Tip of the Spear - Pacific Ocean

June 2008
This year US General Bice announced that Guam will be the site of 'the largest military build-up in the history of the US'. Locals say that the communities indigenous to this small Pacific island will not survive.

Guam is a political anomaly: A US territory where citizens do not have US voting-rights and where island politics are controlled by Washington. The indigenous population, the Chamarro, live in poverty and preserving their traditional way of life is a struggle. 'We are certainly on the endangered species list', says Chamorro leader Debbie Quintana. Now the US plans to make Guam the lynchpin of its military strategy in the western Pacific, and the mood in Guam is of anger and disbelief. 'We are a strategic location, a possession, a bounty of war', Quinata says. 'And if we don't like it, tough'.