IT’S amazing what implications has brought about to our little island with the talk of increased minimum wage and the possibility of federal takeover to the 400 plus Dekada members or roughly 10 percent of members who picketed demanding equal rights as locals.
I was intrigued by the signs of Pelosi and Miller being held by the people in attendance waving them as if the two were gods or their saviors, begging to be rescued from a damned island and sent to the plantations of California or the patrolling the streets of Iraq. It’s amazing what $50 can do when you pay people to hold signs.
Our masters never wanted the CNMI to be a self-governing island or an island that promoted manufacturing growth. Historically, the United States has always been at the forefront of condemning countries of wrongdoing and brainwashing countries and people with the ideology of being “Equal Americans” and “Democracy.”
The United Nations declares that all Trust and non self-governing territories or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race, creed or color, in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom.
The United Nations further declared that all peoples have an inalienable right to complete freedom, the exercise of their sovereignty and the integrity of their national territory. The United Nations definition differs greatly from the United States version of democracy, freedom, equality which reserves those rights for white Americans.
Remember the Hawaiian Island Kingdom that was invaded by over 160 United States Marines in Jan. 1893 after a signed treaty was performed by the two nations. It was all but forgotten until President Bill Clinton signed Senate Resolution 19 on Nov. 23, 1993 which was a formal apology by the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Puerto Rico in the 1980s reported repeated fraud against the United States to the United Nations for its claim that the people of Puerto Rico had freely chosen association with the United States while in reality tens of thousands supported independence.
Some people say independence is not the key but since 1962 we have seen former island nations turned toward independence beginning with American Samoa and former Trust Territories such as the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Belau.
Our islands and its people cannot sustain economic prosperity, self governance, and guaranteed inalienable rights against American tyranny if we cannot unite as one island, one people and one voice and express our intent to renegotiate our political status.
A prominent local, former senator, the late Angel Santos founder of the Chamoru Nation on Guam, was once portrayed as a disloyal and disrespectful local activist by the federal government, but who would have thought that one man’s will with a united front would ultimately have the federal government returning back excess lands back to the original land owners.
Ultimately, we are headed for the same damnation as Hawaii, and Guam with the U.S. taking away our lands, submerged lands, rights and beliefs as free first class citizens and most especially as human beings if cannot unite the same way Angel Santos did for the local people of Guam.

DANNY AQUINO JR.
Susupe, Saipan