This tiny Pacific island has
several nicknames. There is “the tip of the spear” because it is the closest US
territory to potential hot spots in Asia, such as North Korea and the South
China Sea.
There is “America’s
unsinkable aircraft carrier”, because the island is home to a huge air force
base. And then there is “Fortress Pacific”, because of the huge military
buildup that is planned to take place over the next decade.
But Guam’s population calls
it by another name: Ours. And a sizable portion wants a real say in how it is
run.
“This American territory is
not enjoying democracy, where citizens can determine who their leader will be
and what laws will be put upon them,” said Republican Governor Eddie Baza
Calvo, who has called a vote for November on Guam’s political status.
A “decolonisation commission” is set to report to Calvo next month on whether
to proceed with the plebiscite, which would give Guamanians three alternatives
to their current status as a US territory. That status - shared by Puerto Rico
and the US Virgin Islands - confers US citizenship on people born here but does
not give them the right to vote in presidential elections or a voting
representative in Congress.
The three alternatives under
consideration are:
- Statehood, which would
give Guam all the rights (and burdens) of being a state, albeit a very small
one, with a population less than one-third that of Wyoming.
- Free association with
administrative power, like Palau and the Marshall Islands.
- Independence, which would
make Guam a (minuscule) sovereign state.
The vote would not be binding - only Congress can
change Guam’s political status - but would be symbolic of the territory’s
sentiment.
The issue has been simmering
for years but returned to the political front burner with the Pentagon’s
preparations to relocate thousands of troops stationed on the southern Japanese
island of Okinawa to here.
The US military presence on
Okinawa has long been a source of contention in a prefecture that complains of
being treated as a second-class citizen by Tokyo. But there are similar
complaints on Guam, a small tropical island of only 160,000 people, which is
already home to large air force and naval bases.
Pockets of fierce opposition
to the initial plan formulated a decade ago to move 10,000 Marines from Okinawa
to Guam led the Defence Department to halve the number coming here.
“The prospect of the
military buildup caused a crack in the facade of American-ness on this island,”
said Michael Lujan Bevacqua, who teaches the indigenous Chamorro language at
the University of Guam.
The issue of Guam’s political status is
complicated. Some resent the US military presence but do not want to give up
their American passports. Some want greater independence but want their taxes
to stay here on the island, as they do now, rather than going into the federal
coffers. Some fear the lack of opportunity if they could no longer travel freely
to the mainland.
Almost $9 billion has been
earmarked for the base expansion and support facilities, one-third of which
will be moved from Japan.
The Pentagon has unlocked
$309 million for the first phase of construction of the new Marine base, which
will be built on existing military land lined with palm trees. Next door at the
Andersen Air Force Base, where B-52 bombers were lined up on the runway this
week, construction workers were building a new hangar that will be part of the
expanded footprint.
But the buildup will be long
and slow. The first wave of 2,500 Marines is expected here by 2022, with the
remainder due by 2027.
A military socioeconomic
impact assessment study found that the new base would create more than 3,000
full-time civilian jobs in 2021, and tax revenues to the Guam government would
increase by about $40 million a year from 2028.
For his part, the governor
said he would “gladly” pay federal taxes so that Guam could be a full-fledged
state. “But anything is better than being an unincorporated territory,” Calvo
said. “That’s just another word for colony.” South China Morning Post
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