The top three banks that finance coal plants and thus are major contributors to climate change [and the destruction of entire ecosystems] are:
- JP Morgan Chase: $22 billion.
- Citi: $18.27 billion
- Bank of America: $16.79 billion
They are followed by Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland
The top 20 coal financing banks are from the US, UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, China [Bank of China], Italy and Japan [Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group]. Since 2005, the 93 banks analyzed in a study have financed coal to the tune of $309 billion.
"Bankrolling Climate Change," released at the Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa, examines commercial bank lending practices in the coal industry. It was produced by several NGOs - urgewald (Germany), groundwork and Earthlife Africa Johannesburg (South Africa) and international network, BankTrack.
Not only China and India, but the United States provides examples of the devastation that coal production and burning wrought upon the natural environment. Southeastern Appalachia is reminscent of western Tohoku's breathtaking mountainous landscape and deep traditional culture. This beautiful region, similarly to Tohoku, has become a "national sacrifice zone."
To produce a tiny percentage (around 4%) of U.S. energy output, coal companies have bombed nearly 500 of the oldest mountains in North America encompassing 800,000 acres. Entire ecosystems and centuries-old small farming communities have been obliterated. As in Tohoku, war-like destructive assaults upon nature and people by dirty energy companies have been met with political, social, and media activist resistance by the people of the entire region and their worldwide supporters.
After certain events, then—including The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011— a new energy from the universe churns what is collective into what is individual to produce the mix Jung called “collective unconscious” which we all share.
The history we carry is not just our own. What worries and gnaws at us, like a dog a bone, is all of ours, as shown by the soul’s call to human compassion.
Okinawans demonstrate on Dec. 1, 2011 at the Okinawa Defense Bureau, a division of the Japanese Defense Ministry
Two still relevant statements from earlier this year by Americans who support the Okinawan democracy and peace movement that seeks to halt US military destruction of unique, biodiverse, irreplaceable ecosystems in northern Okinawa (a subtropical rainforest & a coral reef habitat that is the home of the critically endangered and federally protected Okinawa dugong):
January 7, 2011
Dear U.S. 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.
Construction Accelerates at Two U.S. Military Sites in Okinawa Prefecture Advocates Express Concern for Treatment of Peaceful Protesters
Feb. 16. 2011
WASHINGTON – The Japanese Defense Ministry’s Okinawan Headquarters (the Okinawan Defense Bureau) accelerated construction of new facilities at two military bases in northern Okinawa during the last week of January — despite recent signals from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the United States would be more flexible in the realignment of bases in Okinawa. The construction prompted calls of protest from international peace and environmental organizations.
Construction workers pushed past local residents to move material and equipment into Takae Village in the Yanbaru Forest. Crews also replaced a barbed wire barrier with a temporary wall on a beach bordering Camp Schwab in an effort to block the view of new construction from protesters. Residents have continuously protested both construction sites since US and Japanese governments announced their plans at the end of 1996; and cite the many sensitive environmental and cultural treasures at risk. Both sites are home to rare and endangered species found only in Okinawa.
“The actions of the Okinawan Defense Bureau are of deep concern and demonstrate the legitimate grievances of the Okinawan community. We urge all parties to exercise firm restraint. We call on the Japanese and American governments to respect the democratic wishes of Okinawans who have overwhelmingly voted to prevent new base construction on Okinawa,” said John Feffer, spokesperson for US-based Network for Okinawa.
Plans for the US Marine Corps’ jungle training area near Takae Village include six new helipads capable of handling the military’s new V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. Residents object that the construction will surround their village of 160 people and damage the biodiverse Yambaru Forest. Takae’s local residents successfully prevented construction from 2007 until December 2010 when a protest camp was partially destroyed by a US helicopter and construction crews forcibly restarted construction work.
Residents near Camp Schwab oppose construction of a new airbase and military port over coral reefs in Henoko Bay. Military leaders cite this new megabase as a replacement for the existing controversial Futenma airbase in central Okinawa. The plan has drawn international criticism because of the endangered species that live within the construction area. In 2008, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the U.S. Department of Defense had violated the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) by failing to “take into account” in the planning of the construction of a US military base in Henoko and Oura Bay the effects of the construction on the Okinawa dugong, a Japanese “natural monument.” Last November, Okinawa elected a governor who campaigned on the promise to close Futenma and relocate it outside the prefecture.
“It is an incredible tragedy the Japanese and American governments insist on pushing forward with a construction plan that would cause irreparable damage to one of the world’s most diverse biosystems,” said Mr. Feffer. “During a time of economic crisis and mounting deficits, it is shocking that both countries have embraced a plan that cuts education and social welfare programs while supporting a construction plan that benefits only the military-industrial complex.”
The Network for Okinawa (NO) is a grassroots coalition of peace groups, environmental organizations, faith-based organizations, academia, and think tanks, which oppose additional military construction in Okinawa and support the democratic decisions of the people of Okinawa.
Japanese version:
沖縄・やんばるの森と辺野古における新軍事施設建設に関する
「Network for Okinawa」（沖縄のためのネットワーク）声明文
「沖縄防衛局の行為は大きな懸念であり、沖縄地域の正当な不満をあきらかにしています。私たちは、工事関係者には不適切な行動を慎むよう要求します。私たちは、日米両政府に対し、沖縄の圧倒的大多数の人々が新基地建設阻止のために投票した民主的な願いを尊重するよう求めます」と、米国を拠点にしている「Network for Okinawa」の代表のジョン・フェファー氏は語りました。
※「Network for Okinawa」（沖縄のためのネットワーク）は、米国と世界の平和・環境団体、宗教的奉仕活動団体、大学・研究機関やシンクタンクの代表者を結びつけ、沖縄に おける軍事施設建設に反対し、民主的な判断をサポートする草の根のネットワークです。
Background from Hideki Yoshikawa in Okinawa:
The Citizens’ Network for Biological Diversity in Okinawa (Okinawa BD): Call for Your Attention and Action:Protect Yanbaru Forest and Local Community from Helipad Construction
Dear Concerned Citizens and Organizations,
On February 3, 2011, amid local people and their supporters’ protests and calls for dialogue, members of the Okinawa Defense Bureau marched in and began felling trees in Takae area of the Yanbaru forest in Okinawa, Japan to resume the construction of six new helipads for the US military.
The resumption of construction has brought a new intensity to the stand off between the Okinawa Defense Bureau and the local people and their supporters, who have been carrying out a peaceful sit-in protest to protect the living environment and the Yanbaru forest.
The Citizens’ Network for Biological Diversity in Okinawa (Okinawa BD) is calling for your attention to this latest development in the Yanbaru forest and is asking for your action to help halt the Okinawa Defense Bureau’s construction work in the forest.
Located in the northern area of Okinawa Island, the Yanbaru forest (about 26, 000 ha) is one of the richest areas of biodiversity in Japan. It is home to over 1,000 species of high plants and 5,000 species of animals, including numerous indigenous and endemic species such as the endangered Okinawa Woodpecker and Okinawa Rail. It is also home to people who live in small and isolated communities. Takae is one of these communities.
The Okinawa prefectural government promotes the Yanbaru forest as a key area in its efforts to get the Ryukyu Islands designated as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site. The Japanese government announced its intentions to designate the Yanbaru forest as a national park during the10th Conference of Parties to the Convention for Biological Diversity
(COP10) held recently in Nagoya, Japan.
Helipad Construction
Since 1957, the US military has been using a large part of the Yanbaru forest for training. Today, 30% of the Yanbaru forest is a US military training area. In this training area, there are already 22 frequently used US helipads, causing various problems to the environment and the nearby local communities. Thus, since the construction plan was revealed in 1999, local people, NGOs, and experts have been opposing to the plan and expressing their concerns that the construction of new helipads in the Takae area will certainly further impact the Yanbaru forest and the Takae community.
After conducting its Environment Impact Assessment for the helipad construction plan, the Okinawa Defense Bureau has concluded that the construction and use of the helipads would have no impact on the environment and the community. While local people, NGOs, and scientists/experts have criticized the EIA for its lack of transparency, accuracy, and reliability, the Okinawa Defense Bureau has been proceeding with the construction plan, based on the EIA’s “no-impact" conclusion.
International voices, meanwhile, have been loud and clear. The International Union of Conservation for Nature (IUCN) has twice called for conservation of the endangered Okinawa Woodpaker and Okinawa Rail in the forest. On the occasion of COP10 in Nagoya, the Guardian newspaper urged the Okinawa Defense Bureau to “consider alternative sites [for helipad construction] that will not impact Okinawa's unique biodiversity.”
This is why the residents of the Takae community and many others have been opposing the construction plan and calling for explanation and dialogue with the Okinawa Defense Bureau.
Okinawa Defense Bureau Filed Lawsuit
So far, the Okinawa Defense Bureau has shown no willingness to resolve the criticism and concerns. Instead, it has reacted to the local opposition by filing a lawsuit against residents of the Takae community for obstruction of traffic in November 2008, who were engaged in a peaceful sit in protest against the helipad construction.
In what many consider a “SLAPP lawsuit,” the court has ordered both the Okinawa Defense Bureau and the local residents to enter negotiation outside of court. Negotiation has not, however, has taken place as the Okinawa Defense Bureau keeps declining to negotiate.
It is in light of these developments that the Okinawa Defense Bureau marched in and began felling trees in the Takae area of the Yambaru forest and the stand off between the Okinawa Defense Bureau and the protesters has intensified.
Please Voice Your Objection and Concerns!
We of the Okinawa BD ask the Okinawa Defense Bureau and the Japanese government to immediately halt the helipad construction in the forest. We also ask them to enter dialogue with the local people, NGOs, and experts/scientists in order to seek ways to protect the rich biodiversity of the Yanbaru forest and the peaceful living environment for the local people.
We invite you and/or your organization to voice your objection to and/or concern over the resumed construction of helipads in the Yanbaru forest, and to send them to the Okinawa Defense Bureau, the Japanese government, the Okinawa prefectural government, and the US government,
Hideki Yoshikawa
Chief Secretary
Citizens’ Network for Biological Diversity in Okinawa
Contact Addresses
-Okinawa Defense Bureau
infomod@mod.go.jp
Tel: 81-(0)98-921-8131
Fax: 81-(0)98-921-8168
Japan Ministry of Defense
infomod@mod.go.jp
Tel: 81-(0)3-5366-3111
Japan Ministry of the Environment
https://www.env.go.jp/en/moemail/
Tel: 81-(0)3-3581-3351
Takae activists show rape comment report to military construction workers. (Photo:Takae Blog)
Recently the head of the Okinawan branch of Japan's Defense Ministry compared DC-Tokyo forced US military construction in Okinawa to "rape." For his transparent comment about US-Tokyo strategy, Satoshi Tanaka was fired yesterday.
Earlier this month, Tanaka moved ahead, despite local oppostion, with military construction in biodiverse Yanbaru Forest, a subtropical rainforest in northern Okinawa, Yanbaru, a habitat for unique, indigenous species, to make way for US military V-22 "Osprey" aircraft training and testing heliports.
The U.S. Marines, the manufacturer, and congressional representatives from the district in Texas in which the factory is located, have lobbied for years against the axing of the expensive, accident-prone military aircraft from the U.S. defense budget. This Iron Triangle even beat out former Vice President Dick Cheney who argued against the program. Despite extreme costs, accident risks, and no strategic value for the aircraft, US Marines have pushed to build heliports for the Osprey aircraft in Okinawa since they need someplace to put them, according to some U.S. foreign affairs analysts.
As a result, residents of Takae, an eco-village in Yanbaru Forest, have been in a cold war with the U.S. Marines for years. Residents report assaults by U.S. military helicopters against civilian protesters. Some fly low to the ground, terrorizing villagers destroying their property, and damaging forest trees. One villager reported that a U.S. soldier demanded food, at riflepoint, while laughing at her. These are just a few reports that reflect the tip of an iceberg of accounts of U.S. military injuries and intentional infliction of emotional distress upon local people.
The pattern of U.S. military abuse of northern Okinawans is not recent, but historical. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military forced Takae villagers to dress like Vietcong for war games. US troops sprayed toxic herbicides in the forest. For these Okinawans, U.S. military assaults upon Okinawan property and persons have been continuous from the Battle of Okinawa through the Vietnam War era to today:
Okinawa's two major newspapers, Okinawa Times and Ryukyu Shimpo reported at length on Tanaka's "injudicious remark"; Japanese newspapers called it "indiscreet." It might be better described as a Freudian slip.
More background information on the movement to protect Takae and Yanbaru Forest:
"Key Amendments to H.R.1, Fiscal Year 2011 Appropriations Bill" compiled by The New York Times. (Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (Democrat, Illinois sponsored an Amendment To Eliminate Financing for the V-22 Osprey Aircraft (H.AMDT.13). The House of Representatives voted (326 to 105, mostly Republican, but also Democrats) against this amendment; resulting in U.S. taxpayers footing the bill for at least $415 million for the V-22 Osprey aircraft this year. So far, the Osprey has cost Americans $60 billion.)
Peace Studies and Okinawa scholar Satoko Oka Norimatsu renders a historical analysis of a Japanese political pattern of sacrificing backwaters for the temporary economic benefit of those in privileged zones of urban centers.
Of course, destroying entire regions, ecosystems, and peoples is not a traditional Japanese societal pattern. It was borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon industrial model and has been the basis of global colonial and neoliberal "development." It would take an encyclopedia to chart the forced sacrifice of peoples and ecosystems throughout our planet, for the profit of a miniscule elite, over the centuries.
It would also take an encyclopedia to chart the citizen movements that have arisen throughout the world to challenge these patterns of exploitation and destruction.
Norimatsu, director of the Peace Philosophy Centre in Vancouver and a co-founder of the Network for Okinawa, compares the plight of Okinawans, who have campaigned nonstop since 1996, against forced new U.S. military construction at biodiverse Yanbaru Forest and Oura Bay to the more recent plight of residents of post 3/11-Fukushima. Both groups have endured national governmental and establishment media dismissal of their collective concerns. As a result, Okinawan and Fukushima citizen movements and citizen media, have grown to address a myriad of issues, in parallel the burgeoning of action of citizen groups worldwide.
Will people of the periphery choose to remain abandoned? Certainly not all. In Northeastern Japan, many people have stood up, taking safety into their own hands. Citizen groups conduct independent radiation measurements and publish their own radiation protection guides. Anti-nuclear power demonstrations spread, with a scale and intensity not seen in mainland Japan since the 1960s anti-Anpo (Japan-US Security Treaty) movement. As seen in Sato Eisaku’s words quoted above, perceptions of commonality between Okinawa and Fukushima – the state imposition of military bases or nuclear reactors on the basis of discrimination against marginal and vulnerable areas at the expense of well-being of those living there — seems to be growing in Japan, awakening some with sympathy with the Okinawan situation on a level not seen before 3.11.
Though the scale of current anti-nuclear demonstrations in Japan are not comparable to those of anti-base movements in Okinawa for the past six decades that mobilize as much as ten per cent of the population, it is notable that some mainlanders seem to emulate the Okinawan movement, using the same symbolic colour yellow, and slogans like “life is precious” (“Nuchi du Takara” in Okinawan). As in the “Arab’s Spring” movements of 2011, civic voices spread through newly emerging social media such as Facebook and Twitter, integrating existing movements, connecting different generations, and merging anti-nuclear, anti-base, anti-neoliberal and the burgeoning “Occupy” movements, suggesting a broader possible social base for movements throughout Japan.
Because of increasing public distrust in the government and mainstream media’s information concerning the crippled nuclear reactors and radiation risks, internet media have attracted a surge of new users in post-3.11 Japan. There is an emerging crop of internet journalists, such as Iwakami Yasumi, Uesugi Takashi, Kinoshita Kota, and Shiraishi Hajime, and many others, as well as widely read bloggers and Twitterers29 Their influence threatens the monopoly on information of the Japanese government and major media, leading the government to call on telecommunication companies to 'take appropriate measures to prevent groundless rumours on the internet...'
With Okinawa’s all-island determination to refuse construction of another military base on their land in the face of unremitting pressure form the Japanese and US governments, and with people across the nation awakening to new dimensions of citizenry and autonomy through alternative media and direct action, are we living in “a global Gandhian moment," as international law scholar Richard Falk suggests, in which the “abandoned people” are empowered and engaged in non-violent confrontations with established powers, making the impossible possible?
An answer is in each of us, and how we capture this critical historical moment.
Satoko Oka Norimatsu is a writer and educator based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. She is Director of Peace Philosophy Centre and a Coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. Her upcoming book co-authored with Gavan McCormack, “NO! Okinawa’s Message to Japan and the United States” will be published in spring 2012 by Rowman and Littlefield.
A division of the Japan Meteorological Agency announced that up to 80 percent of the radioactive contamination from the 3/11 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster fell into the ocean, but the remaining airborne material circled the planet on jet stream winds. The Meteorological Research Institute said its computer simulations calculated that radioactive materials, including cesium-137, were blown northeastward from 3/11 toward Siberia and Alaska before mostly falling into the Pacific.
Remaining atmospheric nuclear radiation blew over the Pacific coast of the United States around March 17. Radioactive particles that remained aloft completed their first round-the-globe trip by March 24.
A screen capture of a map released on Nov. 11 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology displaying accumulated radioactive cesium levels in eastern Japan. (Image: Mainichi)
Half of radioactive materials from Fukushima fell into sea: study
November, 17, 2011
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- More than half of the radioactive materials that were emitted into the atmosphere in the days after the Fukushima nuclear disaster have since fallen into the ocean, according to a recent simulation by a team of researchers.
Between 70 and 80 percent of the radioactive cesium from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Fukushima Prefecture had fallen into the sea by April, with the rest having fallen on land, according to the simulation done by the Meteorological Research Institute in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, and other researchers.
"The Fukushima nuclear power plant is located on the eastern edge of Japan, so only small amounts ended up falling on land because (such materials) get carried by the westerlies between March and April," said Yasumichi Tanaka, a senior researcher at the Japan Meteorological Agency institute and a member of the research team. However, it suggests the fallout that did not make landfall polluted the ocean, he added.
A simulation model applied in the study was developed by the institute and the agency, and was used to see how such radioactive isotopes as cesium-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137 got dispersed in the days after the disaster triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
On the premise that the materials were dispersed with each particle being the size of less than 1 micrometer, the simulation showed they largely completed a trip around the globe in roughly 10 days after first crossing the Pacific.
Once released into the atmosphere, the materials were dispersed mostly northbound and reached the western coast of the mainland United States around March 17 after passing through eastern Russia and Alaska, according to the simulation. They are likely to have largely completed a round-the Earth trip around March 24.
Most of the radioactive materials fell with rain as they got carried through the atmosphere, the study showed, saying that about 65 percent of the cesium-131 released into the air in the disaster has since fallen into the sea.
The results of the study will be presented to an academic meeting in Nagoya that began Wednesday.
Thoughtful discussion of latest on empathy research at Ed Yong's blog at Discover:
Consider the OXTR gene. It creates a docking station for a hormone called oxytocin, which has far-ranging effects on our social behaviour. People carry either the A or G versions of OXTR, depending on the “letter” that appears at a particular spot along its length. People with two G-copies tend to be more empathic, sociable and sensitive than those with at least one A-copy. These differences are small, but according to a new study from Aleksandr Kogan at the University of Toronto, strangers can pick up on them after watching people for just a few minutes.
Citizens and students participating in a candlelight vigil demonstration against the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) at Seoul Plaza attempt to march down street while police assault them with water cannons, Nov. 23, 2011. (Photo: The Hankyoreh: "FTA fallout")
"Candlelight Vigil (Chopul): Widespread since the 2002 Yang-ju incident in Kyoung-gi Province. A U.S. military vehicle killed two school girls, but the American military court exonerated the driver, bringing discontent with U.S. military presence to a boil. Nationwide candlelight vigils ensued, quickly becoming a dominant protest genre..." (Text: Gabriele Hadl. Photo: Kyoto Journal)
The Nov. 23 South Korean police assault on citizens during a candlelight vigil against the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) in Seoul brings home the reality that South Korea has only been a democracy since the late 1980's. It took South Koreans decades of political and social resistance to overturn the U.S.-backed military dictatorship established after the Korean War that followed the even more notorious Japanese military dictatorship of the peninsula.
The Lee Myung-bak administration has attempted to turn back the clock and undo many of the democratic reforms of the 1990's. This, in turn, has given rise to an intensification of resistance: a part of everyday culture in South Korea. Engaged scholar Mark Selden, editor of The Asia-Pacific Journal, notes that South Koreans have created the most vibrant and sustained grassroots democratic movement in the Asia-Pacific, comparable only to the Okinawan movement in intensity, longevity, and creativity.
Korean-Jewish-American filmmaker Koohan Paik explains the South Korean passion for democracy:
When I was a child in South Korea during the 1960s, we lived under the repressive dictatorship of Park Chung-hee. Anyone out after 10 p.m. curfew could be arrested. Anyone who tried to protest the government disappeared. A lot of people died fighting for democracy and human rights.
Today, the South Korean people carry in living memory the supreme struggles that forged the freedom they currently enjoy. And after all they’ve sacrificed, they are not going to give that freedom up.
In "Korean Protest Culture", a photo essay for the Kyoto Journal, Gabriele Hadl describes some of the many symbolic actions found in Korean social movements:
Downtown Seoul has more protest spots than coffeehouses. Protesters of many persuasions have taken up a permanent, rotating residency in front of the Blue House, South Korea’s presidential mansion, while the American embassy is never without riot police.
For most of the country’s history, demonstrations have been put down with an iron fist. In the 1960s, widespread protest won a three-year respite from dictatorship. Though short-lived, it piqued the hunger for democratic reform. Dissent then burned underground for two decades. Ultimately, the military regime could not contain it. In 1985, the struggle was reignited en masse, and a two-year protest campaign brought down the government. No velvet revolution here, but a series of powerful, sustained confrontations, culminating in a radical rewriting of the social contract. Its provisions are still being negotiated, in parliament and on the street...
A labor media activist reflects, “We separate action and daily life…go to a rally, then home. We have to integrate struggle into our everyday lives.”
Background on the KORUS FTA candlelight vigil demonstration:
...In fact, KORUS represents a major victory for U.S. multinational corporations, banks and financial institutions, which have lobbied intensively for the pact for more than half a decade. It’s also a major setback for Korean and American unions. Both (with the exception of the U.S. United Auto Workers) saw that KORUS, like NAFTA, was above and beyond an investment agreement designed to improve conditions and decrease risk for foreign capital while doing nothing to improve labor rights (dismal in both South Korea and the United States, as recognized by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) or lift the general conditions of workers and consumers in either country. Now that the AFL-CIO has failed to convince a Democratic president and Senate to oppose it, it remains to be seen if South Korea’s labor-led opposition can muster the strength to defeat the treaty in Seoul. We shall see...
The South Korean-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS) cannot be seen apart from U.S.-South Korean security ties, the presence in South Korea of more than 30,000 U.S. troops and a 50-year economic relationship that has been heavily weighted towards American interests. From this perspective, KORUS is the fourth attempt by the United States to force its economic will on South Korea over the past half-century.
Occupy, South Korean Activists Protest Trade Deal
Occupy Wall Street protesters joined with a group of South Korean activists on Tuesday to rally against the so-called free trade deal between Seoul and the United States. The demonstrators rallied outside the South Korean mission in New York. Protest organizer Adam Weissman of Occupy Wall Street criticized the crackdown on protesters who have been rallying at the South Korean parliament.
Adam Weissman: "It’s outrageous that peaceful protesters are being subjected to a weapon that can cause permanent injury — people have been blinded for life by water cannons — and President Lee, instead of violently assaulting protesters, should respect democracy and listen to his own people who are telling him that they don’t want this FTA (Free Trade Agreement), that it’s putting its country’s laws on the chopping block and compromising their rights in service to corporate profits."
The deal with South Korea is the largest trade agreement the United States has signed since the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in 1994. South Korean farmers and workers oppose it, saying it threatens their livelihoods. South Korean organizer and church pastor Kim Dong-Kyun said the deal would harm the 99 percent in both countries.
Kim Dong-Kyun: "The FTA is a trade agreement that benefits the one percent of Korea and the U.S., therefore it will bring pain to the 99 percent of America and the 99 percent of Korea. That is why we are doing this with the Occupy Wall Street people from both countries."
For Tokue Ohyama, an octogenarian resident of Ishinomaki City in Miyagi prefecture, some days since last March have been harder than others.
“Shortly after the tsunami hit, when I felt lonely I sometimes wished that it just would have swept me away,” Ohyama confided when I met her last weekend in the temporary housing unit where she is now living. I was there helping to serve coffee and sweets through a volunteer initiative run by a local organization to make sure that survivors—particularly the elderly with no other family—are not left in isolation. “Now that I have made friends here, though, I’m feeling much more positive,” she added.
And positive she was indeed. She had been the first to come into the community room where our makeshift café had been set up, beaming as she proudly offered a plate of delicious pickled daikon radish that she had prepared for the gathering. I strained to understand her speech due to her strong local dialect (as did the non-local Japanese volunteers, to my relief), but despite the language barrier, she was clearly playful and even satirical. “That tsunami chased me so fast that I swear it was in love with me!” she said, cackling with obviously ironic laughter.
At Ohyama’s side was Shoko Matsunaga, who has found herself acting as a leader of sorts among the housing unit’s mostly female residents. “After the tsunami, while spending those several long days stranded in the freezing cold with no electricity, food or drinking water, I honestly thought I would not make it,” she said softly. “The fact that I am actually sitting here right now in fact feels like a dream. I am so incredibly thankful for having survived, and I want to spend the rest of my life doing whatever I can to try and help others.” Top: Temporary housing unit, still under construction Bottom: Shoko Matsunaga (left) and Tokue Ohyama (right), with volunteers in the background
A total of some 20,000 people in Ishinomaki are now living in the temporary housing units. While being thankful for the shelter, residents must put up with a lack of privacy due to paper-thin walls that let in every noise made by neighbors at all hours. And in several instances, residents bedridden from depression or illness have actually died without anyone discovering so for days.
“One additional significant problem we are facing now in these housing units is that of suicide,” explained Toshihiko Fujita, who founded a small organization in Ishinomaki based at the Koganehama Community Center, where my partner and I volunteered over the weekend. “It’s crucial to build community through activities such as common meals and café events, so that no one will succumb to loneliness and isolation.” The community center is used as a gathering space for local citizens and volunteers alike, and often hosts events for locals put on by NGO volunteers, such as art therapy workshops, massage sessions, community meetings, and more.
Fujita, who saw his mother swept away by the tsunami, has been working tirelessly since the day after the disaster struck—beginning with the traumatic work of clearing away bodies. Again trying to lighten the heaviness of the subject at hand, he commented dryly, “Here, we just call ourselves the mudbusters.”
With the extent of the damage to cities that faced the tsunami’s destruction, including Ishinomaki, mud will indeed be a steady reality for the months and even years to come. On Sunday, after having spent a comfortable night outside the local community center inside a parked mobile home that Fujita has made available for visiting volunteers, a group of us joined up with members of another volunteer organization known appropriately as "It’s Not Just Mud".
While several of the volunteers had been involved with the relief operations since the days immediately following the disaster, it was quite disconcerting for me as a first-time volunteer to encounter personal items—coins, dishes and ceramics, a remote control, a section of a car stereo, chopsticks, baby-sized silverware— while standing inside a ditch shoveling mud.
Top and bottom: The "It's Not Just Mud" crew at work
Despite having seen images of the tsunami’s destructive path through photographs and videos, it was a similarly jarring experience to walk near the coastline and see row after row of completely gutted homes and shops, some with toppled futons and furniture still as they were just after the wave hit.
An indescribable sensation also made me pause as I walked past Watanoha Junior High School, separated from the ocean by a mere thin stretch of forest, with its busted windows and its clock stopped eerily at 3:46 PM—exactly one hour after the earthquake had struck, and likely 30 to 45 minutes after the tsunami had reached land. I imagined the students having a normal day at school before the tragedy struck, laughing and joking in the now empty stairwells. Had they managed to escape in time, I wondered? Where were they now?
Obviously, in two days I was only able to scrape the surface of the issues that survivors continue facing in Ishinomaki and other disaster-hit areas (although I definitely plan to return soon). According to community leaders leading recovery efforts at the grassroots level, such as Fujita, a full recovery is years ahead, with local families continuing to face the agonizing decision of rebuilding or leaving to start anew.
Fujita also pointed out that such issues are further compounded by other problems such as local and national government apathy, a general lack of community cohesiveness, and local in-fighting over issues such as resource distribution in the wake of the disaster. “I’m so busy that I have not even had time to do my own grieving,” he admitted. “Maybe in a year or two, when things have settled down, I’ll have that luxury.
"Reparing buildings is one challenge, but repairing hearts is another one altogether," he added. "The trauma that people here have experienced is profound."
Fujita describing the problems facing Ishinomaki citizens, berating the Japanese mainstream media for its lack of coverage of issues facing survivors in affected areas, and urging volunteers from around the world to come join the relief effort
Top: 800 heads of Chinese cabbage donated by a farmer from Nagano prefecture, which Fujita drove around delivering to members of the local community together with a personalized message from the farmer
Bottom: Flyer announcing a tea-drinking and craft-making workshop at the Koganehama Community Center
Despite the enormity of existing obstacles, which seem to make the efforts of individual volunteers only miniscule, each shovelful of mud—as well as each and every human interaction—truly does make a difference, as I learned when being thanked countless times by residents who were so clearly grateful for the work of volunteers.
While chatting with another woman after our mobile café had moved to a second temporary housing area on Saturday afternoon, the conversation flowed easily from the NHK trophy ice skating competition, which was on television in the background, to more serious matters. She told me that she had lost almost every one of her friends in the tsunami—and that she dreamt of them every night. She then began describing earlier memories, when she had been a young woman in her late teens during the second world war.
“The military police used to walk around with bamboo spear weapons in case they came across any U.S. military enemies, and we were not even allowed to be caught using any words that came from the English language, such as kyabetsu (“cabbage”) or bo-ru (“ball”), she reflected. “I lost my chance to fall in love because of that war. What a meaningless waste it all was.”
Shoko Matsunaga, while she didn’t specifically mention the wartime past, did say at one point, “I certainly never thought I would be here sitting at a table with an American. And now, here I am, meeting volunteers from all over the world.
“Truly, I have so much to be thankful for.”
Top: Sign at entrance to local shrine: "Caution--Falling Rocks" Bottom: Scenery in undamaged areas of Ishinomaki, with gorgeous rolling vegetable fields
