Guam and Its Three Empires
Few peoples in the world have had continued colonial status for the past 340 years. However, the Chamorro people can claim this unfortunate distinction. It all began when Ferdinand Magellan, and his three small ships stumbled upon the Mariana Islands March 13, 1521. Totally exhausted, sick with scurvy and half-starved, Magellan and his crew were fed and the ship’s stores replenished. Magellan stayed just long enough to take vengeance on the islanders’ for their theft of his ship’s skiff, and, reportedly, carve out human entrails for his sick crew.
It was a tragic beginning to colonization for the Chamorros.
Spanish take charge
Because of the Chamorros’ perceived aggressive ways, Magellan was not interested in claiming the islands for Spain. Sailing out of New Spain (Mexico), Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, a prosperous landowner from Mexico City, officially took Guam as a formal possession of Spain in 1565. But a continuous Spanish colonial presence did not begin on Guam until 1668, after King Philip IV of Spain approved Father Diego Luis de San Vitores’, S.J., mission to Guam. San Vitores needed several years of heavy-duty politicking and persuading to get his vision funded. For this he depended on Queen Mariana and her Jesuit confessor, Father J. E. Nithard.
Fr. San Vitores was Guam’s first governor (head of colony) and his main order of business was, of course, to Christianize the Chamorros. This led to the priest’s murder in 1672 by Chief Matapang and sixteen years of Chamorro resistance that was brutally put down by Spanish force of arms.
Three priests—Frs. Francisco Solano, Francisco Ezquerra, and Peter Coemans—followed San Vitores as head of colony till 1674 when the first military man, Captain Damian de Esplana, originally assigned to the Philippines was stranded on Guam. Because of his military rank, the Jesuits requested Esplana to serve as head of the mission.
It was not until 1681 that Captain Antonio Saravia was appointed the first official Military Head Commander (later governor) of Guam upon the authority of King Charles II of Spain. One of Saravia’s first acts was to persuade all the Chamorro leaders, then loyal to Spain, to take and sign an oath of allegiance. They promised to “abide by any law which His Majesty might be pleased to impose upon us.” This show of loyalty was celebrated with cannon and musket fire, shouts, and triton trumpet shell blasts. For the next 217 years and fifty-some foreign governors, the Chamorros would live as both citizens and subjects of Spain.
In 1684, after sixteen years of war, the Spanish had largely subdued the Chamorros and imposed a governing structure. A network of dirt tracks connected five districts each with a pueblo, or main village, and church. A priest and a soldier were assigned to each pueblo. Leading Chamorros were identified and designated as principales. The principales were assigned some village duties and used to persuade all the Chamorros in the surrounding area to take up residence in the main village.
The village priest headed both the church and school with upkeep being done by Chamorros. In 1680 Guam had nine priests and three lay brothers and a population of about 7,000. This was a considerable reduction from the 50,000 estimated at San Vitores’ arrival. The population, reduced by the Spanish-Chamorro War, was further reduced by epidemics in 1688 and 1693 that began from diseases brought by Spanish ships.
The 217 years of Spanish colonial rule on Guam was theocratic and autocratic. Toward the end of that period, however, a royal order of 1885 introduced an element of village-level democracy. The order allowed free use of crown land by Chamorros and the election of local officials called gobernadorcillo, or mayor, from among the principalia class. This was a major change for the islands, with elected officials replacing appointed ones.
Americans were next
Such a change, important as it was, had no impact on the continued decline of Spain’s empire, by 1898 but a shadow of its former self. Aggressive and ambitious, the United States had established itself as a player in the arena of world geopolitics. Irritated by Spain’s autocratic rule of Cuba and the mysterious explosion that destroyed the battleship, USS Maine, then in Havana’s harbor, the U.S. declared war on Spain in April 1898.
In June, Captain Henry Glass quickly took Guam and sailed on to the Philippines. In August a protocol was signed ending the fighting and in December the Treaty of Paris was agreed to whereby the U.S paid $20 million reparations for all the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
The transfer of Guam’s sovereignty did not involve the Chamorros and other than the assignment to the U.S. Congress the power to determine the civil rights and political status of the Chamorros, there was no explicit obligation placed on the U.S. to cultivate self-government or improve the political, social, or economic well-being of the indigenous people. The authority to administer Guam was soon transferred to the U.S. Navy, whose appointed governors would assume complete and unquestioned authority of Guam and its people. From the beginning, Guam was and still is but a piece of real estate needed by the American empire for its strategic purposes.
Guam’s first U.S. Naval governor arrived in August 1899 and the last one ended his term when the Organic Act was signed in 1949. As with the Spanish, American military rule was autocratic, the one-man rule of a commanding naval officer. Be that as it may, individual naval governors took initiatives to enlarge Chamorro participation in government.
Governor Roy Smith (1916-1918) established the first Guam Congress. This group of thirty-four members was made up of village commissioners, deputy commissioners and other prominent Chamorros, all appointed by the governor. However, the “legislators” were told in no uncertain terms that they were merely an advisory body with no authority to debate political rights or status issues.
Guam’s greatest naval governor was Willis W. Bradley, 1929-1931. Bradley worked to forward recommendations to Washington, D.C. that Guam’s people be granted U.S. citizenship and a bill of rights. While his efforts were ignored by U.S. leadership, he went ahead and established Guam citizenship and a Guam Bill of Rights. He reconstituted the Guam Congress as a bicameral elected body and called for the direct election of village commissioners. However, the Navy brass in Washington was not happy with Bradley’s initiatives in the area of expanded civil rights for Guam’s people and recalled him at the end of his term.
World War II brought Japanese
U.S. naval rule of Guam was violently interrupted by the 1941 attack of the Empire of Japan’s forces. The Imperial Japanese Navy’s 54th Naval Defense Guard ruled Guam for the purpose of establishing the Greater East-Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. This ideology was intended to liberate Asian peoples from European colonialism and establish one political and economic bloc centered on Japan.
Japan’s grand vision resulted in repressive and harsh rule. Japanese forces would occupy Guam for nearly three years between December 1941 and July 1944. Attempts to implement the sphere ideology came crashing to the ground as an occupying military government had to immediately transform itself into a fighting force which was crushed in less than a month by the overwhelming power of the U.S. military. Guam then reverted to the American empire.
Americans come back
What remained steady and increasingly persistent both before and after the Pacific War was the Chamorro call for political rights and civilian rule. This began in 1901 with a petition calling for a permanent civilian government. In 1917 at the opening of the first Guam Congress, Tomas Calvo Anderson asserted:
It is high time that there be granted to the people, respectful, loyal and devoted to the Great American nation, the same rights that have been granted to the different states, territories and possessions… Our ideals are realized by the giving of that which by right should be granted, that is to say, the defining of the status of the Chamorro people.
Again in 1926 and 1929, the Guam Congress adopted and endorsed petitions for the grant of U.S. citizenship to Chamorros. A few years later, the Guam Recorder of 1933 contained two statements, one by congressmen Manuel F. Ulloa and Dr. Ramon M. Sablan and a second by Guam Postmaster James Underwood calling for American citizenship. In response, naval Governor Captain George A. Alexander endorsed this effort by transmitting the citizenship petition to the White House signed by 2,000 Chamorros.
Dead silence from Washington D.C.
In spite of dead silence from Washington, D.C. in response to all these petitions, the push for citizenship and civil rights continued with the efforts of local political leaders and men of prominence. In 1936, Baltazar J. Bordallo and Francisco Baza Leon Guerrero made the long trip to Washington using donations from school children and their own funds to personally lobby the U.S. Congress for a citizenship bill. Introduced into both the 75th and 76th Congresses of 1937 and 1939, the bill eventually failed because of navy opposition and the specter of war.
After the war—one during which Chamorros demonstrated great loyalty to the U.S. – some 600 Guamanian war veterans could and did become naturalized American citizens. In a January 1947 resolution the Guam Congress requested Governor Charles A. Pownall (a vice admiral) to ask the U.S. Congress to grant American citizenship to Guamanians and pass organic legislation establishing civilian government. The Navy Department postponed action on this request while it awaited the results of the Hopkins Study concerning Guam and American Samoa. That study had been commissioned by President Harry S. Truman’s secretary of defense to inspect and recommend changes in the government of American Samoa and Guam as well as one completed by a cabinet level committee.
Both groups made nearly identical recommendations. They proposed that congressional legislation provide civilian government via an organic act, American citizenship, a bill of rights, and local legislative powers be established by law. Friends of Guam on the U.S. mainland, including former Governor Willis W. Bradley, then a congressman from California, were lobbying for these changes and making Guam’s plight a national issue.
However, what really broke the navy opposition and got President Truman’s attention was the 1949 walkout of the Guam Congress over a serious disagreement with Governor Charles A. Pownall. Besides refusing to grant subpoena powers to the congress — the reason for the walkout — he also declared their seats vacant and stated that he would fill them by appointment.
The walkout and the heavy military hand were reported in both The New York Times and The Washington Post and caught Truman’s attention. In early 1949 the president ordered the Department of Interior to draft an organic act for Guam, approved it in May, and had it introduced into the 81st Congress. Hearings were held on Guam in late 1949 that led to numerous changes to the draft. Even the navy testified in favor of the organic legislation, after all it already had about thirty-six percent of Guam’s land under its control.
Organic Act signed
In mid-1950, the U.S. Congress passed the Guam Organic Act and President Truman signed it into law on August 1. Only one Chamorro was present at this event. This was former Guam Congressman Carlos P. Taitano, then an American citizen and student at the Georgetown University Law School. Taitano had been the key contact to the national press that got Guam’s plight into the newspaper headlines. At a 1998 celebration of the forty-eighth anniversary of the act, he publicly stated that the approval of the Organic Act:
...was the beginning of the decolonization of Guam. Unfortunately, almost half a century after… the Chamorros are still trying to set up an island government without the bounds or restraints of colonialism. It is our hope that before another fifty years have passed… we would see the passage of the Guam Commonwealth Act, now before the U.S. Congress.
The major provisions of Guam’s Organic Act provided American citizenship; a bill of rights; a civilian administration and local three branch government that included a civilian executive that retained many of the powers of the former naval governor and who, just as under the U.S. Navy, would be appointed by the U.S. president, a 21-seat unicameral legislature, and a judiciary.
The act also identified and reserved over thirty-six percent of Guam’s land for U.S. military use and declared Guam to be an unincorporated Territory of the U.S. The act has been amended numerous times by Congress since 1950; notable amendments included those for an elected governor and lieutenant governor, an elected delegate to the U.S. Congress, and most recently, a Guam Supreme court as a separate and pinnacle body of the island judiciary system. Although these changes improved the Organic Act, the government was not yet one of or by the people.
Still under United Nations watch
Chamorros certainly accepted the 1950 act as a large political step forward since it lifted the heavy yolk of military rule. Nevertheless, they did not have an opportunity to vote on it. Strictly speaking, an act of self-determination had not been taken and Guam remains on the United Nation’s list of non-self-governing territories. As an unincorporated territory, Guam continued as a strategically located piece of real estate belonging to the American empire.
The Organic Act of 1950 was a major step forward for Guam’s home rule and a model for the rest of the Pacific at that time. The act greatly accelerated political activity with the formal establishment of the Democratic and Republican parties in the 1960s, fierce competition (bi-annually) for legislature seats, and beginning in 1970, battles for the governor and lieutenant governor offices (every four years). Control of the legislature and governorship has oscillated between the Republicans and Democrats, stimulated by dynamic personalities such as Democrat Ricardo J. Bordallo and Republican Joseph F. Ada. The 1998 gubernatorial contest between Democrat Carl Gutierrez, the incumbent, and Ada, attempting to make a political come-back, culminated in an unprecedented post-election controversy that made its way to the Supreme Court of the United States for final resolution in favor of Gutierrez in 1999.
The same excitement evolved in the heated 2002 race between former Congressman Robert Underwood and his running mate, Senator Tom Ada, as they went nose-to-nose with Senators Felix Camacho and Kaleo Moylan, the sons of Guam’s first elected governor and lieutenant governor. In 2002, the sons won, but it took some underhanded campaign maneuvers to pull off an upset. Camacho and Underwood faced off again in 2006 with different running mates. Camacho won again by a slim margin.
Other islands of Micronesia unshackled
In contrast to Guam’s “status of no status,” the island peoples of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) surrounding Guam were not shackled by the unincorporated territory doctrine of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Insular Cases. According to this doctrine, the U.S. Congress retains plenary authority over all unincorporated territories (such territories were not recognized as integral parts of the United States) and could decide which Constitutional protections and rights it might (or might not) extend to such territories. In contrast, the peoples of the TTPI were governed by the 1947 Trusteeship Agreement which, unlike the Treaty of Paris, clearly delineated obligations of the U.S. government that included “the development of the inhabitants of the trust territory toward self-government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of the trust territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned.”
Because of this fundamental difference in legal doctrine, the TTPI leaders could and did negotiate political status change with the U.S. on a more or less equal basis. In negotiations with the U.S., the TTPI leaders (excepting the Northern Mariana Islands) rejected both territorial status and commonwealth status. Finally, in the mid 1980s (1994 for Palau) the various TTPI entities approved and signed compacts of free association with the U.S. that resulted in political independence. In the case of the Northern Mariana Islands (also a part of the TTPI), the leadership there concluded a covenant agreement that established a commonwealth relationship with the U.S. in 1975.
All the while, the U.S. citizens on Guam stood by and watched amazed and even angered at how they were being ignored. Guam delegate to the U.S. Congress, Antonio Won Pat remarked:
Whatever the needs—whether real or imagined—of the Pentagon in the western Pacific, the willingness of Washington to deal so generously with non-citizens while denying their fellow Americans equal treatment can only be viewed with suspicion and resentment by the people of Guam.
Ford approves Commonwealth but plan shelved
The highest reaches of the U.S. government got wind of this suspicion and resentment. In response, the National Security Council commissioned a study in September 1973 of U.S. national objectives, policies and programs for Guam. After the resignation of President Richard Nixon, President Gerald Ford reviewed the study, approved it, and directed that:
The U.S. negotiator should seek agreement with Guamanian representatives on a commonwealth arrangement no less favorable than that which we are negotiating with the Northern Marianas.
President Ford’s directive of February 1, 1975, issued through Secretary State Henry A. Kissinger was never carried out and the Guam study and the directive remained secret for nearly thirty years. Furthermore, the Department of Interior essentially subverted President Ford’s directive by never informing Guam’s political leaders of the study or presidential action on it.
Throughout the period 1980-1997, Chamorro leaders embarked on a serious effort to improve Guam’s political status through the Commission on Self-Determination that was established by the Guam Legislature in 1980. Totally unaware of President Ford’s directive of 1975, the Commission wrote a draft commonwealth act that was approved by the Guam electorate. The draft was introduced into every session of the U.S. Congress during the tenures of delegates Vicente Blaz (1985-1992) and Robert Underwood (1993-2002).
Guam’s commonwealth quest came to a standstill in 1997. At Congressional hearings on the act, John Garamendi, representing the Clinton Administration, rejected the provisions to do with Chamorro self-determination as well as immigration and labor control in the commonwealth bill. Congress remained uncommitted. At the present time, Guam’s government and people remain a creature of the Organic Act and a piece of property of the American empire. Speaking very recently about the Organic Act and political change, former Congressman Underwood summarized the U.S.-Guam situation in these words:
Today, I think people want the relationship between the federal and Guam governments defined so that it can’t be changed arbitrarily. We hope to increase our autonomy and enhance our participation in federal decision making in a way that enhances our economy as well as our autonomy.
By Donald R. Shuster, Ed.D.
For further reading
Leibowitz, Arnold H. Defining Status: A Comprehensive Analysis of United States Territorial Relation. The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1989.
McHenry, Donald F. Micronesia: Trust Betrayed New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1975.
Pacific Daily News, “Centennial Timeline,” June 21, 1998.
Rogers, Robert F. Destiny’s Landfall: A History of Guam. Honolulu:, University of Hawai`i Press, 1995.
Taitano, Carlos P. “American Citizenship: A Centennial Commemoration.” Keynote address at a public meeting during the centennial commemoration, Plaza de Espana, Hagåtña, GU, August 1, 1998.
“Trusteeship Agreement.” In the 1980 Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands 33rd Annual Report. Washington, D.C.: Department of State Publication 9181, 1981.
Underwood, Robert A. Brief remarks at a public meeting, the Guam Humanities Council Forum on the Organic Act, University of Guam College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Lecture Hall, December 7, 2005.
Willens, Howard P. and Ballendorf, Dirk A. _The Secret Guam Study: How President Ford’s 1975 Approval of Commonwealth Was Blocked by Federal Officials. Mangilao, GU: University of Guam Richard F. Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Division of Historic Preservation, 2004.
Showing posts with label Sovereignty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sovereignty. Show all posts
Monday, October 12, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
US Troop Role in Philippines
US troops’ combat role in RP revealed
By Nikko Dizon
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:23:00 08/27/2009
MANILA, Philippines-The woman who blew the whistle on a fund mess involving the RP-US Balikatan exercises said American soldiers were purportedly “embedded” with Filipino troops in combat situations in Mindanao, and that the United States had taken part in the “planning of combat operations” against terrorist and Moro targets.
With nuns from the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines serving as her bodyguards, retired Navy Lt. Nancy Gadian Wednesday faced the media in a press conference organized by the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan).
Copies of her affidavit detailing her observations while stationed in Mindanao and affirming her belief that US troops were based permanently in the country were distributed at the press conference.
Gadian’s lawyer, Evalyn Ursua, said the affidavit would be submitted to the Senate on Thursday. Gadian has expressed willingness to testify at the joint congressional hearing on the continued stay of American troops in the country.
“The [US] soldiers who are deployed in Mindanao are part of the Special Operations Command. This is a unit of highly capable and technically skilled individuals. They will not be deployed here if they are not combat-ready,” Gadian said.
She admitted that she had no personal knowledge on the US soldiers’ purported involvement in actual warfare, but said in her affidavit that Filipino soldiers had confirmed to her “that US troops are embedded in Philippine troops who are engaged in actual combat in Mindanao.”
She also said in her affidavit that she had attended “a couple of situation briefings” where members of the US Special Operations Command gave the Philippine military “intelligence reports on the location of the Abu Sayyaf and secessionist groups in Mindanao.”
Asked to comment, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr. said Gadian would have to prove her claims in the “proper court.”
At press time, the US Embassy had yet to respond to a text message seeking comment, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement had yet to issue a statement.
Violation of Constitution
At the press conference, Gadian asserted that the US military had taken part in the planning of Philippine combat operations.
Aided by their “highly sophisticated equipment, they give information to the AFP counterpart,” she said.
“They have special intelligence equipment and in many instances that I was in the briefings in the conference room, the US counterpart would say where … the enemies are, either Abu Sayyaf or Muslim secessionist,” Gadian said.
“In [the Balikatan] 2002-1, the focus was on the Abu Sayyaf, and we know that they had a role in the neutralization of high-ranking personalities of the Abu Sayyaf,” she said.
Ursua said the participation of US troops in combat planning or their providing intelligence information was a violation of the 1987 Constitution.
“The most fundamental [provision] is national sovereignty … and our Constitution prohibits the presence of US troops. What Ms Gadian is saying is, for the past seven years their presence in the Philippines has been permanent and continuous,” the lawyer said.
She added: “The intelligence [operations], how do they justify that? That is part of the prohibition. They are allowed to use intelligence equipment all over, wherever they want. How do you justify that legally?”
US structures
The US military has also built permanent and temporary structures in several AFP camps in Mindanao, Gadian said.
These structures are often “off limits” to AFP personnel, and Filipino soldiers, including generals and other ranking officials, can enter only upon invitation and are limited to certain areas, she said.
In her affidavit, Gadian explained that the permanent structures “are those with fixed foundations made of concrete and cannot be easily removed.”
She said that since 2002, the Americans had temporary, as well as two permanent, structures in Camp Basilio Navarro, the headquarters of the AFP Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) in Calarian, Zamboanga City.
The headquarters of the US Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) is also at Camp Navarro.
Said Gadian in her affidavit: “The American camp in Camp Navarro consists of two permanent structures, built by the Americans, located near the office of the Headquarters Service Group of the [Wesmincom].
“The two permanent structures are fenced off by barbed wires and guarded by US Marines. Filipinos have no access to those two structures except that on occasions, a few Filipino officers are invited inside the bigger structure [but still on a limited access] which has the name of the [JSOTF-P].”
4 AFP camps
Gadian said the Americans had also built and maintained temporary and permanent structures in the Edwin Andrews Air Base for their personnel and equipment, including tanks and communication facilities.
“This area is fenced and secured by Filipinos and Americans hired by Dyn Corp., an American private military contractor. Filipinos have no access to this area,” she said.
According to Gadian, the Americans have access to the air base’s airstrip, and their planes come and go almost every other day. Their aircraft-C-12, C-130 and Chinook-are parked at the base operations center.
Gadian named the four AFP camps where the US troops maintain “temporary structures”-Camp Malagutay in Barangay Malagutay, Zamboanga City, the training camp of the Philippine Army; the Philippine Naval Station in Batu-Bato, Panglima Sugala, Tawi-Tawi; the Naval Forces Wesmincom in Lower Calarian in Camp Navarro; and Camp General Bautista in Busbus, Jolo, Sulu.
Wood, GI sheets
In Camp Malagutay, the Americans’ office is a structure made of wood and GI sheets with a container van beside it, Gadian said.
It occupies 200-300 square meters of land, fenced off and “generally not accessible to Filipinos,” but the Americans have access to the Philippine Army’s training facilities, she said.
Gadian said she first saw the temporary structure, also made of wood and GI sheets, in the Philippine Naval Station in 2004.
Staffed by seven US Navy personnel, the structure occupies some 200 sq m and houses advanced satellite communication equipment, she said. Rubber boats and land vehicles are parked in the vicinity.
Gadian said the Americans had been operating their structure at the Naval Forces in Wesmincom since 2002.
In Camp General Bautista, they have temporary structures occupying some 1,000 sq m that house personnel of the US Special Operations Command Pacific “365 days a year,” Gadian said in her affidavit.
“In all, the US troops stationed inside Camp Navarro and other parts of Mindanao total about 500 at each particular time, on a rotating basis of three months each. These troops are stationed in Mindanao even without any Balikatan exercises going on,” she said.
At the press conference, Gadian said she and mostly AFP junior officers and enlisted personnel had wondered about the US structures in the Philippines, as well as the US warships (called “frigates”) seen within the country’s “exclusive economic zone.”
She said that on a superior’s instructions, some Filipino soldiers were once brought to a warship where they even sold bottles of a popular local rum for $3 each to the US troops.
In her affidavit, she explained that frigates were for “war and equipped with missiles,” and were utilized as a “fleet in being” or a show of force.
Free ride
Gadian lamented at the press conference that Filipino soldiers had gained very little benefits from the RP-US Balikatan exercises.
At most, she said, Filipino soldiers got a “free ride” in state-of-the-art US aircraft.
As for the humanitarian missions, Gadian said that while it was true that US troops had built school buildings and roads for Filipinos, these were infrastructure that the Philippine government should provide its constituents.
She pointed out that Filipino women were being forced into prostitution by the continued US presence in Mindanao.
Gadian also denounced the arrogance with which US troops treated Filipino soldiers like herself.
She recalled an American soldier signaling to her using his fingers instead of calling her by her name. She said she was incensed and told him: “Don’t treat me like a dog. This is our country.”
Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090827-222208/US-troops-combat-role-in-RP-revealed
By Nikko Dizon
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:23:00 08/27/2009
MANILA, Philippines-The woman who blew the whistle on a fund mess involving the RP-US Balikatan exercises said American soldiers were purportedly “embedded” with Filipino troops in combat situations in Mindanao, and that the United States had taken part in the “planning of combat operations” against terrorist and Moro targets.
With nuns from the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines serving as her bodyguards, retired Navy Lt. Nancy Gadian Wednesday faced the media in a press conference organized by the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan).
Copies of her affidavit detailing her observations while stationed in Mindanao and affirming her belief that US troops were based permanently in the country were distributed at the press conference.
Gadian’s lawyer, Evalyn Ursua, said the affidavit would be submitted to the Senate on Thursday. Gadian has expressed willingness to testify at the joint congressional hearing on the continued stay of American troops in the country.
“The [US] soldiers who are deployed in Mindanao are part of the Special Operations Command. This is a unit of highly capable and technically skilled individuals. They will not be deployed here if they are not combat-ready,” Gadian said.
She admitted that she had no personal knowledge on the US soldiers’ purported involvement in actual warfare, but said in her affidavit that Filipino soldiers had confirmed to her “that US troops are embedded in Philippine troops who are engaged in actual combat in Mindanao.”
She also said in her affidavit that she had attended “a couple of situation briefings” where members of the US Special Operations Command gave the Philippine military “intelligence reports on the location of the Abu Sayyaf and secessionist groups in Mindanao.”
Asked to comment, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr. said Gadian would have to prove her claims in the “proper court.”
At press time, the US Embassy had yet to respond to a text message seeking comment, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement had yet to issue a statement.
Violation of Constitution
At the press conference, Gadian asserted that the US military had taken part in the planning of Philippine combat operations.
Aided by their “highly sophisticated equipment, they give information to the AFP counterpart,” she said.
“They have special intelligence equipment and in many instances that I was in the briefings in the conference room, the US counterpart would say where … the enemies are, either Abu Sayyaf or Muslim secessionist,” Gadian said.
“In [the Balikatan] 2002-1, the focus was on the Abu Sayyaf, and we know that they had a role in the neutralization of high-ranking personalities of the Abu Sayyaf,” she said.
Ursua said the participation of US troops in combat planning or their providing intelligence information was a violation of the 1987 Constitution.
“The most fundamental [provision] is national sovereignty … and our Constitution prohibits the presence of US troops. What Ms Gadian is saying is, for the past seven years their presence in the Philippines has been permanent and continuous,” the lawyer said.
She added: “The intelligence [operations], how do they justify that? That is part of the prohibition. They are allowed to use intelligence equipment all over, wherever they want. How do you justify that legally?”
US structures
The US military has also built permanent and temporary structures in several AFP camps in Mindanao, Gadian said.
These structures are often “off limits” to AFP personnel, and Filipino soldiers, including generals and other ranking officials, can enter only upon invitation and are limited to certain areas, she said.
In her affidavit, Gadian explained that the permanent structures “are those with fixed foundations made of concrete and cannot be easily removed.”
She said that since 2002, the Americans had temporary, as well as two permanent, structures in Camp Basilio Navarro, the headquarters of the AFP Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) in Calarian, Zamboanga City.
The headquarters of the US Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) is also at Camp Navarro.
Said Gadian in her affidavit: “The American camp in Camp Navarro consists of two permanent structures, built by the Americans, located near the office of the Headquarters Service Group of the [Wesmincom].
“The two permanent structures are fenced off by barbed wires and guarded by US Marines. Filipinos have no access to those two structures except that on occasions, a few Filipino officers are invited inside the bigger structure [but still on a limited access] which has the name of the [JSOTF-P].”
4 AFP camps
Gadian said the Americans had also built and maintained temporary and permanent structures in the Edwin Andrews Air Base for their personnel and equipment, including tanks and communication facilities.
“This area is fenced and secured by Filipinos and Americans hired by Dyn Corp., an American private military contractor. Filipinos have no access to this area,” she said.
According to Gadian, the Americans have access to the air base’s airstrip, and their planes come and go almost every other day. Their aircraft-C-12, C-130 and Chinook-are parked at the base operations center.
Gadian named the four AFP camps where the US troops maintain “temporary structures”-Camp Malagutay in Barangay Malagutay, Zamboanga City, the training camp of the Philippine Army; the Philippine Naval Station in Batu-Bato, Panglima Sugala, Tawi-Tawi; the Naval Forces Wesmincom in Lower Calarian in Camp Navarro; and Camp General Bautista in Busbus, Jolo, Sulu.
Wood, GI sheets
In Camp Malagutay, the Americans’ office is a structure made of wood and GI sheets with a container van beside it, Gadian said.
It occupies 200-300 square meters of land, fenced off and “generally not accessible to Filipinos,” but the Americans have access to the Philippine Army’s training facilities, she said.
Gadian said she first saw the temporary structure, also made of wood and GI sheets, in the Philippine Naval Station in 2004.
Staffed by seven US Navy personnel, the structure occupies some 200 sq m and houses advanced satellite communication equipment, she said. Rubber boats and land vehicles are parked in the vicinity.
Gadian said the Americans had been operating their structure at the Naval Forces in Wesmincom since 2002.
In Camp General Bautista, they have temporary structures occupying some 1,000 sq m that house personnel of the US Special Operations Command Pacific “365 days a year,” Gadian said in her affidavit.
“In all, the US troops stationed inside Camp Navarro and other parts of Mindanao total about 500 at each particular time, on a rotating basis of three months each. These troops are stationed in Mindanao even without any Balikatan exercises going on,” she said.
At the press conference, Gadian said she and mostly AFP junior officers and enlisted personnel had wondered about the US structures in the Philippines, as well as the US warships (called “frigates”) seen within the country’s “exclusive economic zone.”
She said that on a superior’s instructions, some Filipino soldiers were once brought to a warship where they even sold bottles of a popular local rum for $3 each to the US troops.
In her affidavit, she explained that frigates were for “war and equipped with missiles,” and were utilized as a “fleet in being” or a show of force.
Free ride
Gadian lamented at the press conference that Filipino soldiers had gained very little benefits from the RP-US Balikatan exercises.
At most, she said, Filipino soldiers got a “free ride” in state-of-the-art US aircraft.
As for the humanitarian missions, Gadian said that while it was true that US troops had built school buildings and roads for Filipinos, these were infrastructure that the Philippine government should provide its constituents.
She pointed out that Filipino women were being forced into prostitution by the continued US presence in Mindanao.
Gadian also denounced the arrogance with which US troops treated Filipino soldiers like herself.
She recalled an American soldier signaling to her using his fingers instead of calling her by her name. She said she was incensed and told him: “Don’t treat me like a dog. This is our country.”
Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090827-222208/US-troops-combat-role-in-RP-revealed
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Bordallo: Monument designation hurts 'local sovereignty'
WEDNESDAY, 07 JANUARY 2009 22:53
BY MAR-VIC CAGURANGAN | VARIETY NEWS STAFF
Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo vowed yesterday to work with her colleagues in the Committee on Natural Resources to ensure that all stakeholders are consulted on the development of a management plan for the three new national marine monuments that President Bush officially designated on Tuesday.
Bush proclaimed the Marianas Trench and the waters and corals surrounding three uninhabited islands in the CNMI, Rose Atoll in American Samoa and seven islands strung along the equator in the central Pacific Ocean as sanctuaries protected under the 1906 Antiquities Act.
"While the portion of the new monument in the waters near Guam is confined to submerged features and is less restrictive than originally proposed, I remain concerned about the effect of this monument designation on local sovereignty," Bordallo said in a press statement.
The president's directive allows the government to immediately phase out waste dumping, as well as commercial fishing and other extractive uses.
However, recreational fishing, tourism and scientific research with a federal permit could still be allowed within the marine sanctuaries that Bush described as "three beautiful and biologically diverse areas of the Pacific Ocean."
Prohibited activities would not apply to military activities and exercises.
Disappointment
Bordallo expressed disappointment that Bush made the decision without acknowledging the input from local communities.
"I recognize that his intent is to protect our natural resources and our ocean ecosystem while also attempting to address the concerns of our fishermen on Guam, but I do not believe that this process was as inclusive and consultative as we would have preferred," she said.
"The Mariana Trench is an extraordinarily geologically rich resource and a special area of our ocean for undersea life that can best be protected going forward with increased consultation and cooperation between federal and local authorities," the congresswoman added.
Bordallo said she looks forward to "increased consultation" on the development of a management plan under the administration of President-elect Barack Obama who will officially take the helm of the White House on Jan 20.
Bush directs the secretaries of the Interior and Commerce to prepare management plans within their respective authorities and "promulgate implementing regulations that address any further specific actions necessary for the proper care and management of the objects identified" in the proclamation.
Blue legacy
The national monuments capped off an eight-year comprehensive ocean conservation strategy, which is touted to be Bush's "Blue Legacy."
According to the proclamation, the monument management plans would include programs to address "traditional access by indigenous persons….for culturally significant subsistence, cultural and religious uses within the monument."
It will also include a program to assess and promote monument-related scientific exploration and research, tourism, as well as recreational and economic activities and opportunities in the CNMI.
BY MAR-VIC CAGURANGAN | VARIETY NEWS STAFF
Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo vowed yesterday to work with her colleagues in the Committee on Natural Resources to ensure that all stakeholders are consulted on the development of a management plan for the three new national marine monuments that President Bush officially designated on Tuesday.
Bush proclaimed the Marianas Trench and the waters and corals surrounding three uninhabited islands in the CNMI, Rose Atoll in American Samoa and seven islands strung along the equator in the central Pacific Ocean as sanctuaries protected under the 1906 Antiquities Act.
"While the portion of the new monument in the waters near Guam is confined to submerged features and is less restrictive than originally proposed, I remain concerned about the effect of this monument designation on local sovereignty," Bordallo said in a press statement.
The president's directive allows the government to immediately phase out waste dumping, as well as commercial fishing and other extractive uses.
However, recreational fishing, tourism and scientific research with a federal permit could still be allowed within the marine sanctuaries that Bush described as "three beautiful and biologically diverse areas of the Pacific Ocean."
Prohibited activities would not apply to military activities and exercises.
Disappointment
Bordallo expressed disappointment that Bush made the decision without acknowledging the input from local communities.
"I recognize that his intent is to protect our natural resources and our ocean ecosystem while also attempting to address the concerns of our fishermen on Guam, but I do not believe that this process was as inclusive and consultative as we would have preferred," she said.
"The Mariana Trench is an extraordinarily geologically rich resource and a special area of our ocean for undersea life that can best be protected going forward with increased consultation and cooperation between federal and local authorities," the congresswoman added.
Bordallo said she looks forward to "increased consultation" on the development of a management plan under the administration of President-elect Barack Obama who will officially take the helm of the White House on Jan 20.
Bush directs the secretaries of the Interior and Commerce to prepare management plans within their respective authorities and "promulgate implementing regulations that address any further specific actions necessary for the proper care and management of the objects identified" in the proclamation.
Blue legacy
The national monuments capped off an eight-year comprehensive ocean conservation strategy, which is touted to be Bush's "Blue Legacy."
According to the proclamation, the monument management plans would include programs to address "traditional access by indigenous persons….for culturally significant subsistence, cultural and religious uses within the monument."
It will also include a program to assess and promote monument-related scientific exploration and research, tourism, as well as recreational and economic activities and opportunities in the CNMI.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Federalization an Impediment to Human Rights
US federalization: A direct impediment to the human right to self-determination:
I love our national anthem of the CNMI. Until last year, I learned this song from some of my Chamoru and Carolinian sisters and brothers from the CNMI who live here in the continental United States. I am arduously trying to learn this song in Carolinian and look forward to the day when I can sing this song without the help of pen and paper. Permit me to rekindle a sense of pride in our homeland of the Marianas, the islands of my origins, by sharing with you the words that mean so much to us who have called these islands homeland for more than 5,000 years.
Gi talo gi halom tåsi Na gaige tano-ho, Ayo nai siempre hu saga Malago’ ho
Ya un dia bai hu hanåo, Bai fåtto ha’ ta’lo, Ti sina håo hu dingo, O tano-ho
Mit beses yan mås, Hu saluda håo, Gatbo na islas Mariånas, Hu tuna håo
Mit beses yan mås, Hu saluda håo, Gatbo na islas Mariånas, Hu tuna håo
Mit beses yan mås, Hu saluda håo, Gatbo na islas Mariånas, Hu tuna håo
My father was born on Saipan. My great grandmothers and grandfathers were at one time well known by Europeans because my family helped bring supplies to many parts of Micronesia and Oceania. My mother was born on Guam. After World War II, we were considered outcasts because my grandfather was a pure Japanese who happened to marry a Chamoru woman before the war ever started. Like many Chamoru families after the war, many moved to Guahan to seek better opportunities. My family was one of them. With this in mind, I am writing on behalf of the many people before me who have tried to seek a better life and who continue to struggle to live freely as peace-loving indigenous people of these islands.
I write briefly about my personal background to give context and authority to my work. For a very long time on our islands, we have remained divided as a Chamoru and Carolinian people over issues of the past. Whether these issues were grudges of war time or political relationship with the United States, we cannot let these memories surpass the good work that is beginning to happen in our homelands and in places where we have migrated. This great divide, like the abyss of the Marianas Trench, has been used by our colonizers to divide us as a people. Likewise, this colonial mentality has brought a racist tendency to all who call the Marianas home. Let us remember that racism is taught and if we do nothing to bring out the truth then we will remain in isolation, never allowing the truth to come forward. As a young Chamoru activist and theologian, it is now time to begin the process of healing so that we can work together as ONE people.
With the recent passage of H.R. 3079 in the House of Representatives, a group of young Chamoru and Carolinian activists (from Guahan and the CNMI) in the continental United States drafted letters to Senate committee members and were e-mailed to everyone who oppose H.R. 3079. For some reason, an editor from the local newspaper has attempted to cast a negative light on these efforts calling it “the administration's attempt to recruit young NMI students.” It is with this kind of viciousness in biased media coverage that we seek to clarify positions that all must be aware of whether you are here in the continental United States or there on Guahan and the NMI. We cannot let these kinds of interpretations and judgments steer us in the wrong direction. I would like to personally challenge those who are in favor of federalization, including Tina Sablan, to study the contents of the bill verbatim to see if the CNMI and her people truly benefit from federalization. If one were to juxtapose the current labor and immigration laws of the CNMI with that of federalization, CNMI labor and immigration laws are stronger in protecting the human rights of its citizens and those who are contracted to come to our islands. The abuses of the past were a direct result of large U.S. owned corporations that used the CNMI for its profit. Today, at a time when the CNMI desperately needs an alternative economy, these corporations could care less because they came, they saw, and they plundered, forever casting a negative light on the CNMI.
We are Famoksaiyan, which translates to either "the place or time of nurturing" or "the time to paddle forward and move ahead." It finds its origins in the word Poksai, which means “to raise up.” We are a grassroots network of activists, scholars, students, community and religious leaders/practitioners and artists who seek to push a progressive political, economic and social agenda for Chamorus and their communities at the local, national and international levels. Much of the work of Famoksaiyan has been to educate and inform the public communities at the local, national and international circles from around the world about the plight of our Oceanic communities in the Pacific. As our world shifts into “protecting the security of homeland,” I ask you simply, “which homeland-the continent or the Marianas?” If federalization were to pass, we will succumb into being slaves of federal grants and monies system, which is already being siphoned from the poor into the military budget. The tragedy here is that not only will our lands be taken away, but also our sons and daughters who are “taught” to join the military. Let me be clear that I have utmost respect for all of the military service men and women, especially Chamorus and Carolinians, who step forward to serve this country to protect our freedoms. However, what we need to pay close attention to are the policies that dictate this mentality and the unfounded reasons for federalization and the military buildup in the Marianas.
As a member of Famoksaiyan and a Chamoru from both Guahan and Saipan, I have faxed letters, made phone calls, e-mailed, and visited the senators in their district offices and have always said “No to federalization.” I have not been recruited or paid for these services as I have always served the people from these islands from the deepest core of my being for it was the people from the Marianas who donated their money for my seminary education. I have never forgotten my place in serving my people.
Some may say that it is not good to mix religion and politics. Believe me, I have had my fair share of the lecturing game. However, as someone who has a degree in theology, let us not forget that it was through politics that we have a Catholic religion in our islands. From the Old Testament to the Gospels of Jesus Christ, we have always been taught the struggle for freedom and liberation. Thus, we must work harder for the sake of protecting the very spirituality that we have come to own. This issue of federalization is not an “us versus them” mentality. It is about all of us working together as one Marianas to say no to federalization and no to the military buildup. These two issues work hand in hand. It is now time to bring an end to these wishes of the federal government who have consistently failed to live up to their promises with regards to the human right to a self-determined government. It is now time to act. Will you join me in a faxing party? Let us not rest until our voices are heard in the Senate.
If you would like to obtain copies of these letters, you may simply access this information online at http://www.geocities.com/minagahet/kontra_finafederal.htm or you may contact me at jonadiaz@gmail.com for more information. Please continue to fax these letters to the Senate and spread the word to all you meet. May Guahan and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas continue to work together for the good of all of her people.
Jonathan Blas Diaz
Redwood City, Calif.
2/14/08
I love our national anthem of the CNMI. Until last year, I learned this song from some of my Chamoru and Carolinian sisters and brothers from the CNMI who live here in the continental United States. I am arduously trying to learn this song in Carolinian and look forward to the day when I can sing this song without the help of pen and paper. Permit me to rekindle a sense of pride in our homeland of the Marianas, the islands of my origins, by sharing with you the words that mean so much to us who have called these islands homeland for more than 5,000 years.
Gi talo gi halom tåsi Na gaige tano-ho, Ayo nai siempre hu saga Malago’ ho
Ya un dia bai hu hanåo, Bai fåtto ha’ ta’lo, Ti sina håo hu dingo, O tano-ho
Mit beses yan mås, Hu saluda håo, Gatbo na islas Mariånas, Hu tuna håo
Mit beses yan mås, Hu saluda håo, Gatbo na islas Mariånas, Hu tuna håo
Mit beses yan mås, Hu saluda håo, Gatbo na islas Mariånas, Hu tuna håo
My father was born on Saipan. My great grandmothers and grandfathers were at one time well known by Europeans because my family helped bring supplies to many parts of Micronesia and Oceania. My mother was born on Guam. After World War II, we were considered outcasts because my grandfather was a pure Japanese who happened to marry a Chamoru woman before the war ever started. Like many Chamoru families after the war, many moved to Guahan to seek better opportunities. My family was one of them. With this in mind, I am writing on behalf of the many people before me who have tried to seek a better life and who continue to struggle to live freely as peace-loving indigenous people of these islands.
I write briefly about my personal background to give context and authority to my work. For a very long time on our islands, we have remained divided as a Chamoru and Carolinian people over issues of the past. Whether these issues were grudges of war time or political relationship with the United States, we cannot let these memories surpass the good work that is beginning to happen in our homelands and in places where we have migrated. This great divide, like the abyss of the Marianas Trench, has been used by our colonizers to divide us as a people. Likewise, this colonial mentality has brought a racist tendency to all who call the Marianas home. Let us remember that racism is taught and if we do nothing to bring out the truth then we will remain in isolation, never allowing the truth to come forward. As a young Chamoru activist and theologian, it is now time to begin the process of healing so that we can work together as ONE people.
With the recent passage of H.R. 3079 in the House of Representatives, a group of young Chamoru and Carolinian activists (from Guahan and the CNMI) in the continental United States drafted letters to Senate committee members and were e-mailed to everyone who oppose H.R. 3079. For some reason, an editor from the local newspaper has attempted to cast a negative light on these efforts calling it “the administration's attempt to recruit young NMI students.” It is with this kind of viciousness in biased media coverage that we seek to clarify positions that all must be aware of whether you are here in the continental United States or there on Guahan and the NMI. We cannot let these kinds of interpretations and judgments steer us in the wrong direction. I would like to personally challenge those who are in favor of federalization, including Tina Sablan, to study the contents of the bill verbatim to see if the CNMI and her people truly benefit from federalization. If one were to juxtapose the current labor and immigration laws of the CNMI with that of federalization, CNMI labor and immigration laws are stronger in protecting the human rights of its citizens and those who are contracted to come to our islands. The abuses of the past were a direct result of large U.S. owned corporations that used the CNMI for its profit. Today, at a time when the CNMI desperately needs an alternative economy, these corporations could care less because they came, they saw, and they plundered, forever casting a negative light on the CNMI.
We are Famoksaiyan, which translates to either "the place or time of nurturing" or "the time to paddle forward and move ahead." It finds its origins in the word Poksai, which means “to raise up.” We are a grassroots network of activists, scholars, students, community and religious leaders/practitioners and artists who seek to push a progressive political, economic and social agenda for Chamorus and their communities at the local, national and international levels. Much of the work of Famoksaiyan has been to educate and inform the public communities at the local, national and international circles from around the world about the plight of our Oceanic communities in the Pacific. As our world shifts into “protecting the security of homeland,” I ask you simply, “which homeland-the continent or the Marianas?” If federalization were to pass, we will succumb into being slaves of federal grants and monies system, which is already being siphoned from the poor into the military budget. The tragedy here is that not only will our lands be taken away, but also our sons and daughters who are “taught” to join the military. Let me be clear that I have utmost respect for all of the military service men and women, especially Chamorus and Carolinians, who step forward to serve this country to protect our freedoms. However, what we need to pay close attention to are the policies that dictate this mentality and the unfounded reasons for federalization and the military buildup in the Marianas.
As a member of Famoksaiyan and a Chamoru from both Guahan and Saipan, I have faxed letters, made phone calls, e-mailed, and visited the senators in their district offices and have always said “No to federalization.” I have not been recruited or paid for these services as I have always served the people from these islands from the deepest core of my being for it was the people from the Marianas who donated their money for my seminary education. I have never forgotten my place in serving my people.
Some may say that it is not good to mix religion and politics. Believe me, I have had my fair share of the lecturing game. However, as someone who has a degree in theology, let us not forget that it was through politics that we have a Catholic religion in our islands. From the Old Testament to the Gospels of Jesus Christ, we have always been taught the struggle for freedom and liberation. Thus, we must work harder for the sake of protecting the very spirituality that we have come to own. This issue of federalization is not an “us versus them” mentality. It is about all of us working together as one Marianas to say no to federalization and no to the military buildup. These two issues work hand in hand. It is now time to bring an end to these wishes of the federal government who have consistently failed to live up to their promises with regards to the human right to a self-determined government. It is now time to act. Will you join me in a faxing party? Let us not rest until our voices are heard in the Senate.
If you would like to obtain copies of these letters, you may simply access this information online at http://www.geocities.com/minagahet/kontra_finafederal.htm or you may contact me at jonadiaz@gmail.com for more information. Please continue to fax these letters to the Senate and spread the word to all you meet. May Guahan and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas continue to work together for the good of all of her people.
Jonathan Blas Diaz
Redwood City, Calif.
2/14/08
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Mohawks Support Lakota
"LAKOTA NATION" CONFIRMED - THEY ARE NOT PART OF THE U.S. – PRECEDENT FOR OTHER INDIGENOUS PEOPLES? CAN RETHINKING OF "U.S." & "CANADA" BEFAR
BEHIND?
By Kahentinetha Horn
Mohawk Nation News
Dec. 25, 2007. The times, they are a changin'. Go to the http://www.lakotafreedom.com/ website. There you'll see Canupa Gluha Mani of the Strong Heart Warrior Society of the Lakota Nation cutting up his colonial driver's license. He's doing this because on December 17th 2007
the Lakota delivered their "Declaration of Continuing Independence," just in time for the Winter Solstice.
The history of Lakota with the U.S. is long, complex and tragic. They knew something had to change. After the Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973, the International Indian Treaty Council was established. From June 8 to 16 1974 the Council called for a "Western Hemisphere"Conference at Standing Rock Sioux. Over 5000 delegates of 97Indigenous Peoples from the Americas gathered. The "manifesto"that was created on that occasion supports the
rights of all Indigenous Peoples to live free and take whatever actions are necessary to uphold our sovereignty.
It is rumored that President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, a powerful world leader, said today that he is considering recognizing the Lakota as an independent nation. Withdrawing from the treaties is entirely legal. It is within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and putinto effect by the U.S. and the rest of the international community in 1980.
The Lakota never relinquished their lands and have always refused to accept payment estimated close to $1 billion to give up their sovereignty and nationhood. Offering to buy us out means they are acknowledging our sovereignty.
They declared the obvious. The lands belong to the various Indigenous peoples and are clearly defined by the treaties. Where there are no treaties, the U.S. and Canada are squatters. Plain and simple! The indigenous people have the same rights under international law as anyone
else, whether a country chooses to acknowledge it or not,as in South Africa. Our vast tracts of land, which have been cared for by our ancestors, continue to be ours despite the delusional fraudulent claims of the colonizing states. Treaties concluded through bribery and with colonial
puppets,instead of with valid representatives of our people, are not legal.
It should be borne in mind that most, not all, of the treaties ever made with the colonizers granted them only very limited rights that fall far short of the greedy advantages they imagined. They had no intention of ever living up to any treaty. They were hellbent on stealing everything.
The U.S. and Canada came as profiteers and fraudulently tried to steal all our assets.
Such documents were concocted in clear violation of international law then and now. This requires the informed consent of the people concerned. No state can incorporate another unless a clear majority of the people has expressed consent through fairly conducted democratic processes based on a clear question.
The Six Nations Confederacy and the Algonquins are the titleholders of most of the eastern half of what is known as the colonies of Canada and northeastern U.S. Our Indigenous laws prohibit alienation of our lands. We hold them as trustees for the coming unborn generations. We refuse to surrender our lands. The implementation of the Indian Act and federal Indian law is genocidal.According to article VI of the U.S. Constitution, treaties represent the Supreme Law of the Land binding each party to an inviolable international relationship. Those without treaties with the colonists hold their lands independent and free. The only legal authority is Indigenous. Article II sets out the primary nation-to-nation relationship.
In Canada Section 109 of the British North America Act 1867 respects the primary authority of the Indigenous peoples.The U.S. and Canada have violated the independent Indigenous Peoples by "clerical" action, edicts and pronouncements violating our international treaty rights and
authority.
The Lakota declaration of withdrawal from the Treaty of Laramie 1868 is vested in the power of the Lakota people and the children. One individual does not represent the nation. The nation represents the individual. The withdrawal is for the people, elders, mothers, father sand children including the unborn faces beneath the ground.
The Treaty of Laramie was never honored. It's been a colonial catastrophe, which was not its intent on our part. Indigenous children are still being taken away putting them out of balance from learning the traditional life ways. The true way is to be free and left to govern and look after our own with the teachings of the animal nations. This is about the Lakota Nation
and the Animal People who are no longer here. "We are the Lakota Nation of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota,Wyoming and Montana". We are alerting the Family of Nations of our action with the backing of Indigenous, international and U.S. law.
Should all Indigenous nations of Onowaregeh, Turtle Island, assert our freedom and independence, what would happen? The action of the"Lakota" is going to have repercussions far and wide.The colonists would go out of business, especially the oligarchs. They would have to work out agreements with all the Indigenous people on whose land they are squatting.
Indigenous "liens" on buildings,development, resource extraction and all activities on our land will have to be governed and executed by us. Each Indigenous nation will assert our power over our lands, assets and resources. The colonies of U.S.and Canada will just have to become law
abiding. They will have to learn to respect indigenous and international law. This will not bring catastrophe for the ordinary people living on our land. They just have to come to terms with the reality that they are living within our jurisdiction,that they are visitors on our land and that
they are required to follow our law.The pointlessness of their former reliance on their handpicked "Indian"puppets set up by the colonial Indian Act band councils and federal Indian law tribal councils will become obvious. These sell-outs will have to live amongst their relatives without colonial power and support. Whisky, money and guns will lose their mystical
attraction.
The Lakota call upon the world to support this struggle for sovereignty and treaty rights. They pledge their assistance to all sovereign people who seek their independence.The Lakota have invited those living on their lands to join them. Lakota will issue permits to them, passports, driver's licenses and other documents. Living there would be tax free providing the
residents renounce their U.S. citizenship.
The Lakotah are to open negotiations with the State Department of the U.S. government to establish diplomatic relations. They are setting up offices in Washington and New York City.Are we going to see the other nations of Turtle Island asserting sovereignty? Don't let those "dirty rotten lawyers" meddle or intervene.They're not the ones who decide what the law is. The law belongs to the people. As our ancestors told us, "One nation will take the issue so far.Then another will take it further. Until we all regain everything that is ours". So who's next?
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
BEHIND?
By Kahentinetha Horn
Mohawk Nation News
Dec. 25, 2007. The times, they are a changin'. Go to the http://www.lakotafreedom.com/ website. There you'll see Canupa Gluha Mani of the Strong Heart Warrior Society of the Lakota Nation cutting up his colonial driver's license. He's doing this because on December 17th 2007
the Lakota delivered their "Declaration of Continuing Independence," just in time for the Winter Solstice.
The history of Lakota with the U.S. is long, complex and tragic. They knew something had to change. After the Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973, the International Indian Treaty Council was established. From June 8 to 16 1974 the Council called for a "Western Hemisphere"Conference at Standing Rock Sioux. Over 5000 delegates of 97Indigenous Peoples from the Americas gathered. The "manifesto"that was created on that occasion supports the
rights of all Indigenous Peoples to live free and take whatever actions are necessary to uphold our sovereignty.
It is rumored that President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, a powerful world leader, said today that he is considering recognizing the Lakota as an independent nation. Withdrawing from the treaties is entirely legal. It is within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and putinto effect by the U.S. and the rest of the international community in 1980.
The Lakota never relinquished their lands and have always refused to accept payment estimated close to $1 billion to give up their sovereignty and nationhood. Offering to buy us out means they are acknowledging our sovereignty.
They declared the obvious. The lands belong to the various Indigenous peoples and are clearly defined by the treaties. Where there are no treaties, the U.S. and Canada are squatters. Plain and simple! The indigenous people have the same rights under international law as anyone
else, whether a country chooses to acknowledge it or not,as in South Africa. Our vast tracts of land, which have been cared for by our ancestors, continue to be ours despite the delusional fraudulent claims of the colonizing states. Treaties concluded through bribery and with colonial
puppets,instead of with valid representatives of our people, are not legal.
It should be borne in mind that most, not all, of the treaties ever made with the colonizers granted them only very limited rights that fall far short of the greedy advantages they imagined. They had no intention of ever living up to any treaty. They were hellbent on stealing everything.
The U.S. and Canada came as profiteers and fraudulently tried to steal all our assets.
Such documents were concocted in clear violation of international law then and now. This requires the informed consent of the people concerned. No state can incorporate another unless a clear majority of the people has expressed consent through fairly conducted democratic processes based on a clear question.
The Six Nations Confederacy and the Algonquins are the titleholders of most of the eastern half of what is known as the colonies of Canada and northeastern U.S. Our Indigenous laws prohibit alienation of our lands. We hold them as trustees for the coming unborn generations. We refuse to surrender our lands. The implementation of the Indian Act and federal Indian law is genocidal.According to article VI of the U.S. Constitution, treaties represent the Supreme Law of the Land binding each party to an inviolable international relationship. Those without treaties with the colonists hold their lands independent and free. The only legal authority is Indigenous. Article II sets out the primary nation-to-nation relationship.
In Canada Section 109 of the British North America Act 1867 respects the primary authority of the Indigenous peoples.The U.S. and Canada have violated the independent Indigenous Peoples by "clerical" action, edicts and pronouncements violating our international treaty rights and
authority.
The Lakota declaration of withdrawal from the Treaty of Laramie 1868 is vested in the power of the Lakota people and the children. One individual does not represent the nation. The nation represents the individual. The withdrawal is for the people, elders, mothers, father sand children including the unborn faces beneath the ground.
The Treaty of Laramie was never honored. It's been a colonial catastrophe, which was not its intent on our part. Indigenous children are still being taken away putting them out of balance from learning the traditional life ways. The true way is to be free and left to govern and look after our own with the teachings of the animal nations. This is about the Lakota Nation
and the Animal People who are no longer here. "We are the Lakota Nation of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota,Wyoming and Montana". We are alerting the Family of Nations of our action with the backing of Indigenous, international and U.S. law.
Should all Indigenous nations of Onowaregeh, Turtle Island, assert our freedom and independence, what would happen? The action of the"Lakota" is going to have repercussions far and wide.The colonists would go out of business, especially the oligarchs. They would have to work out agreements with all the Indigenous people on whose land they are squatting.
Indigenous "liens" on buildings,development, resource extraction and all activities on our land will have to be governed and executed by us. Each Indigenous nation will assert our power over our lands, assets and resources. The colonies of U.S.and Canada will just have to become law
abiding. They will have to learn to respect indigenous and international law. This will not bring catastrophe for the ordinary people living on our land. They just have to come to terms with the reality that they are living within our jurisdiction,that they are visitors on our land and that
they are required to follow our law.The pointlessness of their former reliance on their handpicked "Indian"puppets set up by the colonial Indian Act band councils and federal Indian law tribal councils will become obvious. These sell-outs will have to live amongst their relatives without colonial power and support. Whisky, money and guns will lose their mystical
attraction.
The Lakota call upon the world to support this struggle for sovereignty and treaty rights. They pledge their assistance to all sovereign people who seek their independence.The Lakota have invited those living on their lands to join them. Lakota will issue permits to them, passports, driver's licenses and other documents. Living there would be tax free providing the
residents renounce their U.S. citizenship.
The Lakotah are to open negotiations with the State Department of the U.S. government to establish diplomatic relations. They are setting up offices in Washington and New York City.Are we going to see the other nations of Turtle Island asserting sovereignty? Don't let those "dirty rotten lawyers" meddle or intervene.They're not the ones who decide what the law is. The law belongs to the people. As our ancestors told us, "One nation will take the issue so far.Then another will take it further. Until we all regain everything that is ours". So who's next?
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Postcolonial Futures in a Not Yet Postcolonial World
CALL FOR PAPERS
"POSTCOLONIAL" FUTURES IN A NOT-YET POSTCOLONIAL WORLD:
Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous, and Postcolonial Studies
March 5-7, 2008
Ethnic Studies Department
University of California, San Diego
In September 2007, after twenty years of debate, the United Nations finally passed the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – a huge symbolic victory for indigenous peoples around the world who struggle under predatory and exploitative relationships with(in) existing nation-states. At the same moment, the UN was lumbering along in the 18th year of its impossible attempts to eradicate colonialism, with groups from around the world flocking to it to petition for the decolonization of their territories or to demand that their situations at least be recognized as "colonial."
Across all continents, indigenous and stateless peoples are struggling for and demanding various forms of sovereignty, as the recently decolonized world is sobering up from the learning of its limits and pratfalls. Postcolonial societies that were born of sometimes radical anti-colonial spirits, now appear to be taking on the role of the colonizer, often against the indigenous peoples that reside within their borders. In places such as Central and Latin America, a resurgence of Third World Leftist politics is being accompanied by a resurgence of indigenous populism. Meanwhile the recent arrests of sovereignty/environmental activists in New Zealand represents another instance where those from the 3rd and 4th worlds who dare to challenge the current make up of today's "postcolonial world" are branded as terrorists.
As scholars involved in critical ethnic studies engage with these ever more complex worlds, they are increasingly resorting to the lenses provided by postcolonial and indigenous studies. This engagement however is not without its limits or problems. As ethnic studies scholars seek to make their vision and scholarship more transnational and global, this push is nonetheless accompanied by gestures that, at the expense of indigenous and postcolonial frameworks, re-center the United States and reaffirm the solvency of its nation-state. In addition, despite their various commonalities, indigenous and postcolonial studies represent intellectual bodies of knowledge that are fundamentally divided over issues such as hybridity, sovereignty, nation, citizenship and subjectivity.
The purpose of this conference, then, is to create a space where scholars and activists engaged in these various projects, in various forms, can congregate to share ideas, hash out differences and move beyond caricatured understandings of each of these intellectual projects. It seeks to ask how, by putting ethnic, indigenous and postcolonial studies in conversation with each other, we may theorize new epistemologies that may better address the violences and injustices of the contemporary world.
To this end we solicit papers that address questions including, but in no way limited to, the following:
- What are the epistemological frameworks that inform postcolonial, ethnic and indigenous studies? What is their relationship to modernity and how do they challenge and/or complement each other?
- What constitutes the subject of postcolonial and ethnic studies? How does the construction of these subjectivities limit possible conversations with indigenous studies?
- What are the limitations and pitfalls of sovereignty as popularly envisioned? How do postcolonial and indigenous communities reaffirm or rearticulate sovereignty within their respective contexts?
- What are the different theories and strategies of decolonization as laid out by postcolonial and indigenous studies, and how do they inform each other?
- How does the political status of indigenous peoples complicate dominant discourses on immigration and citizenship? Moreover, with regards to settler nation-states such as the U.S., how does the "nations-within-nations" status of indigenous communities complicate the project of ethnic and transnational studies?
Abstracts must be submitted to: futures0308@gmail.com
Requirements:
250-word abstract, specifying if the proposal is for individual or roundtable presentations
Information including name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, telephone number, e-mail address
Deadline for Submission: January 7th, 2008
For more information please contact: Michael Lujan Bevacqua at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com or Rashné Limki at rashne.limki@gmail.com
Conference Website: http://futures0308.blogspot.com/
"POSTCOLONIAL" FUTURES IN A NOT-YET POSTCOLONIAL WORLD:
Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous, and Postcolonial Studies
March 5-7, 2008
Ethnic Studies Department
University of California, San Diego
In September 2007, after twenty years of debate, the United Nations finally passed the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – a huge symbolic victory for indigenous peoples around the world who struggle under predatory and exploitative relationships with(in) existing nation-states. At the same moment, the UN was lumbering along in the 18th year of its impossible attempts to eradicate colonialism, with groups from around the world flocking to it to petition for the decolonization of their territories or to demand that their situations at least be recognized as "colonial."
Across all continents, indigenous and stateless peoples are struggling for and demanding various forms of sovereignty, as the recently decolonized world is sobering up from the learning of its limits and pratfalls. Postcolonial societies that were born of sometimes radical anti-colonial spirits, now appear to be taking on the role of the colonizer, often against the indigenous peoples that reside within their borders. In places such as Central and Latin America, a resurgence of Third World Leftist politics is being accompanied by a resurgence of indigenous populism. Meanwhile the recent arrests of sovereignty/environmental activists in New Zealand represents another instance where those from the 3rd and 4th worlds who dare to challenge the current make up of today's "postcolonial world" are branded as terrorists.
As scholars involved in critical ethnic studies engage with these ever more complex worlds, they are increasingly resorting to the lenses provided by postcolonial and indigenous studies. This engagement however is not without its limits or problems. As ethnic studies scholars seek to make their vision and scholarship more transnational and global, this push is nonetheless accompanied by gestures that, at the expense of indigenous and postcolonial frameworks, re-center the United States and reaffirm the solvency of its nation-state. In addition, despite their various commonalities, indigenous and postcolonial studies represent intellectual bodies of knowledge that are fundamentally divided over issues such as hybridity, sovereignty, nation, citizenship and subjectivity.
The purpose of this conference, then, is to create a space where scholars and activists engaged in these various projects, in various forms, can congregate to share ideas, hash out differences and move beyond caricatured understandings of each of these intellectual projects. It seeks to ask how, by putting ethnic, indigenous and postcolonial studies in conversation with each other, we may theorize new epistemologies that may better address the violences and injustices of the contemporary world.
To this end we solicit papers that address questions including, but in no way limited to, the following:
- What are the epistemological frameworks that inform postcolonial, ethnic and indigenous studies? What is their relationship to modernity and how do they challenge and/or complement each other?
- What constitutes the subject of postcolonial and ethnic studies? How does the construction of these subjectivities limit possible conversations with indigenous studies?
- What are the limitations and pitfalls of sovereignty as popularly envisioned? How do postcolonial and indigenous communities reaffirm or rearticulate sovereignty within their respective contexts?
- What are the different theories and strategies of decolonization as laid out by postcolonial and indigenous studies, and how do they inform each other?
- How does the political status of indigenous peoples complicate dominant discourses on immigration and citizenship? Moreover, with regards to settler nation-states such as the U.S., how does the "nations-within-nations" status of indigenous communities complicate the project of ethnic and transnational studies?
Abstracts must be submitted to: futures0308@gmail.com
Requirements:
250-word abstract, specifying if the proposal is for individual or roundtable presentations
Information including name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, telephone number, e-mail address
Deadline for Submission: January 7th, 2008
For more information please contact: Michael Lujan Bevacqua at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com or Rashné Limki at rashne.limki@gmail.com
Conference Website: http://futures0308.blogspot.com/
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