by Sabrina Salas Matanane from KUAM.com
Guam - KUAM taped last night's Chamorro Language Forum at the University of Guam last night, likewise we are recording today's Okkodo High School Debate between both gubernatorial teams. KUAM will also be broadcasting the UOG Great Debate LIVE Thursday night, we'll start with our pre-show at 6:30 and a wrap up show after the debate is over.
You'll also be able to text in who you thought won the debate and we'll reveal the results after in our post show.
Our live broadcast will also be simulcast on our sister station Isla 63am. KUAM is planning an encore broadcast of all the debates and forums we've recorded. We will be rebroadcasting them this weekend on the stations of KUAM.
Showing posts with label Forums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forums. Show all posts
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, November 21, 2008
Forum Presents Different Views on the Buildup
Buildup discussion presents different views
By William B. Martin Jr.
Pacific Daily News
November 21, 2008
Sitting and standing room was scarce at the University of Guam's Class Lecture Hall as students and residents gathered to discuss the military buildup.
Panelists for the event consisted of members of the Civilian Military Task Force and two community action groups -- Guahan Indigenous Collective and Famoksaiyan -- who presented their views on the upcoming military buildup of troops, personnel and civilian contractors on the island. The event was hosted by UOG's College of Liberal Arts and Sanctuary Inc.
Presentations were limited to seven minutes initially, followed by three minute closing remarks and a question and answer session made up of inquiries from the audience.
John Benavente, general manager of Consolidated Utilities, discussed his views on the buildup in terms of infrastructure, in light of a projected surge in Guam's population.
"Our goal in this buildup is not only to meet this demand, but to improve services, as well," he said.
Benavente said with a 30-year-old Guam Waterworks Authority the days of utilities being unable to provide services must come to an end, advocating hand-in-hand collaboration with the military. He said the island is too small for multiple power, water and solid waste systems.
UOG economics professor Roseanne Jones said Guam looks to experience a "restructuring" from a tourism-based economy to one that relies more on military contributions.
She recommended the island continue to develop tourism revenues, as well as a possible "third leg" to strengthen the economy, avoiding economic dependence on too few sources.
Buildup 'partner'
Mike Bevacqua of the group Famoksaiyan encouraged attendants -- many of them university students -- to challenge island leaders in ensuring that Guam receives a benefit from the military buildup.
"If their assumption is that you're all just happy to get jobs, they will just go along with it and do what is easiest."
He called upon those in the audience to envision a situation in which Guam was a "partner' in the buildup -- if island officials were asked before plans were made -- which he said was certainly not the case.
"What are we trading off for our (economy)?" Fanai Castro of the Guahan Indigenous Collective asked. "Will it teach our children to survive when it's gone?"
By William B. Martin Jr.
Pacific Daily News
November 21, 2008
Sitting and standing room was scarce at the University of Guam's Class Lecture Hall as students and residents gathered to discuss the military buildup.
Panelists for the event consisted of members of the Civilian Military Task Force and two community action groups -- Guahan Indigenous Collective and Famoksaiyan -- who presented their views on the upcoming military buildup of troops, personnel and civilian contractors on the island. The event was hosted by UOG's College of Liberal Arts and Sanctuary Inc.
Presentations were limited to seven minutes initially, followed by three minute closing remarks and a question and answer session made up of inquiries from the audience.
John Benavente, general manager of Consolidated Utilities, discussed his views on the buildup in terms of infrastructure, in light of a projected surge in Guam's population.
"Our goal in this buildup is not only to meet this demand, but to improve services, as well," he said.
Benavente said with a 30-year-old Guam Waterworks Authority the days of utilities being unable to provide services must come to an end, advocating hand-in-hand collaboration with the military. He said the island is too small for multiple power, water and solid waste systems.
UOG economics professor Roseanne Jones said Guam looks to experience a "restructuring" from a tourism-based economy to one that relies more on military contributions.
She recommended the island continue to develop tourism revenues, as well as a possible "third leg" to strengthen the economy, avoiding economic dependence on too few sources.
Buildup 'partner'
Mike Bevacqua of the group Famoksaiyan encouraged attendants -- many of them university students -- to challenge island leaders in ensuring that Guam receives a benefit from the military buildup.
"If their assumption is that you're all just happy to get jobs, they will just go along with it and do what is easiest."
He called upon those in the audience to envision a situation in which Guam was a "partner' in the buildup -- if island officials were asked before plans were made -- which he said was certainly not the case.
"What are we trading off for our (economy)?" Fanai Castro of the Guahan Indigenous Collective asked. "Will it teach our children to survive when it's gone?"
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Nov. 20 - A Critique of the Military Buildup on Guam
The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in partnership with the Division of Social Work present
A Critique of the Military Build-Up on Guahan
Panelists from community action groups (Guahan Indigenous Collective and Famoksaiyan), community experts, and the committee Chairs of the Civilian Military Task Force will present the pros and cons, critical views, opinions and knowledge concerning the ongoing military buildup of troops, personnel and civilian contractors on Guahan.
November 20, 2008
CLASS Lecture Hall
University of Guam
5:30-7:30PM
A Critique of the Military Build-Up on Guahan
Panelists from community action groups (Guahan Indigenous Collective and Famoksaiyan), community experts, and the committee Chairs of the Civilian Military Task Force will present the pros and cons, critical views, opinions and knowledge concerning the ongoing military buildup of troops, personnel and civilian contractors on Guahan.
November 20, 2008
CLASS Lecture Hall
University of Guam
5:30-7:30PM
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Guam's Intervention
I Nasion Chamoru (The Chamoru Nation)
Julian Aguon, Chamoru Rights Advocate
PO Box 8725
Tamuning, Guam 96931
Seventh Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues – April 2008 – New York, NY
Item # 6
Topic: Pacific
Presenter: Julian Aguon
Collective Intervention of the Chamoru Nation and Affiliated Indigenous Chamoru Organizations; Society for Threatened Peoples International (ECOSOC); CORE (ECOSOC); Western Shoshone Defense Project; Flying Eagle Woman Fund (ECOSOC); Mohawk Nation at Kahmawake; Cultural Development and Research Institute; Famoksaiyan; Organization of People for Indigenous Rights; Colonized Chamoru Coalition; Chamoru Landowners Association; Chamoru Language Teachers Association; Guahan Indigenous Collective; Hurao, Inc.; Landowners United; Chamoru Veterans Association; Fuetsan Famaloan
Ati addeng-miyo your Excellencies. My name is Julian Aguon and I appear before you with the full support and blessings of my elders. I address you on behalf of the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam, an endangered people now being rushed toward full-blown extinction.
In 2008, the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam brace ourselves for a storm of U.S. militarization so enormous in scope, so volatile in nature, so irreversible in consequence. U.S. military realignment in the Asia-Pacific region seeks to homeport sixty percent of its Pacific Fleet in and around our ancient archipelago. With no input from the indigenous Chamoru people and over our deepening dissent, the US plans to flood Guam, its Colony in Perpetuity, with upwards of 50,000 people, which includes the 8,000 U.S. Marines and their 9,000 dependents being ousted by Okinawa and an outside labor force estimated upwards of 20,000 workers on construction contracts. In addition, six nuclear submarines will be added to the three already stationed in Guam as well as a monstrous Global Strike Force, a strike and intelligence surveillance reconnaissance hub at Andersen Air Force Base.
This buildup only complements the impressive Air Force and Navy show of force occupying 1/3 of our 212 square mile island already. This massive military expansionism exacts devastating consequences on my people, who make up only 37% of the 170,000 people living in Guam and who already suffer the signature maladies of a colonial condition.
The military buildup of Guam endangers our fundamental and inalienable human right to self-determination, the exercise of which our Administering Power, the United States, has strategically denied us—in glaring betrayal of its international obligations under the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, UN General Assembly Resolution 1514, to name but some.
The unilateral decision to hyper-militarize our homeland is the latest in a long line of covenant breaches on the part of our Administering Power to guide Guam toward self-governance. It was made totally without consulting the indigenous Chamoru people. No public education campaign regarding the social, cultural, and political consequences of this hyper-militarization has been seriously undertaken or even contemplated.
Of the 10.3 billion dollars settled upon by the U.S. and Japan for the transfer of U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, nothing has been said as to whether or not this money will be used to improve our flailing infrastructure. Recently, the largest joint military exercise in recent history conducted what were casually called war games off Guam waters. 22,000 US military personnel, 30 ships, and 280 aircraft partook in "Valiant Shield." That weekend, water was cut off to a number of local villages on the Navy water line. The local people of those villages went some thirty days without running water. Across the military-constructed fence, the tap flowed freely for the U.S. military population. The suggestion of late is that Guam is expected to foot the bill of this re-occupation. Meetings with defense officials have proved empty. Military officers we have met with inform us only of their inability to commit to anything. In effect, they repeat that they have no working plans to spend money on civilian projects. Dollars tied to this transfer have been allocated to development only within the bases. Money for education in the territory will again be allocated to schools for children of U.S. military personnel and not ours. Meanwhile, virtually every public sector in Guam is being threatened with privatization.
There is talk of plans to condemn more of our land to accommodate its accelerated military needs. In contrast, there is no talk of plans to clean up radioactive contaminations (strontium, in particular) of Guam from toxins leftover from the U.S.’ World War II activities and its intense nuclear bombing campaign of the Marshall Islands only 1200 miles from Guam. Indeed, the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam suffer extraordinarily high rates of cancer and dementia-related illness due to the U.S.’ widespread toxic contamination of Guam. For example, Chamorus suffer from nasopharynx cancer at a rate 1,999% higher than the U.S. average (per 100,000). To boot, Guam has 19 Superfund sites, most of which are associated with U.S. military base activities as in the case of Andersen Air Force Base and the former Naval Air Station. Nineteen sites is a significant number in consideration of the island’s small size of 212 square meters.
There is also no word on whether or not the U.S. plans to pay war reparations due to us since it forgave Japan its World War II war crimes committed against the Chamorus.
Like an awful re-run of World War II, when the U.S. unilaterally forgave Japan its horrific war crimes on our people, the US is back at the table negotiating away our human rights including our right to self-determination. Beyond the B-2 bombers in our skies, the ships playing war games in our waters, the added weapons of mass destruction, and the contamination that has robbed us of so many loved ones by way of our extraordinarily high rates of cancers and dementia-related illnesses, there is a growing desperation back home. A desperate lethargy in the wind. A realization that if the UN remains unable to slow the manic speed of US militarization, Chamorus as a people will pass.
In 2005 and 2006, we appeared before the UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee, alerting the UN organ of these two frightening facts: 1) it was recently discovered that the U.S. Department of Interior purposefully killed a presidential directive handed down in 1975, which ordered that Guam be given a commonwealth status no less favorable than the one the U.S. was negotiating with the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands at that time; and 2) a campaign of the Guam Chamber of Commerce (primarily consisting of U.S. Statesiders) to privatize every one of Guam's public resources (the island's only water provider, only power provider, only local telephone provider, public schools, and its only port, on an island that imports 85-90% of its food and where private monopolies of public goods would truly make us captive to the forces of the market) is undermining our ancient indigenous civilization with violent speed. Eating us whole.
Not much has changed since we last were here in New York. Our power provider has been privatized, our telecommunications sold. Our only water provider and one port are under relentless attack. The meager, questionable victories we have had to stay this mass privatization are only the result of indigenous Chamoru grassroots activists who, on their own—with no financial, institutional, or strategic support—holding both their hands up, holding the line as best they can. At great personal cost.
Your Excellencies: Know this—the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam are neither informed nor unified around this military buildup despite dominant media representations. For all intents and purposes, there is no free press in Guam. Local media only makes noise of the re-occupation, not sense of it. The Pacific Daily News—the American subsidiary newspaper that dominates the discourse—has cut off the oxygen supply to indigenous resistance movement. Rather than debating this buildup's enormous sociopolitical, environmental and cultural consequences, it has framed the conversation around how best to ask the U.S. (politely) for de facto consideration of our concerns. Without appearing un-American.
We are not Americans. We are Chamorus. We are heirs to a matrilineal, indigenous civilization born two thousand years before Jesus. And we are being disappeared. Off your radar.
All this, and only two years until the end of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism. And no midterm review by the Special Committee on Decolonization. No designation of any expert to track Guam’s progress, or lack thereof, toward progressing off the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Not one UN visiting mission to Guam.
It is a sad commentary that the Administering Power year after year abstains or votes against UN resolutions addressing the “Question of Guam” and resolutions reflecting the work of the UN on decolonization including the resolution on the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism and the very recent Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. With this non-support by Guam’s Administering Power, it is no wonder that the list of the Non-Self-Governing Territories under the administration of the United States has turned half a century old with little progress.
We Chamorus come to New York year after year, appealing to the UN decolonization committee to follow through with its mandate. Indeed, the UN has collected almost thirty years of our testimony, with nothing to show for it. I represent today the third generation of Chamoru activists to appear before the UN, desperately trying to safeguard our inalienable, still unrealized, human right to self-determination.
The failure of the U.S. to honor its international obligations to Guam and her native people, the non-responsiveness of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization to our rapid deterioration, and the overall non-performance of relevant U.S. and UN Decolonization organs and officials combine to carry our small chance of survival to its final coffin.
All this combines to elevate the human rights situation in Guam as a matter not only of decolonization, but ethnic cleansing.
Indeed, when future generations look upon these days, they might label Guam not merely a U.S. colony, but rather, a UN colony.
To date the Forum has deferred to the Special Committee. The time has come for the Forum to take the lead. To this end we request the Forum take the following action:
Sponsor an expert seminar in conjunction with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Special Committee on Decolonization to examine the impact of the UN decolonization process regarding the indigenous peoples of the NSGTs—now and previously listed on the UN list of NSGTs. This seminar must be under the auspices of the Forum due to existing problems with the Secretariat of the Special Committee. We request that Independent Expert Carlyle G. Corbin be included in the seminar as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples.
Utilize the Inter-Agency Support Group to begin to implement the Program of Implementation (POI) with UN Agencies, UNDP, UNEP and other agencies and specialized bodies as directed by the General Assembly; and
Communicate its concern for the human rights of indigenous peoples and all peoples in the NSGTs to the UN Human Rights Council and request that the Council designate a Special Rapporteur on the Situation of the Peoples of the Non-Self-Governing Territories.
In Solidarity and Urgency,
The Chamoru Nation and Indigenous Chamoru Organizations of Guam, with support of the above-listed organizations.
Fore more information, feel free to contact the following:
Debbie Quinata, 671-828-2957, dquinata@gmail.com
Hope Cristobal, 671-649-0097, ecris@teleguam.net
Julian Aguon, 808-375-3646, julianaguon@gmail.com
Lisalinda Natividad, 671-777-7285, lisanati@yahoo.com
See also http://decolonizeguam.blogspot.com
Fore more information, feel free to contact the following:
Debbie Quinata, 671-828-2957, dquinata@gmail.com
Hope Cristobal, 671-649-0097, ecris@teleguam.net
Julian Aguon, 808-375-3646, julianaguon@gmail.com
Lisalinda Natividad, 671-777-7285, lisanati@yahoo.com
See also http://decolonizeguam.blogspot.com
Julian Aguon, Chamoru Rights Advocate
PO Box 8725
Tamuning, Guam 96931
Seventh Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues – April 2008 – New York, NY
Item # 6
Topic: Pacific
Presenter: Julian Aguon
Collective Intervention of the Chamoru Nation and Affiliated Indigenous Chamoru Organizations; Society for Threatened Peoples International (ECOSOC); CORE (ECOSOC); Western Shoshone Defense Project; Flying Eagle Woman Fund (ECOSOC); Mohawk Nation at Kahmawake; Cultural Development and Research Institute; Famoksaiyan; Organization of People for Indigenous Rights; Colonized Chamoru Coalition; Chamoru Landowners Association; Chamoru Language Teachers Association; Guahan Indigenous Collective; Hurao, Inc.; Landowners United; Chamoru Veterans Association; Fuetsan Famaloan
Ati addeng-miyo your Excellencies. My name is Julian Aguon and I appear before you with the full support and blessings of my elders. I address you on behalf of the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam, an endangered people now being rushed toward full-blown extinction.
In 2008, the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam brace ourselves for a storm of U.S. militarization so enormous in scope, so volatile in nature, so irreversible in consequence. U.S. military realignment in the Asia-Pacific region seeks to homeport sixty percent of its Pacific Fleet in and around our ancient archipelago. With no input from the indigenous Chamoru people and over our deepening dissent, the US plans to flood Guam, its Colony in Perpetuity, with upwards of 50,000 people, which includes the 8,000 U.S. Marines and their 9,000 dependents being ousted by Okinawa and an outside labor force estimated upwards of 20,000 workers on construction contracts. In addition, six nuclear submarines will be added to the three already stationed in Guam as well as a monstrous Global Strike Force, a strike and intelligence surveillance reconnaissance hub at Andersen Air Force Base.
This buildup only complements the impressive Air Force and Navy show of force occupying 1/3 of our 212 square mile island already. This massive military expansionism exacts devastating consequences on my people, who make up only 37% of the 170,000 people living in Guam and who already suffer the signature maladies of a colonial condition.
The military buildup of Guam endangers our fundamental and inalienable human right to self-determination, the exercise of which our Administering Power, the United States, has strategically denied us—in glaring betrayal of its international obligations under the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, UN General Assembly Resolution 1514, to name but some.
The unilateral decision to hyper-militarize our homeland is the latest in a long line of covenant breaches on the part of our Administering Power to guide Guam toward self-governance. It was made totally without consulting the indigenous Chamoru people. No public education campaign regarding the social, cultural, and political consequences of this hyper-militarization has been seriously undertaken or even contemplated.
Of the 10.3 billion dollars settled upon by the U.S. and Japan for the transfer of U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, nothing has been said as to whether or not this money will be used to improve our flailing infrastructure. Recently, the largest joint military exercise in recent history conducted what were casually called war games off Guam waters. 22,000 US military personnel, 30 ships, and 280 aircraft partook in "Valiant Shield." That weekend, water was cut off to a number of local villages on the Navy water line. The local people of those villages went some thirty days without running water. Across the military-constructed fence, the tap flowed freely for the U.S. military population. The suggestion of late is that Guam is expected to foot the bill of this re-occupation. Meetings with defense officials have proved empty. Military officers we have met with inform us only of their inability to commit to anything. In effect, they repeat that they have no working plans to spend money on civilian projects. Dollars tied to this transfer have been allocated to development only within the bases. Money for education in the territory will again be allocated to schools for children of U.S. military personnel and not ours. Meanwhile, virtually every public sector in Guam is being threatened with privatization.
There is talk of plans to condemn more of our land to accommodate its accelerated military needs. In contrast, there is no talk of plans to clean up radioactive contaminations (strontium, in particular) of Guam from toxins leftover from the U.S.’ World War II activities and its intense nuclear bombing campaign of the Marshall Islands only 1200 miles from Guam. Indeed, the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam suffer extraordinarily high rates of cancer and dementia-related illness due to the U.S.’ widespread toxic contamination of Guam. For example, Chamorus suffer from nasopharynx cancer at a rate 1,999% higher than the U.S. average (per 100,000). To boot, Guam has 19 Superfund sites, most of which are associated with U.S. military base activities as in the case of Andersen Air Force Base and the former Naval Air Station. Nineteen sites is a significant number in consideration of the island’s small size of 212 square meters.
There is also no word on whether or not the U.S. plans to pay war reparations due to us since it forgave Japan its World War II war crimes committed against the Chamorus.
Like an awful re-run of World War II, when the U.S. unilaterally forgave Japan its horrific war crimes on our people, the US is back at the table negotiating away our human rights including our right to self-determination. Beyond the B-2 bombers in our skies, the ships playing war games in our waters, the added weapons of mass destruction, and the contamination that has robbed us of so many loved ones by way of our extraordinarily high rates of cancers and dementia-related illnesses, there is a growing desperation back home. A desperate lethargy in the wind. A realization that if the UN remains unable to slow the manic speed of US militarization, Chamorus as a people will pass.
In 2005 and 2006, we appeared before the UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee, alerting the UN organ of these two frightening facts: 1) it was recently discovered that the U.S. Department of Interior purposefully killed a presidential directive handed down in 1975, which ordered that Guam be given a commonwealth status no less favorable than the one the U.S. was negotiating with the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands at that time; and 2) a campaign of the Guam Chamber of Commerce (primarily consisting of U.S. Statesiders) to privatize every one of Guam's public resources (the island's only water provider, only power provider, only local telephone provider, public schools, and its only port, on an island that imports 85-90% of its food and where private monopolies of public goods would truly make us captive to the forces of the market) is undermining our ancient indigenous civilization with violent speed. Eating us whole.
Not much has changed since we last were here in New York. Our power provider has been privatized, our telecommunications sold. Our only water provider and one port are under relentless attack. The meager, questionable victories we have had to stay this mass privatization are only the result of indigenous Chamoru grassroots activists who, on their own—with no financial, institutional, or strategic support—holding both their hands up, holding the line as best they can. At great personal cost.
Your Excellencies: Know this—the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam are neither informed nor unified around this military buildup despite dominant media representations. For all intents and purposes, there is no free press in Guam. Local media only makes noise of the re-occupation, not sense of it. The Pacific Daily News—the American subsidiary newspaper that dominates the discourse—has cut off the oxygen supply to indigenous resistance movement. Rather than debating this buildup's enormous sociopolitical, environmental and cultural consequences, it has framed the conversation around how best to ask the U.S. (politely) for de facto consideration of our concerns. Without appearing un-American.
We are not Americans. We are Chamorus. We are heirs to a matrilineal, indigenous civilization born two thousand years before Jesus. And we are being disappeared. Off your radar.
All this, and only two years until the end of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism. And no midterm review by the Special Committee on Decolonization. No designation of any expert to track Guam’s progress, or lack thereof, toward progressing off the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Not one UN visiting mission to Guam.
It is a sad commentary that the Administering Power year after year abstains or votes against UN resolutions addressing the “Question of Guam” and resolutions reflecting the work of the UN on decolonization including the resolution on the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism and the very recent Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. With this non-support by Guam’s Administering Power, it is no wonder that the list of the Non-Self-Governing Territories under the administration of the United States has turned half a century old with little progress.
We Chamorus come to New York year after year, appealing to the UN decolonization committee to follow through with its mandate. Indeed, the UN has collected almost thirty years of our testimony, with nothing to show for it. I represent today the third generation of Chamoru activists to appear before the UN, desperately trying to safeguard our inalienable, still unrealized, human right to self-determination.
The failure of the U.S. to honor its international obligations to Guam and her native people, the non-responsiveness of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization to our rapid deterioration, and the overall non-performance of relevant U.S. and UN Decolonization organs and officials combine to carry our small chance of survival to its final coffin.
All this combines to elevate the human rights situation in Guam as a matter not only of decolonization, but ethnic cleansing.
Indeed, when future generations look upon these days, they might label Guam not merely a U.S. colony, but rather, a UN colony.
To date the Forum has deferred to the Special Committee. The time has come for the Forum to take the lead. To this end we request the Forum take the following action:
Sponsor an expert seminar in conjunction with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Special Committee on Decolonization to examine the impact of the UN decolonization process regarding the indigenous peoples of the NSGTs—now and previously listed on the UN list of NSGTs. This seminar must be under the auspices of the Forum due to existing problems with the Secretariat of the Special Committee. We request that Independent Expert Carlyle G. Corbin be included in the seminar as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples.
Utilize the Inter-Agency Support Group to begin to implement the Program of Implementation (POI) with UN Agencies, UNDP, UNEP and other agencies and specialized bodies as directed by the General Assembly; and
Communicate its concern for the human rights of indigenous peoples and all peoples in the NSGTs to the UN Human Rights Council and request that the Council designate a Special Rapporteur on the Situation of the Peoples of the Non-Self-Governing Territories.
In Solidarity and Urgency,
The Chamoru Nation and Indigenous Chamoru Organizations of Guam, with support of the above-listed organizations.
Fore more information, feel free to contact the following:
Debbie Quinata, 671-828-2957, dquinata@gmail.com
Hope Cristobal, 671-649-0097, ecris@teleguam.net
Julian Aguon, 808-375-3646, julianaguon@gmail.com
Lisalinda Natividad, 671-777-7285, lisanati@yahoo.com
See also http://decolonizeguam.blogspot.com
Fore more information, feel free to contact the following:
Debbie Quinata, 671-828-2957, dquinata@gmail.com
Hope Cristobal, 671-649-0097, ecris@teleguam.net
Julian Aguon, 808-375-3646, julianaguon@gmail.com
Lisalinda Natividad, 671-777-7285, lisanati@yahoo.com
See also http://decolonizeguam.blogspot.com
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Guam Industry Forum II
Master plan, Guam Industry Forum II on track
by Clynt Ridgell
KUAM News
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Joint Guam Program Office director David Bice is back on island. And part of his itinerary being a trip here to our Harmon studios, during which time he gave an update on the Guam Military Master Plan, the Guam Industry Forum, and the potential affects of the U.S. courts decision on the Futenma Replacement Facility in Okinawa.
Bice says the draft military master plan for Guam, one of the most eagerly anticipated documents in recent history, should be completed by next month. "We expect the draft master plan to be completed and released in March timeframe," he confirmed. Coincidentally at that time will be the second Guam Industry Forum. The retired Marine Corps major general says there are already 800 people registered for this forum that takes place on the 6th, 7th and 8th of March.
Last year's forum lasted only two days, but this year there will be an extra day to allow businesses to have one on one time with members of the Naval Engineering Facilities Command. "[The] last time a lot of businesses asked if they could have a chance to have one-on-one's with contracting agencies, and NAVFAC, and they've asked also to be able to meet with me and my staff," he continued.
Bice expects this year's forum to be even bigger and better than the previous event, saying, "Last year we had two hotels and we have a third hotel on standby that we can bring that into."
He's currently meeting with Government of Guam planners and utility officials to figure out ways to address ways the island can increase the capacity of it's infrastructure to meet the demands of the military buildup. JGPO is also currently narrowing their preferred alternatives for land use, Bice adding, "We want to start sitting down with Tony Lamorena at the planning department and talk about compatible land use so that the military activities don't spill onto the civilian community and vice-versa."
Bice also spoke about the status of the Futenma Replacement Facility in Japan. A federal judge ordered the Department of Defense to submit within three months documents describing its plans to assess the project's effects on the dugong and develop ways to lessen its impact. Bice says that both the DOD legal team and Japanese officials are working on complying with the court, adding that the land of the riding [sic] sun is conducting its own environmental impact assessment that may satisfy the U.S. court.
Although he admits that there is a direct connection between the construction of the Futenma facility and the movement of U.S. Marines to Guam, Bice doesn't believe that this will slow the movement of troops locally. Said Bice, "I know that the government of Japan is committed to ensuring that the FRF is constructed in a timeline that is agreed to so that the movement of marines from Okinawa to Guam can continue without delay or disruption."
The U.S. General Accountability Office describes the Futenma facility as a "critical component", one which could delay the troop relocation.
by Clynt Ridgell
KUAM News
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Joint Guam Program Office director David Bice is back on island. And part of his itinerary being a trip here to our Harmon studios, during which time he gave an update on the Guam Military Master Plan, the Guam Industry Forum, and the potential affects of the U.S. courts decision on the Futenma Replacement Facility in Okinawa.
Bice says the draft military master plan for Guam, one of the most eagerly anticipated documents in recent history, should be completed by next month. "We expect the draft master plan to be completed and released in March timeframe," he confirmed. Coincidentally at that time will be the second Guam Industry Forum. The retired Marine Corps major general says there are already 800 people registered for this forum that takes place on the 6th, 7th and 8th of March.
Last year's forum lasted only two days, but this year there will be an extra day to allow businesses to have one on one time with members of the Naval Engineering Facilities Command. "[The] last time a lot of businesses asked if they could have a chance to have one-on-one's with contracting agencies, and NAVFAC, and they've asked also to be able to meet with me and my staff," he continued.
Bice expects this year's forum to be even bigger and better than the previous event, saying, "Last year we had two hotels and we have a third hotel on standby that we can bring that into."
He's currently meeting with Government of Guam planners and utility officials to figure out ways to address ways the island can increase the capacity of it's infrastructure to meet the demands of the military buildup. JGPO is also currently narrowing their preferred alternatives for land use, Bice adding, "We want to start sitting down with Tony Lamorena at the planning department and talk about compatible land use so that the military activities don't spill onto the civilian community and vice-versa."
Bice also spoke about the status of the Futenma Replacement Facility in Japan. A federal judge ordered the Department of Defense to submit within three months documents describing its plans to assess the project's effects on the dugong and develop ways to lessen its impact. Bice says that both the DOD legal team and Japanese officials are working on complying with the court, adding that the land of the riding [sic] sun is conducting its own environmental impact assessment that may satisfy the U.S. court.
Although he admits that there is a direct connection between the construction of the Futenma facility and the movement of U.S. Marines to Guam, Bice doesn't believe that this will slow the movement of troops locally. Said Bice, "I know that the government of Japan is committed to ensuring that the FRF is constructed in a timeline that is agreed to so that the movement of marines from Okinawa to Guam can continue without delay or disruption."
The U.S. General Accountability Office describes the Futenma facility as a "critical component", one which could delay the troop relocation.
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