Landmark

Guam

By Barbara Ray

GUAM captured the spotlight in Wash ington DC, when on January 25, in its first Act of the new year, Congress

unanimously passed House Resolution

2144, Guam’s excess land Bill. The resolution, which was expected to pass the Senate early February, transfers 3200 acres of Guam land from federal to local control.

A triumphant Robert Underwood,

Guam’s congressional delegate, who

spearheaded the campaign with his January 18-19 land conference held on Guam, noted the Bill’s precedent-setting nature in territorial land dealings.

“It is a straight transfer (to govern ment of Guam),” he explains. “It will not go to general services administration first. It will go directly to Gov Guam. No claims can be put on it.”

The transfer of land directly to the government of Guam was the focus of the mid-January land conference hosted by Underwood and attended by representa tives from the US Department of Defence and the Department of the Interior, which included the Office of Territorial and International Affairs, the US Fish and Wildlife Services, and the National Park Service. The government of Guam was represented, as were local residents, whose testimony captured years of frus tration with the laborious process.

House Resolution (HR) 2144 comes to the floor after nearly 40 years of struggle between the government of Guam and the federal government over land orig

inally confiscated by the US military

immediately after World War 11. At issue is ultimately 27,000 acres designated excess by the military, or 20 per cent of Guam land.

The 27,000 acres includes large portions of unused prime real estate at Naval Station, Andersen Air Force Base, Andersen South, and the Naval Maga zine. An additional 8000 acres of future

federal land is also being requested as military needs shrink in these fiscally restrained times.

Bill 2144 releases 3200 acres of federal land deemed excess 15 years ago to the government of Guam to use “for public benefit.” Although there is a sizable difference between 27,000 acres and 3200 acres, “it is a damn good beginning”, notes Governor Joseph F Ada.

Not all are satisfied with Underwood’s excess land Bill. Many island residents, especially those whose ancestral lands still exist intact, oppose handing the land to the government of Guam. Rather, they argue, the land should be turned over directly to the original landowners.

A . i c . , As Angel bantos, an outspoken ° r

Chamorro rights activist running for the Guam senate, warns, “We have met the enemy and the enemy is us, our leaders ... we would give it back to the hands of the bigger thief, the local government.”

Their suspicions may carry some validity. According to John Gilliam, a local economist who has exhaustively studied the land issue, the Navy orig inally transferred 30,000 acres to the Interior Department before closing down for good on Guam in 1950. The Department of Interior then assisted with the reauthorisation of a land transfer of 30,000 acres to the government of Guam for public purposes. The land, however, was never offered for these purposes.

Local landowners were offered only nominal compensation instead of the exchange they expected.

Responding to Senator Reyes, D-Tamuning, who asked during the conference what happened to those lands initially returned to the government of Guam, Gilliam explained that most was still in the government’s hands, at least “that which it hasn’t mismanaged off through improper sale or transaction.”

Nevertheless, transferring land di rectly to original landowners is highly unlikely, if not impossible. As Gilliam explains “An acre-for-acre exchange is impossible. We have Marine Drive, we have schools, parks etc.”

In fact, an acre-for-acre land exchange was never envisioned. When the post-war Navy administration took land from native Chamorros, it realised that future compensation for that land could not be made in monetary payments. Rather, an

Andersen base: part of the 27,000 prime real estate

Contested land: in northern Guam

Pictures: BARBARA RAY

in-kind transfer plan was set up, accord ing to Gilliam.

“The military had good reason to

acquire more (land) than required to

ensure enough was left over so land transfer or land resettlement could go through. Landowners never intended to recover original lots. Future property interest in proportionate share was being reserved for displaced owners, which would entitle them to make first claims,” explains Gilliam. “Therefore, a ‘land bank’ was created for that purpose,” he notes.

Because the military kept meticulous records of its “land bank,” it has been proposed that Guam leaders go back to that data bank and identify proportion ate shares and assign those to displaced landowners. The heirs would get a credit

based on a proportionate claim. They could then stake a claim on that proportion with the government of Guam.

As required by HR 2144, the govern ment of Guam is beginning to work on a land-use plan. Governor Ada in his State of the Territory Address in January said the plan would address the concerns of all land claimants and public-use needs. However, he noted it was not possible for all original landowners and descendants to receive 100 per cent of the

original properties. It is possible, how

ever, for all claimants to receive some land.

On this eve of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Guam from Japanese occupation, Gilliam suggests that Guam draw on ancient Israelite tradition and mark 1994 a Jubilee Year, a year during which, tradition has it, family inherit ance taken 50 years earlier is restored.

Whether the politics of the matter can be worked out so neatly, however, remains to be seen. □

Barbara Ray

Federal land: sought by Guam govern ment