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US House OKs Guam war claims review commission
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Posted on Mar 16 2001
With remarkable speed, the House passed Congressman Robert A. Underwood’s Guam War Claims Review Commission Act, HR 308, by a voice vote. The Act was introduced in January.
“We were able to move the bill on the Suspension Calendar within the first two months of Congress. This is unprecedented speed,” Mr. Underwood said, adding that the committee sent the bill to the floor for a vote without a hearing or a mark-up.
“This is good news in our longstanding quest to bring honor and dignity and resolution to this issue which has bedeviled our World War II generation for so long,” he added.
The Act calls for the creation of a Presidential commission to conduct hearings, obtain information, make recommendations and oversee the process for providing war reparations for the people of Guam who were made to suffer during World War II.
The effort to secure reparations was launched by Guam’s first Congressional Delegate, the late Antonio B. Won Pat, and carried on by his successors, Congressman Ben Blaz and Congressman Underwood.
In collaboration with Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who secured compensation for interned Japanese-Americans, Mr. Underwood took a new approach, crafting a bill to create a review commission. That bill passed the House, but the Senate did not take it up before the 106th Congress adjourned.
The new bill, HR 308, is co-sponsored by Nick Rahall (D-WV), ranking member of the Resources Committee, and John Conyers (D-MI), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.
Before the vote, Resources Chairman Jim Hansen (R-UT) and Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS) spoke in favor of the bill.
In his own floor remarks, Mr. Underwood said, “The early consideration and passage of HR 308 is a significant step toward the healing of a people who experienced the brutalities of enemy occupation during World War II.”
“For more than two decades, this issue has been aggressively pursued by the leaders of Guam…On the federal level, each of my predecessors introduced legislation to address this issue. These combined efforts have helped bring us to where we are today and I am hopeful that once the work of the commission is completed, we can finally heal this very painful memory in Guam’s history,” he said.
