Lambert Strether: Toward Absolutist Capitalism: "TPP elevates capitalization — the expectation of profit — as a principle to the principles of, say, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of the Rights of Man."

The TPP's “Investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) provision elevates foreign corporations doing business in host countries to the same status as sovereign governments. It would allow foreign corporations to bring frivolous lawsuits for profit against host governments, simply by claiming an environmental protection or public safety law may affect expected profit. Judgments would be rendered by secret arbitration panels composed of corporate attorneys who may represent arbitrating parties. 

The process would be unaccountable to and entirely outside of the legal structure of the respective host countries.  This raises concerns about conflict of interest, corruption at multiple levels, national sovereignty, and checks and balances.

The controversial mechanism was  introduced in a 1959 trade agreement between Germany and Pakistan, and has since been duplicated in numerous international corporate trade and investment treaties, most notoriously, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994. Government-chasing lawyers who designed the mechanism also developed a new industry to take advantage of the easy pickings from the deep pockets of taxpayers in affected nations.  A litany of arbitrary, abusive, parasitic judgments in favor of foreign corporations against host governments have followed.

This clear analysis, which contextualizes the ISDS within the TPP's absolutist capitalist ideology, by Lambert Strether of Corrente, reposted at Naked Capitalism, is a must-read:

There are many excellent arguments against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), two of which — local zoning over-rides, and loss of national sovereignty — I’ll briefly review as stepping stones to the main topic of the post: Absolutist Capitalism, for which I make two claims:

1) The TPP implies a form of absolute rule, a tyranny as James Madison would have understood the term, and

2) The TPP enshrines capitalization as a principle of jurisprudence.

Zoning over-rides and lost of national sovereignty may seem controversial to the political class, but these two last points may seem controversial even to NC readers. However, I hope to show both points follow easily from the arguments with which we are already familiar. Both flow from the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, of which I will now give two examples.

TPP’s ISDS and Local Zoning

I’m starting with local zoning because I think it’s an issue where “strange bedfellows” [Ralph Nader's Public Citizen & Cato, a think tank individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace.  on left and right can work together (and so letter writing campaigns and visits to Congressional offices can be organized accordingly). I think it will be very hard to find find a constituency for a foreign corporation determining local land use, and easy to find constituencies against it.

TPP’s ISDS and State Sovereignty

Even though sovereignty, as an issue, seems absurdly large put beside zoning, I choose it because it too is an issue where the grassroots on left and right can unite. After all, whether you are a big government liberal who admires FDR, or a small government conservative who admires Coolidge, you don’t want the government of your country to be under the sway of an unelected, trans-national entity like Agenda 21 New World Order the ISDS putative courts.

[T]he investment chapter for the TPP was leaked, and the excellent Public Citizen[2] published it (link to the PDF). Their summary in relevant part describes the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions:

...Yet in a manner that would enrage right and left alike, the private “investor-state” enforcement system included in the leaked TPP text would empower foreign investors and corporations to skirt domestic courts and laws and sue governments in foreign tribunals. There, they can demand cash compensation from domestic treasuries over domestic policies that they claim undermine their new investor rights and expected future profits. This establishes an alarming two-track system of justice that privileges foreign corporations in myriad ways relative to governments or domestic businesses. It also exposes signatory countries to vast liabilities, as foreign firms use foreign tribunals to raid public treasuries.

...The TPP Implies a Form of Absolute Rule, a Tyranny as James Madison Would Have Understood the Term. First, the ISDS tribunals, putatively courts, are completely unaccountable...

Second, the ISDS tribunals are riddled with conflicts of interest and open invitations to corruption...

Third, there is no appeal from the judgements of these putative courts...

Fourth and finally, the discretion of the ISDS tribunals is so great that they can write the rules, as well as interpret them. Public Citizen:

There are no new safeguards that limit ISDS tribunals’ discretion to create ever-expanding interpretations of governments’ obligations to foreign investors and order compensation on that basis.The leaked text reveals the same “safeguard” terms that have been included in U.S. pacts since the 2005 Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). CAFTA tribunals have simply ignored the “safeguard” provisions that the leaked text replicates for the TPP, and have continued to rule against governments based on concocted obligations to which governments never agreed.

In  the first three points, the ISDS tribunals are acting as putative courts, albeit conflicted, potentially corrupt, and anti-democratic and unaccountable courts...

The TPP Enshrines Capitalization as a Principle of Jurisprudence...

I’ll use the definition from Capital as Power (hat tip alert reader Sibiriak), by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, which I’m reading with great interest. Page 153 and following:

... capitalization represents the present value of a future stream of earnings: it tells us how much a capitalist would be prepared to pay now to receive a flow of money later.

By the 1950s, capitalization was finally established as the heart of the capitalist nomos...

And, so, finally the floodgates were open. Nowadays, every expected income stream is a fair candidate for capitalization. And since income streams are generated by social entities, processes, organizations and institutions, we end up with the ‘capitalization of every thing’. Capitalists routinely discount human life, including its genetic code and social habits; they discount organized institutions from education and entertainment to religion and the law; they discount voluntary social networks; they discount urban violence, civil war and international conflict; they even discount the environmental future of humanity. Nothing seems to escape the piercing eye of capitalization: if it generates earning expectations it must have a price, and the algorithm that gives future earnings a price is capitalization...

Of course, government — at least hitherto — has re-ordered prices, income steams, claims on future income streams, and capitalization generally since forever; one might even say that’s the purpose of government, its raison d’etre, at least in a capitalist society.[4] However, TPP’s jurisprudential innovation is to reframe such re-ordering as “expropriation,” and to set up the ISDS to compensate the capitalists for it...

TPP elevates capitalization — the expectation of profit — as a principle to the principles of, say, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of the Rights of Man. And then, government, when it provides concrete material benefits to its citizens, must “compensate” capitalists whenever their calculated, immaterial expectations — capitalization — have been “expropriated.” What a racket! TPP is the biggest enclosure in the history of the world!

World Heritage Day: Nuchi du Takara (Life—including the life of nature—is the Greatest Treasure)

Nuchi du Takara (Life—including the life of nature—is the Greatest Treasure). 

(Photo: K.M.)

Today is World Heritage Day, a day launched by UNESCO in 2005, to heighten the global public's awareness about the diversity of cultural heritage & the efforts required to conserve it, as well as draw attention to its vulnerability.

Yanbaru subtropical rainforest. (Photo: Yoshio Shimoji)

Yanbaru, the magnificent ecoregion of northern Okinawa—mountains, subtropical rainforest, rivers, wetlands, and Henoko's dugong and coral reef ecosystem—is Okinawa's most important natural heritage site. Henoko is one of the most biodiverse and beautiful coastal areas in all Japan and the Asia-Pacific. With the support of Japan's Environmental Ministry, Okinawa Prefecture nominated the ecoregion for official recognition on UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 2012.

The coral reef is the last fully intact coral reef in all of Okinawa and Japan. It is home to almost 400 types of healthy coral (including the rare, mysterious blue coral); over 1,000 species of marine life  (including the beloved dugong, an indigenous sacred icon and natural monument); hawksbill, loggerhead, and green sea turtles; crustaceans; anemone; reef fish; and sea grass.  

Henoko's magnificent dugong and coral reef habitat.

Okinawan traditional heritage is inseparable from the natural world: the Okinawa dugong is an indigenous sacred icon. The shell middens on Cape Henoko go back thousands of years and people still observe traditional shrine rites preserved in this district from ancient times. Therefore, Yanbaru meets multiple requirements for UNESCO World Heritage status. It "bears a unique testimony to a cultural tradition which is living." The area is an "outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture, or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change."

Sea Turtle and Okinawa Dugong, a  sacred cultural icon and protected natural monument. 

Photo courtesy: Takuma Higashionna

The international community, from marine scientists to environmentalists to indigenous cultural and historic preservation advocates, have supported locals and Okinawans for 20 years in efforts to protecting this invaluable world natural cultural heritage because the world recognizes its universal value and importance.

Okinawa International Peace Research Institute: Ie Island, April 16, 1945

Photograph of the US invasion of Ie Island (Iejima) on April 16, 1945, via Okinawa International Peace Research Institute.

The US training bases on the island date back to airstrips built in April 1945 to firebomb Japanese cities during the last months of WWII. US soldiers burned down Ie islander houses, and relocated the Ie islanders, housing them in camps in the northern part of Okinawa's main island. The islanders were not allowed to return until  two years later, even though the Japanese government surrendered 4 months after the US invasion. When they returned many residents found their farms and homes transformed into a US military base, not for the invasion of Japan, of course, but for weapons testing and war training.

The Okinawan nonviolent struggle for return of seized lands, justice, and peace began at Ie Island, under Shoko Ahagon, founder of the Okinawan civil rights movement, after the US military invaded again in 1955 to violently seize even more farmland for a bomb testing range.

More on Iejima:

Iejima: an island of resistance: Jon Mitchell traces the roots of Okinawa's civil rights movement" (JT, May 22, 2011) 

Hibakusha stands with Okinawans in call to save dugong & coral reef natural cultural heritage site

Sign: The Sea is the Mother of our Heart. 

Photo of Mr. Yonezawa at Henoko via Sunshine Miyagi on Twitter.

Hiroshima nuclear bomb survivor, Mr. Tetsushi Yonezawa, stands with Okinawans, in call to save the coral reef and dugong habitat at Henoko, Okinawa's most important natural cultural heritage site, from US-Japanese government  destruction. The ecoregion is home to the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, a natural monument and beloved cultural icon, and Okinawa's only fully intact and best coral reef.  The area is a living manifestation of the most important Okinawan values: Nuchi du Takara, the right to life, including the right to life of nature.

Mr. Yonezawa witnessed the nuclear bomb hitting Hiroshima from a streetcar when he was 11-years-old.  He wrote a book about his experience after the Fukushima multiple meltdowns spoke to his conscience about the need to publicly witness for a peaceful, nuclear-free world.

The Asahi published a short account of Mr. Yonezawa's memories last year:

"Something flashed somewhere with a strong blinding light. Spontaneously, I closed my eyes. Then, I heard a tremendous sound that was the most terrible sound I have ever heard. It was like a hundred thunderclaps crashing all at once just a short distance away."

...As the streetcar approached the front of the Fukuya department store at the center of downtown, the A-bomb exploded. They were then about 750 meters (0.5 mile) from the hypocenter. It is said that the bomb blast that hit them had a wind velocity of some 220 meters (720 feet) per second. The windows of the streetcar all broke at once and the streetcar filled with screams.

Japanese American History: NOT for sale — Call for cancellation of online auction of crafts & art created during WWII incarceration

4.15.15 UPDATE: JAPANESE AMERICAN OBJECTS IN LOTS 1232-1255, made in WW2 concentration camps, will be removed from the Rago auction on Friday, a company spokesman said in Lambertville, NJ, tonight. George Takei will act as an intermediary between the Rago auction house and Japanese American community institutions. The auction house agreed to a respectful sale of the artifacts after the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation sent a notice of intent to file a lawsuit against the consignor. 

Survivors and descendants of wartime Japanese-American relocation and incarceration are calling for the cancellation of a April 17 online auction of personal objects, crafts, and prisoner artwork created by Americans of Japanese descent while incarcerated by the U.S. government during the Second World War.

Rago, an online auction house based in Lambertville, New Jersey, wants to auction  hundreds of artworks and crafts that Japanese American detainees gave to art historian Allen Hendershott Eaton during his research for Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps, a book published in 1952. After Eaton, a humanitarian, champion of American folk art and opponent of the mass incarceration, died in 1962, his estate fell into private hands.

The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation asked  the consignors to consider a private, negotiated sale with community-supported non-profit institutions.  After the consignor refused this suggestion, the HWMF secured pledges from board members and friends to make a substantial cash offer—one that exceeded the estimated auction value. However, this offer was refused, for inexplicable reasons.

Japanese Americans have started an online Facebook page: Japanese American History: Not for Sale to call for a cancellation of the online auction.  They are asking for Rago to allow them reasonable period of time to arrange a respectful and mutually acceptable sale of the collection to an institution.

Today the group released a community letter:

April 13, 2015

Dear David Rago, Suzanne Perrault and Miriam Tucker:

We have learned that Rago Arts and  Auction will put up for sale 450 prisoner craft objects, personal items, artworks and heritage artifacts from the Japanese American concentration camps of WW II in Lots 1232-1255 on April 17. These items were given -- not sold -- to the original collector, Allen H. Eaton, under the assumption that they would be shown in an exhibition to tell the story of the mass, illegal incarceration.

“They offered to give me things to the point of embarrassment, but not to sell them,” Eaton wrote in his 1952 book, “Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese In Our War Relocation Camps.” Eaton was opposed to the mass incarceration and devoted himself to gathering examples of the creations that emerged from the camps, planning for a future exhibition and photographic display. He received official support toward what was meant to be a public project, not the creation of a private collection. Selling these treasures of Japanese American heritage would contravene Eaton’s original intent.

The auctioning of our cultural property -- handmade and donated by men, women and children whom their own government held against their will -- is wrong. There is no time before the auction to properly examine issues including provenance, ethics, and the propriety of disposing of our cultural patrimony by selling it off to the highest bidder.

We request that you pull these lots from the auction and delay the sale until a proper examination can be undertaken.

Auctioning these cultural products of the forced removal and incarceration is akin to auctioning Holocaust property, slave shackles, and Native American spiritual artifacts. The Archaeological Resources Protection Act and the Locke, California, “right of first refusal,” enacted against California’s alien land laws, sought to rectify similar abuses.

Placing this historical heritage on the auction block sullies the reputations of both Eaton’s descendants and Rago Arts. The pending sale of these donated objects has caused anguish and outrage in our community, which is being expressed in letters, petitions, news coverage and a Facebook page, "Japanese American History: NOT for Sale”: www.facebook.com/japaneseamericanhistorynotforsale.

Our community’s goal is to educate and correct, not to vilify or cast blame. We urge you to pause the rush to auction, in the spirit of making this right for everyone.

Ad Hoc Committee to Oppose the Sale of Japanese American Historical Artifacts

What was the truth of the hidden US-Japan ground war in Okinawa?

Photo: http://www.nhk.or.jp/okinawa/okinawasen70/archives/

A US Army cameraman filming the fierce US-Japan ground war in Okinawa did his job "filming US soldiers fighting bravely" at first. But after he witnessed the terrible suffering of Okinawans, he couldn't stand it. The cameraman started to photograph the entire war, but his film was censored by the U.S. military. NHK produced a documentary on his experience in 2011 and it will be rebroadcast tomorrow.

Photo: http://www.nhk.or.jp/okinawa/okinawasen70/archives/

The U.S. military recorded the Battle of Okinawa on film in detail; however Okinawan civilian noncombatants and locations were not identified. Over 140,000 Okinawan civilians were killed. Combatant deaths were significantly lower: around 12,000 US soldiers and 70,000 Japanese soldiers.

The "One-foot Film Movement", an Okinawan postwar grassroots organization bought documentary film (one foot at a time) from U.S. government archives  — to preserve the memory of these people, their families, their wartime history and to show why the Okinawan people desire peace.  The nonprofit started in 1983 as the Civil Movement to Provide Children With Lessons of the Battle of Okinawa and closed its 30-year operations in 2013 at a ceremony held at the Yashio Rest House in Naha. The organization had collected 50 hours of film.

Photo: http://www.nhk.or.jp/okinawa/okinawasen70/archives/

Since February,  NHK has been rebroadcasting documentary films of this wartime history including Okinawan "One Foot Movement" documentary films.

In a 2005 documentary , a NHK director searched for the real people and places in these films, the visible memory of their wartime experience. Over 240,000 people were killed during the fierce US-Japanese ground war in Okinawa. What was the truth of this war? 

Photo: http://www.nhk.or.jp/okinawa/okinawasen70/archives/

These and other archival NHK documentaries, especially the films and footage collected by the Okinawan One-Foot Film Movement, explore this history in a search for the memories of Okinawans who were killed during or somehow survived the worst ground battle of the Pacific War.

The NHK documentaries will be rebroadcast through July 5.

Schedule: http://www.nhk.or.jp/okinawa/okinawasen70/archives/

Info on broadcast and more on the ground war between the US and Japan in Okinawa via Okinawa Prefectural Peace Center (沖縄国際平和研究所):

沖縄国際平和研究所が、資料提供をさせていただいた番組および沖縄戦関連番組の放送予定をお知らせします。
＝沖縄戦関連番組＝
『戦後70年企画 NHKが見つめた沖縄戦』
http://www.nhk.or.jp/okinawa/okinawasen70/archives/
「カメラマンが見た沖縄戦 隠された戦場の事実」
(2011年6月26日放送)

■日にち：2015年4月12日(日)13:50～
■放送局：NHK沖縄
　※沖縄県域での放送です。

Okinawa Gov. Onaga: "Okinawa has never voluntarily provided bases. Futenma, & all other bases, were taken with 'Bayonets and Bulldozers' while Okinawans were in concentration camps during & after the war."

On March 23, Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga demands that the Japanese government

 stop landfill preparation at the natural cultural heritage site at Henoko 

so that the prefectural government can assess damage to Okinawa's only fully intact coral reef, 

and habitat of the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, a protected natural monument.

(Photo: Japan Times via Kyodo)

Unofficial summary/translation of Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga's response to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga at their April 5, 2015 meeting:

As you [Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga] said, Okinawa, which comprises 0.6% of Japanese terrirtory, has been burdened with 74% of US bases in Jp. Okinawa has supported the Ampo(US-Jp Security Treaty) system for 70 years after the war, with mixed emotions, both pride and pain at the same time.

With my political background, I fully understand the importance of Japan-US Ampo. You talk about the Senkakus, but unless the whole nation is ready to take the burden of Ampo, what would this kind of national defense (one in which Okinawa is overburdened) look like from the eyes of other nations? Japan's security, Ampo, & the Jp-US military alliance must be done as the people of Japan as a whole (not just Okinawa).

You said you might move [V-22 transport aircraft] Osprey to the mainland, but without any of the major bases relocating to the mainland, our overburden may not change. That's been the case in the last 70 years.

And no matter how much we express what we need, Okinawa's concerns won't be taken care of within the existing SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement).  SOFA must be fundamentally revised.

I want to stress that Okinawa has never voluntarily provided bases. Futenma, and all other bases, were taken with "Bayonets and Bulldozers" while Okinawans were in concentration camps during and after the war.

You took land from us, you made us suffer until today, and now you think it [Futenma] is dangerous and has to be removed. Then you ask us to take the burden of replacement. You ask us whether we have an alternative plan. You ask us to think about the security of Japan. (Why do we have to think about these?) It just shows deterioration (daraku) of Japanese politics.

.... two years ago, the day when the [1952] San Francisco Peace Treaty came into effect was celebrated. It was a celebration of Japan's regaining independence. But it was the day when Okinawa was detached from Japan. It was a sad day for us. When we heard "Banzai!" at the ceremony, I thought, "Are they even thinking about Okinawa?"

During those 27 years under US military occupation, when Japan enjoyed economic prosperity, we were struggling to gain autonomous rights during. The hardship was beyond anyone's imagination.

You and I both went to Hosei University. But until I was 22-years-old, I used my [USCAR (US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands) "Resident of the Ryukyus"] passport, and had money sent in US dollars. When I look back, I wonder, "What was Okinawa really supporting during those 27 years?

You always use the word "shukushuku to" (solemnly).  It means you are just going ahead with the Henoko base construction and we have no say. Such attitude reminds me of Lt. Gen Paul W. Caraway, US High Commissioner in the old time. He said there was no such thing as autonomy for Okinawa. Whenever you use the word "shukushuku', it reminds me of Caraway, and makes me wonder what did those 70 years (after the war) mean for us?

Then the guy called Price came, and with what was called "Price Recommendation," US tried to buy out land from Okinawans [with one-time] lump sum payments [for tens of thousands of acres private property the US military forcibly seized from 230,000 Okinawans from WWII through the 1950's]. We were all poor then, and desperately wanted the money, but rejected the offer.

Now, the land [albeit leased to the Jp and US govts] is ours. In light of such history of our struggle, no such word as "shukushuku" can threaten us. The more you use such condescending words, the more the minds of Okinawan people are turned away, and the angrier they become. I absolutely believe that it is impossible to build the Henoko base.

It is the power of the Okinawan people... our pride, our confidence, and our thoughts for our children and grandchildren, coming together. It is impossible to build the base. And the Japanese government bears the entire responsibility for any costs associated with cancellation of this base. The world is watching this test of Japanese democracy.

Let me ask you. Both you and Rumsfeld think Futenma was the "most dangerous base in the world." You try to brainwash Okinawans and the people of all of Japan, telling them that "in order to remove Futenma's danger, Henoko is the only way." Is it? Will Futenma stay permanently if the Henoko plan falters?

You talk about the base reduction, but after all these bases are returned, what will be the base burden ratio for Okinawa? It will only reduce from 73.8% to 73.1%. Why? Because all these bases will be relocated WITHIN the prefecture, including Naha military port and Camp Kinser. Your talk of base reduction may sound convincing, but if you really look at the numbers, this is what it is about (from 73.8% to 73.1% only).

And you say you will return Naha military port by 2025, and Camp Kinser by 2028. Then what? It (the agreement) says the rest will be returned "later." What kind of Japanese language is that? You give a sweet talk to get through the day, but then quickly you forget about it. It has been our experience of the past 70 years. This is why, even when you talk about moving Osprey to this place and that place, we are in doubt, thinking that maybe it will take another 50 years.

Prime Minister Abe keeps saying he will, "take Japan back." Does that "Japan" include Okinawa?

.. the only difference between me and Mr. Nakaima is Henoko. There was a difference of 100,000 votes between me and him. Understand that I won on the Henoko issue, not other issues.

Now, the economy. When 9/11 happened, Okinawa lost 40% of its tourists. The damage was significant. Senkaku, I understand them as Japan's inherent territory. Once something happens there, I can see the million tourists to Ishigaki going down to 10% of the current number.

Okinawa's soft-power can be utilized when its peace is secured. With US bases, considering the advancement of the missile technology, one or two misses will destroy Okinawa. I suspect US and its military want to withdraw from Okinawa, and only Japan wants to keep them there for "deterrence."

I would like to meet with Prime Minister Abe too. You are a minister in charge of reducing Okinawa's base burden. I want you to cancel the Henoko plan, have proper dialogues, and resolve the base issue.

Urgent Appeal by Nobel Prize Laureate OE Kenzaburo and 20 other leading Japanese intellectuals calling for the immediate suspension of construction of the US military base at Henoko, Okinawa.

Photo: Nobelprize.org

Urgent Appeal by Nobel Prize Laureate OE Kenzaburo and 20 other leading Japanese intellectuals calling for the immediate suspension of construction of the US military base at Henoko, Okinawa.

We are deeply concerned about issues surrounding the construction of an American military base in Henoko, Okinawa. The will of the people of Okinawa prefecture is beyond doubt. INAMINE Susumu, who opposed construction of the military base in his election manifesto, was reelected mayor of Nago City in an election held in January 2014. In the November election of the prefectural governor, ONAGA Takeshi, who also opposed construction, defeated the incumbent NAKAIMA Hirokazu by an overwhelming 100,000 votes; and in the general election held in December, anti-construction candidates won every seat. The fierce determination of the people of Okinawa prefecture to oppose construction of the American military base at Henoko has been demonstrated by “all Okinawa” in a way that transcends ideology and creed, politics and party affiliation.

The Abe government, nevertheless, is aggressively pressing ahead with land reclamation, using as justification the Public Waters Reclamation Accord signed by the previous governor Nakaima, who late in 2013 reneged on his election manifesto. The outrageous conduct of the national government is an act of violence that insults the will of the Okinawan people and destroys the foundation of democracy and regional autonomy in Japan.

The new governor has decided to establish an “Independent Committee on Procedures Involved in the Public Waters Reclamation Accord with Regard to the Construction of a Replacement Facility for the Futenma Airfield” (henceforth “Independent Committee”) to begin investigating whether there were any legal irregularities in the procedures undertaken by the previous governor NAKAIMA Hirokazu in concluding the Public Waters Reclamation Accord. In other words, there is a real possibility that the legitimacy of the reclamation accord, or the environmental assessment upon which it rests, may be stripped away. For the government of a purportedly democratic nation, the obvious course of action should be to suspend landfill operations at least during the period of investigation.

Governor Onaga announced a new decision on March 23. He ordered the Okinawa Defense Bureau to halt all operations, including boring exploration. In the event that his order is not carried out, he is considering rescinding the permit allowing coral reef shattering along the Henoko coast. If the government continues to insist on aggressively pushing ahead with construction, we fear not only a serious confrontation with the people of Okinawa prefecture and the fomenting of mistrust toward the mainland, but also the collapse of trust toward the nation of Japan inside the country and abroad.

We hereby declare our support for Governor Onaga’s position rejecting base relocation and our full support for his decisions pertaining to the order to suspend operations and to rescind the permit allowing reef shattering. We urgently call upon the government to heed the following requests:

The Japanese government should immediately suspend all operations relating to Henoko land reclamation [landfill], including boring exploration of the sea floor. The “Land Reclamation Accord” concluded by former Governor Nakaima, which the government uses as the basis for such operations, has been repudiated by the people of Okinawa prefecture.

Recently, the Japanese government has refused even to meet with Governor Onaga who represents the collective will of Okinawa. Such refusal repudiates regional autonomy guaranteed under the Japanese constitution and violates the spirit of democracy. Respect for the will of the people forms the basis of democracy. The government should accede in good faith to Governor Onaga’s request for a meeting and participate in serious talks about the issues at hand.

We call upon the Japanese government to put into practice its own slogan of “Regional Creation” by transferring to Okinawa Prefecture the actual authority to resolve issues connected to military bases and the construction of an autonomous economy.

The Minister for the Environment has a responsibility to provide appropriate commentary from a standpoint of environmental conservation with regard to the contents of the Environmental Impact Evaluation Report on reclamation operations for the construction of the American military base at Henoko. According to the Environmental Conservation Guidelines for the Island of Okinawa, Henoko and surrounding coastal regions in particular, designated as “zones for evaluating the strict preservation of the natural environment” (Rank 1), are precious bodies of water inhabited by numerous endangered species, not least of which is the Dugong. There is an extremely high risk that the artificial destruction and modification of natural formations will bring about absolute irreversible damage from which the island cannot recover. We urgently call upon the Minister for the Environment to carry out the solemn duty of preserving the beautiful Okinawan sea, a candidate for selection as a World Heritage Site.

Frustration and anger at a situation in which 74% of US military bases are forced onto Okinawa, which comprises only 0.6% of Japanese territory, underlie the determination of the people of Okinawa prefecture to oppose the construction of a new base at Henoko. We call upon Japanese citizens to squarely face this situation, which may be said to be a form of structural discrimination; and urge that all Japan should include this burden in considering issues of Japanese security.

April 1, 2015

(Translated by Charles Cabell. List of petitioners omitted.)

The Targeted Village, A Documentary by Chie Mikami April 4 @ 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm, Santa Cruz, CA

In Okinawa, the people of Takae village are convicted by the Japanese government for obstructing traffic in the struggle for the recognition of their human rights, property rights, dignity, and desire for the preservation of Yanbaru, the subtropical rainforest in northern Okinawa.

The obstruction was part of their struggle against the construction of new helipads for low-level flight training of MV-Osprey transport aircraft in the rainforest, a World Natural Heritage site candidate. The story of the people of Takae embodies U.S. military seizures of private and public property dating back to the 1950s; use of villagers for mock target practice during the Vietnam War; and the blocking of gates to the Futenma base during a historic protest in the fall of 2012, against hazardous V-22 Osprey low-level flight training in Okinawa.

The film will be followed by a Q and A and Discussion with UCSC Professor Alan Christy and Doctoral Student Yoko Fukumura.

Suggested Donation: $5-$10, no one is turned away.

Sponsors: The Targeted Village Showing Steering Committee in California, the Resource Center for Nonviolence, and the UCSC Department of History

Website: http://rcnv.org

70th Anniversary of the U.S. assault on the Kerama Islands • Remembering the Kerama victims of Japanese military forced group suicide

Memorial service at Zemami this morning. (Photo: Ryukyu Shimpo)

Today is the 70th anniversary of the U.S. assault on the Kerama Islands, the first invasion of "Operation Iceberg", the last US land campaign of the Pacific War.  The Battle of Okinawa was not really a battle; it was an annihilation.  An armada of 1,500 US ships, carrying 548,000 Americans, faced the last dregs of the Japanese Army and gentle Okinawans who had no chance to resist the war into which Imperial Japan forced them. Poorly trained student Corp child soldiers, "Home Guard" militia, and student nurses made up the local conscripts in the Japanese 32nd Army's 110,000 members in Okinawa. The 32nd Army had no naval support: the Japanese Imperial super battleship Yamato, and five of nine small ships capsized after exploding from nonstop bombing by 300 U.S. planes before the Japanese fleet reached Okinawa, their one-way suicide destination. The four surviving ships retreated to the Japanese mainland.

"Mobilized" only a few weeks before the U.S. invasion, the conscripted Okinawan children and teenagers received no weapons training, only short-pants uniforms. The student soldiers and student nurses were told Japan would win the battle in a few days; so the girls and their teachers brought their books with them to keep up their studies. They had no idea that, in months, they would receive orders to give cyanide to wounded Japanese soldiers covered with maggots in the dark, hot cave battlefield hospitals, and, that, at the end of the Battle of Okinawa in three months, they would be pushed into the battlefield to fend for themselves.

Okinawans were not protected by the Japanese military during the Battle of Okinawa. 

They were used as laborers, conscripts, nurses,"comfort women," and human shields.

Caught in between the US forces and the pathetic, ragtag army: 450,000 Okinawan civilians whom the Japanese government did not evacuate or protect.  100,000 had been evacuated earlier, not to protect them, but to ensure a food supply for the 32nd Army which also numbered around 100,000. Many of the Okinawan civilian evacuees, including children, were killed en route to Japan when US warships torpedoed cargo ships carrying these civilian passengers.  The three-month battle sacrificed 150,000 Okinawan civilians, 77,166 of the Japanese soldiers and military conscripts, many whom were murdered by their compatriots upon being wounded or committed suicide, and 14,009 Americans.

70th Anniversary of the March 26, 1945 U.S. assault on the Kerama Islands.

The U.S. bombed the tiny islands southwest of the Okinawan mainland for several days before the March 26 and March 27 invasions.  The 300 Japanese "Sea Raiding" suicide torpedo boat pilots stationed at the Keramas were supposed to slow the U.S. "typhoon of steel and bombs", but they failed to carry out a single suicide attack on the American battleships bombarding the shore.  Instead, the soldiers joined civilians in hiding, where Japanese officers began implementing their only successful mission: terrorizing and killing the islands' civilians.

The tiny Kerama Islands are situated to the southwest of the Okinawa mainland.

By March 29th, the U.S. had seized nearly the entire Keramas, including the 4 tiny inhabited islands: Tokashiki Island, Zamami Island, Aka Island, and Geruma Island. During these battles, Japanese officers ordered the mass suicide (shudan jiketsu) of Okinawans on these Islands. The people were forced to commit suicide by the coercion (kyosei) and inducement (yudo). Handing out grenades and cyanide, the 32nd Army ordered the group deaths of the people who had lived in the Keramas peacefully for centuries until the Japanese military arrival. Only a few managed to escape and survive.

Some civilians on Toshiaki Island escaped the mass suicide order and surrendered to the US military.

(Photo: Okinawa Peace Research Institute)

The death toll from the forced group suicides was 330 people for Tokashiki-jima Island, 177 persons on Zamami-jima Island, and on Geruma-jima Island it was 53 people. 2 families are said to have killed themselves on tiny Yakabi Island. In addition to the Japanese military murdering residents whom they called "spies," 600 Korean laborers and "comfort women" (military sexual slaves) also lost their lives.

Exhibition of photographs of Toshiaki Island survivors of the forced mass suicide and their wounds. 

Courtesy of Mr. Hiroshi Yamashiro, Via Okinawa Peace Research Institute.

In February, Prince Konoe Fumimaro had advised the Japanese emperor to surrender and stop the continuation of deaths, suffering, and destruction of the Pacific War. The navy and  air force were practically wiped out.  Most of Japan's major cities had been destroyed by firebombing before the Battle of Okinawa. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians were dead, or wounded and starving. The Japanese government knew the Battle of Okinawa was lost in advance, that it would be a bloodbath; however the Ryukyuan people and their garden-like islands were cast as a last "sacrifice stone" simply to extend a war without mercy.  Okinawan civilians were used as laborers, and eventually human shields,  before the final sacrifices by forced group suicide. Korean military slave laborers and Korean and Taiwanese "comfort women" (military sexual slaves at the 145 "comfort stations" in Okinawa), erased from from the media and history books, as if they never existed, were also sacrificed.

Memorial service for the 600 people forced to commit suicide. 

The Japanese government has never apologized to Okinawans for the willful disregard of life in the planning of the Battle of Okinawa; the near-genocidal civilian death toll; the group suicide orders; the loss of homes, farms, means of livelihood, and near-total destruction of the culture of ancient Ryukyuan kingdom.

Okinawans had no part in formulating the Japanese military government decisions that led to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War. Yet Okinawans are still being punished, and have never been allowed to live freely and peacefully.  Under the 1952 Treaty of San Francisco, the Japanese government gave control of the islands to the U.S. military which continued the Japanese wartime pattern of property and human rights violations against Okinawans.  Okinawa Prefecture only makes up 0.6 percent of Japan's land mass, but has been forced to accommodate two thirds of the 47,000 US troops in Japan. Why? Because no other prefecture will take them, according to Minister of Defence, General Nakatani.

From 1945 to 1970 (especially during the notorious 1950s era of "Bayonets and Bulldozers"), the US military forcibly seized tens of thousands of acres of private property—entire villages, including cemeteries, tombs, sacred sites, and cultural properties— from over 230,000 Okinawans, to make way for the construction of massive military complexes that are now training bases for the US wars in Central Asia. People who resisted were pulled from their homes, assaulted, arrested and imprisoned.  The US allowed soldiers to engage in crimes against Okinawans with impunity and contaminated the islands with Agent Orange, depleted uranium, white phosphorus, and other radioactive and chemical weapons.

After the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan, the U.S. did not leave Okinawa, as expected. In 1996, the US and Japan announced their plan to landfill the coral reef and dugong habitat at  Henoko, a beloved natural cultural heritage site and most important eco-tourism destination in Okinawa, to make way for another base. The critically endangered Okinawa dugong is a sacred icon and protected natural historical monument. The healthy coral reef is the last fully intact coral reef in all of Okinawa and Japan, and the most biodiverse in the Pacific Ocean, surpassing the number of species that inhabit the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.  Okinawans, supported by global environmental and democracy activists, have been protesting the plan since that day.

For 70 years, Okinawans have struggled for Japanese and U.S. military recognition and respect for their human rights, property rights, cultural heritage, and right to self-determinacy. In 1950, the U.S. said it would make Okinawa a "showcase of democracy". However U.S. military rule remained authoritarian: implementing unacceptable policies with brute force, then, as now.  As Okinawans remember and pay their respects to those who died during the Battle of Okinawa 70 years ago, they are also engaged in a historic battle for Japanese and U.S. recognition of Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga's efforts to stop the destruction of the coral and dugong habitat, an ecoregion that is the living manifestation of what little remains of tangible Okinawan cultural heritage.

"Pillar of light of peace" at Aka Geruma Island on March 26, 2014

Background: 

"Seventy years since U.S. landings on Kerama Islands – Memorial service to be held on Zamami on 26 March" (What's Going On in Okinawa, March 26, 2015)

"Remembering the Konoe Memorial: the Battle of Okinawa and Its Aftermath" (Herbert Bix, APJ, Feb. 23, 2015)

"Descent Into Hell: The Battle of Okinawa" (The Ryukyu Shimpo, Ota Masahide, Mark Ealey and Alastair McLauchlan, APJ, Dec. 1, 2014)

"Compulsory Mass Suicide, the Battle of Okinawa, and Japan's Textbook Controversy" (Aniya Masaaki, The Okinawa Times, and Asahi Shinbun, translation by Kyoko Selden, APJ, Jan. 6, 2008)

-JD