NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

A very good overview of the global network of US bases in the world and also the movements against them. It was written in 2008 but still has lots of relevant information for readers today. As I've been teaching my course, articles such as this have been very helpful in giving my students a very brief by thorough overview of US military plans and strategies in terms of their bases. ************** "Resisting the Empire" by Joseph Gerson Foreign Policy in Focus March 19, 2008 Ecuador’s decision not to renew the U.S. lease for the forward operating base at Manta (see Yankees Head Home ) is the culmination of just one of many long-term and recently initiated community-based and national struggles to remove these military installations that are often sources of crime and demeaning human rights violations. A growing alliance among anti-bases movements in countries around the world, including the United States, is preventing the creation of new foreign military

I collect nicknames for Guam. In fact I usually begin every Guam History class by filling a white board with different names the Spanish, the Americans, the Japanese and others have given Guam over the years. One of the most interesting one that few people here remember is "unsinkable aircraft carrier." Guam is not alone in terms of being given this designation. Other places such as Israel, Diego Garcia, Hawai'i and even Okinawa are all considered to be of similar strategic value to the United States. I have heard many different explanations as to where this term comes from and why it is apt for Guam. Think about it for a moment and come up with your own interpretation.  ****************** Protests Growing in Okinawa Over U.S. Military Presence Jon Letman 4/03/15 Huffington Post If you live in Hawaii, you probably have more exposure to things Okinawan than most Americans. According to the University of Hawaii Center for Okinawan Studies, an estimated 45,00

I have been working for the past week on answering some questions for an antibase group in Italy. Through David Vine, best known for his book Islands of Shame about Diego Garcia, they held a virtual meeting amongst demilitarization activists from around the Pacific and Europe. A physical gathering of antibase activists in Italy coordinated virtual presentations from speakers representing struggles in Guam, Okinawa, South Korea, Hawai'i, Diego Garcia and elsewhere. It was an inspiring and invigorating moment even though because of time differences I was hunched over my computer at 2 in the morning. The group found the exchange of information so interesting they decided to produce a book that would give a road map to the struggles that are happening around the world, to help us better see how we are connected. Here is the text for the short presentation that I made during last year's demilitarization network solidarity meeting.  ***************** --> I apolog

“Guam is a Dirty Word” Michael Lujan Bevacqua Marianas Variety 7/3/13 When I wrote my dissertation in Ethnic Studies I ran into several methodological problems. The chief among them was how to write about Guam’s colonial status in a world where countries pretend it doesn’t exist anymore? How do you write about it when most people on Guam don’t want to admit to it and neither does the United States? As a result most of the discourse that is produced about Guam doesn’t admit to its colonial truths and pretends it doesn’t exist. For me this doesn’t mean that Guam’s status is any less colonial, but it means that because of the nature of the world today, the evidence of Guam’s colonial status is never formal, it has to be found in other ways. Joe Murphy used to joke that Guam was a “dirty word” or a “four letter word,” and in one sense he was right. Guam today is something that is obscene, in the same way as other small places beset by militarism and colo

When I left Guam in 2003 to start graduate school in the states I knew I wanted to research and write about Guam and Chamorros, but wasn't sure what angle to take exactly. My tagline for my research while in grad school was "everything Chamorro, anything Guam" and sometimes "everything Guam and anything Chamorro." Decolonization was something I was becoming more and more interested in in scholarly terms, even if it was something I had already been advocating and working on in an activist context. Would I do something more cultural? Something in your typical social movement, social science way? Would I do a historical project and come up with my bounded bundle of time and go from there? I ended up taking a more philosophical route and I'm grateful that my committee was willing to let me engage in that way. I ended up using my "data" and my evidence in a more philosophical way, or the way that philosophical essays and arti

I have often asked people who served in the US military and were stationed overseas or in foreign bases, how much they knew about the places where they were stationed? From Chamorros who were in Vietnam and South Korea decades ago, to Chamorro stationed today in places like Okinawa, Hawai’i and Iraq, the answer is usually, “ti meggai.” Not much. Bases in general, but in particular bases built in foreign countries tend to have a more depressing and tragic history than others. They could have been started during or right after a war. The land was occupied and so even after the war is over, the base stands as a testament to when terrible violent conflict was there. It also can signify land that was taken in war and then held onto despite countries now being at peace. Bases can signify something stolen from a community in so many ways, whether the literal land itself, or the sovereignty of the people who live around it. Those bases may have protest communities.

Last year anthropologist David Vine visited Guam as part of a research trip where he visited areas around the world where communities were protesting (in various ways) the presence of US bases near them. While this is his most current research project, he is best known for his work on chronicling the plight of the Chagos Islanders, who come from the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. If you are in the military you have most likely heard about the base there. If you are a fan of the live-action Transformers films then you might remember it being featured as a secure location where a sliver of the infamous all-spark is kept safe. If you are someone, who like me keeps lists of the not-so-great-things that have been done by the US over its history, than Diego Garcia is a particularly gross and recent atrocity. Through postwar collusion between the US and British governments, the people living in Diego Garcia were first tricked into leaving their island and barred from returning

For the past few weeks I've helped organize two public forums at UOG's CLASS Lecture Hall, both of which were completely packed. A forum held in September featuring David Vine talking about Diego Garcia and Leevin Camacho talking about the Pagat lawsuit was attended by well over 200 people. The same was true for a forum on political decolonization featuring expert on the existing Non-Self-Governing Territories Carlyle Corbin from the Virgin Islands and Guam's own human rights attorney Julian Aguon. In both cases, almost every seat was packed, with some lined up watching along the lecture hall's walls. Granted, a good number of those in attendance were students who were there as part of class, but it was still inspiring to see so many people in a single place to learn about issues such as base displacement and decolonization. While Carlyle Corbin was here last month he mentioned how impressed he was with the level of discourse on Guam in terms of decolonization. Compar