NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

As Guam is making international headlines once again, it is imperative that we use this moment in order to try to change the minute media frame that is used to give Guam meaning in moments like this. Guam is more than a military base and more than an island with a snake crisis. It is a contemporary colony in need of assistance in decolonizing and encouraging the United States to fulfill its obligation as a UN member to help make decolonization a reality. My last two columns for The Pacific Daily News focused on a letter that Governor Calvo, as the head of the Guam Commission on Decolonization sent recently to the Committee of 24 at the United Nations. The letter provided some small details on the situation in Guam, in particular impediments that have been put in place by the United States and its courts. But more than anything it represented a request for the UN to send a visiting mission to Guam to help bring attention to our quest for decolonization. It remains to be seen if th

For a few hours on the last day of the UN C24 Regional Seminar, we were given a tour of some historic locations around Kingstown, the capitol of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This image is from a canon in Fort Charlotte, which was built high atop a hill overlooking the capitol by the British in the late 18th century. As we toured the fort, our Vincentian guide shared many colorful, sometimes humorous and sometime tragic stories about his island's colonization. He connected the struggles today, to those of the past. He echoed what so many had told us over the week we and other experts and foreign delegates were in the country, that everywhere you go, you see the legacies of native genocide and African slavery. From the fort's battlements he showed us failing banana plantations, areas where underground economies are surging, the divisions between rich and poor neighborhoods around Kingstown and even incorporated some Caribbean musical lyrics as well. When I took this pi

The start of each UN Committee of 24 Regional Seminar usually begins with a type of plenary or keynote speech/statement. This is usually a prominent political leader or activist from the country or region that is hosting the seminar or a high-ranking elected official of the host government. As this year's seminar is in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, attendees were treated to a speech by the country's Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. His speech moved in and out of a variety of different topics, although there was one part that struck closest to home for me. Early on in his remarks he discussed his country achieving their independence almost 40 years earlier. He said that while he was a child raised in colonialism, he had grown into maturity through fighting for independence. For many countries, the birth of their nationhood is far in the past and so those who invoke it, do so across great temporal and rhetorical distance. But for a variety of former colonies, your independence

Each regional seminar for the Committee of 24 begins with a reading of a statement by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The Secretary General himself would probably never attend the seminar itself, as he is a busy person with many things to do, and in the UN hierarchy decolonization issues are a very low priority. This year the statement was read by Rie Kadota, who is the officer-in-charge for the UN Decolonization Unit. The statement from the secretary general, like the press release, both of which I've attached below, don't change much from year to year, at least not recently. Part of this is because decolonization is one issue where the UN can claim a great historical victory, but over the past few decades, has not been able to accomplish much. There are 17 non-self-governing territories that remain officially considered to be colonies in need of decolonization. They are a diverse group in political, economic, cultural terms, however most tend to be small island

I am currently in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for the United Nations Committee of 24 Regional Seminar. I was invited to intend to speak as an expert on the situation in Guam and the Chamorro people's ongoing quest for self-determination and decolonization. This is my fourth time to be invited to speak at the UN C24 Regional Seminar, as I attended once in Ecuador in 2013 and then twice in Nicaragua in 2015 and 2016. I have never been to this part of the world before, meaning the Caribbean, and so I am excited not only to represent Guam, but also to learn more about the struggles for independence and decolonization that have ta ken place on these many islands. I'll be writing about the happenings of the regional seminar and my experiences under the theme of "Decolonization in the Caribbean." Watch this space over the next few weeks to read my posts.