Chamorros’ Big Win

Guam

The island settles its future.

By David S North

GUAM’S VOTERS chose the wife of convicted former Governor Richard Bordallo for a vacancy in the territorial senate, and strongly sup ported the Chamorro position on who should decide Guam’s political future in last month’s special election.

Political events elsewhere in the Pacific played an important role in the referen dum on the island’s political future. Those supporting the Chamorro position pointed to the Fijian coup and the problems of the Kanaks in New Caledonia as examples of the difficulties that indigenous people are having in controlling their own destinies.

Interestingly, none of the three leading candidates for the senate are Chamorro by birth; Mrs Bordallo, though a longtime resident of the island and a Chamorro rights advocate, is a haole but is warmly regarded by the Chamorro community.

She ran as a Democrat and was supported by her husband’s still effective political or ganisation. He is living on Guam and is free pending disposition of an appeal from his conviction for misusing his office.

The top candidates for the senate seat, left vacant by the death of Senator Pedro Sanchez, were Mrs Bordallo, with 8265 votes, Leslie Moreno, a Republican and a Filipino with 4298 votes, and Florence Sanchez, the Samoan-born widow of the late senator and a Democrat, who re ceived 2247 votes. They were followed by Ben Ada, a Chamorro, with 1584 votes, by Gordon Milloux, a Mainlander with 1280, and by four others, each with less than 1000 votes. Unlike most Guam elections, there was no primary election beforehand to se lect each party’s candidates, so there were several for each party.

The other part of the election related to Guam’s desire to work out a new relation ship with the United States. As part of this process the Guam Commission on Self Determination presented the voters with a draft Guam Commonwealth Act, the idea being that such a draft would repre sent Guam’s position as it began to ne gotiate with the Government in Washington. To test the feelings of the people, the voters had a chance in August to vote separately on 12 different articles; 10 of the articles were accepted, with votes ranging from 51 to 61 per cent. Novem ber’s vote was a re-run for the two articles turned down by slim margins in the Au gust voting.

Both of these articles have strong eth nic overtones. Article I calls for a Guam that is a “self-governing entity under over all United States sovereignty. . . (and). . . recognises the Chamorro people as a dis tinct group and recognises their right to determine their own political future . ..”

Article I has been interpreted to mean that only Chamorro voters would have the ul timate right to decide whether Guam seeks independence at some future date.

Article VII calls for granting the island Government control of the movement of aliens to Guam (now the responsibility of the Mainland’s Immigration Service) and would not permit aliens living on Guam to use their time on the island to qualify for citizenship. (US law now permits al iens living on Guam for five or more years to apply for citizenship.) This provision was unpopular in the Filipino commu nity, which feared that an island-con trolled immigration system would be more likely to deny visas to Filipinos than a Mainland system.

In the November vote, these two arti cles were divided into five sections, and all were thunderously approved, by mar gins as high as 66 per cent. Some 20,000 voters participated. □