The Contamination of the Pacific
Hafa Adai distinguished members of the United Nations Special
Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) and Chairman, H.E. Mr.
Jorge Arguello,
My name is Craig Santos Perez and I’m a poet and native son of Guam. I
represent the Guahan Indigenous Collective, a grassroots organization committed
to keeping Chamoru culture alive through public education and artistic
expression. I’m here to testify about the fangs of militarization and
colonialism destroying the Chamoru people of Guam.
These fangs dig deep. During and immediately after World War Two, brown tree
snakes invaded Guam as stowaways on U.S. naval cargo ships. By 1968, the snakes
colonized the entire island, their population reaching a density of 13,000 per
square mile. As a result, Guam’s seabirds, 10 of 13 endemic species of forest
birds, 2 of 3 native mammals, and 6 of 10 native species of lizards have all
gone extinct.
The U.S. plans to introduce—this time intentionally—a more familiar breed of
predators to Guam: an estimated 19,000 military personnel and 20,000 of their
dependants, along with numerous overseas businesses and 20,000 contract workers
to support the military build-up. Add this to the 14,000 military personnel
already on Guam, and that’s a combined total of 73,000—outnumbering the
entire Chamoru population on Guam, which is roughly 62,900.
This hyper-militarization poses grave implications for our human right to
self-determination because the U.S. currently asserts that its citizens—this
transient population—have a “constitutional” right to vote in our
plebiscite. Furthermore, this hyper-militarization (continuing a long history of
militarization on Guam), will severely devastate our environmental, social,
physical and cultural health. Since World War II, military dumping and nuclear
testing has contaminated the Pacific with PCBs and radiation. In addition, PCBs
and other military toxic waste have choked the breath out of the largest barrier
reef system of Guam, poisoning fish and fishing grounds. As recently as July of
this year, the USS Houston, a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine home-ported on Guam,
leaked trace amounts of radioactivity into our waters.
The violation doesn’t end on our shores; the military also occupies and
infects our ancestral lands. Currently, the U.S. military occupies a third of
the island, and the impending build-up has interrupted the return of federal
excess lands to original land-owners and threatens to claim more lands for live
fire training. Not only has the U.S. continued to deprive us of our right to
land, but they also pollute these lands. Eighty contaminated military dumpsites
still exist on Guam. The now civilian Ordot landfill (a former World War Two
military dumpsite) contains 17 toxic chemicals, including arsenic, lead,
chromium, PCBs, and cyanide. The same 17 pollutants are also found in the
landfills located over the island’s aquifer at Andersen Air Force Base in
northern Guam.
While the U.S. military erodes the integrity of our land, expectations from the
military build-up have more than doubled real estate prices and tripled home
costs. Coupled with a struggling economy and rising living costs, many landless
Chamorus have been economically coerced to leave the island and others have
become homeless. Even our ancestors are being affected: a $30 million expansion
of the Guam Hotel Okura has excavated an ancient Chamoru cemetery. More than 300
ancestral remains have already been unearthed.
While new condominiums, hotels, and high-end homes are beginning to rise, the
sky is falling. In July 2007, an F/A-18C Hornet crashed in the waters around
Guam during a training mission. This year, at least 3 other military aircrafts
have crashed in or near Andersen Air Force Base.
U.S. colonial presence has not only damaged our bodies of land and water, but
it’s deteriorated our physical bodies as well. The military used Guam as a
decontamination site during its nuclear testing in the 1970s, which resulted in
massive radiation and agent orange and purple exposure. High incidences of
various kinds of cancer and neuro-degenerative diseases, such amyothrophic
lateral sclerosis, Parkinsonism-dementia, and Lytico-Botig plague the Chamoru
people. Toxic chemicals have snaked into our bloodstream, causing multiple
sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, renal dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, liver
dysfunction, deafness, blindness, epilepsy, seizures, arthritis, anemia,
stillbirths, and infertility—all of which Chamorus disproportionately suffer.
And because our mental health is woven to our physical health, Chamorus suffer
dramatically high rates of incarceration, family violence, substance abuse,
teenage suicides, and school drop-outs. The presence of the U.S. military has
choked the breath out of our daughters and sons, mothers and fathers,
grandmothers and grandfathers.
Like the last totot (Marianas Fruit-dove) on Guam being slowly swallowed by the
brown tree snake, Chamorus are being disappeared. Diseases have killed most of
our elders: only five percent of the island is over the age of 65. Young
Chamorus are joining the U.S. military and dying in America’s wars at alarming
rates. In 2005, four of the U.S. Army’s top twelve recruitment producers were
based on Guam. In 2007, Guam ranked No. 1 for recruiting success in the Army
National Guard's assessment of 54 states and territories. In the current war on
terror, our killed-in-action rate is now five times the US national average.
Since the war on terror began in 2001, 29 sons of Micronesia have died–17 of
them from Guam.
In terms of population, Chamorus constituted 45 percent of Guam’s population
in 1980; in 1990, 43 percent; in 2000, 37 percent. In devastating contrast, the
planned influx of non-Chamorus will increase Guam’s overall population by
about 30 percent, causing a 20-year population growth over the next five years.
History repeats itself: more foreign snakes, fewer native birds.
The U.S. Pentagon is currently conducting an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)/Overseas
Environmental Impact Statement (OEIS) for the build-up. However, the study is
problematic in a number of ways, including the rushed speed of the study (a mere
2 years, with a 2009 completion date); the framing of the “impact” (which
excludes many social, health, and environmental issues and focuses on economic
“positives”); and the research methods (which relies on outdated data sets
and “experts” composed mainly of the political and business elite). These
Impact Statements are only invested in legitimizing the military build-up.
The door of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism
in the 21st Century will not be open for much longer. And even though powerful
snakes block our passage, we are willing to struggle for our rights—but we
need your help.
The Fourth Committee must give top priority to the fulfillment of our
inalienable right to self-determination, as affirmed by General Resolutions 1514
and 1541, and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Fourth Committee must immediately enact the process of decolonization for
Guam in lieu of the severe, irreversible impact of U.S. militarization. This
process must include a fully funded and far-reaching education campaign
informing all Chamorus from Guam of our right to self-determination and
decolonization options.
The Fourth Committee must thoroughly investigate the administering power’s
non-compliance with its treaty obligations under the Charter of the United
Nations to promote economic, social, and cultural well-being on Guam
The Fourth Committee must send UN representatives to the island within the next
six months to asses the implications of US militarization plans on the
decolonization of Guam, and the human rights implications of the cumulative
impacts of the US military’s presence on our island. The Fourth Committee must
contact Guam leaders and delegates who have presented testimony before this
body, and UN funding must be allocated immediately to advance this study. We
cannot rely on faulty impact studies conducted by the US, which are used to
justify their actions rather than truly assess their impacts on our island.
Finally, the Fourth Committee must comply with the recommendations of other UN
agencies, especially the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which recently
requested an expert seminar be held to examine the impact of the UN
decolonization process on indigenous peoples of the Non Self-Governing
Territories.
This committee must prioritize collaboration with Chamoru organizations and
experts, such as I Nasion Chamoru, Famoksaiyan, Fuetsan Famalao’an and all
those who have provided testimony in the past two decades.
Thank you for listening, and I hope we can continue to work towards achieving
decolonization and self-determination for the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam.
Saina Ma’ase, Thank You, Craig Santos Perez (csperez06@gmail.com)
Guahan Indigenous Collective