HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — With the deadline for residents to weigh in on the proposed 360-degree missile defense system for Guam passing Friday, demonstrators gathered at the Chief Kepuha Park roundabout in Hagåtña for a protest for peace.
Members of activist group Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidan and Independent Guåhan, as well as other concerned citizens, stood along the roadside holding signs emblazoned with the slogans “No war for Guåhan,” “Defend the sacred!” and “No more imperialist war games” as the evening traffic rush ramped up.
The wave had two goals: raising awareness about the public’s ability to weigh in on the proposed Guam Defense System; and to “call out” issues with the proposed system, according to Monaeka Flores of Prutehi Litekyan.
Her group has been distributing toolkits to help residents submit commentary on the system. The group is, in principle, opposed to its construction.
Residents will have another chance to comment on the system once a draft environmental impact statement is released by the Missile Defense Agency sometime early next year.
Flores said her group will continue outreach to get residents involved in the process, which she said has been less than transparent, limited in scope and lacking information.
System will make Guam ‘a bigger target’
Beyond raising concerns regarding the environment, natural and cultural resources, and land that the group has raised with previous military construction projects, Flores said she doesn’t believe the system will bring more security for Guam.
“It’s really important that we ask ourselves what genuine security means,” she said. “It … definitely means more than national security. It means having clean water, living in our homeland without the risk of war … and we feel that the missile defense system definitely makes us a bigger target for war.”
Though the system is being sold as a way to protect Guam, its purpose is to help use Guam as a base for the U.S. military to project force and protect the nation, she said.
“We are definitely ‘the tip of the spear,’ but in that tip of the spear is the first to be broken and bloodied in battle. … We are going to be annihilated first. We’re going be devastated by war.”
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has called the Guam Defense System the top national defense priority for the region.
‘You don’t have a say’
The move toward missile defense for Guam also raises questions about self-determination and sovereignty, said Michael Lujan Bevacqua, curator of the Guam Museum and one of the co-chairs for protest organizer Independent Guåhan.
“What I always tell people is that whether you support the buildup further, military increases to Guam or not, fundamentally, as an unincorporated territory, you don’t have a say. And that’s the problem,” Bevacqua told The Guam Daily Post.
“If we were independent, then if the United States wanted to put missile defense on Guam, it wouldn’t be something that they would just say they’re going to do; they would have to sit down with us. And they would have to say, ‘We want to do this for you. There’s the pros and cons.’ And we would have a say,” Bevacqua said. “For me, that’s key.”
He pointed to the current system, in which residents are able to provide comments, but aren’t a part of the final decision.
“We get the chance to go to scoping meetings and say what we think about it, but we’re never at that table where somebody says, ‘You know what, we got this tiny … little island on the other side of the world. Why don’t we put a bunch of missiles and maybe some nuclear microreactors on it?'” Bevacqua said. “There’s got to be somebody from Guam in that room who says, ‘No way, che’lu, not on my island.”
Jesse Chargualaf, a supporter of Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian and Independent Guåhan, joins a peace wave against a Guam missile defense system Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, at Chief Kepuha Park in Hagåtña.
Joni Quenga Kerr participates in peace wave against a Guam missile defense system Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, at Chief Kepuha Park in Hagåtña.
