Naina
Rao, RNZ Pacific Guam Correspondent
From
the air, Tinian looks like a green patch in the blue
Pacific.
Just six miles wide and seven miles long, you
can drive across it in under an hour.
Yet, it is big
enough to hold a World War 2-era airbase, atomic bombs that
ended the war, and the site of a current US military
build-up that includes airfield expansion and training
ranges.
Tinian resident and local hotel owner Deborah
Fleming drove me up to North Field during my 72 hour-visit
to the island.
It is the site of several runways north
of the island built during World War 2 from which two
American planes took off to bomb Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
Now, it is being refurbished under the US
military’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) doctrine, a way to
quickly move forces across the Pacific to confuse and enemy
and avoid concentrating forces in one place.
“It
alerts me, something is imminent,” Fleming said when she saw
more jungle being cleared as we arrived at North
Field.
“But it’s better to be prepared.”
Fleming
was a child when her father and other Tinian residents were
debating whether to lease land to the US military for the
purpose of building a base.
“The promise was that they
would build schools, hospitals. My elders’ main interest was
school,” said Fleming.
This was part of the agreement
made between the US and the founding fathers of Commonwealth
of the Northern Mariana Islands’ (CNMI) back in
1975.
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Don Farrell, a Tinian-based military historian,
explained that when CNMI’s Covenant – the archipelago’s
governing document – was written, it outlined CNMI’s right
to control its internal matters while granting the federal
government sovereignty over its foreign affairs and
defense.
As a result, the US government negotiated to
lease two-thirds of land on Tinian for 50 years.
“The
people of Tinian are seeing approximately $1 billion dollars
in [Department of Defence] contracts for construction
projects here,” Farrell said.
“We have seen virtually
nothing in the way of federal funding to support, help
develop the island of Tinian for the people of Tinian. That
is causing some friction. But not causing civil disobedience
or anything like that.”
Joint Region Marianas (JRM),
which oversees installation management for all Department of
Defence (DoD) projects in the region, told KPRG/RNZ Pacific
that there are no plans for the DoD to “construct medical
facilities or a hospital on Tinian at this time.”
JRM
added that the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command
(NAVFAC) Marianas real estate team is “preparing a lease
amendment to accommodate the return of about 30 acres of
land for a future landfill within the Atgidon military lease
area on Tinian.”
Instead, the Defense Department
proposed to create what they called the CNMI Joint Military
Training Facility (CJMT) in 2015. It would serve as a
training ground for the thousands of troops relocating from
Okinawa to Guam’s Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz to
train.
A blueprint of the plan included ripping out a
reef to practice amphibious landings, high hazard impact
training like shootings and bombings, ship-to-shore launches
using howitzers, and live bombing a smaller island just
north of Tinian called Pagan Island.
Their plans were
so outrageous that there was a huge backlash.
“The
Tinian’s Women’s Association, Guardians of Gani, Pagan
Watch, The Center for Biodiversity, we pulled together and
sued regarding the military build up here,” Fleming said,
who was a spokesperson for one of the four community
groups.
The case went all the way up to the ninth
circuit court. They lost.
“I don’t believe we lost,”
Fleming said, adding that a result of this lawsuit led to
the scaling down of CJMT.
“There’s not going to be a
multi-spectrum bombing range here. Now, it’s going to be a
firing range. More small scale.”
But those airfield
runways? Hundreds of acres of jungle are still being
cleared. While vegetation removal efforts are underway
across North Field, austere landings are already
happening.
A Divert Airfield near Tinian’s airport is
expected to finish construction by 2027. It’ll provide an
alternative landing site for the US Air Force in case Guam’s
Andersen Air Force base in unavailable or
down.
According to Tinian’s mayor Edwin Aldan the
military build-up has brought a “big change” for the
island.
“The impact on this military build-up has
brought the economic base for Tinian Island hundred folds in
taxes and job opportunities,” said Aldan, who was a former
police officer for the island home to just about 2,000
people and has a minimum wage of $7.25. U.S. military
contractors are offering more than twice that amount for
starting wage ($17.25 to be exact).
Aldan said that’s
a lot of money for locals with little to no work
experience.
“But I just want to make sure that when
[the military] leave, we got something behind to sustain
ourselves, which is tourism,” Aldan said.
Most hotel
accommodation on Tinian have been booked for two to three
years on end due to military developments.
“We’re
having trouble and problems in trying to make the tourists
stay for longer – three, four days – because all of these
rooms are taken,” he said.
The build-up and influx of
contractors have also sent housing costs soaring. Prior to
2018, Aldan said a two-bedroom home would cost around
$80,000. Now, a one-bedroom can go up to
$180,000.
“The demand was huge. The supply was
limited,” Alan Perez said, financial advisor to the mayor.
“Prices have gone up considerably.”
Deborah Fleming is
a witness to this. “It’s hard on the locals, and even the
contractors. There’s just no housing,” she said. “It’s
extremely expensive.”
While some people might see it
as a problem, Aldan said the build-up is necessary as it’s
creating job opportunities for people and helping the
economy.
Historian Don Farrell agrees, noting that
most residents have no say about what happens.
“The
people of Tinian don’t have direct access to decision
makers, right? That’s all in Saipan through the Commonwealth
Bureau of Military Affairs. They talk, but they don’t
communicate with us either,” he said.
“So we usually
don’t know what’s happening, as far as the military is
concerned, until something happens, and we get some kind of
a public information release. So everybody here is
essentially in the dark.”
Farrell emphasised that the
build-up is a federal issue. “We are outside of the loop and
communications.”
This does not deter
Fleming.
“Honest to God, I’d rather be an American
than under Chinese or even Russia,” she said.
“Because
there’s due process. You have the freedom to speak. You’re
guaranteed the right to speak. That’s important for
self-preservation, for the preservation of our community,
our culture, our
thinking.”
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