NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

INDEPENDENT GUÅHAN HOLDS ITS FEBRUARY GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING
Will discuss the importance of environmental stewardship under the theme of “Hu Guaiya iya Guåhan.”
Independent Guåhan invites the public to its monthly General Assembly (GA) meeting on Thursday, February 23rd from 6 – 7:30 pm at the Main Pavilion of the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña. The theme for this GA is “Hu Guaiya Iya Guåhan” and will focus on efforts to encourage environmental stewardship through the revitalization of Chamorro values.
The Inifresi outlines the six core elements that we must protect and defend in order to sustain and prosper as a community. This month’s GA will focus on the importance of tåno’ (land) and how an independent Guåhan can help protect this essential element of life. Over the past century, the Chamorro relationship to land has changed dramatically, primarily because of postwar displacement and changes in Guam’s economy. Land has moved from being something to which Chamorros felt intimately co…

Democracy Now! is doing some great coverage of the protests over the North Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. Here are some interviews and a column from Amy Goodman after a warrant was put out for her arrest in response to her coverage. If you are able, please consider donating in order to support their continuing efforts.

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Native American Activist Winona LaDuke at Standing Rock: It's Time to Move On from Fossil Fuels
September 12, 2016
Democracy Now!

While Democracy Now! was covering the Standing Rock standoff earlier this month, we spoke to Winona LaDuke, longtime Native American activist and executive director of the group Honor the Earth. She lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. She spent years successfully fighting the Sandpiper pipeline, a pipeline similar to Dakota Access. We met her right outside the Red Warrior Camp, where she has set up her tipi. Red Warrior is one of the encampments where thousands of Nati…

Protecting Paradise on Pagan Island
by Jerome Kaipat Aldan
Earthjustice
June 14, 2016
http://earthjustice.org/blog/2016-june/protecting-paradise-on-pagan-island

I was eight years old when Mt. Pagan, one of two volcanoes that created Pagan Island, erupted. I have many precious childhood memories of that beautiful island. I remember going for swims in the ocean. Small houses made of wood and tin blended in with the natural beauty.

To this day, Pagan remains a paradise, a place to go and be close to nature. The water is clean and uncorrupted. It is a pristine place, a natural wonder.

The U.S. military wants to destroy that paradise, turning it into a live-fire training ground for sailors, pilots and Marines. In 2013, the Navy and Marines proposed expanding training activities in the Mariana Islands. In addition to expanding existing facilities on the island of Tinian, the Marines have set their sights on taking over the entirety of Pagan, displacing those who still call it ho…

Next week Guam Democrats will be casting their votes in the race for the party's nominee for President this year. Here is the information from Bernie Sander's website about his position on Guam's issues.

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Bernie is proud to stand with the people of Guam, and work together with Guamanians to build a better future. As president, Bernie will fight for a more just society with an economy that serves the needs of all Guamanians – not just a handful of those Americans on top. His College-for-All plan would allow students across Guam who study hard to attend college without burdening themselves with mountains of debt. Bernie’s plan to create a Medicare-for-all, universal health care system will make sure Guamanians have the health care they need regardless of how much money they make. His climate plan would fundamentally transform Guam’s energy system away from fossil fuel towards sustainable energy by providing grants to Guam’s communities for s…

Gi i Tasen Pasifiku, guaha dos na klasen isla, takhilo' yan takpapa'. Ti kumekeilekna este na i taotao gi un takhilo' na isla mas maolek pat mas malate' kinu i taotao gi otro. Lao este put i tano' gi ayu na isla yan i tinakhilo'-na gi hilo' i tasi. Iya Guahan, un "takhilo'" na isla. Lao meggai na isla gi Marshall Islands yan gi FSM, manakpapa'. Para i manasaga' gi i manakhilo' na isla siha "climate change" un fihu mapacha na asunto, lao ti magahet, ti atdet i chinathinasso trabiha. Lao para i manasaga' gi i manakpapa' na isla siha, esta gof magahet yan gof atdet ayu. Esta manathinasson-niniha put taimanu na para u inafekta todu gi lina'la', put hemplo gi este na tinige', i hanom ni' ma gigimen kada diha.

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Perishing of Thirst in a Pacific Paradise 12/28/2015 02:50 pm ET Peter Mellgard Associate Editor, The WorldPost
MAJURO, Marshall Islands -- A few yards from the crashing waves …

For those thinking about the future of Guam, especially in the context of decolonization, we should stop looking to the United States, but instead look to Palau/Belau. Many of our ideas about decolonization or independence and therefore political possibility are tied to the way we perceive the United States. We see it as being the model for the way a country should live and exist today. We are conditioned in an endless number of ways each day and over the course of our lives here to see the United States as the pinnacle of possibility. That if we are to live anyway, it should be the images we have of it. We look to other large and powerful countries as distant alternatives, but always we see America as being where its at. The way we see America however is far from objective. Our gaze drips with colonial nonsense. When the first discussions on political status change and decolonization started to emerge in Guam, one constant refrain of resistance was the notion that Guam could never b…

I am in Okinawa this week. I'll be speaking at a conference in Ishigaki Island this weekend, but I've spent the past week traveling around doing interviews with various activists involved in the struggle against US bases here. I haven't had much time to write up anything for this blog or elsewhere since I've gotten here as things have been so crazily busy. On Facebook one source of information about Okinawa that I've found very informative is the group Okinawan Independence and Free Ainu. It provides a very intriguing perspective on these two native groups within Japan which the Japanese government and people once sought to erase. These two groups are native to locations which lie at the opposite ends of Japan, but it is heartening to see a group that is seeking to connect their histories and futures.

I've included some recent updates from the group below:

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181 environmental groups support LewChew (Okinawa) governor Onaga’s revocation of Henoko app…

Bolivia: 'For a lasting solution to the climate crisis we must destroy capitalism" EurActiv.frby Cécile Barbièretranslated by Samuel White 14 Oct 2015 - 08:22
Bolivia's national contribution to the COP 21 describes capitalism as "a system of death" that has to be destroyed to protect humanity and Mother Earth. EurActiv France reports.

The Bolivian government's slightly late national contribution to the COP 21 contains many radical proposals for safeguarding the future health of the planet, accompanied by the argument that capitalism is responsible for "consumerism, warmongering and [...] the destruction of Mother Earth".
Some 122 countries have now shared their national contributions to the international climate conference in Paris, where countries will attempt to reach an agreement that will limit the global temperature rise to +2°C above pre-industrial times.

The texts contain many different proposals for reducing CO2 emissions…

--> The island of Pagan, in the northern Marianas has made international news as it might soon become yet another beautiful island to be destroyed by the US military for its testing and training purposes. Although now I regularly hear news about Pagan, in years past I scarcely heard about it in a Chamorro context, but rather always in either a strict environmental context or in a Japanese historical context. Environmentalists are the first line of defense in some ways against militarization, although history has shown they often have trouble working cooperatively with the locals and natives who claim those lands. For them Pagan is an ecological paradise and needs to be protected. I would hear random tidbits about Pagan in this regard, as being a place with exciting species (including snails) that should be researched and explored. 
I also heard about it in the context of Japanese, as settlers lived there during the Japanese colonial period in the CNMI. In fact in historical terms,…