Some days, it is very hard to know where to begin.
This is one of those days. A lot is going on. Much is urgent, some is important and some is just noise. It is hard to break through the chatter.
I’ll try.
Slavery is alive and well in the United States and it has the support of Congressman John Doolittle and Republican PR Flacks who have parlayed their experience lying for George W. Bush into a paying gig as liars for hire. They are now lying to defend and protect the system of sweatshops, forced prostitution, human trafficking, labor abuse and other crimes on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).
I know that it is very hard at this point to spare any more outrage, but please, lend me your ear. Give me a moment. Listen. And then, please, take action.
We have a chance to end 25 years of abuse on American soil. We can end a modern system of slavery, human trafficking and abuse.
We can end it or look away.
Look.
To the jump...
On Thursday, I was at a Hearing of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee. It was to consider Senate Bill 1634 (PDF). This bill would extend US labor and immigration laws to the CNMI. It is a long overdue start at ending 25 years of abuse that has been allowed to flourish on the US Territory in the Western Pacific.
Thanks to Dover Bitch and Selise, you can listen to the Hearing through this podcast.
Only one Senator stayed through the hearing (Akaka of HI) and only the powers that be were allowed to testify. That weighted the hearing to the favor of those who would maintain the abuse in the guise of reform.
The voice of the workers on the CNMI and the voice of the victims of human trafficking were missing. Akaka seemed hard-pressed to even consider them human. At several points he seemed to offer to keep them trapped on the CNMI for another five years before they would be granted any rights. It was odd that the only one to speak to the concerns of the workers was a member of the Bush Administration, David Cohen, the head of the Office of Insular Affairs.
And yet, the voice of the workers will be heard in the official record. On Wednesday, I delivered the testimony of human rights worker Wendy Doromal who is spending her summer back on the CNMI documenting the current situation for the workers and the ongoing abuse and crimes flourishing in this corrupt economic system. I also delivered a statement from the foreign contract workers on the CNMI urging Congress to pass reforms. Begging Congress to—finally—extend Federal control to the lawless archipelago. Their statement was accompanied by over 3,000 signatures. Many more will be delivered to Congress before the Record for the July 19 Hearing is closed in two weeks.
Wendy’s testimony also included statements from several workers. There was a woman, Carmelita G. Ramos, who has been on the CNMI working for 26 years. Her son is a US Citizen, a Marine and is serving in Iraq. Carmelita has no rights. She has been a legal foreign contract worker on the CNMI for the last 26 years. It is her home, but she could be deported within 45 days, if and when, somebody among the Pirates of Saipan wants her removed. She has no rights. She is not alone. We should fix this.
Then there was Pabrita lal Dhimal. She is the Daughter of Buddhi lal Dhimal, the Napalese worker who set himself on fire last April to protest the systematic abuse and injustice of the CNMI economic system. (I wrote about it here, here and here). Not only is Pabrita still trying to collect the money owed to her father, she is also fighting a new discriminatory CNMI law that would mandate that other Pacific Islanders and their families become second class Citizens on the CNMI.
These members of the Freely Associated States (FAS) enjoy certain rights. They can travel on open Visas to the CNMI and anywhere else in America to work and study. According to the 2000 Census there were about 4,000 people with FAS status on the CNMI. Many have married foreign contract workers (this FAS status is what the proposed reform legislation would grant some long-term guest workers on the CNMI). A propose change in CNMI regulations would deny legal status to foreign spouse of FAS citizens. This status was protecting these workers from capricious deportations. It is a protection that the CNMI Government has decided to remove. Pabrita’s husband has FAS status and now, like her father, she faces the threat of deportation before the money her father was owed can be collected.
Those are just a couple of the stories. There are thousands more. As I flipped through the signatures I was stunned at how long these workers had been on the CNMI. Ten, fifteen or even twenty years was common. These people are the economic backbone of the CNMI and yet, they are being held back. They are not treated as human. They are treated as commodities.
They are a sub-class—a permanent underclass of labors that do the work and are denied rights. The laws of the CNMI keep them in thrall and their entrepreneurial spirit in check. They are expendable, disposable and their humanity is off the table.
They are modern slaves. It is time to set them free.
If you have been following the growing Abramoff scandal and my Diaries on that scandal and the CNMI, you know it is important to end the abuse. It has been going on for more than twenty-five years. It is another stain on the human rights record of America. It is time to clean it up.
This should be a no-brainer for the 110th Congress. After all, the CNMI/Abramoff issue had an impact last November. We defeated 20 of the Abramoff 65, a group of Republican candidates I identified as having multiple connections to Jack Abramoff. We rode the story of abuse on the CNMI to many of those victories and I think we owe the guest workers on the CNMI some justice.
The Guest Workers are not the only victims on the CNMI. The failed economic system is also destroying the eco-system of the island, the infrastructure and the culture of the indigenous Chamorro/Carolinian population. A distorted reality has been created.
The CNMI Guest Worker program has created a culture of addiction. This is artfully explained in a new book, Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy by John Bowe (this is an important work and I encourage everyone to pre-order a copy). The indigenous population has become dependent upon imported workers. The foreign investors, indigenous Chamorro/Carolinian population and relocated US Citizens from the mainland share the obscene and unacknowledged dependence on a permanent underclass of workers. That is the status quo.
And efforts to protect the status quo on the CNMI will only bring more injustice.
Sadly, injustice is what the powers that run the CNMI are fighting for. They have three main goals:
- Block a pathway to US Citizenship to ANY Guest Worker on the CNMI, including those with children who are US Citizens.
- Maintain a steady flow of new, time-limited Guest Workers to maintain their corrupt economic system, and
- Maintain the ability to have a special CNMI travel Visa that will allow local control of customs for visitors from China, Russia and elsewhere.
In a final reform legislation, The Pirates of Saipan should lose on all three of their goals. To push their corruption-as-usual agenda, they have hired the Democratic equivalent of Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist named William Oldaker. And in a more predictable move they have hired two PR flacks and loyal Bushies: Former National spokesman for the Bush-Cheney 2004 Campaign, Terry Holt and former Deputy White House Press Secretary, Trent Duffy.
It would take somebody skilled in advanced lying and spinning to defend the CNMI system of neo-slavery with a straight face. And after learning how to lie, these Bush flacks have found a way to monetized that dubious skill:
Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. said Holt Strategies and its partner, Duffy PR Strategies, are now the commonwealth’s media agent and public relations counsel in the nation’s capital.
Reyes said the firms will be retained for an unspecified period of time and will be paid about the same fee — $15,000 a month plus extras — that the CNMI government is paying its "consultant" Oldaker, Biden & Belair LLP. [snip]
"We need a professional and reliable firm to tell our story," Reyes told Variety in an interview yesterday at his office.
And the flacks are already helping the Pirates of Saipan tell their story. Take a look at these gems:
"The CNMI can be an American success. They are struggling to rebuild their economy and have initiated reforms to put immigration and labor problems in the past," said Trent Duffy of Duffy PR Strategies. [snip]
"Too often, the only time policymakers have heard about the CNMI, it’s been in the context of the Jack Abramoff story. It is time to move on," said Duffy. [snip]
"Northern Mariana Islanders are American citizens and we share an important history, forged stated battle for the Pacific in World War II. And their place on the map makes them a significant national security asset. It’s time people hear about some of these facts too," Duffy
I love that Duffy is spinning again about Abramoff. It is good to see him recycle his BS he peddled about Bush and Abramoff into new BS about Jack and the Marianas Islands.
Holt and Duffy have also been chaperoning Fitial around DC in the hopes that he won’t accidentally say something true. It almost worked, but not quite.
David Whitney of McClatchy Newspapers and Erica Warner of AP, both talked to Fitial and both followed up with bad news for John Doolittle.
Here is Erica:
The governor of the Northern Mariana Islands said Thursday he's cooperating with the Justice Department's corruption investigation around jailed GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, which is focused in part on GOP Rep. John Doolittle of Rocklin, Calif.
And here’s David:
Abramoff's jailed for political corruption, in part because of his dealings while representing the commonwealth. Doolittle, R-Roseville, is under investigation because of his relationship with Abramoff.
Fitial said he is "cooperating" with prosecutors but would say no more on the advice of his Los Angeles attorney, Thomas Pollack.
And how are things between Fitial, Doolittle and Abramoff? Why, as Erica reports, they’re all friends:
Fitial, who in past years pushed to extend Abramoff's contract to represent the Marianas, did not distance himself from the disgraced lobbyist, or from Doolittle.
"When I have a friend that friend always remains a friend," said Fitial, who became House speaker of the Marianas in 2000 after intervention from two aides to former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. After becoming speaker Fitial pushed for Abramoff's contract to continue. [snip]
"Doolittle, he's also a friend," said Fitial.
"I feel the same way," Doolittle later told reporters on a conference call.
"I have no regrets about trying to help the Marianas in the past. It was right then and it's right now," he said.
Whitney elaborated on the current conditions on the Marianas Islands and Doolittle’s continuing support for the system of neo-slavery on the US Territory (emphasis added):
David Cohen, deputy assistant secretary of the Interior Department for insular affairs, said the commonwealth's lax immigration policies pose a national security threat to the United States.
Labor abuses on the islands -- dismissed by Republican defenders a decade ago -- are still there, though shrinking with the decline of the garment industry, Cohen said. Also still around is the trafficking in humans and forced prostitution.
In the past year, Cohen said, 36 female victims of human trafficking were served by a Catholic nonprofit organization. "All of the victims were in the sex trade," Cohen said. [snip]
"The CNMI's immigration system must be federalized as soon as possible," said the Bush administration official in support of the legislation. [snip]
Doolittle said he had not seen the revived legislation but assumed it was "some punitive bill that takes back their right to control immigration."
"It's the only territory that is free-enterprise oriented," Doolittle said. "It's a shame to hurt them rather than help them." [snip]
"A number of foreign nationals have come to the federal ombudsman's office complaining that they were promised a job after paying a recruiter thousands of dollars to come there, only to find, upon arrival in the CNMI, that there were was no job," Cohen said. "Secretary Kempthorne met personally with a young lady from China who was the victim of such a scam, and who was pressured to become a prostitute."
These charges were common during Abramoff's heyday, too, but were dismissed, along with the reform legislation.
At a 1999 House hearing, Doolittle said that any abuses were the result of the failure of the U.S. government to enforce its laws there. But Cohen said the problem is that the commonwealth controls its own borders, and the sieve-like texture of its enforcement is a threat to the security of mainland America.
Things are getting bad for Doolittle when his support for human trafficking on the CNMI is slapped down by a member of the Bush Administration. Still, Cohen may be an aberration (he is, after all, a Samoan, vegetarian Republican). Bushies like Duffy and Holt are more the norm in the modern Republican Party and they are following in the footsteps of DeLay and Abramoff to spin the system of neo-slavery on the CNMI into something that sounds like a good thing.
It is not.
Newsflash Mr. Doolittle: an economic system built on stealing the labor of others has nothing to do with free-enterprise or freedom.
The CNMI economy would collapse without a steady stream of guest workers to exploit. The locals and the system are addicted to the having their permanent underclass. They are addicted to having their modern slaves.
The way that the Pirates of Saipan analyze the situation, the trouble is not their economic system, the real problem is that long-term workers expect rights.
Their goal is to remove people who have grown to expect rights. They are wildly threatened by workers who have learned how to come together across cultural boundaries, how to organize and how to fight back (this boycott is an example). The goal is to deport these empowered workers by any means necessary and then replace them with some of the millions of fresh workers who will be easily exploited.
We need to stop this system of abuse. The only way to do that is to give these workers the rights that they have earned.
These are not "illegal immigrants". These are people who paid to come to the CNMI to work at low paying jobs in abusive conditions. They took the abuse in the hope of a better life for themselves and their families. They are the force behind the CNMI economy. They have the power to help the economy of the CNMI become self-sufficient. They just need the freedom to work, build and thrive.
We also owe the indigenous peoples of the CNMI, American Samoa and the other Pacific Islands the opportunity to have a sustainable and thriving economy that is not rooted in exploitation, corruption and environmental destruction. We owe them a system with some measures of local control to protect their unique cultures from extinction.
These are not mutually exclusive goals, despite what the Pirates of Saipan and their well-paid DC mouth-pieces will tell you. A system that requires the enslavement of others to thrive is indefensible. That is the current economic system on the CNMI and why it must change.
A few days ago, the House introduced H.R. 3079. It is the companion Bill to the Senate’s S.1634. These bills have some problems, but they need to be supported, strengthen and passed.
The goal of the Pirates and their allies is to delay legislation, slow it down and once again kill reform. We can not let them run that same game plan again.
For a very long time, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and the Republican Party blocked reform. If we fail now it will be our fault.
Contact your Senator, especially members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and urge them to support S. 1634.
Contact your Member of Congress, especially members of the Natural Resources Committee and urge them to support H.R. 3079.
And please, urge both chambers to strengthen the Legislation with amendments that would:
- Create a pathway to Citizenship for Guest Workers who have been on the CNMI for more than five years—and a Green Card for all workers with children who are US Citizens.
- Outline a clear appeals process for any worker denied Immigration Status and/or other rights by the local CNMI Government through new or existing Federal systems of appeals.
- Mandate that all CNMI entry visa programs—both work and tourist—are run by the Federal Government. (To allow the local CNMI Government to run a tourist visa program is to allow human trafficking.)
- Mandate random, spot check interviews of guest workers and tourists as they arrive and leave the CNMI to ensure that they were (and are not) victims of abuse.
There are other changes that should be made as well. These bills are a start. It is my hope that the final legislation will be real reform and end the abuse on the CNMI once and for all.
We have to use these bills as the legislative vehicle for reform because the Ethnic Weeding of workers is well underway on the CNMI. As reforms are being debated in Congress the Government of the CNMI is deporting and removing as many long time workers as they can.
In some ways, the abuse on the CNMI is different than it was ten years ago. In many, many more ways it has not changed at all.
One sad trend over the years is the absence of the workers in these deliberations of their fate. Very few folks have been talking to the workers and/or telling their story. Their voices were absent from Thursday’s Senate Hearing. They will be in the Record, but that is not the same thing.
Their voices were largely absent from the 2-8-07 Hearing Record (PDF). According to that record, the population of the CNMI in 2000 was 69,221. Less than half—30,135—were US Citizens. Slightly more than half of those Citizens—17,401—were indigenous Chamorro or Carolinian people. Another 5,000 or so are from the US mainland. Most of the remaining US Citizens are children of the foreign contract workers. These US Citizens are being exiled or orphaned when their parents are deported. Even though they are Citizens, they have no rights. And they have not been heard by Congress as legislation is considered.
That can and should change. It is time for these workers and their US Citizen children to be heard.
On August 15, the House Natural Resources Committee will hold a Hearing on the CNMI. It is important that the witness list includes the voices of the workers, their leaders and their advocates.
Congress should hear from Boni Sagana, President of Dekada or Ronnie Doca, President of Filcowa or Jerry Custodio, President of the Human Dignity Act Movement. These are all leaders working together to organize the workers and advocate for their rights.
They should call Wendy Doromal to testify about her summer spent investigating the current situation on the CNMI. They should call Lauri Ogumoro of Karidat Social Services to hear about the women her organization has rescued from the human trafficking sex trade and those they have not been able to rescue (I was told that there is a group of sixteen women imprisoned in one of the many sex clubs on the CNMI who have are still awaiting rescue).
You can help get these voices heard.
Call the members of the House Natural Resources Committee and urge them to travel to the CNMI for the Hearing. Urge them to include Wendy and others on the list of those to testify. And urge to listen to the stories of the foreign contract workers when they get there.
It is way past time to end this abuse. The 110th Congress needs to be in the game.
The Bushies and the Democratic Lobbyists the Pirates of Saipan have hired to make their case will spin, whine and do their best to deny justice once again. They will win if we do not raise the visibility of this issue.
Dover Bitch had it exactly right the other day when she cross-posted this at Digby’s Hullabaloo:
For years, the House of Representatives was a place where these victims -- on American soil legally -- could seek no relief. That can all change right now, if good Americans decide we won't let this oppression continue on U.S. soil.
It's really that simple. Either we convince a Democratic Senate and Congress to stop it right now, while the issue is in front of them, or the Senate will move on to other things and the horrors will continue. The TV isn't telling you that, but that's what the blog-o-sphere is for, right? [snip]
Sometimes it's hard to find solutions to the worst problems on earth. This one has been handed to us on a silver platter. Let's not miss this chance to do something tremendous.
Yes, let’s do something tremendous. Let’s fix this mess in a far flung corner of America.
All we have to do is care and act.
This should be a quick victory for justice.
As DB said, Here it is, Take it...