The hypocrisy of the Republican Party is stunning.

For over 12 years they have protected the system of abuse that is flourishing on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a US Territory in the Western Pacific just North of Guam.

Tom DeLay used to call the CNMI his "...perfect petri dish of capitalism". For Tom and his ilk, the CNMI was a shinning ideal—a playground of experimentation. And it was an experiment in unrestricted greed, abuse and exploitation.

What grew in DeLay’s Petri dish were decades of well documented, detailed and irrefutable cases of sweatshops, forced prostitution, rape, money laundering, gambling, graft, corruption and incompetence. This growing system of abuse has been reported to Congress multiple times since 1985. By 1995 the Pirates of Saipan hired Jack Abramoff to block any reform. It worked.

The Marianas Islands is infected with a culture of abuse. It is out of control and still going strong. John Bowe’s book illustrates how the CNMI has become the face of Modern Slavery in America. There are no chains, just the coercion of rigged laws, inequality, neglect and a permanent underclass of workers without rights.

The Marianas Islands have become a place where justice, regulation, integrity, honor and the rule of law have been eaten by the cancer of corruption Mr. DeLay and his Party have nurtured in his perti dish. It is a corrupt model of exploitation that the Republican Party is bringing to America and the world.

To sell the CNMI "economic model" to gullible Americans, they needed to spend some time there. One "famous" trip was the Don Young Congressional delegation of February 1999. It was this trip that solidified the Republican Leadership in the House to act as a firewall to block reform legislation. Despite the fact that there were bi-partisan majorities to pass CNMI reform legislation, a vote was never held.

Willie Tan, the patron of the K St. Project and head Pirate of Saipan explained how it was done to an uncover investigator just months after the Young CODEL:

Willie Tan: Sure. You know what Tom [DeLay] told me? He said, [Willie], if they elect me as majority whip, I make the schedule of the congress. And I'm not going to put it on the schedule. They got to go through all committee before it come to me. Even if it come to me, I'm not going to schedule it. What, are they going to have a motion to get it from my committee, they will not do that--who are you? So Tom told me, forget it, [Willie], not a chance. Investigator: And you're sure his loyalties aren't going to change? Willie Tan: We very close friend. And you know what he did, he call those guys. He call up the guy who is in charge of the committee, his name is Don Young from Alaska. Investigator: Yeah, I know who he is. Willie Tan: And he said Don, nothing wrong with CNMI. He say, you gotta go there. If this is slave labor, mistreatment, those kind of thing, go after them. It's all not true. And they change--what's the problem? You guys are trying to do something right into wrong. Tom explain to them. So, Don Young backed off.

So Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff sent Don Young off to the CNMI to lead the effort to block reform legislation.

It was a 27 person delegation that included Delegates to Congress from other US Territories, staff members and five Members of Congress. The February 15, 1999 edition of the Marianas Variety promoted the coming trip (emphasis added):

Headed by the committee chair, US Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), the delegation includes US Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California), John Doolittle (R-California), Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota), Ken Calvert (R-California), Eni Faleomaveaga (D-American Samoa), Robert Underwood (D-Guam) and Donna Christensen (D-Virgin Islands). The lone Democrat on the delegation, with voting rights, Peterson is a member of the US House Agriculture and Veteran Affairs Committees. For Rohrabacher, it will be his second visit to the CNMI. During floor discussions last year in the US House of Representatives, he defended the CNMI's control over its immigration and minimum wage policies.

The delegation arrived on the 18th. Hundreds of foreign contract workers were waiting to meet with them. They had hoped that these Representatives of the US Congress were coming to learn. Instead, the Young delegation ignored them, dismissed them and, in effect, endorsed the abuse. John Bowe’s book lays out the details of their lazy exploration of charges of labor abuse and the explains the type of fact-finding that the Young CODEL was really after (emphasis added):

Later that weekend, a group of at least three congress members took their fact-finding mission to a Filipina strip club called Orchids, owned by a local businessman named Benigno Fitial. The club, was popular with local government officials and visiting VIPs looking for a good time. Later, the gang moved on to another club, called Russian Roulette, which featured Russian strippers. According to one source who was professionally obligated to accompany the delegation around the island, "I've never seen grown men—they were just like kids!" He reported that he sat next to one congressman, who was neither drinking nor getting into the action, while the others "were running to the back of the place into these little stalls to get blow jobs. That's why they were there." I spoke with the congressman he sat next to. He admitted to being in the club but described it not as a strip club but as a karaoke bar. He assured me, "There really wasn't much going on." Neither the congressman nor my source were able to remember the names of the allegedly misbehaving congressmen.

So, there were five Congressmen on the trip. One was the source. At least three went club hopping. At least two US Congressmen were running to the "little stalls" to get blow jobs. Instead of investigating human trafficking, forced prostitution and labor abuse—these Congressmen were giddy sexual tourists.

To review, it could have been:

Don Young (AK-AL)

Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46)

John Doolittle (CA-04)

Collin Peterson (MN-07)

Ken Calvert (CA-44)

This should become a National a guessing game: Who got "serviced" in Saipan?

For my money, I would say it was Peterson who was the source. The news reports of the trip had him talking about the abuse of the workers and he was not one of Jack’s Congressmen.

On the other hand, Young, Doolittle, Calvert and Rohrabacher were firmly on Team Abramoff. I suspect the club hoppers were in this group. Of the four, I don’t see Doolittle heading to the back room for sex (he was most likely in another back room pocketing a bribe campaign contribution).

The most likely suspects are Young, Calvert and Rohrabacher, especially Rohrabacher.

It would be good to push this and have the GOP explain yet another sex scandal. And while they’re at it, they could explain their hands-on support for human trafficking, especially because the abuse is still rampant on the CNMI.

Last February, the Senate held a Hearing on Legislation to end the abuse on the CNMI. One of the speakers was a young woman from the Philippians Kayleen Entena. Her written statement is chilling and all too familiar for those of us following the long tail of abuse on the CNMI. She tells of coming to the CNMI to work at a job that vanished when she arrived. Then she was forced into prostitution. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of these abuse narratives gathered from the "guest workers" to the CNMI over the last 25 years. Some were described in reports to Congress, and other testified in a Hearing just like Kayleen.

Another young woman, Katrina, told a similar story to Congress in 1998 and by 1999 she was telling her story to ABC News in an episode of 20/20 broadcasted just months after some US Congressmen went on a sex adventure, participating in the abuse of other young woman in the coerced sex shops of Saipan.

In a flash of hypocrisy, one of those Congressmen was Dana Rohrabacher who helped Abramoff push back on the story of Katrina’s abuse when it came out in a 1997 Readers Digest Article.

And earlier this month, the Marianas Variety reported that a minor was among those "almost" rescued from forced sexual servitude:

The Moon Night Club was recently raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Attorney General’s Office Investigative Unit where a minor was found working as a nude dancer, Variety sources said. The 17-year-old was "deported" to the Philippines after the raid, the same sources said.

Did you get that?

A victim of human trafficking—a 17 year-old—was deported to fall back into the human trafficking networks. This is the standard MO of the current Government of the CNMI—to deport victims of abuse before they can get justice. There is an aggressive and active form of ethnic cleansing underway on the CNMI. The target is any foreign contract worker who might get justice—if reform legislation is passed.

And CNMI reform legislation has been introduced House, H.R. 3079 and in the Senate, S. 1634.

Both Bills are similar and both share common flaws. Perhaps the most glaring is that these invited workers in the CNMI—who are there legally and have been there for years and years—do not have any pathway to US Citizenship.

While these Bills have some problems, it is important to remember that the goal of the Pirates of Saipan and their allies is to delay legislation, slow it down and once again kill reform. We can not let them run that same game plan again.

And it needs to happen quickly. An active purge is well underway.

Leading that purge is CNMI Governor Benigno Fitial. And yes, he is the same fellow who ran the strip club where the Congressmen started their night of sexual tourism. I’m told he is still in the club business and doesn’t consider a deal done until it is "celebrated" at one of the CNMI sex clubs. Fitial is a sick and twisted puppy. He is also a pimp (in every sense of the word).

The economic system on the CNMI is vile. It is an economic failure and an embarrassment. It is a warning sign of the damage caused when a class of workers is created and denied rights.

Buy a copy of Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy by John Bowe. This is an important work and I encourage everyone to read it. This book will challenge you, depress you and provided you a better understanding why slavery is on the rise in our shiny new global economy here at home and around the planet. (And check out this interview with John on TreeHugger.com).

The GOP Saipan sex scandal is not the most appalling thing in the book nor is it the most shocking. That dubious prize would have to go to the growth of modern slavery in the shadows of globalization and the dark corners of the human heart. The CNMI is a gateway into this darkness.

I’ve written a lot about this cesspool of racism, greed, incompetence and immorality also know as the CNMI. It is a complicated story and the harm falls on both the foreign contract workers and the indigenous Chamorro/Carolinian population. A distorted reality has been created.

The failed economic system is also destroying the eco-system of the island, the infrastructure and the traditional culture of the local population.

This culture of addiction is artfully explained in Nobodies. Bowe describes an ugly place masked by myth, prejudice, tropical beauty and a clash of cultures. The foreign investors, indigenous Chamorro/Carolinian population and relocated US Citizens from the mainland share the obscene and unacknowledged dependence on a permanent underclass of workers.

They can not let go even as the system destroys them. That is why reform is needed and needed NOW.

For years and years, justice and reform was blocked by Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and the Republican Party. Tom and Jack are otherwise engaged.

If we fail now it will be on our watch.

We can not fail.

Let’s prove that we can get something done.

Call your Member of Congress and Senators and urge them to Sponsor H.R. 3079 and in the Senate, S. 1634.

Call you favorite Presidential Candidate’s campaign. Urge them to take a stand on H.R. 3079 and S. 1634. Most are in the 110th Congress and any of the Senators could lead this fight—easily.

It is way past time for justice.

Let’s get this done!

Cheers.