#risewithhenoko: "Our Island's Treasure" tells the story of Henoko, Okinawa's elders' struggle to save their sacred coral reef and dugong ecosystem for future generations

Our Island's Treasure (私達の島の宝) from Kaiya Yonamine on Vimeo.

#RiseforHenoko - Kaiya Yonamine of Global Uchinanchu Alliance　グローバルうちなんちゅ同盟: May 31, 2019 - asks that supporters of Henoko's coral reef and dugong ecoregion and advocates of planetary survival, please spread, and share the link to her documentary film “Our Island’s Treasure” Documentary ドキュメンタリー映画「私達の島の宝.  Please tag environmental orgs, human rights and indigenous rights groups, media and teacher groups.

“Our Island’s Treasure" tells the story about the indigenous Uchinanchu people's fight to protect their sacred dugong and coral reef ocean in Henoko, Okinawa from Japanese government landfill and construction of an offshore US military training airstrip and port (over an ecoregion covered with quicksand pits which will take years to reinforce, if possible, and an earthquake zone).

Frustrated by the lack of media coverage of the Okinawan 22- year struggle to save Okinawa's last intact, healthiest and most biodiverse coral reef and best dugong ecosystem, mother and daughter team, Moe and Kaiya Yonamine, made and sold thousands of cookies and paper cranes to raise funds to pay for flights and to stay in Okinawa.  They went to Henoko to support their elders

"This is one of the most biodiverse ocean regions on the planet and [Japanese and U.S. governments'] destruction is being done against the democratic will of the Okinawa people who voted vehemently against it," explains Moe Yonamine.

"Nonstop, our island’s people—with their bodies—are blocking construction trucks on land at sit-ins and die-ins, and—with their bodies—on kayaks, are blocking construction ships in the ocean — mostly led by hundreds of now elderly child survivors of the Battle of Okinawa," Yonamine adds.  (The air, sea, and ground fighting between Americans and Japanese in Okinawa was the bloodiest battle in their 4-year war in the Asia-Pacific.)

Kaiya Yonamine, a 17 year-old, 2nd generation Uchinanchu living in Portland, Oregon, released the trailer for her film on Earth Day.

"This documentary aims to show the fight of the elders and youth on the ground fighting to protect our ocean in Henoko and the interviews taken just weeks ago while we were there. Singing along with an old island song that I sang to her as a little girl,  and one that my grandmother sang to me, she shares  it in our indigenous language and with our indigenous instrument," Yonamine describes the beautiful song in the video trailer.

Please watch and share her trailer and HELP DISRUPT THE MEDIA SILENCE on the Sea of Henoko (not just a "less populated area in the north") but, instead, Okinawa's last intact, healthiest, most biodiverse, millennia-old coral reef, and best dugong seagrass habitat. Okinawans and their worldwide environmentalist, peace, and democracy supporters have been working for 23 years to save the Sea of Henoko.

Partial trailer transcript:

"Beautiful Sand. Proud People. Living along sparkling ocean waves. Ancient history of kings and queens. The kingdom overthrown by Japan in 1879. Violence brought upon this peaceful land during WWII.

"After the war, the U.S. put Okinawans in concentration camps while taking land to build bases. On what was left of this tiny paradise (the main island of Okinawa is 70 miles long and 7 miles wide) crammed with 32 bases, burdened with 70% of all U.S. military bases under Japan against the democratic will of the Uchinanchu people.

"Now the construction of a new base has begun. This time, in the ocean...Oura Bay is the name of the ocean that is being destroyed. This is one of the most biodiverse waters in the world bursting with life of over 5,300 species and 262 endangered species that are dependent on the sea. The Jp govt. is actively destroying this ocean. Concrete crushing coral. Using our own red soil to fill the sea. Killing our ocean.

"Kayactivists have been blocking ships. Elders have been staging sit-ins. War survivors have been blocking trucks. Raising fists. Singing island songs. Fighting for our ocean. And the media remains silent. As the destruction continues, our fight continues. We call on you to join us. And protect our ocean. Before we lose it forever."

YOU WILL FIND THE DOCUMENTARY LINK HERE ON FRIDAY, 5/31: Our Island's Treasure

Kaiya explains the urgency of her mission:

"The concrete began to be crushed in the beautiful ocean of Okinawa back in Dec..there was no media in the U.S. about it...I knew that people are fighting with their lives on the line for the ocean, for us, for all of us. So I decided I needed to take a camera and bridge us across the ocean... listening to the stories of people on the ground, I made this documentary to tell the world their story and show their fight -- our fight. The documentary is the result of interviewing Uchinanchu elders and student activists who are doing everything to protect our sacred ocean, even when the media ignores what's happening."

Okinawan American  Moe Yonamine is a teacher in Portland and a co-founder of Global Uchinanchu Alliance　グローバルうちなんちゅ同盟, which seeks to deepen connections between Overseas Okinawans and Okinawans living in their homeland (which includes the sea and all animals and plants living in the sea).

#SavetheDugong: Okinawa Dugong flags for Children's Day 2019 at Wansaka Oura Park, Okinawa

These beautiful  Okinawa Dugong flags for Children's Day at Wansaka Oura Park were made by Mr. Takuma Higashionna, who has memories of swimming with dugongs in the Sea of Henoko, and who is one of the Dugong Lawsuit plaintiffs. The federal lawsuit, initiated in 2003, is now on appeal at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The plaintiffs have challenged a plan by the  U.S. and Japanese governments to landfill not only Okinawa's last intact, healthiest, and most biodiverse coral reef, but also the Okinawa dugong's most important seagrass feeding ground, despite appeals by Okinawans and their worldwide supporters for 23 years to save the world-class natural cultural heritage ecoregion.

The Japanese government, so far, has ignored a democratic referendum that took place in February this year, in which an overwhelming majority of Okinawa voters opposed the destruction. The Okinawan people are fully supported by Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki, who succeeded Govenor Takeshi Onaga.  The late Governor Onaga won the governorship, after a campaign supported by the All-Okinawa coalition that bridged conservative and liberal political parties.  Their focus was and is shared Okinawan unity, dignity, and cultural heritage.

Peter Galvin, co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, tells us that dugongs, gentle marine mammals (salt water relatives of manatees), EW revered by native Okinawans, and celebrated as “sirens” that bring warnings of tsunamis. The dugong is listed as an natural monument of national cultural significance under Japan’s Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties. Under the U.S. National Historic Protection Act and int. law, the U.S. must avoid or mitigate any harm to places or things of cultural significance to another country.

Mr. Higashionna told Americans while at court in San Francisco that "The U.S. government must realize that the Okinawa dugong is a treasure for Okinawa and for the world.”

Dugongs (also related to elephants as well as manatees) can live for 70 years and grow to nearly 1,000 pounds. In the transparent aqua waters of  Henoko Bay, vast herds of dugongs once grazed peacefully on underwater fields of sea grass. But after decades of active U.S. military war training in the region, possibly fewer than 50 last dugongs now struggle to survive in the formerly idyllic Okinawan islands  — once dubbed the “Galápagos of the East” for its rich biodiversity. Recent surveys showed 3 dugongs living in the Sea of Henoko. Tragically, one was killed in March, and washed ashore covered with abrasions and injuries.

Every year in Okinawa (and Japanese) people display carp flags from late April to early May in celebration of children’s day, which marks the end of Golden Week, a series of holidays that start on April 29, Showa Day, the birthday of former Emperor Showa, who died in the year 1989, May 3, Constitution Day, May 4, Greenery Day and May 5, Children's Day.

30日 4月 2019
ジュゴンのぼりin わんさか大浦パーク
今年で5回目になります。手作りジュゴンのぼり、4月29日にわんさか大浦パークにあげてきました！
今年も、地域のこどもたちや名護市内の保育園のこどもたちに、絵を描いてもらいました。ありがとうございました！！
ジュゴンが大浦湾に戻ってこられますように、と願いを込めて！
かわいいジュゴンたちをぜひ見に来て下さいね！感想もよろしくお願いします。

Okinawa Dugong Lawsuit Judge asks why US govt did not consult with environmental experts and Okinawans about Landfill, Construction Impact on Okinawa Dugong Cultural Heritage

Today, the Okinawa Dugong Lawsuit Judge why the U.S. govt did not consult with environmental experts and Okinawans about loss of Henoko dugong habitat when planning landfill and offshore training airstrip construction at Okinawa's most important natural cultural heritage site:

Environmental groups told a federal judge Thursday that in order to justify forging ahead with a new military base on Okinawa, the Department of Defense did a cursory job of evaluating effects on the endangered Okinawa dugong.

Earthjustice lawyer Sarah Burt said the Pentagon did not consult native Okinawans or the Okinawa prefectural government about the base’s potential harm to dugong populations that feed in the area, or about how the loss of habitat might impact Okinawan cultural practices.

“The affected communities are the traditional communities that hold the cultural beliefs and spiritual practices surrounding the dugong and they were not consulted in this case,” Burt told U.S. District Judge Edward Chen at Thursday’s hearing to determine whether an environmental challenge to the base can move forward.

Burt said the department is required under the National Historic Preservation Act to consult with the Okinawan government and affected communities, but instead hired contractors to speak with the Japanese government and outside academics...

[Federal District Court Judge Edward] Chen first dismissed the case in 2015, ruling the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction raised political questions the court lacked the authority to hear. At the time, Chen seemed fatalistic about the base’s construction and the court’s inability to offer the plaintiffs any effective relief...

But last year, the Ninth Circuit [Court of Appeals] ruled the plaintiffs have standing to seek declaratory and injunctive relief over the base, and that neither set of claims present political questions that prohibit judicial review...

...Chen seemed open to hearing from local cultural practitioners regarding anything the Department of Defense’s finding of no adverse impact [dumping landfill over dugong feeding grounds on the critically endangered mammal's survival] might have left out or ignored.

He also asked the government why it didn’t at least give the environmental groups a notice and comment period. Surely that wouldn’t offend America’s strategic partners, he suggested.

“Is it arbitrary and capricious to not even be told about the process?” Chen asked Justice Department attorney Mark Haag.

The Mainichi's coverage, "Legitimacy of Okinawa base relocation questioned in US court," provides a summary of the history of the lawsuit (initiated in 2003), and closes with responses from Burt and Peter Galvin, co-founder of one of the American plaintiffs, Center for Biological Diversity:

Judge Chen is taking seriously his obligation to review what the Department of Defense has done," she said. "I'm hopeful that we have been able to convince him that the very purpose of the statute is informed decision making in partnership with local communities."

"I was able to make the case for the people of Okinawa and the dugong. So now we wait," she said.

Peter Galvin, director of programs at the Center for Biological Diversity, emphasized the need for a big win.

Noting that the construction has already driven the resident dugongs from the area, Galvin warned that once the landfill is placed and the seagrass and coral are covered, serious damage will be irreversible.

The Sense of Sacred: Mauna Kea, Hawai'i and Oura Bay, Okinawa

The Okinawan movement to save Henoko and the Yambaru subtropical rainforest is one aspect of a global indigenous movement calling for respect of indigenous cultural heritage, especially natural sacred sites under ongoing threat of destruction.

Indigenous peoples know that sacred sites are centers of collective spiritual and psychological power that go into the past and into the future, connecting generations. Maybe this is why sacred and cultural heritage sites have been targeted for destruction by invading powers for millennia.

In "The Sense of Sacred: Mauna Kea and Oura Bay," published at The Asia-Pacific Journal earlier this month,  Katherine Muzik  compares the similarities between the struggles to save Mauna Kea in Hawai'i and Henoko in Okinawa to introduce William B.C. Chang's analysis of the foreign settler pattern of violating indigenous religious and cultural heritage rights as well as land rights and indigenous human rights:

“Sacred is not necessarily a place. It is a relationship, a deep visceral relationship: beyond reason, beyond law, beyond rationality.”

These words were recently spoken by William B.C. Chang, a University of Hawaii Law Professor, in his impassioned testimony to the UH Board of Regents, about the current conflict on Mauna Kea here in Hawaii.

To the Hawaiians, the Mountain known as Mauna Kea, or Mauna a Wākea, on the Island of Hawaii, is a sacred place. Thus, the proposed construction of the northern hemisphere’s biggest telescope, thirty meters tall (TMT), 18 stories high, on eight acres of the mountain top, costing $1.4 billion, has recently sparked peaceful but ardent protests and occupations by Native Hawaiians, environmentalists and allies across the Pacific. With 13 telescopes already blighting the landscape, the protesters seek to prevent further desecration.

To the Okinawans, the Sea known as Oura Bay, on the Island of Okinawa, is also a sacred place. For nearly two decades, Okinawans have protested its destruction by US/Japan military expansion.

Besides being sacred and beautiful, what else do these two very distant places share? They share history, of illegal takeovers by a foreign power and the subsequent, on-going outrage among the local populations. Locals in Hawaii and Okinawa are deeply angered by the heinous and reckless environmental destruction their islands have suffered. They are frustrated by the destruction that continues, despite prolonged protests. In both cases, illegal land-grabs by the US have resulted in the waste of their natural resources and the disintegration of their cultural identities. However, being sacred, both places continue to inspire passionate and courageous struggles against foreign dominance.

The Hawaiian Islands were once a kingdom, a sovereign nation. In a series of events, the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in 1893 by a group of US and European businessmen, ending in annexation as a “Territory of the United States” in 1900. And so too, were the Ryukyu Islands, sovereign. Invaded by Satsuma forces in 1609, they were formally annexed by Japan in 1879 as “Okinawa Prefecture”. After World War 2, the US “acquired” Okinawa from Japan, establishing military bases which have remained and proliferated, destructively, for the last seventy years.

35,000+ rally in unison to protect the marine life at Henoko, Okinawa's most beloved natural cultural heritage site • Coral scientist Katherine Muzik & filmmaker Oliver Stone share messages of support • Hayao Miyazaki joins Henoko fundraising group

Via peace photojournalist Takashi Morizumi

35,000+ rallied in unison today at Naha, the capitol of Okinawa, to call for the protection the marine life at Henoko, Okinawa's most beloved natural cultural heritage site: the only dugong habitat, and last fully intact (and healthiest, most biodiverse) coral reef in the entire prefecture.

Marine biologist Katherine Musik:

The rally right now in Okinawa is absolutely tremendous. Tens of thousands of voices, right now, shouting together, "NO", in perfect harmony! "NO" to the US military presence, how powerful!

Let's all shout, "Yes" to the blue corals, red sea fans, orange clownfish, "Yes" to the endangered dugongs in the sea, the endangered birds (yambaru quina, noguchi gera) in the forest!

"No" to imperialism, "Yes" to island autonomy!

Oliver Stone's message:

You have my respect and support for your protest on May 17. I cannot be with you in person, but in spirit. Your cause is a just one.

A new mega‐base built in the name of ‘deterrence’ is a lie. Another lie told by the American Empire to further its own goal of domination throughout the world. Fight this monster. Others like you are fighting it on so many fronts throughout the globe. It is a fight for peace, sanity, and the preservation of a beautiful world.

Muzik and Stone are part of a group of international scholars, peace advocates and artists, working behind the scenes to support Okinawa. In January 2014, they issued a statement and petition given to representatives of the US and Japanese governments:

We oppose construction of a new US military base within Okinawa, and support the people of Okinawa in their struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment

We the undersigned oppose the deal made at the end of 2013 between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Governor of Okinawa Hirokazu Nakaima to deepen and extend the military colonization of Okinawa at the expense of the people and the environment. Using the lure of economic development, Mr. Abe has extracted approval from Governor Nakaima to reclaim the water off [landfill] Henoko, on the northeastern shore of Okinawa, to build a massive new U.S. Marine air base with a military port.

Plans to build the base at Henoko have been on the drawing board since the 1960s.  They were revitalized in 1996, when the sentiments against US military bases peaked following the rape of a twelve year-old Okinawan child by three U.S. servicemen. In order to pacify such sentiments, the US and Japanese governments planned to close Futenma Marine Air Base in the middle of Ginowan City and  move its functions to a new base to be constructed at Henoko, a site of extraordinary biodiversity and home to the endangered marine mammal dugong.

Marine biologist Katherine Muzik with Henoko elder community leader Fumiko Shimabukuro

Governor Nakaima’s reclamation approval does not reflect the popular will of the people of Okinawa.  Immediately before the gubernatorial election of 2010, Mr. Nakaima, who had previously accepted the new base construction plan, changed his position and called for relocation of the Futenma base outside the prefecture. He won the election by defeating a candidate who had consistently opposed the new base. Polls in recent years have shown that 70 to 90 percent of the people of Okinawa opposed the Henoko base plan. The poll conducted immediately after Nakaima’s recent reclamation approval showed that 72.4 percent of the people of Okinawa saw the governor’s decision as a “breach of his election pledge.” The reclamation approval was a betrayal of the people of Okinawa.

73.8 percent of the US military bases (those for exclusive US use) in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa, which is only .6 percent of the total land mass of Japan. 18.3 percent of the Okinawa Island is occupied by the US military. Futenma Air Base originally was built during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa by US forces in order to prepare for battles on the mainland of Japan. They simply usurped the land from local residents. The base should have been returned to its owners after the war, but the US military has retained it even though now almost seven decades have passed. Therefore, any conditional return of the base is fundamentally unjustifiable.

Oliver Stone meeting Henoko elder community leaders in 2013

The new agreement would also perpetuate the long suffering of the people of Okinawa. Invaded in the beginning of the 17th century by Japan and annexed forcefully into the Japanese nation at the end of 19th century, Okinawa was in 1944 transformed into a fortress to resist advancing US forces and thus to buy time to protect the Emperor System.  The Battle of Okinawa killed more than 100,000 local residents, about a quarter of the island’s population. After the war, more bases were built under the US military occupation. Okinawa “reverted” to Japan in 1972, but the Okinawans’ hope for the removal of the military bases was shattered. Today, people of Okinawa continue to suffer from crimes and accidents, high decibel aircraft noise and environmental pollution caused by the bases. Throughout these decades, they have suffered what the U.S. Declaration of Independence denounces as “abuses and usurpations,” including the presence of foreign “standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.”

Not unlike the 20th century U.S. Civil Rights struggle, Okinawans have non-violently pressed for the end to their military colonization. They tried to stop live-fire military drills that threatened their lives by entering the exercise zone in protest; they formed human chains around military bases to express their opposition; and about a hundred thousand people, one tenth of the population have turned out periodically for massive demonstrations. Octogenarians initiated the campaign to prevent the construction of the Henoko base with a sit-in that has been continuing for years. The prefectural assembly passed resolutions to oppose the Henoko base plan. In January 2013, leaders of all the 41 municipalities of Okinawa signed the petition to the government to remove the newly deployed MV-22 Osprey from Futenma base and to give up the plan to build a replacement base in Okinawa.

We support the people of Okinawa in their non-violent struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment. The Henoko marine base project must be canceled and Futenma returned forthwith to the people of Okinawa.

Hayao Miyazaki

Last month, anime creator Hayao Miyazaki joined a new high-profile Okinawa- and Japan-based group raising funds for to support Governor Onaga's campaign to save Henoko. The group is buying advertising space in US newspapers  to counter the dearth of media reportage on the daily protests at Henoko and the All-Okinawan Movement. The most comprehensive report on this latest was posted at the pop media site, Rocket News' "Hayao Miyazaki joins politicians and CEOs donating millions to protest U.S. military in Okinawa".

Last fall,  Miyazaki, sent a  handwritten message to a former chairman of the Okinawan Prefectural Assembly, Toshinobu Nakazato, who has been enlisting the support of famous people from across Japan to support the movement to save the coral reef and dugong habitat in Henoko and the adjacent Yambaru subtropical rainforest, both which are threatened by US military training base expansion. Miyazaki's message stated, “Demilitarization in Okinawa is essential for peace in East Asia," which is consistent with the anime director's pacifist and ecologically oriented themes.

New Face of Empire v. the Anti-War Committee of 1000: No base in Henoko, Okinawa! NO WAR 4.26 Shibuya Sound Parade & 4.27 "Protect the Peace Constitution" Action

(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)

The Anti-War Committee of 1000 (co-founded last year by Nobel Prize Laureate Kenzaburo Oe, former Okinawa Gov. Masahide Ota,and other Japanese and Okinawan social and cultural leaders) brought the ubiquitous pink Okinawa Dugong balloon to Tokyo's Shibuya district on Sunday for the No base in Henoko, Okinawa! NO WAR 4.26 Shibuya sound parade. About 1000 people attended the "NO WAR in Shibuya! Solidarity in the struggle for Okinawa" rally, which overlapped with the Rainbow Pride parade.

(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)

This is one of the many ongoing  protests in mainland Japan and Okinawa, opposing the Abe administration goal of reviving the Japanese wartime military order under US hegemony. Many onlookers see in the domestic struggle as a replay of the prewar Japanese political contest between pacifists and militarists.  And as a replay of the massive protests against the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty (ANPO) forced through the Japanese Diet by PM Abe's grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi. The main point of opposition was that it would allow U.S. military bases to remain on Japanese and Okinawan soil.

Hundreds of thousands protested passing of the

 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the US andJapan (ANPO) 

that PM Nobusuke Kishi, grandfather of PM Abe, forced through 
the Japanese Diet on May 20, 1960, at the sacrifice of his political career. 

On Monday, the Anti-War Committee of 1000 held another rally at the PM's residence to protest the Abe administration's revision of US-Japan military guidelines which call for the increased integration of the US and Japanese militaries. Approximately 800 people participated in the 4.27 action.

The US has pushed for military integration with Asian countries since the first years of the Cold War.  President Eisenhower articulated the key concept in the early 1950s: "If there must be a war there in Asia, let it be Asians against Asians."  The Nixon Doctrine announced in Guam in 1969 consolidated the US government idea of international military integration under US domination. Historian John Dower's description of the Nixon Doctrine (in "Asia and the Nixon Doctrine: The New Face of Empire," a chapter in Open Secret: The Kissinger-Nixon Doctrine in Asia, published in 1970), also describes the motivation behind the ongoing integration:

...fundamentally a cost-conscious policy, aimed at maintaining a major U.S. role in Asia at less cost in both dollars and American lives. This combination has been given the policy a racist cast perhaps best illustrated by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker's comment that [this] means changing 'the color of the corpses...

While the primary thrust of the Doctrine is military and budgetary, this thrust interlocks with important considerations concerning the future economic development of Asia...

(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)

Dower added that the US military and economic globalization strategy may be traced back to the Truman era:

...represents ittle more than the new face of American empire. It applies cosmetics to the scarred strategies of the past; here and there, where the old features of imperium have become particularly battered, there is even a bit of strategic plastic surgery. At this stage in history, after..decades of often tragic American policy in Asia, one looks for new questions, sensibilities, and committments which strike to the root of affairs...Upon close examination, it is fundamentally not even a new policy, but rather a pastiche of rhetoric and programs familiar since the early years of the cold war

(I)...containment remains the framework of miiltary strategy...and the U.S has reaffirmed its commitment to counterrevolution.

(II)The network of American bases and manpower commitments abroad is being rationalized and restructured, not reconsidered.

(III) Client armies are being developed to replace American combat troops in crusades largely defined by Washington and at costs to both Asia and the U.S. which are as yet incalculable...

(V) The possibility of the United States initiating nuclear wr in Asia has been immeasurably increased.

(VI) Economic policies remain structured in such a way that many Asian countries face  the prospect of becoming locked into permanent dependency as the neocolonies of the US...

(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)

More:

"EDITORIAL: Revised Japan-U.S. defense guidelines a dangerous departure from pacifist credo", The Asahi Shimbun, April 28, 2015: 

The guidelines for Japan-U.S. defense cooperation have been revised for the first time in 18 years.

The new guidelines, which confirm the direction of the security policies of the Japanese and the U.S. governments, call for “seamless” and “global” security cooperation between the two countries. They will accelerate the “integration” of the Self-Defense Forces with U.S. forces...

Underlying the revision is the Abe administration’s policy initiative to change the government’s traditional interpretation of the Constitution to allow Japan to exercise its right to collective self-defense. This radical shift in security policy was formally endorsed by the Cabinet’s resolution in July last year.

Proposed security legislation in line with the Cabinet decision is the focus of the current Diet session. Although the Diet has yet to start debating the legislation, the new guidelines already reflect the Cabinet decision to make it possible for Japan to use its right to collective self-defense. They also include the SDF’s overseas minesweeping operations, an issue over which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, are at odds...

"Japanese Catholic leaders voice concern over Abe administration in peace message", The Asahi Shimbun, April 28, 2015:

Dated Feb. 25, the statement read: “Seventy years after the war, memory of it is fading along with memories of Japanese colonial rule and aggression with its accompanying crimes against humanity. Now, there are calls to rewrite the history of that time, denying what really happened.

“The present government is attempting to enact laws to protect state secrets, allow for the right of collective self-defense and change Article 9 of the Constitution to allow the use of military force overseas.”

Kazuo Koda, a bishop from the archdiocese of Tokyo who was involved in drafting the document, said he and other priests were initially reluctant to argue specific policy measures. “But we became convinced that we must speak out with clarity that these are wrong,” he said.

"Oe vows to continue work of late Article 9 torchbearer Okudaira", The Asahi Shimbun, April 4, 2015:

Nobel-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe has stressed that he and others are ready and willing to carry the torch lit by the late constitutional scholar Yasuhiro Okudaira, a leading supporter of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.

Oe was one of six people who addressed a rally April 3 on the legacy of Okudaira, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo who died in January at age 85. About 900 intellectuals and activists attended the gathering in Chofu, Tokyo.

The writer said Okudaira believed that Article 9, the clause that outlaws war, has played a major role in molding the character of Japanese who grew up in the postwar period.

The Legacy of World War II in Okinawa through Discussion & Music: Panel representing Okinawa Prefecture led by MP Keiko Itokazu • Univ. of Hawai'i Manoa • April 27, 2015

Tomorrow evening a panel of women political leaders representing Okinawa Prefecture will discuss the ongoing aftereffects of World War II throughout communities in the islands.  Senator Keiko Itokazu, a member of the Japanese National Diet will lead the discussion. 

Nago City Councilwomen—Kumiko Onaga, Hideko Tamanaha, Kikue Tsuhako—will also represent Okinawa in this important meeting at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. Their visit is part of a larger outreach by Okinawa Prefecture to Hawai'i—a call for international support to stop the US-Jp military destruction of the natural cultural heritage site at Henoko and Takae. Ukwanshin Kabudan Ryukyu Performing Arts Troupe will perform. 

(Photo: MP Keiko Itokazu)

Ryukyuan cultural heritage included properties dating back to the Jomon period and the Silk Road era, when the Ryukyuan Kingdom was a major gateway between Tang China to Japan. This was almost all lost: the US-Japan ground war in Okinawa resulted in a near-genocidal civilian death toll and near-total destruction of Okinawan material cultural heritage.

Now, during the 70th anniversary of the World War II sacrifice of Okinawa, the US & Japanese governments want to force through the destruction of Henoko and Yambaru, the most important of what remains of Okinawan natural cultural heritage. The Yanbaru ecoregion includes the prefecture's most biodiverse, healthiest coral reef; only dugong habitat; and a subtropical rainforest. Two species in Yanbaru (the dugong and the Okinawa Woodpecker) are natural monuments. Shrines and shell middens at Henoko go back millennia. 

Senator Keiko Itokazu with Ukwanshin Kabudan Ryukyu Performing Arts Troupe, 

which strives to preserve the traditions of Ryukyu/Okinawa

 through education using the stage, workshops, and community programs.

The most important Okinawan value, Nuchi du Takara, means "Life, including the life of nature, is the Greatest Treasure." Yambaru is the living manifestation of this cultural value. 

Okinawans, supported by Overseas Okinawans, global environmentalists, and cultural heritage and peace activists are trying to stop this latest attempt at the military destruction of Okinawan natural cultural heritage.

For those who are not in Honolulu, Ukwanshin Kabudan Ryukyu Performing Arts Troupe will be live streaming the event from the Kamakaokalani Center for Okinawa Studies via USTREAM. Please tune in to the following link or search for ukwanshin on ustream. Those of you who can make it, please come in person to show your support!

NYC: Potluck dinner with Peace Walkers for a Nuclear-Free Future on April 24 • Global Hibakusha Workshop @Peace & Planet Mobilization for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, & Sustainable World - April 24-26. 2015

POTLUCK DINNER WITH PEACE WALKERS 

FOR A NUCLEAR-FREE FUTURE

Jun‐san Yasuda and other Peace Walkers are completing their 500-mile walk from nuclear laboratories and uranium mines to reactors across the country uniting activists who are affected on all phases of the nuclear chain.

Join them with their urgent prayer to the United Nations where the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty Review Conference is scheduled.

Let’s meet Peace Pilgrims and think about how we can create Peace from here.

Date and Time: Friday, April 24  - 6:30pm - 8:00pm

Place: Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, 1576 Palisade Ave. Fort Lee, NJ 07024

For more info, please see visit the FB page of ABLE, a human rights, environmental, and peace advocacy organization:

Guri Mehta's post, "One Earth, One Sky, entirely at peace" is a great description of Jun-san and the 2015 walk:

Jun-san Yasuda

(Photo: Guri Mehta: One Earth, One Sky, entirely at peace)

Jun-san Yasuda is a member of the Nipponzan Myohoji, an order whose mission is to walk and pray for peace.  Guri Mehta's One Earth, One Sky, entirely at peace)  post at her Wabi-Sabi blog is a great description of the Engaged Buddhist nun and the 2015 Peace Walk:

 Jun-san Yasuda, the fearless leader of this initiative is a 66-year-old Japanese Buddhist nun. She is about 4-foot-11 inches, 100 pounds, and nothing short of a force of nature. She has walked cross-country three times.

 As we pass the Aztec dancers, who were dancing on the street for another event, she ran over and joined them in the dance. Her energy rivals that of a teenager...the elder from the Aztec group came forward with white sage incense, and blessed every-single-one-of-the-walkers before we moved on. There’s something stirring about an elder from one tribe, embracing another from a completely different tradition, who lives half-way around the world from them.

Jun-san’s teacher Nichidatsu Fujii, teacher of her Buddhist order, met Gandhi in India in 1931. Fujii was greatly inspired by the meeting and decided to devote his life to promoting non-violence. In 1947, he began constructing Peace Pagodas as shrines to World peace. They were built as a symbol of peace in Japanese cities including Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the atomic bombs took the lives of over 150,000 people. By 2000, eighty Peace Pagodas had been built around the world in Europe, Asia, and the United States. They are a symbol of non-violence dating as far back as 2000 years ago, when Emperor Ashoka of India began erecting these throughout the country.

70 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and 5 years after the Fukushima disaster, Jun-san believes that we must never let such disasters happen again. Carrying this urgent prayer, she and 23 others will walk from San Francisco to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations in New York City.

Many Native Americans have been present throughout these walks. And I was initially unclear on the connection, but soon realized that many nuclear power plants have historically been built on indigenous lands not just in US, but also in Canada, Australia, South and Central America, Africa, and many others. The areas are rich in uranium, which is the fuel of these power plants...Instead of focusing on other types of energy or actually reducing our own consumption, we’re heading into something that is destroying the planet.

In these times, peaceful walks like these become a symbol of people’s voice. When nuns and monks who consciously try to live peaceful lives, leave the comfort of their monasteries and hit the streets, it’s a calling to take a close look at where we might be off...

Going back to my friends understandable concern: will this walk make an impact? A group of people peacefully walking and spreading their message, made a bigger impact on me than anything I could have ever read in the news. People that are not necessarily “against” but “for.” They’re standing for peace. They’re standing for better quality of life for all of earth’s inhabitants. They’re standing for making global decisions from a space of love and not greed. They’re standing for taking responsibility for how we treat the planet. How can I not stand with those people who are doing so much on behalf of all of us? Their very existence is making as impact.

The potluck for the Peace Walkers is one of the many supporting events for the Peace and Planet Mobilization for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World events being held in NYC (and around the world) from April 25 to 26 .

Global Hibakusha will lead a workshop at the NY event at Cooper Union Great Hall on April 25. Participants include Japan Council Against A and H Bombs (Gensuikyo): Japanese Hibakusha; Shim Jin Tae (Korean A-bomb survivor); Peter Watts (aboriginal nuclear test victim, Australia); Abacca Anjain-Maddison (Marshall Islands); Manny Pino (Acoma-Laguna Coalition for a Safe Environment). Their testimonies reveal and illuminate the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.  The 2,083 nuclear test  bombings worldwide have devastated indigenous peoples and their ancestral homelands in the American Southwest, the Asia-Pacific; the Tarim Basin in China; Kazakhstan; and India.  This personal level of consequences  is finally recognized and discussed in the mainstream debate on nuclear weapons.

World Heritage Day: Nuchi du Takara (Life—including the life of nature—is the Greatest Treasure)

Nuchi du Takara (Life—including the life of nature—is the Greatest Treasure). 

(Photo: K.M.)

Today is World Heritage Day, a day launched by UNESCO in 2005, to heighten the global public's awareness about the diversity of cultural heritage & the efforts required to conserve it, as well as draw attention to its vulnerability.

Yanbaru subtropical rainforest. (Photo: Yoshio Shimoji)

Yanbaru, the magnificent ecoregion of northern Okinawa—mountains, subtropical rainforest, rivers, wetlands, and Henoko's dugong and coral reef ecosystem—is Okinawa's most important natural heritage site. Henoko is one of the most biodiverse and beautiful coastal areas in all Japan and the Asia-Pacific. With the support of Japan's Environmental Ministry, Okinawa Prefecture nominated the ecoregion for official recognition on UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 2012.

The coral reef is the last fully intact coral reef in all of Okinawa and Japan. It is home to almost 400 types of healthy coral (including the rare, mysterious blue coral); over 1,000 species of marine life  (including the beloved dugong, an indigenous sacred icon and natural monument); hawksbill, loggerhead, and green sea turtles; crustaceans; anemone; reef fish; and sea grass.  

Henoko's magnificent dugong and coral reef habitat.

Okinawan traditional heritage is inseparable from the natural world: the Okinawa dugong is an indigenous sacred icon. The shell middens on Cape Henoko go back thousands of years and people still observe traditional shrine rites preserved in this district from ancient times. Therefore, Yanbaru meets multiple requirements for UNESCO World Heritage status. It "bears a unique testimony to a cultural tradition which is living." The area is an "outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture, or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change."

Sea Turtle and Okinawa Dugong, a  sacred cultural icon and protected natural monument. 

Photo courtesy: Takuma Higashionna

The international community, from marine scientists to environmentalists to indigenous cultural and historic preservation advocates, have supported locals and Okinawans for 20 years in efforts to protecting this invaluable world natural cultural heritage because the world recognizes its universal value and importance.

Urgent Appeal by Nobel Prize Laureate OE Kenzaburo and 20 other leading Japanese intellectuals calling for the immediate suspension of construction of the US military base at Henoko, Okinawa.

Photo: Nobelprize.org

Urgent Appeal by Nobel Prize Laureate OE Kenzaburo and 20 other leading Japanese intellectuals calling for the immediate suspension of construction of the US military base at Henoko, Okinawa.

We are deeply concerned about issues surrounding the construction of an American military base in Henoko, Okinawa. The will of the people of Okinawa prefecture is beyond doubt. INAMINE Susumu, who opposed construction of the military base in his election manifesto, was reelected mayor of Nago City in an election held in January 2014. In the November election of the prefectural governor, ONAGA Takeshi, who also opposed construction, defeated the incumbent NAKAIMA Hirokazu by an overwhelming 100,000 votes; and in the general election held in December, anti-construction candidates won every seat. The fierce determination of the people of Okinawa prefecture to oppose construction of the American military base at Henoko has been demonstrated by “all Okinawa” in a way that transcends ideology and creed, politics and party affiliation.

The Abe government, nevertheless, is aggressively pressing ahead with land reclamation, using as justification the Public Waters Reclamation Accord signed by the previous governor Nakaima, who late in 2013 reneged on his election manifesto. The outrageous conduct of the national government is an act of violence that insults the will of the Okinawan people and destroys the foundation of democracy and regional autonomy in Japan.

The new governor has decided to establish an “Independent Committee on Procedures Involved in the Public Waters Reclamation Accord with Regard to the Construction of a Replacement Facility for the Futenma Airfield” (henceforth “Independent Committee”) to begin investigating whether there were any legal irregularities in the procedures undertaken by the previous governor NAKAIMA Hirokazu in concluding the Public Waters Reclamation Accord. In other words, there is a real possibility that the legitimacy of the reclamation accord, or the environmental assessment upon which it rests, may be stripped away. For the government of a purportedly democratic nation, the obvious course of action should be to suspend landfill operations at least during the period of investigation.

Governor Onaga announced a new decision on March 23. He ordered the Okinawa Defense Bureau to halt all operations, including boring exploration. In the event that his order is not carried out, he is considering rescinding the permit allowing coral reef shattering along the Henoko coast. If the government continues to insist on aggressively pushing ahead with construction, we fear not only a serious confrontation with the people of Okinawa prefecture and the fomenting of mistrust toward the mainland, but also the collapse of trust toward the nation of Japan inside the country and abroad.

We hereby declare our support for Governor Onaga’s position rejecting base relocation and our full support for his decisions pertaining to the order to suspend operations and to rescind the permit allowing reef shattering. We urgently call upon the government to heed the following requests:

The Japanese government should immediately suspend all operations relating to Henoko land reclamation [landfill], including boring exploration of the sea floor. The “Land Reclamation Accord” concluded by former Governor Nakaima, which the government uses as the basis for such operations, has been repudiated by the people of Okinawa prefecture.

Recently, the Japanese government has refused even to meet with Governor Onaga who represents the collective will of Okinawa. Such refusal repudiates regional autonomy guaranteed under the Japanese constitution and violates the spirit of democracy. Respect for the will of the people forms the basis of democracy. The government should accede in good faith to Governor Onaga’s request for a meeting and participate in serious talks about the issues at hand.

We call upon the Japanese government to put into practice its own slogan of “Regional Creation” by transferring to Okinawa Prefecture the actual authority to resolve issues connected to military bases and the construction of an autonomous economy.

The Minister for the Environment has a responsibility to provide appropriate commentary from a standpoint of environmental conservation with regard to the contents of the Environmental Impact Evaluation Report on reclamation operations for the construction of the American military base at Henoko. According to the Environmental Conservation Guidelines for the Island of Okinawa, Henoko and surrounding coastal regions in particular, designated as “zones for evaluating the strict preservation of the natural environment” (Rank 1), are precious bodies of water inhabited by numerous endangered species, not least of which is the Dugong. There is an extremely high risk that the artificial destruction and modification of natural formations will bring about absolute irreversible damage from which the island cannot recover. We urgently call upon the Minister for the Environment to carry out the solemn duty of preserving the beautiful Okinawan sea, a candidate for selection as a World Heritage Site.

Frustration and anger at a situation in which 74% of US military bases are forced onto Okinawa, which comprises only 0.6% of Japanese territory, underlie the determination of the people of Okinawa prefecture to oppose the construction of a new base at Henoko. We call upon Japanese citizens to squarely face this situation, which may be said to be a form of structural discrimination; and urge that all Japan should include this burden in considering issues of Japanese security.

April 1, 2015

(Translated by Charles Cabell. List of petitioners omitted.)

The Targeted Village, A Documentary by Chie Mikami April 4 @ 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm, Santa Cruz, CA

In Okinawa, the people of Takae village are convicted by the Japanese government for obstructing traffic in the struggle for the recognition of their human rights, property rights, dignity, and desire for the preservation of Yanbaru, the subtropical rainforest in northern Okinawa.

The obstruction was part of their struggle against the construction of new helipads for low-level flight training of MV-Osprey transport aircraft in the rainforest, a World Natural Heritage site candidate. The story of the people of Takae embodies U.S. military seizures of private and public property dating back to the 1950s; use of villagers for mock target practice during the Vietnam War; and the blocking of gates to the Futenma base during a historic protest in the fall of 2012, against hazardous V-22 Osprey low-level flight training in Okinawa.

The film will be followed by a Q and A and Discussion with UCSC Professor Alan Christy and Doctoral Student Yoko Fukumura.

Suggested Donation: $5-$10, no one is turned away.

Sponsors: The Targeted Village Showing Steering Committee in California, the Resource Center for Nonviolence, and the UCSC Department of History

Website: http://rcnv.org

Plaintiffs argue historic case to save dugongs & preserve Okinawan cultural heritage - first hearing in San Francisco federal court on Friday, Dec. 12, 2014

Ryukyu Postal’s stamp to commemorate the dugong's designation as a natural monument in 1966 

(courtesy of Save the Dugong Campaign Center)

American, Okinawan and Japanese conservation groups argued their historic case today, Friday, Dec. 12, 2014, in U.S. federal court, seeking to halt construction of a U.S. military port and airstrip at a biodiverse coral reef and dugong habitat in northern Okinawa. The planned U.S. training base expansion would destroy Okinawa's best coral reef and pave over some of the last remaining habitat for critically endangered Okinawa dugongs, ancient cultural icons for the Okinawan people and marine mammals related to manatees. The dugong is listed as an object of national cultural significance under Japan’s Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, the equivalent of the U.S. National Historic Protection Act.

Via The Center for Biological Diversity and Earthjustice:

This is the first hearing in a historic lawsuit brought by American and Japanese conservation groups under a provision of the National Historic Preservation Act that requires the United States to avoid or mitigate any harm to places or things of cultural significance to another country. The Japanese Ministry of the Environment has listed dugongs as “critically endangered,” and the animals are also on the U.S. endangered species list. In 1997 it was estimated that there may have been as few as 50 Okinawa dugongs left in the world; more recent surveys have only been able to conclude that at least three dugongs remain in Okinawa.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, is the latest in a long-running controversy over the expansion of a U.S. Marine air base at Okinawa’s Henoko Bay. Preliminary construction [survey drilling] on the base began earlier this year.

Earthjustice, on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation, Save The Dugong Foundation, Anna Shimabukuro, Takuma Higashionna, and Yoshikazu Makishi, is arguing today that the court should review the U.S. Department of Defense’s flawed efforts to examine the harm the expansion will cause for the Okinawa dugong, and stop the Department of Defense from allowing construction of the new airstrip until it has made meaningful attempts to avoid or mitigate that harm.

“Our folktales tell us that gods from Niraikanai [afar] come to our islands riding on the backs of dugongs and the dugongs ensure the abundance of food from the sea,” said Takuma Higashionna, an Okinawan scuba-diving guide who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “Today, leaving their feeding trails in the construction site, I believe, our dugongs are warning us that this sea will no longer provide us with such abundance if the base is constructed. The U.S. government must realize that the Okinawa dugong is a treasure for Okinawa and for the world.”

“The law requires that the Defense Department cannot allow this military base expansion project to go forward until it has made efforts to understand and minimize its effects on the dugong,” said Earthjustice attorney Sarah Burt. “When another country’s culture, heritage and revered endangered species are at stake, the U.S. must at the very least follow the law.”

“Okinawa dugongs can only live in shallow waters and are at high risk of going extinct. These gentle animals are adored by both locals and tourists. Paving over some of the last places they survive will not only likely be a death sentence for them, it will be a deep cultural loss for the Okinawan people,” said Peter Galvin, director of programs at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Background: In July conservation groups filed a lawsuit, supplemental to a 2003 suit, seeking to require the U.S. Department of Defense to stop construction activities on the new U.S. Marine base airstrip at Henoko Bay until it conducts an in-depth analysis aimed at avoiding or mitigating harm the expansion will cause for the Okinawa dugong.

The Japanese Ministry of the Environment lists dugongs as “critically endangered,” and the animals are also on the U.S. endangered species list. In 1997 it was estimated that there might be as few as 50 Okinawa dugongs left in the world; more recent surveys have only been able to conclude that at least three dugongs remain in Okinawa.

Although the Defense Department acknowledges that this information is “not sufficient,” and despite the precariously low dugong population even under the most conservative estimates, the Defense Department has authorized construction of the new base.

Five years ago, more than 400 environmental conservation, animal protection, peace and justice groups, led by the Center for Biological Diversity, asked President Obama to cancel the planned landfill and base construction at the Okinawan dugong habitat.

At the time, the US government announced that it would reconsider plan in light of the massive local and worldwide opposition to the project. In 2008, the US federal court
found the US Dept of Defense in violation of the National Historic Preservation Act. The court required the DoD to meet with plaintiffs and negotiate on the issue of mitigating harm to dugongs. This did not happen, hence this year's new lawsuit, which was filed July 31, 2014,  in the same court on behalf of the original Dugong Lawsuit plaintiffs.

The waters off Henoko, Okinawa are the last remaining northernmost home of the dugong. In 1955, the dugong was designated as a protected cultural monument by the then autonomous Ryukyu Prefecture, because of its status as a revered and sacred animal among native Okinawans. Since 1972, the species has also been listed by Japan's federal government as a "natural monument" under the country's Cultural Properties Protection Law. It is also protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

-JD

MP Keiko Itokazu representing Okinawa at the Indigenous World Conference starting today at the UN headquarters in New York

(Photo: MP Keiko Itokazu)

Upper House Member of the Japanese Diet, Ms. Keiko Itokazu, is representing Okinawa at the Indigenous World Conference starting today at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Indigenous peoples around the world have gathered. Mr. Shisei Toma, of the Association of Indigenous Peoples in the Ryukyus, is also in attendance.

Groups and individuals for peace, including Okinawan Americans and Japanese Americans who live in the NYC area, are supporting the Okinawan delegation's appeal to the U.N. community regarding human rights violations under ongoing forced US military expansion in Henoko and Takae.

The traditional local cultures and histories of Okinawa are deeply intertwined with the islands' distinctive ecosystems. Indigenous sacred places called utaki are situated in forest groves. Many have been destroyed or are now within US military bases built on land forcibly acquired in the aftermath of the Pacific War and during the 1950's "Bayonets and Bulldozers" period of military seizures of private property for base expansion. The Sea of Henoko is also considered sacred because it is the habitat of the Okinawa dugong, a sacred cultural icon, and because of the magnificence and abundant biodiversity of sea's coral reef.

Coral reefs have been an traditional part of Okinawan (and other Pacific Island) cultures for many centuries. However, most of the coral reefs on Okinawa Island are now dead, because of landfill, pollution, and coastal construction. Marine biologists say the coral reef at Henoko and Oura Bay is the best and most biodiverse coral reef in all of Okinawa prefecture. Okinawans are seeking to establish a marine protected area in Henoko to preserve the dugong and coral reef habitat and interconnected rivers, mangrove forests in this beautiful eco-region.

Follow-up: 

On Tuesday, September 22, Ms. Itokazu spoke on the "fulfillment of the rights of indigenous peoples at the national level and regional level" at the conference. She described forced new military base construction, adding that, in spite of the strong opposition of Uchinanchu (the indigenous people of Okinawa), the state is continuing to force the military base construction. Ms. Itokazu's conclusion: Uchinanchu are being deprived of the right of self-determination, contrary to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

(Photo: MP Keiko Itokazu)

(Photo: MP Keiko Itokazu)

Okinawa Times: Video of coral, anemone, clown fish, sea urchins at the Sea of Henoko - the most biodiverse & best coral reef in Okinawa...

Okinawa Times video of coral, anemone, clown fish, sea urchins, & more marine life at the Sea of Henoko - the most biodiverse and best coral reef in Okinawa and one of the few coral reefs still alive at Okinawa Island. Most of Okinawa Island's coral reefs are dead from landfill, pollution, and/or disease.

The Sea of Henoko is also the principal and best feeding grounds for the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, a cultural icon.

Struggle for the Soul of Okinawa: "I saw so many military boats in the sea around 7 a.m. It reminds me of 1945."

Henoko on August 14, 2014. (Photo: Chie Mikami on FB)

Film director Chie Mikami on August 14, 2014, on location at Henoko : "I saw so many military boats in the sea around 7a.m. It reminds me of the history of Okinawa, year: 1945."

Today the Japanese government sent a military flotilla to Henoko, Okinawa, to put up buoys and patrol an "exclusion zone" in their plan to force drilling, dredging, landfill, and construction of a US military base at the the Sea of Henoko.  Observers said there were so many vessels, they were uncountable.

Japanese military flotilla surrounds the Sea of Henoko - August 2014. (Image: Ryukyu Shimpo)

US amphibious assault on Okinawa in 1945. 

Local residents have been protested and staved off repeated attempts military base construction at the dugong habitat and coral reef—the most biodiverse and best in Okinawa—since 1962. The current struggle has been ongoing for 18 years.

They are led by the Henoko elders, child survivors of the Battle of Okinawa, the Pacific War's worst battle, and the only battle fought on Japanese territory.  In 1997, they created the “Inochi o Mamoru Kai” (Society for the Protection of Life) to oppose the destruction of the Henoko Sea, which fed them during the Battle of Okinawa, when there were no other food sources. The dugong and the sea both reflect and symbolize the Okinawan core value of Nuchi du Takara: the sanctity of life and the right to life for nature that nurtures life, and human right to live in peace.

85-year-old Fumiko Shimabukuro speaks at a June 28 rally at the Henoko Tent City sit-in. 

During the Battle of Okinawa, she suffered burns from American flamethrowers 

while hiding in a small cave with members of her family and three other families. 

Mrs. Shibakukuro joined the Tent City sit-in on the beach in 1996, when the plan was first announced.

 Mrs. Shimabukuro told the media in Dec. 2013, “This (approval) is not the end. As long as I am alive, 

I will continue to fight the government’s plans." (Photo: New Wave to HOPE)]

The islands have only been a part of Japan only since the late 1800s, when the Meiji government seized the Ryukyu Kingdom and renamed it Okinawa Prefecture. At the end of the Pacific War, knowing defeat was inevitable, the Japanese militarist government used Okinawa as a sacrificial pawn in a battle of attrition against the U.S. The fighting destroyed all the material culture on Okinawa Island and killed around 140,000 Okinawans, one third of the Okinawan population. After the San Francisco Peace Treaty and the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty were signed in 1951, Okinawa Prefecture was under U.S. military rule until 1972.  While Okinawa constitutes only 0.6 percent of Japan's land area, more than 70 percent of U.S. military bases in Japan were built there. Even after reversion to Japanese rule, the military bases remained.

Okinawans are comparing the forced expansion at Henoko not only to 1945, but also to the traumatic "Bayonets and Bulldozers" period of the 1950's, when the US military used coercion and violence to seize entire villages, the best farmland, the best coastland, utaki (sacred sites), and ancestral tombs throughout Okinawa prefecture to make way for  base expansion. Both Futenma in the middle of Ginowan City and Camp Schwab next to Henoko were built on forcibly acquired Okinawan private property.

This was also the period that the all-Okinawan nonviolent movement began. 250,000 rallied on June 30,1956 in Naha and Koza (Okinawa City). The Japanese and international media covered the struggle, generating global attention. The then president of the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the US Army asking it to halt land seizures and related human rights violations. Most of this history has been buried outside of Okinawa. However the Battle of Okinawa and "Bayonets and Bulldozers" remain a living part of the present for Okinawans who see the ongoing struggles as not new "anti-base" protests, but, instead, part of the latest chapter in a seventy-year struggle for property rights, human rights, environmental protection, democracy and peace in the islands of Okinawa.

Okinawan women protest US military seizure of their homes and land in Isahama (Ginowan) in July 1955.
Between 1954 and 1955, the US military forced owners from their property Isahama, 
to make way for the construction of Camp Zukeran, a training base and launchpad for the US war in Vietnam. 
(Photo: Okinawa Prefectural Government)).

In 1957, the US Army constructed Camp Schwab on land acquired by coercion that the Japanese government "leases" for the US  from local owners. The 5,000-acre base is used for live-fire and amphibious assault training, and the 300-acre Henoko ordnance depot, stores ammunition for most of the U.S. Pacific command.

In 1962, the US government began bombing the coral reef to build a military port. This blasts killed large numbers of fish and marine life.  Local resistance halted the destruction then (and again in 2004, the last time the Japanese government attempted a forced construction).

During the US military build-up in Okinawa during the Vietnam War, outsider organized crime gangs came to Henoko to open more bars and brothels. Members of the military trafficked drugs from Southeast Asia and sold military property in the black market. There were two discrete worlds in Henoko: the traditional fishing and farming village and a foreign wartime military subculture, serviced by a seedy, parasitic organized criminal subculture. Locals don't want to see the latter resurrected again, which would happen if the base construction continues.

Okinawan author Tatsuhiro Oshiro has written about Okinawa as a "sacrifice zone" where state power imposes sacrifice upon the weak.  In 2011, Oshiro published Futenma yo (To Futenma), a book of short stories that explores the human consequences of governmental abuses of power. In the first story, Oshiro addresses the history of Futenma through a family whose home and land was taken to expand the training base. The story ends with the heroine continuing to perform a traditional Ryukyu dance although the musical accompaniment is drowned out by the noise from U.S. aircraft training. Her determination symbolizes local Okinawan culture that refuses to be defeated by the heavy oppression of military bases. Oshiro explains. "My intention was to write about the identity of the Okinawan people who want to weave our history together and regain the land that's steeped with memories."

Oshiro's story also reflects the roots of the fierce struggle over Henoko, which may be viewed as an ongoing chapter of a continuation of the post-1945 struggle of Okinawans, a traditionally pacifist people, for recovery of local determination of their land and society.  Postwar U.S. military rule followed the Imperial Japanese pattern of using force to impose a militarist culture upon the islands.

Okinawans are fighting for their soul at Henoko, a place steeped in what little of traditional Okinawan culture survived: the living sea and the living Okinawa dugong, a cherished, sacred icon. After the Pacific War's destruction of almost all material culture, all that was left was the natural environment and intangible culture. The dugong and the sea, symbols Nuchi du Takara, the sanctity of life and the right to life for nature that nurtures life, and human right to live in peace are cultural forms of the Okinawan message to the world for 70 years, their dedicated witness for Nuchi du Takara was borne out of the wartime devastation they suffered because of a Japanese war with the United States.

Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Okinawa has become a focus for the study of peace because of the Battle of Okinawa, and  because Okinawans continue to appeal for relief from U.S. military bases and US military expansion in their prefecture. Former Governor (1990-1998) Masahide Ota, a child survivor of the battle, created  Okinawa International Peace Research Institute to study war and peace,  to introduce traditional Okinawa peace culture to the world, to lead Okinawa's transformation to an "island of peace," and build a global peace network, and to promote positive peace, peace education, and a peace economy.

Upper House Member of Parliament, Ms. Keiko Itokazu, 

protesting the Japanese government's installation of buoys to create an exclusion zone 

for drilling into and landfilling over live coral and dugong habitat at the Sea of Henoko.

(Photo: Ms. Keiko Itokazu on FB) 

Henoko residents had been supported by an all-Okinawa political coalition until late last year, when under claimed duress by the Japanese government, the current governor broke his 2010 campaign promise to protect Henoko, and signed an approval for landfill that was predicated on environmental protection information certified by engineers, not marine biologists or ecologists.

However, this summer the movement regrouped at the "All-Okinawa Conference" held in Ginowan City on July 27, to an overflowing crowd, under the banner:  “Stop the Enforced Henoko Works - Okinawa United in Resolve."  Takazato Suzuyo, who has long been involved in the movement for human rights and against base and military-related violence against women, issued a call, “At this gathering of people from all over Okinawa let us affirm our determination to really stop Henoko!”The conference resolution concluded:

We reject any future for Okinawa that would continue to be dominated by the bases. It is our duty to pass on to our children an Okinawan future full of hope and we have every right to build freely and with our own hands a truly Okinawan caring society.

July 27 "All-Okinawa" conference in Ginowan City. (Photo: Ken Shindo on FB)

Henoko residents have also been long supported by global peace, democracy, faith-based, and especially environmental advocates who repeatedly praise the wetlands, mangrove forests, rivers that make up the unique and delicate biodiversity of the Sea of Henoko's ecoregion. Its coral reef, the best in Okinawa, is renowned among marine biologists for its vitality and unique species. Most of the coral reefs at Okinawa Island are dead from landfill, pollution, and disease. The Sea of Henoko also has the largest and best seagrass beds, thus habitat, for the Okinawan dugong. The adjacent Sea of Kayo also has seagrass beds, but they're small, and planned landfill and base construction would degrade and eventually destroy them.

 

The dugong, a sacred icon, is of great cultural and historical significance in Okinawa.

(Image: Ryukyu Postal’s stamp to commemorate the Okinawa dugong's designation 

as a natural monument in 1966 (Via Save the Dugong Campaign Center)

In 1955, the Okinawa dugong, a revered and sacred animal for native Okinawans, was designated as a protected cultural monument by the autonomous Ryukyu Prefecture. Since 1972, the species has also been listed by Japan's federal government as a "natural monument" under the country's Cultural Properties Protection Law. It is also protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Because of the historical and cultural importance of the critically endangered dugong, In 2004, the American environmental law firm, Earthjustice, on behalf of Okinawan, Japanese, U.S. environment protection groups, and Okinawan residents filed a federal lawsuit , the "Okinawa Dugong versus Rumsfeld," in San Francisco, asking for protections for the dugong, under the National Historic Preservation Act. The case  is still open; a 2008 ruling required the defendants to negotiate with the plaintiffs regarding environmental issues and protection of dugong habitat. The plaintiffs are still waiting for this discussion. Therefore on July 31, Earthjustice filed a new lawsuit in the same court,  asking the US government to halt construction plans.

Background: 

"Okinawa’s “Darkest Year: The Battle of Okinawa, 2014," Gavan McCormack, The Asia-Pacific Journal, August 18, 2014.

“All-Okinawa Conference” Formed at Meeting of Over 2,000 People," Urashima Etsuko, The Asia-Pacific Journal, August 18, 2014.

”Assault on the Sea: A 50-Year U.S. Plan to Build a Military Port on Oura Bay, Okinawa,” Satoko Norimatsu, The Asia-Pacific Journal, July 5, 2010.

"Dugong Swimming in Uncharted Waters: US Judicial Intervention to Protect Okinawa's"Natural  Monument” and Halt Base Construction,"Hideki Yoshikawa, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Feb. 7, 2009.

” A message from Save Life Society, society for protection of all lives and livelihoods, Henoko, Okinawa, Japan,” June 26, 2008.

“Okinawan Dilemmas: Coral Islands or Concrete Islands,” Gavan McCormack, JPRI Working Paper No. 45: April 1998.