More than 3,000 native Guamanians will get payments of $10,000 to $25,000 as compensation from the U.S. government for their suffering at the hands of imperial Japan during World War II.
FILE - This Nov. 1, 1944 file photo shows the first religious service on Guam after U.S. landings are attended by soldiers, Nov. 1, 1944. An indigenous Chamorro serves as altar boy in this improvised hut. The 1941 Japanese invasion of Guam, which happened on the same December day as the attack on Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, set off years of forced labor, internment, torture, rape and beheadings. More than 75 years later, thousands of people on Guam, a U.S.
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.
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. “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.
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.
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.
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