The 11-year transition offer

It must be crystal clear in his mind (president’s personal representative) that the Clinton Administration agenda for a federal takeover can’t be shoved down the NMI’s throat for lack of legal authority. Thus, the offer that the NMI considers the eleven-year transition proposal to pad its (NMI detractors) case before presenting it to the 106th US Congress. It’s the only credible alternative left in its untiring efforts to uproot local control of labor and immigration issues.

Yes, it is welcomed tidings from Mr. Edward Cohen that both sides cease from posturing and grandstanding in the news media so to allow the opportunity of talking, not to each other but with one another, to bring about greater understanding between the NMI and Washington. Such positive attitude should have been maintained by the
US Department of Interior’s OIA since the first oversight hearings in 1993. It would have fostered and nurtured a better working relationship from the outset in the purposeful resolution of issues that have sharply divided the NMI and the federal government.

For one thing, the right to self-government is a guaranteed provision under the Covenant Agreement. It is one of few mutual consent provisions that can only be changed by consent from both the NMI and the federal government. This provision, however, doesn’t limit nor hinder Congressional authority to amend or repeal other substantive provisions of the Covenant Agreement. But Congress has always been very keen to any blind disruption of the rights of the governance to self-government. As such, it has been magnanimous in its dealings with NMI issues.

This magnanimity didn’t spin-out of thin air. It is rooted in the belief and conviction by the Republican-controlled US Congress that government is best left to the governance where it rightfully belongs. As such, Interior’s OIA may disagree with the pace with which we have undertaken reform. But then who is best poised to decide on this matter than the governance of these islands? Have we really looked the other way in our fiduciary responsibility to strengthen the protection and rights of both non-resident and resident employees? This is the basic flaw in OIA’s constant interference on matters it tries to lord over in absentia.

Indeed, we have made our own set of mistakes which come with the territory of self-rule, but we haven’t neglected our responsibility to pick-up the pieces to rectify both local and federal concerns. It is for this and other legitimate reasons that we’ve guarded, with heart and soul, our rights to self-government. After all, we know at heart that conditions so sensationalized by the liberal national media aren’t as bad as have been portrayed for they (media) too have their own agenda–better network ratings at the expense of fairness to the simple people of these isles.

We hope that in the last remaining days, our partners from across the sea would come to see these issues from our pair of glasses. It’s the only way to understand our little voices outside mainstream America. Si Yuus Maase` yan ghilisow!