[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 199 (Thursday, December 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14908-H14909]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kim). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Guam [Mr. Underwood] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD, Mr. Speaker, this week has been proclaimed by 
President Clinton as ``International Human rights Week'' to commemorate 
the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
  The United States is a world leader in advancing the cause of human 
rights and is a signatory to two international treaties that guarantee 
these human rights, the U.N. Charter, and the International Covenant of 
Civil and Political Rights. Both of these treaties have been ratified 
by the U.S. Senate, and are therefore binding.
  I call our Nation's attention to Article I of the U.N. Charter and 
Article I of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights--
in both treaties, the right to self-determination of peoples is 
affirmed.
  Self-determination for non-self governing peoples is the foundation 
from which other human rights are exercised. Guam is a non self-
governing territory, and its status as a non self-governing territory 
whose people are entitled to exercise self-determination is 
specifically stated in the U.N. Charter. And we should note that Guam 
was placed on the United Nation's list of the non self-governing 
territories by the United States over 47 years ago.
  Within this context, it should be of great concern to this Congress 
and to the President that the desires of the people of Guam to exercise 
their rights and to improve their political status have not been met 
with the same fervor and the same level of attention that the United 
States gives to other peoples' problems.
  Every year it is always someone else or some other nation who needs 
to repair its record on human rights and self-determination. But what 
about Guam? What about our desires for political rights and for our 
exercise of self-determination by our indigenous people?
  As President Clinton stated in his proclamation, ``Peoples throughout 
the world look to the United States for leadership on human rights.'' 
Yes. Mr. President, that is correct, and to this I would add that 
people in the non self-governing colonies of the United States look to 
you for leadership on human rights. We look to you to respond to Guam's 
desire to create a new commonwealth within the American political 
family. And we look to you to respond to our desire to exercise self-
determination in deciding our political status.
  We ask that the United States fulfill the commitments it made to the 
people of Guam and to the community of nations when it signed and 
ratified the U.N. Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights and to be responsive to the inherent political 
commonsense of this Nation to extend full democracy everywhere.
  So far, the Federal Government's reaction has been sincere pledges to 
respond to Guam. And, for a while there, the Clinton administration 
looked like it had the commitment to respond in a serious way to Guam's 
efforts. But now we are stuck in neutral because of what surely would 
look like a comedy of errors, albeit unintentional, on the part of the 
administration. We have now gone through three status negotiators in 
1995 alone. We have been unable to negotiate because there is now no 
one to negotiate with.
  Can you imagine this happening with the Bosnian peace talks? Why 
would United Nation and international commitments now be meaningless 
when applied to a United States colony?
  I call on the administration today to heed its own words, to live up 
to the 

[[Page H14909]]
international commitments and international standards of human rights 
that it has agreed to in the U.N. Charter.
  We normally think of human rights violations as the violent denial of 
basic freedoms in many parts of the world. There is the denial of free 
expression and the incarceration of dissident voices. This is the 
violent abuse of human rights.
  But there are other forms. In much the same way that the neglect of 
children is also a form of child abuse as is violent behavior, ignoring 
the political desires of a people for whom you have a responsibility 
qualifies as an abuse of human rights. The people of Guam have spoken 
through local referenda and they deserve serious and sustained 
attention to their political aspirations. To ignore these political 
aspirations is an abuse of human rights by neglect.
  The Congress and the President as the representatives of the American 
people have consistently delivered the message throughout the world 
that good government can only begin when there is true consent of the 
governed. This is the core American creed. In the American territory of 
Guam, the vast majority of laws, the very political structure that the 
people live under are determined not by the people, but by a Congress 
in which they have no voting representation and by a President they 
have not elected.
  Government through the consent of the governed is the most basic of 
all political rights and should remain the cornerstone of the structure 
of human rights. We should challenge ourselves to make sure that human 
rights are defended not just under the American flag when our troops 
are deployed in foreign lands, but that these human rights are also 
defended under the American flag when it flies over the non self-
governing U.S. territories.

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