‘Nothing lost, nothing gained’

I enjoyed reading Jaime Vergara’s article on Martin Luther King, which came out on Jan. 17, 2005. I, too, was at the 1968 rally. You see, five years earlier in August of 1963, when I was 14, my father drove his family across country so that his two sons could walk beside him in the “March on Washington, Jobs and Freedom, rally.” A gutsy thing for an Irish-Catholic and highly polished senior executive for a major corporation at the time to do. What my father taught me through his color-blind passion for honesty and commitment to human ideals was also the foundation for my personal grief when those like Cinta Kaipat and Peter Perez of PaganWatch fame found sport in painting me in the public’s eye as someone who doesn’t care about people and the environment which we all must share. They don’t know me nor did they ever put forth the effort to try. When your newspaper ran my letter offering to pay for their travel and hotel expenses to attend the Los Angeles Business Conference, their reply was clearly noted by their absence.

The loss of Azmar and the revenues it would have generated is a tragic requiem for all the people of the CNMI. I was late to learn that as long as Azmar was seen as a “white American” company by certain people in power in your government, there would be no chance for long-term success. How else do you explain the blatant lies told by MPLA regarding Azmar’s failure to submit key documents when in fact those documents had been received and date-stamped by MPLA more than six weeks prior to their December 3rd decision? Documents irrefutably listed by MPLA chair Ana Demapan-Castro as mandatory in a letter dated September 29th to Azmar. After nearly three years of trying, why would we not be forthcoming with what was so easy to give? What resulted can thereby only be seen as discriminatory, given that it would have cost nothing at all for MPLA to give Azmar a try. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

As an Irish-American who lived through and saw firsthand the agony of racial prejudice in the eyes of so many of my fellow Americans and the burning evil that discrimination can bring, I never thought that its veil of bigoted deceit would be cast upon me. Thus I admit my own naiveté.

But most importantly, when and if the chance arises, please pass along to the majority of truly beautiful people of the NMI my warmest thanks for the host of kindnesses they showed me through the years. So many opened their hearts and homes to me when I first came to the islands in the late 90s in search of my uncle’s missing airplane, and as you know, there were many, many, many more who believed in and saw the exceptional opportunities that Azmar had to offer. Like the people I did meet standing beside my father on the streets of our nation’s capital, I will never forget the wonderful people of the NMI.

Kenneth J. Moore
Scottsdale, Arizona