Wendy Doromal is a human rights activist who lived on the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands between 1984 and 1995. She worked for the Department of the Interior in 1998 investigating labor abuses in the territory. Recently, Doromal received the Spirit of Service Award from the Corporation for National and Community Service, presented by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Ms. Doromal has a thing or two to say about Bob Schaffer's important role in the legislative cover-up of the situation there.
Schaffer, a true foot soldier for the A-Team, followed the lobbyist's play book as outlined in the "secret memo." [Link added] Schaffer and his wife visited the CNMI on one of the Abramoff junkets a month before the September 16, 1999 hearing. The timing was important as the memo noted:
"With the cancellation of the Young trip, it would be wise for the CNMI to host a group of Resources Committee members at some time prior to the hearings. Otherwise Miller will be the member of that committee most recently in the CNMI and this will place us at a distinct disadvantage."
Schaffer received campaign contributions from Fitial and Jerry Tan and in return he was a major public supporter of Fitial's bid for governor in 2001. He even took out a full page ad in the Saipan Tribune, the newspaper owned by Tan, boasting to be "Ben and Rita's friend." Read this post to learn about more political friends of Fitial.)
In return, Schaffer provided "bail out" money for the CNMI according to this October 5, 2001 Saipan Tribune story:
"Fitial said he learned from his friends in the US Congress that the CNMI will be receiving a substantial amount of financial assistance from certain departments in the federal government.
"I talked to my friend Cong. Bob Schaffer over the phone and he told me that this assistance will be coming very, very soon," said Fitial.
CNMI’s share of the bailout money is projected to be in the millions, he added."
Continuing to detail the inner workings of the strategy to suppress rights in the CNMI through Abramoff cronies like Tom DeLay, John Doolittle, and others prominently including Schaffer, Doromal turns to the logistics of schaffer's claim that he "inspected" 20 garment factories on Saipan in four days:
What garment factories did Schaffer tour?
Schaffer claimed to have visited 20 factories on his trip to Saipan according this Denver Post article:
"Bob Schaffer, accompanied by his wife, said he visited more than 20 textile factories during the trip to investigate claims of labor violations and found problems in only one. He also described the protectorate's guest-worker rules as a "model" for the U.S. immigration system."
Twenty factories? Really? It would be logistically impossible to visit 20 garment factories considering that he was on the island for four days, and went para-sailing, attended meetings including those with Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association and the Western Pacific Economic Council, and visited historical sites according to the Denver Post article.
And Schaffer's denial of the practice of coerced abortions in Chinese-owned Saipan garment factories?
Perhaps he should have read the 1998 report and the hundreds of attachments which contained a statement by a woman who was told she must have an abortion. Her story was told in the Philadelphia Inquirer on February 8, 1998...
Also, in the report are statements and documentation from investigators who uncovered clinics on Saipan that performed abortions in 1998. One investigator interviewed a former Chinese factory worker about working conditions in the factories. The worker confirmed that pregnant Chinese workers were told to have an abortion. From her statement:
"According to Miss Y, if the company found out a worker became pregnant they would fire her and return her to China where she would be "forced to have an abortion." Knowing this, workers who became pregnant either tried to self abort or fond someone in Saipan to perform the abortion. Some women ran away and hid so they didn't have to have an abortion."
Of course, Schaffer could not admit that there may be evidence of coerced abortion. That was not in the game plan. One of the key players at the 1998 Senate Hearing was the Traditional Values Coalition, an organization said to be tied into the Abramoff web. In fact, it was the Traditional Values Coalition who funded the $13,000 trip that Schaffer and his wife took to the CNMI in 1999. Executive Director, Andrea Sheldon Rafferty was also an Abramoff foot soldier and took a junket to the CNMI.
Andrea Sheldon appeared outside the hearing room in 1998. She was distributing a handbill calling the hearing a "sham" because their prepared witnesses who wanted to refute the documented incidences of coerced abortions and religious persecution were not asked to testify. I watched her confront one witness, Eric Gregoire who testified that as the former human rights advocate for the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa.
She yelled at him, "Why didn't you tell me about forced abortions when I was in Saipan?"
Former Chinese garment worker, Sui Jian Wei also testified that day concerning coerced abortions. From his testimony:
"I see Chinese workers have to get an abortion. I know Chinese doctors who do the abortions."
The CNMI government claimed that abortions could not take place in the CNMI because abortion is illegal. A May 10, 2000 Saipan Tribune article states:
Under the Constitution, abortion is prohibited. The Legislature, however, can lift that ban. At present, there is no local statutory law that penalizes such practices here.
Abortion has become a thorny issue in the CNMI following allegations leveled by the federal government that it allows forced abortions here, particularly among the nonresident workers coming from the People’s Republic of China.
It also has been one of the reasons used by the Clinton administration to justify attempts to extend federal immigration and labor laws to the island. Local leaders have repeatedly denied these accusations.
Loyal A-Team member Bob Schaffer still follows their line.
Doromal goes on and on, systematically debunking every statement about the that Schaffer has made in his defense since the story of his involvement in the CNMI scandal broke over a week ago. But perhaps the worst action taken by Schaffer as part of the Abramoff Marianas cover-up strategy was his unwarranted attacks on a victim of labor abuses in the CNMI who had the temerity to come to Washington and testify.
It was Schaffer's role and behavior in the September 16, 1999 House Hearing that demonstrated his obedience to the game plan outlined in the Abramoff memo. Part of that plan was to attack Allen Stayman who was the Deputy Secretary of Insular Affairs for the Department of Interior. Schaffer's most insidious act was the badgering of a hearing witness, former CNMI guest worker, Nousher Jahedi.
I first met Nousher in January 1998 when I was hired by the Clinton Administration's Department of Interior to lead a seven-member team of human rights advocates and attorneys to investigate and document the current status of the foreign contract workers in the CNMI. After video-taping and interviewing over 400 guest workers, including Nousher, a report, entitled CNMI Labor and Human Rights Abuse Status Report, was issued. The report had hundreds of pages of attachments which included police complaints, labor cases, workers' testimonies, statistical data, video footage, audio tapes, and newspaper articles. It was given to key members of Congress, cabinet members, members of the House Natural Resource Committee and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Former Rep. Bob Schaffer must have seen that report because he was a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources...
The Global Survival Network, for the most part, retraced the path that we had laid in the 1998 investigative trip, wrote a report which reinforced what had been written in the 1998 report, and made a video similar to the one I had made previously. Their findings matched those of the 1998 investigative team and served as an updated reconfirmation of our investigation and report.
The Global Survival Network brought Nousher to Washington, D.C. to testify at the September 16, 1999 House Committee Hearing. At around 12:30am on the morning of the hearing, I was awakened by a call from Nousher. He was very concerned that Congressman Bob Schaffer had called him earlier that evening to quiz him about how he got to Washington, DC, what kind of visa he had, what he was doing in the states, who helped him write his testimony and similar questions. I thought it was very unusual that a U.S. Congressman would call a witness before a hearing. I had never heard of this before.
The September 16, 1999 hearing was a total mockery of justice. I planned on going, but canceled my flight because a hurricane was set to hit the East Coast. Nousher told me he was drilled relentlessly by Schaffer with questions about federal officials, Department of Interior officials, who paid for protests conducted by guest workers in Saipan. The transcript of the hearing reveals that House Resources Committee Chair Don Young, and members Bob Schaffer and John Doolittle turned the hearing upside down by following the memo's strategy of going after Mr. Stayman and other DOI officials, while ignoring the purpose of the hearing.
Clearly, Schaffer was given the questions to ask the witnesses by members of the A-Team. He did not question Nousher about the condition of the workers. He questioned him about his participation in a February 1999 rally organized to get the attention of visiting House Resources Committee Chair, Don Young (R-Alaska)...
I'm not doing justice to this chilling report by clipping it apart. You--reporters, Democrats, Republicans, everyone--need to read the whole thing for yourself, and then demand answers from Bob Schaffer. What response to this is even possible? Who will deny, with all the facts in view, that Schaffer consciously, deliberately enabled a medieval nightmare of abuse and exploitation on American soil?
We are waylaid at every step in America today by partisan schisms, team-sports loyalties that force too many of us to equivocate things that we should be able to stand together and condemn with one voice. This is one of those times when there should be no daylight between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. What was allowed to happen in the Northern Mariana Islands up until now was unequivocally wrong, and all who aided it must pay a high price.
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