CNMI mayor claims strong opposition to military plans for Pagan

Transcript

The mayor of the northern islands in the Northern Marianas says the United States military hasn't taken indigenous and cultural factors into account in its plans to set up a live firing range on Pagan island.

The military plans to lease the uninhabited island in its entirety so the Navy, Air Force, Army and Marines, can practice live fire training as part of plans to expand its presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

But the mayor of the Northern Islands, which includes Pagan, Jerome Aldan says the island has a history dating back to the 1300s.

He told Jamie Tahana the original inhabitants were evacuated due to volcanic eruptions in 1981 and are hoping to resettle soon.

JEROME ALDAN: What do you think about live firing and live bombing? For me, it's destruction, contamination and basically after they're done, the island is going to turn into a wasteland. What's the use for us if we can't use our own lands, you know.

JAMIE TAHANA: The island is uninhabited, just take us through what Pagan island is to the locals.

JA: Well, the military likes to use that word, "uninhabited", but that's a false statement.

JT: So people live there? They were evacuated weren't they, from the eruption, and were hoping to settle on it.

JA: And even prior to that, our history goes back as far as 1300s where the settlement of people were started up in the Northern Islands so there's a lot of history towards that. And you know the military keeps coming out and stating in every brief, conferences or documents that they write that the island is uninhabited. But that's not really true. We are from here and we know what's going on in our islands. Prior to World War Two there were 8000 people on Pagan Island, and that includes Japanese soldiers as well as local residents.

JT: And the military's not taking any of that history or anything into account with this, they just see it as an island they can use?

JA: That's very true. You know, they ignore the fact that it is inhabited. So they tend to ignore that.

JT: From what you've heard in discussions with the military and government and such, are they open at all to any discussions or any alternatives, or are they dead set on the idea of using Pagan?

JA: Well the problem is all the alternatives are kind of like the same. The alternative one, two and three are all about live fire. So what other alternatives do we have, right? That's what's coming out of the draft EIS. So we're left with no room to really discuss alternatives because the alternatives still remain that the island is being proposed for live firing.

JT: So from your communities in the Northern Islands, what is the consensus on this?

JA: Well yeah, I can say about 100 percent are against this. More particularly the folks from the Northern Islands whom are waiting to make good use of the island, go back home. That's a work in progress. I just became mayor in January, so I'm working hard to achieve the dreams of the people of the Northern Islands. We already have money for our fishing community, so that's going to be opening up very soon, maybe just this month or next month. So we're going to be having our own community development. So these are the stuff that we're looking at, and the military has failed to recognise.