Military Will Take Land Based on Need (duh)

Land use depends on needs
By Steve Limtiaco
Pacific Daily News
slimtiaco@guampdn.com

The military development plan for Guam, made public recently by the U.S. Pacific Command, lays out two military training options for the Finegayan area of Dededo -- one that requires the use of non-military land for live-fire training and one that does not.

The non-military land in question is ancestral land located between the military's South Finegayan and NCTS Finegayan properties. It currently is owned by two families and the Guam government's Ancestral Lands Commission.

When asked who will decide which option to use and when that will happen, PACOM public affairs spokesman Army Maj. David Doherty yesterday said the Joint Program Office, which will be set up under the Navy, will be responsible for further refining the military's plans for Guam.

"The Guam Integrated Military Development Plan is a planning document and not a program document," he said, adding that program documents will come from the Joint Program Office.

"This is an overall strategic plan," he said.

The development plan for Guam was approved by PACOM in July, but was released this month. In a September letter accompanying the plan, PACOM deputy commander Air Force Gen. Dan Leaf states, "This document contains the operational force laydown requirements for military development expected to occur on Guam over the next decade and beyond."

Leaf added that additional planning is needed to develop specific facility and infrastructure requirements here.

Governor's spokesman Shawn Gumataotao yesterday said military development plans are preliminary, noting that environmental assessments first must be completed during the next two years.

"In meetings with (Defense) Undersecretary Lawless, (Leaf), as well as Adm. (Joseph) Leidig, all three have committed to the governor that they would stay within the footprint of the current federal properties where Navy and Air Force activities are currently under way," he said.

According to the plan, the military currently holds 40,000 acres on Guam.

During an interview with the Pacific Daily News earlier this month, Leaf said each branch of the armed services normally handles its own construction projects, equipment and training requirements, but he said the scope of the work to be done on Guam required the creation of a program office to tie everything together and to address broader issues.

It is expected to cost the Japan and U.S. governments about $10 billion to transfer 8,000 Marines and their dependents from Okinawa to Guam -- a move that is not expected to happen for at least 6 years, but which first requires additional military facilities on Guam to accommodate the shift.

"The nuts and bolts of military development on Guam will be the responsibility and authority of the Joint Program Office," Leaf said. "They will provide a key interface and work with people in the government of Guam ... It will have representatives from all the services."

Population increase
According to the development plan, the military expects the current population of military personnel and dependents to increase from 14,190 to 40,380 -- an 185 percent increase. The Marines and their families would account for 18,250 of that increase.

To handle the additional personnel and their dependents, the Department of Defense would need to build more schools here, in addition to the new DODEA high school already being built at the Naval Hospital property, the plan states.

The Defense Department's school system on Guam would need two new elementary schools, a middle school, and a new northern Guam high school -- possibly at Finegayan -- to handle 4,160 school-age dependents.

The northern high school would be for students from military facilities in northern Guam, the plan states, and reduce the impact on the high school at Naval Hospital.

Originally Published September 30, 2006

Militay May Retake Land

Military may retake land
Finegayan area to be used for firing ranges
By Steve Limtiaco
Pacific Daily News
slimtiaco@guampdn.com

The pending transfer of thousands of Marines from Okinawa to Guam means the military needs to create more live-fire ranges here for training, according to a 91-page military development plan from the U.S. Pacific Command.

Among other things, it could mean mortar rounds being launched at a target range in Naval Magazine and the creation of machine gun and rifle ranges in the Finegayan area of Dededo, where the 8,000 Marines would be relocated. Every Marine must be able to use a rifle well, and their skills are tested regularly on the range.

If the Marines want to conduct "fire and movement" training at Finegayan, it also could mean hundreds of acres of recently returned ancestral land between South Finegayan and NCTS Finegayan would once again be needed by the military. Excess military and other federal land since 2002 has been returned to its original owners or their heirs as part of the Guam government's ancestral land process.

Two options
The Guam Integrated Military Development Plan spells out two options for military weapons training in the Finegayan area -- one that uses only existing military land in the area for target practice, and one that would require additional non-military land to provide a safe zone downrange of a "fire and maneuver range" and for additional housing and other quality-of-life development for the base.

The plan states that rifle and machine gun ranges are feasible without additional land between South Finegayan and NCTS Finegayan. It states that the military would prefer most of the training on Guam to be available at home base, "within foot-marching distance." It rules out live artillery training on Guam, and states that the former Andersen South Housing area should be used for training with blank ammunition only.

Military officials in recent months have said that none of the plans for military expansion on Guam are official, and much of what happens here depends on the amount of funding made available for the transfer.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan Leaf, deputy commander of Pacific Command, earlier this month told Guam lawmakers "most, if not all," of the development will happen on land currently held by the military.

Caught in the middle
If the military decides it needs the land between South Finegayan and NCTS Finegayan, caught in the middle would be ancestral landowner Jose Pangelinan, 82, and five siblings, who currently are having the property boundaries surveyed as part of the ancestral land return process.

Their land, as well as the ancestral land of the San Nicolas family, would be in the path of the military's "surface danger zone" for the "fire and movement" range, which according to the Marine Corps basic training manual for officers, is the area used when individuals, teams or squads provide cover fire while other individuals, teams or squads advance toward or assault an enemy position.

Most of the land between South Finegayan and NCTS Finegayan is former Spanish "crown land" which means it was not privately held when it was condemned by the federal government and it is being held by the Ancestral Lands Commission to develop for the benefit of those whose family land cannot be returned.

'Injustice'
Pangelinan yesterday said it would be an "injustice" if the military decides to again condemn his family property, and said the military should use the property it already has farther north.

"The Navy took it for a long time -- for the last 50 years. They took a lot of our property. Why in the hell do we have to go through that trouble again when we're trying to build a place ourselves?" he asked.

"My father bought that (land) when he was a young man 80 years ago. The Navy came after the war and chased us out (of) there. They gave it (back) to us, part of it, then they want to use it again?"

He said his family has spent two years working on the land return, and, "I was looking forward to finish the job."

The plan also states that the military-held area at Naval Magazine in southern Guam could be used as a range for 60mm and 81mm mortars. The ability to use that area for a mortar range is limited by the nearby storage of munitions, the plan states, so it might be necessary to remove and relocate some storage facilities there.

Originally published September 29, 2006

Guam Coalition Pushes for War Reparations

Guam coalition presses for war reparation
By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

A coalition of local organizations is petitioning the U.S. and Japanese governments to compensate the wartime victims of the Japanese Imperial Army’s atrocities out of the $6 billion that Tokyo pledged to help defray the cost of the Marines’ relocation to Guam. The Coalition Group for War Reparation wants the U.S. and Japan “to bring closure to this tragic chapter in the history of Guam” before transferring the 8,000 Marines and their 9,000 dependents from Okinawa to Guam.

“The $6 billion committed is not because Japan loves the U.S. On the contrary and what is very obvious is that Japan wants to relieve itself from the burden and problems associated with U.S. Marines occupying Japanese land,” said Dr. Jose T. Nededog, coalition organizer. “The coalition strongly feels that the Japanese government must recognize and accept responsibility for what it did to the peaceful indigenous Chamorro people of Guam during World War II and compensate them accordingly,” Nededog added.

The coalition’s petition is addressed to President Bush, members of the U.S. Congress including Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Attached to the petition and individual letters sent to U.S. and Japanese officials is a copy of Guam Legislature’s Resolution 127, adopted in March, asking the U.S. government to grant Guam $2.4 billion to fund the island‚s infrastructure development needs that the troops relocationentail.

The resolution also requests Bordallo “to propose full funding of Guam war reparations to be incorporated within or without the overall funding and financing of military base expansion on Guam as an appropriate opportunity to address the bring closure to this historic injustice.” Japanese troops invaded Guam on Dec. 8, 1941 and occupied the U.S. territory for 31 months, subjecting the natives to executions, torture, forced labor, forced march and internment in concentration camps.

The U.S. eventually recaptured the island, leading to the 1951 peace treaty that exonerated Japan and spared it from paying war reparations.

“It has been over 62 years since the end of World War II and where the people entitled to reparation were approximately 22,000, they now number approximately 5,000 as they are aging and dying daily. These are the victims or are surviving heirs of such victims,” the petition reads.

In a letter to Koizumi, Nededog said that despite the U.S.’s absolution of Japan, “the government of Japan is still morally and legally obligated” to compensate the people of Guam for the sufferings that they had gone through.

In a separate letter to Rumsfeld, Nededog said resolving the long overdue war reparation “can only bring better relationship between the people of Japan, the U.S. military forces and the people of Guam.”

Pending in the U.S. Congress is Bordallo’s H.R. 1595, the Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act, which would provide restitution to the people of Guam who suffered atrocities -- including personal injury, forced labor, forced marches, internment, and death -- during the Japanese occupation of Guam. If passed into law, the bill would grant $25,000 each for Guamanians (or their heirs) who were killed during the Japanese occupation and up to $15,000 for those who were seriously injured.

Army Budget Trouble

Published on Monday, September 25, 2006
by the Los Angeles Times
Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short
An extraordinary action by the chief of staff sends a message:
The Pentagon must increase the budget or reduce commitments in Iraq and elsewhere.
by Peter Spiegel

WASHINGTON — The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.

The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials.

"This is unusual, but hell, we're in unusual times," said a senior Pentagon official involved in the budget discussions.

Schoomaker failed to submit the budget plan by an Aug. 15 deadline. The protest followed a series of cuts in the service's funding requests by both the White House and Congress over the last four months.

According to a senior Army official involved in budget talks, Schoomaker is now seeking $138.8 billion in 2008, nearly $25 billion above budget limits originally set by Rumsfeld. The Army's budget this year is $98.2 billion, making Schoomaker's request a 41% increase over current levels.

"It's incredibly huge," said the Army official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity when commenting on internal deliberations. "These are just incredible numbers."

Most funding for the fighting in Iraq has come from annual emergency spending bills, with the regular defense budget going to normal personnel, procurement and operational expenses, such as salaries and new weapons systems.

About $400 billion has been appropriated for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars through emergency funding measures since Sept. 11, 2001, with the money divided among military branches and government agencies.

But in recent budget negotiations, Army officials argued that the service's expanding global role in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism — outlined in strategic plans issued this year — as well as fast-growing personnel and equipment costs tied to the Iraq war, have put intense pressure on its normal budget.

"It's kind of like the old rancher saying: 'I'm going to size the herd to the amount of hay that I have,' " said Lt. Gen. Jerry L. Sinn, the Army's top budget official. "[Schoomaker] can't size the herd to the size of the amount of hay that he has because he's got to maintain the herd to meet the current operating environment."

The Army, with an active-duty force of 504,000, has been stretched by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. About 400,000 have done at least one tour of combat duty, and more than a third of those have been deployed twice. Commanders have increasingly complained of the strain, saying last week that sustaining current levels will require more help from the National Guard and Reserve or an increase in the active-duty force.

Schoomaker first raised alarms with Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in June after he received new Army budget outlines from Rumsfeld's office. Those outlines called for an Army budget of about $114 billion, a $2-billion cut from previous guidelines. The cuts would grow to $7 billion a year after six years, the senior Army official said.

After Schoomaker confronted Rumsfeld with the Army's own estimates for maintaining the current size and commitments — and the steps that would have to be taken to meet the lower figure, which included cutting four combat brigades and an entire division headquarters unit — Rumsfeld agreed to set up a task force to investigate Army funding.

Although no formal notification is required, Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey, who has backed Schoomaker in his push for additional funding, wrote to Rumsfeld early last month to inform him that the Army would miss the Aug. 15 deadline for its budget plan. Harvey said the delay in submitting the plan, formally called a Program Objective Memorandum, was the result of the extended review by the task force.

The study group — which included three-star officers from the Army and Rumsfeld's office — has since agreed with the Army's initial assessment. Officials say negotiations have moved to higher levels of the Bush administration, involving top aides to Rumsfeld and White House Budget Director Rob Portman.

"Now the discussion is: Where are we going to go? Do we lower our strategy or do we raise our resources?" said the senior Pentagon official. "That's where we're at."

Pressure on the Army budget has been growing since late May, when the House and Senate appropriations committees proposed defense spending for 2007 of $4 billion to $9 billion below the White House's original request.

Funding was further complicated this summer, when rising sectarian violence in Baghdad forced the Pentagon to shelve plans to gradually reduce troops in Iraq.

Because of those pressures, the Army in July announced it was freezing civilian hiring and new weapons contract awards and was scaling back on personnel travel restrictions, among other cost cuts.

Schoomaker has been vocal in recent months about a need to expand war funding legislation to pay for repair of hundreds of tanks and armored fighting vehicles after heavy use in Iraq.

He has told congressional appropriators that he will need $17.1 billion next year for repairs, nearly double this year's appropriation — and more than quadruple the cost two years ago. According to an Army budget document obtained by The Times, Army officials are planning repair requests of $13 billion in 2008 and $13.5 billion in 2009.

In recent weeks, however, Schoomaker has become more publicly emphatic about budget shortfalls, saying funding is not enough to pay for Army commitments to the Iraq war and the global strategy outlined by the Pentagon.

"There's no sense in us submitting a budget that we can't execute, a broken budget," Schoomaker said in a recent Washington address.

Military budget expert Steven M. Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent Washington think tank, said that despite widespread recognition that the Army should be getting more resources because of war-related costs, its share of the Defense Department budget has been largely unchanged since the 2003 invasion.

However, a good portion of the new money the Army seeks is not directly tied to the war, Kosiak cautioned, but rather to new weapons it wants — particularly the $200-billion Future Combat System, a family of armored vehicles that is eventually to replace nearly every tank and transporter the Army has.

"This isn't a problem one can totally pass off on current military operations," Kosiak said. "The FCS program is very ambitious — some would say overly ambitious."

Even with Rumsfeld's backing, any request for an increase could force a conflict with the White House Office of Management and Budget, which has repeatedly pushed the Pentagon to restrain its annual budget submission.

"Year after year there were attempts to raise the ceiling, but year after year OMB has refused," said a former Pentagon official familiar with the debate. "The difference this year is the Army has said that if a raise in the ceiling isn't going to be considered, they won't even play the game."

Added the senior Army official: "If you're Rob Portman advising the president of the United States and duking it out with the [secretary of Defense], it's a pretty sporting little event."

Army officials said that Schoomaker's failure to file his 2008 Program Objective Memorandum was not intended as a rebuke to Rumsfeld, and that the Defense secretary had backed Schoomaker since the chief of staff raised the issue with him directly.

Still, some Army officials said Schoomaker expressed concern about recent White House budget moves, such as the decision in May to use $1.9 billion out of the most recent emergency spending bill for border security, including deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops at the Mexican border.

Army officials said $1.2 billion of that money came out of funds originally intended for Army war expenses.

"The president has got to take care of his border mission; he needs to find a source of funds so he can play a zero-sum game — he takes it out of defense," the senior Army official said. "But when he takes it out of defense, the lion's share is coming out of the outfit that's really in extremis in the current operating environment in the war."

Rumsfeld has not set a new deadline for the Army to submit its budget plan. The Army official said staffers thought they could submit a revised plan by November, in time for President Bush to unveil his 2008 budget early next year.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

###

Nuclear Sub News For Guam

Nuclear sub bound for GuamUSS Buffalo will replace USS San Francisco
By Steve Limtiaco
Pacific Daily News
slimtiaco@guampdn.com

Originally Published September 25, 2006

The nuclear submarine USS Buffalo, which will replace the damaged USS San Francisco as the third submarine homeported on Guam, is scheduled to come here next spring, according to local Navy spokesman Lt. Donnell Evans.

Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo's office last November announced that the Los Angeles-class submarine was expected to be here by this month.

Evans on Friday said April 1, 2007, has been slated as the official date for the USS Buffalo to call Guam home, but said the submarine itself likely will not arrive here until after that date. The Buffalo, which has been homeported at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, since 1984, has a crew of 143, and will join the USS City of Corpus Christi and the USS Houston here. The USS San Francisco left Guam after it was damaged when it crashed into an undersea mountain in January 2005.

The House Armed Services Committee earlier this year received a report prepared by the Congressional Research Service, which states that homeporting eight submarines on Guam, in addition to the submarines already here, could reduce the need for submarines because Guam is a more efficient location.

The report, prepared by defense specialist Ronald O'Rourke, and presented to the committee on March 28, 2006, draws much of its information from earlier congressional and Navy studies.

According to the report, the Navy determined that a single submarine based on Guam is worth about 2.3 submarines based in Hawaii or San Diego, in terms of the amount of time it would be able to operate.

"Guam-homeported attack submarines can generate significantly more days on station in Pacific Fleet attack submarine operating areas than can attack submarines homeported in the other two locations," the report states.

And Guam-based submarines could operate even longer, the report states, if submarines were manned in shifts, with three crews for every two submarines.

According to Pacific Daily News files, the Navy intends to shift 60 percent of its submarine fleet to the Pacific Ocean by 2010.

The United States hopes to keep a robust military presence in a region that is home to a growing share of the world's trade and to potential security flashpoints on the Korean peninsula and Taiwan.

"Several women?"

Several women dissatisfied with Leaf's discussion
by Clynt Ridgell, KUAM News
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
http://www.kuam.com/news/19011.aspx

Senator Judi Won Pat's (D) women's group met today with PACCOMM deputy commander Lieutenant General Daniel Leaf to discuss cultural and social impacts that will occur with the influx of military personnel on Guam. Some of the women present during today's meeting were not satisfied with the amount of time they were allowed to meet with General Leaf.

Former senator Hope Cristobal summarized the session by saying, "I was hoping that he would be able to expound a little bit more about the military's views about some of the issues that we presented today, so generally speaking, I wasn't happy about his responses."

Although Lisa Natividad of the Organization for the Protection of Indigenous Rights was happy that the general took time out of his busy schedule to meet with the women's group, she was not entirely satisfied with the results of the meeting. "I think today's meeting was a good first step in terms of opening the dialogue with the U.S. military regarding the relocation of these Marines to our island," she said, "however I don't feel there was enough detail that was discussed and in terms of the commitments of what our needs are it seems that the general wasn't in the position to make those commitments. And so to a large degree I think that maybe the right players need to be on the table because there's lots of concerns that we need to have addressed that aren't going to be able to be touched it seems."

Guam to Receive More than Just Marines

Combat Communications Squadron to move to Guam

BY Josh Rogin
Published on Aug. 16, 2006
From http://www.FCW.com

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The 607th Combat Communications Squadron will leave in the coming weeks and move equipment and personnel to Guam, an Air Force official said today.

As part of the 607th Air Support Operations Group based at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, the squadron is responsible for rapid mobile communications deployment for wartime contingencies or natural disasters in the entire Korea area of operations.

“That leaves us short now of a combat [communications] capability that can go anywhere within the theater,” Col. Vincent Valdespino, director of communications and information at Pacific Air Forces headquarters, told an audience at the Air Force Information Technology Conference at the Auburn University campus.

A limited presence will remain to maintain the Korean Air Operations Center in Osan. But overall command, control and communications functions will be moved to the United States and its territories in the next few years, he said.

About 150 members of the 607th combat communications team will be relocated to Guam, beginning this year. A new squad will be deployed there with its completion expected in 2009. Military construction and operations and maintenance funding has already been secured, Valdespino said.

The move is part of an overall reorientation of command and control in the Pacific theater. Known as the strategic triangle concept, Hawaii, Alaska and Guam will form the base of operations for Pacific Command. The strategy aims to position critical resources on U.S.-controlled soil, while also allowing forces to be deployed to Asia or to the United States to assist in homeland defense missions.

Guam will receive the largest amount of equipment as part of this initiative. The island is set to host continuous, permanent Stryker, tanker, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance presence in the form of Global Hawk long-range unmanned aerial vehicles.

The move is also part of an overall decrease of U.S. forces in South Korea. In mid-2004, the United States and South Korea agreed to the phased withdrawal of 12,500 U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula to be completed by 2008.

President Bush has pledged to move 70,000 U.S. service members and 100,000 family members and civilian employees to the United States in the next decade.

US Military Exercises in the Philippines

RP, US Marines to hold joint exercises

By Joel Guinto

INQ7.net

Last updated 06:53pm (Mla time)

08/08/2006

SOME 3,000 Filipino and American Marine troops will hold amphibious exercises in various points in the northern Philippines in October, a Philippine military spokesman said Tuesday.

The training, dubbed Philippine Bilateral Exercises (Phiblex), is aimed at "enhancing interoperability" between the two military forces, said Lieutenant Colonel Ariel Caculitan of the Philippine Marine Corps.

Some 800 Philippine Marines and 200 others from the Navy and the Air Force will train with some 2,000 US counterparts at Fort Magsaysay in Laur town, Nueva Ecija province, Crow Valley in Capas town, Tarlac province, and the Marine Base in Ternate town, Cavite province, Caculitan said.

"It [Phiblex] aims to enhance interoperability of the Army, Navy, and Marines with an allied country," Caculitan told reporters at the Camp Aguinaldo general headquarters in Quezon City."

But it's more of a Marine heavy exercise, amphibious exercise," Caculitan added.

When asked if the training would focus on counter-terrorism, like past exercises between the US and the Philippines, Caculitan said: "Not really directed at [terrorism]… This one is basically improving interoperability."

He said the joint training would run for "more or less two weeks.""We are still coming up with a final planning conference. Everything depends on the planning process," he added.

Next week, Filipino and American naval forces will kick-start a week-long joint training against terrorism and transnational crimes dubbed Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) 2006 in the northern provinces of Zambales and La Union.

Military Pollution in South Korea

“Environment Minister Lee Chi-beom has revealed his concern that the film may turn public opinion in favor of environmental groups.”

Yonhap
August 4, 2006

(Seoul) - With the success of the recently-released film "The Host," environmental organizations in South Korea are upbeat that their ongoing protests over pollution at U. S. military bases will gain support from those who see the dangers of toxic chemicals in the movie.

Bong Joon-ho's film, which broke the 4-million-viewer mark just a week after its release, presents a monster created by toxic fluid poured into Seoul's Han River on the orders of a U. S. Army boss. The idea for the monster originated from the case of Albert McFarland, a civilian mortician of the U. S. Forces Korea who ordered the dumping of formaldehyde into the river in 2000, but was later released on bail.

Green Korea, a leading environmental body, geared up its street demonstrations on the occasion of the movie's release."

Even after that toxic case in 2000, the U. S. military is returning its bases without solving the pollution problem," Koh Ji-seon, a member of the organization in charge of the U. S. military transfer case. said.

"This movie seems to be drawing attention from people who have not known about this issue," she said, adding her organization will use the movie in its publicity.

The South Korean and U. S. militaries have agreed that the latter will transfer 59 of its closed bases to South Korea by 2008. The U. S. military will leave the bases to the care of Korea despite concerns they may be contaminated by toxic chemicals.

Environmental organizations say the deal is irresponsible and breaches the Status of Forces Agreement, which governs the rights and responsibilities of 30,000 U. S. troops stationed here.

The movie expected to set a new audience record, however, seems to be a headache for some government officials. Environment Minister Lee Chi-beom has revealed his concern that the film may turn public opinion in favor of environmental groups.

"Honestly I'm concerned with the monster that came from the toxic material from the U. S. military," Lee said in an informal luncheon meeting with reporters earlier this week. Other ministers also seemed to be afraid of watching the movie in public, he added.

The director has explained his movie is a fantasy and human drama, rather than a political satire, and that the depiction of the U. S. military improperly disposing of the toxic fluid was a formality in a monster movie that has to show the background of the monster's birth."

It may not be able to escape such interpretation, but in a broad sense, it is the basic and traditional approach that a genre movie uses political satire (in creating its monster)," he said in his essay to be published in the fall edition of literary journal Asia.

The movie revolves around the five-member family, which runs a kiosk alongside Seoul's Han River, whose life is changed when the monster shatters the tranquility of the riverside and takes away the family's only daughter.

Covering Up Sexual Assault is the Pentagon's Official Policy

Published on Monday, August 21, 2006 by the Guardian/UK
Their Bodies as Weapons
Rapes in conflict zones result from the idea that violence is erotic, and it pervades the US military
by Robin Morgan

When news surfaced that four GIs allegedly stalked, gang-raped and killed an Iraqi woman, the US tried to minimise this latest atrocity. Now article 32 hearings - the military equivalent of a grand jury - have ended at Camp Liberty, a US base in Iraq. In September, a general will rule whether the accused should be court-martialled. The defence already pleads post-traumatic stress disorder: in four months preceding the crime, 17 of the accused GIs' battalion were killed.

The victim's name was Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. Abeer means "fragrance of flowers". She was 14 years old. According to a statement by one of the accused, the soldiers first noticed her at a checkpoint. On March 12, after playing cards while slugging whisky, they changed into civvies and burst into Abeer's home. They killed her mother, father and five-year-old sister and "took turns" raping Abeer. Finally, according to the statement, they murdered her, drenched the bodies with kerosene, and set them on fire. Then the GIs grilled chicken wings.

The US military is now a mercenary force. In addition to hired militias and "independent contractors", we have a draft: a poverty draft. That's why the army is disproportionately comprised of ethnic minorities seeking education, healthcare, housing. But there are other perks. Teenage males, hormones surging, are taught to confuse their bodies with weapons, and relish it.

One training song (with lewd gestures) goes: "This is my rifle, this is my gun; one is for killing, one is for fun." The US air force admits showing films of violent pornography to pilots before they fly bombing raids. Feminist scholars have been exposing these phallocentric military connections for decades. When I wrote The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism, I presented evidence on how the terrorist mystique and the hero legend have the same root: the patriarchal pursuit of manhood. How can rape not be central to the propaganda that violence is erotic - a pervasive message affecting everything from US foreign policy to "camouflage chic" and glamorised gangsta styles?

Atrocity fatigue has set in. Wasn't rape a staple of war long before the Iliad? Weren't thousands of women and girls raped and killed in death camps in the former Yugoslavia? And weren't early reports of gang rape attacks from another small troubled country ignored? It was merely about women, and hardly anyone had heard of the place: Rwanda.

Yet the Pentagon is shocked. Have we already forgotten Abu Ghraib? Photographs of sexually tortured men leaked, but those of abused women are still classified for fear of greater outrage. So many military rapes have occurred in Okinawa, Korea, and the Philippines that feminists organised movements in protest. Incidents keep occurring near US bases, including hundreds of reported rapes of female soldiers by their fellow GIs.

In 1998, a landmark United Nations decision recognised rape as a war crime. The international tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia issued indictments and convictions on sexual violence grounds.

Sometimes, a few "nice American guys" are found guilty. Then all returns to normal. They are sacrificed to save those who train them to do what they did, and to save the careers of politicians who sermonise obscenely about "moral values" while issuing moral waivers.

Robin Morgan's new book, Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right, is published next month; she is a co-founder of The Women's Media Center, where a longer version of this article first appeared www.womensmediacenter.com www.robinmorgan.us

© Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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Governor Must Represent Guam, Not the Feds

JESSE’S CORNER
from The Marianas Variety
http://www.mavriety.com

A couple of weeks ago I accompanied Lt. Gov. Moylan on a fact finding trip to Okinawa in anticipation of the Marines move. On this trip were several Senators and village Mayors as well.It was our intention to fill in the information void, or shed light on what we believe is an information blackout, about the full details of this big move.

Many of us are concerned that Governor Camacho has not taken a sufficient lead in devising a comprehensive plan to address the glaring needs of the community. Some of us also felt that not enough urgency has been devoted to the effort to outline the civilian community’s needs and to aggressively and immediately pursue the resources to address these needs. Many of us feel like we are being washed along on this gigantic tsunami with no one steering the ship of state.While Governor Camacho has stated we need approximately $2.6 billion dollars of infrastructure improvements to maintain the quality of life in our community, I find it very troubling that he has divided this request into two parts.

One part of about 945 million dollars is his preliminary request,
while the rest is left out there somewhere to be funded at some unstated future point. It seems incredibly short sighted not to fully state our community’s needs up front, and to demand that they be met as part of the Marines move to Guam.

Instead of working with us to define our true needs and to seek our support to get the most and best of our community, the Governor seems to be pulling in the opposite direction. Governor Camacho seems to be doing all he can to “manage” information so he can appear to be a “good boy” to the federal government. He seems to want to be perceived as a good federal government team player while no one is going to bat for our community. You do not have to take my word about this, you can read it for yourself in the Governor’s own words.

Here is a letter dated July 7th he recently wrote to Delegate Bordallo, whining about our visit to Okinawa. Here it is:

“Hafa Adai! As Governor, I stand by my commitment that the Government of Guam recognizes the U.S. Department of Defense’s role in brokering the agreement on the realignment of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force in the Western Pacific. You and I committed on behalf of the people of Guam our support to bring 8,000 Marines to Guam over the next 6 years to complement the mission of the U.S. military in our region.I am concerned about recent media reports that the Lieutenant Governor of Guam is leading a contingent of Senators of the 28th Guam Legislature and Village Mayors to visit Okinawa prior to the completion of the negotiations of the Alliance Transformation Realignment. The proposed visit to Japan is expected to take place on Monday, July 10th, 2006. Given our commitments, this action is counter to protocols we had established in partnership to ensure the integrity of the ongoing negotiations of the U.S./Japan Agreement. In light of this development, I have asked the U.S. Department of Defense for their guidance on how to approach this matter locally.The Civilian-Military Task Force, which I established through Executive Order last month, is the entity on Guam currently involved in the strategic planning process to accommodate military expansion by addressing various infrastructure and quality of life concerns shared by local and military segments of our community.

The Task Force is responsible for the coordination of future visits to the proposed U.S. Marine Base sites in Guam and their counterpart military installations in Japan to gather additional information to further assist in the planning process.As adjustments are being made to the Guam Master Plan currently with the U.S. Pacific Command, such actions for our elected leaders to engage Japanese government officials are counter to the discussions Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Asia and pacific Affairs Richard Lawless and U.S. Pacific Command Deputy Commander Lt. General Daniel Leaf had with us in Guam and the direction given at that time on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense.While I agree that we all must be responsive to the desires or our constituency to understand more about the military expansion into Guam, I believe that it must be done in a manner that meets the needs of all parties involved.Our partnership is critical in ensuring successful outcomes for the greater good of the people of Guam and the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces expected to be deployed here in the future.”

So in short, Governor Camacho believes we have to subordinate our interests to that of the U.S. military and the federal government.

I beg to differ. Both our community and the military must give equal treatment to both our interests. Only in this way can we both prosper.

This is a lesson our Governor must learn – he represents us not the federal government.

Marines Practice Urban Warfare in Guam

Statement by a member of the Guam Commission for Decolonization on the recent Marine Urban warefare training that took place on Guam:

At around 3:00 PM or a little after, my watch, today August 13, Sunday, there was a tremendous explosion coming from the direction of Tumon Bay. I was at the Harmon Cliffline. I was about a mile away from the explosion, but it was loud. I can imagine the noise it made at the GMH with all the people at thehospital. I understand the explosive training by the Marines was to take place at the old GMH area with all those old buildings still there in disrepair.

My question is who in the hell permitted the Marines explosive training to take place there? The GMH and the residential areas are so close to the old GMH area, you have just got to bean idiot of a leader to have approved this training there.

The area belongs to the Chamorro Land Trust. Was there apermission from CLT for the Marines to use the area? Did the Mayor of Tamuning know and approved the training explosion to take place? Did the Marines submit a Section 106 compliance notification, as required by federal law, to Guam Historic Preservation Office for this training?

The Military here on Guam has a lot of areas under their control to accommodate the Marines for such training. They control 1/3 of Guam, for crying out loud. This is a health and safety issue. An environmental issue. People could have been hurt by the very loud explosion. This explosive training could have taken place at Andersen South, or at South Finegayan, or at Northwest Field, or at Orote, Naval Station. Why Ipao Point? To show off?

If this administration have anything to do with this, it was a really bad decision, for lack of a better word. The people of Tamuning and GMH is owed an apology. If it was the fault of one of the directors, it's indicative of the lack of intelligence and common sense of some in this administration. If the HomeLand Security's knew and allowed this training to take place to show off to the public the capabilities of theMarines, they are so naive and irresponsible.

Hawai'i Still at Risk From Old Munitions

Hawai'i still at risk from old munitions

By William Cole
Honolulu Advertiser
August 13, 2006

Ka'u Paio was digging in a garden at Waimea Middle School in 2002 on the Big Island with other students when the earth yielded something unexpected— a live hand grenade.

In 1999, a stretch of beach in Makaha was closed down after a boy found a grenade, its pin still in place, buried in the sand.

Seventeen-year-old James O'Hare was killed in 1971 when a 40 mm grenade exploded as he attempted to dismantle it. Police had said the youth found the explosive at the military's Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island.

In Hawai'i, unexploded ordnance, or UXO, is part of the landscape — the consequence of a defensive buildup pre-World War I and the massive rush to respond in World War II.

Protests in South Korea

In S. Korea, a Stubborn Stand Against U.S. Military Presence
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 21, 2006; A20

DAECHURI, South Korea -- Here in the marshy heartland of the Korean Peninsula, the rabble-rousing rice farmers of this tiny village are engaged in their own little war against the U.S. military.

With American forces in the midst of their largest regional realignment in decades, the farmlands of Daechuri have been condemned to make room for the expansion of a nearby U.S. base. While about half the residents have quietly accepted a lucrative cash-for-land deal being offered by the South Korean government, a core group of about 70 holdouts have rebuffed all efforts to buy them out.

Their refusals to make way for the base -- or give in to what many of the farmers are calling "American bullying" -- have won them instant hero status among some South Korean labor unions and student groups. Over the past several weeks, protesters have held the largest anti-American demonstrations in South Korea in four years, turning Daechuri into a symbol of their struggle to drive U.S. troops out of the country.

"We are sick of being treated like America's servants!" said Cho Sun Yeh, a fiery 90-year-old rice farmer. Her first home in the area was bulldozed to make room for a U.S. base during the 1950-53 Korean War. After the uneasy truce that left the peninsula divided into capitalist South and communist North, Cho and her husband built a new house a few hundred yards from the base's barbed wire fences.

It is from this home that Cho and her extended family of 17 are refusing to budge. "I am thankful for what the U.S. did to save us from the communists back then, but that was a long time ago and we have paid them enough thanks," she said. "I gave my land up once already, and I am not about to do it again. It is time for the U.S. to leave us alone."

The last stand at Daechuri underscores the significant hurdles that analysts say could set back by years the Pentagon's broad plan to realign American forces in the Pacific.

State-of-the-art military technologies and shifting geopolitical concerns have convinced the Pentagon that it can do with fewer troops and bases in East Asia's largest host countries, South Korea and Japan. In some respects, that strategy is giving anti-American groups in both nations a dose of what they want. In South Korea, plans call for a 33 percent reduction in the U.S. force, to 25,000 troops, and a consolidation of 104 widely scattered military installations into 10 regional hubs by 2008. In Japan, home to more than 50,000 American troops, 8,000 of the 18,000 Marines now based on Okinawa island will be relocated to the American territory of Guam by 2014.

But even as U.S. troops disappear from some communities, their presence is set to increase in others, where they are hardly being welcomed with open arms. Vocal anti-American activists are seizing the moment, calling for protracted demonstrations, insisting the United States pay a larger portion of the realignment costs and supporting politicians who favor even greater troop and base reductions.

"Both Korea and Japan are facing a similar situation," said Seong Ho Sheen, an international relations professor at Seoul National University. "Anti-U.S. anger and resentment are always there, but now you find these groups seeking to use the realignment to bring those sentiments to the surface in both countries."

Sheen and others say demonstrators' efforts have so far met with limited success. Although the protests in and around Daechuri are South Korea's largest in years, they have yet to generate national momentum and still pale in comparison with the wave of anti-American demonstrations that swept the country in 2002. Then, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets after two teenage girls were run down and killed by a U.S. armored vehicle. The vehicle's two crew members were both acquitted of negligent homicide in a U.S. military court.

Recent opinion polls indicate that most South Koreans and Japanese still do not think it is time for the U.S. military to pack its bags entirely. Yet Asian and U.S. officials concede that the realignment is causing new friction -- particularly at the grass-roots level.

In Japan, the U.S. troop presence has been better tolerated than in most other host countries in Asia or Europe -- in part because the size and role of the country's own forces are limited by Japan's pacifist post-World War II constitution. But opposition has been fierce on a local level, particularly in Okinawa, home to the largest concentration of U.S. troops in the country.

That has been due in some part to crimes committed by U.S. servicemen stationed there and a sense that the American military operates above Japanese law. But opinion polls have shown that the huge costs Japan will bear as a result of the U.S. realignment are now generating resentment on a national level.

In recent weeks, Washington and Tokyo have reached broad agreement that Japan would shoulder nearly 60 percent -- or $6 billion -- of the cost of moving 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam. But in late April, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard P. Lawless shocked Japan by telling reporters in Washington that Tokyo's ultimate cost for the U.S. troop realignment could reach $26 billion.

"This used to be an Okinawa-only issue," said Teruo Onishi, an activist who helped organize a massive but peaceful demonstration against the U.S. military in Okinawa in March. "But now that the rest of Japan is seeing the huge amount we are being asked to pay, people are wondering whether it's really fair for Japanese tax dollars to fund the U.S. military's strategic objectives."

As part of the realignment in South Korea, the U.S. military will return 66 percent of the land it now occupies, including prime real estate in the heart of Seoul, the capital. Residents near the land vacated so far have expressed satisfaction with the drop in congestion and noise from military vehicles.

Still, officials in Seoul and Washington remain mired in tough negotiations over demands by South Korea's Environmental Ministry that the United States cover the costs of extensive and costly reforestation and cleanup.

U.S. officials in South Korea have declined to comment publicly on the anti-American demonstrations. In a statement, David Oten, a U.S. military spokesman in Seoul, said the United States remained "fully committed to completing consolidation as quickly as possible."

But the situation has tried the patience of some U.S. lawmakers. Last October, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) blasted South Korea for "historical amnesia." In a Senate hearing, Clinton added that South Koreans were losing their "understanding of the importance of our position there and what we have done over so many decades to provide them the freedom that they have enjoyed."

South Korean groups supporting the U.S. military presence have criticized the administration of President Roh Moo Hyun for taking too soft a line on the protesters at Daechuri, which is set to be absorbed by Camp Humphreys, the base that will become the new American command center in South Korea. The Seoul government has condemned violent protesters and made several dozen arrests. But it has also said that in a democracy, all voices, including anti-American ones, must be heard.

The holdouts have refused all incentives to leave -- including buyouts of about $170,000 per acre. Authorities say they plan to evict the farmers by force if they do not leave by October.
Farmer Cho says she will be waiting.

"This is my home," she said. "My memories are here, my life is here. I should not have to give that up for anyone."

Special correspondents Joohee Cho in Seoul and Sachiko Sakamaki in Tokyo contributed to this report.

No Nukes in Asia and the Pacific

Activists Gather at Japan Summit to Seek Nuke Ban
By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

HAGÅTÑA — Debbie Quinata, maga’haga of I Nasion Chamoru, joined grassroots activists and peace delegates from around the world, who gather in Nagasaki, Japan for the 2006 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs to tackle ways of eliminating nuclear weapons in Asia.

The conference, which opened Friday and ended Sunday, was intended to create a worldwide movement to defend each country’s Constitution, oppose U.S. military bases and step up campaign for a nuke-free region.

The conference was timed with the commemoration of the United States’ 1945 bombing of Nagasaki, which was believed to have destroyed the city and killed 73,000 people.

“We gather to remember the scared and poisoned generations to whom those dark days gave birth. We unite in the shadow—of two days long past, lifted by the strength of those victims too strong to be victims forever. We are here because of the survivors — the survivors who instead of fighting a war for vengeance use their past as a rallying call for peace throughout the world,” Quinata said in a speech delivered at the summit.

She told the conference delegates that the increased military buildup on Guam will further put the island in a situation, in which it would become “a pawn in the political and military intrigue of a nation it never chose to join.”Quinata lambasted the Guam business community for dismissing the impact of increased military buildup on Guam. Guam is expecting the influx of 8,000 Marines and 10,000 dependents, who will be relocated from Okinawa, Japan as part of the US-Japan forces realignment agreement.

The military expansion, Quinata said, will turn the small island into “the largest, most forward U.S. military installation in the Pacific theatre.”

She also mentioned reports substantiating the existence of toxic elements left by the U.S. military as a result of storage of chemical agents and down-winder’s radiation and PCB-contamination in the waters.“While a brave few want a real and tangible say in the military’s plans for Guam, members of the business community maintain that all the misfortunes of militarization will easily be washed away by the fortunes only a select few will earn,” she said.

Organizers said the annual world conference “is tasked to significantly change the balance of power in the world in favor of the anti-nuclear weapons and peace movement.”

Trial Begins for Navy Sailor

Trial begins for Navy sailor
By Valerie Lynn M. Maigue
Pacific Daily News
vmmaigue@guampdn.com

Navy sailor Doyle Lamont Perry was "at the wrong place at the wrong time," when he was questioned and later arrested in connection with the alleged rape and beating of a woman in May, defense attorney Steven Hattori told jurors yesterday.

But Assistant Attorney General Lewis Littlepage told the jury that the prosecution has strong physical evidence that will show Perry is guilty of the charges against him.

Perry, 27, is accused of raping and assaulting a 47-year-old woman in a beach near Adelup on May 27. His trial started yesterday with opening arguments and the questioning of two witnesses for the prosecution. He faces felony charges of criminal sexual conduct, assault with intent to commit criminal sexual conduct and other charges. "I'm not going to lie to you, there was an assault that occurred," Hattori told jurors. "But my client was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Perry is alleged to have driven the victim to the Adelup area in his sedan so they could talk after meeting earlier that evening, court documents state. While in the car, Perry allegedly began to beat the woman, then forcefully removed her from the car onto the sand, where he allegedly continued to beat her before sexually assaulting her. The victim was later discovered by two fishermen that morning.

"The Naval career of this young man is at stake," Hattori said. "He had nothing to hide. He consented to a search of his bunk, his car and his locker. The Guam Police Department and the Naval Criminal Investigation Section led to a wrong conclusion based on a police recruit's assumption."

Hattori explained that the police officer had pulled Perry over at the Mobil gas station across from the Adelup complex on the suspicion that Perry had been driving under the influence. Hattori said the officer, several hours later, reported to Adelup, where two fishermen had reported finding the victim.

"My client has had no prior convictions, no prior arrests, and is not capable of committing this crime," Hattori said. "(The police and investigators) came with a conclusion first, and worked desperately backwards to that conclusion."

Court documents state that police had stopped Perry shortly before the woman was found as he drove out of the Adelup complex around 4:30 a.m. The officer had been conducting a routine traffic stop and noted that Perry had sand on his face and clothing, and appeared to be intoxicated. Perry told the officer he had been playing volleyball at the beach with friends, court documents state. He later recanted his story and told police that he had fallen asleep on the beach, documents state.

Prosecutor Littlepage told jurors they plan to present an abundance of physical evidence.
"There is some evidence that is already here, and some evidence that is off island but will be here Monday," Littlepage said.

Littlepage told jurors that Navy personnel will testify that Perry broke curfew the night the alleged incident occurred.

The trial is scheduled to continue next week in Judge Steven Unpingco's courtroom.

The Marines Will Use Tinian

The Saipan Tribune
Ma7 12, 2006

'Marines will use Tinian for its training'

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial disclosed yesterday that the U.S. military has assured him that the 8,000 U.S. Marine troops from Okinawa, Japan, will definitely use Tinian as a site for training exercises.

In an interview, Fitial related that during his Wednesday's meeting in Guam with U.S. Pacific Command deputy commander Lt. Gen. Daniel Leaf and U.S. Naval Forces Marianas commander Rear Admiral Charles J. Leidig, he was briefed on the progress of the relocation of U.S. troops from Okinawa to Guam.

Fitial said reports have it that the Japanese government has already agreed to pay a certain amount for the relocation.

The governor said the actual relocation would take place anytime within the next three years.

"We welcome the military in the CNMI. The general made it very clear that they will come to Tinian for military exercises. The military troops will be training on Tinian. Tinian will be used as a training site for exercises," he said.

Leaf had reportedly told him that facilities would be constructed on Tinian to support the training exercises.

The chief executive said the coming of the Marines would not only have an economic impact, but environmental impact as well."

Those are the concerns. The general is very much concerned about the environmental impact. So those will be addressed in the plans that are now being put together," he said.

The presence of the troops, Fitial said, would have a very significant economic impact on the CNMI because the troops would definitely produce revenue not only on Tinian but also on Saipan, where they are expected to visit.

Fitial said that Leidig had informed him that by middle part of June this year they will have more detailed plans.

"Right now they have been working on this relocation project," he said.The governor said the military has chosen Tinian as a training site because there is no space for such exercises in Guam.Besides, Fitial added, the military owns two-thirds of Tinian by virtue of leasehold interest. The military controls 17,799 square meters of public land on Tinian, which it leased from the CNMI government.

Japan and the U.S. reportedly struck a deal on sharing the cost of relocating the U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, with Tokyo paying 59 percent, or $6.9 billion, of the estimated $10.27 billion total cost through grants, investment and loans.

Story by Ferdie de la Torre

Guam Officials Need to Be Careful

Guam Officials Need to Be Careful

By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, July 15, 2006

NAHA, Okinawa. The chief thing Guam officials are taking home with them after a four-day trip to Okinawa is a need to ensure they have a say in the process of moving some 8,000 Marines and their dependents from Okinawa to their island over the next eight years.

B.J. Cruz, a senator in Guam's legislature, said at a news conference Thursday that he learned Okinawa leaders have managed to get concessions from the Japanese government "for certain infrastructures."

"Guam is not in a similar position," he said, explaining that the master plan for the use of Guam, to be sent to Pacific Command Adm. William J. Fallon, was prepared without local input.

PACOM officials have acknowledged the initial plan did not include local input but say that will come in the next phase of planning.

Cruz, however, said that "there is no assurance that our concerns and our recommendations are going to be implemented."

He was one of nine Guam officials Japanese Diet member Mikio Shimoji of Naha invited to Okinawa. They visited communities that host U.S. military bases and industries, Battle of Okinawa museums and peace memorials, schools and business districts developed on former base land.

They also got a look at how local communities cope with the large U.S. military presence.
Cruz said Guam officials needed to be careful Marines do not come to their island to the detriment of Guam residents.

"There is only one freshwater lake and the military owns that lake, they sell that water to the local community," he said. "Since they sell that water to the local community, they can also turn it off. Three of us live in villages where over the last two months we've been without water for almost 30 days."

Cruz said he will press the U.S. government to provide adequate infrastructure for the island's civilians as well as the military.

Lt. Gov. Kaleo Moylan, who led the Guam delegation, said the trip was to ensure a smooth transition of Marines to Guam. Moylan, who is running against Gov. Felix Camacho for this fall's Republican gubernatorial nomination, said Okinawa and Guam had parallel post-World War II histories.

"You had military bases placed here without the consent of the local population," he said. "Guam had a similar experience. Now that we are in the process of realignment, the voices of the people of Guam need to be heard."

Guam Legislature Vice Speaker Joanne Brown said she "hoped that Guam can minimize the adverse experiences that people of Okinawa encountered" with such a large military presence.

"We're very concerned about the social impact this will have on our people," she said. "It's going to be very, very critical in the next few months and certainly in the next few years for us to ensure that the leadership of Guam c be very, very aggressive."

She said Guam officials need to be just as aggressive with the U.S. government as Okinawa officials are with Tokyo.

"The federal government has a responsibility to make sure the military buildup does not adversely affect our people," she said.

Chiyomi Sumida contributed to this report.

© 2006 Stars and Stripes. All Rights Reserved.

What Can Be Saved?

What Can Be Saved

talk given at the International Gathering of Human Rights Workers in the Asia-Pacific Region

Okinawa, Japan

Julian Aguon; June 22, 2006

I have been asked to speak on the current situation of the Chamoru people of Guam, in light of US military realignment schemes now underway in our region. I am here to report: not good.

Last month, US Department of Defense Undersecretary Richard Lawless paid Guam politicians a visit but shared no specifics about how the transfer of more than 8,000 marines and their dependents from Okinawa to Guam will impact our island. To date, defense officials state nothing definite except that Guam is to be a faster response hub to the loose and alleged threats that are China and North Korea. In addition to the marines, we have been informed that the Navy and the Air Force are also making plans to beef up their presence here. The latest is that the Navy may add as many as six additional nuclear submarines on Guam to the three we already house, expand and upgrade naval berthing barges as well as the wharf to accommodate more and bigger vessels. It plans to add a sixth aircraft carrier and to home port sixty percent of its Pacific Fleet in the region.

The Air Force is working to establish a Global Strike Force on Guam, which will include Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, deployed bombers, tankers, F/A-22 fighter jets and other aircraft. Deputy Commander of the US Pacific Command Daniel Leaf informed us of programs in work to establish a strike and intelligence surveillance reconnaissance hub at Andersen Air Force Base on the northern end of our island. Though this buildup is massive, it is only a complement to the already impressive Air Force and Navy show of force on 1/3 of the island, which now threatens to make Guam a first-strike target in any altercation with China and/or North Korea.

The recent announcement that the US and Japan finalized negotiations on the relocation of the marines that you here in Okinawa are kicking out, was greeted by the Guam elite with fanfare. They want them. Actually, they have been flagging them down. Our governor and his republican-led administration, the local Chamber of Commerce (consisting primarily of US statesiders), and the press have been up to their elbows in excitement ever since the announcement was made. The elite have launched a propaganda campaign to trick us into believing that the corporatization and militarization of Guam is in our community's best interest. Back home, editorials telling half-truths and little-to-none truths sound like trumpets in the territory. Articles that passionately support the privatization of virtually every public agency and that lay bare a blind faith in the benefits of military buildup rain down on the readership, as our little piece of Gannet, the Pacific Daily News, is up to its old habit: down on its knees in its endless genuflection toward corporate America.

Its reporters still pretend to report the news and the line, with little variation, remains: privatize everything – our one and only water provider, only power provider, only local telephone provider, and only port - on an island that imports 85-90% of its food and where private monopolies of public goods would truly make it captive to the forces of the market. To bring you up to speed, telecommunications were sold in full, our power distributor in part, and our water agency is still under attack. After an incompetent piece of legislation that would have had an American-based company profit off our water systems was defeated last year, the elite pushed an alternative mode of privatization. Recently, a private management contract was authorized to outsource the management of the agency's wastewater division. Meanwhile, the Port Authority of Guam has been taken to court by a private, foreign company for allegedly acting in bad faith with regard to its Request for Proposal. All this painted as part and parcel of readying Guam for an increased US military presence. A classic story of corporate globalization: the integrity of an ancient civilization on sale to the lowest bidder.

But the story of the 212 square mile island affectionately called the 'tip of the spear' in the US line of defense begs a bit more history.

Situated just north of the equator in the Western Pacific Ocean, Guam is the southernmost island of the Mariana Island Chain, in Micronesia. The native people of Guam call ourselves and our language Chamoru. We are descendents of the first group of Austronesians to move eastward into Oceania, populating our island archipelago long before others would reach island groups east of Micronesia. We were master navigators, matrilineal and, in 1521, Magellan's first Pacific contact. The plot, tragically, does not change much from here. Colonized by Spain for more than three hundred years, awarded to the US after Spain's defeat in 1898 as one of its Treaty of Paris prizes (its others being Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippine Islands), taken by Japan in the second world war only to be re-taken by the US at its close, Guam has since been subject to administration by the Office of Insular Affairs in the US Department of Interior.

As one of the few remaining non-self-governing territories (colonies) of the world, Guam today waits on a miracle - on US compliance with international law. Current US military operations in our region are a continuation of a long disregard for international law, which holds the US, as our Administering Power, legally responsible to protect the Chamoru people until the right to self-determination is exercised. As a signatory of the United Nations Charter, the US accepted as "a sacred trust" the obligation to see that the native inhabitants of Guam attain a full measure of self-government. More than forty years ago, UN Resolution 1514 was passed, declaring that 'all peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.' It declared further that "immediate steps shall be taken, in Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire."

The last forty six years have slowly stripped the words of their weight.

Back home, war games are afoot. As I speak, three US aircraft carriers - the USS Abraham Lincoln, the USS Kitty Hawk, and the USS Ronald Reagan – are playing what have been casually called war games. To date, no information has been released to the government of Guam on the contents of these games. As these ships engage in military exercise Valiant Shield, doing only God knows what, local leaders are simply waiting on word as to whether or not one of the three flattops will make a port call. Pump dollars into the local economy. The only thing we know about the exercise is that it is not the only one. The latest estimate released by defense officials is that 22,000 U.S. military personnel, 30 ships and 280 aircraft will partake in related exercises off our waters.

In all this, our leaders are nowhere to be found, except maybe in the private homes of the Guam elite, making toasts to the triumph of the free market. Shamelessly usurping the patriotism of a war-worn people. Or maybe they are busy missing meetings. Our governor is notorious for this. Last month, after snubbing a politician from Okinawa who visited Guam to discuss the transfer of the marines, Governor Camacho canceled two meetings with the Japanese government. Mikio Shimoji, member of both Japan Diet's Committee on Foreign Affairs and Committee on Security, tried in vain to meet with him. When pressed for an answer, he said that he was taking a "conservative approach." He publicly admitted that he was waiting on a response from US federal officials, who he asked to establish a protocol for visits by foreign officials, so that he doesn't "step over any lines."

Earlier in his term, our governor missed the UN regional seminar on decolonization. In a letter to the UN Special Committee on Decolonization Chairman Julian Hunte, he implied that Guam was working with the US on its self-determination at the domestic level and that there was no pressing need to work with the international community on this matter.

He is not the only one who dodged meetings with Japan last month. He and our non-voting representative to Congress, Madeleine Bordallo, agreed not to meet with any foreign officials until after they had met with Undersecretary of Defense Lawless. Bordallo told reporters that the rationale behind the decision not to entertain foreign guests was that "this is the time when we're working on details." She must know something no one else does. The same day, US defense officials made it clear that no details could be shared with the people of Guam because no details were yet known.

So, what do we know?

That the Navy now playing war games off our waters is the same one that contaminated our waters, our lands and our livers with an older version of the same game.

Almost immediately after the last world war, the US conducted a series of nuclear experiments in Micronesia. A report released by the committee commissioned by the 26th Guam Legislature to investigate how Guam was affected by the US bombing of the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, detailed strong evidence of potential radioactive contaminations of our home. Guam, 1200 miles west of the Marshalls, received nuclear fallout from more than ten of the sixty-six bombs dropped on Enewetak alone. US military vessels flown above the plumes of Enewetak to measure radioactivity were flown to Guam and flushed out. To date, the toxics at Apra Habor and Cocos Lagoon on Guam have yet to be cleaned. The Guam Environmental Protection Agency recently issued a public warning to refrain from eating fish in that area due to dangerous levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the water. Just last year, east of us, four Marshallese babies born without eyeballs reminded the world of these transgressions.

Reports of related contamination are coming in from all over. Recently in Harris County, Texas, a retired US-Navy Lieutenant - riddled with a fifty-year-old guilt – declared before a Notary Public that Guam received radioactive fallout from the first hydrogen bomb test done in the Marshall Islands. Bert Schreiber, the Atomic, Biological, and Chemical Warfare Defense Officer stationed in Guam at the time of the first series of bombings, gave written testimony that on the morning of November 3, 1952, after discovering radioactive material from an H-bomb dropped on Enewetak atoll two days prior, his superior ordered him to keep his mouth shut. The deadly dust fell on a people who could have taken at least some precautionary measures. Only last month, another defense official informed us of how the US kept about 5,000 drums of Agent Purple in Guam in an undisclosed area in 1952 in anticipation of use on the Korean peninsula. According to a researcher who participated in a military experiment in Guam in the sixties, the amount of dioxin at Andersen Air Force Base alone (19,000 ppm) indicates a disturbing degree of US military irresponsibility (or is it indifference?) Further investigation awaits commission.

But the bands play on and we are expected to believe that the danger is China, North Korea. Iran too. I almost forgot: we should forget the fact that every single reason the US used to justify it's going to war with Iraq has turned out a lie. While we're at it, we might as well hate Cuba and downplay the acts of political bravery rippling across leftist Latin America, lest we see them for what they are: shining acts of self-determination hurled at the myth of free market inevitability. But I am getting a little ahead of myself. Contemporary politics back home doesn't have that wide a reach. In the Guam of today, political science is more a story of mirrors and a people's facelessness in them.

But what we really came to say is simple. The Chamoru Nation is here because we intend to survive. We are also here to renew our pact with you to actively encourage the withdrawal of the exaggerated US military presence from all – not some – of our communities. To declare to the world what we know: that the aggressive militarization of our region is laying humanity a premature grave. And we find that unacceptable.

Solidarity is not our best bet. It is our only one. As an international gathering of peace and justice activists, we are building momentum for the global demilitarization movement. In the process, I hope we are building a better bridge across the world we are working toward and the weed of cynicism gaining too much ground in human hearts.

I pray for the builders. That we keep our courage close. This world we are building from the bones of ideas that have failed humanity has set us out on an unkind wind. Our sisters and brothers here from the Philippines know this better than most. All across that country, democracy is under attack, civil liberties are being curtailed, death squads kill freely and the administration of President Arroyo practically sanctions them. Since 2001, more than six hundred people – human rights workers, journalists, priests, lawyers, teachers, labor leaders, students – have been murdered. More than a hundred and fifty disappeared. Their crime?Thinking. And having the courage to align a life with their hunger for justice. Doing its part in the vague 'global war on terror', the Arroyo administration has Oplan Bantay Laya, a program aimed at neutralizing (destroying) what is really the people's progressive movement. For its counterinsurgency efforts, the US gave that government $30 million dollars in one year alone.
You folks in Okinawa have shouldered your share of suffering. As Washington's top ally (alley) cat in East Asia, Japan continues to negotiate away your freedom from harm, bodily and otherwise. Japan leadership has yet to listen to the logic living in your rage. Playing host to 75% of the total US troops stationed in Japan has pushed your patience – and your nonviolence – to its limits.

As you scream about the noise and the rape and the alcoholism and the violence of the US military presence in your cramped home, US defense officials tell senators back home that the marines being moved to Guam are family-oriented. That the feds will work with us to ensure the transfer is a "win-win" situation. The Boston Herald reports that even after the 8,000 troops are transferred, about 15,500 will remain here.

But in the end this is not our end. The proponents of justice will outlast the proponents of privatization, militarization, and death. Because all empires fall. Because enough of us realize or will realize that a choice must be made. Either we pursue justice or we perish.

And because we know the truth: what we love we can save, including each other, even when we are afraid.

A Different Type of Invasion

Guam kids to study U.S. military ahead of Marines move to island
By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Wednesday, July 5, 2006

HAGATNA, Guam — The public school system here plans to incorporate lessons about U.S. military history, culture and society into their classrooms in the coming years, an initiative meant to prepare the island’s young people for the expected doubling of active-duty servicemembers here, according to a public school administrator.

The idea is to teach Guam’s future adults about the military — past and present — to help erase stereotypes, reduce apprehension and prevent conflicts as 8,000 U.S. Marines move here from Okinawa, said Nerissa Bretania-Shafer, the district’s administrator of research, planning and evaluation.

Specifically, the new lessons would help students better understand the role of the Marines, both internationally and on Guam.

“They need to be prepared with how to deal with change,” Bretania-Shafer said.

“We are going to look at our curriculum and see how we can complement it to [educate about] the military and give them more information about the armed forces and their dependents,” she said. “And we want them to learn about diffusing conflicts that may arise.”

Many locals have the impression Marines are moving here because they wore out their welcome in Okinawa, Bretania-Shafer said. While acknowledging instances of violent crimes, military officials have said the move is part of an overall Pentagon strategy in the Pacific.

Recent statistics from Okinawa officials show Marines there are proportionately less likely than local residents to be arrested. Still, local headlines and prosecutions of a few brutal crimes have resonated across the sea to Guam.

“That can create fear and confrontations,” Bretania-Shafer said. “We need to balance that, expose them to the training that Marines get, what they have done for Guam.” The Marine Corps during World War II liberated the island from an entrenched Japanese force in July 1944.
A spokesman for the military school system said officials there were supportive of the plans.
“We applaud any efforts to increase the knowledge of all students, especially when they can learn more about their own history, cultural diversity and the geographical significance of their home,” Charles Steitz, a spokesman for the Department of Defense Education Activity’s Pacific office, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.

The idea is in the beginning stages. But Bretania-Shafer said she hopes to have pilot lesson plans in various grades next school year.

Guam’s 31,000 students already get some exposure to military personnel, families and lifestyle, she said. Students play each other in sports, military representatives participate in career days and some Navy and Air Force members “adopt” the 37 schools across the island to help with minor repairs and cleanup days, she said.

The initiative will cost money, at least for printing materials and teacher stipends to develop the curriculum, she said. That will prove a challenge to the district’s proposed $200 million budget, which Guam’s legislature has yet to approve. This year, the district spent far more than the $160 million budgeted, and it has struggled in recent weeks to meet its payroll and pay utility bills.