Public demonstration to be held in response to denial of request to pause firing range construction

Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian, Independent Guåhan, Guåhan Coalition for Peace and Justice, Micronesia Climate Alliance, Manhoben Para Guåhan and Håya Foundation invite our community to gather for a public demonstration this Wednesday, July 10 at 5:30 p.m. at Maga’låhen Kepuha Loop in Hagåtña in response to Joint Region Marianas Commander Rear Admiral Shoshana Chatfield’s denial of a request from Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero for a pause on construction of the U.S. Marine Live Fire Training Range Complex. 

We call on our governor to stand firm in her request to pause construction, as well as to consider this disregard of her request as yet another example of Guåhan’s urgent need to exercise our right to self-determination. This public demonstration is also a reminder to the Department of Defense that our community will not stand for the destruction at Tailalo’ and that we demand for a halt to be placed on the entire project in order to re-examine the wide array of adverse impacts to our cultural and environmental resources. 

Tailalo’, a successful conservation area within the vicinity of Northwest Field, is being cleared and destroyed for the construction of the U.S. Marine Live-Fire Training Range. The proposed clearing, construction, and live-fire training operations pose harmful impacts to significant sacred sites and cultural properties, promote the devastation of numerous endangered species, threaten to contaminate the island’s main freshwater source, and limit access to original landowners, traditional healers, the local fishing community, and the general public for at least 273 days out of the year. 

The military’s decision to continue disturbing ancestral and cultural sites despite repeated claims that cultural preservation is a priority for their institution is a deceitful and disrespectful act towards the CHamoru people and our ancestors.

As of 8 a.m. on July 9, Prutehi Litekyan’s petition opposing the firing range and the degradation and militarization of our sacred lands has garnered 14,147 signatures. 

For more information, please email Litekyan.opa@gmail.com.