Former U.S. envoy backs Guam sentiments on buildup

Former U.S. envoy backs Guam sentiments on buildup

Friday, 21 August 2009 00:25

by Mar-Vic Cagurangan

Variety News Staff

TAKING up the cudgels for local activists, former U.S. ambassador and retired Army colonel Ann Wright assailed the federal government for shutting out the local population in the planning process for the U.S. Marines’ relocation from Okinawa to Guam.

“The U.S. federal government seldom takes into account local feelings about their projects, particularly military projects in a region far removed from the Washington power center,” Wright writes in an article titled “Guam resists military colonization” posted on CommonDreams.org.

“Guam activists want their voices heard and respected and not to be treated as merely residents of a colony of the United States,” said Wright, who accompanied members of the Japanese peace activist group Code Pink-Osaka during a fact-finding mission on Guam last month.

Wright said her visit to Guam has given her new perspectives about the Department of Defense’s plan for the relocation of 8,000 U.S. Marines to Guam.

“Three Guam legislators told us that the Guam government has not been properly consulted in the discussions between the U.S. and Japanese governments on the relocation of the large US Marine force,” Wright said. “Guam officials have been given little firm information about the military expansion plans.”

Anti-war

Wright is an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. Over the course of her diplomatic career that began in 1987, Wright served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan.

On the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, Wright sent her resignation letter to then State Secretary Collin Powell, saying she could no longer work for the U.S. government under the Bush administration. Wright quit her job in protest over the U.S. invasion of Iraq without sanction from the U.S. Security Council.

Now taking up the Guam military buildup case, Wright lashed at the U.S. for its plan to deploy thousands of troops to Guam “with virtually no consultation with the local government and citizens.”

Guam concerns

“Professors and students at the University of Guam expressed concern that there will be a sharp increase in sexual assault and rape on the island due to the relocation of US Marines,” she wrote. “They believe one of the reasons the Japanese government finally was able to get the U.S. government to move some military forces out of Okinawa was because of major citizen mobilizations that occurred in response to rapes by U.S. military personnel.”

The $10 billion relocation cost will be subsidized by the Japanese government, which has pledged to shoulder $6 billion, a commitment that was cemented in the Guam International Agreement signed in February.

“The Japanese people, too, are in the dark about the details of the billions of dollars they will pay the U.S. government to have US forces leave Japan,” Wright said.

Source: http://guam.mvarietynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8140:former-us-envoy-backs-guam-sentiments-on-buildup&catid=1:guam-local-news&Itemid=2