On American Memorial Park:

The federal government should be told that it has no choice but to accept the request by the CNMI to transfer administration of the American Memorial Park from the US National Park Service (an agency of the Dept. of Interior) to the CNMI government.

This process was well recognized in 95th or 96th Congress resolution which created the park as a federal national park pursuant to the Covenant. It was through the effort of the CNMI’s good friend in Congress, the former congressman Phillip Burton of California that the development of the American Memorial Park was instituted and thus earmarking funds for such development from the budget of the Department of Interior.

It took many years of delays and excuses before the Department of Interior finally moved the American Memorial Park development priority from the bottom of the totem pole to the top, apparently after all the mainland parks were already authorized for development, and there were no place else to farm out Interior’s bureaucrats.

Now I read in the papers that Ms. Gustin, the park’s new superintendent, is opposed to the transfer of the park, and furthermore, apparently is threatening that a transfer will mean the loss of funds for development and maintenance. What a crock of hypocrisy!

Nowhere in the park’s legislation was there a mention that funds will be discontinued after the transfer from the Interior to the CNMI. Furthermore, all federal national parks are funded in one form or another by the federal government. The unique right granted the CNMI by federal law to take over the park’s administration, upon its independent determination that it is ready to administer the park should not be a surprise to the federal government.

The transfer of the park was anticipated from the very beginning, and it was unique in the sense that rarely does the federal government transfer administration of national parks to the state or local jurisdiction. Once again, this was a concession granted by the United States under the spirit of the Covenant agreement. And funding for development of the park by the local government should not be discontinued. After all, our park at Sadog Tasi will continue to be called “American Memorial Park.” The name was designated purposefully to encourage the American Congress to get into the act and to fund and develop the park on Saipan to serve as a living memorial for those American casualties of WWII.

I suggest that id Uncle Sam is to discontinue funding of the park as a condition for its transfer to the CNMI, then we in the CNMI must conduct a park naming contest. I have a name for it that is much more appropriate for the people of the CNMI, call it the “Chamolinian Park.” Somehow the loss of lives of hundreds of our people during the WWII was sacrificed in the naming of the park.

I feel that our local, self-governing Commonwealth government is once again insulted by a low level landscaper from Interior, who prefers to air her objection to the transfer in a meeting of the Rotary Club, rather than give her boss, Mr. Babbitt respond to you, our Governor.

It is regrettable, but at the same time to be expected, given the history of arrogance, contempt and insensitivity of the federal government to our political status agreement, to once again be denied the most minor request for the exercise of internal and local self government. All the CNMI is asking is for the transfer of administration of the park so that it could at least clean and manage it in its own local way, as rightly defined in a federal law, and agreed upon in the negotiating history of the Covenant. Instead what the CNMI has already received in return is a flat no, and an abrasive threat to cut off federal funds.

I assume from Interior’s position on the transfer that our park will lose its designation as a “National Park”, or there is an alternative to this simple-minded issue?

Pedro A. Tenorio
Former Lt. Governor