On June 21, 2011, a new Japanese interfaith group comprised of Protestant and Catholic Christians and Buddhists (represented by a temple located in Kyoto) announced their support of the Okinawan prefectural and local governments in their goal for the unconditional closure of U.S. Marine Air Station Futenma and the abolition of plans to destroy biodiverse Oura Bay to make way for a new U.S. military base.
Berard Toshio Oshikawa, the Bishop of Naha made a similar announcement on June 27, 2011, calling for the closure of US military bases in the Japanese prefecture. The Conventional Franciscan declared, “Japan has enjoyed peace for over 60 years, but the war has still not ended in Okinawa."
This follows a 2010 appeal from the National Christian Council in Japan (NCCJ) urging U.S. churches to gain awareness, pray and appeal to their government about the impact of U.S. plans for military expansion in Henoko and Oura Bay. Rev. Isamu Koshiishi, the moderator of the NCCJ, explained, "The beautiful coral reef, which had provided a livelihood for the villages and which was the seabed home of the endangered dugong, would now be destroyed with landfill for the purpose of constructing a military base for waging war."
An estimated 12,500 US troops, 95,000 Japanese troops, and up to 150,000 civilians lost their lives in the Battle of Okinawa, which took place in 1945.
Tokyo (ENInews): A new interfaith group in Japan has joined local opposition to the U.S. military presence on the southern island of Okinawa as the two countries announced on 21 June that they have postponed the 2014 deadline for relocating a U.S. Marine base there, due to the plan's unpopularity.
"The lives of Okinawan people are still threatened [by the bases]," said the Tokyo-based group composed primarily of Buddhists and Christians. "We as religionists have the same resolution in caring for life and protecting peace," the group said in a statement adopted at its launch on 17 June. "We will address the problem of U.S. military bases in Okinawa," it said.
In Washington, D.C. on 21 June, a joint statement by the two countries said plans for the relocation would not meet the 2014 date, but would be carried out "at the earliest possible date" after 2014. Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa are in the U.S. capital for talks with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Under a 1996 agreement between the U.S. and Japan, the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station, currently based near the densely-populated area of Futenma on the main Okinawa island, was to be relocated to an offshore coral reef area near the village of Henoko.
In 2006, the relocation plan was to be completed by 2014 as part of a U.S. military realignment, but the plan has been strongly opposed since 1996 by local residents and supporters nationwide, including Okinawan Governor Hirokazu Nakaima and many Okinawan residents. The local government has said that the bases hinder regional development and that there are concerns with crime, aircraft operations, noise pollution and environmental pollution.
The interfaith group is led by Tainen Miyagi, a Buddhist Abbot of Seigoin temple in Kyoto; the Rev. Isamu Koshiishi, moderator of the National Christian Council in Japan and Bishop Daiji Tani, president of the Japan Catholic Council for Justice and Peace. The group's name in Japanese is: "Religionists Group for Okinawa Without Bases - To Seek Removal of Futenma Base And Cancellation of the Construction of New Base in Henoko."
The site of a significant World War II battle, Okinawa hosts about half of the nearly 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan. After the war, the Okinawa bases were used to dispatch U.S. troops to conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan.
..."It isn't that I'm just an angry human being, it's anger at injustice," said Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban land mines. "I'm still struggling with inner peace and I'm not sure I'll ever work it out."
..."Forgiving the oppressor while he is committing injustice is permitting him to continue," said Shrin Ebadi, who won her Nobel Prize in 2003 for defending the rights of women and children in Iran. "Therefore the timing of forgiveness is very important."
"Shirin Ebadi is no wimp. His Holiness, fighting for the freedom of his people, is no wimp. Gandhi was no wimp. Martin Luther King was no wimp," Williams said, adding that peace had become synonymous with weakness.
The Dalai Lama agreed, saying tranquility should not be confused with ease.
"Peace is not just the absence of violence. Peace is something fuller," he said. "Real nonviolence you confront, conquer the problem ... You have the ability to use force, but you restrain."
James "Loose" White, 28, a one-time member of the Crips gang who advocates for nonviolence on the streets, agreed with the Dalai Lama that restraint can be harder than giving in.
"It takes courage to act like an individual and choose the right path," he said. "To take all that aggression and redirect it in a positive way."
(Wouldn't it be something if powerful governmental leaders could redirect their aggressive energies towards constructive directions instead of nonstop war and destructive preparation for war...)
On the wall by my desk, there's a spread of photos of Aung San Suu Kyi which appeared in the Guardian a year ago. It's a kind of family photo album with snaps of engagement, babies, university, chilly British family picnics and travels. It's a strikingly poignant illustration of everything Aung San Suu Kyi has sacrificed over 15 years of imprisonment in her struggle for Burmese democracy. Every time it catches my eye, it is both humbling and gives me hope: a reminder of what the human spirit is capable of...
What makes her Reith lectures so fascinating is they represent a statement of the ideals and mindset which have steeled her resolve and inspired her courage. The first lecture addresses the universal human desire for freedom, the second considers her fight in Burma to achieve it.
...She weaves in Christian metaphors and concepts with the Buddhism, Russian poetry and the eastern European dissident tradition. It is a unique synthesis of east and west, only possible in someone deeply versed in both...
For her, freedom is not only a set of institutions, laws and political processes, it is also a quest of the individual spirit, the struggle to free oneself from greed, fear and hatred and how they drive one's own behaviour.
That is why she always talks of a "revolution of the spirit". You cannot have one without the other, both are part of transformational change; the individual and personal is inextricably bound up with the political, as she made clear in her interviews with the American Buddhist, Alan Clements, in Voice of Hope. Clements shared a Buddhist teacher with her and he told me that the meditational practices she is known to pursue are vital to cultivate the courage and insight for her political battles. When asked by Clements what her greatest struggle was, she replied: "It's always a matter of developing more and more awareness, not only day to day but moment to moment. It's a battle which will go on the whole of my life." Her greatest aim, she told him, was "purity of mind".
It is the awareness which enables her to perceive the fear that lies behind the violence of the Burmese junta and to insist on offering them dialogue. The practice of metta – "loving kindness" – is not passive, she says, and points to the Buddha himself, who went to stand between two warring parties to protect them both at the risk of his own safety...
But an inner sense of freedom can reinforce a practical drive for the more fundamental freedoms in the form of human rights and the rule of law." She points to the monks who led the 2007 saffron revolution as acting out of "loving kindness" for the people suffering from sharp rises in food prices. She is putting herself at the forefront of the reforming movements in Buddhism in Asia, gently insisting on the interrelationship between practical action and private spiritual discipline.
Like the Dalai Lama and the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, she is playing a vital role in communicating through her words and her life a Buddhism that speaks to the deepest human needs.
Gangjeong Village on Jeju Island must be a place of peace, life and healing for the Korean Peninsula!
For the past ten years, the issue of the naval base on Jeju has changed from Hwasunri to Wimiri to Gangjeong, totally destroying the communities of these villages who have been living together like family for generations.
This issue has caused deep frictions within the residents of the island, and not only the residents of the proposed base area, but the majority of the Jeju Prefecture population are against the base construction.
The ocean around Gangjeong Village, the proposed base site, borders a UNESCO-designated Biosphere Reserve, and is also designated as Natural Memorial 442, a natural protection area home to clusters of soft coral.
This place is now being destroyed by the military’s unilateral forced construction.
In the local ecosystem, as the precious rocks of Gureombi, many lives of Gangjeong are dying, including the crab designated by the Ministry of the Environment as an endangered species, Sesarmops intermedium.
The beautiful scenery and nature is being covered by garbage indiscriminately disposed of by construction companies, and the underground water which is the source of much life is being tainted by dust and foreign objects discharged in the construction process, left neglected with holes.
Professor Yang Yoon-Mo, who settled by the sea of Gangjeong on his own and spent over three years with the local people trying to protect their village, was jailed and even now more than 60 days since he began a hunger strike is putting his life on the line, asking “If I die, scatter my ashes in the Gureombi sea.” Choi Sung-hee, who has also dedicated herself fully to protecting the peace of Gangjeong, is also in jail on the 12th day of a hunger strike.
As popular opinion throughout Korea strengthens against the base, and as activities by people around the country supporting actions in solidarity against the base construction such as sending support items, banners, donations and volunteers continue, the navy is becoming more frenzied to build this military base – with no clear purpose – and continues its oppression, reacting to protests with more military violent methods.
Knowing these facts, we women strongly condemn the navy for forcing through the naval base construction, and the Jeju Prefectural Government for silently allowing this to happen.
Jeju still has the memory of the massive state violence of 4.3. Despite losing their parents and siblings, every day the people had to hold their breath and hide their tears. Furthermore, through the “guilty-by-association” restrictions, innocent people had to live as if guilty. Even now 60 years on, the people of Jeju Island who lost members of their families and have been living with grief for years are not able to raise their voices, and their bitterness cannot be brushed away.
However, the new form of massive state violence in the form of the naval base is threatening our lives and peace.
We deeply share the concern of the Jeju Islanders that the animosity and conflict amongst the community as a result of the forced construction of the naval base may once again repeat the pain of the 4.3 Incident.
Having experienced the tragic history of the 4.3 Incident, and still feeling the pain of this experience, Jeju understands just how important peace is. Thus, we do not want such a difficult past to be once again brought upon the next generations of Jeju through the naval base. We do not hope for a village without peace, with the blessings of nature destroyed and the community broken down.
We hope that the ocean will be able to retain its current form, generously providing us all we ask for when we need a rest or when our stomachs are empty. We hope that will remain a place where the mothers of mothers connect lives, and many stories and breaths are left. We hope Jeju Island to be left as a peaceful place where we ourselves and our children can continue to live.
We women, deeply hoping for peace and not war on this land, oppose the military base. Peace is not just a value that cannot be seen, but is an extremely important, real thing that can change the fate of a community or a country.
And, as people who can shape Jeju, want to ask about the Jeju naval base: Can peace and military bases coexist? Is a wrong choice being rationalised with the excuse of supposed practical advantages?
Jeju Island, the island of peace, does not belong to a few politicians or military officials. The many islanders of Jeju are the custodians of Jeju Island, and they have a right to live in peace and safety. It is necessary to guarantee the future of the children. We intend to work together with the people of Jeju Island to build a path of solution for Jeju, where life and peace breathe. As well as national actions in solidarity to stop the construction of the naval base, we will spread word of the naval base issue internationally, and actively stand together with the residents of Gangjeong to protect the beautiful natural legacy and realise Jeju as the Island of Peace. _________________
Women Making Peace located Seoul, South Korea, is part of 34 Korean women’s groups who have come together in agreement to work with the people of Jeju Island to create peace. Here is the list of those who have signed on to this plea. _________________________________
Ms. Gyung-Lan Jung is the Chairperson of South Korea’s Women Making Peace Commission.
Jeju Weekly staff writer Nicole Erwin reported today at the Save Prof Yang and Sung-Hee Choi Facebook Group that Sung-Hee Choi's trial has been postponed until July 15 "to bring in more witnesses." The art teacher is being denied bail. Her charge is "impeding commercial activity" although, at the time of her arrest, she was only holding a banner stating "Do not touch one stone or one flower" while standing adjacent to a military construction site (private property seized by the state).
Some of her supporters are wondering if authorities arrested her for political purposes, thinking that by detaining her without possibility of release on bail, that they will impede the movement to save Jeju Island. If so, the authorities are wrong: the opposite has happened. Sung-Hee Choi's unjust arrest has resulted in what is known in nonviolent social change as a "tipping point."
More and more people in South Korea and worldwide are being drawn to Gangjeong and Jeju Island through empathy with her suffering. Previously the efforts of the Gangjeong villagers moved at an "agonizingly slow rate." After the tipping point (arrests of Professor Yang and Sung-Hee Choi), domestic and international support expanded at a fast rate, and, now the Gangjeong villagers' cause is the only legitimate interest in this situation, especially after the S. Korean Ministry of Defense admitted there is no strategic need for a naval base on Jeju, the "Island of Peace." The Gangjeong villagers are actually protecting Jeju Island's status as a "World Heritage Site" and "Natural Wonder."
According to Gene Sharp, author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action, political repression means that nonviolent actionists have frightened their opponents:
Repression is especially likely when the nonviolent action takes forms and expressions which present a serious challenge to the opponent. As most political systems use some type of violent sanctions against dissidents, through police, prisons, and the military forces, these are likely also to be used against the nonviolent challengers. In acute social and political conflicts the actionists must often pay a price in the struggle to achieve their objectives. Freedom is not free...
The continued detainment of Sung-Hee Choi is producing another effect. Because of her kind, loving, generous, and charismatic personality, the art teacher made friends everywhere: across borders and across interests.
Sung-Hee Choi's activism flowed from all-embracing love: of people, of animals, of plants, of the sea and our planet. Her cause: celebrating and protecting life. Sung Hee Choi manifests the vision Martin Luther King described in "Where Do We Go From Here?," his seminal essay on the salvation of humanity: "Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal opposition to poverty, racism, and militarism...This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for all-embracing and unconditional love for all...This often misunderstood and misinterpreted concept has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man...We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. This may well be mankind's last chance to choose bettween chaos and community."
Echoing Bishop Kang's eloquent statement from Jeju Island, Sung-Hee Choi's presence in a jail cell is a call for us all to choose peace and community for all: the flower, stone, sea creature, Gangjeong's tangerine farmers, the Gangjeong Coast, Jeju Island, the Korean Peninsula, Asia, and the world...We hope those who have ordered her continued detainment will awaken to the fact that her only motive is the protection of life, including their own...
For more info, please see the following:
• "Save Prof Yang and Sung-Hee Choi Facebook Group (link on the right)
Via Regina Pyon at Save Prof Yang and Sung-Hee Choi of Jeju Island, Director Cho Sung-bong's website with photos that show the breathtaking beauty of the Gangjeong Coast on Jeju Island and the resistance of the villagers trying to save their ancestral farms and the irreplaceable nature that makes Jeju a "Natural Wonder."
(April 26, 2010 Peace Missal at Gangjeong, Jeju Island, S. Korea)
For the past four years Gangjeong Village has been resisting the naval base building project in their home sea. For years Gangjeong village has been called Il-Gangjeong by Jeju natives due to its outstanding ocean scenery and well preserved nature. Recently a lot of Gangjeong citizens have moved out, so the current population of the village is about 1,500, which is a small number compared to the entire population of Jeju Island.
This small village has been quite alone in its opposition to the construction of the naval base. Now they have reached a point of physical and spiritual exhaustion, and at this time, all over the nation, people from many different organizations, as well as well-known social activists, are joining the people of Gangjeong Village in the movement to resist the construction of the base. We are encouraged by and thankful for this support.
The people of Gangjeong Village and Jeju Island want to share why we are opposed to the construction of a naval base. In 1948, already 63 years ago, the people of Jeju Island suffered from the 4-3 (April 3) Massacre. At that time over 30,000 civilians, including children and the elderly, were killed by their own military. Innocent civilians were cruelly massacred in such a way that this incident has become nationally recognized as a genocide. The government has continually admitted these mistakes of the past, apologized, and asked for forgiveness from the victims who lost their lives, in order that the next generation will learn from this event and ensure that Korea will never again experience this kind of tragedy.
A military base on this kind of land, a naval base in this island – a naval base with all of the latest weapons collected in one place, including the Aegis and aircraft carriers, creating a great concentration of military power – it simply does not make sense to be in Jeju Island. The reason that the citizens of Gangjeong Village and Jeju Island are resisting the construction of this military base is not just because it is a Jeju issue. We also see this as a peace issue for the whole nation, and not even just our country, but also an issue for China, Japan and Korea – countries that have not yet been able to overcome the conflicts between them. If this military base becomes a reality, it will only stimulate a larger conflict in Northeast Asia. We believe that this is not healthy for the peace of Korea, for Northeast Asia, and for the whole world.
Please continue to support the people of Gangjeong Village. If more people in the nation start to have more understanding and awareness about this issue, it can be the one reward for the suffering of the people in Gangjeong Village. We hope that from this point on, you will take an active role in this struggle. Thank you.
(Mayor Kang of Gangjeong village tries to climb on board the dredging ship destroying the soft coral habitat on Jeju Island's southern coast. Image: Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes)
This 2010 video shows the soft coral habitat in the Gangjeong sea, which will be destroyed, if the proposed Jeju naval base proceeds.
In 2006, during a conversation about the movement to save what is left of the spirit of the Japanese Peace Constitution, Jean Stokan of Pax Christi (the Catholic peace organization) compared the grassroots struggles of ordinary people in Asia against militaristic state encroachment to similar struggles of people living in Latin America military dictatorships during the 1980's. In both hemispheres, faith-based groups have long been at the center of movements for democracy and peace.
Christians and Buddhists have come together to challenge the abuse of state power to force construction of military bases in both Jeju Island and Okinawa. Their interfaith effort is part of a tradition dating back to Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Desmond Tutu's frameworks for nonviolent action to bring about peace and social justice.
Benediction for the Life, Peace, & Community before a 100-day Korea Peace Pilgrimage that began March 1, 2011 at the Jeju April 3rd Peace Park (which memorializes the lives of tens of thousands of indigenous inhabitants killed on Jeju Island on April 3, 1947, during the South Korean government's violent repression of demonstrations calling for humane living conditions) and ended at the Demilitarized Zone.
In the following article, Claire Schaeffer-Duffy details the engagement of Catholics and other Christians opposing the South Korean government's attempts to forcibly seize and destroy the property of the indigenous farmers at Gangjeong to make way for a proposed naval base targeting China. Proceeding on base construction would destroy Gangjeong's beautiful coastline (one of most beautiful places on Jeju Island) and make a mockery of S. Korean democratic process.
The base also makes no strategic sense: the S. Korea's Ministry of National Defense stated that the base is not needed for national security. Incongruously, the South Korean government is collaborating with Beijing in developing policies to draw wealthy Chinese tourists to Jeju Island at the same time it is building this base to militarily target China.
Koreans resume hunger strikes opposing proposed naval base
by Claire Schaeffer-Duffy The National Catholic Reporter June 15, 2011
The gutsy and persistent campaign to oppose the construction of a South Korean naval base on Jeju Island continues.
Bruce Gagnon reports that Professor Yang Yoon-Mo, former chair of the South Korean Film Critics Association, and Sung-Hee Choi, a member of the Korean peace organization SPARK, have resumed their hunger strike in protest of the base. Gagnon, a Maine-base peace activist and founder of Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, has been chronicling the Jeju campaign on his blog, http://space4peace.blogspot.com...
...Activists over the past week have daily tried to block construction at the naval base which is ongoing despite strong local opposition. Protestors have held banners, prayed, laid in front of machines at the construction site, and even gone out in inflatable rafts to demonstrate aboard ships clearing the Gangjeong coastline.
A self-governing province of South Korea, Jeju Island lies south of the Korean mainland and between China and Japan. Because of the island’s strategic location in Northeast Asia, the South Korean government wants to build a base here that will port South Korean and U.S. Aegis destroyers equipped with missile defense systems.
Jeju is a designated World Heritage site. Critics fear the base will damage the island’s unique eco-system, escalate a naval arms race in Northeast Asia, and place Jeju residents in the crosshairs of a U.S./China stand-off.
Catholic religious have been at the forefront of the no-base campaign, according to the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN). A quick perusal of the news agency’s reports reveal a remarkable account of Catholic leaders speaking out against militarism and environmental destruction, and speaking up for those whose voice has been ignored for the sake of national security interests [ROK officials have admitted there is no national security interest for the base, according to The Hankyoreh].
Nuns and priests have been arrested during no-base protests, some repeatedly. Priests have also gone on hunger strikes. In June 2007, the year the South Korean government announced plans to build the navy base at Gangjeon (two other villages had successfully fought locating the port in their environs), the Jeju diocese launched the Special Committee for the Island of Peace to actively oppose the port’s construction...
More recently, Jeju’s Special Committee hosted Christmas Mass at the construction site for the navy base. Bishop Peter Kang U-il of the Cheju diocese presided. Three days later, four priests, two Protestant pastors, and twenty-nine activists and villagers were arrested during a demonstration there.
In January, the Catholic Priests Association for Justice held their three-day annual plenary assembly on the island and issued a statement calling for an end to the base’s construction. UCAN reports that the statement highlighted the examples of Okinawa, Guam and Saipan as beautiful islands with military bases whose native culture declined after the establishment of military bases. There were more arrests of priests later that month.
Catholic involvement in the Jeju conflict prompted the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCKK) to join the no-base campaign in May. Last week representatives of hundreds of civic and religious leaders in South Korea held a press conference in Seoul to express their solidarity with the residents of Gangjeong. Among those present was Reverend Kim Young-ju, secretary general of the NCCK.
Shortly after his release for one of his arrests during a no-base demonstration, Fr. John Ko Byeong-soo, chair of Jeju diocese’s Special Committee for the Island of Peace, told UCAN that he felt obliged to continue the anti-base campaign “as we need to follow Catholic teaching to be a peacemakers . . . Since the Gangjeong villagers have decided to maintain their opposition to the plan, we will accompany the people to the end.”
On June 19, Sung-Hee Choi stopped her most recent 10-day fast. Read her letter from jail at her blog.
For background on the Korean Peninsula interfaith peace pilgrimage, see "In Solidarity with the Gangjeong Villagers of Jeju Island and the Peace Pilgrims for Life, Peace, & Community in the Korean Peninsula" (Reverend Jeon of the Life & Peace Fellowship said, “Our organization opposes those things related to war. We oppose the naval base plan (in Jeju Island) with the thought that the peace in the Korean peninsula and North East Asia will be threatened if it is built on Jeju Island. “We are walking with our praying hearts.”), TTT (March 2, 2011)
Action suggestions in support of residents of Jeju Island:
On June 23rd, National Xhong Xing University announced that it will postpone until July 15th its planned first eviction of a Siraya family from the home they own. In response, the Siraya and their global allies are continuing protests to spread awareness of the Siraya purug, community's plight: the university's agricultural department intends to bulldoze the homes of over 20 families in the Tavokan Hills.
For background on the Siraya plight, see this previous post. The Saving Siraya website reports that many of the people of the Tavokan Hills, are already living in poverty. Forcing them from their homes into a life of homelessness will drive them into further destitution.
The following slide show provides a glimpse at the nature, heritage, and people intrinsic to the Siraya community of the Tavokan Hills:
"The fight is not over...our purug is still threatened"
The Siraya people are not the only aboriginal people of Taiwan encountering the enfringement of their property rights by construction companies. The Atayal people living in Smangas, "god's village" fought to preserve their land from development companies wishing to exploit its natural resources. A the site of a 2,500 year old cyprus, community members decided to commit to traditional methods of communal sharing rather than acquiesing to a development proposal (land grab). Smangus: A Year in the Clouds, premiering on June 30th,tells the story of how the Atayal people collectively manage their resources:
The Siraya people's efforts have ensured them an extension of the demolition date. They will keep struggling for acknowledgement of their property rights to their ancestral lands and, concurrently work to persuade the university to work out a mutually beneficial "win-win" relationship.
Spewing from the Fukushima reactor are radioactive isotopes including those of iodine (I-131), strontium (Sr-90) and cesium (Cs-134 and Cs-137) all of which are taken up in food and water. Iodine is concentrated in the thyroid, Sr-90 in bones and teeth and Cs-134 and Cs-137 in soft tissues, including the heart. The unborn and babies are more vulnerable because the cells are rapidly dividing and the delivered dose is proportionally larger than that delivered to an adult.
Data from Chernobyl, which exploded 25 years ago, clearly shows increased numbers of sick and weak newborns and increased numbers of deaths in the unborn and newborns, especially soon after the meltdown. These occurred in Europe as well as the former Soviet Union. Similar findings are also seen in wildlife living in areas with increased radioactive fallout levels.
Janette D. Sherman, M. D. is a specialist in internal medicine and toxicology. She has recently completed the translation and editing of the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature, written by A. V. Yablokov, V. B. Nesterenko and A. V. Nesterenko, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in December 2009.
By Karl Grossman Karl Grossman's Blog June 16, 2011
The global nuclear industry and its allies in government are making a desperate effort to cover up the consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. “The big lie flies high,” comments Kevin Kamps of the organization Beyond Nuclear.
Not only is this nuclear establishment seeking to make it look like the Fukushima catastrophe has not happened—going so far as to claim that there will be “no health effects” as a result of it—but it is moving forward on a “nuclear renaissance,” its scheme to build more nuclear plants.
Indeed, next week in Washington, a two-day “Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy” will be held involving major manufacturers of nuclear power plants—including General Electric, the manufacturer of the Fukushima plants—and U.S. government officials.
Although since Fukushima, Germany, Switzerland and Italy and other nations have turned away from nuclear power for a commitment instead to safe, clean, renewable energy such as solar and wind, the Obama administration is continuing its insistence on nuclear power.
Will the nuclear establishment be able to get away with telling what, indeed, would be one of the most outrageous Big Lies of all time—that no one will die as a result of Fukushima?
Will it be able to continue its new nuclear push despite the catastrophe?
Nearly 100 days after the Fukushima disaster began, with radiation still streaming from the plants, with its owners, TEPCO, now admitting that meltdowns did occur at its plants, that releases have been twice as much as it announced earlier, with deadly radioactivity from Fukushima spreading worldwide, and with some countries now changing course and saying no to nuclear power, while others stick with it, a nuclear crossroads has arrived.
“No health effects are expected among the Japanese people as a result of the events at Fukushima,” the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry trade group, flatly declared in a statement issued at a press conference in Washington last week.
“They’re lying,” says Dr. Janette Sherman, a toxicologist and contributing editor of the book Chernobyl: The Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Using medical data from between 1986 and 2004, its authors, a team of European scientists, determines that 985,000 people died worldwide from the radioactivity discharged from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster...”
After a few weeks of covering the early aftermath of Japan's earthquake and tsunami, the U.S. media moved on, leaving behind the crisis at Fukushima which continues to unfold. U.S. politicians, like Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, have made disappointing and misleading statements about the relative safety of nuclear power and have vowed to stick by our nuclear program, while other countries, like Germany and Italy, have taken serious steps to address the obvious risks of nuclear power -- risks that the Fukushima disaster made painfully evident, at least to the rest of the world...
Efforts to bring problems at Fukushima under control are not going well, either. Japanese authorities only just recently admitted that nuclear fuel in the three damaged Fukushima reactors has likely burned through the vessels holding it, a scenario called "melt-through", that is even more serious than a core meltdown. Months of spraying seawater on the plant's three melted-down fuel cores -- and the spent fuel stored on site -- to try and cool them has produced 26 million of gallons of radioactive wastewater, and no place to put it.
After a struggle, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), finally managed to put in place a system to filter radioactive particles out of the wastewater, but it broke down soon after it started operating. A filter that was supposed to last a month plugged up with radioactive material after just five hours, indicating there is more radioactive material in the water than previously believed.
Meanwhile, TEPCO is running out of space to store the radioactive water, and may be forced to again dump contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. TEPCO already dumped some water into the ocean weeks ago, amid protests from fisherman, other countries and environmental organizations. And even if TEPCO does successfully filter the contaminated water and manage to bring its radioactivity down to acceptable levels, the utility will still have to deal with the pile of radioactive sludge the process will produce.
The plan they've come up with to deal with the sludge is to seal it in drums and discard it into the ocean, which may cause even more problems. Greenpeace has already found levels of radiation exceeding legal limits in seaweed and shellfish samples gathered more than 12 miles away from the plant. The high levels of radiation in the samples indicate that leaks from the plant are bigger than TEPCO has revealed so far...
"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera...
"Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."
TEPCO has been spraying water on several of the reactors and fuel cores, but this has led to even greater problems, such as radiation being emitted into the air in steam and evaporated sea water - as well as generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water that has to be disposed of.
"The problem is how to keep it cool," says Gundersen. "They are pouring in water and the question is what are they going to do with the waste that comes out of that system, because it is going to contain plutonium and uranium. Where do you put the water?"
Japan's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters finally admitted earlier this month that reactors 1, 2, and 3 at the Fukushima plant experienced full meltdowns.
TEPCO announced that the accident probably released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl, making it the worst nuclear accident on record.
Meanwhile, a nuclear waste advisor to the Japanese government reported that about 966 square kilometres near the power station - an area roughly 17 times the size of Manhattan - is now likely uninhabitable.According to Gundersen, the exposed reactors and fuel cores are continuing to release microns of caesium, strontium, and plutonium isotopes. These are referred to as "hot particles".
"We are discovering hot particles everywhere in Japan, even in Tokyo," he said. "Scientists are finding these everywhere. Over the last 90 days these hot particles have continued to fall and are being deposited in high concentrations. A lot of people are picking these up in car engine air filters."
Radioactive air filters from cars in Fukushima prefecture and Tokyo are now common, and Gundersen says his sources are finding radioactive air filters in the greater Seattle area of the US as well.
The hot particles on them can eventually lead to cancer.
"These get stuck in your lungs or GI tract, and they are a constant irritant," he explained, "One cigarette doesn't get you, but over time they do. These [hot particles] can cause cancer, but you can't measure them with a Geiger counter. Clearly people in Fukushima prefecture have breathed in a large amount of these particles. Clearly the upper West Coast of the US has people being affected. That area got hit pretty heavy in April..."
Dr Shoji Sawada is a theoretical particle physicist and Professor Emeritus at Nagoya University in Japan.
He is concerned about the types of nuclear plants in his country, and the fact that most of them are of US design.
"Most of the reactors in Japan were designed by US companies who did not care for the effects of earthquakes," Dr Sawada told Al Jazeera. "I think this problem applies to all nuclear power stations across Japan."
Using nuclear power to produce electricity in Japan is a product of the nuclear policy of the US, something Dr Sawada feels is also a large component of the problem.
"Most of the Japanese scientists at that time, the mid-1950s, considered that the technology of nuclear energy was under development or not established enough, and that it was too early to be put to practical use," he explained. "The Japan Scientists Council recommended the Japanese government not use this technology yet, but the government accepted to use enriched uranium to fuel nuclear power stations, and was thus subjected to US government policy..."
Gundersen pointed out that the units are still leaking radiation.
"They are still emitting radioactive gases and an enormous amount of radioactive liquid," he said. "It will be at least a year before it stops boiling, and until it stops boiling, it's going to be cranking out radioactive steam and liquids."
Gundersen worries about more earthquake aftershocks, as well as how to cool two of the units.
"Unit four is the most dangerous, it could topple," he said. "After the earthquake in Sumatra there was an 8.6 [aftershock] about 90 days later, so we are not out of the woods yet. And you're at a point where, if that happens, there is no science for this, no one has ever imagined having hot nuclear fuel lying outside the fuel pool. They've not figured out how to cool units three and four."
Gundersen's assessment of solving this crisis is grim.
"Units one through three have nuclear waste on the floor, the melted core, that has plutonium in it, and that has to be removed from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years," he said. "Somehow, robotically, they will have to go in there and manage to put it in a container and store it for infinity, and that technology doesn't exist. Nobody knows how to pick up the molten core from the floor, there is no solution available now for picking that up from the floor."
The organizing committee for the Yayori Awards is pleased to announce that nomination forms are now available for the 2011 competition.
The Yayori Awards were created through the final will and funds of the late Yayori Matsui, a well-known journalist, feminist/human rights activist, and founder of the Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center (AJWRC). Her profile may be accessed here.
The Yayori Awards are presented during each competition round in two separate categories:
1) The Women's Human Rights Activities Award (commonly referred to as the Yayori Award) is presented to a grassroots-level woman activist, journalist, or artist (either an individual or group) who works with socially marginalized peoples to solve serious social issues in Asia and other regions, and whose work helps to create a 21st century free from war and discrimination against women. Nomination forms for this award must be submitted in English. Self-nominations will not be accepted.
2) The Yayori Journalist Awardis presented to a woman journalist or artist (either an individual or group) who vividly portrays the situation of women from a global gender perspective. Self-nominations for this award are acceptable. Since the nominee’s future work shall be subject to publication in Japanese, all submissions must be in the Japanese language.
Winners in both categories will receive a certificate and a monetary award in the amount of 500,000 yen. In the event that multiple awardees are selected for the Yayori Journalist Award,the money will be divided amongst all recipients.
The organizing committee is seeking nominations from around the world for both awards, and will send printed leaflets upon request. The deadline for this year’s competition is August 25, 2011.
Detailed information regarding the awards, including a leaflet, nomination forms, and list of past award recipients are all available on the Yayori Award website.
Past winners have included a group of women working to bring justice to victims of sexual violence committed during the civil war in Guatemala, a feminist photojournalist from Nepal working on issues of peace and human rights, and numerous others doing important work for empowerment and justice at the grassroots level. The Japan Times did a feature story on the 2008 Yayori Journalist Award winner's work on the fight against nuclear power plants in a Japanese town.
See this previous post at Ten Thousand Things for a description of the 2010 Yayori Award winners and their work for human rights.
************************************************* Mikiko Ishihara Secretariat of the Committee for the Yayori Award C/O Asia-Japan Women's Resource Center, 14-10-211, Sakuragaoka, Shibuyaku, Tokyo 150-0031 Japan Tel: 81 3 3780 5245 Fax: 81 3 3463 9752 Email: info-award@ajwrc.org, **************************************
KORUS is based on the NAFTA model, the outstanding achievement of which was managing to lower living conditions for the majority of citizens in three nations (United States, Mexico, and Canada) simultaneously...
KORUS defines “South Korean-made” as any product that has at least 35% of its value created in South Korea. Under this rule, the origin of the remaining 65% does not matter. “So South Korea can use components made by slave labor in Myanmar or in China with its repressive conditions and currency manipulations,” McKinnon told In These Times.
KORUS would potentially open up the United States to components produced under one of the world's most tightly-repressive nations. The rigid police state of North Korea has opened up a free-trade zone employing about 40,000 workers currently. South Korean firms operating factories in the zone typically pay the North Korean government just $3 to $4 per day per worker, of which the worker gets to keep just $1.
If passed, the Korea-U.S. FTA is predicted to have profound consequences on jobs, workers' rights, environmental protections, the U.S. trade deficit, banking and financial services, healthcare, agriculture, and both governments' ability to pass public health and anti-discrimination laws.
Yet here in the United States, there is almost no word about it in the media and no public debate. Large corporations and the South Korean Embassy have been spending millions of dollars to lobby for the FTA while the U.S. people, a majority of whom opposes such deals, are not even aware that the largest trade deal since NAFTA could be passed before mid-summer...
Korean farmers are so militant because for them, this is a struggle between life and death. This FTA—because of the stark differences between Korean and U.S. farms—will drive most farmers to ruin. Korea has only 4.2 million acres of farmland, compared with the US's 434 million. The average farm size in Korea is 1.2 acres, compared with the U.S.'s 71 acres. The National Family Farm Coalition, an alliance of American small family farmers, opposes the deal because only large U.S. agribusiness corporations will benefit. Meanwhile, the Korean Peasants League estimates that if the FTA is implemented, Korean agricultural production will decrease by 45 percent and force roughly half of Korean farmers off their land. Korean farmers stand to lose their land, livelihoods and lives, and Korea stands to lose its rural farming tradition and culture...
One of the most dangerous parts of this FTA for people in general and workers specifically is its investment chapter. The deal was negotiated in 2006, at the height of the deregulatory fervor that brought on our current economic recession. The deal grants unprecedented freedoms to investment banks and financial corporations to manipulate the economy. In the late 1990s, many in our Korean American community immigrated to the U.S. because of the Asian financial crisis that ravaged Korea's economy. Koreans not only lost jobs and savings, they lost significant labor protections while their quality of life and work prospects drastically declined. Even as Korea's overall economy eventually improved, the lives of ordinary Koreans did not. More people became irregular workers, earning half the salary of regular workers and without benefits or pensions. In 2000, 40 percent of Korean workers were irregular workers; by 2008, that number had grown to 60 percent. Of that irregular workforce, 67.5 percent are women workers. Korea also has the largest gender wage gap of all OECD countries.
Most labor economists say that this FTA will only intensify these trends and eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs, at a time when both governments are cutting social welfare programs. Furthermore, neither the U.S. nor Korea has ratified ILO Conventions 87 and 98, which are core international labor standards guaranteeing the freedom of association, the right to organize, and the right to collective bargaining...
The FTA has also been used to dismantle Korea's environmental and public health laws. During talks, Korea agreed to a side deal, which basically overturned its 2000 genetic engineering labeling law that kept genetically modified organisms (GMOs) out of Korea's food supply. By 2008, Korea had approved 102 GMOs for import as feed or food, 70 percent from the U.S. firms Monsanto, Dupont and Dow Chemical...
Finally, if passed, the FTA has and will continue to seriously undermine democracy in both Korea and the United States. In Korea, perhaps the most egregious example is the dismantling of Korea's universal healthcare system...
...U.S. agricultural interests stand to gain billions in earnings. Farmers, however, are not international traders. The real profit in agriculture is made in the corporate boardroom; farmers don’t have a seat there. Perhaps the stronger point is that most farmers worldwide produce food to be consumed locally, not commodities for international trade. They stand to be victims of corporate “dumping” rather than standing to benefit by trade.
Like Mexican and Central American farmers under NAFTA and CAFTA, Korean farmers...stand to lose their land, their culture and their dignity.
If the argument in favor of KORUS is increased corporate profit, fine, call it that, but it is a perverse misrepresentation to imply that U.S. farmers and workers will profit. Farmers and workers do not have the power, the lawyers or the off-shore banks that the multi-national corporations use to push their agenda.
As tariff barriers are removed, the world will indeed be the oyster of multi-national corporations. Shakespeare could be quoted as their guiding light: “Why then the world’s mine oyster/Which I with sword will open."
The Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (Korea FTA), which the Obama administration is promising to send to Congress for ratification in the next weeks, would be the largest international trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Korea is the seventh largest U.S. trading partner and the United States is Korea’s third largest trading partner. Commerce between the two countries is estimated at $86 billion annually. The Korea FTA was originally signed in April 2007 by President Bush and later amended by the Obama administration in December 2010. But neither the U.S. Congress nor the South Korean parliament has yet to sign it...
In 1995, South Korea joined the World Trade Organization and signed the Agreement on Agriculture. Like many Asian countries, South Korea had limited foreign agricultural imports through the use of quotas and tariffs to protect their agricultural base. But by signing the Agreement on Agriculture, Korea was forced to end its system of quotas and tariffs, and begin to import a certain amount of agricultural commodities.
Meanwhile, as the United States and the EU were forcing farmers in poor developing countries through the WTO to open their markets, they were providing billions of subsidies to their own farmers. From 1995 to 2005, OECD countries collectively increased the subsidies they provided their farmers from $182 billion to $300 billion. Although most unsubsidized peasant farmers around the world lived on less than $400 a year, U.S. and EU farmers received on average $21,000 and $16,000 annually in subsidies.
Opening Korean markets to cheap foreign imports devastated Korean farmers. Since the 1995 Agreement on Agriculture, Korean farmer debt grew four-fold to approximately $30,000 forcing millions off their land and into poverty. In 1970, farmers made up 44.7 percent of the Korean population. By 1995, only 11.6 percent were farmers. Today, only 3.2 million Korean farmers remain, comprising 7 percent of the population. According to Reverend Han Kyung Ho, President of the Korean Rural Mission, Korea’s dependency on imported food has reduced its food self-sufficiency from 56 percent in 1980 to 25.3 percent by 2004. Lee Kwang Seok of the Korean Peasants League points out that, with rice out of the equation, Korea would only be 5-6 percent food self sufficient. “If a country depends on other countries for food, the sovereignty of the whole nation becomes threatened,” says Reverend Han. “Food is a strong weapon to control another country.”
As the governor and citizens of Okinawa face the latest U.S. Marine threat to their quality of life and safety (planned deployment of dangerous V-22 Osprey aircraft in Futenma), Jon Mitchell's look back at the origins of Okinawan resistance to the U.S. military seizure of their property brings home how long Okinawans have struggled for freedom from the violence, noise, and environmental degradation the U.S. military forces upon their islands.
In 1955, 300 U.S. Marines with rifles and bulldozers dragged women and children from their beds, destroyed their homes and slaughtered their goats after they refused to voluntarily leave their farms in Iejima, one of Okinawa prefecture's small islands, to make way for a U.S. bombing range. When the forcibly removed farmers were allowed to return after incarceration, the Marines forced them to live in tents on barren land. With no crops, they foraged on the margins of the bombing range for shrapnel to sell for scrap, where the Marines shot them. Despite these atrocities, Iejima's farmers refused to succumb to demoralization and defeat.
Leader Shoko Ahagon drew up policies inspired by Gandhi to guide their political action: nonviolent resistance and mass demonstrations. This resulted in some concessions and the prevention of U.S. deployment of nuclear missiles on the island in 1966. Ahagon is now known as the founder of the Okinawan civil rights movement:
Iejima: an island of resistance: Jon Mitchell traces the roots of Okinawa's civil rights movement
By JON MITCHELL
During the 30-minute ferry ride from Motobu on mainland Okinawa, Iejima reveals itself in stages. First, Mount Tacchu emerges above the waves like a chunk of the peanut brittle for which the island is renowned. Next, the wind-blown scent of countless thousands of hibiscuses sweetens the stink of the ship's diesel engines. Finally, swaths of sugar cane come into view — followed by khaki-green tobacco fields and white sand beaches flanking the island's southern shores.
Man of peace: Shoko Ahagon, father of Okinawa's civil rights movement, is seen in this poster welcoming visitors to the Treasure House of Life museum.
Without question, Iejima is a beautiful place — but dig a little deeper and you soon realize that, beneath its rich red soil, there lies an awful lot of suffering.
Most visitors are well aware of the savage fighting that raged on and around the island during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. Some tourists pose for photographs next to a monument that marks the spot where Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. war correspondent Ernie Pyle lost his life on April 18, 1945, while others clamber through the shattered ruins of the island's former pawn shop.
However, judging by the lack of names in the visitor book of the Treasure House of Life museum, very few people know about the second American invasion of Iejima — the one that occurred in 1955.
"Here on the island, we don't use the phrase 'postwar,' " explains Shoko Jahana, the museum's caretaker. "For us, it is as though we are still living in a war zone."
In the barracks-like museum, photographs chronicle the underhanded way in which, 56 years ago, the U.S. military went about transforming the western half of Iejima into an aerial bombing range.
With all of Okinawa under U.S. administration, the authorities started by tricking the landowners into signing voluntary evacuation papers, Jahana says. But then, when some families refused to leave, 300 U.S. soldiers with rifles and bulldozers dragged women and children from their beds, tore down their homes and slaughtered their goats.
"That's when Ahagon-sensei decided to act," says Jahana, pointing to a large poster of a smiling man with a tanned face.
Shoko Ahagon — the father of the Okinawan civil rights movement — was not your average farmer. As a young man, he converted to Christianity and went to Cuba to seek his fortune. Returning to Iejima, he'd embarked upon a temperance campaign. His experiences of talking the island's hard-drinking menfolk into abandoning their awamori spirits would prepare him well for his bid to persuade the Americans to return their land.
Inspired by Gandhi's principles of passive resistance to British rule in India, Ahagon drew up a list of policies for the farmers in their dealings with the military. These included the need to stay calm and retain faith in the inherent good of individual Americans. These policies are painted in big letters on the museum's wall — and they continue to inspire Okinawa-wide struggles against the presence of U.S. bases.
Another tactic still influential today is the organization of mass demonstrations. In July 1955, Ahagon led the displaced farmers on a seven-month circuit of the Okinawan mainland in order to inform people of their mistreatment. At a time when the United States kept the Okinawan press strictly censored, this "Beggars' March" won the farmers much-needed publicity for their plight — yet the U.S. military remained unmoved.
Upon their return to Iejima, the farmers were forced to live in tents on the barren land to which they'd been relocated. With their crops gone, they resorted to foraging on the margins of the bombing range for shrapnel to sell for scrap. The museum's photographs show the tragic consequences of such desperate actions — farmers were shot by American soldiers, maimed by stray bullets or blown limbless as they attempted to defuse unexploded ordnance.
Despite these atrocities, Ahagon and the farmers never gave up on their appeals to the conscience of the U.S. military.
Over the years, this unrelenting pressure bore fruit — their vigilance prevented the islanders from suffering the crimes so common elsewhere on Okinawa, and they won the right to farm their fields when the range was not in use. "But even today," explains Jahana, "about 30 percent of Iejima remains under U.S. control."
After leaving the museum, I head to the island's west coast in order to see for myself the American base. While the military has moved its live ammunition drills elsewhere, it continues to use the installation to practice parachute drops — and barbed-wire fences cordon off a massive expanse of Iejima's most fertile farming land. Outside the base, in the ashes of a farmer's bonfire, I spot charred cartridges and the tail fin of a rocket — reminders of the bitter harvest some islanders died collecting.
A short walk away stands an A-framed building with freshly painted slogans on its walls. This is the hut from where Ahagon and the farmers used to ensure that the Americans' exercises did not stray beyond the confines of the base — and it was from here that, in 1966, they staged a successful campaign to prevent the U.S. military from installing nuclear-armed Nike missiles on the island.
Recalling the museum's photographs of this hut packed full with demonstrators, I peer through the building's windows. Its newly painted exterior proves deceptive — inside, the room is thick with dust and looks abandoned to the spiders.
Behind me, an elderly farmer pulls up on his tractor. When he finds out I've just come from the museum, he tells me he used to know Ahagon well. "Ahagon-sensei dedicated his whole life to the islanders of Iejima. He was a hero," he declares.
Read the entire article, and see more of Jon Mitchell's photos at The Japan Times.
Longtime KJ writer Keith Harmon Snow focuses on the causes (all borrowed from the U.S. nuclear industry model) of Tokyo's and TEPCO's inability to promptly and honestly address the Fukushima melt-throughs before they happened: risky cost-cutting, employee downsizing, deregulation, and "the compromise of public health and security created by the failure of the western corporate mass media to equitably report on, mildly investigate, or even moderately challenge, the nuclear power industry" in "Fukushima and the Mass Media Meltdown: The Repercussions of a Pro-Nuclear Corporate Press," written in 2001:
The following report was written after learning about the pro-nuclear and corporate bias of the Society of Environmental Journalists. It was originally published by VOICE NEWS, Winstead CT, in 2001 and was originally titled "The Potential Repercussions of a Pro-Nuclear Press."
...the prophetic warnings advanced in this writing have now come true, although the nuclear "accident" did not occur on North American soil, but in Fukushima, Japan -- a surrogate client state of the United States and a corporate ally in nuclear proliferation and global war and environmental destruction.
It is now confirmed that there are three reactors at the Fukushima complex that melted THROUGH their outer containment vessels, through ALL the layers of so-called "defense-in-depth" and are continuing to spew lethal nuclear poisons and further contaminate the land we live on, the air we breathe, and the water that sustains all life on earth. We were always warned, and very worried, about reactor melt-DOWN, this being the absolute worst-case scenario and something that the nuclear industry and their purchased government agencies assured us "could never happen" -- always agreeing that these meltdowns would be "catastrophic" if it did.
Reactor melt-THROUGHs are much more serious than reactor melt-downs. At Fukushima, there is the equivalent of some twenty (20) reactor cores exposed and radiating lethal nuclear poisons. The corporate mass media system continues to downplay, distort, dismiss or deflect attention from the nuclear crises in Japan.
At Fukushima, and all over Japan -- and with deadly nuclear poisons spreading all over the world -- it's much worse than you think.
The people of the United States, Canada, and the rest of the world need to take action to stop the ongoing nuclear contamination and possible nuclear catastrophes at operating reactors all over the world. Here's why...
As this previous writing is republished, the situation in Japan is unprecedented, unappreciated, unmanageable and it remains out-of-control: it is the worst industrial accident that humanity has ever faced. For the Fukushima nuclear apocalypse and the people of Japan -- and with lethal nuclear poisons spreading all over the earth -- the end is nowhere in sight.
13 min. video showing highlights of Saturday 6/11 video in Shinjuku, Tokyo (shorter video may be watched here).
This past Saturday June 11th, which marked exactly three months since eastern Japan was struck in rapid succession by a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis, citizens gathered in cities and towns the world over in impassioned demonstrations to let their government officials know in no uncertain terms that the era of nuclear power is over.
The event, known collectively as 6.11 Anti Nukes Day, included solidarity demonstrations held in Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, Taiwan and the United States. In cities across Japan, the demonstrations were of course particularly poignant given the ongoing uncertainty of the Fukushima nuclear crisis. Several events were held in the nation’s capital of Tokyo alone, where the largest drew some 20,000 people to the central district of Shinjuku in a pulsing, unbarred, and at times raucous expression of emotion.
On one hand, recent weeks have seen several positive developments that are being cautiously celebrated, including the shutdown of the Hamaoka nuclear plant (dubbed the “world’s most dangerous”), the increasing likelihood that plans will be scrapped for the Kaminoseki nuclear facility, and Prime Minister Kan’s announcement of Japan’s serious commitment to alternative energies within the nation’s future energy policy. Unanswered questions continue to percolate, however, regarding the issue of Fukushima’s fallout (both literal and otherwise) underneath the surface of mainstream public discourse, which seems to have forgotten about the crisis altogether as daily life has shifted back to “normal”.
This state of collective denial seems exactly the way that officialdom in Japan wants to keep things, judging by the number of baton-wielding police officers sent out to cover Saturday’s event—which far surpassed what would have been necessary for the ostensible purpose of “traffic control”. When I arrived for the evening portion of the Shinjuku demonstration, I was stunned to be greeted by an ocean of blue cop uniforms literally as far as I could see. This served two purposes: first, making the general public unaware of what was actually happening, since several layers of officers were surrounding the demonstrators, thereby blocking the action from view (and making it inaccessible to would-be participants); and second, giving the impression that whatever was going on was so “dangerous” as to necessitate such intense police coverage.
When I was finally able to join the event—after taking a circuitous route and ducking in between cops to reach it— I found instead a chilled-out atmosphere including a reggae singer performing anti-nuke songs atop a sound truck, people waving creative signs and handing out flyers, and others holding candles in silence. It was a peaceful, artistic and inspiring gathering—and the average passerby did not even know that it was going on.
Among the many other Japanese cities hosting demonstrations on Saturday was Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture, where Tokyo resident Hideaki Matsuura decided to offer support to those who have been facing the disaster more intimately. “I thought the demo would be quite big since Koriyama has suffered significant radiation damage, but I was surprised to see that there were only around two or three hundred people there—and further shocked to see that almost no one was wearing face masks,” he told me. “During speech time, however, people gave very moving appeals about how their lives have been damaged, and how they and their families continue to fear for their safety.”
He also told me that he spoke after the event with a woman who described the culture of silence and complicity that continues to reign in Fukushima whereby people are culturally obliged to follow their elders—most of whom get their information from the mainstream media rather than the internet, and thereby believe the official assurances that radiation from the plant is “safe.” As a result, she said, anyone who goes against this prevailing logic—by wearing a mask, for example, or expressing a desire to move to a safer area—risks bullying and/or ostracization from the community.
Our thoughts should go especially to the women of Japan who, we are told, are those who are most strongly opposed to the government propaganda about patriotism and sacrifice. We understand they are struggling to resist this suicidal logic, which demands their families consume radioactive products to show the world that all is well in this country and a nuclear disaster is something we can live with. Their struggle is our struggle and their resistance needs our support.
Indeed, with official information non-forthcoming regarding the actual level of dangers, average citizens have had to take matters into their own hands in order to protect their safety and livelihoods. A friend of mine who is an organic farmer and surfer living along the coast of Chiba prefecture—which lies due south of Fukushima—has purchased a Geiger counter, as have many other farmers, in order to regulate the levels of radiation that may be affecting her fields. “I moved away from the city because I wanted a more natural lifestyle, but as soon as my dream was achieved, we suddenly had to begin living with all the fears and unknowns of radiation,” she lamented. “As a surfer, the idea of having to stay away from the ocean is unthinkable. Due to the real possibility of radiation contamination, however, I and most other surfers I know try to limit the time spent in the water—and then make sure we are living healthy lifestyles in order to limit any potential negative effects to our health.”
“In fact, this whole scare has made me appreciate the ocean—as well as life itself—even more deeply,” she added. “If it becomes too dangerous I may eventually have to move elsewhere, but I love living here and will do everything in my power to stay.”
The internet has been a powerful ally to citizens in Japan who seek to bypass official media channels in order to find and share information regarding what is actually happening with regard to the ongoing nuclear disaster. With the installation of a live webcam aimed directly at the Fukushima Daichi plant, for example, citizens are now able to monitor the situation and send out alerts via e-mail and Twitter when—as happened last week, for example—smoke was seen being emitted from one of its reactors.
A message that has recently been circulating around the Japanese Twittersphere calling for action reads as follows:
Here are a few examples of what is happening now in Japan:
1. The Japanese government allows fresh food to be on the market although it contains radiation 20-30 times higher than the global safety standard.
2. The Japanese government does not do anything even with food that contains radiation higher than Japanese safety standards.
3. The Japanese government does not inform its citizens of the results of the seafood radiation investigation, and does not allow Green Peace to conduct a thorough investigation of the sea environment around Japan.
4. According to UK researchers, more than 400,000 additional cancers will occur within the next 50 years on account of the radiation if no preventive efforts take place.
5. Air dose levels of radiation do not reflect the actual doses. Official air doses are half or quarter of the actual doses.
6. The Japanese government insists that 20mSv/year is safe for children at a school yard. The amount is 20 times higher than previous safety standards.
7. Data and information about Fukushima has been hidden, although radioactive particles keep spilling into the water and air every day.
8. Several millions of residents who evacuated from the area surrounding Fukushima still live in public buildings,gymnasiums, and such. There is no plan for them yet.
9. Several millions of Geiger counters donated by foreign counties are sitting, unused, in a warehouse.
Please send an email about these issues to the following Japanese officials:
Mr. Naoto Kan, prime minister (for all of the above): kan-naoto@nifty.com
Mr. Hosokawa, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Points 1.2.3.4): h04091@shugiin.go.jp
Mr. Takagi, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Points 5, 6): g02653@shugiin.go.jp
Mr. Kaieda, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Points 7, 8) office@kaiedabanri.jp
Mr. Matsumoto, Foreign Ministry (Point 9): info-matsumoto@memenet.or.jp
Please urge them to:
1) Conform to global standards on radiation safety in terms of food, water, and the environment
2) Check radiation levels in the air and water, and on the ground, which are more suitable to protect human life
3) Make all updated radiation information easily available to everyone
4) Disclose information and data regarding the Fukushima plant to Japanese and also the world
5) Take appropriate care of residents who have evacuated and who want to evacuate from Fukushima prefecture
6) Utilize the Geiger counters and other resources donated from foreign countries
Itsumi Kakefuda, a researcher with the Digital Human Research Center (affiliated with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial science and Technology), who translated the above appeal into English, said this with regard to fears among parents in Fukushima/Tokyo:
While different from the PTSD that is occurring within the afflicted areas, many parents of schoolchildren in the Tokyo metropolitan are also expressing fear, anger, and anxiety because of the confusion and lack of information. Clearly, the fundamental problem is the government and TEPCO, because of their horrible crisis communication. Sometimes this stress turns into cognitive/emotional overload, which can then lead instead to denial. Many interpersonal conflicts have also been increasing between those who are extremely concerned and are calling for action, vs. those who have chosen not to worry about the situation.
Others challenging the official line that radiation is safe and harmless are many artists and musicians, including Rankin’ Taxi, who performed at last Saturday’s gathering in Shinjuku. The group teamed up with the Ainu Dub band for the powerful “You Can’t See It and You Can’t Smell It Either," that minces no words (nor images) in its criticism of nuclear power and the handling of the Fukushima crisis:
Internationally renowned author Haruki Murakami delivered a speech last week in Barcelona upon receipt of the Catalonia International Prize wherein he interrogated the values of “efficiency” and “convenience” that he argues led to the Fukushima crisis via Japan’s passive acceptance of nuclear power. He then went on to poignantly challenge human beings across the globe to together create a future that instead prioritizes life and humanity. An English translation of Murakami’s speech is available at the “A Daily Life in Uptown Tokyo” blog .
Further information on what actually occurred at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the days and weeks following the crisis, which went unreported in establishment news for months, is available in CNN interviews with physicist Dr. Michio Kaku and nuclear engineer Arnie Gunderson.
Additional reports on Saturday’s demonstrations across Japan may be read in the New York Times and Tokyo Progressive. Paul Jobin's "Dying for TEPCO? Japan's Nuclear Contract Workers" published at The Asia-Pacific Journal providess disturbing insight into the top-down workings of the nuclear power system as it plays out in Japan, and Dahr Jamail's "Fukushima: It's Worse Than You Think" at Al Jazeera online powerfully discusses the Fukushima disaster in its historical context.
Your signing a petition to stop the remaining nuclear reactors in Japan and a transition to clean, safe energy sources would be greatly appreciated. It may be accessed here.
