Mariana Islands, a US colony. Many people think of Guam only as a giant military base, the nexus of US forward operations in the Pacific islands--"the tip of the spear," as the Pentagon calls it. That has certainly become its primary fate. The base occupies fully a third of the island and is off-limits to civilians, including the indigenous Chamorro people, who claim the oldest civilization in the Pacific. Even during my childhood, though I barely noticed it at the time, there was the constant background drone of B-52s roaring overhead to and from Vietnam, and submarines cruising the coasts. Such is the island's current trauma, after an agonized history that has included repeated invasions and four occupations of varying degrees of brutality over four centuries--by Spain, Japan and twice by the United States.

Despite these serial humiliations, the Chamorros--a unique mélange of Micronesian, Spanish and Asian bloodlines--have always maintained optimism, courage and a resilient sense of humor. So far, they have successfully navigated their delicate existence as traditional peoples on a Pacific island, while also trying to play supportive roles--as nonvoting "citizens" in a US colony, even patriotic active soldiers--for their current master. But now they're going to need all the resiliency they can muster to deal with the next blow the United States has in store.

* * *
I returned to Guam for a monthlong visit with old friends this past November. I was stunned to find the forests of my childhood being replaced by tarmac at an alarming rate; the remaining wild beaches and valleys being surveyed as potential live-fire shooting ranges; and an enormous, magnificently rich coral reef slated for dredging in order to build a port for the Navy's largest aircraft carrier. I witnessed the rage and hurt, exploding suddenly--and so unexpectedly--from the Chamorro people and other island residents, who have had no say in the planning of cataclysmic changes that will turn their homeland into an overcrowded waste dump for the creation of the hemisphere's pre-eminent military fortress. My friends told me it's all part of what's called the Guam Buildup.

Though technically Americans, people born in Guam have few American rights if they choose to live in their homeland. They can't vote for president; they have only one, nonvoting representative in Congress, and Congress can overturn any law passed by Guam's legislature. The island remains one of only sixteen UN-designated "non-self-governing territories"--in other words, colonies. As such, its people have no legal route to appeal any decisions made in Washington. A burgeoning resistance movement is under way, which the military is well aware of. They have hopes that a visit by President Obama, twice postponed and now set for June, will help ease the growing agitation. Given the mood of the people, I doubt Obama can calm anything.

“Run the Planet from Guam”

The upcoming changes are all aimed at fulfilling a Pentagon vision set forth in its 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. The "Guam Buildup [will] transform Guam," says the report, "the westernmost sovereign [sic] territory of the United States, into a hub for security activities in the region," intended to "deter and defeat" regional aggressors. Guam will be ground zero for mega-militarization in the Pacific and beyond. John Pike of Globalsecurity.org, a Washington-based think tank, hypothesizes that the military's goal is to be able "to run the planet from Guam and Diego Garcia [an Indian Ocean atoll owned by Britain] by 2015," "even if the entire Eastern Hemisphere has drop-kicked" the United States from every other base on their territory.

The swell of US military activity in the Pacific is not confined to Guam. All across the hemisphere, island communities are inflamed over a quiet, swift rearrangement and expansion of US bases throughout the Pacific--on Okinawa (Japan); on Jeju (a joint US-South Korea effort); on Tinian (in the same archipelago as Guam, but part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands); on Kwajalein and the rest of Micronesia; and on the Hawaiian islands of Oahu, Big Island and Kauai. The US Pacific Command calls it an Integrated Global Presence and Basing Strategy. These imperial intentions have barely registered in the American media, despite gargantuan expenditures and plans. Nonetheless, this projection of American colonial assumptions and aggression is taking its toll throughout the Pacific Rim.

The centerpiece of the Guam Buildup is the transfer of about 8,600 marines from Okinawa. When you add their families and construction teams, including entire low-wage crews from the Philippines and Micronesia--there goes the "jobs bonanza" locals were promised--the expected influx will be 80,000 more people on Guam. The island, about half the size of Cape Cod, has a population of about 178,000. The people of Guam, whose largest ethnic group are Chamorro (37 percent of the population), followed by Filipino (25 percent) and then statesiders (10 percent), doubt their island has the carrying capacity to absorb a 50 percent population surge.

In November the Defense Department released a mandatory Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) assessing the buildup's effects. It elicited the most blistering responses ever to come from the Environmental Protection Agency, newly resuscitated after the Bush years. The EPA gave the DEIS its lowest possible ranking for proposing entirely ineffective mitigation actions. The agency further enumerated a litany of ecological catastrophes. Hundreds of acres of jungle and wetlands habitat will be covered with concrete and tract developments in order to house tens of thousands of newcomers. There will be massive raw-sewage spills and a shortage of drinking water. The Navy's plans include the destruction of seventy-one acres of an exquisitely healthy coral reef, home to at least 110 unique coral species, in order to build a berth for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which transports eighty-five fighter jets and 5,600 people.

Meanwhile, the Army wants to turn a pristine limestone forest that stretches from the hills to the sea--site of a prehistoric village that is listed with the National Registry of Historic Places--into a shooting range. In addition, it wants to build ammunition storage bunkers in wetlands areas. The Air Force hopes to build a missile defense shield, as well as hangars, airstrips and helicopter pads, turning Guam into the planet's premier parking lot for billion-dollar fighter jets, helicopters and drones.

The DEIS provided no adequate alternative actions to any of these problems. Nor did it mention that dredging the reef will dislodge radioactive sediment that accumulated during the 1960s and '70s when ships traveling from atomic test sites in the Marshall Islands came to Guam to be washed down at Apra Harbor.

The DEIS was written as if Guam's people, land and culture counted for nothing. The vice speaker of the Guam legislature, Benjamin Cruz, charged that the "problem you had with the original DEIS is that it was done virtually." Cruz pointed out that the report, prepared at a staggering cost of $87 million, was written by consultants who had never been to Guam and who had simply cobbled together the 11,000-page document based on Internet research and phone calls to Guam government agencies.

The EPA's excoriating response to the DEIS has prompted lawmakers to question not only the cost of the buildup but also the costs of mitigating the project's environmental, social and cultural impacts. The governor of Guam estimates that $3 billion will be needed to upgrade infrastructure before any military construction begins. Military construction is already priced at more than $10 billion, assuming that Japan fulfills its promise to kick in $6 billion to help remove US troops from Okinawa. If Japan begs off, the price tag for US taxpayers will soar to more than $13 billion. Surprisingly, Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas sharply criticized Pentagon officials at a Senate appropriations hearing in March about the unexpected exorbitant costs of current Asia-Pacific basing strategies. She suggested that the best solution might be permanent bases on the US mainland, "where you don't have training constraints and you don't have urban buildup, and it is a more stable environment for our families."

By contrast, Democratic Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, who has advocated for an increased military presence in the Marianas since the 1970s, is intent on seeing the buildup through. He supports two solutions: pouring billions into massive infrastructure development (highways, waste facilities, power plants, etc.) and moving all the live-fire training to the gemlike island of nearby Tinian. However, many Guam residents feel that infrastructure spending misses the true cultural and environmental dangers of the population spike; and on Tinian, local farmers, who would be forced off their land (a la Bikini Atoll, circa 1946), are aghast that live-fire training would mark the end of agrarian culture there.

The Okinawa Connection

The incident that set these plans for the Guam Buildup in motion was the 1995 gang-rape of a 12-year-old girl by US marines stationed at the Futenma Air Base in Okinawa, one of several shocking incidents involving assaults on local girls by marines. Outraged residents pressured the conservative government to reduce or eliminate the American military presence in Japan. Protests culminated in a 2006 realignment agreement between Japan and the Bush administration to close the air base and send half of its troops to a new air base on Henoko Bay, on Okinawa's east coast, with the other half going to Guam by 2014.

But fierce resistance in Okinawa has derailed the move. Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, who was swept into power in September on his promise to reduce the number of US troops, caught military planners off guard by refusing to allow base construction at Henoko. In October, Hatoyama incensed Defense Secretary Robert Gates by putting the Marines' move on hold until he determines an alternative to the Henoko site. The relocation of Futenma remains stalemated.

The people of Guam have never before opposed military plans for their island. In fact, the Chamorros and Filipinos from Guam are arguably the most patriotic people in the nation; more soldiers from the Marianas have fought and died in American wars since 1950, per capita, than those from any other region in the country. However, the sheer magnitude of destruction proposed by the Guam Buildup is unprecedented and has pushed these patriots to their limit. For the first time in the island's history, they are uncharacteristically speaking out against the military. At a recent public hearing, Chamorro veteran soldier Janet Aguon, who fought in two wars, said, "I'm truly sick and tired of the United States of America and the Department of Defense treating the people of Guam as if they were trash. So my message to President Obama, the DoD, the secretary of the Navy: take the military and put them in your own country and not on our tiny little island."

Military planners are worried. The Hawaii-based commander of Marine forces in the Pacific, Lt. Gen. Keith Stalder, told the Washington Post in March, "I see a rising level of concern about how we are going to manage this."

Meanwhile, demilitarization activists have begun networking. The goal: a Pacific for the people. Those from Guam are allying themselves not only with those from Tinian and other Mariana Islands but also with all their Pacific Rim cousins, particularly on Okinawa, in Hawaii and on Jeju Island. These three locations, with Guam, will be sites for the nation's most advanced missile technology--the ultimate geopolitical "Kick Me" sign. As an example of this pan-Pacific concordance, retired Col. Ann Wright recently joined Pacific Islanders outside the gates of Pacific Command Headquarters on Oahu to protest the Guam Buildup.

"We want Admiral Willard [head of the Pacific Command] to hear this: No means No!" said Wright. "When you force yourself on someone against their will, it's called rape--rape of the people, the culture and the land. We Americans must stop our government's military expansion in the Pacific."

Serial Colonizations

The Guam Buildup is just the latest in a long series of colonial indignities in the island’s history. Only on this last trip did I learn the real, “people’s history” of the island; it was a far cry from the Chamorro songs celebrating liberation by the American saviors. Several months before the Japanese simultaneously attacked Pearl Harbor and Guam, both U.S. territories at the time, the U.S. made a strategic decision to evacuate all military personnel and their white dependants from Guam. They reassured the Chamorros, who then comprised the entire population, that everything would be fine. The subsequent Japanese occupation was a lawless hell for two and a half years, with forced labor, rape and beheadings as daily events. When the U.S. returned, a strategy was implemented to “soften” Guam before invading; that is, to continually and indiscriminately bomb the island from both sea and air for thirteen straight days and nights. Unknown numbers of Chamorros were killed. When the strafing ended, the U.S. took over the land and the government, promising to one day return both. Neither promise has been kept.

At the end of the war, the United Nations mandated the U.S. with the responsibility of shepherding its territories to sovereignty. The U.S. has released all the other Micronesian islands from its authority but Guam remains firmly in its grip, with the specter of the Buildup foreclosing any possibility for self-determination.

“We hate being possessions to the federal government,” said Carmen Artero Kasperbauer, 74, whose family’s land is now part of an air base. “That’s why people are angry.” But Kasperbauer, like most Chamorros, doesn’t direct her anger at the troops. “I’m not talking about the uniformed military. We love the uniformed military. Our son helped liberate the Kuwaitis. But he can’t help liberate me.”

Increasingly, Guam residents are discussing the urgency of political self-determination. "We're being moved back and forth across a chessboard by two countries: one that once occupied us [Japan] and one that currently does," pointed out university instructor Desiree Ventura, author of the popular blog The Drowning Mermaid. Clearly, the need for sovereignty is more dire than ever, exposing the real question at hand: is President Obama ready to release Guam's people from their colonized status?

Former Caribbean Diplomat Publishes Second Book

MEDIA RELEASE

Former Antigua and Barbuda Ambassador to the United Nations and the OAS, Lionel Hurst, has just published his second book entitled LUTHER GEORGE: The Barack Obama of Antigua and Barbuda. The three-hundred page volume tells the story of a forgotten hero of Antigua and Barbuda who changed his country's history. It is very easy to read and flows remarkably well through seven chapters of facts and recollections. The publication marks yet another milestone in the literary history of Antigua and Barbuda, and of Hurst himself.

Hurst published his Democracy by Diplomacy almost three years ago in 2007, which was very well-received. The former Ambassador is of the view that this second publication will be even better received. "The theme is far more universal," he said, "and the story of a life well-spent always generates great interest."

Lionel Hurst studied political science at Brooklyn College (CUNY), earned an MBA from Long Island University, and his Juris Doctor degree from the New York Law School. He is enormously talented and driven, and is intent on recording the history of his state through differing lenses. He is a kidney transplant recipient who measures his days and knows that only "a few useful years" remain.

The publication will be available shortly after Easter in the bookstores of Antigua, and on the shelves of the major distributors in the USA. Ambassador Hurst is planning a book-signing in mid-May 2010 in New York City, and a launch in Antigua before Labour Day (Monday May 3, 2010) in Antigua. He is to travel around the USA to several cities where communities of Caribbean people live, promoting his publication. The book costs US$20.00 and is available only in soft cover.

ANALYSE DES RESULTATS DE LA CONSULTATION POPULAIRE - LA GUYANE

ANALYSE DES RESULTATS DE LA CONSULTATION POPULAIRE DES 10 &24 JANVIER 2010 – EN VUE DE L’EVOLUTION INSTITUTIONNELLE DE LA GUYANE

ORGANIZACÃO GUIANENSE DE DIREITOS HUMANOS : O.G.D.H. ORGANIZASYON GWIANEZ DRWÈ MUN : O.G.D.M

La consultation populaire devrait être l’aboutissement d’un long processus qui prend ses sources dans les résolutions issues des Etats Généraux. Lesquels Etats Généraux avaient été initiés en 1997 par les socioprofessionnels qui s’effacent à la faveur des personnes de la société civile qui investissent les différentes commissions en permettant l’émergence de nombreuses contributions qui constituent de nombreux pistes pour le développement de la Guyane.

L’adoption de documents de synthèses des différentes commissions conduit à passer le relai aux deux institutions de la Guyane (Conseil Général & Conseil Régional) qui vont se réunir en Congrès en 2001 en vue d’adopter un document intitulé Pacte de Développement de la Guyane devant servir de base de travail avec l’Etat français en vue d’aboutir à la consultation populaire pour l’évolution institutionnelle de la Guyane.

Le processus a été interrompu par l’état français au prétexte qu’il n’y avait pas une adhésion unanime, de la part des élus des Conseil Général et Conseil Régional, à l’idée de l’évolution institutionnelle de la Guyane. Seuls le peuple guadeloupéen et le peuple martiniquais ont été consultés en décembre 2005 sur l’évolution institutionnelle.

Malgré ce camouflé, les élus des Conseil Général et Conseil Régional ont pris l’initiative de relancer le processus d’évolution constitutionnelle qui a aboutit à un calendrier de dates de consultation populaire des 10 et 24 janvier 2010 fixé arbitrairement par l’état français.

Un certain nombre d’observations s’imposent. Les unes relatives au protocole électoral qui est resté à la discrétion exclusive de l’état français, les autres relatives aux résultats de ces consultations. En dernier lieu, il convient de dégager des perspectives.

1. Le protocole électoral a été défini par l’Etat français

Le corps électoral n’a pas été figé car une place était faite aux fonctionnaires fraîchement mutés qui avaient droit de vote pour peser sur la destinée de la Guyane, alors qu’ils quitteraient le pays dans quelques mois voir quelques jours, pour d’autres cieux. Les élus ont essuyé une fin de non-recevoir à leur demande de négociation portant sur la composition du corps électoral.

D’autre part, la consultation s’est déroulée en violation des règles du droit international. En effet, celle-ci aurait dû se dérouler sous l’égide de l’Organisation des Nations Unies, à travers des observations internationales

Enfin, la campagne qui s’est déroulée dans le laps de temps très court a été faite sur la base des divisions ethniques et avec la complicité de medias officiels à la solde de l’Etat français qui ont largement contribué au succès du oui à l’article 73.

2.  Les résultats de la consultation du 10 janvier 2010-04-04

Le nombre de Oui à l’article 73 de la Constitution française révisée le 28 mars 2003 est pratiquement égal au nombre de voix Oui a l’article 74 de ladite constitution avec un différentiel d’environ 400 voix en plus pour l’article 73
Le taux d’abstention est de l’ordre de 71% et dénote un rejet de la consultation par la majorité des inscrits.

Si l’on se réfère plus globalement par rapport à la participation générale, le taux d’inscrits est bien sûr très bas (moins de 50%) par rapport au nombre de personnes en âge et en droit de s’inscrire sur les listes électorales (qui est supérieur à 100.000 personnes - tenant compte de la jeunesse de la population – moins de 20ans – qui représente 50%) et par rapport à une population estimée à 220.000 habitants (dont le nombre réel serait de plus de 300.000).

A l’analyse de tous ces chiffres, nous pouvons dire que le nombre résiduel des personnes qui se sont prononcées pour l’article 73 constitue moins de 10% des personnes inscrites sur les listes électorales.

Enfin, plus globalement, le nombre de personnes en âge et en droit de voter n’ont pas jugé opportun de s’inscrire sur les listes électorales parce qu’elles ne se reconnaissant pas dans le système colonial français et par voie de conséquence elles n’accordent aucune légitimité au système électoral français.

3.  Les perspectives

Le peuple guyanais au plus profond de sa campagne n’a pas fait le choix de l’article 73 ni de l’article 74 de la Constitution française. Parce qu’ils aspirent à une politique responsable qui redonne sa dignité de femmes et d’hommes libres dans une Guyane souveraine.

Nous persistons à travailler pour que le peuple guyanais soit à nouveau consulté sur son évolution institutionnelle sous les hospices de l’ONU et non plus sous la seule direction du droit interne français sachant que la France n’a pas eu une attitude neutre lors de ces dernières consultations populaires des 10 et 24 janvier 2010.

Cayenne le 4 avril 2010

Human Rights Are Not Skin Rashes

Julian Aguon
Attorney, Human Rights Scholar-Advocate

On why the DEIS’ (Draft Environmental Impact Statement) suggestion that new U.S. arrivals to Guam can participate in a self-determination referendum is Just Plain Illegal.

The DEIS (Vol. II, Chapter 16) suggests that the thousands of new arrivals coming to Guam from the continental United because of the military buildup can, and will, participate in a self-determination referendum to determine the political status of the island, should one be had. This suggestion is illegal under any principled construction of international law. But because the United States, through its military mouthpiece, seems to be suffering from amnesia—the following is a brief recounting of the relevant international law applicable to Guam as a non-self-governing territory.

After the founding of the United Nations at the end of World War II, the international community recognized that colonized peoples and territories around the world deserved to be freed from colonialism. The U.N. Charter, ratified by the United States in 1945, recognizes in Article 1(2) and Article 55 the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.” Article 73 of the Charter explicitly governed non-self-governing territories, like Guam, from 1946 to 1960, when it was supplemented by the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. Article 73 states that “Members of the United Nations who administer territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government” have a “sacred trust obligation . . . to promote . . . the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories, and . . . to develop self-government,” taking into consideration “the political aspirations of the peoples.” Since 1946, Guam has remained on the U.N. list of non-self-governing territories; her people eligible under international law for self-government from 1946 to 1960, and thereafter for full independence.

In 1960, the U.N. General Assembly adopted two resolutions to give greater form and substance to the principles articulated in Article 73 of the Charter. The first, Resolution 1514 (XV), also known as the “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”, declares: “[A]ll peoples have the right to self-determination” and that “immediate steps shall be taken . . . to transfer all powers to the peoples of [non-self-governing] territories . . . in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire.” The second, Resolution 1541 (XV), also known as the “Principles Which Should Guide Members in Determining Whether or not an Obligation Exists to Transmit the Information Called for in Article 73e of the Charter of the United Nations”, sets out three political status options that the United Nation recognizes as a full measure of self-government for the non-self-governing territories: independence, free association, or integration with an independent State.

Resolution 1514 proclaimed self-determination to be more than a principle, and declared it a right. It states: “All peoples have the right to self-determination.” Although the General Assembly in Resolution 1514 failed to define “peoples,” its adoption on the following day of Resolution 1541 acted to “fill in some of what Resolution 1514 left unsaid.” Resolution 1541 was intended to clarify the reporting duty of the colonial rulers of the non-self-governing territories required to report to the Secretary-General on the status of the peoples of those territories until such time as self-governance was realized. The resolution’s ninth principle states that a prima facie duty to submit said information exists “in respect of any territory which is geographically separate and is distinct ethnically and/or culturally from the country administering it.” From this language emerged a legal thesis known as the “blue-water” or “salt-water” thesis, which holds that only those peoples “separated by a sea . . . from their subjugators are entitled to self-determination. In contrast, the other major decolonization thesis takes its cue from language in the earlier resolution, 1514, which identified the holders of the right to self-determination in the decolonization context as those under “alien domination.” This second theory, known as the “Belgian thesis,” holds that all peoples, including those in independent states, are entitled to the remedy of decolonization. While in theory the latter thesis reflects the more principled approach, in the case of Guam, one need not entertain the distinction, as Guam would meet the test of either thesis.

The DEIS suggests that the massive wave of U.S. expatriates coming soon to Guam can participate in a self-determination plebiscite. This is erroneous because the international law governing the decolonization of non-self-governing territories indicates that decolonization is a remedy available only to the colonized. To be sure, Resolution 1514 instructs that the right to self-determination belongs to peoples who are subjected to “alien subjugation.” Resolution 1541 further instructs that the right to self-determination in the decolonization context is a right available to the people of those territories “geographically separate” and “distinct ethnically and/or culturally from the country administering it.” Moreover, in the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation Among States, or Resolution 2625 (XXV), the U.N. General Assembly unequivocally instructs:

[T]he territory of a colony or other Non-Self-Governing Territory has, under the Charter, a status separate and distinct from the territory of the State administering it; and such separate and distinct status under the Charter shall exist until the people of the colony or Non-Self-Governing Territory have exercised their right to self-determination in accordance with the Charter, and particularly its purposes and principles.

These resolutions indicate that, as far as the right to self-determination is concerned, the United States cannot treat Guam as its domestic soil, nor exploit its control over immigration into Guam to flood the territory with its own non-Chamorro expatriates. By the time a Chamorro self-determination referendum would occur, if it does in fact occur, the enormous outside settler population would have increased exponentially. As the DEIS readily admits, the huge demographic change incident to the buildup will necessarily result in a “reduction of Chamorro voting power.”

Although declarations and resolutions of the General Assembly are generally not in themselves technically binding, they illuminate the position of the international community on any given subject matter, and are frequently invoked as evidence of customary international law. Indeed, where General Assembly resolutions concern general norms of international law, their acceptance by a majority vote both constitutes evidence of the opinions of governments on any given subject, and provides a “basis for the progressive development of the law and the speedy consolidation of customary rules.” The International Court of Justice, in an 1975 advisory opinion concerning the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara, approved this conclusion when it relied heavily on General Assembly resolutions to establish basic legal principles concerning the right of peoples to self-determination.

Perhaps the strongest argument against the participation of U.S. expatriates in any future self-determination referendum is the most obvious one. A settled principle in both international and U.S. domestic law is that legal principles ought not be construed to lead to an absurd result. Indeed, this principle is so well settled that American jurists typically refer to it as the Golden Rule of statutory construction. Here, because decolonization is about curing a wrong (i.e., colonization), construing the right to self-determination in the decolonization context as belonging to those who were not harmed leads to a plainly absurd result. Arguably, to approve a conclusion to the contrary would be tantamount to a re-imposition of colonization by legal means.

To silence this position, the United States will no doubt proffer Puerto Rico as an example of how every U.S. citizen residing in a non-self-governing territory gets to vote in that territory’s self-determination referendum. There, such referendums enfranchised all in the territory—Puerto Ricans and U.S. expatriates alike. In 1953, after the United States had reported that its international obligations as Puerto Rico’s Administering Power had been in effect fulfilled by virtue of an increased measure of self-governance for Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rico was removed from the U.N. colonies list. The international community, however, has roundly rejected the U.S.’ argument: Puerto Rico was deemed wrongly removed from the colonies list and has, since 2007, enjoyed a sui generis legal status, being kept under “continuous review” by the General Assembly itself so as to guarantee the people of that territory their legitimate right to self-determination. Further still, the example of New Caledonia shows us that, when the fundamental right to self-determination is concerned, the international community does not let Administering Powers so easily off the hook. There, though France had unilaterally removed New Caledonia from the colonies list, the General Assembly re-inscribed the territory on the list because of a self-determination plebiscite that failed to conform to international standards for decolonization.

Finally, almost immediately after its curt analysis (if it can be called analysis) of this colossal issue (the U.S.’ taking for granted that all U.S. citizens residing in the territory of Guam when and if a self-determination referendum is had can lawfully participate in that referendum), the DEIS then flippantly dismisses this issue as belonging to a lower order. It states: “The negative interactions related to incoming new population discussed here do not rise to the level of major issues previously discussed under ‘Crime and Disorder,’ but are more likely to be irritants that may undermine a sense of mutual respect between groups.” (emphasis added). Adding insult to injury, the document goes on to state, absurdly: “Also, the arrival of new populations can bring positive benefits that infuse communities with opportunities for more meaningful interactions.”

Irritants? Sounds like a skin rash. Red ants, maybe?

Will someone please inform the United States (and all its agents) that the corpus of international human rights (to which self-determination not only belongs but enjoys a pre-eminent status) are principles which have crystallized into rights because as a world we have recognized that human beings are food to no one—no man, no state, no institution, no god? To be sure—to be crystal clear—self-determination is an inalienable, fundamental right of all peoples. And despite what they imagine, make up, want, desperately desire—it is not, can never be, a thing to go gently to its grave.

Statement of Cuban Foreign Minister at UN Donors Meeting on Haiti

Statement of H.E. Bruno Rodríguez Parilla,

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Republic of Cuba

at the Haiti Donors Meeting

United Nations Headquarters

New York, 31 March, 2010

Mr. President,

The international community has a tremendous debt with Haiti where, after three centuries of colonialism, the first social revolution on the American continent took place, an act of boldness that the colonial powers punished with close to 200 years of military dictatorships and plunder. Its noble and hardworking people are now the poorest in the Western hemisphere.

We all have the moral obligation to contribute additional financial resources and greater cooperation to Haiti, not only for its reconstruction but, in particular, for its development.

In order to have an idea of the magnitude of the human tragedy in Haiti, suffice it to note that the death of 230,000 people in its small and high-density population, is equivalent to the death of more than 30 million people in a country such as China, whose population reaches a total of 1.3 billion inhabitants; an unimaginable tragedy.

In the wake of this devastating earthquake that shook the conscience of humanity, we trust that the numerous promises heard will be converted into action, that Haiti’s independence and sovereignty will be respected and ennobled, that the government of President René Préval and Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive will be facilitated to exercise all its faculties, and that it will be able to benefit, not the whites and foreign companies, but the Haitian people, especially the poorest.

Generosity and political will is needed. Also needed is the unity of that country instead of its division into market plots and dubious charitable projects.

The program for the reconstruction and strengthening of the Haitian national healthcare system, drawn up by the Haitian government and Cuban governments, with the cooperation of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and other countries and humanitarian organizations, will guarantee wide health coverage for the population, in particular the low-income sector.

That program is based on 101 primary healthcare centers which are being created, at which an estimated 2.8 million patients will be treated, 1.3 million emergency operations performed, 168,000 babies delivered, and 3 million vaccinations administered every year.

These health centers will be supported by the services of 30 community reference hospitals distributed throughout the country and equipped with cutting-edge technology for secondary attention, which can treat 2.154 million people per year, perform 54,000 operations – 1 million of these emergency surgery –, 276,000 electro-cardiograms, 144,000 diagnostic ultrasounds, 43,000 endoscopies, 181,000 X-Rays, 107,000 dental examinations, and 487,000 laboratory tests.

Given the extraordinary number of poly-traumatized patients, 30 rehabilitation rooms are likewise being equipped which, within 12 months, will provide services for 520,000 patients and 2.4 million therapeutic treatments.

There will also be three electromedicine centers, a prosthesis laboratory and an integral hygiene and epidemiology program.

Also planned is a Haitian National Specialties Hospital at tertiary level, involving cooperation from other countries, directed by 80 high-level Cuban specialists responsible for services and clinical departments, research and teaching, and Haitian professionals who will be trained at the institution and progressively replace the Cuban medical professors.

The cost of the already mentioned services will amount to $690.5 million over 10 years, a total that includes the medical services provided, calculated at 50% of international prices; the sustainability of these services and the personnel providing them; and the training of a further 312 Haitian doctors in Cuba.

As can be deduced, the approximate cost is $170 million per year for a country of approximately 9.33 million inhabitants.

It is possible to do this. Our practical experience confirms it. In fact, this program is already underway and, post-quake, 23 of these primary care health centers, 15 community reference hospitals and 21 rehabilitation rooms are up and running.

From almost immediately after the earthquake, Cuban specialists have been dedicating their attention to the population affected. To date they have seen 260,000 patients, performed more than 7,000 operations, delivered close to 1,400 babies, and administered close to 100,000 vaccinations. More than 50,000 patients have undergone rehabilitation therapy and more than 75,000 children have received psychosocial therapy, in the presence of some of Cuba’s most eminent professionals.

A total of 783 Cuban and 481 Haitian doctors, plus 278 health professionals from 28 countries – all of them graduated in Cuba – are working on this program.

Last Saturday [March 27], as part of the program outlined, a memorandum of understanding for the strengthening of the healthcare and public services system and epidemiological prevention was signed in Port-au-Prince, thanks to the will of the Haitian government and a significant contribution from President Lula and Brazil, which will be decisive for the planned healthcare program.

During the 11 years of work prior to the earthquake, the Cuban medical brigade, which has a presence in 127 of the 137 Haitian communes, saved 223,442 lives, treated 14 million people, performed 225,000 operations and delivered 109,000 babies. Via the Operation Miracle program, 46,000 Haitians have had their sight restored or improved. During the same period, 165,000 Haitians have become literate in Creole.

If we evaluate the medical services provided in these 11 years and the training of medical personnel in Cuba, it would represent $400 million throughout the period.

The medical program that we are proposing, in its entirety, will benefit 75% of the poorest population of the country at a minimum expense.

We invite all governments, without exception, to contribute to this noble effort. For that reason, we attribute particular importance to this conference, and aspire to its success.

Thank you very much.

Translated by Granma International

CARICOM Role in Development of Haiti

Statement by

The Most Honourable P J Patterson, ON, OCC, PC, QC.

Special Representative of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Haiti

at

The Donor’s Conference

United Nations Headquarters

New York

31 March 2010

The earthquake of January 12 ranks as being among the worst catastrophes to befall a single nation. The loss of life, the toll of severe injuries, the destruction of the physical infrastructure, the demolition of public buildings and its consequent damage to the apparatus of governance combined to make the natural disaster one of the worst ever in recorded history.

Following a return to constitutional democracy, it was evident that Haiti had begun make gradual but meaningful progress in all the right areas. It had become engaged with Partners from the International Community in preparing a bold new plan for development. Within a mere thirty-five seconds all this came crashing down but, as we have witnessed, the spiritual embodiment of the brave, creative and resilient Haitian people still remains intact.

The initial response of the international community has been tremendous, but our work has just begun to lift Haiti from the rubble.

In every forum which has met since the earthquake, it has been acknowledged, and today’s Donor Conference must affirm, that we must go beyond relief and recovery to build with the Government and people of Haiti a land which provides a quality of life for its citizens and future generations which its amazing history and rich culture truly deserve.

The Haiti of the future must be completely different and significantly different from the Haiti of the recent past.

This is a defining moment in our collective history as Haiti, donors, development agencies, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations seek to attain an objective which has long eluded us – the sustainable development of Haiti.

In years to come, the results of this august gathering will not be measured by the eloquence of the today’s fine rhetoric, but by the honouring of the generous pledges we make, by the timely delivery of tangible results.

We urge the creation of a new development model, one which identifies the recipient as the engine of sustainable development and in which the priority needs identified by the recipient become the over-riding criteria for the selection of projects and the disbursement of funds.

We have before us an action plan in the form of a Post Disaster Needs Assessment, which was prepared by the Haitian authorities in conjunction with various agencies such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and United Nations agencies among other international agencies.

The needs identified are enormous. Haiti estimates that US$11.5 billion are necessary to rebuild the country, with 50 percent of the estimated resources to go to social programmes, 17 percent to infrastructure and 15 per cent to the environment and disaster preparedness and management. The actual losses from the catastrophe are estimated at US$7.9 billion, representing 120 per cent of Haitian GDP.

Governance and the State

The proper management of the disbursement and the putting to productive use of such a large sum will call for a tremendous exercise in governance by Haiti. The Action Plan envisions:

• The decentralization of government, economic activity and other services to lessen the present over-concentration in the capital city;

• The re-energizing of the agriculture sector to address food security and cut back on dependency on foreign food aid;

• And the creation of a new sense of the state and of government, which will get the full support and confidence of the Haitian people.

Port-au-Prince is not only the capital of the country, but is the location where public administration, political, business, cultural and other activities are over-concentrated to the detriment of outside locations.

Rebuilding must ensure that no future catastrophe can have the similar devastating impact and therefore such national significance as the recent earthquake. Decentralisation will help to ensure that this will not happen again.

The State’s human capital, its institutional and administrative capacity as well as its physical presence (The Presidential Palace, Ministries, Courts, Police Stations including the Headquarters) have been virtually wiped-out by a single event. Every effort must therefore be made to strengthen this pulverized institutional capacity as the success or failure of the reconstruction efforts will depend on it. The public functions of the state and of its public service must be reinforced as a matter of urgency and priority, not only to provide the Government of Haiti with the institutional capacity to play the lead role in guiding and in managing the recovery and reconstruction of the country.

It should also ensure that the progress made in the provision of public goods and basic services, which unquestionably is the responsibility of all states, is sustainable.

To ensure this, we need to facilitate the mobilization and technical assistance of the Haitian Diaspora, which stands ready to play its part.

The Role of CARICOM

Governance is of paramount importance to the process. We are committed to assisting Haiti in the reinforcement of a governance process where transparency, accountability, compassion, efficiency and vision predominate.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has a vital interest in the welfare and development of Haiti. Haiti was granted membership in 1997 to help reinforce the re-establishment of a fledgling democracy and to further integrate development of its most populous Member State.

A strong Caribbean Community needs a strong Haiti.

As the most populous state in the group of 14 Sovereign Nations, the Community sees its rebuilding as a priority issue for all CARICOM states.

In response to the consequences of the disastrous earthquake and the subsequent challenge to its own depleted capacity, the Government of Haiti has requested that CARICOM serve as a leading advocate on its behalf in their interfacing with the international community. The Community accepts this responsibility which Haiti has entrusted to us.

The capacity of CARICOM has been placed at the disposal of Haiti as it seeks to strengthen its own capacity.

With regard to the rebuilding and strengthening of institutional and technical capacity, CARICOM believes it can make a tremendous difference through the skills it can bring to bear in the areas of human resource development and institutional capacity building.

The Community stands ready to make available its capacities in administrative reform; in education and training, including vocational education and certification; in engineering and construction for earthquake and hurricane resistance, in providing solutions for low and middle income populations; and in agriculture, tourism research and development.

Haiti’s existing involvement in a number of CARICOM institutions, as well as its geographic proximity and similarity of critical conditions, will enhance relevance, reduce the learning curve and avoid costly errors.

Donors

This meeting of donor groups is absolutely essential to defining the way forward and how the process of rebuilding will be achieved. It provides an excellent opportunity for the international community to put into practice some of the principles it has been advocating recently to enhance ‘Aid Effectiveness”. These include:

• National leadership and responsibility of the State;

• Response to local needs and knowledge;

• Reduction in conditionalities including tying and shifting from pre conditions to management through the setting of targets and monitoring of performance by all partners;

• Partnerships;

• Sufficiency, sustainability and timeliness; and

• National capacity building and strengthening.

CARICOM welcomes the establishment of The Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF). All Donors must now commit to the MDTF and its joint management. The arrangements for the Fund and more generally for support to Haiti, must facilitate, encourage and recognise this collaborative approach. This Donors’ Meeting is a good place to begin to recognise that all donors and donations, big and small, in kind or in cash are important.

But we must be wary that, with the gradual withdrawal of the Haitian story from the front pages of major international media, the enthusiasm of donors and facilitators does not weaken and or dissipate and the will to assist in the redevelopment of the country not become mere lip service. The actions of this representative group will go a far way in sending a signal that the international community will partner Haiti all the way to the very end. Nothing less than a revitalized Haiti, that is sustainable, just and equitable will be accepted as the litmus test of success.

Every delegation in attendance, and every individual at this conference, is fully committed to the rehabilitation initiative. The consensus is also clear on the imperative to build a new Haiti – to create a Haitian renaissance. The challenge to this international meeting is to create that blueprint, that action plan and organisational arrangement to assure maximum effectiveness of all resources to facilitate the reconstruction of Haiti.

Even as we do so, the continuing precarious conditions in which the internally displaced are living and their urgent needs as the rainy season approaches with its potential to create increased distress should not be overlooked. The sense of urgency must be maintained. In this regard, the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission must initiate its work immediately.

If we can, as an international community help Haiti rebuild itself into a modern, sustainable State, we would have advanced the cause of humanity everywhere.

UN Decolonisation Committee Approves Pacific Seminar Participation

United Nations Press Release
GA/COL/3202

The General Assembly’s Special Committee on Decolonization approved today the partial composition of its official delegation to attend the 2010 Pacific Regional Seminar -- to be held in Nouméa, New Caledonia, from 18 to 20 May –- and endorsed the list of experts and non-governmental organizations that will be invited to the event.

Chairman Donatus Keith St. Aimée (Saint Lucia) said the official delegation would comprise the Bureau and one Special Committee member from each regional group: Africa; Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean; and Eastern Europe. As such, the official delegation would consist of eight representatives, he said, adding that the United Nations would bear the cost of the delegation’s travel.

Following those announcements, the Special Committee agreed to the following composition of its official delegation to the Seminar: Saint Lucia, Cuba, Sierra Leone and Syria (Bureau members); and the Russian Federation (Eastern Europe). The Chairman said negotiations were continuing to determine who would represent the African, Asian and Latin American and Caribbean Groups.

Chairman St. Aimée then announced that, as in previous years, the Bureau planned to invite three experts and three representatives of non-governmental organizations to speak at the Seminar, all six of whom would be funded by the United Nations. The list of proposed participants had been drawn up and e-mailed to all members of the Special Committee last week and, thus far, the Bureau had received no feedback from the membership.

He went on to say that the Secretariat had informed him that the participation of the first non-governmental organization participant, who was from New Caledonia, the host Territory, would entail no travel costs, and the savings realized would allow the Special Committee to fund another civil society participant, from American Samoa, representing the Future Political Study Commission.

Noting that the Territory was currently undergoing constitutional transformation regarding its future political status, he proposed that the Special Committee invite the American Samoa representative to participate in the Seminar, asking: “Who best can inform us about the situations we are concerned with than those that are working on the ground?”

The Special Committee approved that proposal, as well as the list of participating experts and non-governmental organizations earlier circulated among the membership. It also approved a request that the Secretariat proceed accordingly, including with the necessary travel arrangements.

Chairman St. Aimée added that the Bureau would, in accordance with the Special Committee’s earlier decisions, invite all elected and appointed officials of the Non-Self-Governing Territories to the Seminar. Invitations would also be extended to other Member States, administering Powers, United Nations specialized agencies and some regional organizations. Those representatives would participate at their own cost, he said.

Before the Special Committee wrapped up its work, Cuba’s representative announced that consultations were underway to determine who would represent the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States at the Seminar. The Group had set a deadline of 1 p.m. today, and would transmit a note verbal to the Special Committee once a decision was made.

In the second meeting of its current session, the Special Committee -- informally known as the “Committee of 24” -– approved the plans for its 2010 Pacific Regional Seminar on 18 March, when it also decided, in keeping with its tradition, that the Week of Solidarity with the Peoples of the Non-Self-Governing Territories would be celebrated during that event. Additionally, the Special Committee approved the Guidelines and Rules of Procedure (document A/AC.109/2010/18) for the Seminar, and decided to authorize the Chair to finalize the list of selected experts, non-governmental organizations and others to be invited (Please see Press Release GA/COL/3201).

Established by the General Assembly in 1961, the Special Committee  (on Decolonization) was mandated to monitor implementation of the (Decolonization) Declaration and to make recommendations on its application.

UN Pacific Decolonisation Seminar to Review Progress in Decolonisation

The United Nations (UN) Special Committee on Decolonisation is set to convene its 2010 seminar to assess the implementation of the international decolonisation mandate. The seminar is scheduled to be held in the French – administered territory of New Caledonia from 18th to 20th May 2010.

This is only the second time in the almost two decades since the seminars have been held that one of the sixteen non self-governing territories will be the venue. Only the British – administered territory of Anguilla has previously hosted one of the sessions, in 2003. In both cases, the United Kingdom and France, respectively, concurred with the request of the territorial governments concerned to host the seminars. The other major administering power, the United States, has been less flexible, declining earlier requests to host similar seminars.

Non Self-Governing Territories formally listed by the United Nations (2010)

Atlantic/Caribbean
Anguilla

Bermuda
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Montserrat
St. Helena
Turks and Caicos Islands
United States Virgin Islands

AFRICA
Western Sahara

EUROPE
Gibraltar

PACIFIC AND INDIAN OCEANS
American Samoa
Guam
New Caledonia
Pitcairn
Tokelau

The decolonisation seminar mechanism was adopted by the Special Committee, and endorsed by the UN General Assembly, as part of the identical plans of action of the first and second International Decade(s) for the Eradication of Colonialism (IDEC). The purpose of the seminars over the years has been to bring together representatives of the elected governments of the non self-governing territories, administering powers, United Nations agencies, international decolonisation experts, and non-governmental organisations in order to examine ways and means to bring about decolonisation in the remaining territories.

Documentation for the 2010 seminar includes the annual UN working papers for each territory which are available at the UN website together with other relevant material. This is the final regional seminar under the Second IDEC which terminates at the end of 2010. The success of the sessions through the exchange of experiences and information, coupled with the realisation that the decolonisation process continues, should be taken into account in the development of future UN plans to deal with what has been described as the “unfinished business of the UN.”

                Agenda of the 2010 Decolonisation Seminar


1. The role of the Special Committee in facilitating the decolonization of the Non-Self-Governing Territories within the framework of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism:

(a) Analysis of results, ongoing processes and prevailing trends at the end of the Second Decade;

(b) Assessments and lessons learned;

(c) What comes next?

2. The perspectives of the Special Committee, the administering Powers and territorial Governments, as well as the views of experts and civil society, on the resolution of the remaining challenges:

(a) In the Pacific region Non-Self-Governing Territories;

(b) In the Caribbean region Non-Self-Governing Territories;

(c) In other Non-Self-Governing Territories.

3. The role of the United Nations system in providing developmental assistance to Non-Self-Governing Territories:


(a) Presentations by the United Nations Development Programme and others;

(b) Perspectives of the Special Committee, the administering Powers and territorial Governments, as well as the views of experts and civil society.

4. Way forward: advancing the decolonization process with all concerned.

Legislation in US Congress Could Move Political Status of US Territories

A number of legislative measures have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives which could affect the political status of the U.S. territories. These measures include a bill to fund educational programs on political status options in American Samoa, Guam and the US Virgin Islands. This proposal has already been adopted by the US House of Representatives and has been submitted to the US Senate for consideration.

A companion measure aimed specifically at Puerto Rico is set for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation would authorise a federally-sanctioned self-determination process for the people of Puerto Rico leading to a referendum on temporarily retaining the status quo, or selecting one of the permanent status options of independence, free association or integration.

Another proposal, which has routinely been introduced in various forms over the last three decades would extend the vote for the US president to the territories. The latest proposal would take the form of a constitutional amendment similar to that previously extended to the District of Columbia. Legislation to examine potential modalities for greater territorial representation in the U.S. House of Representatives has also been introduced.

Major principles of the measures are as follows:

The Guam/American Samoa/US Virgin Islands bill, as amended, would provide for pubic education programmes on political status options in the three territories. The options would “include but not (be) limited to internationally-recognised options of independence, integration and free association." It also implies that other options – undefined in the bill – would also be the subject of the educational programme (which could impact the effectiveness of the political education).

The bill confirms the statutory responsibility of the US Department of Interior to assist the territories in public education, but does not make reference to any referendum (this could come later under the 1979 Carter Adm. mandate to deal with political status that is still in effect). 

By contrast, the Puerto Rico legislation creates a two-step referendum process. The first step would have people vote in favour or against retaining the status quo. If the people choose to remain the same, then they would have to be consulted again in about eight years since the status is not considered as permanent.  Under the bill, if the people of Puerto Rico choose to change the status in the first round of voting, then they vote again shortly thereafter with the choices being the three internationally-recognised options (integration, free association and independence).

Neither  proposed measures provide for new budget authority. For the legislation aimed at the three territories of American Samoa, Guam and the US Virgin Islands, the US Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost at about $2 million during the period 2010-2014 (presumably from the existing Interior Dept. budget).

On the other hand, the Puerto Rico bill makes it clear that the referendum activities would be funded from Puerto Rico Government resources. The Puerto Rico bill does not address educational costs. In Puerto Rico, political education is usually carried out by the respective political parties. None of the other three territories have such experience of political party advocacy for a political status preference.

The three - territories bill was originally introduced by the Delegate of Guam for Guam-only, and was later amended to include American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands. The House Report on the measure (111-357), in the section on “Background and Need for Legislation,” makes specific reference to the relevancy of international law including the United Nations Charter as the basis for the self-determination process. The House Report also makes reference to the “limited form of self-government in the territories under the Territorial Clause."

The Guam Delegate to Congress made reference in her formal statement to the House Natural Resources Committee hearings to the international obligation under the United Nations Charter "to develop self-government” in the territories, and acknowledged that the three territories are on the UN list of NSGTs.

In a similar way, the Puerto Rico measure also refers to the limits of Puerto Rico authority under the Territorial Clause. In the “Background and Need” Section of the House Report on the Puerto Rico legislation the issue of voter eligibility is addressed by explaining that the legislation can permit Puerto Ricans born in Puerto Rico but residing outside of Puerto Rico to participate in the referendum.

The two measures appear to be moving along separately, and appear to be regarded as entirely separate matters, even as they go through the same committees, albeit at different times. It will ultimately be up to the Senate as to whether either or both of the bills will pass.

Several other measures have been introduced in the House which would have the effect of modifying the political status of a number of the US - administered territories. These bills are essentially focused on achieving more political involvement in the US political system under the present status. One would be acieved by  amending the US Code so as to enable presidential voting rights for territories, whilst the second bill would study the possibilities of greater representation in the House for the non-voting delegates to Congress from these territories.

The presidential vote measure has been introduced in various forms dating back to the tenure of Virgin Islands Delegate to Congress Ron de Lugo.  More recently, various strategies have been employed to gain a vote for the territorial delegates in the House (Guam Legislature in 2009 passed a resolution requesting a vote on matters strictly related to the militarisation of the territory).

Fundamental Questions

A number of fundamental questions have been raised in relation to the self-determination legislation:

On the bills aimed at a self-determination process, the Puerto Rico measure"cuts to the chase" and provides for a referendum on the clear options recognised by international law, whilst also providing a temporary alternative to remain in the dependency status.

Meanwhile, the measure for American Samoa, Guam and the US Virgin Islands has no referendum component, and is also not as specific on the definitions of the options. The measure could be improved by borrowing from the Puerto Rico measure, and would also be consistent with the draft US Virgin Islands proposed constitution which contains a section on a political status mechanism on the three permanent options.

The measures aimed at more political participation of the territories in the US system also raise some issues:

Could more territorial participation in the US political system affect the financial relationship, specifically the balance of taxation and representation? In other words, could a vote in the U.S. House reduce the ability of the territory to retain excise and income taxes?

Also, would this increased participation in the US political system constitute a fundamental change in the political status of the territory, moving towards a form of ‘partial integration.’? If so, should the people be given the opportunity to decide on this in a referendum knowing the implications of such changes?

And finally, what would be the impact of a move toward a ‘partial integration’ before the people determine their political future. If they chose an autonomous status, would the increased participation be reversed?
As the proposals introduced in 2009 wind their way through the US Congress in 2010, it is hoped that further clarity would be forthcoming.

Who Owns the Falkland Islands (Malvinas)?

by Noah Tucker
21st Century Socialism
March 5th 2010

In the morning of 2nd April 1982, people in Britain listened to the news with bewilderment. UK territory was being invaded by a foreign power- and, even more astonishing, the invading country was Argentina. How on earth had a third class military power, in the southern hemisphere and on the other side of the Atlantic, managed to land its troops on a part of the British Isles? The experience of Steve Cahill, an Englishman who contributed his memory of that day to a BBC article on its twentieth anniversary, was typical:

"My first thought at the time was 'Where are the Falklands?' Like the majority of my generation at the time, I had never even heard of them. A quick look at an atlas confirmed that they were not just off the coast of Scotland, as I first imagined."

Unlike the people of Argentina, the majority in the UK had no previous awareness that Britain still maintained a remnant of empire off the south east coast of Latin America; but nevertheless within a very few days they were roused to militaristic fervor on behalf of the 1,820 inhabitants of that outpost, who were nearly all of British descent and wanted to remain subjects of Britain, not Argentina.

907 people, most of them very young men, were killed in the war that followed- equivalent to almost half the number of those on whose behalf the war was supposedly fought- a futher 1,965 were injured, many of them permanently disabled. Hundreds more of the combatants have since succumbed to mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, and suicide, as a result of the psychological scars which they received. A report in the Independent on 25th March 2007 included the following paragraphs:

Mr McNally, then a gunner in the Royal Artillery, is still consumed by the events of 25 years ago on rain-sodden islands 8,000 miles from Britain. As the anniversary of the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands approaches next week, an act that prompted "Maggie's Army" to steam from England to the South Atlantic, Mr McNally lives day and night with the horrors of war. And he is not alone.


"We, like most people, didn't have a clue where the Falkland Islands were," said Mr. McNally. "I assumed they were somewhere off Scotland. We didn't take it seriously because we didn't have a clue what was going on. You are a soldier, but you don't envisage that you would actually have to go to war."


Like thousands of British service personnel who have fought in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan, he has battled mental health problems for years, triggered by guilt over the moment his missile system malfunctioned and he was unable to prevent the death of his comrades on bombed and blazing ships.


"Soldiers were jumping in the water, their clothes on fire," Mr McNally said. "Many had limbs missing. The ship was in flames. All I could do was watch. I felt ashamed, embarrassed and guilty."


Stephen Rawlins, a proud squaddie, with a happy smile, was another who was never the same after he returned from the Falklands. On Remembrance Day 2000, he attended the memorial service at his local Cenotaph. Then he went home and killed himself. He was 38. His father David, 68, found him hanged at their home in the village of Llanbradach, in south Wales.


"He went to the war as a boy and he came back a man," Mr Rawlins said. "But as a man he thought that all of his emotions could be bottled up. He would not talk to me, but he'd sit up all night confiding in his mother. He would be screaming men's names in his sleep, shouting to them to get out."


More than 300 Falklands veterans have committed suicide since the end of the war. One of them, Charles "Nish" Bruce, an SAS veteran and freefall expert who served in the conflict, plunged 5,000 ft from a plane without a parachute in 2002.

A small minority in Britain opposed the war, arguing that the UK establishment wanted to hang on to the Malvinas / Falklands at least partly for strategic and economic reasons including the possibility of future oil extraction, and that Margaret Thatcher was keen for a military conflict to enhance her Conservative government's electoral prospects. Were the issue truly about the UK's duty to the colonists that they should have the right to be British, then this could be assured by offering them relocation to England, Scotland or Wales- with generous financial compensation terms which, given their small number, would be very affordable to the mother country.

The unprinciple of self-determination

Almost three decades later, new advances in petroleum prospecting and extraction technology have made drilling for oil in the area potentially profitable; the UK's justification for authorising drilling, however, is fundamentally similar to that which was used to win support for the war in 1982: the population of the Falklands (now risen to 3,140 civilian residents, plus 500 British soldiers) regard themselves as British, so the hydrocarbon resouces under the sea bed which surrounds the colony must therefore belong to Britain. Noting the unanimous support for Argentina's position by the 32 counties of South and Central America and the Caribbean at the 'Rio Group' meeting on 24th February, the BBC reported on the British response:

Its [the UK's] minister for the region, Chris Bryant, said that Britain had "no doubt about our sovereignty over the Falkland Islands".


"It is underpinned by the principle of democratic self-determination. Falkland Islanders want to remain British," he added.


Earlier, Argentina had imposed a new requirement for shipping to get permission to go from there to the islands.


This was in response to the start of drilling for oil off the Falklands, within the exclusive economic zone claimed by the Falkland Islands government, with the support of the UK.

Were 'democratic self-determination' a genuine right for the inhabitants of the small but strategically important outposts around the world that Britain managed to retain in the twilight of its empire, one would suppose that it would be accorded universally to those inhabitants by the UK government. The sad fate of the Chagos islanders proves otherwise.

By the mid-1960s, the population of Britain's main remaining colonies were demanding that 'Britain must go'; and it was clear that the UK would have no choice but to allow Mauritius- as with the other countries that it controlled- to achieve independence. So the British government decided to detach the Chagos island archipelago- hitherto a part of Mauritius under the colonial administration- and hold onto it as British territory, insisting that the Mauritians would be allowed to leave the empire only on condition that Britain kept its ownership of the Chagos Islands.

The Chagos Islands became, like the Falkands and a dozen other small remnants of the British Empire around the world, a Crown Colony. (Later, in a terminological manoevre to deal with the fact that the tide of world opinion had turned against colonialism, the British Crown Colonies were re-named by an act of Parliament as the British Dependent Territories; and they were subsequently re-named again as the British Overseas Territories.)

In the process which followed, which was that of the forced expulsion of the population of the Chagos from the islands, the islanders were offered no recourse to self-determination. Dispossesed of their homes and their means of livelihood, the democratic choice offered to the Chagossians was to become slum-dwellers on the Mauritius mainland. For the inconvenience of having to accommodate these refugees, the government of Maurituis was compensated with the princely sum of three million pounds.

Like the Falklanders, the Chagossians were approximately two thousand in number. Unlike the Falklanders, they were dark skinned and not of British ancestry- they were the descendants of the African slaves and Indian workers who had been brought to the islands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to labour on the coconut and copra plantations; and unlike the Falklanders, the perceived strategic interest of the British state lay not in keeping them in their homes but in expelling them from their homes. In the early 1970s, having accomplished the programme of cleansing the land from its population, Britain made good on a deal which it had negotiated with the United States of America, and the USA began constructing its naval and air force base on the largest of the Chagos islands, Diegio Garcia; by which the United States has since maintained its strategic command of the Indian Ocean.

No property rights

The Chagossians, who call themselves the Ilois people, did not give up their struggle for the right of return; and eventually the English courts agreed that they should be allowed to go back to the Chagos Islands, though not to Diegio Garcia, where most of them and their parents and grandparents had lived. But in 2008, the UK government successfully appealled that decision, persuading the highest lords of the English legal system that, despite the "unattractive aspects" of the dispossession of the Chagossians from their islands, the British financial and political interest, and even more imporantly, the USA's military interest, must prevail. Duncan Campbell noted in the Guardian in July 2008:

Islanders seeking to return to the homes from which they were removed to make way for a US military base nearly 40 years ago have no right to return, the law lords were told yesterday. Allowing the Chagossian islanders to go back to their Indian Ocean homes would be a "precarious and costly" operation, and the United States had said that it would also present an "unacceptable risk" to its base on Diego Garcia, the law lords heard.


The Foreign Office is appealing this week to the House of Lords against earlier judgments which have granted the Chagossians the right to return to the islands in the British Indian Ocean Territory. A group of islanders have arrived from Mauritius, where most of them have lived since being evicted, to hear the final chapter in their legal battle. Both the divisional court and the court of appeal have already found in favour of the Chagossians.


While there were "undeniably unattractive aspects" to what had happened to the islanders in the 1970s, that was no longer what the case was about, Jonathan Crow QC, for the foreign secretary, told lords Bingham, Hoffmann, Rodger, Carswell and Mance.

Democratic rights did not figure in the argument of Jonathan Crow QC, the lawyer representing the British government. Rather, he pointed out that the dispossessed islanders did not possess any property rights. Therefore, to allow these evicted people to return to their homes would be to concede to an act of "mass trespass":

The issue now was whether the government had been entitled in 2004 to issue orders in council forbidding the return of the islanders, he said. Britain took the Chagos islands from France in the Napoleonic wars and, under a 1971 immigration ordinance, removed the inhabitants compulsorily so that the main island in the archipelago, Diego Garcia, could be used as a US base.


Crow said that it had been regarded by the US since 9/11 as a "defence facility of the highest importance ... a linchpin for the UK's allies".


Although the judgments being contested do not grant the islanders the right to return to Diego Garcia itself, repopulation of the other islands would present an "unacceptable risk", the US believed.


"It has financial implications, political implications and defence implications," said Crow. "The Chagossians do not own any territory ... They have no property rights on the islands at all. What is being asserted is a right of mass trespass."

Today, the Chagos Islands have a population of about 3,200, comprising 1,650 US military personnel, 50 British military personnel, and 1,500 privatised military 'civilian contractors'. The name of the USA's military base on Diegio Garcia is Camp Justice.

Marriage of inconvenience

Despite the British government's steadfastness in preventing the return of the Chagossians, and the UK's many other actions in support of the US global strategic interest, there is no quid pro quo from the United States in the form of open endorsement of Britian's claim to the Falkland / Malvinas Islands. In an article entitlted 'Hillary Clinton slaps Britain in the face over the Falklands' in the web edition of the Daily Telegraph on 2nd March, Dr Nile Gardiner cited the following from the transcript of Secretary of State Clinton's joint Press conference with President Kirchner of Argentina, held the previous day:

QUESTION: (In Spanish) And for the Secretary, it’s about the Falklands. The – President Fernandez talked about possible friendly mediation. Would the U.S. be considered – would the U.S. (inaudible) consider some kind of mediation role between the UK and Argentina over the Falklands? Thank you.


PRESIDENT DE KIRCHNER: (Via interpreter) (Inaudible) what we have (inaudible) by both countries as a friendly country of both Argentina and the UK, so as to get both countries to sit down at the table and address these negotiations within the framework of the UN resolutions strictly. We do not want to move away from that in any letter whatsoever, any comma, of what has been stated by dozens of UN resolutions and resolutions by its Decolonization Committee. That’s the only thing we’ve asked for, just to have them sit down at the table and negotiate. I don’t think that’s too much, really, in a very conflicted and controversial world, complex in terms.


SECRETARY CLINTON: And we agree. We would like to see Argentina and the United Kingdom sit down and resolve the issues between them across the table in a peaceful, productive way.


QUESTION: (In Spanish) Interpreter: The journalist was just asking how the U.S. intends to negotiate to get the United Kingdom to sit at the table and address the Malvinas issue.


SECRETARY CLINTON: As to the first point, we want very much to encourage both countries to sit down. Now, we cannot make either one do so, but we think it is the right way to proceed. So we will be saying this publicly, as I have been, and we will continue to encourage exactly the kind of discussion across the table that needs to take place.

Dr Gardiner, who is a true believer in the US-UK special relationship, boiled with rage about the 'betrayal' of the British interest by its US ally:

Hillary Clinton’s statements at this press conference are highly significant, as they demonstrate a clear shift in US policy from neutrality (last week’s position) towards siding with the Argentine position of pressing for negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands at the United Nations.


The Secretary of State, a highly skilled political operator, knows exactly what she is doing here. She is giving her full support for the official stance of Buenos Aires, despite the fact that Great Britain has made it clear that the sovereignty of the Falklands is non-negotiable. She makes no reference at all to the fact that Argentina recently threatened a blockade of the Falklands, or that its close ally Venezuela has been threatening war against Britain.


Hillary Clinton’s dire performance in Buenos Aires was not only an appalling display of appeasement towards a corrupt and authoritarian anti-American regime, which barely has the support of 20 percent of the Argentinian people. It was also an astonishing betrayal of the United Kingdom by her closest ally, and yet another slap in the face for Britain from the Obama administration.

These inaccurate and immoderate remarks reveal Nile Gardiner's frustration that his idealised concept of the US-UK relationship is revealed as as an illusion as soon as the strategic interests of the United States diverge from those of Britain. The USA, which already finds itself losing political and economic hegemony in the American continent, would succumb to further isolation should it identify itself with the UK's 'non-negotiable' position on the Falklands, because all the countries of South and Central America endorse Argentina's position of a negotiated transfer of sovereignty to Argentina. And beyond pure strategy, there is also history and ideology. The United States won its own independence from Britain, its European colonial ruler, by military means; and after having done so, proclaimed with pride that only itself, to the exclusion of any European power, had the right to interfere in and dominate the affairs of the southern part of the Americas.

Dr Gardiner, who is the Director of the Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, based in Washington, USA, ended his article with a lurid battle-cry:

Clinton has demonstrated, not the first time, strikingly poor judgment as Secretary of State. While currying favour with a third rate kleptocracy in Latin America, she is alienating America’s most loyal and valuable friend at a critically important time. She also underestimates the resolve of the British people, who will never negotiate the future of the Falkland Islands. If the Argentines want the Falklands they will have to fight for them, and if they choose to do so they will be emphatically defeated, just as they were in 1982. Hillary Clinton can cry for Argentina if she wants to, but the Falklands will be forever British.

But the truth is that the British, through their experiences as the USA's special ally in Iraq and Afghanistan, have had enough of war; and the Latin Americans, for their part, intend to persue political and diplomatic, rather than military means.

Hair of the dog

That the Latin Americans unanimously back Argentina in the dispute over the Malvinas is no wonder. For all that the islands were uninhabited by indigenous people when the Europeans- in turns French, British and Spanish- occupied, abandoned, re-took and fought over them during the period of European colonial expansion (though discovered artefacts prove that they had been visited by people from the South American mainland before the Europeans arrived); they are South American islands, not European Islands. When, after1776, the Malvinas were ruled by the Spanish, they were not ruled directly from Spain as a separate entity- they were administered from Buenos Aires as part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. After it won its independence from Spain, the nascent Argentinian state asserted that the Malvinas were part of its territory and established a settlement there; but Britain sent a naval expedition, which seized the islands from the Buenos Aires government in 1833.

Might was right in those days- and to a large extent this is still considered to be the case; the fact that the current inhabitants of the Falklands are descendants of British, rather than Latin American settlers, and therefore assert their 'Britishness', is owed entirely to that invasion of 177 years ago, and the subsequent maintennance of British control by the relatively superior military prowess of the UK; allied to Britain's superior status within the international community, represented by its position as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. MercoPress reported the observations of Brazil's president Lula da Silva on 24th February:

“Our attitude is one of solidarity with Argentina,” said the Brazilian president adding the question: “What is the geographical, political and economic explanation for England to be in the Malvinas?”


“What is the explanation for the United Nations never having that decision? It is not possible that Argentina is not the owner while England is, despite being 14,000 km away.”


For the Brazilian leader the reason this happens is the fact that Britain is a permanent member of the Security Council. He used the occasion to once again call for the admission of more members to the council, increasing its representativeness. Brazil wants to be one of the new members.


“Is it possible that Britain can do everything and while others can do nothing?” Lula da Silva went on. “We need to start pushing so that the UN Secretary reopens this debate.”


UN Security Council members respect international rulings “only when they are functional to their own interests,” he emphasized.


The 33 presidents present in Cancun, including Lula da Silva, signed a document supporting the Argentine position, recognizing Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the Falklands and condemning the current oil drilling round by British companies.

But what about the Falklanders? One would not wish them to suffer a similar fate to that of the Chagossians; and the fact that Britain upholds the 'principle of democratic self-determination' for the inhabitants of its small remaining colonies only when that accords with the UK's economic and strategic interests does not by itself prove that the claim of the people living on the Falklands / Malvinas islands should be given no moral or political credence. But what is that claim? They do not assert that they wish to be an independent nation- what they want is to be British subjects. Following from this, they have no special right which would trump a British decision on what to do with the land on which they live, and the natural resources which surround it- any more than do the people who live in the way of a proposed railway line, airport or power station. Their democratic position is that they, like any other group of a few thousand- or many more- UK citizens, have to accept the decisions of the elected British government.

For sure they have the right to campaign, or to seek recourse through the courts, but in the end they, if they insist on being British, must therefore abide by whatever choice is made by the British people as a whole, through their elected government. Should Britain decide to concede its colony off the coast of Argentina to the Argentinians, those who currently live there could choose to remain on the islands as 'ex-pat' Brits, or to relocate to England, Scotland or Wales with whatever financial compensation terms would be on offer; a small number of them might even decide to apply to become citizens of Argentina. That would be for them to decide, in the context of a negotiated solution.

Is the 60 million strong British bulldog really being wagged by its miniscule Falklands tail- or more precisely a hair on the tail, given that there are only 3,140 Falklanders? In the 21st Century, can a European power hide its colonial claim to the oil resources under the sea bed of South America by sheltering behind the 'rights' of its colonists?

Britain must go, and in the end it will have to go; the issue is one of how and when.

US Virgin Islands Presents Constitution to Congress

The President of the Fifth Constitutional Convention of the US Virgin Islands led an official delegation of four to present the territory's proposed constitution to the United States Congress. Convention President Gerard L. James II was accompanied by other convention members, Professor Lois Hassell Habtes, Adelbert M. Bryan and Gerard Emanuel, all of whom made presentations before the body. Also testifying on the measure from the territory was the elected governor John P. de Jongh and Minority Leader of the US Virgin Islands Legislature Raymond Usie Richards. Additional members of the Convention testifying were Douglas Brady and Eugene M. Petersen.

The specific Congressional body which conducted the hearing was the Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife of the House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources. The Subcommittee is chaired by Madeline Bordallo, the non-voting delegate to the US Congress.

Under the territory's dependency status, the proposed constitution must be submitted to the U.S. Government which would review the text and assess its consistency with the unilateral applicability of US law to the territory. The proposed constitution can be either amended by the US Congress, or returned to the territory unchanged, before it goes to the voters in the US Virgin Islands in a referendum. The political status of the territory would not be altered by adoption of the constitution.
________________________________________________________
            Statement by Gerard Luz Amwur James II, President

         Fifth Constitutional Convention of the U.S. Virgin Islands
            to the Congressional Subcommittee on Insular Affairs

Good Morning Chairperson Bordallo, Committee members and all others present. My name is Gerard Luz Anwur James II. I am the President of the Fifth Constitutional Convention of the US Virgin Islands, elected at large by the people of our four island paradise which we proudly call home. It is my distinct honor to address this Committee regarding the adoption last May by our Convention of the proposed constitution for consideration by Congress.

I must first emphasize that the Convention is fully aware that our proposed constitution is not designed to usurp the sovereignty or supremacy of federal law and that the passage of our constitution will not, nor is it intended to, alter our political relationship with the United States. It represents a further step along the path toward a full measure of self-government.

This is our fifth attempt to attain greater self government since Congress passed PL 94-584 in 1976 which granted us the authority to draft our own constitution. When passed by referendum of the voters of the Virgin Islands it will replace the Revised Organic Act of 1954. The Organic Act has served as the governing law of the Virgin Islands for fifty six years with no input from the population it governs.

On June 12, 2007, a special election was held to select delegates from throughout the territory to draft the constitution. The keen interest of Virgin Islanders in this process was evident from the inception when voters elected delegates from a field of 135 candidates. Seventeen ran at large with the remaining candidates running from their respective jurisdictions. Thirty delegates were elected, and served as drafters of the constitution. The elected delegates were composed of a former Governor, four former senators, two sitting senators (elected during the term of the convention), a former District Court Judge, three practicing attorneys, farmers, professors, teachers and political activists.

Upon convening in December of 2007, the Convention formed twelve committees which were charged with conducting public hearings on the areas which are now part of our proposed constitution. The Convention was initially mandated by enabling Virgin Islands legislation to finalize a draft constitution by October 6, 2008, but the period was later extended.

The work of our Convention was impeded at the outset for six months by a court challenge to the results of the election by an unsuccessful candidate, and further delayed in mid-stream as the convention awaited the balance of the operating funds appropriated by the Legislature. The level of funding was itself an impediment with the Fifth Constitutional Convention receiving significantly less funding then the Fourth Constitutional Convention which met some thirty years ago.

This caused several inordinate delays in the drafting process and necessitated an extension of the time frame for submission to our governor. Despite these constraints, the Convention conducted a series of well publicized public hearings, committee hearings and plenary sessions comprising hundreds of hours of testimony and debate and many volumes of transcribed records. These meetings were attended by Virgin Islanders from all walks of life including but not limited to students, political activists, several religious leaders, as well as private citizens. We also consulted with representatives of a wide range of leaders of several local organizations and institutions including the President and department heads of the University of the Virgin Islands.

Unfortunately, insufficient resources and time constraints resulted in our inability to conduct an adequate public relations campaign. Also, the hard work of the Convention was often sensationalized and marginalized by the media’s focus on specific issues and individuals, rather than on our substantive work.

Through it all, we are proud to report that at the end of this protracted process, in May of last year, the convention was able to reach the required majority consensus and our proposed constitution passed with a two-thirds vote of 20 delegates. The document was transmitted to our Governor on May 31, 2009, meeting our extended deadline.

A major area of public discussion during this process was extensive debate on the crafting of the definition of a Virgin Islander. According to the 1917 treaty, through which the territory was purchased by the United States from Denmark, the political rights and citizenship of the inhabitants of the territory at the time of transfer would subsequently be determined by the US Congress. The citizenship of the islands’ population at the time of the transfer, which was predominately comprised of former enslaved Africans and their descendents, was not determined until ten years later. Article III of the proposed constitution defining Ancestral Native Virgin Islander was based on federal law emerging from that period (See Section 306 INA (8 U.S.C. 1406). It is also consistent with the definition of native populations in the constitutions of other un-incorporated territories.

The proposed constitution provides a broader definition of a Native Virgin Islander as a person born in the territory, or a descendent of a native. The delegates felt that theinclusion of this definition was imperative for several historical reasons.

From the early seventies we have experienced a dramatic decline of our native-born population. According to a 2007 study conducted by the University of the Virgin Islands as of 2005 the percentage was approximately 51.3 %. This decline has significant implications for the self-identity of our people.

The proposed constitution also provides that only Ancestral or Native Virgin Islanders are eligible to serve as governor and lieutenant governor, and as members of a proposed future political status advisory commission. These provisions address the unique culture and political backdrop of our islands.

Additionally, a provision to exempt Ancestral Virgin Islanders from paying property tax has been included. This provision is designed to protect the disenfranchised native population from significant externally motivated commercial land speculation which continues to result in the erosion of natives’ ability to retain and purchase property. It is also consistent with several relevant General resolutions, most recently operative paragraph 9 of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 63/108, which mandates that all necessary steps be taken to protect the property rights of the peoples of the territories on the United Nations list of non self-governing territories. The Virgin Islands, along with American Samoa and Guam, remain on that list today.

Similar native rights provisions are part of the constitutions of other U.S. administered territories, specifically those of American Samoa and the Northern Marianas, both of which have a comparable island geographical make up, and the same unincorporated political status as the U.S. Virgin Islands.

We strongly feel that these provisions are not discriminatory, and do not violate federal law as it is presently applied to the Virgin Islands and supports a compelling state interest. My fellow delegates’ testimony will address these issues in greater detail. Further elaboration is contained in our response to the Department of Justice analysis which has been submitted for your consideration and review. Throughout out history our shores have remained open to people of all cultures and ethnicities. The Virgin Islands has long been known as the ‘American Paradise.” The proposed constitution is our sincere effort attempt to insure that our beloved territory remains our “Virgin Islands Home.”

Thank you again for your time and your thoughtful review of our Constitution.