1/3/11
Frantz Fanon Black Skin, White Mask
Explores the life and work of the psychoanalytic theorist and activist Frantz Fanon who was born in Martinique, educated in Paris and worked in Algeria. Examines Fanon's theories of identity and race, and traces his involvement in the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria and throughout the world
5/6/10
Remember Bobby Sands and all the Hunger Strikers.
The Death of Bobby Sands
Back in the day on May 5th, 1981, Provisional Irish Republican Army militant Bobby Sands died in prison. Serving time for being arrested on a gun possession charge, the hunger striker had refused food for sixty-six days in protest of British authorities before dying. Sands, in solidarity with other prisoners, was opposed to the retraction of “special category status” that criminalized political inmates like him who would have otherwise previously been treated as prisoners of war.
The hunger strike, launched on the fifth anniversary of the reclassification, demanded that five core privileges be reinstated such as free association time, visitation, and work rights. More than a month into the protest, Sands was elected from his prison cell to a vacant seat of the British Parliament. Just twenty-seven years of age at the time of his death, the Irishman refused outside pleas to give up the strike. Having lost significant weight, Sands fell into a coma and was pronounced dead forty-eight hours later.
The British Government allowed nine other prisoners to die in the course of the strike before it came to an end in early October that same year.
4/29/10
3/14/10
2/21/10
Gord Hill Breaks it down
1/19/10
Frantz Fanon
Brief piece on Frantz Fanon and his influence on anti-colonial and national liberation struggles, from The Trap
10/25/09
9/28/09
8/20/09
Petition: Appeal for the immediate release of USTKE trade unionists in Kanaky
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By Collectif Solidarité Kanaky
On June 29, 2009, in Noumea, Kanaky [also known by its colonial name of New Caledonia -– Kanaky is a colony of France] twenty-eight members of USTKE (Federation of Unions of Kanak Workers and the Exploited) were given prison sentences. Six of them, whose committal orders were read out in court, are now serving time at Camp Est, a prison which is already overpopulated. The judgement targeted the leadership of the union, particularly the president Gérard Jodar, sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, and the general secretary of the construction union, Michel Safoka, also given one year.
The official grounds for the guilty verdict are “hindering the flight of an aircraft”. On Thursday May 28, a day of action organised by USTKE, during a protest outside Noumea Airport to support Air Caledonia workers who had been fighting for two months against a wrongful dismissal, mobile police and the GIPN (Intervention Group of the National Police) pushed the unionists onto the tarmac. Twenty-eight of them took refuge in an empty plane to protect themselves against a stream of tear gas. At the time of the police intervention, there were no planes in circulation and it was the very action of the police which disrupted the demonstration.
The verdict is a political verdict against the pro-independence union federation. Those in power are trying to muzzle the territory’s foremost organisation for defending the rights of all workers, whether they be Kanak [the Indigenous people of Kanaky] or of other origins. In this far-away colony where there are no industrial tribunals, employees are often forced to lead long conflicts to assert their rights, faced with arrogant bosses who mock their dignity.
We refuse to accept either the growing criminalisation of union action or unionists’ imprisonment.
We demand the immediate release of the USTKE unionists and their leaders.
To sign this petition, please send your name, town, country and organisation (and position if you hold one) to: contact@solidaritekanaky.org. Visit Collectif Solidarité Kanaky's website at http://solidaritekanaky.org.
5/4/09
Guam's Intervention at the UNPFII - Julian Aguon
Item # 6
Topic: Pacific
Presenter: Julian Aguon
Collective Intervention of the Chamoru Nation and Affiliated Indigenous Chamoru Organizations; Society for Threatened Peoples International (ECOSOC); CORE (ECOSOC); Western Shoshone Defense Project; Flying Eagle Woman Fund (ECOSOC); Mohawk Nation at Kahmawake; Cultural Development and Research Institute; Famoksaiyan; Organization of People for Indigenous Rights; Colonized Chamoru Coalition; Chamoru Landowners Association; Chamoru Language Teachers Association; Guahan Indigenous Collective; Hurao, Inc.; Landowners United; Chamoru Veterans Association; Fuetsan Famaloan
See also http://decolonizeguam.blogspot.com
3/8/09
1/19/09
Chomsky: Undermining Gaza
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Sameer Dossani | January 16, 2009 Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco | |||
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1/15/09
' Israel's' 'colonial tactics' decried
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Azmi Bishara, an Arab-Israeli analyst and former member of the Israeli parliament, has lashed out at the Israeli media campaign being run alongside its war on Gaza that criminalises the victims and victimises the coloniser. Speaking to Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Bishara said Israel's war on Gaza was disproportionate and punishes the Palestinian people for refusing to bow to Israel's fait-accompli in the strip. "Usually people are pushed to collective punishment because they want to punish resistance movements or national liberation movements. "That's usually what colonial powers did, and that's what Israel is doing. Bishara said the majority of Gazans are refugees, whose ancestors used to live in what is now Israel. "Everybody knows that 75 per cent of the people of Gaza are refugees. Everybody knows that Israel disengaged from Gaza militarily, but occupies it economically and politically and also it besieges Gaza militarily. "Israel would say, "what would any normal country do if they were threatened by rocket fire? They would act". "But Israel is not a normal country, it is an occupying country, a colonial country and the people of Gaza are under siege." ‘Punishing democracy’ Bishara said that Palestinians are being punished for choosing Hamas in the January 2006 democratic elections and accused Israeli officials for dramatising their lies. "Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, should be asked, "What would you do if your house is besieged and you can't feed your child, can't go to school, and can't take them to the doctors and physicians when they are ill. "I consider Hamas rockets a protest shout, they haven't hurt many, only the few. They are weapons of the poor, used to express their will. "What brought the war was the siege. When colonial powers have historically gone to occupy countries, siege has always been a weapon. Siege is a military action at the beginning of war. "When it did not work to break the will of the Palestinian people... Israel realised that the rockets were a response to the siege, and they went to the next phase which was direct military aggression, which is actually now directed against civilians to punish them for their democratic choice. "What I think will happen is a ceasefire that will mean an end to the siege if the rockets stop. It will happen after the deaths of so many people." |
1/13/09
Mana Whanau - Put 'em up, hoist 'em up!!!
oh Fly, o, fly to the people!!
fly, o , fly to the nation
fly o, fly as a symbol
o fly o fly flying high!!!!
Oh transit give us a chance!
to represent us,
the true people of this land
show the world that you care
about a nation,
lost in it's own lands
im tellin u to
fly o,
waiata Copyright to mana whanau
video to tinorangatiratangatv1 nguha3
10/8/08
Testimony: Harmful Effects Of Guam's Colonization
Press Release: I Nasion Chamoru
Chamorus Address United Nations, Urge Need For Self-Determination
New York, October 7, 2008 – Today, a delegation of Chamorus testified in front of the United Nations Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) in New York City on the question of Guam's continued colonization. For the first time in years, the Committee received testimony from a Guam elected official Senator Vicente Pangelinan prepared a testimony, read by Chamoru attorney Aileen Quan. The rest of the delegation included Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero of I Nasion Chamoru, Craig Santos Perez of Guåhan Indigenous Collective, and Michael A. Tun'cap of Famoksaiyan. The delegates discussed the cumulative adverse impacts of U.S. colonization and the current military build-up, highlighting such issues as environmental contamination, Chamoru displacement, alarming cancer rates, and the infrastructural strains expected from the island's unprecedented population boom—which will make the Chamoru people a minority group in our homeland. The Chamoru delegation will be meeting this week with the President of the General Assembly, UN Fourth Committee Chairman Jorge Arguello of Argentina, and world leaders from the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Virgin Islands to discuss ways to successfully expedite Guam's Chamoru self-determination process.
Guam Senator Vicente Lino Cabrera Pangelinan’s Testimony to the United Nations Special Political and Decolonization Committee
Hafa Adai distinguished members of the United Nations Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) and Chairman, H.E. Mr. Jorge Arguello,
Ginen y anti y espiritu yan y man fotna na taotao Guahan na hu presenta este na testimonu, yan u fan libre y taotao pagu. It is from the soul and the spirit of our ancestors that I present this testimony today for the liberation of the people today.
I am Vicente Lino Cabrera Pangelinan, a seven term Senator in the Guam Legislature here today to present my position as an elected representative of the people of Guam on the question of Guam before this body.
It is not only the right of the native inhabitants that this body is chartered with advancing, it is the protection of that right in an environment that allows for it to exercise in its purest form. The development of the island and the recent decisions by our administering authority dilutes our right to self-determination every single day that we are denied this right.
Our desire is clear and our policy reflected in the laws that we have enacted. I come before this body to petition for action and support from this body.
This year, my office re-vitalized the registration of our native inhabitants and their descendants to identify those in our homeland that are vested with this most basic of human rights, the right to self-determination. I will be seeking additional financial resources to accelerate this registration and will again petition our administrating authority to provide us with the financial and technical resources to advance this process to its ultimate conclusion; the conducting of a plebiscite and the vote by the people.
I request that this body lay before the representatives of our administrating authority to this most august body this petition and apply all its resources to move our administrating authority to comply with our request. We should not be made to wait for another day, for another day we do not have. Their actions and expansion of their military presence, the most massive military undertaking in the movement of military personnel since World War Two (these are their words) is making sure that if and when that day comes, it will not be a day that belongs to the colonized people of Guahan.
Our inalienable right to self-determination, as affirmed by General Resolutions 1514 and 1541, and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be enforced by this body. We have sustained its ever threatening existence by actions of our administrating authority and we come before you to attest to this. The Fourth Committee must immediately enact the process of decolonization for Guåhan, home to a colonized people, the Chamorros. This process must include a fully funded and far-reaching education campaign informing all Chamorus from Guåhan of our right to self-determination and decolonization options.
I thank you again for the opportunity to present this most urgent petition in my capacity as an elected representative of the people of Guam.
/s/ Senator Vicente Lino Cabrera Pangelinan
I Nasion Chamoru
Testimony to the United Nations Special Political and Decolonization Committee Re: Chamoru Self-Determination in Guåhan (Guam) October 7, 2008
Hafa Adai distinguished members of the United Nations Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) and Chairman, H.E. Mr. Jorge Arguello,
Guahu si Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero. Dankolo na si yu’us ma’ase (thank you very much) for allowing me to address this very important international body. I am here on behalf of the Chamoru grassroots organization “I Nasion Chamoru,” which was established in1991 to proclaim the existence of the Chamoru people as a nation. I Nasion Chamoru celebrates the 4,000 year old history of the Chamoru people in our islands, and vows to protect the land, water, air, spirituality, language, culture and human rights of the Chamoru people. I Nasion Chamoru members have addressed this committee for several years, including our maga’haga (female leader) Debbie Quinata, who sends her regards.
I also represent the voices and opinions of my relatives and elders on Guåhan (Guam), who work daily to fight the continued colonization and militarization of our island. I carry the same message that has been presented to this committee for over two decades by Chamoru community leaders and elected officials like former Senator Hope Cristobal, former Congressman Robert Underwood and Ed Benavente. I fight the same fight that took the lives of Ron Rivera and former Senator and founder of I Nasion Chamoru Angel Santos. Our message has been loud and clear – the Chamoru people of Guåhan deserve to exercise our basic, inalienable human right to self-determination. But with only two years left in the second decade for the eradication of colonialism, sixty-three years after our administering power added Guåhan to the UN list of Non-Self Governing Territories, and almost fifty years after the UN passed General Assembly Resolutions 1514 (the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples) and 1541(which establishes the three options for self-determination), Guåhan remains colonized.
Now, more than ever, the work of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee is needed on Guåhan. In order to truly eradicate colonialism, this committee must work in the interests of the people of Guåhan and not crumble to the demands of our administering power, despite it’s domineering role in the United Nations. The United States’ claims that the Chamoru people’s right to self-determination is a domestic issue that should not involve the United Nations are hypocritical and distract this committee from taking action against the hyper-militarization and continued colonization of Guåhan. As I stand before you, the US is actively working to drastically expand their military and commercial presence on our island, creating a greater economic and social dependency that does not equip our people for decolonization, but rather pushes us devastatingly further away from it.
The US, which already occupies one-third of our island for military purposes, plans to move 17,000 Marines and their family members from Okinawa, Japan to Guåhan by 2014. In addition to those plans, the US Navy has begun to enhance its infrastructure, logistics capabilities, and waterfront facilities with the desire to support transient nuclear aircraft carriers, combat logistics force ships, submarines, surface combatants, and high-speed transport ships at their Naval Base. The US Air Force plans to develop a global intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance strike hub at Andersen Air Force Base by hosting various types of aircraft, such as fighters, bombers, tankers, and Global Hawk systems. And the Army plans to place a ballistic missile defense task force on our island.
As cited in the UN Guam Working Paper, David Bice, executive director of the office assigned to orchestrate the US military build-up, estimates that Guåhan will see an increase of 19,000 military personnel, 20,000 military family members and 20,000 foreign construction workers on the island in the next six years. As a result, Guåhan’s small population of 173,000 is expected to increase 34 percent with 59,000 more people. Such a population boom will make the 62,900 Chamorus on the island a minority group in our homeland, where we already struggle to keep our culture and language alive in light of imposed US educational standards that force us to learn English and US history over our native Chamoru tongue and historical understanding of ourselves. Part of the goal to militarize Guåhan is to reduce the US military’s burden on Japanese communities. Guåhan deserves the same respect. But because we remain in possession of the United States, our rights to create economic and social alternatives that free us from being dependent on the US, and help us maintain our culture and language, are being explicitly ignored. The US military’s burden on Guåhan’s communities will increase manifold. The military has already begun awarding construction contracts and building on military bases, despite the fact that no official plan has been funded or approved for this military build-up, and no official assessment of the environmental impacts has been completed. The US is conducting an Environmental Impact Study in a rushed two-year timeframe that does not include much participation or input from the island community. And in a preliminary version of that study, the US did not present evidence that the social, cultural or political implications of such a massive population boom and military build-up will be addressed. Both the US Department of Defense (DOD) and the Government of Guam face multiple challenges in trying to address the needs associated with this unprecedented military build-up, largely due to colossal uncertainties in the planning process. What is certain is that Guåhan is expected to shoulder the costs and strains of the tremendous infrastructural burden that is this military expansion. The Government of Guam reports that an influx of foreign workers will pull on local emergency care services, medical facilities, public utilities, transportation networks, and the availability of temporary housing. DOD and Government of Guam officials have said that the island’s infrastructure is inadequate to meet the increased demands of the military buildup. For example, the wastewater system serving the central part of the island, where a lot of development is already taking place, is at capacity. At a recent congressional hearing, the governor of Guåhan testified that our island’s government would need $6.1 billion to fund infrastructure upgrades. These costs are separate from the DOD’s estimated $15 billion need for plans within the military bases. Therefore, the United States will not cover the costs of Guåhan’s needed infrastructure upgrades, and our local government, which has a current deficit of over $511 million, will have to put our island in massive debt to meet the needs of our administering power.
According to United States law, Guåhan is a possession of the United States but not part of the United States. This is evidenced in the planning process for the US military build-up on Guåhan. There is no consultation with the people of Guåhan and no regard paid to the needs of our people. The governor, lieutenant governor and their staff have provided input in the planning process, but have no real decision-making power in one of the largest decisions ever made for the island that will have rippling effects on future generations of Chamorus.
The hyper-militarization of Guåhan is setting delays to the UN decolonization process. In remaining a Non Self-Governing Territory, Guåhan loses its right to fight the military build-up and the US can go about its plans with little-to-no opposition. I urge this committee to act immediately as the situation I’ve described to you is grave. Without action on Guåhan, the UN will have turned its back on colonization in the 21st century. The UN Secretary General himself recently declared there is no room for colonialism in 2008. I urge you to take heed of your mandate or else the Chamoru people will become extinct in our homeland.
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 Guåhan in lieu of the severe, irreversible impacts of US militarization. This process must include a fully funded and far-reaching education campaign informing all Chamorus from Guåhan 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 Guåhan. 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 Guåhan, and the human rights implications of the cumulative impacts of the US military’s presence on our island. The Fourth Committee must contact Guåhan 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.
I thank you again for hearing my testimony today, and hope that we can work together to ensure the inalienable human right to self-determination for the Chamoru people of Guåhan, and the survival of a Chamoru Nation in our homeland.
Saina Ma’ase,
Victoria-Lola Montecalvo Leon Guerrero I Nasion Chamoru
Testimony to the United Nations Special Political and Decolonization Committee Re: Chamoru Self-Determination in Guåhan (Guam) October 7, 2008
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
MICHAEL A. TUN’CAP, Ph.D.C, UC Berkeley and Famoksaiyan United Nations De-colonization 4th Committee Testimony Oct.7-8, 2008
Hafa Adai yan buenasi! (Hello and good day) Your Excellency Mr. Chairman Jorge Aguello, and distinguished members of the Fourth Committee: Dangkolu na si Yu’os ma’ase (sincere thank you) for your invitation to participate at this important testimony for the remainder of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism in the 21st century.
I am Michael Anthony Tuncap, a Chamorro teacher and national community organizer from the University of California Berkeley. I was born in the village of Aniguak, Guam and I am the Great Grand Son of Ana Acfalle of Merizo and Ramona Terlaje of Aniguak. I am here as the Famoksaiyan Trustee to the Pacific Islander Commission at the University of California Berkeley. Famoksaiyan and the UC Pacific Islander Commission work together as an advisory council of indigenous scholars, teachers and community leaders from Guam, American Samoa, Tonga , the Philippines and Hawai’i. Our collective mission is to promote the human and civil rights of indigenous Pacific Islanders through education, community organizing and health advocacy. We have been brought together by the struggle to survive the recent military expansion and nuclear testing of our Pacific homeland.
The continued occupation of American military forces in Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands are rooted in a system of racial inequality between European Americans, Asian and Pacific settlers and the indigenous Chamorro people. Since our initial contact with the United States in 1898, massive pacification and military occupation have prevented the Chamoru people from exercising our inalienable right to self determination. My testimony today focuses on the structural relationship between racism and American military occupation in Guam and the Northern Mariana’s. Colonial ideas of racial and gendered superiority have shaped a long history of military violence and U.S economic security. American military aggression has shaped the public policies and immigration laws that led to the genocide of the Western frontier, legalized chattel slavery and the colonization of the Pacific. These militarized conditions are still prevalent in institutions that define American citizenship for many of our brothers and sisters in the Pacific and Caribbean colonies.
Over the last twenty years, the UN Fourth Committee on Decolonization has heard testimonies from former Guam Senator Hope Alvarez Cristobal, Sabina Perez, and many other indigenous world leaders. Their testimonies demonstrate the connection between racial ideologies and institutional discrimination resulting from American militarism. The history of American imperialism is deeply connected to a long history of exclusion, manifesting it in forms of violence both physical and social. We, the people of Guam, recognize that race continues to define the boundaries of the nation and the constituents of a militarized territory. Why are the American people in the Mariana’s denied the right to vote? Why are there American bases in Guam if the people lack political voting rights? What role has race played in the political relationship between the United States and their Chamoru territories? How can the United States ignore the United Nations Declaration for decolonization and the inalienable right of self determination for indigenous people?
“We the citizens for justice and peace on Guam voice our concern to the joint military exercises amid three aircraft carriers in the Pacific. We oppose the scheduled transfer of more then 7000 US Marines, and the increasing military presence post-September 11, 2001. We strongly believe that increased militarization on Guam is a violation of the human rights to self determination of the indigenous people. The United States is legally responsible under international law to protect the people of the island and the culture of the Chamorro people and that the intensified militarization of Guam and the Asia/Pacific region is a polarizing force that has put our people in grave danger rather than provide stability.”
The history of U.S militarism demonstrates the continued importance of race in determining national and international relations. The native and settle people of Guam have endured racial nationalism or exclusion based on continuous and discontinuous understandings of native Pacific Islanders. Social tensions rooted in the history of racism and struggle for minorities to attain “full citizenship.” Senator Cristobal and Sabina Perez have noted the complex ways that citizenship has been curtailed through the resurgence of U.S militarism.
The legacies of a racialized military occupation in Guam continue to inform a widely accepted belief in difference between the citizen and non-citizen. The colorblind framework of the United States as a ‘nation of immigrants’ ignores the complex differences in the histories and cultures of indigenous Micronesian people, especially in Guam. Military discourses conceal the xenophobic immigration policies and manifestations of U.S racial ideologies. As Chamorro scholars and policy makers pursue new ways of addressing racial problems of exclusion and citizenship, the question of self determination in Guam remains unanswered. If we, the people of Guam and the Northern Mariana’s Islands are to survive expanding U.S militarism,
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 Guåhan in lieu of the severe, irreversible impacts of US militarization. This process must include a fully funded and far-reaching education campaign informing all Chamorus from Guåhan 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 Guåhan. 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 Guåhan, and the human rights implications of the cumulative impacts of the US military’s presence on our island. The Fourth Committee must contact Guåhan 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.
IN TINA. IN TINA I MANMATAO. We offer praise to the matao IN TINA I MANMOFO'NA NA TAOTAO. We praise the first people
I MANMATAO I MANMOFO'NA NA TAOTAO. TA'HAHASSO I AMKO' NANÅ'AN I TAOTAO-TA. We remember The old name of our people
TA'HAHASSO I AMKO' NANÅ'AN. We remember The old name
TA'HAHASSO I MANFINE'NA NA NANÅ'AN-TA. We remember our first name.
TA' HAHASSO I MANFINE'NA I NANÅ'AN. We remember The first Name
I AMKO' NANÅ'AN I MANFINE'NA I NANÅ'AN I MANMATAO I MANMATAO I MANMOFO'NA NA TAOTAO I MATAO...
ENDS8/16/08
No Olympics on stolen land! ---- Disrupt and abolish the G8 and SPP
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Active support and solidarity for local struggles of self-determination, justice and dignity
[August 2008 OTTAWA] ---- In the year 2010, three major international events will be taking place in the Canadian state: the Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler (between February 12-28); the G8 Leader's Summit in Huntsville, Ontario (most likely in June or July); and the meeting of the NAFTA leaders as part of the so-called "Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)" (date and location not yet known). ---- Already, groups and individuals on the West Coast have come together under the banner of "No Olympics on stolen native land." They have been organizing and raising awareness, from an anti-colonial and anti-capitalist perspective, against the 2010 Olympics, for several years.
[More info available at www.no2010.com and http://harrietspirit.blogspot.com/]
Inspired by the mobilizing on the West Coast, organizers across "Canada"have begun awareness-raising efforts. Building on the call from the West Coast for anti-capitalist and anti-colonial resistance to the Olympics, some organizers affiliated with the "People's Global Action" Bloc (PGA-Bloc) in Ontario and Quebec have begun mobilizing around "Resistance2010", linking
anti-Olympics efforts to organizing against the G8 and SPP, and the day-to-day systems and institutions of power and oppression they represent.
With more than one-year before the Olympics begin, there is a huge opportunity for coordinated and developed campaigns against the Olympics, G-8 and SPP: campaigns that are rooted in our every-day mobilizing, and survival; and campaigns that understand that the institutions of oppression and power function daily in our own communities.
The PGA-Bloc is organizing within the framework of the People's Global Action Hallmarks, which are linked at: www.agp.org
The PGA Hallmarks are a common expression of some of our basic politics, and are linked to a loose international network of grassroots resistance to capitalism that is directly inspired by the Zapatistas. Over the past several years, the "PGA-Bloc" has been used in Ontario and Quebec for
various organizing efforts, such as opposing George Bush's visit to Ottawa (2004) and mobilizing against the SPP meeting in Montebello (2007). The PGA network is also linked to numerous groups who organized anti-capitalist resistance to the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City (2001).
Whether groups are organizing within the PGA Hallmarks or not, we would like to communicate and organize with everyone with shared affinities -- anti-capitalist and anti-colonial analysis; support for direct action;confrontation of oppressive systems; opposition to all forms of oppression;autonomous and horizontal organizing; and support of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination -- in a spirit of unity, solidarity and mutual aid.
There have so far been two regional organizing meetings in Ottawa (in January and July 2008) related to the Resistance 2010 campaign, bringing together activists from Ontario and Quebec. Allies have been meeting in Halifax as well. A Resistance 2010 information session was held at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair this past May, involving participants from Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes as well as the Northeast USA. To date, there have been two visits by Indigenous organizers in "British Columbia" to Ontario and Quebec, and communications between organizers across "Canada".
This callout (our second; the first was made in January 2008) is being made to again encourage networking and communications between groups and individuals who support the Resistance 2010 campaign.
We write this in the hopes that we can re-kindle old networks, encourage and join new ones, and support each other's organizing and struggles towards 2010 and beyond.
In solidarity and in struggle,Members and supporters of the PGA-Bloc in Ontario and Quebec.
www.resistance2010.net (under construction)
info@resistance2010.net
*GET INVOLVED:*
*ENDORSE RESISTANCE 2010:* We encourage groups and organizations to discuss
the Resistance 2010 campaign. If your group supports the main demands of Resistance 2010 campaign -- no Olympics on stolen land; disrupt and abolish the G8 and SPP; and active support and solidarity for local struggles of self-determination, justice and dignity ?- please get in touch to endorse the campaign at info@resistance2010.net
*SHARE INFORMATION:* Please share any public information about activities and campaigns that you've already begun or discussed in your area that might be related to the Resistance2010 effort. We are compiling the public information at info@resistance2010.net and will send it out on our announcements list to share with everyone.
*POPULAR EDUCATION:* We are particularly interested in sharing research and popular education materials. Members of the PGA-Bloc in Ontario and Quebec are working together in the coming months on a more detailed information package to share with your group, as well as more informational workshops. Please e-mail info@resistance2010.net to share any info.
info@resistance2010.net
www.resistance2010.net (under construction)
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* An antiauthoritarian anticapitalist initiative network
8/11/08
Pacific Islands Forum leaders should raise the human rights situation in West Papua with the Indonesian President
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Press release 11 August 2008
Pacific Islands Forum leaders should raise the human rights situation in West Papua with the Indonesian President.
The Australia West Papua Association in Sydney has written to the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders who will meet in Niue on the 19 August for the opening of the 39th PIF Leaders Summit.
Joe Collins of AWPA said that “ since since last years PIF, human rights abuses have continued to be committed by the security forces in West Papua and a number of reports released since last years PIF confirm the grave human rights situation in West Papua. We are calling on the PIF Leaders to raise the deteriorating human rights situation in West Papua with the Indonesian President
Arrested for simply raising a flag
As recently as July 2008, up to 40 people were arrested in Fakfak simply because they raised the West Papuan national flag, “The Morning Star”. Six of the organizers of the peaceful rally could now face long jail terms for such a simple act, “raising a flag”. The West Papuan people raise their flag as an act of celeberation but also of protest against the injustices they suffer under Indonesian rule. Two other political prisoners in West Papua, Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage, received jail terms of 15 and 10 years respectively for merely taking part in a rally in December 2004 in Jayapura where the West Papuan national flag, the Morning Star was raised.
Incident on the 9 August 2008
On Saturday 9 August, a civilian identified as Otinus Tabuni was found dead after security forces fired at a crowd celebrating World Indigenous Day in Wamena West Papua. The security forces fired on the crowd when local traditional dancers raised four flags, the Bintang Kejora (The Morning Star) , the UN flag, the national flag and a flag with SOS on it.Photos (from Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Right) and a press release in relation to this incident can be found at
http://ipahr.wordpress.com/west-papua-indonesian-police-shoot-man-at-indigenous-peoples-rally/
This intimidation by the security forces of the West Papuan people is all pervasive and creates a climate of fear in the people of West Papua. The overwhelming military presence ensures that they can act with total impunity.
Joe Collins also said that “in the Forum Communique of 2007, “Leaders noted the intention of the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea to convey the Forum discussions on Papua to the President of Indonesia”. The Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) would be intersted in the report back from these discussions as would all NGO’s concerned with the human rights situation in West Papua”.
AWPA calls on the PIF Leaders to urge the Indonesian President to release all West Papuan political prisoners as a sign of good faith to the West Papuan people. We also urge the Forum to send a fact finding mission to West Papua to investigate the human rights situation in the territory.
Info Joe Collins
Mob 04077 857 97
8/5/08
Sovereignty, Ureweras 'tricky' in negotiations
Tuhoe's desire for self government and the return of Urewera National Park could prove sticking points in Treaty of Waitangi negotiations with the Crown, a Tuhoe leader, Tamati Kruger says"I think the tricky issues are around Tuhoe's desire and wish to have Te Urewera National Park regarded as part of our territory," he told reporters.
"The second one that would be difficult for the Crown would be discussions over self government, over mana motuhake and sovereignty. Those are very sensitive issues."
See Also