Marines planned a gun range atop a sacred indigenous village and burial site.
Evidence
Many Chamorro activists were particularly upset that the Marines wanted to acquire 1,800 additional acres of Guam’s land to build a gun range on the remains of Pågat, a sacred indigenous village and burial ground dating to at least 900 CE. We Are Guåhan spokesperson Cara Flores-Mays compared the Marines’ plan for Pågat to “putting a firing range on Arlington Cemetery. You would never think to do that,” she said. “We have a lot of responsibility for our ancestors and those who came before us, and so you can understand why some people would get angry.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 250
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- SEED: Angle: the Arlington Cemetery parallel as a rhetorical device exposing the double standard applied to indigenous sacred sites.