Navy, Control

Guam Congress Wants , Not Navy, Control

THE Guam Parliament, or Assembly— which is a post-war development of the Territory’s administration —was in revolt against US Navy rule, in early April.

The revolt is entirely bloodless, and ap pears to be taking the form of passive resistance. The native Chamorros ap parently do not wish to sever any of then ties with the United States, but they do wish to seek a new status, under a civil authority.

They demand that US Congress pass an Act similar to that which was passed in relation to Hawaii. This would give the Guamanians US citizenship and more self-government.

The trouble started in early March when 34 of the 36 members of the Guam Congress walked out (over the failure of the Governor to honour a warrant for the arrest of a Naval employee) and were subsequently dismissed by the Naval Governor of the island, Rear-Admiral A.

Pownall. The Governor then called for the municipal commissions on Guam to submit three names for each vacant seat, from which he would choose successors to the rebellious members. Mass meetings in a dozen villages objected to this pro cedure and the ousted legislators refused to recognise the Governor’s appointees.

One of the men who had been dismissed by the Governor said that he obviously had made no attempt to consider the wishes of the Guamanians who were aware, however, that the Navy’s action is not in keeping with American democracy.

Guam, which is the largest of the Mariana group, has been an American pos session since the end of the Spanish- American war in 1898. The rest of the group was sold by Spain to Germany, in whose possession it remained until World War I. The Marianas, in 1919, became a Mandate, held by Japan and, after World War 11, a strategic Trusteeship held by the United States.

Spain had possession of the Marianas as long ago as 1565 but it took them 125 years to pacify the group. The natives, usually called Chamorros, are Micro nesians.

The Americans maintained Guam as a naval base and the port was closed to foreign ships of both war and commerce.

In the mid-thirties it attained new im

portance as a stage on Pan-American Air ways services from the Pacific coast of the US to Hongkong, Manila and Aus tralasia.

On December 11, 1941, the defences of Guam were overwhelmed by superior Japanese forces and the island was in enemy occupation until after the surren der of Japan, in 1945.

Before the Pacific War the government of the island was almost entirely in the hands of the Naval Governor, but since the American re-occupation the Gua manians have had a parliament of their own, based on the democratic principle of an upper and lower chamber.

The present trouble in Guam is said to have been hastened by the fact that Guam, as a defence base, has lost a great deal of its importance since the United States has shifted its greatest naval strength to the Atlantic. This, pre sumably, has made the Guamanians feel that the time has come when the govern ment should have a civil rather than a naval flavour.