From Military.com/AP:
“Islanders Who Suffered 1940s War
Atrocities on Guam Get Paid”
For Antonina Palomo Cross,
Japan's occupation of Guam started with terror at church. The then-7-year-old
was attending Catholic services with her family when the 1941 invasion began,
setting off bomb blasts, sirens and screams. It ended with her family
surrendering their home and eventually carrying the dead body of her
malnourished baby sister on a forced march to a concentration camp. Now 85,
Cross is among more than 3,000 native islanders on Guam who are expecting to
get long-awaited compensation from the U.S. government for their suffering at
the hands of imperial Japan during World War II. Payments of $10,000 to $25,000
— federal tax money normally reserved for Guam's coffers — will be made to
those who underwent forced labor or internment, suffered severe injury or rape,
or lost loved ones during the U.S. territory's nearly three-year occupation. A
1951 peace treaty forgave Japan of the responsibility to pay reparations. “I’m
happy to get it,” Cross said after a recent meeting at central Guam's newly
opened war claims office, where she verified her payment was approved. The
amount hasn't been determined yet, but “every little bit helps,” she said. Cross
is retired from a local government job and relies on Social Security and her
pension to get by. The great-grandmother said the war claims money will come in
handy for manåmko' — “elders” in the language of Guam's indigenous Chamorro
people — like her. The United States, which first captured Guam during the
Spanish-American War, had a small contingent of troops on the island when Japan
invaded on the same December day that it attacked Pearl Harbor. Many were taken
prisoner or killed. But most of those affected by the occupation were Chamorro
people, who suffered internment, torture, rape and beheadings. More than 1,100
are estimated to have died during the occupation. For Cross' family, it meant
being forced from their house in Hagatña, the capital, to their rural farm
about 5 miles (8.1 kilometers) away before being sent to a concentration camp
in 1944. While living at the farm, Cross remembers hiding from foreign soldiers
as she walked to her Japanese school, where she was forced to learn the
Japanese language and bow in the direction of Japan with her classmates. Her
sister was among an unknown number of Chamorro children who died of
malnutrition during the occupation, which ended when the U.S. returned and
forced the Japanese to surrender in a bloody battle. Receiving the compensation
now is a bittersweet moment that caps decades of political efforts by Guam’s
nonvoting U.S. House delegates to persuade Congress that the people of Guam
deserve recognition for their suffering under Japanese occupation. “At the time
the Chamorro people were experiencing this, there was a sense of abandonment by
the U.S., and that sentiment has not gone away,” former Guam Congressman Robert
Underwood said. President Barack Obama signed the Guam war claims measure in
2016. It provides $10,000 to those who underwent forced marches or internment,
or had to escape internment; $12,000 to those who experienced forced labor or
personal injury; $15,000 to people who were severely injured or raped; and
$25,000 to children, spouses and some parents of those killed during the
occupation. The amounts reflect similar war claims paid to survivors of other
Japanese-occupied territories. Many survivors say they feel guilty receiving
compensation while their parents and siblings who have died did not. Judith
Perez, 76, was only a baby during the war and said she was hesitant to apply
for a claim. She teared up as she said the check should be going to her
parents, who have long since passed away. “It’s great to have money, but the
people who are more deserving of it are the ones who really suffered physically
and mentally, but they’re gone,” she said. A 1945 law gave Guam residents a
brief window to apply for money for war damages. But the bulk of the $8 million
in payments were for property loss, not death and injury. Guam also was left
out of subsequent legislation that provided compensation to U.S. citizens and
others who were captured by Japan during the war. In 2004, a federal Guam War
Claims Review Commission found the U.S. had a moral obligation to compensate
Guam for war damages in part because of its 1951 peace treaty with Japan. Commission
member Benjamin Cruz said the U.S. did not want to further burden Japan with
reparations as it sought to recover from the war. But the treaty effectively
prevented Guam from suing Japan for damages. Yet the current program is still
limited. Only those who were still alive when Obama signed the measure are
eligible, and they had to apply between June 2017 and June 2018. That
eliminated thousands who died over the past seven decades and anyone who missed
announcements about the deadlines. Also, the claims are to be funded with
so-called Section 30 money, federal taxes that are already remitted to Guam and
typically added to its general fund. The program is a compromise after decades
of failed attempts to get more expansive compensation supported by both
Congress and the people of Guam. However, Guam Congressman Michael San Nicolas
said the law that created the war claims program was missing language needed to
allow the U.S. Treasury to release the funds. His bill to fix that error passed
the Senate this month and is headed to the House. Rather than wait and risk
more war survivors dying before receiving their checks, Guam politicians
decided to start issuing payments using local money meant for Medicaid. Krystal
Paco-San Agustin, spokeswoman for Guam Gov. Lourdes Leon Guerrero, said the
government expects to be reimbursed with Section 30 funds once San Nicolas’
bill passes. “It’s a small amount, and it’s definitely in no way enough to undo
the pain of the past, but it’s a token of our respect, our admiration and our
love for them,” Paco said. Emotions were mixed at the war claims office as
dozens lined up earlier this month, several with canes, walkers and
wheelchairs. Jesus Meno San Nicolas, 86, recalled his sister hiding in a tree
to escape soldiers looking for women to rape. He was forced to work six days a
week in the rice fields as an 8-year-old, walking more than 2 miles (3.2
kilometers) each way every day. He also helped grow cabbage, radishes and other
food for the Japanese. His brothers had to work on the airfield. Once, a
Japanese soldier told him to leave the house so he could rape a female
relative. Meno San Nicolas still remembers her screaming. He almost didn’t file
a claim. “It’s not worth it for the money, what they do to us in the family,”
he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
^ Since 1945 the US Federal
Government has done everything wrong in terms of compensating American civilian
victims in Japanese-occupied territories during World War 2 (that includes:
Guam, the Philippines, Alaska.) Even this current program has many flaws with
its 1 year timeframe to apply and all the loopholes. The US Federal Government stated
in 1951 that the Japanese Government did not have to pay war reparations
(another mistake) and so since then it has been the Federal Government’s responsibility
to help the American citizens and nationals affected by the war and Japanese
occupation and yet they failed them for decades. It is long over-due for the US
to start doing what it should have done back in 1945. ^
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