An open letter to Gov. Tenorio

Several weeks ago, a report was issued by the President’s personal representative to the Covenant Section 902 consultations which detailed the reasons for a more aggressive action by the President’s off ice to implement a plan for a swift federal takeover of the CNMI’s immigration and wage control authority granted to it by the Covenant. Our agreement with the United States granted us the power to enact and administer our immigration policies and to set our own local minimum wage in accordance with the good faith understanding established between the people of the Northern Marianas and the United States of America.

This latest threat by the President’s personal representative constituted yet another insult and an affront to our people and the forefathers of our Covenant. Such plan is not rational, nor justifiable. It is a deliberate and vicious attempt to undermine the Covenant through an insidious exercise of political power over helpless and unrepresented American citizens of the CNMI.

Mr. Cohen should be respectfully reminded that our people voted 78.8 percent in favor of an agreement which was entered into in good faith with the United States. The present threat is clearly political, but mixed in with vindictiveness on the part of the U.S. to punish the CNMI for allegedly violating “American values,” and our non-compliance with the U.S. demand for a major and unequivocal government reform.

Our people had dreamed and hoped that the Covenant with the United States will protect them and generations of our children to come. Protection to the people of the CNMI means life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They were counting on the protection of the Covenant for fair treatment, and are hopeful that the U.S. government will regard them as bona fide American citizens equal in all with their mainland cousins. I had the same dream and expectations when I was involved in both the difficult and complex negotiations, and subsequently in the signing of the Covenant more than twenty three years ago. I participated fully in the U.S. congressional hearings and lobbied the U.S. Congress during the most frigid winter months in Washington for the passage of the Covenant in the 93rd and 94th Congresses of the United States, always remaining hopeful, and without any doubt that the agreement will be upheld mutually.

Things have drastically changed now, and we are presently swarmed with the most ridiculous political excuses and accusations from the U.S., thus trying to justify its proposed unilateral action to impose federal laws, not based on reasoned conviction, but one that is arbitrary and capricious, and based on innuendoes and political season high tech gossips.

In 1981, you and I were both elected as a Governor and Lt. Governor’s team respectively, and we were privileged to serve our people together for eight difficult, but challenging years. While the early beginning of our new constitutional/self-
government under the umbrella of the Covenant from 1978 to 1981 were at times preoccupied with political differences among ourselves, our government managed to move forward with vigor and determination to sincerely and genuinely implement our newly acquired status as a self-governing entity in political union with the United States.

Being the newest American territorial acquisition, won through conquest during the second world war from the Japanese, and granted a legitimate U.S. commonwealth status inherently so much superior to existing U.S. territories that are still unorganized and unincorporated, the CNMI was both dammed and envied by its older territorial cousins. Our status as an American Commonwealth, some say, was God’s blessing and was a result of an accident in history. To me, it was not only God’s blessing but it was also a fulfillment of a thirty-year old United Nations Trusteeship obligation on the part of the United States to finally grant self-government to dependent territories in accordance with the United Nations Trusteeship Agreement and the U.N. Security Council’s requirements. I say it was finally time that the U.S. live up to its obligations by granting the Northern Marianas its rightful and sovereign right to determine the future of its people.

An integral part of the Covenant was the specific obligation of the United States to assist the people of the CNMI develop their economic and human resources which will gradually bring the standards of living of the people of the CNMI to a level comparable or equal to living standards in the United States. With a new political relationship established under the Covenant, the U.S. was provided another opportunity to fulfill this moral and humane responsibilities to the inhabitants of the Northern Marianas. It has given us what was apparently sufficient financial resources to help us develop as a Commonwealth.

As most of us still remember, the U.S. obligations to promote the social, educational, economic and political development of the Northern Marianas was largely ignored during the TTPI days. When the new Commonwealth government with a locally drafted constitution was organized and took effect in January, 1978, our people had discarded their intense and emotional feelings against TTPI wardship and hardships, and instead ventured forth with new expectations and hope for a better life for themselves and their children under a newly acquired commonwealth status with the United States, embodied in a Covenant which was negotiated between two sovereign governments, enacted by the U.S. Congress, and signed into U.S. public law by the President of the United States. By virtue of its uniqueness and the unprecedented manner in which the covenant was created and subsequently approved by both sides, it was sometimes referred to by legal experts as more of a treaty because of its several mutual consent provisions which limit the authority of the U.S. Congress from arbitrarily changing certain provisions without the consent of the people of the CNMI.

We took off ice in 1982, and early on we mapped out our economic strategy with our elected leaders. We agreed that four years were somehow wasted bickering about our political differences, and precious time was wasted on numerous unnecessary disagreements and debates on what kind of economic base was most appropriate for the CNMI to achieve economic self-sufficiency and financial independence. As you may remember, during our early months in office we turned to the United States government, the Department of Interior in particular, for economic development guidance and assistance. After our short honeymoon with the federal bureaucrats and investors who were more interested in borrowing funds from our local economic development authority which they intended to use as their capital to invest in the CNMI, we became disillusioned with them and we started, after much hesitation and anxieties, to explore the possibility of encouraging the flow of investment capital from foreign countries, namely Asian countries.

We repealed the archaic and regressive TTPI Foreign Investment Act and boldly opened the CNMI for any bona fide investors who were willing to take risks and uncertainties investing literally hundreds of millions of dollars and yens in our new American territory. The catch phrase and incentives offered to these foreign investors were “secured investment in the CNMI under a U.S. umbrella,” ‘low tax with great investment returns,” ‘applicability of headnote 3a,” “unlimited labor pool, low minimum wages,” “local control of immigration laws, policies, rules and regulations,’ “abundant labor markets with a few hours flight from Asian countries,’ and a host of other investment incentives which literally poured hundreds of airplane loads of new foreign investors into our islands, ready to lease private and public lands at any cost and ready and willing to be a part of the action, sort of speak.

What went seriously wrong with our grand economic plan was that we underestimated the enviousness and protectionism of the American businessmen, who quickly faulted the CNMI for giving in so generously to the old enemies of America; for allegedly blocking investment opportunities to its own American businessmen and benefactors located some ten thousand miles away in California and Texas. Our guardian and policymakers in Washington, D.C., felt embarrassed and insulted by our success because our ambitious economic development efforts, founded through our rights and privileges granted by the Covenant had proven to be effective. The CNMI, with limited natural resources, but blessed with little or no interference from the federal bureaucracies implemented domestic economic development programs which were drafted solely by our local government.

Through the exercise of internal self-government, the CNMI made bold, but calculated decisions on investment incentives and opportunities. It took the CNMI government less than eight years to develop and improve our economy. Previous U.S. administrations and Congresses of both Republicans and Democrats had even regarded the economic progress and accomplishment of the CNMI as an economic miracle, and one that the U.S. was so proud of. The CNMI government had established a solid and enduring investment foundation and a reliable economic base in such a short time that our goal for economic self sufficiency and reduced federal handouts were fast becoming realities. Our dramatic economic progress and success had made the TTPI economic development effort of thirty years an American embarrassment, and had clearly demonstrated that U.S. economic policies and incentives developed by insensitive and absentee bureaucrats from fifteen thousand miles away just cannot realistically work in our part of the world.

It is extremely useless and dismally late at this point in time now for the Clinton administration to be planning and developing a package for an economic development come-back. It will be equally ridiculous for our leaders to continue to listen to empty promises from the offices of political hangers-on and bureaucrats who are desperately trying hard to hang on to their endangered federal jobs. We should not be fooled by their promises for a new “package of economic incentives. They do not have any idea what kind of package is good for us. They want you to give them your ideas. They failed us more than twenty years ago by not providing us with meaningful economic plan and ideas. They miserably failed the CNMI by being the worst enemy of our economic progress and well being.

For the last twenty three years, the Department of Interior has been the most entrenched federal stonewall which has retarded our progress toward a genuine and realistic economic achievement as envisioned by the Covenant. Instead of being the advocate for progress and economic self-sufficiency for the CNMI, the Department of Interior, and particularly its sub office of Territorial and Insular Affairs, has delegated itself a new role as the Native Americans/Indian Affairs Office for the CNMI. The CNMI can and should pursue its locally invented economic incentives which would guarantee to our people the expected higher standards of living without further federal interference.

When the Covenant was negotiated twenty five years ago, economic, social, educational and political conditions were so under-developed and so dramatically different than conditions are now. Yes, we agreed in the Covenant that the U.S. Congress could enact legislation to amend the immigration and minimum wage provisions of the Covenant. The Northern Marianas Covenant negotiators knew and understood fully that at some time in the future, although nobody knew exactly how far into the future, the U.S. Congress will eventually exercise its right, in its wisdom and without prejudice, to amend the immigration and minimum wage provisions. The most important consideration discussed by our Covenant negotiators with respect to the eventual applicability of the federal immigration and minimum wage provisions were the readiness of and degree of economic progress being made by the new CNMI government, the extend of manpower development and skills to be expected in the future, and most importantly the continuing availability of local manpower entering the labor markets in tourism, government and other private industries which were expected to be developed and generated as a result of our new status. No one in our negotiating team, or the American negotiating team for that matter, could precisely predict, at that time some twenty five years ago, when was the right time for Congress to exercise its authority to federalize immigration and minimum wage.

There were serious and nagging questions about the amount of U.S. guaranteed financial assistance offered by the U.S. Our negotiators were doubtful about the seven years guaranteed financial assistance under the Covenant as too short a period, and undoubtedly too small an amount. But the U.S. side promised the Northern Marianas that millions will pour into the CNMI I in the form of military construction and military and federal activities, so as to provide assurance that money will not be a problem for the new government. We sincerely counted on the U.S. promise that a military base will be constructed on Tinian which we were assured will directly and indirectly provide the CNMI more than enough financial cushion to make up for the measly guaranteed financial assistance under Article VII of the covenant. The Covenant provided a total direct financial assistance of $14 million dollars for government operations, capital improvement, economic development and housing programs. In exchange for this, we gave up our opportunity to be an independent nation, and had given the U.S. most of the island of Tinian as a leasehold for future military installation for one hundred years for a total rental amount of $18 million. Land was leased cheaply in the interest of national defense and good faith contribution and sacrifice from America’s newest citizens.

So the CNMI changed its mind about the right of the federal government to federalize our immigration and minimum wage. There is nothing wrong with this! Just like the U.S. changing its plan for a huge military base construction on Tinian due to thawing of the Cold War, in the CNMI too, economic conditions and the facts of life have also drastically changed, thus necessitating the retention of previous agreements to survive economically, especially at this most desperate time, and to prevent damaging impacts on the livelihood of the CNMI people. The existing immigration and minimum wage provisions are effectively working in the CNMI. These fundamental economic development provisions in the Covenant continue to provide protection to one of the most basic and fundamental aspects of our political relationship with the U.S, and that is to be able to be economically prosperous and secured, instead of being a pathetic ward of the U.S., and a shameful economic burden to the taxpayers of America.

We also sought the association with the United States for another important and fundamental human desire, and that is our hope, irrespective of our colors, to be treated equally as Americans, and to be provided the opportunity to participate and benefit from the unlimited opportunities that all Americans living in the states of the union are provided with.

I would further emphasize that this change in the position of the CNMI with respect to federalization is critically necessary, practical and realistic. It is for economic survival alone that the CNMI have had to change its mind. If the entire intent of the Congress is to federalize the CNMI immigration and minimum wage just so that it can muffle the voices of dissent from politically oriented territorial delegates and representatives by providing a uniform application of federal laws in both the states and territories, then the Covenant is no longer a unique and useful and enduring political association agreement, but rather just a worthless piece of paper with Chamorros and Carolinians blood and sacrifices spilled all over it.

It is unfair and inhumane for America to change our sacred Covenant simply because it has the political power to do so, and much more unfair and inhumane to change the Covenant because the CNMI has become the helpless, powerless and unwilling scapegoat and enemy of self-serving politicians, lobbyists, activists and plain old racially oriented Americans. To compare the CNMI people as Indians from a reservation running amok,” or as broken down ‘pintos,” may not be racist reactions, but certainly such characterization do not speak well of federal bureaucrats occupying positions of responsibility, and directing daily administrative policies and issues affecting the well-being of the people of the CNMI. How can we realistically expect economic or any other assistance and cooperation from such biased and intransigent federal employees? The ‘high-level group” in the Clinton administration who are behind this insidious move to provide a common territorial policy at this time for economic development incentives in the territories should be told to leave the CNMI I alone with its Covenant. Let the Covenant dictate the future economic well being of the CNMI. Take away your long tentacles of patronizing and power-brokering attitudes, including your aversion to interfere with local internal self-government, learn and re-learn to respect the unique economic conditions and the limitations and high cost of investment and development in each territory, and then and only then will the territories be able to realistically survive and take care of their own problems in their own unique ways. No federal laws will be broken nor violated, and when unintentional mistakes are made, each territory should and would be responsible to correct them.

Enough empty promises and damage have been done to the inhabitants of the territories. Adding another group to once again tell the “natives” what is best for them will be another critical set back to any meaningful territorial accomplishments, and will only transform the territories to a 21st. century level of dependence and handouts, a sad and inexcusable scenario that once characterized the great period of American colonialism in the Pacific. Unnecessary time will be wasted and more harm than good will result from this federal group, no matter how well-intentioned they are, because the bottom line is the persistent federal mentality that the territories are incapable of taking care of themselves.

The most logical thing that the Clinton administration should do at this time, if it is seriously committed to promoting genuine self-government and economic self-
sufficiency in the territories is to form a task force to study the feasibility of closing down one of the most archaic and useless federal agencies, namely the Off ice of Insular Affairs. Such office has proven over the last twenty odd years of its relationship with the CNMI to be the worst enemy of economic progress because it is politically oriented with a partisan political agenda Such off ice is incapable of being the advocate of the territories. Its existence will continually perpetuate and impede the orderly establishment of a stable democracy and the exercise of local self-government in the CNMI by its callous interference with local matters, and by its convoluted vision and gross misunderstanding of the provisions of the Covenant and what it was intended to accomplish.

What divine intervention had suddenly happened to the office of Mr. Aranza to even think that his eleven remaining months in office will implement, or much less accomplish any meaningful economic development plan under the proposed economic incentive package? The group of senior white house officials who were charged by the president to railroad the economic incentive package to the CNMI are the same bunch of political activists from the insular territories who were against the CNMI for having the Covenant before they had one, and who have been re-inventing territorial policies for the last hundred years.

There is simply no real nor practical solution to the perceived CNMI economic problems other than to continue to pump through the empty craniums of the federal bureaucrats that a common territorial policy for economic development in the territories, which will include the CNMI, will never work for the CNMI. The CNMI has a Covenant with the United States. The CNMI is doing just great with its own economic master plan until the liberals and unionists, and newly born, born-again, and self-

Proclaimed saviors of the CNMI inclusive of the Patsys, Dannys, Als, Davids and Georges, to name a few, start crying wolf everytime the election cycle approaches in the states.

As a Covenant negotiator, and one who was involved with the economic progress of our new Commonwealth in the early years of our struggle for legitimate local internal self-government, economic survival, self-respect, and financial self-sufficiency, I once again find the federal economic agenda for the CNMI to be full of loopholes and empty promises coming from dishonest bureaucrats who would love to see the CNMI be trapped into an Interior’s economic reservation.

The only meaningful and realistic package that the U.S. can offer to the CNMI to develop a permanent solution to our economic problems, and a package which will guarantee life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and a protected and bright future for all the U.S. citizens of the CNMI is to accept the reality that federalization will destroy the CNMI politically and economically. Absent federal acknowledgment of our resource limitation for development, and enhanced by stripping of our only meaningful economic tools, namely immigration and wage control, no amount of federal assistance could guarantee the viability of the CNMI as a contributing and worthy member of the American community. The CNMI should be defended from elements in the United States government who have difficulty acknowledging the fact that the CNMI I is a part of America, and not a TTPI or a colony of Russia. A number of U.S. politicians must be reminded to erase their common mentality that we are not entitled to be protected because there are no voters out here. The CNMI people should be given the opportunity to decide what is good for them, instead of delegating such decision to some probably well-intentioned federal officials, but who are unfortunately being misguided by self-serving upper echelon bureaucrats. The CNMI deserves nothing less than to be allowed to continue to govern itself in accordance with its Covenant with the United States as originally envisioned by our negotiators.

I sincerely believe that our best economic incentive package is facing us square on the face. These are elements In the Covenant which has sustained the well-being and livelihood of the people of the CNMI since the beginning of our political relationship with the U.S. This is a package of self-government consisting of our continuing rights to administer immigration and our local right to enact wages consistent with the prevailing economic and social conditions of the Commonwealth, and the right to utilize, without limitation the provision of headnote 3a to enable the CNMI continuous export of manufactured goods without tax and quota as provided other U.S. territories, and as specifically provided in the Covenant. Take away any, any, of these fundamental tools for economic development, and the CNMI will surely take a certain nose-dive into economic oblivion and destruction.

Thank you for reading this letter, and I wish you continuing success with your dealings with the federal bureaucrats.

Pete A. Tenorio

Former CNMI Covenant Negotiator