Commonwealth of the Morthern Mariana Islanvge?=—™* 122
Office of the Governor
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NOV 21 1984
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Mr. Frank C. Canahan, Director
United States General Accounting Office
National Security and International
Affairs Division
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr.
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Canahan:
Thank you for providing us with a copy of the draft report
entitled "ISSUES AFFECTING U.S. TERRITORIAL AND INSULAR
POLICY".
It is gratifying to us that an agency of the Federal
Government is reviewing problem areas in an effort to improve
relationships between the Territories and the United States.
The task is enormous when one considers the political, social,
cultural and economic diversity of the various flag territories, commonwealths and emerging independent entities who have
chosen free association with the United States. While we have
‘much in common, our goals and aspirations may differ greatly
from other Micronesia entities and our relationship with the
United States may be different.
For example, although we are
geographically close to the Territory of Guam and share a
common culture and language, Guam has been a flag territory
since 1898 and has been self-governing for a far greater period
of time.
In contrast, because the United States never
exercised sovereignty over the Northern Mariana Islands, many
problems which Guam faces are not relevant to us. For example,
the land takings issue and Commonwealth status are not issues
which we must deal with, as the Federal Government never seized
lands and we have already negotiated Commonwealth status by
mutually agreeing to the Covenant.
(U.S. Public Law 94-241.)
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This background information and brief explanation should give
you an understanding as to why our areas of concern may differ
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greatly from other territories and insular possessions.
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First, as a general statement, we have had excellent relationships with the Department of Interior, the Department of State,
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Congress and the multitude of federal agencies which we have
dealt with since January 1978. Obviously, major areas of
disagreement have arisen which will be mentioned later but, for
the most part, problems have been resolved through negotiations
and compromise.
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Many of these problems involved the fact that
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APPENDIX