Peace in Asia and the Pacific: Alternatives to Asia-Pacific Militarization Conference - Oct. 21-22, 2011, American Univ., Washington D.C.

Peace in Asia and the Pacific: Alternatives to Asia-Pacific Militarization

October 21, 2011 - 7:00pm - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - 6:00pm

Initiated by the American Friends Service Committee

To register and for additional information: http://afsc.org/PeaceInAsiaPacific

Please join us and consider having your organization co-sponsor this uniquely important conference.

Even as the Pentagon has been pursuing its Long War across the Middle East and Central Asia, the campaign to contain China has been driving U.S. strategic war planning and military spending.

Our movements to prevent war and to address the impacts of the militarization of the federal budget are not prepared to the long term designs of the Pentagon, right-wing and the Military-Industrial-Complex to reinforce and deepen U.S. militarism across the Asia-Pacific.

As former U.S. Ambassador to China R. Stapleton Roy put it, “we poked China in the eye” by sending the nuclear powered and nuclear capable aircraft carrier the U.S.S. George Washington into the East China Sea “because we could.”

The U.S. still has more than 100 military bases and installations across Japan. In Korea, activists have engaged in hunger strikes and been jailed for opposing the decimation of their communities with new U.S. military bases. The U.S. now has tacit military alliances with Vietnam and India and is exploring the return of military bases to the Philippines. The National Military Strategy issued in 2010 also calls for expanded military cooperation with Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Singapore.

While the US economy stagnates under the tremendous burden of its military expenditures, China has poured resources into becoming the world’s workshop and building 21st century infrastructures and technologies. As the world’s financial centers tilt towards Beijing, new military spending in the region has increased the complexities of its territorial disputes with Japan and ASEAN nations with competing claims to South China Sea islands. A growing number of militarized “incidents” and violent conflict have also occurred on the Korean Peninsula.

The conference goals are:

Build our movements’ capacities to understand and respond to these developments
Identify and promote campaigns that challenge Asia-Pacific militarism and that advocate meaningful alternatives.
Facilitate solidarity between U.S. and Asia-Pacific peace movements, advocates and campaigns
In addition to our keynote speakers, panels will be devoted to Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and peace movement campaigns

Workshops to include:

Asia-Pacific Peace Movements

Southeast Asia

Central/South Asia

Economic Realities & Dynamics of the Asia-Pacific

Global Costs of Militarism

History 101: U.S. in Asia-Pacific

Human Rights

Korea

Nuclear Weapons Abolition

U.S.-China relations

Other workshops to be developed


Keynotes by Madame Yan Junqi, Vice President of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament and the Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress and by Professor Bruce Cumings, Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History Chairperson of the Department, University of Chicago* Panels on Northeast and Southeast Security Issues, Peace Movement Campaigns and Workshops (see below).

*Madame Yan is confirmed. Professor Cumings has been invited. This conference will also serve as the 4th Peace Forum organized by The American Friends Service Committee and the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament.

Additional information, including registration, available at http://afsc.org/PeaceInAsiaPacific.

Location

Kay Spiritual Life Center, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20016
See map: Google Maps
Contact Information:
Joseph Gerson
(617)661-6130
jgerson@afsc.org

Wangari Mathaai: When we destroy our natural environment, we degrade ourselves; in helping the earth to heal, we heal ourselves

Wangaari Mathaai, the late Kenyan visionary, articulated the interconnections between democracy, demilitarization, human rights and environmentalism in her holistic vision of a life-sustaining civilization:

Spiritual Environmentalism: Healing Ourselves by Replenishing the Earth

During my more than three decades as an environmentalist and campaigner for democratic rights, people have often asked me whether spirituality, different religious traditions, and the Bible in particular had inspired me, and influenced my activism and the work of the Green Belt Movement (GBM). Did I conceive conservation of the environment and empowerment of ordinary people as a kind of religious vocation? Were there spiritual lessons to be learned and applied to their own environmental efforts, or in their lives as a whole?...

However, I never differentiated between activities that might be called "spiritual" and those that might be termed "secular." After a few years I came to recognize that our efforts weren't only about planting trees, but were also about sowing seeds of a different sort—the ones necessary to give communities the self-confidence and self-knowledge to rediscover their authentic voice and speak out on behalf of their rights (human, environmental, civic, and political). Our task also became to expand what we call "democratic space," in which ordinary citizens could make decisions on their own behalf to benefit themselves, their community, their country, and the environment that sustains them...

In the process of helping the earth to heal, we help ourselves.

Through my experiences and observations, I have come to believe that the physical destruction of the earth extends to us, too. If we live in an environment that's wounded—where the water is polluted, the air is filled with soot and fumes, the food is contaminated with heavy metals and plastic residues, or the soil is practically dust—it hurts us, chipping away at our health and creating injuries at a physical, psychological, and spiritual level. In degrading the environment, therefore, we degrade ourselves.

The reverse is also true. In the process of helping the earth to heal, we help ourselves. If we see the earth bleeding from the loss of topsoil, biodiversity, or drought and desertification, and if we help reclaim or save what is lost—for instance, through regeneration of degraded forests—the planet will help us in our self-healing and indeed survival. When we can eat healthier, nonadulterated food; when we breathe clean air and drink clean water; when the soil can produce an abundance of vegetables or grains, our own sicknesses and unhealthy lifestyles become healed. The same values we employ in the service of the earth's replenishment work on us, too. We can love ourselves as we love the earth; feel grateful for who we are, even as we are grateful for the earth's bounty; better ourselves, even as we use that self-empowerment to improve the earth; offer service to ourselves, even as we practice volunteerism for the earth.

Human beings have a consciousness by which we can appreciate love, beauty, creativity, and innovation or mourn the lack thereof. To the extent that we can go beyond ourselves and ordinary biological instincts, we can experience what it means to be human and therefore different from other animals. We can appreciate the delicacy of dew or a flower in bloom, water as it runs over the pebbles or the majesty of an elephant, the fragility of the butterfly or a field of wheat or leaves blowing in the wind. Such aesthetic responses are valid in their own right, and as reactions to the natural world they can inspire in us a sense of wonder and beauty that in turn encourages a sense of the divine.

The environment becomes sacred, because to destroy what is essential to life is to destroy life itself.

That consciousness acknowledges that while a certain tree, forest, or mountain itself may not be holy, the life-sustaining services it provides—the oxygen we breathe, the water we drink—are what make existence possible, and so deserve our respect and veneration. From this point of view, the environment becomes sacred, because to destroy what is essential to life is to destroy life itself.

Read more of this entire excerpt of Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World here.

Wangari Mathaai: "Rather than go backwards, we ought to move forward, towards a vision of a world without war."

...rather than go backwards, we ought to move forward, towards a vision of a world without war. A world where every nation would have an Article 9 in its constitution.

- Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Green Belt Movement

Hirose Takashi: Fukushima Meltdown: The World's First Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster available on Kindle

Fukushima Meltdown: The World's First Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster

After the Great Tohoku Earthquake and the tsunami and nuclear disaster that followed, veteran anti-nuclear power writer Hirose Takashi, in a passion of despair and anger, wrote the book Fukushima Meltdown in about six weeks or less, which was published by Asahi Shinsho and became a national best seller in Japan.

A group of us decided that it was vital to get this book out in English, and we formed a translation team, trying to learn from Hirose's passion of energy.

As of 19 September 2011 the book has become available online at Amazon Kindle Books, under the title Fukushima Meltdown: The World’s First Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster.  

As you know, we are not going to learn what happened at Fukushima by reading the mainstream media, or by studying the pronouncements of the Japanese Government and TEPCO.  For people who want to know what went wrong at Fukushima, what went haywire with the media, and what is likely to happen next in earthquake-prone Japan, I think this is a must read.  If you agree, please send this information along to any person or group that you think might be interested.  Thanks!

C. Douglas Lummis, for the translation team

Global Article 9 Campaign: What Noda's Election as Japan's PM means to the Article 9 Debate

Global Article Campaign to Abolish War:

NODA YOSHIHIKO ELECTED PRIME MINISTER - IMPLICATIONS ON THE ARTICLE 9 DEBATE

On August 29, Noda Yoshihiko was elected President of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), thus set to become the third DPJ Prime Minister since the party came to power in August 2009.

Japan's Prime Minister Kan Naoto announced his resignation on August 26, amidst criticism of his handling of the March 11 earthquake, tsunami, and ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, as well as what is considered to be the biggest debt crisis in the industrialized world. Kan faced a no confidence vote in June, when he pledged to resign once Parliament passed a legislation promoting renewable energy.

In politics since 1987, Noda Yoshihiko joined the DPJ in 2000 and served as Finance Minister in Kan's cabinet in 2010-2011. His election platform has been based on getting the Fukushima nuclear power plant under control and restoring Japan's fiscal balance. A fiscal conservative, Noda is an advocate of tax increase to curb the country's debt and finance the country's reconstruction. Qualifying his policies as "reasonable" and "realistic", he wants to restart Japan's nuclear reactors and does not support his predecessor's vision of a nuclear-free Japan (though he is in favor of reducing Japan's reliance on nuclear power).

Known as a strong supporter of the US-Japan security alliance, Noda considers US-Japanese ties as the "very foundation" of Japan's foreign and security policies. Expressing concerns over China's military buildup, which he describes as the "greatest cause for worry in the (Asian) region", Noda favors a tough approach towards China.

Upsetting Japan's neighbors, Noda has repeatedly made controversial statements on Japanese A-class war criminals, denying that the country's wartime leaders were "criminals" and defending Japanese politicians' visits to the Yasukuni Shrine - the controversial war memorial that honors those killed in the service of Imperial Japan, including World War II war criminals, seen as a symbol of Japanese militarism.

The son of a Japan Ground Self Defense Forces career soldier, Noda stated in 2002 (then as an opposition politician) that Japan should get rid of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which renounces war as a means of settling international disputes and prohibits the maintenance of armed forces and other war potential. If not, he added, Article 9 should at least specify that Japan's SDF has military capability.

Yoshio Shimoji: U.S. military seizure of private property in Okinawa was a violation of the Hague Convention

Futenma cannot be relocated to Henoko

Yoshio Shimoji
August 15, 2011
Naha, Okinawa
Japan

In their recent telephone conference ("Kitazawa, Panetta agree on Futenma," July 17, 2011 The Japan Times), Japan's Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa and the newly appointed U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reaffirmed "that Tokyo and Washington will move forward with the plan to relocate the controversial Futenma base within Okinawa."

Futenma was constructed toward the end of WW II with an aim of attacking mainland Japan by B-29's in order to end the war quickly. But the war ended before that plan was actually carried out. Futenma should have been returned at that point; instead, it has continued to be in the firm grip of the U.S. military all these years to this day.

The area where Futenma Air Station sits was rich with water resources and so rice paddies were the main features of the farmland around here. Along a beautiful pine tree-lined highway were the villages of Ginowan, Kamiyama, Nakahara, Maehara and Aragusuku, of which Ginowan was the largest with houses and stores galore, where public facilities like a post office, a school (Ginowan Elementary School) and the village office, were located.

Evidently, the U.S. military seized the land in clear violation of Article 46 of the Hague Convention, which states: "Family honour and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practice, must be respected. Private property cannot be confiscated."

The illegality of Futenma would not disappear even if it were to be moved to Henoko or anywhere else in Okinawa just like dirty money would not become clean how many times it might undergo laundering.

Both Kitazawa and Panetta must realize this and search for an alternative solution, that is, to move it outside of Okinawa, most preferably, to the U.S. mainland.

Aerial photograph of beautiful, biodiverse Cape Henoko which the U.S. Marines want to destroy to make way for a mega-base. (Photo: The Asia-Pacific Journal)

(The blueprint for a new air station, a military port, and a pier, from the Master Plan of U.S. Navy Facilities on Okinawa, 1966. Image: The Asia-Pacific Journal)

Yoshio Shimoji: Futenma must be returned unconditionally

Futenma Air Station occupies 25% of densely populated Ginowan City. The U.S. Marines are storing nuclear waste from Fukushima at Futenma (and other bases in Japan). (Photo: The Asia-Pacific Journal))

Futenma must be returned unconditionally

Yoshio Shimoji
June 22, 2011
Naha, Okinawa
Japan

At the two-plus-two meeting held in Washington on June 21,2011 the two sides (Tokyo and Washington) reconfirmed the 2006 Roadmap which stipulated that an air station with V-shaped runways would be built on reclaimed land off the coast of Henoko District in northern Okinawa. This is what I would call a base laundering tactic similar to money laundering because the relocation is an attempt on the part of the U.S. side to hide the dirty nature of the Futenma air base.

Jon Mitchell writes in his recent article in the Japan Times: "With all of Okinawa under U.S. administration, the authorities started by tricking the landowners (in Iejima) into signing voluntary evacuation papers... But then, when some families refused to leave, 300 U.S. soldiers with rifles and bulldozers dragged women and children from their beds, tore down their homes and slaughtered their goats." ("Iejima: an island of resistance," May 22, 2011 The Japan Times)

But Iejima was only a precursor of forceful land expropriations by the U.S. military at bayonet point and by bulldozer to expand their already-existing bases in Okinawa during the 1950's Okinawa. Following Iejima came Isahama located now in Ginowan City (Camp Foster) and Gushi in Oroku (now incorporated into Naha City) (Naha Air Base, formerly operated by the U.S. Air Force, currently by SDAF). Futenma had already been turned into a forward operating base for the U.S. Marine Aviation Squadron to attack mainland Japan in 1945.

The Marine Corps says when the base was built, there was nothing in the area where Futenma now sits except for barren wilderness. But that's not true. There were five idyllic villages there before the war: Ginowan, Kamiyama, Nakahara, Maehara and Aragusuku, all ravaged during the Battle of Okinawa and then all the landowners were forced to move outside of the fences after the war, moving to areas that eventual became integral parts (districts) of today's Ginowan City. Their former villages were swallowed up into the Marine air base with a 2,700-meter runway, together with rich farmland. The Futenma village, after which the base was named, was located just outside of the encroached-upon land and so narrowly escaped the ill fate of the incorporation into the base.

If U.S. policy planners feel no qualms of conscience about the dark history of those U.S. bases in Okinawa, then they are real villains and villainesses with no human mind. I believe that that explains why they can brazenly demand a quid pro quo for Futenma's facilities to be built in Henoko, with all the expenses footed by Japanese taxpayers (Okinawa residents included).

Futenma must be closed down immediately with no strings attached. The U.S. has no inherent right at all to keep holding the base.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, 201javascript:void(0)0, and his article, "'Thanks' Doesn't Allay Okinawans," was published on July 11, 2010, at The Japan Times.

Chinese farmers protest state seizure of land

Similarly to nomads in Tibet,  Chinese farmers are protesting state seizure of their land.

In Communist China, the state legally owns all the property, but this has not stopped Guangdong farmers from protesting recent seizures and demolitions to make way for government projects.

Message from Okinawans to Americans in The New York Times through Sept. 23, 2011

The "Urgent Okinawa Protest Advertising Action" will run in The New York Times from September 21-23, 2011, coinciding with Japanese Prime Minister Noda's visit to the United Nations General Assembly.

This notice is motivated by a sense of crisis generated by recent moves by the present Japanese administration on the U.S. Futenma airbase issue.

The Okinawan people demand the closure and return of the Futenma base and the cancellation of the new "replacement" base at ecologically sensitive Henoko and Oura Bay, habitat of numerous endangered species, included the federally protected Okinawa dugong, a living national monument.

Please view the protest advertisement from Okinawans to Americans at The New York Times World Section.

Read the entire Okinawan message to Americans at their at Okinawa Protest Advertising Action website.

September 19, 2011 Tokyo Nuclear Abolition Rally draws 60,000 Japanese citizens

(Via Mochizuki Cheshire Iori at Dianuke.org (which has more great photos):

A 94 year-old-man attended in a wheel chair.

(Sayakaiurani SAYAKA)

94歳のおじいさんが車椅子でデモ参加。『私はあの時、怖くて、言えなかった。非国民にされてしまうと怯えた。だから多くの日本人が死んでしまった。この国はまた形を変えて、戦争を始めている。決して原発という名の兵器を可動させてはならない。あの時の悔しさを今ここで！』と訴えてます。

We didn’t want to look like renegades against the nation,so a lot of Japanese went to the battle field and died.Now alternative war has started. Nuke is the weapon. We must never start it again.

“During World War II, I was scared of the government like all the other people.

During World War ll, I deeply regretted. I don’t want to repeat that again,that’s why I’m here.”