Please Hold On, On Guam

My initial reaction to this via Michelle - please see Gateway Pundit and RedState, too - was WHAT?

And that may still be the response you choose, but there is a lot more here than meets the eye, so far as I can tell. Some of these people, most of them dead, may have been due this money for a long, long time. This legislation has meandered about since right after the Second World War.

2005: WHEN the United States waived claims of reparations against the Japanese following World War II, it essentially assumed the burden of paying compensation to residents of U.S. territories. Guam residents who suffered brutality at the hands of their Japanese for 30 months are still waiting for compensation, comparable to that paid to residents of Micronesia and the Philippines.

There is a long history here and it is not a Democrat versus Republican issue. If we denied them the right to seek reparations from Japan by treaty, a gut reaction may not be right. I'd at least want time to see if these monies have ever been paid.

(7) On June 9, 1945, in a letter from the Honorable H. Strive Hensel, Acting Secretary of the Navy, to the Honorable Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Hensel transmitted proposed legislation to provide relief to the residents of Guam through the settlement of meritorious claims.

(8) On November 15, 1945, the Guam Meritorious Claims Act (Public Law 79-224) authorized the Secretary of the Navy to adjudicate and settle claims, for a period of 1 year, for property damage occurring on Guam during the occupation of Japanese forces. Certification of claims in excess of $5,000 or any claims for personal injury or death were to be forwarded to Congress.

(9) On January 8, 1947, United States Navy Secretary James Forrestal appointed a civilian commission, referred to as the Hopkins Commission, to study and make recommendations on the Naval administration of Guam.

(10) On March 25, 1947, the Hopkins Commission submitted a report (hereinafter referred to as the `Report') to Navy Secretary Forrestal, which summarized that settlements and payments for war damaged claims on property, personal injury, and death had proceeded slowly and stated that immediate steps should be taken to hasten this process and to remove unsound and unfair distinctions in the allowance for claims.

(11) The Report also stated that when many claimants were advised that the local Naval Claims Commission had power to settle and make immediate payments of claims not in excess of $5,000 but that claims above that amount must go to Washington for further action with an indefinite time required for payment, they offered or agreed to reduce their claim to below $5,000 and accept the loss above that amount, in order to receive money for much-needed personal rehabilitation.

Also see here: The list of reparations is stark: For rape, paralysis or loss of a limb, $15,000; for forced labour, scarring or disfigurement, $12,000; for internment or forced march, $10,000.

Marian Johnston Taitano is 86, the daughter of a Chamorro mother and an American father from Tennessee who was working on Guam in the civil service in 1941.

When the Japanese invaded, Taitano was 21 and engaged to a US Navy ensign, a gunnery officer. His ship, the USS Penguin, was returning from patrol when the Japanese attacked.

“He happened to be the first American that shed his blood,” Taitano said. “When the Japanese came, the fire (from the planes) cut him across the chest.”

His shipmates put the body on a raft and pushed it to shore.

Taitano’s father, William Johnston, was taken prisoner and then shifted to Japan in 1942 with about 500 American military personnel and civilians. She never saw him again.

Comments

[seekeronos]

Methinks that Ms. Taitano will be long gone from this earth by the time the government would get around to paying out the compensations.

In Japanese, we call this kind of fatal procrastination by the word 黙殺 or "mokusatsu"...

"..kill with silence".