Solidarity Networks
Here is the text for the short presentation that I made during last year's demilitarization network solidarity meeting.
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I apologize that there is no one else from Guam to greet all
of you. It is 1 am here right now and so most people are asleep. But they are
here in spirit, in sleeping spirit.
My name is Michael Lujan Bevacqua, I am a professor of
Chamorro Studies at the University of Guam and a decolonization and demilitarization
activist.
I am from Guam, an island in the Western Pacific that has
long hosted several bases that are integral for US strategy in the Asia-Pacific
region. My island of 212 miles is 28% US military bases. The United States has
referred to our island by many names, “the tip of the spear” “fortress Guam”
and “the USS Guam.” All of which are connected to Guam being transformed from
an island of peace into a weapon of war. Whether it wants to be or not, Guam
has been involved in every major US conflict or project of force projection in
Asia, primarily as a transmit point for weapons or victims of war. Soldiers,
weapons and bombs pass through Guam on their way to Asia, and refugees leaving
conflicts in Vietnam, Burma and Iraq pass through Guam on their way to the
United States.
Since 2005, Guam has lived under the shadow of a dramatic
military increase primarily Marines and their dependents from bases in Okinawa.
In 2009, the US Department of Defense released their Draft Environmental Impact
Statement (DEIS) for their “military buildup” to Guam. What they proposed would
require their leasing of more than 1000 acres of new lands in order to build
firing ranges and the destruction of dozens of acres of coral reef in order to
build a berth for aircraft carriers. If their plans were carried out the
Department of Defense estimated that Guam’s population could increase by 75,000
in just four years. Guam’s population is around 170,000.
The community responded to this proposal with concern and
anger. The DEIS comment period was filled with public meetings and forums in
which those critical of the buildup came out in full force and changed the
public discussion on the issue. While the Department of Defense informally
stated that they were only expecting around 500 comments from the community on
their plans, public campaigns and protests ensured that more than 10,000
comments were submitted.
A lawsuit was filed in order to protect a sacred site in
northern Guam called Pagat that would become part of a firing range complex.
These community protests and the lawsuit combined have delayed the military
buildup for several years. The Department of Defense is currently reformatting
their plans but is likely to come up with a new round of proposals next year.
Guam is the southernmost and largest island in the Marinas
Island Archipelago. The northern islands are known as the Commonwealth of the
Northern Marianas Islands and together Guam and the CNMI make up the what the
Department of Defense refers to as its “Marianas Range Complex.” The US not
only utilizes Guam but vast areas of ocean for holding war games, such as
Valiant Shield and Valiant Shield 2. They also own substantial portions of the
island of Tinian, which is notorious historically as being the island from
which the planes that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki left from.
Another northern island Farallon de Medinilla has been used for bombing
practice.
The Department of Defense is currently making plans to transform
a beautiful and largely pristine island of Pagan into a site for massive
amphibious and aerial assault training and for bombing practice.
Just yesterday we held a first meeting of activists from the
northern islands and Guam, who are concerned about the militarization of the
Marianas. We hope to build on this network and connect our islands together not
through their strategic importance but through a shared desire for peace and
for the protection of our islands.
As a final note, Guam, like other island bases provide a
good lesson of how militarization works. The value of places like Guam that are
small and faraway, is that they are small and faraway and therefore to much of
the world they are invisible and appear to be meaningless. This smallness and
this distance is part of the strategic value of island bases, it is something
that militaries count on in order to protect their training and their other
activities. When visible places protest and demand that training be reduced or
bases be closed, they often go to invisible islands like Guam, which most of
the world could care less about. It is important in developing a global network
to resist militarism that we keep this dynamic and the strategic importance of
smallness and invisibility in mind.
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