Right to Democracy cofounders Adi Martinez-Roman, left, and Neil Weare at a press conference on Saipan in August.
AT a press conference on Thursday, Aug. 31, Adi Martinez-Roman and Neil Weare, co-directors of Right to Democracy, announced that they will build advocacy networks in the CNMI through community engagement activities.
The press conference took place at the Marianas Alliance of Non-Governmental Organizations or MANGO office and was organized by former Rep. Sheila Babauta.
Martinez-Roman, a native of Puerto Rico, said their organization’s mission is to “build a movement to promote democracy and self-determination in the U.S. territories.”
She said because of the Insular Cases, “sovereignty and the capacity to legislate over the territories [are] in the hands of [the U.S. Congress].” This amounts to colonialism, she added.
According to an NPR article, the Insular Cases are a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions from the early 1900s that granted full constitutional rights to “incorporated” territories of the United States. Like Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the CNMI is an “unincorporated” territory of the United States.
Martinez-Roman said for now, their objective is to further dialogues between the U.S. territories, with the ultimate goal of overcoming challenges associated with the Insular Cases.
“We begin by listening,” she said. “Literally that’s what we’re doing just listening — what the concerns are and just trying to understand where they come from.”
Martinez-Roman said she and Weare are on a five-day mission on island, during which they will attend meetings and panels “to listen and understand the challenges that are faced by the community and their views of what it will entail to solve them.”
Martinez-Roman and Weare hosted a live community discussion the night before on Aug. 30 at the American Memorial Park Visitor Center hosted by Babauta.
Martinez-Roman and Weare had also concluded networking missions in Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands prior to their arrival on Saipan. They plan to continue their mission in American Samoa.
“Democracy means something different to everybody,” said Weare, who was raised in Guam. “That means different things to people within the territories — that means different things between the territories. Our view is that there’s not one correct answer for what that looks like. It can look something different in each of these areas because people can have different conceptions of what that means.”
Weare said a central idea of their group includes allowing territorial residents the right to more direct representation.
“Our focus is on the idea that everyone should have power and a say in the decisions that impact their lives,” he said.
“In Guam and in talking to the people in the [Northern Mariana Islands], all too often decisions are made that impact our communities that aren’t being made by local elected representatives here. They’re being made by the U.S Congress, the president and federal courts where people in the territories lack a say.”
He said the territories are underrepresented in federal decisions that impact them.
“One of the things that has really come out through these conversations with communities in Guam and the [NMI], Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands so far is this idea that people want to…have a say in the rules they have to follow.”
