A federal takeover isn’t the answer

The persistent agenda of the Clinton Administration to impose a federal takeover of these isles’ major policies would render permanent destruction of everything that we have worked for under the exercise of guaranteed self-government under the Covenant Agreement.

Lest it is forgotten, the indigenous people of these islands sacrificed their identity to become a member of a large American family, a family where the elders have been negligent since the inception of our constitutional government in 1978. It never participated in the orderly implementation of the very issues it now claims to have been violated. It never wanted to even acknowledge that it too was a direct participant in what has become a very dysfunctional family. And despite our efforts to make positive changes in labor matters, it consistently sees a different picture, a viewpoint we find highly insulting.

Imagine for a moment if federal wage policy is made applicable here today. At $5.15 an hour, every industry that now reels in the ravaging effects of the Asian crisis would shut down completely in bankruptcy turning these islands into a ghost town. What’s even more damning is the obvious agenda to change and end the exercise of self-government three decades back to the old colonial days. What about the tiny voices of the permanent guardians of these islands?

Whose interest would be served under an agenda that chooses to wear blindfolds to progressive strides we’ve undertaken to rectify both local and federal concerns on labor?

The irony in this misguided plan is the obvious decision to neglect the outright abuse of thousands of sweatshop workers in factories in New York and other states, the very venues where serious human rights abuses have been neglected by both state and federal government officials for years. Yet, Interior continues to bash and harrass the NMI as to even shove aside our dedicated efforts in recent years to rectify concerns that also matter to us for we too can’t tolerate the abuse that we have found in some our industries.

If you will, the exercise of self-government entails developmental problems to which we have aggressively undertaken corrective measures to resolve. And we have been successful in this regard. Indeed, the question then is: Whose defintion and standards must we follow in our efforts to rectify both real and perceived abuses?

Definitely, the final disposition of these issues is best handled by the governance of these islands. After all, it’s all a part of the very exercise of self-government where we are given the right to make appropriate policy changes aimed at strengthening our democratic institutions. That we may have stumbled in rectifying developmental mistakes doesn’t grant any federal agency the right to ruin this very right. It’s a right guaranteed the NMI and no agency has the authority to change it arbitrarily.