Holy Grail: Why Guam's decolonization process always hits a brick wall

From the Publisher's Desk By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

 It has been more than half a century since the United Nations called for independence for all remaining colonies in the 21st century, yet 17 territories around the world are still ruled by foreign powers—missing the organization’s 2010 home-rule deadline. The 2010 target year marked the 50th anniversary of the U.N.’s Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples on Dec. 14, 1960.

Despite recurrent movements for self-determination, the colonies have been slow to define their futures. At times, it is regressive, as in the case of Norfolk Island, whose legislative assembly was abolished on June 17, 2015. The parliament’s abolition spelled the end of the island’s limited autonomy granted by Australia in 1979 through the Norfolk Island Act.

Australia’s decision to revoke Norfolk Island’s self-governance was based on the commonwealth’s perception that the island had never gained self-sufficiency and remained heavily reliant on subsidies. With a population of close to 1,800, Norfolk Island received $12.5 million in commonwealth subsidies in 2015 alone.

New Caledonia is a running story. Like Guam, the French colony grappled with the same polarizing issue that is familiar to us: the vexed question of who should be eligible to vote. The 1998 Noumea Accord restricts voting in provincial elections to residents who settled there before 1988. The restriction was intended to preserve the political rights of Indigenous Kanaks and long-term white settlers. Eligibility was later extended to residents who arrived before 1994.

New Caledonia held three Noumea Accord-mandated independence referendums—in 2018, 2020 and 2021—all resulting in status quo. The 2021 referendum, which showed a 96 percent vote against independence, was particularly contentious because it was boycotted by Kanak leaders and independence supporters.

Subsequent events in the following years culminated in the May 2024 riots that killed 13 people.

Fast forward: The French Senate recently voted 215-41 in favor of a new status for the territory, labeled the “State of New Caledonia.” But the pro-independence camp has rejected the proposal, which Paris touts as a “unique status” that would grant the territory semi-autonomy.

In contrast to New Caledonia’s dynamic decolonization process, Guam’s is stagnant.

Members of the Guam Decolonization Commission are regular panelists at the U.N. Decolonization Committee, delivering the same speeches, slamming the “administering power” for its continued control of Guam and telling the panel what it already knows.

While the U.N. envisions a colony-free world and provides a forum for territories seeking self-determination, its role in the actual process is unclear.

The U.N. Declaration provides a legal framework for decolonization. But does the organization have the power to compel a sovereign nation to cede control over its territory? If it did, wouldn’t it have already liberated all 21st-century territories and eliminated the colonial landscape in 2010, as it demanded? I guess we know the answer.

And it is delusional to think that the United States would unilaterally relinquish control over Guam simply because we scream, “Decolonize us!” That is fantasy. Our emotions cloud our sense of reality.

The process starts at home. But we haven’t done our homework. The political status plebiscite has long been stalled, in part because it is a hot potato that invites political punishment.

While most politicians opt to avoid the backlash, Sen. William Parkinson intrepidly stuck his neck out and braved persecution. He introduced Bill 242-38, aware of its great risk to his political career in this election year. The bill proposes to amend the Guam plebiscite law by removing ancestry-based voting eligibility, which the courts have ruled unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment.

At the Feb. 18 public hearing on the bill, Parkinson received jabs from an angry crowd. One testifier opposing the measure asked: “Why are you repeating what has been done already? I thought this had been resolved.”

Indeed.

The matter has already been resolved by the Ninth Circuit Court. Its ruling serves as the bill’s springboard to the next phase.

One testifier argued that maintaining vote exclusivity “is about justice.” But blocking the proposal without offering another solution creates a stalemate that would, ironically, perpetuate the very injustice the CHamoru people seek to correct.

We lose sight of our vision when we let our emotions prevail and assume that people whose viewpoints conflict with ours have bad intentions.

The whole point of the bill is to pull Guam out of the quagmire. The intent is to decolonize.

You don’t like Bill 242-38? Let’s find an alternative then.

You want an exclusive “native inhabitants only” vote? Then let’s do it and defy the Ninth Circuit Court. It would almost certainly face an immediate legal challenge. The political status vote will find its way back to court. But this is better than fence-sitting and waiting for the next proposal to oppose in anger.

While it is non-binding in nature, the plebiscite is a channel to communicate to the U.S. Congress what Guam wants. If we don’t ask for it, we will not get it.

At some point, Guam has to start somewhere—or remain in perpetual limbo.

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