Volume
8 Issue 2 – August 25, 2010 minagahet@lists.riseup.net
Hafa
Adai, yan welcome to i mina'kuarenta dos na Minagahet.
There hasn’t been an issue
of Minagahet for a few months,
because I, like so many people on Guam have been waiting to see what will
happen next in terms of the planned military buildup. Now, at last the time has
come, and the FEIS (Uttimo na EIS) is
out, but in this issue of Minagahet, I
want to take a look back at some of the comments that were made about the DEIS
(Draf na tinige’).
The
DEIS (Draft Environmental Impact Statement) comment period was an
incredible three months. The public engagement and critique was far beyond
anyone could have expected. 9,000 – 10,000 comments were submitted to the Joint
Guam Program Office, thousands and thousands more than they most likely
anticipated. The public comment meetings were dominated by people who were
either against the buildup or at least suspicious about how this sort of
massive movement of people and rapid haphazard period of development could be
beneficial for Guam long-term. Throughout the DEIS comment period, I was trying
my best to keep up with what was going on, and wrote a series of blog posts
about how we could see the buildup as a process “breaking down.”
The idea of it “breaking down” wasn’t meant to convey that it wasn’t going to
happen or that it had been valiantly stopped, but more to discuss how opinions
of it, representations of it, and even political decisions about it were
changing and moving. The buildup was always a massive, complicated, kaduku and impossible thing, but this
aspect was something most people on Guam did not take seriously. Deeply
embedded colonizing thoughts that whatever is good for the US is good for Guam,
or that Uncle Sam is always looking out for Guam created a gigantic bubble,
which made this ridiculously large project seem more like a dream than reality.
The buildup was for years a golden ticket, something which would make dreams
come true. Another way in which Guam reinvents its dependency upon the United
States, through emotional nationalism and deluding optimism. People didn’t know
a lot of details, but didn’t really have to, since those details would be taken
care of by others who we can be certain are much better at their jobs than
anyone on Guam and only have Guam’s interests at heart.
The
DEIS comment period (thankfully) did a lot to change this. The DEIS document
and those people who did the difficult work of translating it and interpreting
it for the public, laid bare the scope and the damage the buildup entails. The
news media, started to reach beyond the official DOD line that comes from JGPO
and look at what the murmurs were in Japan and Washington D.C. and suddenly
things seemed less certain, less inevitable. Not only was there a very real
possibility that this buildup would not make Guam’s dreams come true, but in
fact it could do far more damage than anyone had imagined, to the environment,
society and the economy. Even the promises which were made that Guam would swim
in more money than it could ever hope to spend, were clearly not enough to
cover the costs of increasing Guam’s social capacity enough to handle the
population increases or the damage that would be caused at Apra Harbor. Today,
the perceptions of the buildup are far closer to where they should be than ever
before. People see the buildup as both positive and negative, and by this I
don’t mean they see it has something bubula’
ni positives, with unu pat dos na negatives.
They see it as something which could improve some things, but could also damage
others. And the positives in no clear way outweigh the negatives. This is the
point which Guam should have been at 4 years ago, in the first days of this
buildup, because then it could have adequately prepared for either handling or
challenging this buildup.
As
a researcher, I loved the DEIS comment period because it created so much
discourse, so many different statements and ways of articulating a critique or
a resistance to the military buildup. It provided the space for so many people
who don’t normally speak out, or wouldn’t usually speak publicly on any of
these issues. A lot of detractors claimed that only the activists showed up to
the public comment hearings and so that created a skewed impression that many
people were against the buildup, when it fact it was just a handful of manatmario na taotao siha, or as Robert
Underwood called them “the maladjusted.” But in truth, while the voices of
those who showed up may have been “activist” in content, they were not all
longstanding activists. They were literally everybody on island, they came from
all sectors, ethnicities, political affiliations, educational background,
income levels. The moment helped turn them into activists, and as a result, the
island moved. It’s unclear what will happen next in terms of both the buildup
and the kinalamten pulitikat yan
linahayan taotao which appeared over the past few months. Puede’ ha’ mångge i tinekcha’-ña.
This
issue of Minagahet gathers together a
number of different comments and statements which were made as part of the DEIS
comment period.
For
those of you looking for updates on what’s going on, there are still plenty of
websites to choose from. There is Guam-Guam-Guam Blog, Decolonize Guam Blog, and Mil-Marianas. Another fantastic aspect of
the DEIS comment period was that it helped create the group We Are Guahan, which has a website full of information on
the buildup, but also recently began releasing The Grey Papers, or a series of informational factsheets on what
sort of impacts the buildup will cause on the economy, the environment and
education. Finally, Famoksaiyan has officially started a West Coast chapter and
have begun a new blog, to check it out head to Famoksaiyan West Coast.
Sahuma
Minagahet yan Na'suha Dinagi
Sahuma
TINIGE’ SIHA
Unified
Chamorro Response to the DEIS
Organized
by Dr. Anne Perez Hattori, Simeon Palomo and Dr. Michael Lujan Bevacqua
A
response to the DEIS sponsored by more than 30 different Chamorro cultural and
political groups.
“In conclusion, the DEIS statements highlighted above reflect JGPO’s explicit awareness that the proposed build-up will have a significant, negative impact on the Chamorro people’s continued existence as an indigenous group. As such the Department of Defense is required by law to seek reasonable forms of mitigation or seek appropriate alternatives, including a genuine “NO ACTION” alternative.”
____________________________________________________________________
Human Rights are Not Skin Rashes
by Julian Aguon,
International Human Rights Attorney
“The
final EIS must address the international legal points made herein. It must
articulate with specificity the international legal authority for this buildup
and, in particular, address how this buildup 1) does not violate the
international law(s) on decolonization, 2) is not contrary to the U.N. Charter
and the more specific rules that have crystallized around the right to
self-determination, and 3) does not constitute denial of the right to external
self-determination of the people of Guam arising out of both the colonial
context and the foreign military occupation context.”
____________________________________________________________
Comments, Questions and Recommendations
by Senator Ben Pangelinan, Mina’trenta na Lehislaturan Guahan
Statement from the Chairman
of the Committee on Appropriations, Taxation, Banking, Insurance and Land
“The DEIS contains
numerous deficiencies and fails to meet the requirements of the NEP A process
in that is does not provide adequate and verifiable information needed to
formulate informed and substantive comments. The Department of the Navy has
failed to provide a legally adequate document; therefore, this document shall
not be used to proceed to the final EIS and presentation for a Record of
Decision.”
________________________________________________________________________________________
The Psychological Impact of the Military Buildup
by Rita Sharma Gopinath,
Psychology Professor University of Guam
“After numerous
conversations with members of the island community, students, researchers and
mental health service providers, I have compiled a response to the DEIS and its
implications for the psychological health and general well being of the people
of Guam. It is my professional opinion
that if some of the issues outlined in this letter in response to the DEIS are
not addressed immediately, the repercussions to the island and its people may
be longstanding and irreversible.”
______________________________________________________________________________
by Dr. Christine Delisle
and Dr. Vicente Diaz, University of Michigan
“From this perspective, it is
telling that the simplistic, trivializing, erroneous, and problematic
mitigation plan for the first half of the passage, coupled with the absence of
a mitigation plan for the second half, points to the overall problem with the
DEIS’s understanding of the so-called “Chamorro Issues”: the overall problem
appears to us to be that in fact there is no real mitigation plan at all for
the impact of the large population increase on Chamorro political and cultural
self-determination beyond either asking Gov Guam agencies to teach
non-Chamorros or beyond just waiting for the non-Chamorro demographics to inevitably alter the Chamorro make-up of the
local governance structure and process, and skew any future political status
plebiscite.” ________________________________________________________
Review of the Aircraft
Carrier Berthing
By Dr. Jason Biggs,
University of Guam
“I would like to commend the Navy for a
comprehensive, well-organized and well-researched document. However, I feel it is my professional and
civic duty to challenge the validity of Volume 4: Section 11.1.1: Navy Coral
Assessment Methodology, which could possibly be plagiarizing (p. 11-3) the
conclusion section of Veihman et al. (2009) as a means to support the creation
of a new Habitat Equivalency quantification method, which grossly
underestimates the rugosity of the Inner Apra Harbor Shoal system and the age
classes of corals within them, and does not account for rare and endangered
animals that are not directly observed at the time of assessment (Minton et al.
2009: Volume 9, Appendix J, Comparison
of a Photographic and an In Situ Method to Assess the Coral Reef Benthic
Community in Apra Harbor, Guam).”
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Inadequate Analysis and the Lack
of a Vote
By Dr. Katherine Trisolini,
Loyola Law School
“Based on my experience and review of the
Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the EIS suffers from major defects
that warrant a wholesale revision of the document. Because it fails to address
entire categories of impacts, the document should be rewritten and made
available for public comments in draft form.
Simply responding to these lacunae with formal comments in a Final EIS
will fail to give the public adequate time to consider types of impacts not
addressed in the current EIS. Moreover,
because the public will not have the opportunity to fully address impacts,
decisionmakers will not be fully informed.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Human Costs and the Human
Dangers
Statement from the Guahan
Coalition for Peace and Justice
“The
proposition of a “consideration” on whether the DoD will “assist” the Chamorus
is inadequate in addressing the real
issues of the overburdening of our public and mental health systems due to an
increase in population. In addition, the DEIS is inadequate in addressing
the real problems associated with these institutions, like the lack of funding
and resources, and likely receivership of the DMHSA and how this will be
impacted by the military buildup. The DEIS provides essentially NO
mitigations for the overburdening of the DPHSS and DMHSA.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Threatening Our Survival and
Sustainability
Statement from Sabina
Perez, a Native of Guam
“The sustainable
yield of 80.5 million gallons per day, referred to in Chapter 2 of the DEIS, is
based on a study that is 19 years old.
How can we be assured that the sustainable yield in Northern Guam Lens
Aquifer (NGLA) that is based on the old methodology is still accurate today? In specific terms, how is the sustainable
yield defined and determined?“
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Prepared by Dr. Anne Perez Hattori,
Richard Olmo, Michael Clement, Peter Onedera and Dr. Michael Lujan Bevacqua
“This
report, written by a coalition of University of Guam Faculty, expresses our
unified opposition to the use of Pågat Village as a firing range in the
proposed military build-up on Guam. We,
furthermore, reject the proposed mitigations as grossly insufficient means of
ameliorating the loss of this culturally and historically irreplaceable site.”
________________________________________________________________________________________
Hita Guahan!
Chamorro Testimonies at the United Nations - 2008
Hita Guåhan is a
compilation of testimonies presented by Chamorus from Guåhan to the United
Nations in New York in 2008. These testimonies carry on the legacy of more than
20 years of Chamorus who’ve appealed to the United Nations on behalf of Guam
and Chamoru human rights. It can be downloaded free of charge by clicking the
above link.
MINAGAHET is published by
the Chamorro Information Activists, a non-profit, poorly funded, poorly staffed
yan machalapon activist organization, created for the benefit of the
people and the futures of Guam. Non-profit doesn't imply "non-profit
status or anything" just that taya' suetdon-mami nu este. Pues an
kala'u este, ti isao n-mami. Mismo i isaon i tinaigefsagan-mami. Copyright
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - MINAGAHET. All rights
reserved. We aren't sure what that means, but we see it put at the bottom of
other things, and the last thing we want to do is get in trouble for not
telling people that all our rights are reserved as well. EMAIL minagahet@lists.riseup.net PARA UN TUNGO' MAS