Guam in the UNPO?
Joining the UNPO could bring an higher level of visibility Internationally and nationally to Guam's issues. Manny Cruz and I wrote as much in recent weeks in columns and letters to the Pacific Daily News.
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Group connects marginalized people across the world
Michael Lujan Bevacqua
Pacific Daily News
November 21, 2019
Speaker Tina Muña Barnes has proposed a resolution that would seek Guam’s membership in the UNPO, or the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. Many in Guam may not be familiar with this organization, but it is one that connects marginalized peoples across the world and has an international reach. I am favor of this move. With the right follow-up it could be an important step in helping Guam build its international and national profile.
The UNPO was formally inaugurated in 1991 as a body that could help provide voice to those who are voiceless. It is currently made up of 44 member groups that represent more than 300 million people around the world. It lobbies on behalf of these members and works to build awareness of their issues and needs. The membership in the UNPO is incredibly diverse. It ranges from the Sindhi concentrated in Pakistan, the Sulu in the Philippines, the people of Catalonia in Spain and even the roughly 700,00 people who live in Washington, D.C.
They speak different languages, they have different cultures, inhabit radically different parts of the world. But they are united in the fact that when the current world order was built, they were left out.
They may have been left out because their lands were valuable to corporations. It may have been the strategic value of their homelands. It may have been racism. It may be as simple as the powers that be not wanting to go through the hassle of making new maps or giving long-oppressed people a semblance of sovereignty. For many, it is an issue of self-determination. That their dreams of having the ability to self-govern in their ancestral lands have long been denied.
Not all UNPO members experience oppression in the same way. Some are places where governments are actively suppressing and committing violent acts, such as in West Papua. But others like Guam, are not being violently suppressed, but nonetheless are stuck in a power-dynamic where they are denied a number of basic facets of self-governance.
Part of this marginalization is that you are cut off from mechanisms of power. You cannot vote for those who make the overarching laws. Your resources are controlled in ways that governments, militaries or corporations have less oversight. You exist in a system where for one reason or another, you are not supposed to have a voice. This group was formed to try to give a space of solidarity and a louder voice for those who are stuck in these marginalized states.
Speaker Barnes learned of this organization when she was recently in Washington, D.C., and met with one of the District of Columbia’s “Shadow Senators.” It has been a tactic of territories of the U.S. seeking greater rights or equality with the U.S. Like the District of Columbia, they elected Shadow Senators or Congresspeople, who can lobby on the issue of their political status to the federal government. This has been known as the Tennessee plan. You fake it, until you make it.
Joining organizations such as the UNPO would accomplish this, albeit at an international level. It would help push the issue of decolonization into conversations in the U.S. and elsewhere and connect our struggle to other struggles for self-determination and justice elsewhere.
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Participation in groups like UNPO will help move island to international stage
by Manny Cruz
Letter to the Editor
Pacific Daily News
November 28, 2019
As a Ph.D. student living in Aotearoa, New Zealand, I’m often confronted, on account of my American accent, with the question “So, where are you from?”
To which I often respond, “I’m from Guåhan, it’s a colony of the United States. But we’re actually not that far north of here.”
The reactions I get are usually predictable. Some people are surprisingly well-informed about our island’s lack of political representation and our positionality in Oceania. But most times, the response is something along the lines of, “is that, like, near Guatemala?”
This story is familiar to those of us who move to the continental U.S. for school or work, or those of us joining the military for some semblance of financial stability. But my point is that, even within the vast Pacific — where we should feel most at home — we are otherwise absent from the thoughts of many of our mañe’lu in the larger Pacific outside of the United States’ immediate sphere of influence.
The recent legislative resolution introduced by Speaker Tina Rose Muña Barnes, which calls for greater international political representation for Guåhan through the Unrepresented Nations and People Organization, is exactly the type of legislation Guåhan needs if we seek to be a recognizable economic, social and cultural force on the international stage.
As a tight-knit community, we’re incredibly proud anytime someone from our island gains recognition for their sports or academic prowess. We love hearing about our sons and daughters who rise up the ranks to become decorated military personnel. And we love learning about our young entrepreneurs who succeed beyond our shores.
Barnes’ resolution is no different.
If we truly believe in democracy and if we see ourselves as a people once liberated, then we should celebrate and strive toward Guåhan’s participation in international organizations like UNPO.
The ongoing issue of the colonization of the CHamoru people is at every stage a human rights issue, but so are the rights of women and children. United Nations human rights bodies also recognize the human rights of persons with disabilities, the rights of minorities and the rights of persons to freedom of sexual orientation and queer identity.
As a community, we already have standards amongst ourselves to ensure our collective prosperity and harmony. This is inafa’maolek. Guåhan’s advocacy for human rights at the international level is an extension of the values that make us unique as a people.
As we prepare to put 2019 behind us, we should come together to self-determine a future for ourselves where the rights of the most disenfranchised among us are secured and protected.
Resolution 255-35 does just that. Let’s show our lawmakers we support this and similar legislation moving forward.
Manny Cruz is a Guam resident living in New Zealand.
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