Several protest military's plans at open house

Several members of the community on Thursday expressed frustration over the military’s open house in Mangilao. 

It was quite the humbling moment, as the group held signs stating "No more desecration" and "JRM does not own our heritage." Prutehi Litekyan activists at the Guam Cultural Repository to protest Joint Region Marianas' open house event yesterday. 

Monaeka Flores with Prutehi Litekyan told KUAM News, "We are sending a clear message that we want no more destruction, no more desecration that these remains, these are sacred objects that our ancestors once held and touched and evidence of their lives in our homeland that these belong to the people of Guam, not JRM and not Department of Defense. For them, use this building as a bargaining chip for the destruction, for the desecration, the contamination is unacceptable."

The cultural repository's opening last October met with criticism. But, Guam governor Lou Leon Guerrero called it an opportunity to learn about the military’s plans to preserve cultural artifacts unearthed amid the military buildup.

"I really don’t feel there’s any big conflict with that," she said. "And so the admiral has decided that he would do it there as a show of support and their sensitivity to our culture and traditions. I also want to mention that the DoD is the entity that actually funded the cultural repository. It was a part of an agreement as a result of the negotiations, I think of the Programmatic Agreement."

Some in the community disagree, with the indigenous CHamoru nonprofit organization I Hagan Famalåo'an Guåhan writing to elected officials "This repository has been described by government officials as an 'opportunity' or 'celebration', and something that we, as a people, should be proud of."

The group reminding the governor and senators, "When they speak on this contentious project, they must consider all contexts, including the perspective that it perpetuates the continued desecration of CHamoru settlements that should not have been cleared in the first place, especially without certain protections in place.”

Speaker Therese Terlaje shared frustration, stating, “In truth, the Programmatic Agreement is not a success story for Guam as the Department of Defense would have you believe. And as we can see from the clearing of Mågua and Sabanan Fadang, where Camp Blaz is now built, and the complete removal of thousands of acres of the forest and historical sites at the firing ranges, the agreement did not force DoD to preserve in place despite our objections. preservation and stewardship were not the priority at all.”

For now, Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz environmental director Albert Borja says the law allows them to move in this direction.  "Recovering artifacts is a necessity when you are doing developments, both military and civilian projects have to do that as part of the normal course of construction so that is where we do find artifacts and discover them in the field.

"We are allowed by law to collect them and carefully preserve them in these types of facilities where it meets curation standards," he said.