Guam activists start anti-bases campaign

By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

Variety News Staff

HAGÅTÑA — Guam activists oppose Pentagon’s reported plan to expand the armed forces presence here, saying that an increased military mission would not only make Guam a magnet for possible terrorist attacks, but would also limit the Chamorro people’s exercise of self-determination.

“This is an invitation to terrorism. As it is, Guam is already on top of the list of viable targets of terrorism,” said Jose U. Garrido, spokesman for the Colonized Chamoru Coalition, the umbrella organization of local groups that advocate indigenous causes.

“And what kind of arrangement or agreement do we have that guarantees the protection of human rights of indigenous people of Guam?” Garrido asked.

“The United Nations...on the issue of decolonization of non-self-governing peoples and territories, has always considered increase of military presence on Guam to be an obstacle to the free exercise of self-determination of the Chamorro people,” the coalition said in a letter to Sen. Lou Leon Guerrero, D-Tamuning.

Guam officials and business leaders have been stepping up the campaign to keep the military presence as Pentagon will begin the new round of Base Realignment and Closure proceedings next year. The military is Guam’s major “industry” besides tourism. The New York Times reported last week that Pentagon was contemplating on increasing armed forces on Guam. It quoted Rear Adm. Arthur J. Johnson as saying that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had raised Guam’s strategic value as the Pentagon realized the usefulness of an American outpost in Asia. Richard Halloran, a military analyst based in Hawaii, told the Times that “by moving ships and submarines to Guam, the Pentagon cuts ‘the tyranny of distance,’ trimming five days off a Pacific crossing from Hawaii.” Local officials and business leaders earlier disclosed that a new nuclear-powered attack submarine will arrive here later this year. It would be the third to make Guam its home port since 2002.

“Guam is running the risk of hosting hazardous waste with the presence of this nuclear-power submarine. Our leaders only think about the dollars that would come in but none of them come up to say the negative impact of hosting the military,” Garrido told Variety. CCC also criticizes Sen. Rory Respicio’s Bill 265, which seeks the creation of a commission that would develop a campaign for the preservation and expansion of the military mission on Guam.

“We do not need a Guam commission to show the U.S. how colonized we are; how contradictory and antithetical we have all become,” CCC said.

“This bill creates a situation where the perceived economic enhancement in terms of military buildup and expansion are not based on any arrangement, accord, or government to government agreement where protections and guarantees are enumerated to prevent the abuses of our human rights as indigenous people of Guam,” CCC said. Garrido said the proposed commission does not include a representative from Chamorro groups that advocate the returns of excess lands, rights to ancestral lands, protection of our Chamorro Trust Lands, and Chamorro self-determination.”

“The composition of the commission underscores the bill’s originator’s ignorance or sensitivity to the real fears of original land owners and excess land owners that military expansion usually means the need of more lands or changing the footprint of the return of excess lands as in the case of Andy South which is now languishing in utter idleness, thanks to the Guam Chamber of Commerce,” CCC said. Garrido said CCC will step up its campaign against the military bases during the election period later this year.

COMMONWEALTH NOW!

By Sen. Jesse Lujan

HAGÅTÑA — Whatever happened to the Guam Commonwealth Act? It seems to have conveniently vanished from the political radar screen. Some of our political leaders seem to have given up on this idea. Though the commonwealth logo and the words “COMMONWEALTH NOW!” still appear at the bottom of all GovGuam stationary.

For those who need reminding, the proposed Guam Commonwealth Act was approved by a majority of Guam voters in 1987 and was first presented to the U.S. Congress in 1988. We spent millions of dollars and countless hours negotiating, drafting and voting on the draft Commonwealth Act.

In each subsequent Congress since its initial introduction, the bill has been reintroduced with little to no progress made toward passage. It is unclear if Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo has reintroduced the measure. The Commonwealth Act proposes more home rule for Guam, while strengthening our close relationship with the United States. It contains many provisions that would allow us greater autonomy, especially in economic matters, by eliminating the many stifling federal laws, rules and regulations that strangle our economic development.

One area of particular interest to me is the elimination of restrictive federal aviation rules that prevent us from benefiting from the same competitive pressures that have reduced airfares in the 48 contiguous states to a fraction of what they were. If the Commonwealth Act were already implemented, we would not now be going hat in hand, as we are forced to do, to the multiple federal agencies, holding the financial tourniquet around our collective necks begging for some relief. We would simply be able to declare Guam’s skies open for competition to all competitors who meet our safety and security standards. If Guam had open skies, or became an open aviation area, airfares would drop dramatically bumping up our visitor arrivals, a huge number of aviation-connected jobs and other jobs would be created and our underutilized state of the art airport would be the beneficiary of much higher revenues. This is just one example of the substantial genuine benefits we can expect from the passage of some version of the draft Commonwealth Act.

There is currently an effort to hold a Chamorro-only vote on the issue of the final political status for Guam. Chamorros must chose between statehood, independence or free association. Because of this pending plebiscite, and the elimination of commonwealth as a choice for our permanent status, Congresswoman Bordallo has taken a position that the Commonwealth Act is dead. Does this position make sense? Is abandoning the pursuit of commonwealth as an interim status really in the best interest of the island?

I personally do not see why the Commonwealth Act cannot be pursued pending a Chamorro vote on Guam’s final status. The Commonwealth Act, by its very terms, proposed commonwealth for Guam not as a final status, but as an interim status pending this final Chamorro vote. Because it is an interim status the commonwealth option was not included as a final status option in the Chamorro plebiscite dedicated to determining our final political status.

This pending final status vote will probably take a long while to complete and, once selected, to negotiate. The pending Chamorro plebiscite on our final status should not therefore impede our long-standing efforts to improve our interim political status through passage of the draft Guam Commonwealth Act. We should, in the meantime, vigorously pursue an enhanced interim status. Indeed — COMMONWEALTH NOW!