Ainu and Okinawan Human Rights- United Nations Forum on indigenous issues

The tenth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues convened at the United Nations Headquarters, New York from the 16th to 27th of May. Shimin Gaikou Centre (Citizens' Diplomatic Centre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) vice president, Makiko Kimura, on behalf of her organization, Asia Indigenous Peoples’ Pact, Forest Peoples’ Programme, Citizens' Network for Biological Diversity in Okinawa, No Helipad Takae Resident Society, and Mo-pet Sanctuary Network, submitted a collective statement to the forum.

These organizations urge the Japanese government to fully realize the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and address human rights violations against the Ainu and Okinawan communities. Japan ratified UNDRIP in 2007, and subsequently recognized the Ainu people as the indigenous people of Japan, but does not recognize the indigeneity of the Okinawan people despite UN recommendations.

The report addresses how the government of Japan has violated Articles 29 and 32 of UNDRIP by authorizing projects which affect the lands and/or resources of indigenous peoples (including Okinawans) without "free, prior and informed consent" of the indigenous inhabitants. The report highlights a proposed industrial waste facility project in Monbetsu, Hokkaido, and the (de)construction which will result from the proposal of a new U.S. military base and helipads in Okinawa. The organizations request the direct intervention of the Special Rapporteur to the forum to halt further construction and ensure the establishment of a system by which the Ainu and Okinawans must provide free, prior, and informed consent before such projects are authorized.

Monbetsu City is the site of a sacred river for the Ainu people. Its original name in the Ainu language is Mo-pet, meaning "quiet river." Ainu have sustained themselves from this river and surrounding lands for thousands of years.

"The river used to be naturally winding, with deep pools..the fish breeds naturally here. Once the waste facilities are built and operated, it could bring fatal effects to the wild salmon's habitat."

Despite the historical and intimate relationship between the river and Ainu people, Hokkaido Prefecture, without any consultation with local inhabitants, approved the construction of a dumping site in this natural sanctuary:

First, regarding the Ainu people, the city government of Monbetsu, a municipality in Hokkaido Prefecture (traditional Ainu territory), authorized a plan to build an Industrial Waste Dumping Site near the Monbetsu river on February 26th, 2010. The Monbetsu River is one of the most important places for the co-existence between the Ainu culture and the natural environment, and an important site for autumnal salmon spawning in the Monbetsu area. A traditional ceremony (Kamui Cep Nomi) to thank the deities for providing the Ainu with lots of salmons was revived in 2002, and the ceremony is conducted every autumn by the local Ainu community.

Prior to the authorization, the local Ainu community in Monbetsu, working in collaboration with local Japanese groups supporting environmental conservation, demanded that the city government respect the UNDRIP including land, cultural and environmental rights and the principle of "Free, Prior and Informed Consent" (FPIC) and review the plan from the indigenous peoples’ perspective. However, the city government, unfortunately, has not given any consideration to the Ainu rights and has now authorized this project. As a result, the construction work has been already started, and the local Ainu people have sent application to the Prefectural Pollution Examination Commission (PPEC) to look into the matter.

In 2010, 56 indigenous organizations and 25 supporting NGO and NPOs joined together to gather signatures to a petition calling on Hokkaido prefecture to halt construction plans. One of the petition's signatories, the Ainu Art Project, is producing an animated film entitled The Fox of Shichigoro Stream that describes industrial waste facilities's destructiveness near Hakodate, in southern Hokkaido.

The report also urges the Japanese government to abrogate its proposal to construct a U.S. military base in Henoko and Oura Bay, the ecologically fragile habitat of the Okinawan dugong, and six new helipads in Takae.

Second, regarding the Ryukyuan/Okinawan people, the Government of Japan has not implemented the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which call on the government to recognize Ryukyuan/Okinawan people as an indigenous people. As a result, as reported by UN Special Rapporteur Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Doudou Diene, the heavy presence of the U.S. military bases in Okinawa remains as a form of discrimination against the people of Okinawa. At present, two new military base construction proposalss are being carried out under the agreement between the governments of Japan and the U.S., despite the longtime opposition from local indigenous peoples’ communities.

One massive U.S. military base is being constructed in Henoko and Oura Bay. While the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB) expressed its concerns about this plan in the closing statement of the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP10) in Nagoya in 2010, the Government of Japan has ignored the concerns raised in the statement and is proceeding with the plan. Another military base, six new helipads, is being constructed in Yambaru forest, Takae district of the Okinawa island. In response to their protest, the Okinawa Defense Bureau, the local agency of the Government of Japan, has filed Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation (SLAPP) against local indigenous community members.

The SLAPP was filed against the sit-in demonstrators at Takae. SLAPPs are gaining currency by Japanese corporations and governmental bodies. They seek to pressure defendants into acquiescence by overburdening them with the cost of legal defense, not only infringing on human rights, but also intimidating citizens into silence. Chugoku Electric Power Company has also filed a SLAPP against those protesting against the Kaminoseki nuclear plant.

The report recommends the following:

1. We recommend the Government of Japan shall establish national and local systems in conjunction with indigenous peoples to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, in accordance with the UNDRIP.

2. We recommend that the City Government of Monbetsu shall respect Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the local Ainu community concerned, and to reconsider the authorization of the Industrial Waste Dumping Site.

3. We recommend that the Governments of Japan and the U.S. immediately stop the construction of the military bases in Henoko and Oura bay, as well as helipads in Takae and review these proposals.

4. We request the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people shall use his good office to directly intervene in the Government of Japan regarding the construction of the Industrial Waste Dumping Site in Monbetsu city, Hokkaido Prefecture, and the construction of military bases in Henoko and Oura bay and helipads in Takae, Okinawa Prefecture.

Although the Japanese government recognizes the Ainu as indigenous people, this is in name only. Ainu are not guaranteed rights stipulated by UNDRIP. Therefore, Ainu experience rights infringements not only in Monbetsu, but also in Biratori where the government is planning to build another dam upsteam from the defunct Nibutani Dam and in Asahikawa where issues still remain over land promised to the Ainu by law. Furthermore, Hokkaido University refuses to return Ainu remains stolen from gravesites; the Tokyo Ainu have been repeatedly denied the right to build an Ainu community facility in Tokyo; and the Japanese government ignores requests to honor the right for the Ainu to control their own education.

Unless Okinawans are recognized as indigenous people by Japan, it is uncertain whether UNDRIP can be used as a tool to liberate them from the imposition of U.S. military bases. Competing viewpoints among Okinawans complicate this situation: many do not wish to be considered indigenous in the UNDRIP sense. However, growing solidarity in the international indigenous movement support the Ainu and Okinawan struggles and ensure that human and indigenous rights laws will continue to develop in Japan in keeping with global trends.

- Posted by Jen Teeter

Disaster relief is not a good excuse for destroying eco-systems in Okinawa for another U.S. base

It's strange some people think U.S. assistance in bringing water and food to victims of Japan's natural and nuclear disasters is an argument to build yet another U.S. military base in Okinawa.

Destroying Oura Bay, the last habitat of the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, to build a mega-base, and cutting down old-growth trees in biodiverse Yanbaru, one of the last surviving subtropical rainforests in Asia, to build V-22 Osprey helipads for U.S. jungle training is the last thing Japan needs right now. The archipelago already has 100 U.S. military bases and facilities, including 30 on 20% of Okinawa.

After the earthquake and tsunami destruction of the beautiful Tohoku coastline and the ongoing irradiation of idyllic rural areas, Japan does not need (nor did it ever need) further environmental devastation by the U.S. military in Okinawa. It's long past time for the Tokyo and Washington to honor Okinawan democratically expressed choice to protect the exquisite eco-systems and peaceful villages in northern Okinawa.

CNN's Eve Bower wrote this on the day after 3/11. She describes continued Okinawan efforts to save Henoko Village, Oura Bay, Takae Village, and Yanbaru Forest from unwanted and unneeded destruction by the U.S. military. "Earthquake response doesn't shake Okinawans' opposition to U.S. bases:"

Every morning at 7:30, Hiroshi Ashitomi trudges up sand-dusted steps, pries open a metal folding chair, and joins a handful of his fellow retirees under a plastic tent, facing seaward. They are staging a protest.

Their "sit-ins" are in opposition to a perceived threat that many of his neighbors also fear: the planned expansion of a U.S. military base on Okinawa's east-facing Henoko Bay.

On Saturday, however, both the routines of Ashitomi and of the U.S. military were upset. And even though the reason for that disruption -- a devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami -- demonstrated the advantage of having U.S. bases, Ashitomi and others say they will not alter their efforts to get the U.S. military off the island...

In an interview with CNN Saturday, Susumu Inamine, mayor of the city of Nago on Okinawa, pointed out that he was elected on a platform of "no new construction of U.S. facilities" on the island. He also recited a litany of statistics that many in Okinawa have committed to memory: 75% of all U.S. bases in Japan are on Okinawa, an island that makes up less than 1% of Japan's territory; and 20% of the land on the island is already taken by U.S. bases.

Inamine said his constituents feel that the Japanese central government requires a disproportionate "burden" of Okinawans, relative to residents of other parts of Japan. He wants some of the U.S. presence currently on his island to be relocated to another Japanese island.

Read Bower's entire article here.

Hardliner Japanese Foreign Minister Maehara resigns • Temporary Reprieve for Takae Village & Yanbaru Forest

Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara has resigned because his acceptance of illegal South Korean donations has come to light. A hardliner who inflamed instead of calmed foreign policy incidents during his tenure, Maehara pushed for the construction of a U.S. mega-base in Henoko.

On a very welcome note, the villagers of Takae, Okinawan environmentalists, the wildlife and trees, (and the ill-paid construction workers caught in the middle of of the Japanese government's forced construction in Yanbaru Forest) have an uneasy and much-needed reprieve for the next couple of months. Tokyo has stopped heavy equipment construction in the forest because of the start of the reproductive season of the critically endangered Okinawa Woodpecker.

Yoshio Shimoji: An Okinawan's Perception of Henoko & Yanbaru Forest

An Okinawan perception of the beautiful coastal waters off Henoko and Yanbaru Forest, both rich biodiverse habitats that are home to critically endangered species. Photos: Yoshio Shimoji

Mr. Shimoji's "Futenma is not the only problem" was published at The Japan Times on Feb. 20.

Yoshio Shimoji: Takae's helipad issue — Criticizing Sen. Inouye

VOICE OF OKINAWA
Takae's helipad issue — Criticizing Sen. Inouye

Yoshio Shimoji
Naha, Okinawa

Futenma is not the only base issue anguishing Okinawa these days. There's a village called Takae in northern Okinawa and the problem facing Takae is that, in return for an unused portion of the U.S. Marine Corps Northern Training Area, Tokyo agreed with Washington to construct six helipads (diameter: 75 meters each) for the U.S. Marines' V-22 Ospreys in the lush forests surrounding the village.

The helipad construction is apparently interconnected with the planned relocation of the Futenma air station to Henoko, located also in northern Okinawa. The noise pollution caused by the Ospreys is said to be beyond human forbearance as the storm of protest showed lodged against the Marines on January 27 by the citizens of Brewton, Alabama, for the maneuvering of the Ospreys at the city’s airport.

Takae's lush forest where Tokyo wants to construct of six helipads (diameter of 75 meters each) for U.S. military V-22 Ospreys. Over 192 plant and animal (most are endangered) species are unique to this area. Photo: Yoshio Shimoji)

Takae sits amidst lush forests and natural beauty. Imagine how horrible its beautiful landscape would become if the construction actually started. The training and the deafening noise of the infamous Ospreys would certainly destroy the peaceful environment for not only the Takae villagers but also those precious species, some already listed as endangered, that are indigenous to Yanbaru (or Northern Okinawa Highland).


According to the February 12 Japan Times, Senator Daniel Inouye again urged Tokyo to make headway for the early relocation of Futenma, saying “The U.S. side has been patient, although it cannot wait indefinitely.” This is a gangster’s typical pet line when he intimidates others — that is, Senator Inouye is threatening Tokyo to expedite Washington’s decades-old design of Futenma’s relocation to Henoko.

He may not know, but the Marines or the U.S. Navy representing them submitted to U.S. Congress every fiscal year in the 1960’s a blue print for the relocation of Futenma to Henoko for a budgetary approval, which was never approved because of sky-rocketing Vietnam War expenditures. How dare he say “the U.S. side cannot wait indefinitely”? That’s a laughing matter, indeed.


The blueprint for a new air station, a military port, and a pier, from the Master Plan of Navy Facilities on Okinawa, 1966. Image: Asia-Pacific Journal)Mr. Shimoji's "The Futenma Base and the U.S.-Japan Controversy: An Okinawan Perspective" was published at The Asia Pacific Journal earlier this year.

His letter letter, "How dare Obama ask Hatoyama to act without regard to democratic process in Okinawa?" was published at the The New York Times on May 28, 2010, and his article, "'Thanks' Doesn't Allay Okinawans," was published on July 11, 2010, at The Japan Times.

Photo essay: Nonviolent Citizen Action to Protect Okinawa's Yanbaru Forest

Okinawa Citizens Defense Force prevent construction work in Yanbaru forest with a ten-car brigade.

More than 15 cars block construction work.


Construction workers left with nothing to do after citizens block construction site.

(Above photos courtesy of The Situation in Takae Higashimura and Yanbaru Forest website (Japanese).)

According to latest reports from The Network for Okinawa, a U.S.-based grassroots network that draws together representatives from peace groups, environmental organizations, faith-based organizations, academia, and think tanks:

Despite statements by the U.S. and Japanese governments that military construction would not proceed without local approval, the Japanese Defense Ministry's Okinawan Headquarters (the Okinawan Defense Ministry) forcibly started construction work on helipads in Okinawa at the end of last year.

These new helipads, where the U.S. wants to train Marines in the use of heavier, noisier, and dangerous MV-22 Osprey aircraft, would (if built) endanger the lives of local residents and irreparably destroy the pristine and biologically rich Yanbaru Forest in northern Okinawa.

On Feb. 1, several dump trucks and 50-60 workers threw bags of gravel over the fence at multiple entry points of the U.S. Marine Northern Training Area (a jungle warfare training ground used to test napalm during the U.S. war in Vietnam).

However, the Okinawan Citizens Defense Force (a pro-democracy and peace group) is engaging in nonviolent means to obstruct unapproved military construction.

Takae's lush forest where Tokyo wants to construct of six helipads (diameter of 75 meters each) for U.S. military V-22 Ospreys. Over 192 plant and animal (most are endangered) species are unique to this area. (Photo: Yoshio Shimoji)

More information and photos of the non-violent action can be viewed at Peace Philosophy Center.

New petitions and pamphlets in English and Japanese are also available.


For background information on the movement to protect Takae Village and the biodiversity of Yanbaru Forest, see "Voice of Takae;" WWF's "No Military Helipads in Yanbaru Forest"; Jon Mitchell's "Postcard from Takae," published at Foreign Policy in Focus; "Saving the Okinawan Woodpecker," posted at The Center for Biological Diversity; and these past TTT posts:

Peace Not War Japan’s Film/Live Music Festival Highlights Citizen Movements: Mt. Takao・Okinawa's Yanbaru Forest・ Iraqi Refugees in Jordan (Nov. 12, 2009)

Takae Village Sit-in protest against US Helipads in Pristine Yanbaru Forest (Jan. 25, 2010)

"Peaceful New Earth Celebration" in Tokyo spotlights Okinawa, indigenous cultures, sustainability, & global networking (June 24, 2010)

Biodiversity 100: Preserve the biodiversity on Okinawa Island, including Yanbaru Forest's spiny rat, Noguchi's Woodpecker, & Namiye's Frog (Oct. 27, 2010)

Save Takae Village and and the biodiversity of Yanbaru Forest (Jan. 4, 2011)


-Posted by Jen Teeter

US for Okinawa: Message of Support for Takae

January 7, 2011

Dear Ambassador Roos,

US for OKINAWA, a peace action network formed by U.S. and other citizens from around the world, strongly denounces the sudden restarting of construction of an additional 6 new helipads in Takae, Okinawa. Such destruction further destroys the important biodiversity of the region, endangers the lives of local residents, and shamefully continues to undermine democracy in Okinawa.

As U.S. citizens, we call upon our country to use its great power to start fostering global environmental sustainability—not blatantly destroy the forests, waters and wildlife of other countries under the guise of “security.”

We call upon our country to stop the practice of trodding over the democratic processes of other countries supposedly in the name of promoting the American value of democracy. This is deceitful, and harms not only others, but our own stature in the world as well.

Finally, with an arsenal of more than 13,000 nuclear weapons, a chain of approximately 1,000 military bases around the world, fleets patrolling the world, inordinate stockpiles of conventional weaponry, and annual military spending far outstripping any other country, we call upon our country to halt this unnecessary new military construction in Takae.

It's time for the U.S. to step into a new era of fostering peace and stability in the world through more peaceful and just means. Let's start by halting further destruction of Takae.

Sincerely,


US for OKINAWA
us-for-okinawa.blogspot.com

Okinawan Rail: a critically endangered inhabitant of Yanbaru Forest, Okinawa, at risk from U.S. military war training ground expansion

(Yanburu Kuina (Okinawan Rail), a critically endangered inhabitant of Yanbaru Forest in Okinawa, at risk from U.S. military war training ground expansion. Photo: Gaku's Blog)

Save Takae Village and the biodiversity of Yanbaru Forest

More on what is at stake in the Takae residents' struggle to save their village and Yanbaru Forest...

(Yanbaru Forest. Image: Japan Hotspot)

The Guardian's "Biodiversity 100: A campaign to compile a list of 100 tasks for world governments to undertake to tackle the biodiversity crisis" includes Okinawa:

Action: Preserve the biodiversity on Okinawa Island

Okinawa Island is the largest island in the subtropical Ryukyu chain off the south-western coast of mainland Japan – and has been described as "Japan's equivalent of Hawaii."

A U.S. war training base occupies a quarter of biodiverse Yanbaru forest on the northern tip of Okinawa. The U.S. military wants to build six V-22 Osprey aircraft helipads within two of the best-preserved areas in the forest, near Takae village. Takae residents have engaged in a sit-in since 2007 to protest the construction military heliports in Yanbaru Forest

Appropriate legislation for conserving this region should be established, and Tokyo should stop construction completely, if it wants to honor local democratic process as well as preserve biodiversity in Okinawa.

Okinawa Woodpecker. (Image: Center for Biological Diversity)

Evidence: Yanbaru's forests are the final stand for a number of threatened endemic species such as the critically endangered Okinawa spiny rat (Tokudaia muenninki), Noguchi's woodpecker (Dendrocopos noguchii) and Namiye's frog (Limnonectes namiyei).

Yanbaru's natural forests are critical habitat for many of Okinawa's native mammal and bird populations, but clearcutting and removal of undergrowth. A paper on the conservation value of the region warned of the "imminent extinction crisis among the endemic species of the Yanbaru forests."

Namiye's frog is an indigenous species of frog to Okinawa. It lives only in headwaters surrounded by mountains. (Image: Japan Hotspot)

See more photos of Yanbaru's animal and plant inhabitants at Japan Hotspot.

And for more information about citizens' efforts to save Takae village and Yanbaru Forest at these previous posts:

• Jon Mitchell reports on protests against proposed U.S. military Osprey heliport construction in Takae, an ecologically sensitive area of Okinawa"

• "Peaceful New Earth Celebration in Tokyo spotlights Okinawa, indigenous cultures, sustainability, and global networking"

•  "Peace Not War Japan's Film/Live Music Festival Highlights Citizen Movements: Mt. Takao, Okinawa's Yanbaru Forest, Iraqi Refugees in Jordan"

• "Takae Village Sit-In Protest against US Helipads in Pristine Yanbaru Forest, Okinawa"

Originally posted on Oct. 27, 2010

Mark Driscoll: In danger: Takae, a village in Okinawa's Yanbaru Forest, a place flourishing with biodiversity

"When the Pentagon "Kill Machines" Came to an Okinawan Paradise: Undermining of Democracy in Japan" published at Counterpunch earlier this month, UNC-Chapel Hill East Asian history scholar Mark Driscoll puts a human face to the story of a peaceful eco-community struggling against U.S. military violence (enabled by the Japanese government) for decades:

When I arrived at the small village of Takae in the northernmost part of the main island of Okinawa to spend 5 days at a sit-in protest there in mid-July, my first image of the place was the unusual municipal charter that greeted me as I got off the bus. Codified in 1996, the residents pledge to:

1.. Love nature and strive to create a beautiful environment resplendent with flowers and water;

2. Value our traditional culture, while always striving to learn new things; and

3. Create a municipality in which people can interact in a spirit of vitality and joy.

The charter mentions no human founding fathers of Takae, rather it followed with lavish descriptions of the village flower (azalea) and bird (sea woodpecker) in addition to details about the gorgeous waterfalls and the rare combination of seacoast and mountains that creates a strong impression of a tropical paradise; UNESCO has identified the ecological diversity of this area as among the richest in the world.

The sense of paradise is what brought Ashimine Genji to Takae ten years ago. Ashimine, a native of Okinawa who moved to the Japanese mainland during the economic bubble period in the mid-1980s, moved back to Okinawa when he got tired of the frenetic Tokyo life and exhausting wage labor. With his lover he bought some land in the mountains amidst waterfalls, animals and birds and started raising their 3 kids, while constructing a small organic restaurant. During my interview with him he insisted that the family was committed to living as simply, slowly, and sustainably as possible, and they deliberately spent the first two years in Takae without electricity, reluctantly attaching to a grid only when their oldest kid’s complaints wouldn’t stop.

It’s hard to avoid the descriptive mantra of Okinawan life as “simple and slow” in Japanese lifestyle magazines (with, in the last two years, “sustainable” [saiseisan] commonly appended) and perusal of these magazines convinced Naoko and Kôji Morioka to relocate to Takae four years ago. Amateur organic farmers and part-time artists raised in Tokyo, they had lived in Africa, India and Nepal before relocating with their two small kids to Takae to start full-time organic rice farming. Also refusing electricity, they built a small house from scratch just 30 yards north of a gorgeous waterfall and 300 yards from the sea, determined both to pioneer a new path of zero growth against Japanese postmodern capitalism and to enjoy the close community of Takae, consisting of farmers, fisherfolk and several convivial story-tellers...

While about a fourth of Takae’s 160 residents are eco-conscious transplants from Tokyo and their kids, several claim descendants going back a millennium who have enjoyed the fruits (mango) and vegetables that grow wild in the area. Right smack in the middle of this sustainable paradise is where a large part of the newest US military base is about to be built.

Takae residents were kept in the dark about the base until just before construction was to begin. Leaks, reported in the Okinawa Times in late 2006, forced the Japanese Defense Ministry to hold an information session in early 2007. It was only here that the Ashimines and Moriokas were informed that the main helicopter base for the US military in Japan was about to be built in their backyard, including facilities for 3 Osprey heli-planes. When the Defense Ministry showed the people of Takae a Power Point slide of the projected base area, they realized that two of their homes would be within 400 meters of the proposed new base.

Ashimine recalled how he felt after the session. “One minute I was living a life of harmony with nature with my family and friends, and the next minute I was being told that these killing machines (kiru- mashin) were coming to within a few hundred meters of my house; the disconnect (iwakan) was overwhelming” (Ku-yon June 2010; 101).

Within a few months, Takae locals obtained a fuller picture of what was going on: based on a secret agreement between the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the US Pentagon made in 1996—finally signed into a dubious kind of legality in February 2009—the large, but increasingly obsolete US military base Futenma in central Okinawa was to be relocated with completely new infrastructure to northern Okinawa. The plan was to transfer the infrastructure of Futenma to the smaller US base Camp Schwab located 20 miles from Takae. But airport and helicopter facilities were necessary to fill out Futenma’s capacity and this is where Takae and the equally pristine fishing village of Henoko, 30 minutes southeast of Takae, would come into play. The old airport at Futenma would be replaced with a new V-shaped one carved out of the beach in Henoko, while Takae would get all the CH-47 and CH-54 helicopters together with the behemoth Ospreys.  

Henoko’s proximity to Camp Schwab has created a palpable anti-base sentiment there, and local activists started mobilizing opposition to the proposed airport construction in 2004. With help from the all-women anti-base group Naha Broccoli, situated in the Okinawan capital of Naha, activist information sessions and bus tours of the proposed base areas began in June 2007 which jumpstarted regular contact among Takae, Henoko and Naha.

Encouraged by activist friends in Tokyo to go Okinawa to look around, in July 2007, with about 40 others, I participated in the second Broccoli bus tour and was stunned—but I should have known better. The lack of transparency on the side of the Pentagon and the deafness to local Japanese concerns were standard neocolonial postures of US base presence in Asia going back to just after World War II.

But witnessing the sustained protest in Henoko by anti-war activists spanning 3 generations inspired all of us on the tour. The required environmental assessment for new base construction had been underway for over a year and Henoko activists were doing their best to disrupt it, including a blockade of Japanese Navy vessels with cordons of local fishing boats and, with air tanks and wet suits, conducting underwater direction action against young Japanese Navy divers trying to complete the seabed assessment. In November 2007 a Henoko activist almost died when the breathing line to his airtank was severed. Just after our bus tour, protest signs and colorful anti-base paintings started to show up around the two main gates to the newly fenced-in Takae helicopter facility. By August 2007, Rie Ishihara, a Takae mother of two started daily sit-ins in front of the main entrance by herself; soon she was joined by other locals and then by Naha activists.

Quickly, anti-base Japanese started coming from the mainland, often devoting one day of their Okinawa vacation week sitting in at Takae. The mushrooming anti-base movement in Takae caught the Japanese Defense Ministry in Okinawa off-guard and when the environment assessment group started its two-year survey at the Takae site a year later, the Okinawan office of the Japanese Defense Ministry—the local defender of the US bases— preemptively took the whole town to court, serving 15 Takae residents a summons for “disrupting traffic” on Dec. 16, 2008.

Ishihara told me that when she got the summons she thought it was a practical joke as everyone knows there is no traffic in Takae and a few local residents even refuse to drive cars because of the impact on the environment. But this was no joke, as the drawn-out legal hearings lasted a year and forced the Takae farmers to spend money on lawyers and court fees. On December 11, the provincial court in Naha ruled in favor of 13 defendants, although it ruled against Ashimine and the head of the Takae residents anti-base group Toshio Isa. Isa and Ashimine can now be forced to stand trial in Tokyo at any point the Japanese government decides.

While the events were unfolding in Okinawa, politics on Japan’s mainland were revealing similar anti-US patterns. During the campaigning for the crucial Lower House elections in July 2009, the upstart Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) promised in their manifesto to establish a “different policy with respect to the US-Japan alliance,” one central aspect of which would be a “significant re-thinking (minaoshi) of the US military in Japan including the situation of all the US bases”.

Soon to be Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama refined his critique of the US-Japan security framework by focusing on the unfair “burden” placed on Okinawa by having some 24,000 US troops stationed there, including 18,000 Marines—65% of the US military presence in Japan installed on a land mass less than 1% of Japan’s total. The party in power for all but one year since the end of the US Occupation of Japan, the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had been losing support since it ordered Japanese soldiers to deploy to war-zones in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002-03 in the face of Japanese public opposition polling at 80-90%.

The historic victory of the DPJ over the LDP in August 2009 should be seen as the culmination of multiple forms of opposition to the LDP’s blind allegiance to the US, together with a pragmatic understanding that Japan’s economic future lies more closely entwined with China. In addition to pledging to reform aspects of Japan’s military-security framework with the US, the DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa promised to enhance ties to China beyond the economic sphere, where China is now Japan’s largest trading partner. The double whammy of a confirmation that closer ties with China are beneficial together with a groundswell of resistance to the US military swept the DPJ into power.

Right away, new Prime Minister Hatoyama went to work on his party’s campaign promise and started exploring ways to reform the US-Japan alliance; in a flush of post-victory confidence he wondered out loud what a future security framework would look like with “zero US troops stationed in Japan” (chûryû naki ampô). Several months earlier, Ozawa insisted that, “the [US Navy] 7th Fleet alone is sufficient,” meaning that as far as the DPJ leaders were concerned, the remaining 35,000 US troops should begin packing up their things to leave Japan permanently.

Although the US media underplayed this challenge, the Pentagon understood exactly what was at stake and wasn’t liking it. Despite President Obama’s cautious wait and see approach to the democratic regime change in Japan, the Pentagon immediately starting sparring with the Japanese Ambassador to the US Ichiro Fujisaki in Washington over issues like the Guam Treaty signed by the weakened LDP in early 2009, which dictated the terms of the new base construction in Henoko/Takae and the planned move of somewhere between 3000 to 9000 of the 18,000 Marines in Okinawa to new facilities in Guam—with Japanese taxpayers forced to pay 65-70% of the costs for both the move and the new base in Guam.

During the July 2009 campaign several DPJ candidates echoed the argument made by Okinawan critics that the Guam Treaty was clearly unequal because it obliged the Japanese to construct one new base in Okinawa and to contribute most of the money toward building another in Guam, while the American side merely offered an ambiguous pledge to withdraw some troops while reserving the right to change its commitments when it wanted. Furthermore, critics argued that the Guam Treaty was illegal as it violated Article 95 of Japan’s constitution, which stipulates that any law applicable only to one locale requires the consent of the majority of the voters of that province, and support for the construction of the new base among Okinawans had been almost completely absent.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveled to Tokyo for two days of meetings in late October 2009 clearly intending to muzzle the critiques of the US presence in Japan and to remind the new DPJ leaders of the post-WW II status quo, where senior (US) and junior (Japan) partners would continue to work together to contain China and North Korea. “It is time to move on,” Gates scolded the new Japanese leaders on October 22, calling DPJ proposals to reopen the base issues “counterproductive.” Then, deliberately insulting the DPJ in the eyes of almost all Japanese commentators Gates refused to attend the welcoming ceremony and formal dinner organized for him at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on October 23.

In enumerating the insults and behind the scenes threats made by Gates in Tokyo a few days after his departure, the Okinawan newspaper the Ryukyu Shimpo lambasted the “diplomacy of intimidation” practiced by the US in its editorial of October 26...

Read the rest of Driscoll's report here. His informed (he is a scholar in Japanese colonial history) analysis is a rare example of on-the-ground reporting from Okinawa in the English-language media.

Most U.S. & other English-language media reports on Okinawa are written by reporters who are not only not based in Okinawa or Japan but who also have not visited Okinawa. That's why these reports routinely refer to Henoko and Takae, sanctuaries of Okinawa's rich and beautiful biodiversity, simply as a "less populated area in the north." This over-used and misleading description from Washington's and Tokyo's points-of-view obscures what is at stake in Okinawa. Driscoll's democratic take provides a full, authentic picture, from multiple POVs, including those of Okinawans.

Biodiversity 100: Preserve the biodiversity on Okinawa Island, including Yanbaru Forest's spiny rat, Noguchi's Woodpecker, & Namiye's Frog

(Yanbaru Forest. Image: Japan Hotspot)

The Guardian's "Biodiversity 100: A campaign to compile a list of 100 tasks for world governments to undertake to tackle the biodiversity crisis" includes Okinawa:

Action: Preserve the biodiversity on Okinawa Island

Okinawa Island is the largest island in the subtropical Ryukyu chain off the south-western coast of mainland Japan – and has been described as "Japan's equivalent of Hawaii."

A quarter of the Yanbaru forest on the northern tip of the island is occupied by a US military base. There are already 22 US military helipads in the training area in Yanbaru, but a further seven helipads are planned within two of the best-preserved areas in the forest, near Takae Village.

Appropriate legislation for conserving this region should be established, and Tokyo should stop construction completely.

Okinawa Woodpecker. (Image: Center for Biological Diversity)

Evidence: Yanbaru's forests are the final stand for a number of threatened endemic species such as the critically endangered Okinawa spiny rat (Tokudaia muenninki), Noguchi's woodpecker (Dendrocopos noguchii) and Namiye's frog (Limnonectes namiyei).

Yanbaru's natural forests are critical habitat for many of Okinawa's native mammal and bird populations, but clearcutting and removal of undergrowth. A paper on the conservation value of the region warned of the "imminent extinction crisis among the endemic species of the Yanbaru forests."

(Namiye's frog is an indigenous species of frog to Okinawa. It lives only in headwaters surrounded by mountains. Image: Japan Hotspot)

And for more information about citizens' efforts to save Takae village and Yanbaru Forest at these previous posts:

• "Peaceful New Earth Celebration in Tokyo spotlights Okinawa, indigenous cultures, sustainability, & global networking"

•  "Peace Not War Japan's Film/Live Music Festival Highlights Citizen Movements: Mt. Takao, Okinawa's Yanbaru Forest, Iraqi Refugees in Jordan"

• "Takae Village Sit-In Protest against US Helipads in Pristine Yanbaru Forest, Okinawa"

Biodiversity and COP10: Spotlight on Brazil's Amazon Rainforest and the Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers

6th Festival Cinema Brasil official logo

With all eyes presently on the issue of biodiversity as the COP10 conference unfolds in Nagoya, one interesting and yet widely unknown angle to this issue is the connection between the endangered brazilwood tree in Brazil’s rainforest—and the future of classical music as we know it.

This critical problem is explored in depth in the beautifully made documentary film A Arvore da Musica (The Music Tree), which is currently screening in Japan at the 6th Festival Cinema Brasil. From the festival website:

Found only in the remnants of Brazil's devastated Atlantic Rainforest, Brazilwood (known abroad as “Pernambuco’s wood”) is vital in the manufacture of fine violin, cello and viola bows. Ever since the time Mozart was composing his masterpieces, 250 years ago, when it was first introduced, luthiers and musicians from all around the world haven’t discovered a wood of comparable quality that could replace the Brazilian one. From the search for the wood in the forests of Brazil, to their use by the world’s greatest symphony orchestras, the film explores a path to saving the trees and the music that depends on it.

The film festival finished in Tokyo on October 15th, and is presently screening in Osaka until October 22nd. It will run in Hamamatsu from October 23rd - 29th, and Kyoto from November 13th – 19th.

The festival also includes many other interesting films in its lineup, such as an excellent documentary on the history of music and the spoken word in Brazil, and another on the cultural relevance of the national passion for football. For full festival details, visit the trilingual official website. A 2009 interview with festival director Edison Mineki regarding cinematic history in Brazil in the context of the country’s turbulent political trends of recent decades may also be read at a previous blog post here.

For more on the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and all of its living brilliance, the collection of online articles from the Kyoto Journal Biodiversity issue includes this gorgeous piece written by shaman (and Amazon resident) Clara Shinobu Iura, a Nikkei Brazilian who is a member of the International Council of Thirten Indigenous Grandmothers. A synopsis of a talk that she gave earlier this year regarding the grandmother's project and their film, For the Next Seven Generations, during a peace and music event at Yoyogi Park may be read at this previous blog post.


The grandmothers are presently in Nagoya, where they are vocalizing their moving appeal for protecting the world’s biodiversity from their unique perspective as the stewards of indigenous wisdom and traditions. The grandmothers will then travel onward to Amami Oshima from October 22-25 for a weekend of prayer and creating bonds of solidarity with the indigenous peoples of the island, which will be followed by a journey to the atomic grounds of Nagasaki to conduct ceremonies of prayer and healing. Details about the grandmothers’ Japan tour are available here.

--Kimberly Hughes

Protest at the Japanese Diet: Voices from the Okinawa grassroots

Yesterday morning, amidst cold and drizzly weather, more than 100 people gathered for a sit-in event at the Diet in Tokyo to demand policy changes regarding the issue of U.S. military bases in Okinawa. While a sudden downpour of rain sent many of the demonstrators temporarily scattering for cover during my time available for interviews, I was able to speak with several of them beforehand.

Okada Yoshio, a member of the Okinawa Citizens' Peace Network, told me that he and the other grassroots activists in his group had hoped to have an audience later that afternoon with officials at the U.S. Embassy to voice their concerns about American military bases in the region. The group was refused by Embassy officials, however, who said they would only meet with Okinawan lawmakers.

“While we certainly share many views with the delegation of Okinawan politicians, there are certain areas where our opinions as NGO members and citizen activists diverge from the official message,” he told me. “And since U.S. government actions have a direct impact upon average citizens, it was very disappointing that they were not willing to hear our views directly.”

While Okada and the other citizen network members considered staging a protest outside the U.S. Embassy during the official meeting, they ultimately decided upon a compromise course of action by convincing the official delegation to include one of their leaders, long-time activist Takazato Suzuyo, in the discussion with Embassy officials.


Activists Takazato Suzuyo, who also heads Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, and Okada Yoshio

“Even the official Okinawa delegation was unable to meet with top U.S. Embassy officials, who were busy attending to the hurriedly organized visit to Japan by U.S. State Department official Kurt Campbell,” Okada added. “Since this visit was arranged immediately after the anti-base rallies were announced, it is more than obvious that the U.S. strategy was to try and neutralize this outpouring of discontent by getting to Tokyo with its message first—rather than waiting until public anti-base sentiment continued to grow.”

Also participating in the sit-in were citizens from Takae Village in the lush Yanbaru Forest, where construction plans are underway for six U.S. military helipads to accommodate dangerous Osprey aircraft training. While I was unable to locate anyone from their group following the rainstorm, the pamphlet they distributed reads, in part, as follows (translation mine):

When government officials came to Takae last February to hold an “explanation meeting” for local citizens about the proposed construction, they did nothing other than repeat the same phrases again and again. They had no clear answers regarding our pointed questions about things like the Osprey helicopter deployment, the flight path, noise problems, safety, etc. This meeting accomplished nothing beyond intensifying our already existing sense of distress.

The government officials acknowledged their lack of explanation, and said they would hold another meeting—but then added that in the meantime, plans for construction would continue to move forward. Clearly, these officials have no understanding regarding why any explanation is even necessary! If they wish for a peaceful solution to the presently continuing negative cycle of “construction without explanation” vs. “citizen sit-in protest”, they must desist their violent construction plans and begin engaging us in real dialogue.

Prior to the downpour, I was also able to speak with Uehara Seishin, an uchinanchu (Okinawan) with an extremely kind demeanor who has lived in Tokyo since the age of 17, but still maintains a strong connection with his homeland. He told me about a creative peace action spearheaded in 1990 by uchinanchu from around the world. In the hopes of fighting back against the U.S. militarization of Okinawa, 500 individuals donated 10,000 yen each (around U.S. $100) to purchase a small plot of land from a sympathetic landowner inside the gates of the Futenma Air Base. The group was later sued by the Japanese Department (now Ministry) of Defense, who has been pressuring them ever since to lease the land to the government.

“The land we purchased is only around 50 or 60 cm in length—maybe the size of a single sheet of newspaper spread out—but it happens to sit right in the path of a runway guidance light,” Uehara told me. “The government wants that piece of land, and it is exerting every ounce of power that it can to try and take it from us.”

Activist Uehara Seishin, sitting in front of a banner protesting plans to relocate Futenma within Okinawa 

“I lost my father during the war—he was back in Okinawa at the time, and we don’t even know what happened to him,” continued Uehara. “I have been an activist for peace ever since, and it makes me so angry that the Japanese government continues to create this false climate of fear to justify the military-based Japan-U.S. alliance when they could legally cancel the agreement today if they wanted to.

“The Japan-U.S. relationship is so unequal and so unfair…I wish more people would wake up and see this situation for what it is.”

Citizens supporting the Okinawa protesters at the sit-in. As residents who live near the Atsugi Naval Air Station (also pictured at the top of this post), they are presently suing the Japanese government for noise pollution . “The noise is so bad that children suffer from insomnia and sometimes even nervous spasms—it is inhuman, and it just is not right,” one man told me. “We want people in the United States to know what we are suffering."

- Kimberly Hughes

US for Okinawa - Revelatory journal & photos from Naha, Ginowan City, Henoko, & Takae

Via our friends at US for Okinawa:  findings and photos from Naha, Ginowan City, Henoko and Takae, Okinawa:

DAY 1: Up at 03:30 AM and off to Okinawa to experience what is really happening with our own eyes. There has been a lot of news recently dealing with the Futenma Air Base issue and what should/will be done in Okinawa regarding its relocation or closure. We are here to learn as much as possible while visiting the island, through interviewing locals and talking with those on the front lines, in order to make our own opinions on the subject.

Immediately upon arrival we noticed that Naha wasn't your typical airport. Self-defense and U.S. military planes line the runway while fighter jets screamed overhead and men with military backpacks wait in the airport for their flights. We tried to keep a tally of the number of military aircrafts that we heard; 6 helicopters and 4 jets in the first hour that we were there...we lost count half-way into the third hour. Emilie noticed how strange it was to hear but not see the various military aircrafts.

During a taxi ride I asked the driver how he felt about so many foreigners in Okinawa. His initial response was that he liked the business but upon further inquiry he admitted that he could do without the bases.

DAY 2: Upon viewing Futenma from an aerial perspective, we were struck by its location - right in the middle of the city. One member from US for OKINAWA, Danielle Pierre told us about her life growing up in Colorado Springs, USA, surrounded by various army bases, the Air Force Academy, and other military facilities, but she never felt that the military presence adversely affected her daily life. "I can't imagine, however, that the Futenma locals feel the same", she said. A sizable military base was placed right in the middle of their lives, bringing with it planes and helicopters that fly in a pattern nearly double the radius of the original agreement. Not only that, but a representative of Ginowan City Hall stated that these planes fly on average every 5 minutes near the base. Can you imagine trying to carry on a normal life with that noise?

Another shocking fact, upon many, that we learned from the Mayor Iha himself is how many accidents happen near Futenma...

Altogether, what we've learned so far highlights the necessity for Futenma to be closed. Having a conversation last night with a foreigner living in Okinawa reminded us that it is also important to think about what happens next, and not to leave Futenma in a vacuum after so many years of having a military base that stimulates the local economy. Thankfully, Mayor Iha has already taken sizable steps in the next direction. He explained his outline to restore the area to its original form, rebuilding a valuable avenue that was once lined with native pine trees and land that was once a source of livelihood for local farmers.

DAY 3: We left our guesthouse in Ginowan early in the morning and headed toward the Henoko region of Okinawa, where locals have been struggling for about 13 years to stop Futenma's Air Field from being transferred (along with a plethora of other new construction).

A number of different plans have been proposed over the past decade, starting with the construction of an air field inside of Camp Schwab, which is located on a cape in Nago City next to Oura Bay, Henoko. However, this plan was overwhelmingly rejected because it would simply transfer the problems of noise pollution and safety risks from Ginowan City to Nago City.

So the plan changed to a large airfield that would be built in a section of Oura Bay (right over its coral reefs!), but local people--mostly elderly men and women--resisted this plan so strongly (by holding daily sit-ins that continue even today, by occupying a platform in the bay that was erected to start planning the construction, and by paddling sea kayaks in the way of the motorized boats that came to carry out the construction) that it was finally scrapped.

Then the plan changed to expanding the perimeters of Camp Schwab so that it would extend out into Oura Bay, and building the runway on this extension. Locals have fought this plan, too, and now the government is talking about building the runways inside Camp Schwab--the very same plan that was rejected more than 10 years ago!

In Henoko, our first stop was to Tent Village on the shoreline of Oura Bay, where locals were marking more than 2,100 days of consecutive sit-ins. One of their representatives, Onishi-san, used photos to tell us about the history of their non-violent struggle (which, incidentally, was inspired by the non-violent resistance of Martin Luther King Jr.).

Then we walked over to a beach that is divided by a long stretch of curled razor wire that functions as a border to Camp Schwab. Peace lovers had covered just about every inch of the wire with colorful ribbons and banners calling for no war, no killing, no bases, protection of the dugong, and so on.

Apparently, the U.S. military used to regularly remove these ribbons (once, even by setting fire to them all!), but people kept retying them with such persistence, that the military finally gave up trying to remove them. One funny aside: on the way to the beach, we passed by a municipal sign that said: "Keep this beach clean--please take your garbage home with you."

To this sign, locals had pencilled in the word "base," so that it read: "Keep this beach clean--please take your base and your garbage home with you..."!

From Henoko, we travelled to the Takae and Yambaru Forest area to see the U.S. military's Northern Training Area, which the U.S. military has used for jungle warfare training since 1956--initially to prepare for jungle warfare in Vietnam (to our shock, we learned that the U.S. military even forced local villagers to play the role of Vietnamese people in their jungle warfare trainings!).

This training area occupies thousands of hectares, much of which wasn't being used, so the U.S. military finally agreed to give part of it back to Okinawa. However, the part they agreed to give back has seven aircraft landing pads, and the construction of 7 new landing pads elsewhere was made requisite for its return.

Unbelievably, the area chosen for the new construction is rich in biodiversity, and home to endangered species such as the Okinawan woodpecker and Okinawan rail.

Opposition to this plan finally led to it being discarded, and a new plan was drafted: this time the landing pads would be built around a small village of fewer than 150 people. However, this village is already surrounded by 15 other landing pads, and the people were opposed to more being built around them, because of the danger and noise problems that they pose. So they went to Henoko, and learned from the people of Henoko how to build a sit-in tent and carry out resistance activities.

Again, unbelievably, the government sued 14 people for stopping the construction work from beginning (charges were later dropped against 12), and the case is now making its way through the court. In other words, instead of using civil law to protect citizens, the government is using civil law to prosecute them, and our local guide explained that this sets a very dangerous precedent around the nation, because if it gets established, people who protest against things the construction of nuclear power plants or big dam projects in their communitities can also be sued by the government.

What's worse, the villagers are being sued under the Hatoyama administration's government, which is an enormous betrayal for them (and for us!), because they had voted for him and his party after he promised to lighten the burden of the military bases on Okinawa. We asked them if they planned to countersue, but they said it's difficult because their numbers are so small, it's difficult to balance a livelihood and stay fully active at the same time, all expenses would have to come from their own pocket, and it takes them 3 hours just to get to Naha, where the district court is located...

With heavy hearts, we left the Takae area and returned to the Henoko area just in time to participate in a peace candle night in front of Camp Schwab. Peace candle nights have been held in front of Camp Schwab every Saturday evening for the past 6 years, and were started by a base-protester who wanted to give young children and others who could not participate in physically risky resistance activities a way to get involved in the movement. The organizer explained that flames symbolized the soul, and that many souls have been lost because of the bases in Okinawa, given that they have been used to attack Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other areas. So he taught his three young children to hold the candles carefully, and to see them as souls that need caring and should be cherished...

Afterwards, we headed to the guesthouse we would be staying at that night--a haven next to the sea that was lovingly built by a longtime base resister named Mr. Teruya. He built it largely from recycled wood, and decorated it beautifully with driftwood and polished glass he had picked up from the coastline. In the garden area of the guesthouse, an underwater photographer set up a screen and gave us a slideshow presentation of all the rich, beautiful life that can be found in Oura Bay, as well as in the mangrove lined rivers feeding into Oura Bay. It's hard to believe that anyone could consider pouring dirt and concrete over such rich and rare biodiversity--and of course, those who are proposing to do so are far removed from it, in offices in Tokyo and Washington.

DAY 4: On our final day, we headed to the Save the Dugong Center to meet with Takuma Higashionna, who has been working tirelessly to protect the dugong and other sea life in Oura Bay and to raise awareness of the issue inside and outside Japan. He told us about how U.S. and Japanese officials always shift the responsibility to one another when he presses them about protecting Oura's biodiversity from base construction. Japanese officials claim that the U.S. is ordering the construction in Henoko and that they have no choice to follow it, and U.S. officials claim it's Japan that insists on this site and wants the construction for its security--so much so, that they are even willing to pay for it. Higashionna-san led us to a beach across the bay from Camp Schwab, and told us how he and others have dived extensively in the bay in order to map out all its coral reefs and delicate points in order to gain a better understanding of how to conserve its ecosystem and vitality. He looked across the bay and pointed to Camp Schwab, noting where its barracks, ammunition storage area, and firing ranges are located, and said it was his dream for Japan and the U.S. to one day work together to covert the camp into a nature conservancy center for all to enjoy and learn from...

New Japan-U.S. Citizens for Okinawa (JUCON) network reaches out to American people on Okinawa base issue

With time running out on the contentious Futenma airbase relocation issue, a coalition of Japan-based NGOs, citizens groups, journalists and prominent individuals have joined hands with their U.S.-based counterparts to draw upon one as-of-yet untapped resource: American popular opinion.

Named the Japan-U.S. Citizens for Okinawa (JUCON), the initiative announced its first project as a fund collection to take out a full-page ad in a mainstream U.S. newspaper. Members hope to draw readers’ attention to problems associated with the planned transfer of the US military base at Futenma base to Henoko, an environmentally sensitive coral reef in northwestern Okinawa, home to the critically endangered dugong, a Japanese national monument and protected species.

JUCON was officially launched on Wednesday at the Lower House of the Japanese Diet. Several members spoke emphatically about the enormous burden existing U.S. military bases already pose upon Okinawa’s population and ecosystem—and the need for restraint in building more facilities.

“While continuing to focus attention on the problems associated with relocating the Futenma facility to Henoko Bay, we must also keep one eye on the larger context—which includes plans to build helipads in Takae village,” said keynote speaker Makishi Yoshikazu, an Okinawa-based architect and one of the plaintiffs in Japan's domestic dugong lawsuit.

“I find it extremely problematic that the U.S. government is asking for more helipads without providing any information about why and how these facilities—nor the existing 15 helipads—will be used in the future,” he continued.

“What’s more, the U.S. is refusing to provide any environmental assessment--using the technical justification that none is required since these are ‘helipads’ and not 'heliports'”. Purple: Existing 15 helipad facilities; Blue: 7 facilities to be returned; Pink: 6 new proposed helipad construction sites

Makishi writes at his website:

The untold truth is that the U.S. military has plans to locate dangerous Osprey aircraft in Henoko—which will then be flown to Takae in the Yanbaru forest in order to carry out jungle warfare training exercises

The website--a comprehensive resource (in Japanese)--includes links to You Tube videos showing test runs and actual crashes of the lumbering, unsafe aircraft.

In addition to Makishi, other JUCON speakers at the press conference included Hoshikawa Jun, the executive director of Greenpeace, Japan; Nohira Shinsaku of Peace Boat; and Hanawa Shin-ichi from the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Their presentations were followed by comments from the floor, where one attendee emphasized, “It is critical that average citizens be truthfully informed about the details of this issue.”

Another noted, “I sincerely hope that JUCON will be able to bring home the following point to people in the United States: that what we are actually talking about here is the loss of life itself.”

Speakers at JUCO's inaugural event, with banner reading "No Bases Wanted in Oura Bay or Anywhere in Okinawa!"

On the train later that day, I looked through the new NGO's pamphlet, entitled "2010: International Year of the Dugong” and “Henoko, Oura Bay, the Blue Coral Ocean: Why Our Biodiversity is so Rich." Both made clear in beautiful photographs all that is at stake. I then began thumbing through the packet of documents obtained from public U.S. military records that were also handed out at the meeting. I was shocked by repeated descriptions of the military base options being discussed in Okinawa as “landfills” vs. “near-shore steel carpets".

The thought of Okinawa’s pristine beauty, gentle dugong, gorgeous coral reefs, and thriving ocean ecosystem being threatened by either a “landfill” or a “steel carpet” is enough to invoke outrage. This is a sentiment that I myself experienced several years ago, when I visited Henoko and Takae and met with peaceful sit-in protesters at the Tent Village on the beach who have been protesting the proposed construction since the plan was announced in 1996. JUCO hopes to invoke the same outrage in U.S. citizens to encourage their support of a resolution to the Futenma issue that support and affirms life—not destroys it—by closing down the base and scrapping plans to relocate within the prefecture.

John Feffer, in his article,"Pacific Pushback: Has the U.S. Empire of Bases Reached Its High-Water Mark?," astutely points out another aspect to the situation that is worthy of arousing Americans' suspicion about what is being proposed in Okinawa in their name:

Failure to relocate the Futenma base within Okinawa might be the first step down a slippery slope that could potentially put at risk billions of dollars in Cold War weapons still in the production line. It’s hard to justify buying all the fancy toys without a place to play with them.

Yesterday, The Japan Times published an article about the new JUCO network, and the blog of US for Okinawa includes a post with the text of the speech delivered by organizer Rose Welsch at Wednesday’s press conference. The blog also includes a link to a petition calling for the closure of Futenma and no new military base construction in Okinawa.

JUCON is creating a website in English, which we will link to shortly. The Japanese language website is here.

--Kimberly Hughes

Takae Village Sit-In Protest against US Helipads in Pristine Yanbaru Forest, Okinawa

Takae is a small village in Yanbaru Forest, a mountainous region in the northern part of Okinawa adjacent to Henoko. Yanbaru is known for distinct and irreplaceable biodiversity.

Over 192 plant and animal (most are endangered and near extinction) species are unique to this area, such as the bird species Okinawa Rail and Okinawa Woodpecker; Itajii (Evergreen Oak); and the Jambar long armed scarab beetle (the largest beetle species in Japan). The US wants to build seven helipads in this natural forest. The sea life includes Taimai (Hawksbill turtles), dugongs, corals and tropical fish.

              Yanbaru Forest (Photo: Japan Focus: "Okinawa's Turbulent 400 Years" by Gavan McCormack)

Satoko Norimatsu's Peace Philosophy Centre blog reports on the Sit-in Campaign Against US Helipads in Takae, Okinawa, quoting from Brian and Co's Blog:

Takae Helipad Campaign in Okinawa

There are many campaigns against military bases in Japan. Usually they work independently of each other. However they do join forces for large-scale protests when a major incident occurs. For example, in 1995 when three US servicemen raped a 12-year-old girl.

In Okinawa there is a small campaign based in Takae. Takae is a small village surrounded by jungle at the northern end of the island within the district of Higashi and has a population of about 150 people. The campaign is against the construction of new helipads that would be used by the US military. Many of the bases in Okinawa are aging and some will be decommissioned. But with the decommissioning, the US also wants to build new helipads in previously untouched jungle. The Japanese government, eager for the construction contracts, are willing to let construction go ahead.

In February 2006 the Takae helipad campaign began. The campaign was formed by a small number of residents none of whom had any previous campaigning experience. Between them they set up 24- hour guard at entrances to the helipad construction sites. They confronted the construction workers and blocked access to the new helipad sites. Once built, the helipads role would be used in the training of mainly US troops in Jungle warfare.

The campaigners concerns about the new helipads are related to the environmental destruction of the jungle, noise and air pollution. As well their concerns for the environment, they are also against the use of their homeland for the training of military personnel, that they will be taught about killing and jungle warfare literally on their doorsteps. There are also safety concerns after one helicopter crashed near Takae close to their elementary school in 1999. And in 2004 a US military helicopter crashed in the grounds of a university in the city of Ginowan.

The US military are planning to replace their helicopters (CH53D, CH46E…) in Okinawa with the new Osprey [controversial transport aircraft].

The Japanese government are currently trying to apply for a Provisional Disposition against 14 of the main helipad campaigners. Originally the number was 15 and included a child, but after a public outcry the child was removed from the order. A provisional disposition can be viewed in the UK as something between an ASBO and injunction.

The affect of the court case may scare people from continuing the campaign and also to disable the campaign by punishing the main members of the organisation. While the court case proceeds the Okinawa Defence Bureau has promised not to carry out further helipad construction. However, if the court case becomes lengthy, it is possible construction may begin again before a decision is reached in court.

Read the rest at: http://brianandco.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/files/TakaeHelipadCampaign.pdf.

More information about citizens' efforts to save Takae village may also be read here.

REDD in the Copenhagen agreement (equates monoculture plantations with "forests")--threatens indigenous peoples and biodiversity--especially in Asia

REDD--as framed in this week's U.N. climate agreement --threatens indigenous peoples, rainforests, and biodiversity, according to environmentalists and indigenous leaders.

Indigenous representatives went to Copenhagen to voice concerns about REDD ("Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation")--stating that without proper legal protections, REDD programs would displace indigenous communities, the natural keepers of forested lands, and replace old-growth rainforests and their natural habitats with monoculture plantations devoid of endangered plant and animal species.

One reason for their concern is that four powerful countries with records of insensitivity towards indigenous rights -- the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealands -- voted against the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Copenhagen outline includes language referencing the 2007 declaration and recommends that indigenous knowledge and rights "should" be respected. However advocates for indigenous peoples hoped the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the new international climate agreement treaty, would contain stronger language that indigenous peoples could cite in the event of rights violations:

"'Should' is much, much weaker than ‘parties shall,'" said Nathaniel Dyer, a policy advisor for Rainforest Foundation UK. "It's important because this is what lawyers will pore over when the violations occur..."

Nations that advocated for the U.N. declaration language included Bolivia, Columbia, Paraguay, the Philippines, and Venezuela, Tauli-Corpuz said.

The chair of REDD negotiations, Dean Tony La Vina of the Manila-based Ateneo School of Government, said on Sunday that legal "safeguards" - protections for biodiversity and transparency, as well as indigenous peoples' rights - would be addressed when ministers and heads of state work through the negotiation text during the rest of this week.

"I'm pretty confident we can work on those safeguards. REDD will not succeed if you don't respect the rights of indigenous peoples, if you don't maintain biodiversity, and if you don't ensure proper governance," La Vina said.

He added, however, that indigenous peoples' rights have largely been removed from the negotiation agenda in Copenhagen and were instead addressed in previous sessions. "We haven't had a debate on indigenous peoples in this session," he said.

However those safeguards ensuring protection of indigenous rights, rainforests, and biodiversity were not addressed. Instead, the agreement greenwashes the conversion of actual forests into monocultural plantations where indigenous peoples, forced off their lands, are forced to work as exploited laborers. This is a 21st-century incarnation of what European conquistadors did to native peoples during the first age of global imperialism.

Margaret Swink of Rainforest Action Network said in an email interview, that while RAN is neither for nor against REDD, "If there is going to be a REDD, it must be part of a wider deal that contains deep fossil reductions. We also believe that any REDD deal needs to include strong provisions to protect indigenous rights. We believe that indigenous people are the best custodians of the world's forests and that all of their rights should be respected in any forest agreement that the UN considers.

Environmentalists and indigenous leaders underscore related problems with REDD, according to Jeremy Hance at Mongabay:

The political definition of forest under REDD will allow rainforests to be converted to monoculture plantations, if the plantation falls under the REDD definition of "forest."

Southeast Asia oil palm plantations would be considered forests under REDD's current definition--even though the conversion of rainforest into oil palm plantations releases significant amounts of carbon (oil palm plantation store 50-90 percent less carbon than forests). In addition, conversion from rainforest to oil palm plantations causes other impacts, such as drastic biodiversity loss. "Countries can clear massive amounts of forest and still claim that deforestation had not occurred," said Peter A Minang, ASB Global Coordinator, who has extensive experience working with the REDD initiative.

Conservationists also fear that protecting REDD's definition of forests could push conversion into carbon-important ecosystems that don't fall under the REDD definition, such as peatlands and sparsely-forested grasslands like Brazil's vast Cerrado. Peatlands are especially important as they contain more carbon than even an untouched tropical forest.

"On the other hand, large wooded areas that are not part of officially designated 'forests' as well as huge tracts of peatlands (which account for 3 to 5 percent of global carbon emissions) would fall outside the definition," explains Meine van Noordwijk, Chief Science Advisor for the World Agroforestry Centre and a co-author of the ASB analysis.

The lowest-cost REDD projects are also problematic for biodiversity concerns, especially in Asia, according to researchers writing in Science:

Oscar Venter, a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland, and colleagues, evaluated the prospects for REDD on a global scale and found the cheapest way to reduce deforestation by 20 percent would exclude critical biodiversity hotspots that support a large proportion of the world's endangered species. Looking strictly at the cost-effectiveness of forest conservation, the researchers conclude that most conservation funding would go to the Amazon, where large tracts of unprotected forest can be conserved relatively inexpensively.

By comparison, Asia, which houses the bulk of the planet's threatened species and is experiencing large-scale forest destruction by loggers and palm oil producers, would miss out due to its high opportunity cost for conservation. In other words, in Asia the very practices that are driving deforestation increase the cost of REDD implementation. The region's biodiversity could lose out.

To avoid this scenario, the authors argue that REDD should include a biodiversity component to allocate more money to species-rich countries. Minor adjustments to the scheme could double the number of species protected under REDD while reducing the carbon benefits by only four to eight percent. The authors suggest that the amended program could by funded by groups interested in preserving biodiversity. For example companies might be willing to pay a premium for carbon credits generated by conserving habitat of particularly endangered species like certain lemurs in Madagascar and the Sumatran rhino and orangutan in Indonesia.

"Dollar for dollar, a carbon-focused approach contributes little to slowing biodiversity loss and will save far fewer species than a biodiversity-focused strategy that targets the most imperiled forests," said Venter.

By equating monoculture tree plantations with "forests," REDD serves as a cover for appropriating territory from indigenous communities and destroying rainforests and biodiversity. In a September 19, 2008 article at Mongabay, Jeremy Hance writes:

"Tree plantations are not forests. A plantation is a highly uniform agricultural system that replaces natural ecosystems and their rich biodiversity,” Sandy Gauntlett of the Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition said. “The trees planted are geared to the production of a single raw material, whether it is timber, pulp, rubber, palm oil or others.”

The products grown on industrial tree plantations depend on the region. In Southeast Asia and the Pacific, palm oil has resulted in large-scale conversion of tropical forests, especially in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. In Africa, plantations produce rubber, wood pulp, and cacao, in addition to palm oil. Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, Swaziland, and South Africa are particularly affected by monoculture tree plantations. Pine and eucalyptus are grown in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Uruguay. Palm oil for biofuels is also grown in Colombia and Venezuela. Malaysia has recently stated that it intends to expand palm oil into the Amazon...

Many of the affected communities lived traditional and sustainable lifestyles for centuries before industrial plantations upset their way of life. All of them depended on the land for their livelihood. Isaac Rojas of Friends of the Earth International adds that “on the lands currently occupied by plantations, there used to be or could be agricultural crops that would help ensure the people’s food sovereignty, managed by peasant communities. Or these communities and indigenous peoples could use the land for sustainable activities that would improve their quality of life, such as community forest management.”

-- Jean Downey