With tensions continuing to boil over from the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, nationwide protests reach the capital and even here at home. From the Governor's Complex in Adelup, to the Guam Congress Building, and recently to the Guam congressman's office. But last week's demonstration had the delegate's office locking their doors.

As the death toll continues to climb, local advocates standing in solidarity with Palestine are demanding an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian aid to Palestine, an end to the siege and end arms funding to Israel. But a recent peaceful protest met with locked doors.

Marianas for Palestine collective members trying to deliver a statement to Congressman Jim Moylan's office last Tuesday, only to find the building was locked down.  After 15 minutes of waiting and multiple calls to the office, a staffer came down to receive the statement. 

 “Please see that the congressman receives this statement. It has an extensive list of organizations from Guam and the rest of the region. It also has various news articles that (contributed) to this statement, as well as the list of names—over 7,000 so far dead. And actually it’s now over 11,000, so this list isn’t up to date. So we need the congressman to speak out against this war and call for ceasefire immediately.”

Moylan’s chief of staff Bobby Shringi says the building’s landlord decided to lock the doors to protect its occupants and to avoid confrontation. "That was actually a decision by the landlord of the building after a discussion that we had with her to make sure that everybody is safe," Shringi said.

"And I’ll be honest - while I’m not going to do an apples-to-oranges comparison of this group protesting here to what we have firsthand experienced, there in DC. There’s numerous protests that have been ongoing for the last several weeks with groups who have supported very similar positions of this group last week. And unfortunately, they have not been very friendly."

But Prutuehi Litekyan’s Monaeka Flores telling KUAM the people they locked out were a small group of four young students who remained calm and respectful. She said in a statement:

"The young students who delivered the statement from Mariånas for Palestine called Jim Moylan’s office several times to ask if someone could come to the door to pick up the statement.  They remained calm and respectful and were told that Moylan’s staff were intimidated by the small group of 4 students waiting at the door, so some of them left. Instead of coming to meet with these young voters and with our community, the staff hid in their office.

What's more is that Moylan failed to report to local media that he joined the pro-Israel march in DC just hours away from our protest.  The march he attended was headlined by white supremacists and anti-Semite televangelist John Hagee.  Attendees made incessant calls for Israel to keep bombing Gaza and destroy Palestinian lives, to “finish them off.”  Just reading the racist signs of the protestors at that march, it is clear that Jim Moylan attended a march that was obliviously a celebration of war and war crimes.

Demanding a ceasefire is not radical, it is human. We are looking at 44 days of continuous bombardment without a ceasefire.  The United States has committed billions of dollars to carry out these atrocities – instead of providing funds to secure housing, healthcare, and food.  And now we are at 13,000 Palestinians murdered, over 5,000 of those children, more than 200 medical professionals and around 50 journalists also slaughtered.  There are still hundreds of thousands injured, displaced Palestinians, many still under the rubble and on the brink of starvation.  Israel has withheld water, fuel, and electricity and has bombed communication towers. Just over the weekend we have seen increased violence in the West Bank as well as the bombing of United Nations schools sheltering thousands of people and brutal attacks on hospitals- all without real evidence of Hamas operations.

This is not a distant conflict.  This is connected to the hyper militarization of our region and our continued colonization as well."

The silence of Guam’s elected officials makes them complicit to these war crimes.  Where are their prayers for the Palestinian people? Where are their resolutions for a ceasefire? We will not forget this. "

Additionally, this isn’t the first time Moylan’s office has had very limited participation and engagement with constituents. One can even say it might be a pattern of behavior in which an elected official continues to limit, ignore, and even suppress the voice of the people."



The delegate, meanwhile, telling KUAM he stands with US ally Israel. He noted, "We stand with the nation. We support Israel. Now, the best way to do that is through diplomacy. President Biden had those conversations as well. There was videos that was provided for congressional members and it’s very terrible. To avoid all that is very important. And the peaceful way is to stand with the ones that represent peace and democracy.

"And that’s where we stand, as well."