Advocacy groups in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) disrupted the US Department of Defense’s public meeting this week, which tackled proposed military training plans on Tinian, voicing strong opposition to further militarisation in the Marianas.

Members of the Marianas for Palestine, Prutehi Guahan and Commonwealth670 burst into the public hearing at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Garapan, chanting, “No build-up! No war!” and “Free, free, Palestine!”

As the chanting echoed throughout the venue on Wednesday, the DOD continued the proceedings to gather public input on its CNMI Joint Military Training proposal.

The US plan includes live-fire ranges, a base camp, communications infrastructure, and a biosecurity facility. Officials said feedback from Tinian, Saipan and Rota communities would help shape the final environmental impact statement.

Salam Castro Younis, of Chamorro-Palestinian descent, linked the military expansion to global conflicts in Gaza and Iran.

“More militarisation isn’t the answer,” Younis said. “We don’t need to lose more land. Diplomacy and peace are the way forward – not more bombs.”

Saipan-born Chamorro activist Anufat Pangelinan echoed Younis’s sentiment, citing research connecting climate change and environmental degradation to global militarisation.

‘No part of a war’
“We don’t want to be part of a war we don’t support,” he said. “The Marianas shouldn’t be a tip of the spear – we should be a bridge for peace.”

The groups argue that CJMT could make Tinian a target, increasing regional hostility.

“We want to sustain ourselves without the looming threat of war,” Pangelinan added.

In response to public concerns from the 2015 draft EIS, the DOD scaled back its plans, reducing live-fire ranges from 14 to 2 and eliminating artillery, rocket and mortar exercises.

Mark Hashimoto, executive director of the US Marine Corps Forces Pacific, emphasised the importance of community input.

“The proposal includes live-fire ranges, a base camp, communications infrastructure and a biosecurity facility,” he said.

Hashimoto noted that military lease lands on Tinian could support quarterly exercises involving up to 1000 personnel.

Economic impact concerns
Tinian residents expressed concerns about economic impacts, job opportunities, noise, environmental effects and further strain on local infrastructure.

The DOD is expected to issue a Record of Decision by spring 2026, balancing public feedback with national security and environmental considerations.

In a joint statement earlier this week, the activist groups said the people of Guam and the CNMI were “burdened by processes not meant to serve their home’s interests”.

The groups were referring to public input requirements for military plans involving the use of Guam and CNMI lands and waters for war training and testing.

“As colonies of the United States, the Mariana Islands continue to be forced into conflicts not of our people’s making,” the statement read.

“ After decades of displacement and political disenfranchisement, our communities are now in subservient positions that force an obligation to extend our lands, airspace, and waters for use in America’s never-ending cycle of war.”

They also lamented the “intense environmental degradation” and “growing housing and food insecurity” resulting from military expansion.

“Like other Pacific Islanders, we are also overrepresented disproportionately in the military and in combat,” they said.

“Meanwhile, prices on imported food, fuel, and essential goods will continue to rise with inflation and war.”

Republished from Pacific Island Times.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Chamorros are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands — politically divided between Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia.

Today, Chamorro culture continues to be preserved through the sharing of language and teaching via The Guam Museum.

But the battle to be heard and have a voice as a US territory remains an ongoing struggle.

Chamorro cultural historian and museum curator Dr Michael Bevacqua says Chamorro people in Guam have a complex relationship with the US — they consider themselves as Pacific islanders, who also happen to be American citizens.

Bevacqua says after liberation in July 1944, there was a strong desire and pressure among Chamorros to “Americanise”.

Chamorros stopped speaking their language to their children, as a result. They were also pressured to move to the US mainland so the US military could build their bases and thousands of families were displaced.

“There was this feeling that being Chamorro wasn’t worth anything. Give it up. Be American instead,” he says.

‘Fundamental moment’
For the Chamorros, he explains, attending the Festival of Pacific Arts in the 1970s and 1980s was a “very fundamental moment”.

It allowed them to see how other islanders were dealing with and navigating modernity, he adds.

“Chamorros saw that other islanders were proud to be Islanders. They weren’t trying to pretend they weren’t Islanders,” Dr Bevacqua said.

“They were navigating the 20th century in a completely different way. Other islanders were picking and choosing more, they were they were not completely trying to replace, they were not throwing everything away, they trying to adapt and blend.”

Being part of the largest gathering of indigenous people, is what is believed to have led to several different cultural practitioners, many of whom are cultural masters in the Chamorros community today, to try to investigate how their people expressed themselves through traditional forms.

“And this helped lead to the Chamorro renaissance, which manifested in terms of Chamorros starting to carve jewellery again, tried to speak their language again, it led to movements for indigenous rights again.

“A lot of it was tied to just recognise seeing other Pacific Islanders and realising that they’re proud to be who they are. We don’t have to trade in our indigenous identity for a colonial identity.

“We can enjoy the comforts of American life and be Chamorro. Let’s celebrate who we are.”

Dr Bevaqua says respect and reciprocity are key values for the Chamorro people.

If someone helps a Chamorro person, then they need to make sure that they reciprocate, he adds.

“And these are relationships which sometimes extend back generations, that families help each other, going back to before World War II, and you always have to keep up with them.

“In the past, sometimes people would write them down in little books and nowadays, people keep them in their notes app on their phones.”

But he says the most important value for Chamorros now is the concept of inafa’ maolek.

Inafa’ maolek describes the Chamorru concept of restoring harmony or order and translated literally is “to make” (inafa’) “good” (maolek).

Relationship with community
“This is sort of this larger interdependence and inafa’ maolek the most fundamental principle of Chamorru life. It could extend between sort of people, but it can also extend as well to your relationship with nature, [and] your relationship to your larger community.”

He says the idea is that everyone is connected to each other and must find a way to work together, and to take care of each other.

He believes the Chamorro people are always held back because as a territory, Guam does not have an international voice.

“The United States speaks for you; you can yell, shout, and scream. But as a as a territory, you’re not supposed,to you’re not supposed to count, you’re not supposed to matter.”

He adds: “That’s why for me decolonisation is essential, because if you have particular needs, if you are an island in the western Pacific, and there are challenges that you face, that somebody in West Virginia, Ohio, Utah, Arizona and California may not care about it in the same way, and may be caught up in all different types of politics.

“You have to have the ability to do something about the challenges that are affecting you. How do you do that if 350 million people, 10,000 miles (16,000 km) away have your voice and most of them don’t even know that they hold your voice. It sucks.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A man on Saipan has burned the official CNMI flag in protest, saying that it does not truly represent Indigenous people of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (CNMI).

A public video of the flag-burning was posted by Raymond Quitugua that has stirred various negative reactions within the CNMI community.

Under the CNMI’s constitution, flag-burning is prohibited and those found to have breached the law can face up to one year in jail or fined up to US$500 (NZ$835).

Quitugua said the true CNMI flag was the initial design presented back in the 1970s that featured a latte stone with a star in the front of it on a field of blue.

The current official flag of the US territory consists of a rectangular field of blue, a white star in the center, superimposed on a gray latte stone, surrounded by the traditional Carolinian mwáár.

But Quitugua claims the official flag does not accurately represent the Indigenous people of the CNMI, which he believes is the Chamorro community (not including the Carolinian community).

He added that he burned the flag as a form of protest and he intended to take the issue to court.

Disappointed, insulted
Renowned elder in the CNMI community, Lino Olopai, as well as one of the many champions of the CNMI’s flag, expressed disappointment and insulted by Quitugua’s actions and said that warranted jail time.

Olopai said the basis of the current CNMI flag was indeed the Chamorro flag, but a group of Carolinians that included himself fought to have a mwáár on the flag as a representation of the Carolinian community as they believed they, too, were indigenous people of the CNMI.

He added that Quitugua’s flag-burning is a form of discrimination against the Carolinian community, which like the Chamorros, are the two recognised Indigenous people of the CNMI.

“Stop the racism. We are all part of the Pacific islands,” Olopai said.

“We should maintain peaceful attitude and spirit with one another. Not just between the Chamorro and Carolinian communities, but with other communities across the Pacific,” he said.

In a letter to the editor of the Saipan Tribune, former lawmaker Luis John Castro also criticised Quitugua’s flag-burning, saying there were other more constructive forms of protest.

“If something such as the flag does not jive with your beliefs, OK you don’t have to agree,” he said, adding “but there are many ways to resolve differences other than desecrating a cultural symbol”.

“Conduct an online poll, call into [a radio station] and make it a topic of discussion. Hold a town hall meeting with other concerned citizens, ask a legislator to draft bills or initiative to address its look, or file a certified question with the courts to get an answer to your concerns.

“Why do something like burn the flag? To seek attention? To get likes and shares on Facebook? To incite civil unrest?” he wrote.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz