Hirotoshi Iha explains the "Heart of Okinawa"

On September 4, 1955 – exactly 40 years to the day before the 1995 gang kidnapping, beating, and rape of a 12-year old Okinawan girl – an American soldier, Sergeant Isaac Hurt, kidnapped Yumiko Nagayama as she was walking to kindergarten. Then he raped her, disemboweled her, and threw her into a military base garbage dump. Less than a week later, another US soldier raped another child. 

The rape-murder of Yumiko-chan  took place during "Bayonets and Bulldozers" – a period of US forced seizure and destruction of 50,000+acres of land (including entire villages), to make build military complexes across the islands. The seizures – usually at gunpoint – left 250,000 Okinawans homeless and without means of livelihood.  Because the US did not allow Okinawans any real legal protections, Okinawans had no legal recourse against the US military violations of their property rights and human rights.

Okinawan mass protests, marches, and sit-ins date back to this period because the people had no legal power to resist the US use of force against them.  The pattern of American soldiers taking young girls from civilian houses at gunpoint to rape (and even murder them) began during the early days of the US occupation of Okinawa and worsened during the 1950's violent period of "Bayonets and Bulldozers."  At this time, the US military rape of women and children became synonymous with the rape-like taking and destruction of their land.

The 1955 murder of Yumiko-chan outraged the Okinawan public, sparking what Okinawan  Moriteru ARASAKI calls the first wave of the Okinawa Struggle for human rights and property rights. Okinawan resistance culminated in the 1956 "island-wide struggle" (shimagurumi toso) challenging US military  domination.

Korean American filmmaker Annabel Park's five-minute video interview of Hirotoshi Iha brings us back to 1955 by illuminating how deeply Okinawns have been injured by the pattern of US violent violations of human rights, land rights, and also why the US and Japanese governments have never been able to extinguish the Okinawan struggle for rights, self-determination, safety from US military violence, and peace.

Filmed in Takae in 2010, Mr. Iha explains why he became an activist and the deep meaning of the "Heart of Okinawa."  Yumiko-chan was his cousin.

The life-long activist then explains why the majority of Okinawans don't want  Futenma training base "transferred" to Henoko: "because we know the human cost of it."

"The Okinawa Problems" - Tokyo Symposium - Feb. 23, 2013

Via Okinawa Outreach:

The Okinawan Problems” will be discussed in Tokyo as Prime Minister Abe visits Washington


On February 23, Okinawan residents, scientists and environmentalists will gather and hold a symposium “The Okinawan Problems” in Asakusa, Tokyo to discuss the alarming situations of environment degradation, US military bases, and rampant development in Okinawa. The symposium is intended to raise national awareness about how these situations are closely related, derived from the unfair US-Japanese security relationship.

The symposium takes place at a critical time for Okinawa. It coincides with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Washington. Mr. Abe is expected to tell President Barack Obama that, with the completion of the Japanese government’s Environment Impact Assessment, their plan to construct a US military base in Henoko and Oura Bay is on track. The symposium will rebuff the results of the EIA. Meanwhile, the Japanese government’s recent listing of the Amami and Ryukyu (Okinawa) Islands on its Tentative List for UNESCO World Natural Heritage Sites provides a new twist to these Okinawan Problems. The symposium will discuss the implications of this new development as well.

Date and Time:  February 23, 2013, 13:00-17:00
Place: Taito kumin kaikan (2-6-5 Hanakawado, Taito Ward, Tokyo)

Main Features:　
-Mr. Hiroshi Ashitomi (“Henoko Tent Village”) updates the Henoko situation.

-Mr. Masatsugu Isa (Takae, Higashi village) discusses the construction of “helipads” for the US Osprey aircraft in the forest of Yambaru.

-Dr. Mariko Abe (the Nature Conservation Society of Japan) reports on the massive blue coral and new shrimp and crab species recently discovered in Oura Bay.

CONTACT:
Hideki Yoshikawa
Citizens’ Network for Biodiversity in Okinawa
Tel: 090-2516-7969
Email: yhidekiy(atmark)gmail.com

3/11 Anniversary Remembrance by Beautiful Energy • 3/11 • Tokyo & Anywhere in the World

Via our friend, Jacinta Hin


下の方に簡単な日本語版があります。また編集します！

We are planning a series (day) of events on March 11 both in remembrance of the Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and the Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster, and in support of the global stand for a nuclear-free world.
Please join us on this special day, either in person or remote from anywhere in the world.

Join in person, in Tokyo:

We will get together from 1.30pm in Yoyogi Park. At 2.46pm, the time that the Earthquake struck, we stand still in silence and meditation to honor those who lost their lives and everyone affected by the horrendous events of March 11.

From 6pm we will get together for an evening of candlelight, music and…being peacefully together with people who share the vision for a nuclear-free Japan and world.

簡単な日本語版です。後日また編集します。
来る3/11に、私たちは連続したイベントを計画しています！
東北震災や津波や福島の原発事故を忍び、世界中で核をもたないことに賛成している人たちに
賛同し、支持するためのイベントです。この特別な日にぜひ皆さんでご参加ください！
イベントに直接お越しいただいても、遠隔で世界中からこのイベントページに参加いただく形も
大歓迎です！

直接お越しいただける方：
3/11　13：30～　代々木公園集合
14：26　震災が起きた時刻ちょうどに黙とうを
ささげ、震災でお亡くなりになった方や被災した方々
のために瞑想します。

18：00～　キャンドルライトや音楽などで平和をいのり、
核のない日本や世界へのビジョンをピースフルに共有します！
（場所や正確な時間は後日ＵＰします。）

Join from anywhere in the world:

We want to create a chain of 311 candles around the globe. People can join the chain anytime on March 11, preferable from 2.46pm Japan time onward. For this we will be inviting people from around the world to participate. Please help us by suggesting anyone or any groups who might be interested. Post here or facebook message or email Jacinta (jacinta.hin@embrace-transition.com).

More details will be announced shortly.

About us:

Beautiful Energy is an IMA project and movement born out of the weekly Friday anti-nuclear demonstrations in Tokyo in front of and around the Prime Minister Residence and Parliament. Through inspired, peaceful action we stand for a nuclear-free world that thrives on renewable energy. Our current, ongoing project is Candles for Peace. Every Friday, from 6-8pm Japan time, we gather in front of parliament in kokkai gijido, joining the weekly anti-nuclear protest, and create a beautiful display of candlelight to symbolize our intentions. Intrepid Model Adventures (IMA) is a nonprofit, open community of hundreds, supporting thousands, standing for positive social change. IMA members share a desire to help and strive to live their lives in such a way that they may act as a positive influence.

Visit our Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/BeautifulEnergyTokyo
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BeautifulEnergy/

Cactus Brothers performance: "Shadows of the Atomic Bomb" @ Kyoto - Jan 13 & 14, 2013

CACTUS BROTHERS is performing "Shadows of the Atomic Bomb"  原爆の影  at the Kyoto Prefectural Center for Arts and Culture (on Kawaramachi across from Kyoto Furitsu Hospital) this Sunday, Jan. 13 1800 and on Monday, Jan. 14 1000. 

 "Shadows of the Atomic Bomb" 原爆の影 is a satire on the US military establishment and its nuclear program.

The play is FREE.

Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとうございます｡

(Kagami Mochi Cat: http://2ya.sblo.jp/article/34490907.html)

IMAGINE PEACE

Via Yoko Ono:

New York Times - 1 Jan 2013

IMAGINE PEACE

love, yoko

Keiji Nakazawa: "For humanity, the greatest treasure is peace."

Keiji Nakazawa, the author of "Barefoot Gen," had died (1939-2012). 
The drawing in the photograph reads "For humanity, the greatest treasure is peace." 

(Keiji Nakazawa (March 14, 1939 – December 19, 2012) was a Japanese manga artist and writer. He was born in Hiroshima, where he lived during the Pacific War.  The cartoonist survived the US nuclear bombing of the city in 1945. All of his family, who had not been evacuated, died from the bombing.

 In 1961, Nakazawa moved to Tokyo to become a full-time cartoonist for manga anthologies.

 Following the death of his mother in 1966, Nakazawa began to memorialize the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima  in his stories.  Nakazawa's major work, "Hadashi no Gen" (Barefoot Gen) (a ten-volume series) explored the nuclear bombing and its aftermath, and examined the Japanese government's militarization of Japanese society during World War II.  "Barefoot Gen was adapted into two animated films and a live action TV drama.

Nakazawa was diagnosed with lung cancer and in July 2011.

"They Don't Want You to Know What is Going On": Performance Artists Noora Baker and Yoshiko Chuma Bring Pain of Palestinian Reality onto Tokyo Stage

Japan-born, New-York based performance artist Yoshiko Chuma, founder of the School of Hard Knocks, and Noora Baker, a dancer with the El Funoun company in Ramallah, Palestinian territories, teamed up this week to bring a powerful message to a Tokyo audience in a small theater in Sangenjaya. 

Titled "Love Story, Palestine", the multi-media show featured Chuma and Baker performing to the backdrop of imagery from 6 Seconds in Ramallah, the show performed during Chuma's recent visit to Palestine with a team of other Japanese musicians and artists, including genre-bending violinist Aska Kaneko and singer Sizzle Ohtaka. Interspersing the performance were hauntingly gorgeous vocals from Ohtaka, who was live in the house, as well as a frank conversation between Chuma and Baker about a reality that few outsiders know.

Baker recounted stories of relatives and friends arrested on a constant basis by Israeli occupation officers--often with little or no justification. "In addition to the regular checkpoints that we all must pass through, they suddenly also sometimes erect barriers so that you cannot pass,"Baker recounted. "They do not care even if they are separating families." She relayed a story of being detained at age seven with a group of other children and having tear gas thrown at her by authorities simply because she happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

In response to Chuma's question whether her troupe could possibly face arrest if their visits to Palestine continued, Baker responded, "Yes, the action of simply visiting Palestine on multiple occasions is enough to draw yourself into the spotlight and possibly face detention by Israeli authorities. They don't want you to know what is going on."

Chuma then went on to point out the similarities existing between Palestine and Fukushima following last year's nuclear accident, wherein people truly have no idea what is actually going on. "Both places appear normal from the outside, but in reality, they are not."

                                    Yoshiko Chuma (center) with audience members in Tokyo

The latest news about Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks may be read on her blog.

An interesting review of "Love Story, Palestine" may also be read in Dance Magazine here.

--Kimberly Hughes

Related posts on this blog:

Speakers contemplate Palestinian human rights, urge action at Tokyo event

Live theater performers from Iraq and Tunisia bring deep emotion, human connection to Tokyo stage

"War Makes People Insane": Dramatic work by performance artist Tari Ito lays bare the realities of military sexual violence

IMAGINE PEACE (Friday night) @ NYC & EVERYWHERE

Via Yoko Ono:

Join us to sing John Lennon’s IMAGINE in Times Square NYC on Dec 21st at 11:45pm.

To join the happening, all are invited to meet at the “Red Steps” in Duffy Square, Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets, on Friday, December 21, at 11:45 p.m.

Lead by Thomas McCarger, conductor and singer, and under the auspices of Make Music New York, those who have gathered will sing John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the very moment IMAGINE PEACE lights up the Times Square billboards at 11:57 p.m. Participants—and those who cannot make it to Times Square—are encouraged to follow @TSqArts on Friday night and tweet photos, videos, and peace using the hashtag #imaginepeaceTSQ.

Banner Rally @ Hitachi in Tokyo: 6 countries unite to protest nuclear exports to Lithuania

Hitachi, Gerbk Lietuva! Hitachi, respect Lithuania!*

Concerned citizens from Japan, Lithuania, Austria, Korea, USA and Russia united in front of Hitachi Headquarters in Tokyo on December 18, 2012 to speak out against the nuclear services provider's insistance on exporting Fukushima-model advanced boiler water reactors to Lithuania. Ten-meter banners stretched across the street like rays of light proclaiming in Lithuanian and Japanese, "Hitachi respect Lithuania!" "Stop nuclear export to Lithuania!"

According to anti-nuclear activist and nuclear engineer by training, Andrey Ozharovskiy, "the banner rally was co-organised by Lithuanian anti-nuclear NGOs and political parties with support from Japanese NGO. Police did not interfere. None from Hitachi came to talk to the protesters." 

Passerby spreads word of protest: "Hitachi- stop nuclear exports to Lithuania!" 

Protesters included permaculturalist Kai Sawyer, Green Action director Aileen Mioko Smith, and Beyond Nuclear director Paul Gunter. Following the banner action, Paul Gunter, Aileen Mioko Smith, and Italian biologist and Scientists against the War member Monica Zoppe held an event at Doshisha University in Kyoto. They spoke on collusion between the U.S. nuclear industry and the nuclear regulations board in Japan and nuclear free Italy.

News of the protests has already reached readers of the Lithuanian newspaper Bakurus Ekspreses, demonstrating the potential for international solidarity in the fight against nuclear power to raise awareness. Lithuanian Farmers Union President told Barkurus Ekspreses that he shares the goals of the protesters. He is working to inform people about the results of the referendum on the power plant, and explained that any self-respecting company would withdraw from a project after a referendum deciding against it. Hitachi has not stated that it will abort its export plans. Shibun Akahata, the newspaper of the Japanese Communist Party, also reported on the banner action.

Banner action appears in Lithuanian newspaper immediately after

In a recent non-binding referendum in October, 62.68% decided against the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania. (For more details see previous post). Lithuania has also lost its funding from the European Union for the decommissioning of its Igalina nuclear reactors because it has not yet resolved the issue of where to store spent fuel from the plants. Closing down Igalina was a requirement for Lithuania's accession to the EU.

Radioactive waste containers at Igalina (Photo courtesy of Igalina Nuclear Power Plant Homepage) 

Hitachi won a bid from the Lithuanian government for the construction of the plant after Germany decided to denuclearize. Anti-nuclear movements in Lithuania expressed outrage that the government would risk the safety of its people for so-called energy security. Lithuania currently imports 50% of its natural gas from Russia, and is effectively dependent on Russia for 80% of its energy requirements. Despite the Lithuanian governments protest against Russia for its plans to construct nuclear plants near its border, the Lithuanian government is now seeking to build a nuclear power plant in efforts to achieve energy independence.

International environmental NGO, Bellona, however, explains that graduating from nuclear power will allow Lithuania to diversify its energy portfolio and eventually gain independence:

Following Ignalina’s closing, Lithuania will – at least for the first several years – have to depend on imported energy to cover around a half of its energy needs, including imports from Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus. Those bridges it never had the chance to build with Western electricity providers will then become another option as it negotiates plugging into Swedish and Polish grids....

There are hopes, however, that betting on fossil-based energy will only be a temporary measure for Lithuania. In the long term, the country may grow to generate over a third of its energy from renewable energy sources. According to climate commitments agreed on in the European Union, no less than 23 percent of all energy is expected to be produced from clean sources by 2020. Local biofuel resources hold significant potential for Lithuania’s green energy sector, as do wind energy converters. At present, Lithuanian wind power plants have a combined output of 200 megawatts and another 1,000 megawatts’ worth of electricity production will be added by 2020.

A joint letter of demand (see below) from these Lithuanian and Japanese NGOs was sent to Hitachi,. Ltd and Governments of Lithuania and Japan later today.

Hitachi, Ltd
Hitachi GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd
Copy to: Government of Japan Government of Lithuania Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC)

LETTER OF DEMAND Vilnius-Tokyo, 18th December 2012

We, the undersigned members of the civil societies of Lithuania and Japan strongly demand from Japanese companies Hitachi, Ltd. and Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd. to make public the official withdrawal from the construction project of a new nuclear power plant in Visaginas region (Lithuania) on behalf of the decision of the Lithuanian people expressed in democratic referendum on 14 October 2012.

We inform you that 62.68 per cent of the people who voted in the referendum decided against any new nuclear power plants in Lithuania. Thus the Lithuanian people have decided to stop any development of the nuclear power plant project which was previously started by preliminary agreement signed between the Government of Lithuania and the Japanese company Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy Ltd. (alliance between Hitachi and US company GE Nuclear Energy Ltd.) on export of nuclear to Lithuania.

The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania provides the possibility for the people to express their opinion on important state decisions. The parliament of Lithuania in the summer of 2012 decided to hold a referendum about new Visaginas nuclear power plant project. According to strict and demanding Lithuanian referendum law, the decision of referendum is legally binding. This therefore applies to the referendum on the Visaginas nuclear power plant. The Lithuanian people have expressed their deep interest in this decision and have made their choice.

We have warned your company and the Japanese government from signing any agreement with Lithuania before the referendum, and we have also expressed our arguments in our letter of concern, signed on December 23, 2011. In that letter we opposed any backing of the project by any direct or hidden subsidies of the Lithuanian Government, Government of Japan and the US Government which strongly contradict with principles of free market economy and fair competition in liberalized EU energy sector. Such subsidies distort investments into the energy sector, first of all into renewable energy sources and incentives for energy efficiency.

A large majority of Japanese society strongly opposes any further development of nuclear energy domestically. Therefore, we call on Japan to refrain from resorting to ‘double standards’ by giving support to Hitachi’s intention to export unsafe technologies.

We address the multinational Hitachi, Ltd. and Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd. corporations with a call to respect corporate responsibility standards, the Lithuanian Constitution, democratic values and the will of people, and demand that Hitachi announce withdrawal from the Visaginas nuclear power plant project.

Signatures:
Lithuania:
Linas VAINIUS, on behalf of Atgaya NGO
Tomas TOMILINAS, on behalf of the Lithuanian Farmers and Green Party
Andrius Gaidamavičius, on behalf of Lithuanian green movement
Laurynas Okockis, on behalf of Association ŽALI.LT


Japan:  

Aileen Mioko Smith, Executive Director, Green Action 

Yuki TANABE, Program Coordinator, Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society (JACSES)

Eri WATANABE, Nuclear and Energy Program, Friends of the Earth Japan
Hideyuki BAN, Co-director, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center

Contact in Lithuania:  

administracija@lzsp.lt, +370 52 13 13 53
info@lvls.lt, +370 686 27469
linas@atgaja.lt, +370 699 33661
zali.vilnius@gmail.com, +370 654 73926

Contact in Japan:  

Aileen Mioko Smith, Executive Director Green Action
Suite 103, 22-75 Tanaka Sekiden-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8203 Japan
Tel. +81-75-701-7223 Fax.+81-75-702-1952 

*Unless otherwise specified, photos are courtesy of Andrey Ozharovskiy

- Posted by Jen Teeter