May 7, 2011 Okinawa Bitter Gourd Protest: “U.S. government itself is a ‘master of manipulation and extortion’”

On May 7, Okinawans protested derisive remarks by Kevin Maher made public earlier this year. The U.S. State Department's former director of the Office of Japan Affairs called Okinawans "masters of manipulation and extortion" and described them as "too lazy to grow goya (bitter gourd), a vegetable widely grown throughout Okinawa.

About 200 people gathered at the public square in front of the Okinawa Prefectural Government office to demonstrate against Maher's remarks and Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa’s visit.

They held banners and signs:

•  “Give us back quiet days!" (Plaintiffs' Group for Futenma US Airbase Noise Pollution Lawsuit )

• “No US Helipads in Takae!”

• “Sky of Futenma and Earth of Futenma are Ours”

• “Deceptions plus Expedience = Henoko (new base)“

• “Take the US-Japan Military Bases back with you to Mainland Japan!”

•  Japanese (Mainlanders)! Military Bases outside Okinawa! It is the time to take bases in Okinawa to the mainland!“

• “Anger”

•  We never allow base construction in Henoko”

• ”Close and Remove Futenma Airbase now. There is no place for US Military base”

•  “We oppose deployment of Japan Self Defense Force in Yaeyama and Miyako”

Before the protest, an Asahi News explosive Wikileaks series exposing deceitful and fraudulent US-Japan machinations regarding Okinawa energized the entire prefecture. The Ryukyu Shimpo published an article retorting "U.S. government itself is a 'master of manipulation and extortion'":

Shikou Sakiyama, Chairman of the Okinawa Peace Movement Center, criticized both governments, saying, “I resent how the United States and Japanese governments have deceived the Okinawan people. Kevin Maher, former Director of Japanese Affairs in the State Department, was quoted as saying “Okinawans are masters of manipulation and extortion of Tokyo,” but those very same words apply to the U.S. government. The Japanese government, which has confirmed what Washington has done, is just as blameworthy as their U.S. counterparts. Japanese citizens should not tolerate what both governments have done.”

Shigenobu Arakaki, Chairman of the Okinawa Coalition, who had been suspicious about the veracity of the numbers of U.S. Marines being put forward, said, “both the U.S. and Japanese governments deceived Japanese citizens the same way as they did with secret pacts about the return of Okinawa, which clearly reflects how both countries have developed since World War II. Unless the people of Japan abandon the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, we will not be able to establish our own sovereignty.”

Hiroshi Ashitomi of the Helicopter Base Objection Association insists that, “The Democratic Party of Japan insults Okinawa. They think that they can sacrifice Okinawa in order to lighten the load on the main islands of Japan. When deciding their future, the Okinawan people cannot expect anything from either the U.S. or Japanese governments. They must determine their own future.”

Mie Kunimasa, member of the anti-base women’s group, “Kamado guwaa no tsudoi” (“Meeting of the Kamados”), organized by housewives residing around Ginowan City, said, “The negotiations totally ignore the situation here. The Okinawan people don’t see the issue in terms of burden of expense or the number of military personnel; we simply ‘say no’ the existence of U.S. military bases in Okinawa. We need to keep raising the matter of the situation in Okinawa.”

On March 8, the Okinawa Prefectural Government adopted a "Resolution of Protest Over The Remarks made by Mr. Kevin Maher, U.S. State Department Director of The Office of Japan Affairs demanding that the former U.S. diplomat rescind his alleged remarks and apologize to the citizens of Okinawa Prefecture.

The Goya Protest has continued at Okinawa Goya Project 2011, a blog from Okinawa challenging Maher's comment that Okinawans are "too lazy" to grow goya. The site is an evidentiary record of goya grown in Okinawa.

News links:

• QAB news (in Japanese): Kitazawa’s visit on May 7, 2011

(Japan Defense Minister Kitazawa met with Okinawa Gov. Nakaima on May 7. The talks didn't bring agreement on the Futenma issue any closer.

While Governor Nakaima made a 10 point-demand including the relocation of U.S. Marine Air Station Futenma outside Okinawa and the return of most of the facilities south of Kadena, Kitazawa insisted upon the destruction of Oura Bay to make way for another U.S. military base; saying otherwise there would be no progress. At this meeting, Kitazawa did not mention the most recent method the Japanese government has in mind for the destruction of Oura Bay, habitat of the federally protected and critically endangered Okinawa dugong (manatee).

• QAB news (in Japanese) Japan Defense Minister Kitazawa’s press conference on May 8, 2011

(On May 8, Japan Defense Minister Kitazawa made his first visit to the Japan Self Defense Air Force Miyako island station and met with Miyakojima Mayor Shimoji. Kitazawa said would consider how Japan would defend the Sakishima islands and southernmost Japan in this fiscal year. When he returned to Naha, Kitazawa divulged at a press conference that he did not feel the negotiation with Nakaima was tough. He said that since he knows Nakaima’s character, "We had a very good talk.")

For more information, please see The Network for Okinawa's website, Closethebase.org.

The Asahi News' May 4 Wikileaks series reveal Tokyo-D.C. deception & fraud re their proposed U.S. Marine base in Okinawa

Okinawan peace and life activists resisting the destruction of a beautiful eco-system (habitat of the Okinawa dugong), by proposed U.S. military base construction at Henoko & Oura Bay. (Image: Save Life Society)

Here's a complete set of links to the complete set of The Asahi News' May 4, 2011 Wikileaks series revealing Tokyo-D.C. deception & fraud re the planned "Futenma Replacement" U.S. Marine base in Okinawa.

"THE TRUTH BEHIND JAPAN-U.S. TIES (1)": DPJ government never committed to Futenma alternatives": http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105040063.html

Between late 2009 and early 2010, a number of high-ranking officials of the Yukio Hatoyama administration told their U.S. counterparts that they would seek alternatives to the 2006 agreement to relocate Futenma to the Henoko district of Nago in Okinawa Prefecture. But they also secretly said that, in the end, Japan would go along with the 2006 agreement if the United States rejected the proposed alternatives.

"THE TRUTH BEHIND JAPAN-U.S. TIES (2): U.S. used 'China card' to thwart Futenma alternatives": http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105040065.html (Note: China spends between 1/7th and 1/10th of what the U.S. spends on military. Beijing's total military spending equals $70 billion, equal to the amount Washington wastes annually on military spending according to the General Accounting Office (GAO).)

"THE TRUTH BEHIND JAPAN-U.S. TIES (3): Numbers inflated in Marine relocation plan to increase political impact": http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105040066.html:

Japan and the United States in May 2006 compiled a road map for realigning U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan. Under the plan, a provisional agreement was reached in December 2008 on the move to Guam that included the financial burden on each nation.

A diplomatic cable sent by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo to the U.S. State Department that provided details on the negotiations explained that Japan's share was made to appear smaller with the inclusion of an unnecessary project costing $1 billion (81 billion yen) to construct a military road by the United States.

The cable also explained that the numbers of those to be moved to Guam was inflated to 8,000 Marines and 9,000 family members to "optimize political value" (of the agreement).

A diplomatic cable said that in 2006, there were "on the order of 13,000" Marines based in Okinawa. Okinawa prefectural government officials argued that the actual number was 12,000 and criticized the figure included in the relocation road map as an exaggeration.

Although the issue was taken up in the Diet, the government at the time refused to confirm the actual number of personnel to be moved. The cables back up Okinawa's doubts about the figures.

The Democratic Party of Japan-led government was not the first to make secret promises on the Futenma relocation issue that differed from official statements. Such discrepancies can be found in cables from the era of the coalition government between the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito.

The Japan-U.S. road map compiled in May 2006 included figures that differed from reality due to political considerations made by both governments.

Soon after Barack Obama became president, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Japan in February 2009 and signed the agreement on the move of Marines to Guam with then Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone.

At that time, the Japanese bureaucrats and the U.S. government wanted to create a legal framework that would require the immediate implementation of the Futenma relocation plan if the DPJ took over control of government following a Lower House election expected that year.

A "secret" cable sent by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo to Clinton that provided an explanation before her visit to Japan said, "Japanese officials believe the agreement and the allotment of over $900 million in realignment funding during the next fiscal year will buttress Japan's commitment to the May 1, 2006, Alliance Transformation Agreement even if there is a change in government here."

"THE TRUTH BEHIND JAPAN-U.S. TIES (4): LDP ministers made secret promises to Okinawa governor on Futenma": http://www.asahi.com/english?TKY201105040067.html:

A "confidential" cable dated March 12, 2007, and submitted to the U.S. State Department from Kevin Maher, then consul general in Okinawa, said: "(Then Defense Minister Fumio) Kyuma then argued strongly that we need a fifty-meter revision in the FRF (Futenma Replacement Facility) plan in order to get Gov. Nakaima to agree to cooperate with the environmental impact assessment. I responded that we do not, and that to show any flexibility on this point is a mistake and a misreading of the situation in Okinawa."

Kyuma was forced to resign as defense minister in July 2007 after he said the U.S. atomic bombings in World War II could not be helped. Replacing Kyuma was Yuriko Koike, who served as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's special adviser on national security issues.

However, Koike was also forced to step down two months later after a confrontation with Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya over personnel decisions.

No longer defense minister, Koike nevertheless visited Okinawa in November 2007 and met with Maher at the Kanucha resort across the bay from Camp Schwab.

A cable classified as "confidential" and written by an official at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo in place of Maher mentions a secret promise Koike had made with Nakaima.

The cable said, Koike "admitted that as minister she had given the governor an informal 'promise' that after the EIA (environmental impact assessment) is completed, Tokyo will agree to slide the runway 50 meters more toward the ocean."

According to the cable, Maher told Koike that the United States had an "aversion to revising the plan at all," asking her, "What happens if there were no scientific reasons resulting from the EIA to justify any revision to the runway relocation?"

The cable said Koike responded, "There will be a different administration by 2009, so it doesn't matter what we've promised him."

"THE TRUTH BEHIND JAPAN-U.S. TIES (5): Hatoyama's Asia plans created further friction with U.S. officials": http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105040068.html.

"THE TRUTH BEHIND JAPAN-U.S. TIES (6): Japanese bureaucrats also critical of DPJ government": http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105040069.html

若者たち、渋谷に集まる－5.7 反原発デモYoung Crowd Gathers In Front of NHK, Shibuya - Another Large Anti-Nuclear Power Demonstration in Tokyo

Moms and Children - a poster that depicts how all organs of a baby are susceptible to radiation
Satoko Norimatsu's report (with video and photos) on the Shibuya demonstration for non-lethal forms of energy production:

５月７日２時渋谷区役所前集合、脱原発デモに行ってきました。どれだけ報道されるかが楽しみです。ＮＨＫも目の前でやったのでさすがに無視できないのではないかと期待しています。講演での集会やコンサートは盛り上がっていましたが、行進は警察に管理されながらなかなか進めない、エネルギーも落ちてしまうような不自由なものでした。写真とビデオを紹介します。

I just came back from the anti-nuclear power demonstration held in Shibuya, Tokyo. Last time a large demonstration of 15,000 people was held in Koenji, Tokyo, much of the media ignored it, but this time the demo was right in front of NHK in Shibuya, so they have no excuse not to report it.

Okinawa Times: "Okinawa Says No: Futenma reversion demanded, without relocation on the island"

The Okinawa Times, one of Okinawa's two major newspapers, published editorial writer Takayuki Maeda's direct message to Washington and Tokyo during last week's visit by U.S. Senators Carl Levin and Jim Webb to the island.

The article is accompanied by a timeline of Okinawa's demand for Futenma closure and resistance to a "replacement" base at environmentally sensitive Henoko and Oura Bay, habitat of the federally protected Okinawa dugong. The chronology begins with the crime that catalyzed widespread Okinawan anti-base activism: the September 4, 1995 kidnapping and rape of a 12-year old girl by 3 U.S. servicemen and ends with the March 6, 2011 public disclosure of former U.S. State Department Director of the Office of Japan Affairs and U.S. Consul General of Okinawa Kevin Maher's description of Okinawans as "masters of manipulation and extortion."

Read the entire article here, at the Henoko hama Tsushin blog.

Following massive citizen action throughout Japan, Chubu Electric announces Hamaoka nuclear plant shutdown

After widespread citizen protests throughout Japan, Chubu Electric Power Co. plans to stop all reactors at its Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Japan according to The Mainichi Daily News:

Chubu Electric Power Co. plans to stop all reactors at its Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Japan following Prime Minister Naoto Kan's request to do so for security reasons, company sources said Friday.

The decision was learned of shortly after Kan said at a hastily arranged news conference in the evening that all operations at the plant in Shizuoka Prefecture must be suspended due to concerns that a powerful earthquake could trigger yet another serious nuclear crisis.

"It's a decision made after thinking about people's safety," Kan said in announcing the request, referring to the science ministry's prediction of an 87 percent chance of a magnitude-8.0 quake hitting the Tokai region within the next 30 years.

Read the entire article here.

Nuclear watchdog groups: Washington should rethink plans for multi-billion dollar plutonium complex after discovery of seismic risk in New Mexico

"Nuclear watchdog groups slam New Mexico plan":

The U.S. government should rethink plans for a multi-billion dollar plutonium complex at Los Alamos after the recent nuclear catastrophe in Japan and the discovery of increased seismic risk in New Mexico, nuclear watchdog groups said.

A hearing began on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on a lawsuit filed by the Los Alamos Study Group seeking to block any further design, construction or funding of the proposed Chemical and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility until adequate studies of environmental impact and alternatives are complete. Arguments are expected to continue on Monday.

"The real question is whether Los Alamos and the country need this facility at all," asked Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group. "Between now and 2023, this facility will generate nothing but cost to national security, to the environment, and to the taxpayer, no matter what design they choose. So the point is: Why build it?"

Learn more at the Los Alamos Study Group website.

Moms to Save Children from Radiation: "Please Help!"

Moms to Save Children from Radiation, a new Japanese NGO, is pleading for support:

"Please help!" press release in English

Please help!
Children in Fukushima are at risk!

The area within 20 km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was designated as a “caution zone”, where people are prohibited by law from setting foot. There is however no evacuation instruction yet issued for the areas near this zone, so that children go to school every day just as before.

Recently, the Ministry of Education announced the following statement for 13 schools in the cities of Fukushima, Koriyama and Date:

1) When air dose rate on their schoolyard and playground is below 20mSv / year or 3.8μSv / hour, outdoor activities are "safe" so that the facilities can be used as usual.

2) For the facilities exposed to the dose rate exceeding the level set as above, outdoor activities should be limited to one hour per day and kindergartens and daycare centers should not allow their children to play in the sandbox..

The threshold established by the Ministry of Education for children is higher than for the area currently subject to planned evacuation and six times higher than for the "radiation controlled area". Besides, this threshold of 20msv/year was found to be equal to the upper limit of exposure rate for nuclear power plant workers in Germany.

Currently, 75 percent of elementary and middle schools in Fukushima under survey is reported to be contaminated as highly as in the "radiation controlled area". Although children are not allowed to stay for longer than one hour in the playgrounds and parks with a 3.8μSv or higher level of contamination, this threshold level seems to be too high to protect them from radiation poisoning. Possible risks for children, who are several times more susceptible to radiation exposure than adults, thus remain ignored by the Japanese authorities.

What will happen to the children ten or twenty years later?

All the parents in Fukushima are in agony considering their future.

A lot of people are beginning to raise their voices to say: Things shouldn’t remain as they are, we must save children.

Faced with great authority of the Japanese government and TEPCO, however, they are yet unable to find any concrete solution.

We call for the following three actions from the government, Tepco and other authorities concerned.

1) Establish a lower exposure threshold for children;

2) Take as early action as possible to remove the contaminated soil from the schoolyards where a radiation level exceeding the set threshold is detected, or to allow the children at those schools to study at other schools outside the contaminated area;

3) When evacuation of children with or without their parents is necessary, ensure that they can find appropriate hosting facilities and are supplied with the sum of compensation enough to sustain their livelihood.

Since TEPCO sponsors a number of nation-wide mass media, major TV stations and newspaper companies in Japan are not positive about such actions. We therefore would like to appeal to you press people outside Japan for assistance.

Please report as much as possible on this problem. Please disseminate it to the world.

Please pursue the status quo of the children being exposed to radiation.

Please endeavor to save the future of children together with us.

PressTV report: "Japanese govt. under fire for schoolyard radiation"

Michael Penn of PressTV reports on the latest unbelievable news about the Kan administration's changing radiation standards for children:

What is making them angry is a new government edict saying that schoolyards in Fukushima Prefecture should operate normally unless exposed to radiation levels that exceed 20 millisieverts annually.This number raises the potential amount of radiation that children may be exposed to by 20 times above the previous standard.

Some environmental activists are shocked and mystified.

In the central political district of Tokyo, activists and ordinary citizens had a chance to confront the officials of two government ministries, and the atmosphere was electric.

Sometimes, all the officials could do was to bow their heads in silence as the outrage poured out from the crowd.

Watch the Michael Penn's report here.

Grace Lee Boggs calls for a revolution in cultural values: "What are we for, rather than what are we against?"

In this Democracy Now! interview, legendary peace & justice activist from Detroit, Grace Lee Boggs talks about the social and cultural openings unfolding in the wake of failures of our current economic system. Boggs, with DN!'s Juan Gonzalez, Harper'scolumnist Thomas Frank, and minister Jim Wallis, discuss the revolution in values Martin Luther King called for 50 years ago.

This Asia Pacific Forum (WBAI 99.5 FM) interview, "Making the World Anew," with Grace Lee Boggs and her co-author Scott Kurishige, focuses on their new book, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-first Century. The deep question the book addresses is "What are we for, rather than what are we against?"

The daughter of Chinese immigrants who lived in New York City, Boggs attended Barnard College on a scholarship, and received a PhD at Bryn Mawr, before embarking on a journey of lifelong advocacy of interconnected social justice and peace causes.

Her father ran a popular Chinese restaurant on Broadway, near Times Square. Despite all his success, in the 1920's, when he bought a house in Queens, he had to the put deed in the name of an Irish-American contractor because Asian-Americans were not allowed to own property.

Because of her experience with structural racism, Grace Lee Boggs came to identify with African American intellectuals and activists, the vanguard of all U.S. ethnic minority movements and leaders in global human rights and anti-colonial struggles during the 20th century.

In an interview with public broadcaster Bill Moyers in 2006, Boggs explained:

When I was growing up, Asians were so few and far between, they were almost invisible, so the idea of an Asian American movement was unthinkable. When I got my PhD in 1940, even department stores would come out and say, 'We don't hire Orientals, and so the idea of my getting a job teaching at a university was ridiculous.

Boggs tells us that we must remain aware our struggles for equality, dignity, justice and peace are part of an ancient humanistic tradition that is interconnected and global in scope. The philosopher-activist sees nonviolent grassroots social change as part of a "pilgrimage" that humans have undertaken for millennia.

Discussing her mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Boggs reminds us that King didn't just talk about civil rights. Similarly to Malcolm X and other anti-colonial activists of his time, King saw the American Civil Rights Movement as one piece of a global human rights movement challenging the violence and exploitation of hundreds of years of militarized colonialism. Boggs echoes King in telling us that our challenge is not one nation, but instead our challenge are the globally interconnected patterns of racism, materialism, violence, and militarism. As King emphasized, we can only address this dysfunctional and sick mindset by cultivating a "radical revolution of values" — spiritual, moral, creative, and human values — a revolution that begins inside ourselves.

Instead of despairing at what we're up against, Boggs sees hope for change by "bringing together small groups for a major cultural revolution" to address the monstrous growth of the military-industrial complex, the planetary environmental emergency, the plight of the marginalized and other related problems.

We must look for ways to "regain our humanity in little, practical ways." She recommends gardening, especially community gardening, as a means for us to remain connected with and become empowered by our beautiful, living, natural world.


(Grace & the late Jim Boggs. Image: Boggs Center)
Grace Lee Boggs reminds us to stay focused and gain strength from being effective in our personal worlds and finding alternative ways to regain and expand control over our lives:

Do something local...Do something real, however small...There was a time when we thought if we just received political power, we could change everything...

But we have to begin new practices... engender discussions...community...dialogue...

We have to change the way we think...I think we have to rethink the concept of "leader" because the idea of "leader" implies power...

We need to appropriate the idea that we are the leaders we've been waiting for.

More about Grace Lee Boggs and her affirmative philosophy at The Boggs Center website.

Japanese Canadian author Joy Kogawa reading at the Japanese American National Museum on Saturday, May 7, 2011

(Joy Kogawa beside the old cherry tree at the family home where she lived her first six years, before her family's forced removal and detainment with other Japanese Canadians during World War II. Photo: Kogawa Homestead)

)Japanese Canadian writer Joy Kogawa, author of Obasan, the classic novel on the Japanese North American World War II-period forced removal and detainment will be in Los Angeles at an event held at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. this Saturday, May 7, 2011:

8+1: A Symposium: Voices from The Asian American Literary Review is a day-long celebration of Asian American literature and Asian American writers. Featuring paired readings and Q&A sessions by established and emerging authors whose work has or will appear in the pages of the literary journal The Asian American Literary Review.

Readers include Joy Kogawa, Kip Fulbeck, Rishi Reddi, R. Zamora Linmark, Reese Okyong Kwon, Viet Nguyen, Hiromi Itō with translator Jeffrey Angles, Ray Hsu, and Brian Ascalon Roley.

Community sponsors include the Japanese American National Museum, the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California Irvine, Poets & Writers, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, UCLA English Department and the UCLA Friends of English, the USC Asian American Studies Program, the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association Giant Robot, Hyphen Magazine, Audrey Magazine, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, the Asian American Journalists Association's Los Angeles Chapter, and Philippine Expressions Bookshop.

Come to any or all of the readings; stay and get your books signed by the authors. Free to the public. For more information about the Asian American Literary Review, visit www.aalrmag.org/.

More on Joy Kogawa at this TTT post originally posted at the Kyoto Journal website, "Repairing Broken History: Japanese Canadian author Joy Kogawa's childhood home in Vancouver saved."