IT is the constitutional right of citizens of this country to seek redress of their grievances before the courts.  If the Supreme Court can’t deliver justice I truly despair to think of where one could find justice.
It is never too early to stand up and say the obvious, but often we are too late.  This is true particularly with America’s World War II POWs who survived the horrendous brutality in Japan, most, if not all of them, have died in vain.  Congress ruled their plight to sue Japan’s war crimes was against “the interest of America” — the administration and judiciary remain silent.  America was and still is representing the interest of Japan rather than America’s patriots.
We, on Guam, have always held the belief that nothing can replace economic freedoms, liberty, and justice long before there was a United States of America.  Guam was independent and had flourished for thousands of years through thick and thin even throughout the manmade havoc of World War II.
Passionate greed is the greatest enemy of man.  Guam’s economic freedoms and justice changed with the arrival of foreign powers.  The irony is that foreign powers brought with them Christianity and democracy, but practiced “might makes right” instead.  Might makes right has been made politically correct rather than the rule of law.
Looking back on World War II, the natives of Guam stood up for America, bore the burden, and paid the price.  Some of this abuse is illustrated in “Robinson Crusoe, U.S.N.” by George R. Tweed as told to Blake Clark and D. Turner Givens.  Yet, after the war, America ignored the sacrifices.  In addition, America denied the people of Guam their fundamental human rights.  These are the reasons Guam will never return to the balance of prewar.
After World War II, America’s elected representatives committed “professional misconduct,” a crime that resulted in a horrific miscarriage of justice.  That legal fiasco destroyed democracy on U.S. soil and caused a people who were without a voice then, and still without a voice today, to be grossly mistreated and ignored to this day. 
Briefly, the issues are:
1. The forceful taking of privately own lands after the war that transformed Guam from self-sufficiency into dependency.  Property rights restored, Guam will be self-sufficient again, but the local “leaders” gravitate to taking federal government largess, corruption, fraud, waste and even occupying lands the federal government vacated.
2. The long-awaited war reparations for the injuries suffered from the three long years of brutal occupation.  The people of Guam faced, among other cruelty, such treatment as rape, torture, and gruesome death similar to the POWs in Japan.
3. The humiliating bailout existence under the Organic Act of Guam.  People on Guam are constantly being assaulted psychologically and financially day and night.  This kind of assault is its own unthinkable kind of terrorist violence.  The mistreatment affects which schools and health care can be afforded.  It adversely affects lives, which limits what they will become for more than five generations.
Granted, Guam receives the most generous financial contribution of any American jurisdiction.  But the money from Uncle Sam is hush money.  Money is used for handouts and not for restoring economic freedoms and certainly no justice rendered.
The mistakes of the elected representatives at both the federal and local levels are profound disappointments to peace and freedom loving people everywhere.  The mistakes are like the ruthless enemy.  This is most alarming as the mistakes are attacking the core values of America from within.
Can a people once proud and self-reliant for eons, but now conditioned to be poor, divest of their dignity and pride have recourse?  I think, yes, if and when America rights its wrongs, first, on its soil.  The justices of the Supreme Court would be conscientious in agreeing to the prolonged severe mistreatment of Americans of Guam as with the POWs.
 
TONY ARTERO
Submariner, U.S. Navy (Ret.)