Interview With Julian Aguon, Chamoru ActivistMELBOURNE, Jul 23 (IPS) - In this second of a two-part interview, IPS spoke with Julian Aguon -- whose homeland of Guam is soon to receive thousands more U.S. troops -- regarding the island’s economic problems, why Guam matters to Washington and the value of solidarity links between activists who are divided by oceans, yet united in a cause.
Construction to upgrade the western Pacific island of Guam into an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" has already begun. As part of the process, 8,000 U.S. marines are to be transferred to Guam from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.
By 2014 there is expected to be some 40,000 U.S. military personnel stationed on Guam, which is officially classified as an unincorporated territory of the U.S.
This build-up will require 15 billion US dollars to be spent on the island’s military bases, which currently take up one-third of the island’s territory. Julian Aguon told IPS writer, Stephen de Tarczynski, that Guam’s inhabitants have yet to see any of this money.
IPS: Guam’s economy is struggling at the moment. Won’t the huge increase in population bring much needed money to the island?
Julian Aguon: Well, the entire U.S. military build-up is being sold to the public, especially the public of Guam, as more or less the panacea for all of our economic woes because our economy is strapped for cash. I mean, we are talking very strapped for cash. It’s very common now for Guam public school teachers to be threatened... We’re not sure by 5 pm on Friday, every other week, whether or not the teachers are going to be paid. We don’t even have adequate supplies of toilet tissue in Guam public high schools.
Of the 15 billion dollars that supposedly is tied to the military build-up -- the economic panacea -- zero dollars thus far, and this is [after] two and a half years and counting, have been allocated to any development outside of the U.S. bases.
We are not tricked in this process. Basically, even American-based companies have been pre-awarded multi-million dollar contracts tied to the military build-up in Guam. What’s worse is that U.S. Department of Defence officials have actually publicly stated that they’re in the position to make no commitments. The fact is that the Department of Defence of the United States government maintains that public position, and they’re not even embarrassed of that position. Because we in Guam, outside of the bases, know well that there is segregation. Besides public schools we have one hospital that serves all the people of Guam. It’s dilapidated and unaccredited and our people have to fly -- sometimes we do fundraises to raise two thousand dollars to get a plane ticket -- to Hawaii or another location far away from Guam for medical treatment. Or a lot of people choose to stay home and die. For example, we suffer alarmingly high rates of cancers and we don’t even have radiation therapy available in our one hospital. That’s outrageous. Because our people, even if they fundraise and get enough money to buy a ticket out to get medical treatment, they need a place to stay. And cancer treatment isn’t a week long [process], it can go eight to ten months or longer. And where are they going to stay? So, they end up putting other people out or they go and they come back and still die because they don’t have enough money.
IPS: You said previously that Guam "doesn’t much matter to the United States." But the island appears to matter very much to the U.S., doesn’t it?
JA: We do, but our human rights don’t matter. Our geopolitical significance [matters]. Since the announcement came down from the U.S. that they were going to bring all these troops and flood our homeland with a huge military personnel population, they’ve actually repeatedly maintained that Guam is a U.S. possession. They don’t even seem to shirk when they refer to our indigenous land, our homeland, our island of Guam, as a mere possession of the United States. We’re technically under the sovereignty of the Department of the Interior.
IPS: Are you in contact with other activists from places like Okinawa?
JA: Yes. Guam participated in the inaugural International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases in Quito, Ecuador. And there we really made some new links but deepened our friendships with other people who are struggling across the Asia-Pacific region. We actually had an Asian-Pacific delegation there and some of us have grown quite close because the suffering in some profound way is markedly similar. So, solidarity for us isn’t a stretch, it’s a kin thing.
IPS: What is the advantage of that solidarity?
JA: The advantage is that, for example, we come from such a small place and we are such a small population. We need international support, we need allies, we need friends and family throughout the region. The people of Okinawa have suffered enormously because of the U.S. military presence and they have a lot of lessons to teach us. But not only de-militarisation groups that we have linked up with have proven such wonderful relationships. Our relationships are deepening now with [other] indigenous people themselves. The Kanaka Maoli or native Hawaiians of Hawaii, we’ve worked together for quite a while now and we continue to work together. Hawaii was once a non-self-governing territory. The U.S. unilaterally withdrew it, so the native Hawaiian people, like the Chamoru people, are also minorities in their own homeland. They fight to protect their already tender shard of a dream to protect their cultural integrity. I mean, we are so united in our need for justice.
IPS: 63,000 Chamoru live on Guam (around 37 percent of the population), but the majority live elsewhere. Is there also a strong connection between ethnic Chamorus in other parts of the U.S. and overseas?
JA: Yes, there is. Alongside a growing lethargy in our island is also a fire. It’s kindling and it’s spreading because a lot of people are really rising to the occasion and being courageous enough to be honest with themselves that this new wave of U.S. militarisation of Guam -- which is maybe the centrepiece for the U.S. militarisation of the Asia-Pacific region -- it means to be decisive. For our people it means to pack the last punch.
(END/2008)
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