From left, Kimberlyn King-Hinds, Neil Weare, Pamela Colon, Charles V. Ala’ilima and William Fife.
AHEAD of a panel discussion on U.S. territorial rights, Right to Democracy founder Neil Weare and the other panelists held a press conference on Monday at the Garapan Public Market.
Weare said the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the CNMI and Guam have common civil rights issues. These include the lack of U.S. voting rights for the territories.
Weare, who is from Guam, and the other panelists are lawyers: Charles V. Ala’ilima of American Samoa, Pamela Colon of the U.S. Virgin Islands and Kimberlyn King-Hinds of the CNMI.
They discussed “Advancing Democracy, Equity, and Self-Determination in US Territories: Cross Territorial Perspectives” on Monday evening at the American Memorial Park Theater.
The moderator was William J. Fife III, a lawyer and an associate professor of Northern Marianas College.
According to Weare, Right to Democracy “works…to bring together all five U.S. territories to advance democracy, equity, and self-determination for the nearly 3.6 million people that live in all five U.S. territories.”
He said he and Right to Democracy co-founder Adi Martinez-Roman of Puerto Rico have spent a year conducting civil rights research in the territories, including in the CNMI in August 2023 when they conducted interviews with island residents.
“We’ve found…so many lessons and opportunities just by connecting [with] individuals who are working on one set of issues in a place like the Northern Mariana Islands, and [other] folks who are working on the same issues in another territory, [and we found out] how much they actually have in common and [how they] can learn from each other,” Weare said.
