By Dave Davis
For Variety

FORMER Senator B.J. Cruz and Antonio Artero Sablan, Chamorro Nation stalwarts, recently guested on the K-57 Big Show. Their presence made for lively talk radio, and it didn’t take long for the show to deteriorate into another whining session fueled by the usual lineup of ‘oppressed’ Chamorro activist callers, seemingly to a man (or woman) complaining about second class citizenship (a specious charge: their citizenship is exactly the same as mine) and the perennial lament that some nebulous ‘they’ is obstructing their quest for self determination.
Who would ‘they’ be? Would it be their Chamorro governor and lt. governor? Would it be their Chamorro legislature? Their Chamorro Decolonization Commission, perhaps (of which the governor is the chairman)? They still don’t get it. The ‘they’ is themselves.
B.J. claims there are about 1,000 ‘native inhabitants of Guam’—those theoretically eligible to vote in a political status plebiscite — who signed up on the Decolonization Register. That’s probably optimistic. If true, however, it means that the list, now in existence for nearly 10 years, has added about 650 signatures since I last checked it over three years ago. At that time, there was exactly one elected official on the list: former Attorney General Douglas Moylan.
I wonder how many have since signed up. Probably not many, because they know, or should know, that the enabling legislation is racially discriminatory, inorganic and unconstitutional, and they’d mostly rather not be associated with it when it’s eviscerated in federal court.
As his excuse for failing to do anything noticeable for the self-determination cause while in legislative office, former Senator Cruz claims that P.L. 25-106 is a stand-alone solution to the self-determination quest. He offers no explanation of why his failed gubernatorial running mate, Carl Gutierrez, completely ignored the issue during his eight years as governor and chairman of the Decolonization Commission. Even as he prattles about someday attaining the magical 70 percent of eligible voters the law requires, he must be well aware that it can never survive a legal challenge. If not, he’s not doing his homework.
The Chamorro-only plebiscite scheme is as valid as his irresponsible claims that Japanese Diet member Shimoji came to assure us that Japan’s $6.5 billion contribution to the troop relocation is earmarked for “the people of Guam.” He’s not doing anyone any favor by foisting these feel-good fairy tales on an impressionable public, and he should be ashamed for doing it.