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Tuesday, January 07, 2014

International Scholars, Peace Advocates and Artists Condemn Agreement To Build New U.S. Marine Base in Okinawa

See below for list of media reports on this statement. See Japanese version HERE 「海外識者・文化人沖縄声明」の日本語版はこちら

See also an update HERE. Sign international petition HERE

PRESS RELEASE 

International Scholars, Peace Advocates and Artists Condemn Agreement
To Build New U.S. Marine Base in Okinawa

For Immediate Release

January 7, 2014                                                    

For More Information Contact:
Joseph Gerson : 1-617-661-6130/ JGeson@afsc.org
Peter Kuznick1-202-885-2408/ pkuznick@aol.com
Gavan McCormack: 61-2-6125-3164/ gavan.mccormack@anu.edu.au
(McCormack also available for interview in Japanese)

                Leading scholars, peace advocates and artists from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia today released the attached statement opposing the construction of the new U.S. Marine base at Henoko, Okinawa, planned by the US and Japanese governments as a replacement facility of Futenma airbase located in the middle of Ginowan City. Their statement urges “support for the people of Okinawa in their struggle for peace, dignity, human rights, and protection of the environment.”

                Initial signers of the statement include linguist Noam Chomsky, academy award winning film makers Oliver Stone and Michael Moore, Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire, historian John Dower, former U.S. military officer and diplomat Ann Wright, and United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard Falk. (See complete list of initial signers on statement. Additional names are being added.)

                Speaking for the signers, Joseph Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee, who has worked with Okinawan base opponents and initiated the 1996  “Statement of Outrage and Remorse” following the kidnapping and rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl by U.S. servicemen, said the statement  is intended to “ rally international support for Okinawans in their inspiring and essential nonviolent campaign to end seventy years of military colonization, to defend their dignity and human rights, and to ensure peace and protect their environment.”

Professor Peter Kuznick of American University, who co-authored The Untold History of the United States with Oliver Stone, decried Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima’s betrayal of Okinawan voters.   “During the campaign, Nakaima promised to work for the relocation of Futenma base outside Okinawa. According to the polls, 72.4 percent of Okinawans see the governor’s decision as a ‘breach of his election pledge,’” Kuznick said, “The deal was made at the behest of the United States and of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It tramples the rights of the Okinawan people to advance Obama’s Asian ‘pivot.’”

The statement reviews the oppression and exploitation of Okinawa-- first by Japanese rulers with invasion and annexation, and then by the United States to support its hegemonic interests in the Pacific. It points to the unjust concentration of 73.8% of exclusively U.S. military bases in Japan on less than 1% of the country’s land mass. Signers also point to the painful irony that for seven decades Okinawans “have suffered what the signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence denounced as ‘abuses and usurpations,’ including the presence of foreign ‘standing armies without consent of our legislature.’”

Professor Gavan McCormack of the Australian National University, and co-author with Satoko Norimatsu of Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States, described the intrusions of militarism that threaten Okinawans’ lives and health, " from military accidents, crimes including sexual violence for which U.S. forces are not held fully accountable, to intolerable military aircraft noise and chemical pollution.” He said that “Okinawans’ courageous and unrelenting struggle to finally end the military occupation and to enjoy real security deserves the support of people around the world.”

(Statement Follows.)


STATEMENT

We oppose construction of a new US military base within Okinawa, and support the people of Okinawa in their struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment

We the undersigned oppose the deal made at the end of 2013 between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Governor of Okinawa Hirokazu Nakaima to deepen and extend the military colonization of Okinawa at the expense of the people and the environment. Using the lure of economic development, Mr. Abe has extracted approval from Governor Nakaima to reclaim the water off Henoko, on the northeastern shore of Okinawa, to build a massive new U.S. Marine air base with a military port.

Plans to build the base at Henoko have been on the drawing board since the 1960s.  They were revitalized in 1996, when the sentiments against US military bases peaked following the rape of a twelve year-old Okinawan child by three U.S. servicemen. In order to pacify such sentiments, the US and Japanese governments planned to close Futenma Marine Air Base in the middle of Ginowan City and  move its functions to a new base to be constructed at Henoko, a site of extraordinary bio-diversity and home to the endangered marine mammal dugong.

Governor Nakaima’s reclamation approval does not reflect the popular will of the people of Okinawa.  Immediately before the gubernatorial election of 2010, Mr. Nakaima, who had previously accepted the new base construction plan, changed his position and called for relocation of the Futenma base outside the prefecture. He won the election by defeating a candidate who had consistently opposed the new base. Polls in recent years have shown that 70 to 90 percent of the people of Okinawa opposed the Henoko base plan. The poll conducted immediately after Nakaima’s recent reclamation approval showed that 72.4 percent of the people of Okinawa saw the governor’s decision as a “breach of his election pledge.” The reclamation approval was a betrayal of the people of Okinawa.

73.8 percent of the US military bases (those for exclusive US use) in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa, which is only .6 percent of the total land mass of Japan. 18.3 percent of the Okinawa Island is occupied by the US military. Futenma Air Base originally was built during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa by US forces in order to prepare for battles on the mainland of Japan. They simply usurped the land from local residents. The base should have been returned to its owners after the war, but the US military has retained it even though now almost seven decades have passed. Therefore, any conditional return of the base is fundamentally unjustifiable.

The new agreement would also perpetuate the long suffering of the people of Okinawa. Invaded in the beginning of the 17th century by Japan and annexed forcefully into the Japanese nation at the end of 19th century, Okinawa was in 1944 transformed into a fortress to resist advancing US forces and thus to buy time to protect the Emperor System.  The Battle of Okinawa killed more than 100,000 local residents, about a quarter of the island’s population. After the war, more bases were built under the US military occupation. Okinawa “reverted” to Japan in 1972, but the Okinawans’ hope for the removal of the military bases was shattered. Today, people of Okinawa continue to suffer from crimes and accidents, high decibel aircraft noise and environmental pollution caused by the bases. Throughout these decades, they have suffered what the U.S. Declaration of Independence denounces as “abuses and usurpations,” including the presence of foreign “standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.”

Not unlike the 20th century U.S. Civil Rights struggle, Okinawans have non-violently pressed for the end to their military colonization. They tried to stop live-fire military drills that threatened their lives by entering the exercise zone in protest; they formed human chains around military bases to express their opposition; and about a hundred thousand people, one tenth of the population have turned out periodically for massive demonstrations. Octogenarians initiated the campaign to prevent the construction of the Henoko base with a sit-in that has been continuing for years. The prefectural assembly passed resolutions to oppose the Henoko base plan. In January 2013, leaders of all the 41 municipalities of Okinawa signed the petition to the government to remove the newly deployed MV-22 Osprey from Futenma base and to give up the plan to build a replacement base in Okinawa.

We support the people of Okinawa in their non-violent struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment. The Henoko marine base project must be canceled and Futenma returned forthwith to the people of Okinawa.

January 2014

Norman Birnbaum, Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University
Herbert Bix, Emeritus Professor of History and Sociology, State University of New York at Binghamton
Reiner Braun, Co-president International Peace Bureau and Executive Director of International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms
Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
John W. Dower, Professor Emeritus of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alexis Dudden, Professor of History, University of Connecticut
Daniel Ellsberg, Senior Fellow at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, former Defense and State Department official
John Feffer, Co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) at the Institute for Policy Studies
Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Joseph Gerson (PhD), Director, Peace & Economic Security Program, American Friends Service Committee
Richard Falk, Milbank Professor of International law Emeritus, Princeton University
Norma Field, Professor Emerita, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
Kate Hudson (PhD), General Secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Catherine Lutz, Professor of Anthropology and International Studies, Brown University
Naomi Klein, Author and journalist
Joy Kogawa, Author of Obasan
Peter Kuznick, Professor of History, American University
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace laureate
Kevin Martin, Executive Director, Peace Action
Gavan McCormack, Professor Emeritus, Australian National University
Kyo Maclear, Writer and Children’s author
Michael Moore, Filmmaker
Steve Rabson, Professor Emeritus, Brown University/ Veteran, United States Army, Henoko, Okinawa, 1967-68
Mark Selden, a Senior Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University
Oliver Stone, Filmmaker
David Vine, Associate Professor of Anthropology, American University
The Very Rev. the Hon. Lois Wilson, Former President, World Council of Churches
Lawrence Wittner, Professor Emeritus of History, State University of New York/Albany
Ann Wright, Retired US Army Colonel and former US diplomat

(In the alphabetical order of family names, as of January 7, 2014)

Media reports in English:

Peter Kuznick appears on RT (start from around 18:00), January 14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKc-XEr0V9c#t=1082


Ryukyu Shimpo 
http://english.ryukyushimpo.jp/2014/01/08/12746/

NHK World 
Intl group condemns planned US base in Okinawa
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20140108_25.html

Common Dreams
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2014/01/07-0

The International Social News 
http://www.international.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27799:international-scholars-peace-advocates-and-artists-condemn-agreement-to-build-new-us-marine-base-in-okinawa&catid=36:news&Itemid=254

Truthout 
International Scholars, Peace Advocates and Artists Condemn Agreement to Build New US Marine Base in Okinawa
http://truth-out.org/speakout/item/21151-international-scholars-peace-advocates-and-artists-condemn-agreement-to-build-new-us-marine-base-in-okinawa 

Mainichi 
Oliver Stone joins world scholars, artists to condemn Okinawa base plan
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140108p2a00m0na005000c.html

Global Post (Kyodo) 
Prominent Westerners oppose new U.S. base plan in Okinawa
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/kyodo-news-international/140108/prominent-westerners-oppose-new-us-base-plan-okinawa

JIJI PRESS
Okinawa Base Plan Opposed by U.S Scholars, Others 
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/i?g=eco&k=2014010800292

The Japan Times 
Eric Johnston, Luminaries’ statement slams Henoko base deal
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/01/08/national/luminaries-statement-slams-henoko-base-deal/#.Us1lfvTuLrI


The Stars and Stripes
Global activists oppose plan for replacement air base on Okinawa
http://www.stripes.com/news/global-activists-oppose-plan-for-replacement-air-base-on-okinawa-1.261137

Media Reports in Japanese: 

Tokyo Shimbun
普天間移設 米識者ら反対 「即時返還」沖縄を支持
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/world/news/CK2014010802000244.html

Mainichi Shimbun
辺野古移設:ストーン監督ら反対声明 世界の有識者29人

Ryukyu Shimpo
「辺野古移設中止を」 海外識者29人が声明
http://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/storyid-217582-storytopic-53.html

Ryukyu Shimpo Editorial
海外識者声明 沖縄の正当性の証明だ もっと世界に訴えよう
http://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/storyid-217615-storytopic-53.html

Ryukyu Shimpo
「軍事植民地終結を」 海外識者ら声明発表 -
http://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/storyid-217622-storytopic-53.html

Jiji Tsushin
辺野古移設に反対=米有識者ら声明
http://news.nifty.com/cs/world/worldalldetail/jiji-2014010800195/1.htm

Asahi Shimbun 
オリバー・ストーン監督ら、辺野古移設に反対声明
http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASG182SX5G18UHBI00C.html?iref=com_top6_04

NHK
辺野古埋め立て承認 米文化人が反対声明
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20140108/k10014346901000.html

Kyodo Tsushin
映画監督オリバー・ストーン氏らが辺野古移設反対で声明
http://www.sanspo.com/geino/news/20140108/sot14010810540002-n1.html

Okinawa Times
海外から「辺野古反対」識者29人声明
http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/article.php?id=60294

Okinawa Times Editorial
社説[海外著名人が声明]国際世論を形成しよう
http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/article.php?id=60289

Huffington Post
沖縄・辺野古移設問題に、オリバー・ストーン監督、チョムスキーさんら反対声明【全文】
http://www.huffingtonpost.jp/2014/01/08/okinawa-henoko_n_4559609.html

TBS "Sunday Morning" January 12, 2014
http://www.tbs.co.jp/sunday/

1 comment:

  1. Ayako K. Shichiri8:52 pm

    I'm a person on the street living in Okinawa island,
    signed my signature at http://chn.ge/1ecQPUJ
    on the other day.

    To be honest, at first,
    I wondered I can or cannot sing on above website.
    Because first 29th signers are person of great renown all,
    on the other hand , I'm just ordinaly female,
    was born in this island, and have not any study.
    However, my deeply wish is ture one, so I signed.

    I was born in Okinawa island, and grew up in Ginowan City.
    My two grandfather died because of W.W.Ⅱ, in this island,
    and I have seen my grandmother's deeply sadness,
    and rage and disappointment
    against goverment of my parent from when I was child.
    Therefore, Everytime I have to see
    this island's huge militaly base,
    I always think of -- In this world, somewhere I could not see,
    surely there are many person
    just like my grandmother and parent,
    and they exactly hate this island.
    After Iraq war erupting,
    this thinking and feeling became more and more strongly.
    And I decided to stop borning my baby --
    For me, It was just the love for my children
    never to make them feel what I feeling :
    this suffering and this miserable
    have to live as a human was born in this island.

    If new huge militaly base be constracted at Henoko,
    young female in this island, start thinking of just like former me,
    will increase more and more.
    I fervently hope that
    it's getting end as a female was born in this island,
    did such outrageous and sadness , of the last moment me.

    At last, as a ordinaly person living in this small island,
    appriciate for first 29th signers
    and all person who signed with me at http://chn.ge/1ecQPUJ,
    especially Satoko Oka Norimatsu,
    gave me advice and permission to write comment at here.

    ReplyDelete