Governor cancels trip after Chinese incursion
Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio canceled his trip to Majuro for the annual meeting of the Micronesian chief executives to allow him focus on taking care of illegal Chinese nationals who being sheltered temporarily on Tinian.
The CNMI leader was supposed to leave for the Marshalls yesterday, but instead sent his special assistant for policy and research, Mike Malone, to represent him in the gathering of the region’s leaders.
“I decided to cancel my trip because I want to attend to this pressing problem. I just want to make sure that everything is okay,” Tenorio said in an interview.
His participation in the meeting of Micronesia’s heads of states and island governors would have been his first since he assumed office in 1998.
The three-day meeting, which begins April 22 on the northern Likiep atoll in the Marshalls, is expected to focus on transportation issues, tourism, marine life protection, and the Micronesian games to be held in 2002.
Reports say at least 50 participants from eight island governments of Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Kiribati, Guam, Pohnpei, the Northern Marianas and Kosrae are expected to attend the meeting.
Last Saturday the governor flew to Tinian to oversee the arrival of a boatload of Chinese who attempted to enter Guam last week. The vessel was intercepted by the US Coast Guard while conducting a routine patrol and was diverted to the island municipality, where they will await deportation.
Close to 100 police, medical staff and customs and immigration men were sent to Tinian to assist the illegal aliens until their return to mainland China.
