Guam is calm, but asks: Are we an expendable part of the American family?
‘We’re trying to be heard, but nobody wants to listen. We’re not just a dot in the ocean. We’re not in grass skirts’
Jet skis cut through the crystal blue waters by a packed sandy beach, parents bought ice cream for their toddlers, and couples windowshopped in the designer boutiques of Guam’s bustling capital city, Hagatna, yesterday. Guamanians, the term used to describe the 162,000 mostly American citizens of the remote Pacific territory, were not oblivious to North Korea’s threat this week to fire a quartet of ballistic missiles at their island paradise, nor were they blasé. But they chose defiantly to carry on.
“It’s the weekend. Go out and have a good time and live your lives,” said Eddie Baza Calvo, Guam’s governor, as he stressed that the threat level to their tropical home, a Micronesian island about a third of the size of London, had not been raised. “This
island is safe and secure,” he said. The potential for a nuclear apocalypse on Rhoda Bautista’s doorstep was far from her mind as the 46-year-old health worker walked her daughter, Christina Calica, 21, a waitress, home from work.
“This kind of thing has been going on for so long already that we’re not too worried. He’s just crying wolf,” said Mrs Bautista of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator. “We’re strong. Guam is strong. We’re here together.”
People were living as normal, she said. “If you say the word ‘typhoon’ then we rush to K-mart to stock up. But everybody is relaxed, even if we’re watching things closely.” Staff at one cafe told CNN they were perfecting a “mushroom cloud latte foam”.
The 210-square mile island may be blessed with palm-fringed beaches, lush rolling hills and delicious food, but the threat of earthquakes, tsunamis and sudden typhoons has made Guamanians resilient.
This is also not the first time that their homeland, which hosts two strategic US military bases and bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons, has been caught in the crosshairs of escalating tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.
In 2013, North Korean state media cited leader Mr Kim as having ordered his military to prepare plans on launching strikes on US military bases in Guam, Hawaii and South Korea, as well as the American mainland.
In response, the Pentagon sent a mobile ballistic missile interceptor. Its presence on the island is now a source of reassurance to Guam’s people during the current crisis. The tiny island, located more than 6,000 miles from California, has been an American territory since the US snatched it from its Spanish occupiers in 1898. Guam citizens are American by birth and the small population is known to be fiercely patriotic. But frustration runs deep over a perceived lack of recognition by the US mainland.
President Trump’s challenge to Kim Jong-un on Thursday: “Let’s see what he does with Guam,” followed by the threat of retaliation, was not wellreceived in the Pacific outpost.
“We feel used,” said Mrs Bautista. “We’re trying to be heard, but nobody wants to listen. We’re not just a dot in the ocean. We’re not in grass skirts.”
Madeleine Bordallo, Guam’s Democrat delegate to the US House of Representatives, warned the president to “tone down” his rhetoric. “Guam is not a bargaining chip,” she said.
Dr Robert Underwood, a former delegate and now president of Guam University, said the islanders felt “disappointment” rather than fear about the acute threat of war.
“A lot of people are looking at this and saying ‘what does this experience reveal about how America sees Guam and how the American leadership sees Guam?’,” he said.
“I doubt whether any major American leader, including the president and the secretary of defence would say ‘go ahead and hit Honolulu and see what happens’,” he said.
“Are we part of the real American family or are we an expendable part of the American family? Are we a pawn?”