Category: Pacific

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Women’s Vigil for Peace and Solidarity

In Solidarity with the 7th International Network of Women against Militarism (INWAM) Meeting: Guahan

Hafa Adai, my name is Angela T. Hoppe-Cruz. I am a Chamoru woman born and raised on the island of Guahan, now residing in Makaha. The INWAM formed in the mid 1990’s in response to the rape of a young Okinawan woman by a U.S. Marine. In 2004 women from Hawaii represented DMZ Hawaii Aloha Aina at th 5th INWAM Meeting held in the Phillipies. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is part of the alliance that makes up DMZ. Hawaii’s participation continued, followed by the 2007 delegation in San Francisco, and this year Guahan. This year Hawaii is represented at the Guahan conference by Auntie Terri and Melanie Medalle. The meeting location is strategically selected based on the current militarism efforts against the people. In 2006 the U.S. military announced the transfer of U.S. Marines stationed in Okinawa to Guahan. The influx will result in 50,000 more people and immense development of the land for military use.

The 7th INWAM Meeting kicked off early this week, as I followed in spirit and prayer our sisters and brothers, there is an ache to be part of such a historic event, especially at this moment in time. Many sisters from the Micronesian region, here on Oahu have expressed that same ache and desire. I was moved and inspired by them to organize a gathering for our sisters living on Oahu, who cannot be in attendance at the INMW. On the final day of the conference there will be a community vigil to “honor the past and heal for the future “Fuetsan I Lina’la’: Famalao’an I Tano’ Strength of Life: Women of the Land”. Detailed information regarding the conference is at this site: http://genuinesecurity.blogspot.com/.

In solidarity with the INWM Guahan conference, we ask that you join us for a community vigil to be held on Oahu, to honor the past and heal for the future. This is a call for solidarity and sisterhood and that our connection brings hopeful collectivity. Militarism and empire building has wrought upon indigenous peoples’ across the globe a deep trauma and loss. The INWM is a collective of women standing up against the continued injustices and desecration of our lands, and communities. This is the thrust of the Gathering, women collectively overcoming militarism and putting forth a new vision of security. We ask for your full participation, this is not a performance. It is a space for us to gather, to re-member. Please call with questions Angela at 366-5777 or e-mail atacruz@gmail.com.

When: Sunday, September 20th at 4:00p.m.

Where: Makua Beach, Ku la`i la`i

  • Hi`uwai (water cleansing ceremony). Procession to Papa Wai Ola cared for by Auntie Leandra.
  • Oli by Auntie Leandra
  • Song from our Sisters’ (open to all)
    • Chamoru, Chuukese, Palauan
  • Resilience and Healing across Oceania
    • Sharing our stories of struggle and hope
  • Potluck and drinks

**Please bring a potluck dish and drink to share. Also, please bring kukui nuts they will be used to represent the hurt you wish to be transformed.

The following is a timeline of military rule and impact in the Micronesian Islands and Hawaii. There are not words to describe the history of oppression and hurt that connects us. Nor are there words to describe our inherent power to heal and move beyond. We take with us not spears, but the power of our voice, love and ancestors collectively to challenge and resist the continued rape of our tano/aina.

The Transgressions: A timeline of militarism in our islands. (this is not a comprehensive list)

  • 1893: The Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown and placed under U.S. rule, annexed as a territory.
  • 1898: The islands of Micronesia, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Isalnds and the Republic of Palau were divvied up as spoils of war after the Spanish American war.
  • Guam was ceded to the United States of America while the rest of the islands were awarded to Germany.
  • 1919: The Japanese through the Treaty of Versailles took control of the islands, except for Guam, which continued to be ruled by the U.S.A.
  • 1920: Guam is forced to follow: English Only Law.
  • 1941: Guam was under U.S. rule, until the Japanese Occupation, which lasted until 1944
  • 1944: Guam was ‘liberated’ from Japanese Occupation by the United States of America.
  • 1944: Following WWII the FSM, RMI, ROP and CNMI became Trust Territories of the Pacific, through the UN administered by the USA.
  • 1950: Through the Organic Act of 1950, Guam became a United States Territory.
  • 1954: In the name of Humanity, Marshall Islands are used as testing site of BRAVO an HBOMB, the equivalent of 10000 Hiroshima bombs.
  • 1959: Hawai`i nei annexed into statehood.
  • 1979: Four of the trust territory islands ratified the constitution to become the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Ponepei, Kosrae, Yap). RMI, ROP and CNMI chose not to participate.
  • 1986: Compact of Free Association took effect, for the FSM and RMI entities.
  • 1993: President Clinton issued an apology to the Kanaka Maoli for the overthrow of their Kingdom.
  • 1996: Compact of Free Association took effect. The conflict which this contract brought to the people of Palau was devastating. Their first President was assassinated and the 2nd committed suicide as a result of the pressure to get the people to agree to this. From the perspective of an elder, the third President gave in.
  • 1996: Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act, distinguishes Micronesians as aliens and ineligible for Medquest, based on “alienage” Sect 412, 431.
  • 2006: US announced transfer of Okinawan base to Guam, influx of 50,000 people and development as result. No community consultation.
  • 2009: Linda Lingle attempts to alter healthcare coverage to migrants from Micronesia, possibly endangering lives of individuals in need of chemo and dialysis.

As I write this my heart is heavy…the connections that have severed us are many and have been brutal. I ask you to join us; sisters in solidarity, to relieve ourselves of the cultural historical trauma…if not relieve, to ask for the strength to continue fighting for our people, our land. What we shed will flow out into the ocean and become one with the current.

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Micronesians fight for health care

Micro-managing

Pacific immigrants face a death panel of their own.

by Alan D. McNarie

Sep 2, 2009

Retired cook Calvin Nelson says that when he came to Hawaii from Kwajalein after the United States had seized his home for a new missile range, he was told, “everything will be covered.” But 20 years later, he learned that a new health program that the state government was issuing for himself and thousands of other Micronesian immigrants wouldn’t pay for the kidney dialysis that kept him alive.

He vowed that if that happened, he would go back and reclaim his home on the missile range.

“Well, I guess I don’t have any choice but to go home and to go to heaven. There’s no other way for me to receive treatment,” he told the Weekly.

Trucy James was in a similar situation, except there was no home left for her to return to. It was destroyed in a nuclear bomb blast-one of 67 such nuclear tests that devastated much of the island chain. Now, like Nelson, she faced a cutoff of her dialysis, without which both would be dead in a matter of days.

Nelson, James and approximately 108 other legal Micronesian immigrants on dialysis got a last-minute reprieve from the governor on August 31, when Senior Policy Advisor Linda Schmidt and Health and Human Services Director William Koller told a group of Micronesian protestors outside Lingle’s office that their kidney dialysis would be covered for the next two years.

Not so lucky, perhaps, were 130-160 Micronesians, including Marshallese nuclear test refugees, who need radiation therapy or chemotherapy for cancer. According to a Health and Human Services press release, the dialysis patients could be treated because Federal courts had ruled dialysis an “emergency treatment” and the Federal government would eventually reimburse the State for such treatment-but “We cannot cover chemotherapy in the same way because the Federal Government does not consider it an emergency.”

“We are working with the American Cancer Society and other providers to find a way to continue chemo treatments,” said the press release. Queens Medical Center said Tuesday it will continue to treat Micronesian cancer patients at no cost, for now.

Hundreds of Micronesian immigrants may lose their benefits entirely, because they didn’t file the proper paperwork on time.

Who pays?

At the heart of the Micronesian health crisis is the state’s budget crunch and a dispute between the U.S. and the State over who should foot the bill for the immigrants. The U.S. is obligated to provide for Micronesian immigrants’ health needs under the Compact of Free Associations, which guarantees residents of the former U.S. Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands access to some U.S. domestic programs and services in exchange for military concessions from the Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Palau and Republic of the Marshall Islands-including the missile range at Kwajalein. Under COFA, the federal government also divides $30 million of “Compact Impact” money annually among Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and Northern Mariana Islands to help defray the cost of providing services to Micronesian immigrants. The Lingle administration maintains that it spent over $101 million to provide such services in 2007, but only got $11 million in Compact Impact payments from the U.S. government.

In response to this gap, the Lingle administration is removing Micronesian immigrants over the age of 18 from a program that provided the equivalent of QUEST (Medicaid) coverage, and is enrolling them instead under a new program called “Basic Care Hawaii,” which provides only a fraction of the former coverage. The administration claims it will save $15 million dollars by making the change. Critics contend, however, the change will force the immigrants be forced to use hospital emergency rooms instead of their former health care providers, thus straining the ER’s ability to provide services to all residents.

From Eniwetok to Ocean View

Particularly hard-hit may be the Big Island-especially the rural district of Kau, where relatively cheap land prices and rental costs have lured thousands of Micronesians. According to Dr. Keola G. K. Dowling, who serves as Care Coordinator for COFA Immigrants at the Big Island’s nonprofit Bay Clinics, the island holds 2,000-3,000 Marshallese, 3,000 Chuukese, 1,500 Kosraeans, 150-300 Yapese, 1,500-1,800 Pohnapeians, and 200 Palauans. But Dowling believes those estimates are low. He says more than a thousand Marshallese reside in the remote Kau community of Ocean View alone.

“Almost all of the Eniwetok refugees live there,” he says. “Some Bikinians too. They definitely consider themselves nuclear refugees.”

The U.S. Eniwetok and Bikini were used as nuclear testing grounds, setting off 67 open-air atomic and hydrogen bomb blasts that equaled, Dowling says, “1.7 hiroshima-sized bombs every morning 12 years…One of the islands in their homeland was turned into white light. It was vaporized.”

“Of 160 Micronesians who are under chemotherapy in Hawaii, most of them are from the Marshall Islands, and most of those came from where they blasted those bombs on Eniwetok and Bikini,” Dowling notes.

Bureaucracy vs. culture

The Micronesians’ supporters also claim that many immigrants didn’t know to register for the new program, thanks to a combination of cross-cultural difficulties and poor government planning.

“Their exposure to bureaucratic systems and the necessity of doing paperwork has been pretty limited,” says retired UH-Hilo Professor Craig Severance, who has lived in Micronesia and who wrote a letter to Lingle supporting a delay in the implementation of the new program. He notes that while “Those that have been here for a while are well adjusted,” newcomers from the outer islands have trouble with bureaucracy, and “part of the trouble is not so much their fault as it is the agencies…It’s the responsibility of the agencies to make that transition easy, and not difficult. It’s also to make the translation and the communication of expectations clear, rather than simply stereotyping all Micronesians as being the same.”

When members and supporters of Micronesians United called an ad hoc to discuss the health crisis, some participants brought stories of immigrants who were stymied in their efforts to get their paperwork in for the transition, because they were referred to automated phone services that were either entirely in English or were so badly translated that Marshallese islanders didn’t recognize the reputed Marshallese phone recordings as their own language.

“A lot of them that did call them said that the recording was automated and ‘We didn’t understand it, says Leilani Resureccion of the nonprofit Alii’s Hale, which works with Pacific islanders in Kau. “If you don’t get your form in, then you will lose your health care for yourself and for your family.”

Both Severance and Resureccion note that state law requires the government to supply translators for those who need them.

But translation wasn’t the only problem. Ocean View has no post office. Many of the immigrants get their mail at post office boxes in Kona, 40-plus miles away, and many do not have cars, so they don’t often check their boxes often. So many may not have gotten the notification letters and forms that were mailed out.

Resureccion notes that the Marshallese are a “very communal” people and that the best way to get the word out was through meetings.

“Did the health workers actually come out here and hold meetings to inform them of the change?” she asks rhetorically. “You know what the answer is? No.”

So the Lingle administration may save even more money than it anticipated, by dropping many members from its health care rolls entirely.

Cream-skimming

Participants at the August 31 meeting accused the Lingle administration of achieving the savings it claimed by essentially cream-skimming-keeping Micronesian patients who were unlikely to cost much and dumping high-expense, chronic care patients. One noted that the State of Hawaii was probably actually making a profit off under-18 Micronesians, who required little health care.

“Migrants under 18 are not being taken off of Quest because they get two-for-one matching funds from the Feds,” he claimed.

Downing also notes that the Lingle Administration could have saved money simply by reducing bureaucratic waste. He notes, for instance that both Bay Clinics and another organization got grants to do redundant studies of the immigrants’ needs.

“There was a third entity called the COFA task force, and they had very big funding. As far as I know, they’ve never published anything of what they did,” he adds.

PR problem

On top of their bureaucratic woes, Micronesians in Hawaii are also battling the same image problems that many immigrant groups face. When the Honolulu Advertiser ran a story about the health care crisis, online comments ran heavily in favor of the cuts; many of those commented made remarks to the effect that the Micronesians were freeloading.

That’s far from the truth, according to their supporters. Resurecion says that in Kau, many of the Micronesians work as macadamia nut and coffee harvesters.

“Most of the Micronesians we know are working and some of them are working in professional capacities,” says Severance.

Downing agrees.

“We do not want people ever to be saying of Micronesians that they were victims.”

Source: http://honoluluweekly.com/feature/2009/09/micro-managing/

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Fallout from nuclear tests leads to health crisis

Sep. 6, 2009 4:33 PM EDT

Fallout from nuclear tests leads to health crisis

MARK NIESSE
Associated Press Writer

HONOLULU (AP) – Pius Henry fears his adopted government will kill him, that the United States won’t live up to a health care obligation to people from Pacific islands where it tested nuclear bombs.

Henry, a diabetic from the Marshall Islands, has received free dialysis treatments three times a week for years, but the cash-strapped state of Hawaii has threatened to cut off him and others to save money.

Like thousands of legal migrants to Hawaii from independent Pacific nations, Henry believes the United States has a responsibility to provide health care to compensate for the radioactive fallout of 67 nuclear weapons tests from 1946 to 1958.

“I don’t have any option. I’m asking the government to help us,” Henry said. “They say we’re like U.S. citizens, but then they don’t treat us the same. It’s really unfair.”

A federal judge’s ruling Sept. 1 temporarily prevented Hawaii from halting critical dialysis and chemotherapy treatments to hundreds of migrants from three nations: Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau. His order lasts at least until October.

Those three countries are beneficiaries of the Compact of Free Association, a 1986 pact with the United States granting it the right to use defense sites in exchange for financial assistance and migration rights.

With doctors and medical facilities lacking in their own countries, many with life-threatening conditions have moved to Hawaii seeking better health care, education and quality of life.

The islanders have struggled adjusting to American culture and their new home. They fill public housing projects and a disproportionate share of homeless shelters, according to a 2007 study. Without college degrees or a command of the English language, many work in fast-food or hotel jobs, which still pay far better than they could earn in their home countries.

“We’re the last immigrants,” said Innocenta Sound-Kikku, a Micronesian whose father, Manuel Sound, suffers from diabetes. “We come here for the same thing everyone else came here for – the chance for the American dream. The U.S. has an obligation after what they’ve done to us.”

The nuclear testing occurred in the Marshall Islands, carrying the explosive power of 7,200 Hiroshima bombs, said Dr. Neal Palafox, chairman of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Hawaii. The blasts contaminated thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean.

The residual radioactivity led to high rates of leukemia and thyroid, lung, stomach, skin and brain cancers, Palafox said. Fallout exposure could result in about a 9 percent increase in cancer in the Marshall Islands, according to a 2004 National Cancer Institute estimate provided to a U.S. Senate committee.

“It’s a monster increase in cancer rates no matter how you look at it,” Palafox said.

He said that while the high rate of diabetes isn’t directly connected to the nuclear tests, fast foods and processed meats introduced by the U.S. led to worsening diets in a culture that was dependent on fishing.

The migrants also widely believe the United States owes them for their various illnesses because of the destruction to their homelands and the displacement and agony they have suffered.

While living with diabetes and high blood pressure, Manuel Sound takes about 11 pills daily and said he feels wary of death. If he missed any of his 3½-hour, thrice-weekly dialysis treatments, his health would be in danger.

“One day you miss, and the poison begins to circulate in your bloodstream. I could die if I’m not careful,” said Sound, who has lived in Hawaii for seven years after migrating from Micronesia. “With these budget cuts, I really thought I was going to go.”

The state of Hawaii sought to save $15 million by cutting health services to more than 7,000 migrants, who are treated as legal residents lacking citizenship. Their ambiguous status, as well as their cost to taxpayers, led to the state’s proposed health reductions.

Both the Hawaii government and the migrants argue that the U.S. government should take responsibility for their health treatments.

But federal Medicaid funding to the migrant islanders was slashed when welfare reform passed in 1996, resulting in Hawaii picking up the tab. U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, said he is trying to reinstate Medicaid benefits for compact migrants as part of the pending health care legislation.

“The United States cannot wash its hands clear of this responsibility because the islands will still have that nuclear testing effect for the next 2,000 years,” said William Swain of the Marshallese community organization Pa Emman Kabjere, which means “don’t let go of a good hand.”

In Swain’s family, 15 siblings on his father’s side died from cancer, with the men suffering from thyroid cancer and the women from urine and breast cancer, he said. His 12-year-old niece has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and his older brother died from thyroid cancer two months ago.

While the government lacks data showing how quickly people are moving from these island nations, there were about 12,215 migrants of the Compact of Free Association states living in Hawaii in 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Many of the migrants said it’s racially discriminatory for the U.S. government to grant lifesaving health coverage to poor Americans while denying it to them.

“It’s wrong for people to be so prejudiced,” said Tita Raed of Micronesians United. “Most of the people in Hawaii moved here. This is not their native island, but they’re upset when other people move here.”

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/HIHON/513d3d78dabe49cd99f8480d90b4f0a2/Article_2009-09-06-US-Health-Bomb/id-p071afd5f28b24c89baf4f2dfa5adc740

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Micronesians told treatment will not end despite change in health care plan

Updated at 4:44 p.m., Monday, August 31, 2009

Micronesians told treatment will not end despite change in health care plan

By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer

Members of Gov. Linda Lingle’s Cabinet did their best this morning to assure members of the Micronesian community in Hawaii who require kidney dialysis or chemotherapy that they will continue receiving those vital services despite a change in a state insurance program for legal migrants.

Lingle’s senior policy analyst Linda Smith and state Department of Human Services director Lillian Koller met with about 30 members of the Micronesians United group and their leaders at the governor’s office, pledging no one who needs chemotherapy or dialysis will be left in a lurch by the switch to the new insurance program, which begins tomorrow.

Koller said the state of Arizona recently won a consent degree from the federal government that acknowledged that dialysis should be considered an emergency service.

The federal government agreed to reimburse Arizona for the cost of dialysis provided to legal immigrants dating back to 2007. Koller said Hawaii will file a claim based on the same argument and stands to be reimbursed about $3 million for providing dialysis to Micronesian migrants in 2007 and 2008.

The reimbursement would pay the cost of dialysis for another two years.

Meanwhile, while the federal government has decided that chemotherapy-therapy does not meet the criteria of emergency treatment, The Queen’s Medical Center has committed to providing chemotherapy to Micronesians at no cost to them, Koller said.

And because almost all Micronesians undergo chemotherapy Queen’s and other hospitals on an in-patient basis, they will continue to be covered under the state’s Basic Health Hawaii medical insurance program that begins tomorrow.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090831/BREAKING01/90831046/Micronesians+told+treatment+will+not+end+despite+change+in+health+care+plan

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‘I Want To Live’ – Micronesians sit in Lingle’s office waiting for meeting

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Photos: Ikaika Hussey/Hawaii Independent

Today, Micronesians United held a demonstration at the State Capitol and sat in Governor Lingle’s office to protest the state’s plans to cut of crucial health care for Micronesians in Hawai’i, which they are entitled to under Compacts of Free Association with the U.S.   The Hawaii Independent has excellent coverage of the action.

Under the Compacts, Micronesians can travel to the U.S. and have access to services. This was part of the deal when the U.S. gained control over the islands after World War II and established a special “Strategic Trust” over the former Japanese territories, in contrast to the United Nations trusts established for the decolonization of non-self-governing territories.

Rather than provide for true self-determination and the possibility of independence for these countries, the U.S. secretly and deliberately stunted the development of Micronesian nations in order to maintain their dependency on (and subservience to) the U.S.    Driven strongly by military strategy and interests, America turned the entire Pacific ocean into an “American Lake”.  The Marshall Islands have a special claim to health care due to the U.S. nuclear testing in their islands that have caused an environmental health catastrophe for many islanders.

Below is an article from the Honolulu Advertiser.

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Updated at 4:01 p.m., Friday, August 28, 2009

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RICHARD AMBO | The Honolulu Advertiser

Micronesians sit in Lingle’s office waiting for meeting

Advertiser Staff

Micronesians United rallied at the state Capitol today against a new state plan that will cut back on health care benefits to some 7,500 adult Micronesians who are part of the Compact of Free Association.

About 30 members of the group also sat in the governor’s offices for more than an hour after requesting to see her, but aides said she was in a meeting and couldn’t speak to them. No administration officials came out to speak the group.

Elma Coleman, a member of Micronesians United, said she was disappointed the governor didn’t speak to the group. She said they would be back on Monday morning to again seek a meeting with the governor.

i-want-to-live

RICHARD AMBO | The Honolulu Advertiser

“It seems like she doesn’t care,” Coleman said.

Meanwhile, Lawyers for Equal Justice told Micronesians United members that they were looking into filing suit against the state over the health care cuts.

The new Basic Health Hawaii program would save the state $15 million but limits monthly services to 12 outpatient doctor visits, 10 hospital days, six mental health visits, three procedures and emergency medical and dental care. It does not allow for “life saving” dialysis or chemotherapy treatments.

The new plan is to start on Tuesday.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090828/BREAKING01/90828019/Micronesians%20sit%20in%20Lingle%20s%20office%20waiting%20for%20meeting?GID=3K8YwfKsSiikRo2gb+CSFOfYLZkQuxMph1AiAtEH8Rk%3D

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Former U.S. envoy backs Guam sentiments on buildup

Former U.S. envoy backs Guam sentiments on buildup

Friday, 21 August 2009 00:25

by Mar-Vic Cagurangan

Variety News Staff

TAKING up the cudgels for local activists, former U.S. ambassador and retired Army colonel Ann Wright assailed the federal government for shutting out the local population in the planning process for the U.S. Marines’ relocation from Okinawa to Guam.

“The U.S. federal government seldom takes into account local feelings about their projects, particularly military projects in a region far removed from the Washington power center,” Wright writes in an article titled “Guam resists military colonization” posted on CommonDreams.org.

“Guam activists want their voices heard and respected and not to be treated as merely residents of a colony of the United States,” said Wright, who accompanied members of the Japanese peace activist group Code Pink-Osaka during a fact-finding mission on Guam last month.

Wright said her visit to Guam has given her new perspectives about the Department of Defense’s plan for the relocation of 8,000 U.S. Marines to Guam.

“Three Guam legislators told us that the Guam government has not been properly consulted in the discussions between the U.S. and Japanese governments on the relocation of the large US Marine force,” Wright said. “Guam officials have been given little firm information about the military expansion plans.”

Anti-war

Wright is an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. Over the course of her diplomatic career that began in 1987, Wright served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan.

On the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, Wright sent her resignation letter to then State Secretary Collin Powell, saying she could no longer work for the U.S. government under the Bush administration. Wright quit her job in protest over the U.S. invasion of Iraq without sanction from the U.S. Security Council.

Now taking up the Guam military buildup case, Wright lashed at the U.S. for its plan to deploy thousands of troops to Guam “with virtually no consultation with the local government and citizens.”

Guam concerns

“Professors and students at the University of Guam expressed concern that there will be a sharp increase in sexual assault and rape on the island due to the relocation of US Marines,” she wrote. “They believe one of the reasons the Japanese government finally was able to get the U.S. government to move some military forces out of Okinawa was because of major citizen mobilizations that occurred in response to rapes by U.S. military personnel.”

The $10 billion relocation cost will be subsidized by the Japanese government, which has pledged to shoulder $6 billion, a commitment that was cemented in the Guam International Agreement signed in February.

“The Japanese people, too, are in the dark about the details of the billions of dollars they will pay the U.S. government to have US forces leave Japan,” Wright said.

Source: http://guam.mvarietynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8140:former-us-envoy-backs-guam-sentiments-on-buildup&catid=1:guam-local-news&Itemid=2

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Ann Wright to speak about her recent trips to Gaza, Japan and Guam

Ann Wright to speak about her recent trips to Gaza, Japan and Guam

Sunday, August 23 at 3pm.

Revolution Books

2626 S King St # 201, Honolulu, HI 96826-3248

(808) 944-3106)

Ann Wright will be speaking at Revolution Books this Sunday afternoon at 3pm. She was also interviewed for a new show on Voices of Resistance (Olelo 56) that will air on Monday evening at 8pm.

Ann will update us on her trip to Gaza/Israel, but focus on her tour of Guam, Okinawa, and Japan, where she continued to speak out against military expansion and empire. At a time when all too many people are sitting home hoping that Obama’s war policies will somehow be better than Bush’s, and while the evidence is proving otherwise, it is tremendously heartening that Ann Wright is continuing to call people to resist the war. Join us on Sunday in welcoming Ann back. As always, there will be light refreshments after her talk and everyone is invited to stay and talk story informally.

Following are some links to articles about Ann’s recent tour:

Guam Resists Military Colonization: Guam/Common Dreams

Ann Wright Goes to Guam-Takes on Empire: Guam/After Downing

In Hiroshima: Huffington Post

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Two Protests of U.S. missile launch from Vandenberg to Kwajalein

Protest ICBM Launch, Saturday, August 22nd at 1:00 PM

Protest ICBM Launch (Nuclear Warhead Delivery System) from Vandenberg Space Command to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands

Saturday, August 22nd at 1:00 PM
Los Angeles Air Force Base, Space & Missile Center
262 N. Douglas Street, El Segundo

Speakers
Blase Bonpane, Director of the Office of the Americas
Mayra Gomez, The World March For Peace

There are UN sanctions against the starving country of North Korea for short range, slow launch liquid fuel missile tests that only reached the Sea of Japan. The USA tests high tech, rapid launch (thus the name Minuteman) with computer guided systems that are monitored at the El Segundo Space and Missile Center.

Sponsored by the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom endorsed by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, War Resister’s League, Los Alamos Study Group, Nevada Desert Experience and many others

Watch Slide Show Presentation at:

http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0ASmCKR2MI5MuZGZweGM1ZmZfOTNnbjc2cnJmOQ&hl=en&invite=CKSz5v4C
Contact Eli Monroe: eliqmonroe@yahoo.com – 323-969-9307

Or MacGregor Eddy: 831-206-5043 – macgregoreddy@gmail.com
For More Information: www.vandenbergwitness.org

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2nd ICBM Protest, Evening of Saturday, August 22nd at 11:55 PM

Protest ICBM Launch (Nuclear Warhead Delivery System) from Vandenberg Space Command to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands

Saturday August 22nd at 11:55 PM
Vandenberg Space Command

At the intersection of Hwy I – Across from Vanderberg Middle School
Six miles north of Lompoc on Highway I in Santa Barbara County

Speakers:
Ellen Thomas, Proposition One for Nuclear Disarmament & Economic Conversion
Jim Haber, War Resisters League
and
Messages of Support from Other Countries All Over the World

Sponsored by the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom endorsed by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, War Resister’s League, Los Alamos Study Group, Nevada Desert Experience and many others

Contact MacGregor Eddy: 831-206-5043 – Email: macgregoreddy@gmail.com

Vandenberg Witness

For More Information: www.vandenbergwitness.org

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Guam Resists Military Colonization

Published on Monday, August 17, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/17-6

Guam Resists Military Colonization

Having No Say When Washington Tries to Increase your Population by 25%

by Ann Wright

The United States and the Chinese governments have some remarkable similarities when it comes to colonization. The Chinese government has sent a huge Han population to inhabit Tibet and overwhelm the Tibetan population, even building the world’s highest railway to get people and materials there.

The United States government, with virtually no consultation with the local government and citizens, is increasing the population of its non-voting territory, Guam, by 25%. 8,000 U.S. Marines, their dependents and associated logistics units and personnel-a total of 42,000 new residents-will be moved to the small Pacific island (barely three times the size of Washington, DC) that has a current population of 175,000. The move will have a tremendous impact on the cultural and social identity of the island.

These military forces are being relocated to Guam, in great measure, because of the “Close US Military Bases” campaign organized by citizen activists in Okinawa, Japan. The United States has had a huge military presence there since the end of World War II.

I thought I was reasonably well-informed about America’s interests in the Pacific. I had worked as a US diplomat in Micronesia for two years and travelled many times through Guam, a US territory, located an 8 hour flight west of Honolulu.

But earlier this month, in Guam on a study tour sponsored by a coalition of Japanese peace activists spearheaded by CODEPINK-Osaka, Japan, which included a former member of the Japanese Diet (Parliament), I learned new aspects of the decision to relocate this large number of U.S. military to Guam.

Guam was first colonized by the Spanish in the 1500s, became a US colony in 1898, a war-trophy from the Spanish-American war and served as a stopover for ships travelling to the Philippines. During World War II, Guam was attacked and occupied by Japan on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. American citizens living on the island had been evacuated by the United States government before the attack, but the indigenous Chamorro population was left behind. During the 31 months of Japanese occupation, the Chamorros endured forced labor, concentration camps, forced prostitution, rape and execution by the Japanese military. The United States military returned three and one-half years later on July 21, 1944 to retake Guam.

In 1950, Guam was made an “unincorporated territory” of the United States by a US Congressional act and residents were given US as one of 16 “non-self governing territories” left in the world.

Lands were taken after World War II from the native Chamorro population without compensation by the US military to construct major air and naval bases which the US military still uses. Currently, there are 3,000 US Air Force and 2,000 US Navy personnel and 1,000 employees of other federal security agencies assigned to Guam.

Three Guam legislators told us that the Guam government has not been properly consulted in the discussions between the US and Japanese governments on the relocation of the large US Marine force. Guam officials have been given little firm information about the military expansion plans. They are very concerned about the impact of further militarization of their island as its major income is provided by hundreds of thousands of Japanese tourists who visit the tropical island annually.

They are disturbed by rumors of proposed forced condemnation of another 950 acres of land owned by members of the native Chamorro population for a live fire range for the incoming Marines. Residues of Agent Orange left from the Vietnam War and other toxic wastes from the military bases, plus the possibility that artillery shells and other munitions made from depleted uranium will be used on their island, are all sources of concern for the people of Guam.

In order to get the 8,000 US Marines out of Okinawa, the Japanese government is paying $6 billion to the US government for their relocation. Guam officials are concerned that not enough of the relocation funds will be made available for the large infrastructure improvements that will be needed for the island’s roads, water, sewage and electrical systems as it tries to support a 25% increase in population. They feel the military will take care of its bases but may leave the local population struggling with the new infrastructure problems created by the large number of military personnel.

The Japanese people, too, are in the dark about the details of the billions of dollars they will pay the US government to have US forces leave Japan. Japanese members of our delegation were shocked when they learned from local Guam activists that the relocation budget calls for the Japanese government to pay $650,000 for the construction of each new house on the base, while Guam activists told us the cost of a middle class home on Guam is around $250,000. The Japanese delegation was greatly concerned that their government is funding such inflated projects and is going to raise the budget with Japanese Diet members when they return to Japan.

Of concern to the Guam business community is consideration by US House of Representatives law makers to give Japanese contractors the same access as American firms to bidding on contracts worth more than $2.5 billion in upcoming US military construction projects on Guam. Apparently, the Japanese government, like the US government, likes to have its commercial firms benefit from government aid projects it is funding “overseas.” With Japan’s $6 billion contribution to the $10 billion cost of relocating the Marines, Japan wants some of that money returned to Japan through construction contracts on the Guam infrastructure projects.

Many Guam officials and a large number of Guam citizens are deeply concerned about the cultural, economic and security impact of the dramatic increase in population and militarization of their island the relocation would present. The current cultural divide of those living in relative luxury inside the bases with better housing, schools and services has been a source of friction between the US military and the local population over the years.

Guam officials said that they too have been perturbed about the extraordinarily high expenditures on US military base facilities, when the Government of Guam is strapped financially. The officials said they were amazed and horrified when they learned that the Air Force recently built an on-base animal kennel for $27 million, with each animal space costing $100,000, when locally, the government is unable to provide sufficient infrastructure for its citizens, much less animals.

Professors and students at the University of Guam expressed concern that there will be a sharp increase in sexual assault and rape on the island due to the relocation of US Marines. They believe one of the reasons the Japanese government finally was able to get the US government to move some military forces out of Okinawa was because of major citizen mobilizations that occurred in response to rapes by US military personnel.

In 2008, the US Ambassador to Japan had to fly to Okinawa to give his apologies for the rape of a 14 year old girl by a US Marine. The US military forces on Okinawa had a 3 day stand-down for “reflection” and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had to express her “regrets” to the Japanese Prime Minister “for the terrible incident that happened in Okinawa… we are concerned for the well-being of the young girl and her family.”

In April, 2008, U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott, 38, who had been in the Marines 18 years, was charged with the February 10, 2008, rape of 14 year old girl, abusive sexual contact with a child, making a false official statement, adultery and kidnapping.

On May 17, 2008, Hadnott was found guilty of abusive sexual conduct and the four other charges were dropped. Hadnott was sentenced to four years in prison, but will only serve a maximum of three years in prison due to a pretrial agreement that suspended the fourth year of the sentence. He was reduced to private and given a dishonorable discharge from the US Marines.

The rape accusation against Hadnott stirred memories of a brutal rape more than a decade ago and triggered outrage across Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said that Hadnott’s actions were “unforgivable.”

There are US Congressional stirrings of concern about the relocation of the Marines to Guam. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee chair Ike Skelton has raised concerns about the size, scope and cost of the move to Guam. “At over $10 billion (two and one-half times the initial cost estimate of $4 billion), it is an enormous project, and I am concerned that the thinking behind it is not yet sufficiently mature,” Skelton said at a recent Congressional hearing. “We need to do this, but it needs to be done right.”

In a challenge to US military “forward deployment” strategy in Asia and the Pacific, Guam activists strongly feel the US military should relocate large forces to the mainland of the US where there presence can be better absorbed by the greater populations and existing large military bases, rather than to their small Pacific island.

However, the US federal government seldom takes into account local feelings about their projects, particularly military projects in a region far removed from the Washington power center.

Guam activists want their voices heard and respected and not to be treated as merely residents of a colony of the United States.

Ann Wright is a 29 year US Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December, 2001 she was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.” (www.voicesofconscience.com)

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