Category: Uncategorized

Too Many Overseas Bases

David Vine | February 25, 2009

Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco

Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org

In the midst of an economic crisis that’s getting scarier by the day, it’s time to ask whether the nation can really afford some 1,000 military bases overseas. For those unfamiliar with the issue, you read that number correctly. One thousand. One thousand U.S. military bases outside the 50 states and Washington, DC, representing the largest collection of bases in world history.

Officially the Pentagon counts 865 base sites, but this notoriously unreliable number omits all our bases in Iraq (likely over 100) and Afghanistan (80 and counting), among many other well-known and secretive bases. More than half a century after World War II and the Korean War, we still have 268 bases in Germany, 124 in Japan, and 87 in South Korea. Others are scattered around the globe in places like Aruba and Australia, Bulgaria and Bahrain, Colombia and Greece, Djibouti, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, and of course, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba – just to name a few. Among the installations considered critical to our national security are a ski center in the Bavarian Alps, resorts in Seoul and Tokyo, and 234 golf courses the Pentagon runs worldwide.

Unlike domestic bases, which set off local alarms when threatened by closure, our collection of overseas bases is particularly galling because almost all our taxpayer money leaves the United States (much goes to enriching private base contractors like corruption-plagued former Halliburton subsidiary KBR). One part of the massive Ramstein airbase near Landstuhl, Germany, has an estimated value of $3.3 billion. Just think how local communities could use that kind of money to make investments in schools, hospitals, jobs, and infrastructure.

Even the Bush administration saw the wastefulness of our overseas basing network. In 2004, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced plans to close more than one-third of the nation’s overseas installations, moving 70,000 troops and 100,000 family members and civilians back to the United States. National Security Adviser Jim Jones, then commander of U.S. forces in Europe, called for closing 20% of our bases in Europe. According to Rumsfeld’s estimates, we could save at least $12 billion by closing 200 to 300 bases alone. While the closures were derailed by claims that closing bases could cost us in the short term, even if this is true, it’s no reason to continue our profligate ways in the longer term.

Costs Far Exceeding Dollars and Cents

Unfortunately, the financial costs of our overseas bases are only part of the problem. Other costs to people at home and abroad are just as devastating. Military families suffer painful dislocations as troops stationed overseas separate from loved ones or uproot their families through frequent moves around the world. While some foreign governments like U.S. bases for their perceived economic benefits, many locals living near the bases suffer environmental and health damage from military toxins and pollution, disrupted economic, social, and cultural systems, military accidents, and increased prostitution and crime.

In undemocratic nations like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Saudi Arabia, our bases support governments responsible for repression and human rights abuses. In too many recurring cases, soldiers have raped, assaulted, or killed locals, most prominently of late in South Korea, Okinawa, and Italy. The forced expulsion of the entire Chagossian people to create our secretive base on British Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is another extreme but not so aberrant example.

Bases abroad have become a major and unacknowledged “face” of the United States, frequently damaging the nation’s reputation, engendering grievances and anger, and generally creating antagonistic rather than cooperative relationships between the United States and others. Most dangerously, as we have seen in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and as we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign bases create breeding grounds for radicalism, anti-Americanism, and attacks on the United States, reducing, rather than improving, our national security.

Proponents of maintaining the overseas base status quo will argue, however, that our foreign bases are critical to national and global security. A closer examination shows that overseas bases have often heightened military tensions and discouraged diplomatic solutions to international conflicts. Rather than stabilizing dangerous regions, our overseas bases have often increased global militarization, enlarging security threats faced by other nations who respond by boosting military spending (and in cases like China and Russia, foreign base acquisition) in an escalating spiral. Overseas bases actually make war more likely, not less.

The Benefits of Fewer Bases

This isn’t a call for isolationism or a protectionism that would prevent us from spending money overseas. As the Obama administration and others have recognized, we must recommit to cooperative forms of engagement with the rest of the world that rely on diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties rather than military means. In addition to freeing money to meet critical human needs at home and abroad, fewer overseas bases would help rebuild our military into a less overstretched, defensive force committed to defending the nation’s territory from attack.

In these difficult economic times, the Obama administration and Congress should initiate a major reassessment of our 1,000 overseas bases. Now is the time to ask if, as a nation and a world, we can really afford the 1,000 bases that are pushing the nation deeper into debt and making the United States and the planet less secure? With so many needs facing our nation, it’s unconscionable to have 1,000 overseas bases. It’s time to begin closing them.

David Vine, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at American University in Washington, DC and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, is organizing the Security Without Empire conference that will bring together leading U.S. peace activists and scholars, as well as base opponents from 11 nations from February 27-March 2. He is the author of Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton University Press), to be released in April.

Surfers vs. the Superferry

By Jerry Mander & Koohan Paik

This article appeared in the March 16, 2009 edition of The Nation.
February 25, 2009

We don’t ordinarily seek inspirational models of grassroots uprisings–especially against global corporate-military boondoggles–from surfer beaches on luscious tropical islands. So it surprises colleagues on the left when we tell them they might check out some surprising events on the small “outer” islands in Hawaii that may have an impact on grand US aspirations for military domination of the Pacific basin. Few mainlanders have heard about it, but Hawaii is up in arms.

It all started in 2001 as a purportedly modest “local” effort to offer inter-island ferry service to “help local people more easily visit their relatives on other islands, and carry their farm produce to market.” Most locals liked the idea but soon found that this ferry, the gigantic Hawaii Superferry, was an environmental nightmare. It uses far more fuel (in total and per person) than big planes. It races at high speed (40-45 miles per hour) through zones teeming with endangered humpback whales, dolphins and rare sea turtles. It could transport dangerous invasive species to pristine islands. And it carries hundreds of cars to tiny places already choking on traffic.

Environmentalists demanded an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and its Hawaii equivalent (HEPA). But the Hawaii Superferry Company, with strong support from Governor Linda Lingle, the ambitious right-wing Republican lately famous for introducing Sarah Palin at the Republican convention, refused.

By 2004 the lead investor (nearly $90 million) and new chair of the board for this “local” ferry project was New York City military financier John Lehman, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, a leading neocon with a famously aggressive military vision. (The Washington Post quoted him in 1984 as advocating first-strike nuclear strategies.) Lehman is a member of the Project for the New American Century and a 9/11 commissioner, but his great passion has been pushing for a vastly expanded, 600-ship Navy and a stronger US military presence in the Pacific to assuage mounting concerns about China as a future military superpower. After his company, J.F. Lehman, took over the Superferry project, Lehman appointed a new board with a majority of former top military brass. He later hired Adm. Thomas Fargo as CEO. Only four years ago Fargo was the commander of US military operations in the Pacific, answering directly to George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. So the question is this: why on earth would anyone need a board that qualifies as a mini-Pentagon to run a friendly transport for families and papayas between islands?

A key moment in this saga came in August 2007, on the small island of Kauai, called the Garden Island by tourist agencies for its folded green cliffs, cascading waterfalls and aloha spirit. But on this occasion about 1,500 locals–including a high percentage of Native Hawaiians, joined by people of Japanese and Filipino descent and a contingent of New Age haoles (recent white settlers seeking Shangri-La)–showed up at Nawiliwili Harbor to protest the Superferry’s maiden voyage from Honolulu to Kauai. Several dozen surfers also played a catalytic role.

When the protesters saw the oncoming speeding colossus on the horizon–bigger than a football field, four stories high and capable of carrying as many as 866 people and 282 cars–the outrage grew. The anger had been magnified a few days earlier when Governor Lingle and Lehman’s Superferry company indicated they would disregard a 5-0 Hawaii Supreme Court ruling demanding the boat suspend operations until it completed an EIS. As it approached, dozens of surfers and swimmers leaped into the water. Ignoring strident Coast Guard threats, they headed out under the Superferry’s terrifying catamaran blades, stopping the ship dead in the water. It created a sort of Tiananmen Square standoff in the waters of Kauai.

It was a dangerous business, but next day when the Superferry returned, the crowd of protesters had grown, and the surfers and beach brigades had too. In the ensuing eighteen months, the boat has never returned to Kauai and now has only one daily run, from Honolulu to Maui. The “spirit of Nawiliwili” has become the stuff of legend in Hawaii.

On the island of Maui, similar outrage led to a series of large if less spectacular protests. But the Maui resistance settled on legal actions from groups like the Sierra Club, Maui Tomorrow and the Kahului Harbor Coalition. It was these groups that had won the unanimous Hawaii Supreme Court ruling demanding the EIS. Everyone thought that decision would settle matters. Instead, it stimulated Lingle to demonstrate her Machiavellian chops by coercing the State Legislature (many of whose members had received Superferry largesse, as had Lingle) to pass a law theoretically circumventing the court ruling and permitting the boat to operate. It was an in-your-face move worthy of Bush/Cheney at their peak. Lingle’s new law, Act Two, invented an EIS process with few features from NEPA or HEPA. The new law, for example, has no power to stop the Superferry from operating, no matter what the environmental findings. It’s a fake EIS.

The Maui groups have gone back to court to charge that Act Two is unconstitutional–violating separation of powers and directly favoring a single company, among other problems. The final decision is expected any day.

Three weeks after Nawiliwili, another huge throng filled the 1,500 seats of Kauai’s War Memorial Convention Hall, with many more outside, for a “public meeting” called by Governor Lingle. Imperiously she warned that she would not discuss whether there would be a Superferry–that had been decided. Her purpose was to instruct people that if they repeated their protests, they would be charged under new anti-terrorism laws that carry prison terms up to five years and/or a $10,000 fine.

Her statements were met with hoots and laughter and then a series of eloquent testimonies about protection of sacred lands (aina in Hawaiian) and sea creatures and the rights of local communities to protect themselves from invasive species and invasive corporations with militaristic intentions. Many indicated they were not opposed to a ferry if it would operate within community and environmental standards rather than those of an absentee owner with profit motives and military intentions. Others denounced Lingle’s embrace of the project and its owner, suggesting she’d abandoned Hawaii for personal ambition.

Lingle’s goals surely go beyond providing a useful local ferry. They certainly seemed to have far more to do with getting closer to powerful Republican Party figures–notably Lehman, slated, as the New York Times reported, to have been John McCain’s chief of staff, had he won.

Throughout all this, the governor and the Superferry company denied the ferry’s long-range military implications, despite earlier statements by Lehman and other executives about transporting Stryker tanks and other military services along with similar statements from the US Maritime Administration, which had issued a loan guarantee. Pacific Business News reported in March 2005 that Timothy Dick, Hawaii Superferry’s original chair, confirmed that “Hawaii Superferry provided the Army with a cost analysis and expects to negotiate a long-term contract.” The article also noted that “with Lehman’s expertise, the Superferry plans to…carry military equipment and ferry vehicles from Oahu to the Big Island on a daily basis” and quoted Lehman saying that “the Superferry is strong enough to take Stryker vehicles.”

Then in November the Superferry’s manufacturer, Austal USA of Mobile, Alabama, was awarded a $1.6 billion Pentagon contract to build ten high-speed catamarans under the Navy’s Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) program in preparation for possible future conflicts with China. The model that Austal submitted for that contract competition was almost identical to the Hawaii Superferry’s large-scale, aluminum-hulled high-speed catamaran design, except for military fittings and accommodations. The fact that the Superferry was already in the water, proving its seaworthiness while the JHSV contract was being considered, suggests that it may have always been intended as a prototype or demo model for the larger deal. It also explains the consistent refusals to do an EIS, which might have delayed getting the boat operational and visible.

Two years earlier, Lehman had also purchased a shipyard, Atlantic Marine, adjacent to Austal in Mobile. It’s not yet clear if Lehman’s company, or Superferry, stands to gain from the Austal award, possibly by subcontracting aspects of that huge construction project, but speculation in Hawaii runs wild.

All parties await the next ruling from the Hawaii Supreme Court on the Maui appeal. A new diverse grassroots community of activists on Kauai is warily assessing whether it will again need to respond. Will the company try to send the boat back to Kauai? Or will the Superferry quit Hawaii altogether as too much trouble, selling the boat for military uses, or to someplace with no activist surfers? As for Lingle’s future, it’s not bright. While touring with Palin during the presidential campaign, Lingle was quoted saying that Barack Obama’s “claim” to be from Hawaii is “disingenuous.” That enraged the Hawaiian public more than the Superferry. She may no longer be politically viable.

About Jerry Mander
Jerry Mander is director of the International Forum on Globalization and co-author, with Koohan Paik, of The Superferry Chronicles: Hawaii’s Uprising Against Militarism, Commercialism and the Desecration of the Earth (Koa).

About Koohan Paik
Koohan Paik is an Hawaii filmmaker and co-author, with Jerry Mander, of The Superferry Chronicles: Hawaii’s Uprising Against Militarism, Commercialism and the Desecration of the Earth (Koa).

Source: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090316/mander_paik

http://www.countercurrents.org/westbrook230109.htm

U.S. Military Base In Vicenza Gets Final Approval

By Stephanie Westbrook

23 February, 2009
Countercurrents.org

At a press conference on Friday, February 20, Italian Special Commissioner Paola Costa and U.S. Consul General from Milan, Daniel Weygandt, announced final approval for a new U.S. military base in Vicenza, Italy. The project, approved by a joint Italian-US Military Construction Committee working under the still-classified 1954 Bilateral Infrastructure Agreement, includes 25 new buildings with lodging for 1200 soldiers and multi-story car parks for over 800 vehicles.

Weygandt noted his satisfaction “that the entire process had been developed in full compliance and that we were able to arrive at this final result.” Costa said that while no environmental impact assessment would be carried out, he assured everyone that “this project is the best possible and based on the most stringent regulations in effect in Italy and the United States.”

These words rang hollow for the thousands of local residents who have kept up constant protests against this second U.S. Military base – Vicenza is already home to Camp Ederle dating back to the 1950s – since word of the project, initially denied, first leaked out in May 2006.

Costa’s aversion to an environmental impact assessment certainly came as no surprise. Just last year a July 2007 letter from Costa to then Defense Minister Parisi surfaced, in which the Special Commissioner reiterated that an environmental impact assessment “represents an obvious risk to the possibilities of proceeding while respecting deadlines; and it is possible that it could even put the final decision in jeopardy.” An important groundwater source, supplying water to the cities of Vicenza, Padua and Rovigo, lies directly below the base.

This final approval was announced as the official opening of the construction site, yet substantial demolition work has been ongoing for weeks.

In a press release from Mayor Achille Variati, who won last year’s election thanks to his opposition to the base, Weygandt was reminded “that Vicenza has always been hospitable towards the Americans, but hospitality doesn’t translate to stupidity or lack of common sense.” Variati asked that local needs and desires be respected and announced that, having been unsuccessful in getting a response from the Italian government with regards to the environmental impact assessment, he will “take the case to the European Union.” Variati also had some advice for Costa: “the construction period will be lengthy, and if the local population’s concerns are not taken into account, that period could be drawn out to a very long time.”

The new base was initially sited for the city’s little used civilian airport Dal Molin, which is hosted inside an Italian airbase due for closure. In a failed attempt to quell fierce local opposition, in November 2007 changes were made to the project that moved the base just a few hundred meters away to the Italian military side of the same area. The airport itself has been shut down and the runway has just recently been destroyed to make room for the new base. As part of the “compensation package” offered by the Italian government, a new runway will be rebuilt on what is left of Dal Molin at a cost of 11.5 million euros to Italian taxpayers.

The announcement of the final approval did nothing to dishearten the movement that has been working for nearly three years to block construction of the second base. In fact, that same day, a demonstration was held near the entrance to the new base and the following day saw gazebos set up all over the city to talk to local residents about the latest developments with regards to the base.

And though it might be the shortest month of the year, in Vicenza, February has definitely been one of the most intense. Things kicked off when over two hundred activists entered and occupied the civilian airport side of the Dal Molin site. The police had been caught completely off guard, falling for false announcements of a series of initiatives by the No Dal Molin movement slated for the following week.

Having become experts at setting up encampments – the movement has operated a permanent encampment No Dal Molin for over two years – in a matter of minutes a large tent was erected inside the airport, the occupied area was sealed off on three sides, and a new entrance was created, complete with concierge and a crosswalk painted on the street.

The police arrived on the scene in riot gear. However, in a surprise move, Enac – Veneto, the regional civilian aviation authority responsible for the ex-airport, informed the police that they were not requesting the area to be cleared, believing that forcibly removing the protesters would only serve to increase tensions. Perhaps the fact that Enac is effectively losing an airport played a role in their decision. The police packed up and left as the activists celebrated. And like clockwork, volunteers arrived with meals for the occupiers; that evening saw a choice of 4 pasta dishes!

The occupation continued for four days and concluded with two important results. First, the long awaited Parco della Pace, or Peace Park, came a step closer to becoming a reality. The city government, together with Enac, agreed to open up discussions to make a portion of the now closed airport available to the public. This was a particularly important result, as it now makes it more difficult for the area in disuse to revert to state control, which would open up the door for the U.S. military, unlikely to allow a civilian airport to operate right next door to a major military base, to be given control of the entire area. Secondly, after having been denied an official environmental impact assessment of the new base, the city, together with the volunteer technicians and engineers of the No Dal Molin movement, will carry out their own evaluation of the project using office space provided them inside the ex airport.

However, the view from inside the airport during the occupation was that of the illegal work being carried out on the new base. Trucks carrying demolition material came and went. And while important gains had been made to protect the ex airport from falling into the hands of the U.S. military, the activists knew the next step was to block the construction of the base. In fact, they had been saying from the very start back in 2006, that once construction began, they would put their bodies on the line to block it. And on Tuesday, February 10, that’s exactly what they did.

Out on the streets at 6am, over 150 people were determined to block the trucks entering and leaving the base. Waiting for the demonstrators, however, was a police presence the likes of which had never been seen in Vicenza – 400 police in riot gear had completely sealed off the area, and immediately started to push the protesters back. Realizing that they were outnumbered, the protesters reorganized and chose to target one of the companies doing work inside the base, Carta Isnardo. They arrived at the company’s headquarters just outside Vicenza and managed to block a truck for over one hour before the police arrived. 18 demonstrators were arrested, but as the protesters proclaimed, “Every minute lost by the U.S., is a minute gained by the city of Vicenza.”

Valentine’s Day brought over 7,000 citizens out into the streets to proclaim their love for their city and their determination to protect it. They were also marching to reaffirm their right to protest. Just days prior, the police chief had floated the idea of declaring the grassroots No Dal Molin movement un’associazione a delinquere, or a criminal organization. And Italian police agents have been taking down the license plate numbers of activists attending the weekly assemblies held at the Permanent Encampment No Dal Molin.

The march started from the city’s historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage site dotted with buildings by renaissance architect Andrea Palladio and just one mile from the site of the new base. Mayor Variati spoke to the crowd gathered on the square. “My role as the mayor of all the citizens of Vicenza prevents me from marching with you today. But I will continue my opposition on the legal and institutional fronts.” It ended in front of the police headquarters, where thousands held their hands up in the air to underline the non-violent nature of the movement.

City Council member and one of the leaders of the No Dal Molin movement, Cinzia Bottene, had circulated a petition calling on her colleagues to support the citizens’ right to protest and reject the ridiculous accusations of the police chief. “Participation and dissent are not forms of delinquency, but the salt of democracy.” It was signed by 18 city council members, three regional council members and nine from neighboring cities, as well as the mayor of Venice.

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was in also Italy where she met with Prime Minister Berlusconi and thanked him for the hospitality given to U.S. troops in Italy. Speaking to Italian parliament she said, “I wonder how many Americans know that there are 14,000 U.S. troops in Italy, how many know of the Italian leadership role in combating nuclear proliferation.” She promised a new era of cooperation between the U.S. and allies. “There is no way that we will establish a policy that then imposes upon others obligations for which they have no consultation.”

Pelosi’s remarks raise a number of questions. Does the Speaker know that Italian taxpayers cover close to 40% of the operating costs of U.S. bases in Italy? Does she know that last October in a local referendum, which had officially been suspended just four days before it was to take place but was held with help of hundreds of volunteers, 95% of the 24,094 voters who did participate, voted against the new U.S base at Dal Molin? And was she aware that, while visiting the US Air Force Base in Aviano, she was practically sitting on top of 50 U.S. nuclear warheads stored at the base (another 40 are stored at the Ghedi Torre base) in violation of the spirit of the non-proliferation treaty?

Stephanie Westbrook is a founding member of U.S. Citizens for Peace & Justice in Rome, Italy and currently serves on the group’s coordinating committee.

For more information on the No Dal Molin movement, see the official site of the Presidio permanente (in Italian) http://www.nodalmolin.it, as well as a collection of articles and videos in English at http://www.peaceandjustice.it/vicenza/

Friday, February 6, 2009

The Struggle of Ohyunri, South Korea

1, 2, The people of Ohyun-ri, 1st Pan Korean rally against the expansion of Mugeon-ri military training field, Oct. 11, 2008, Seoul, Korea
Link

3. Korea DMZ area(mark added)

4. Kaeseong-Munsan-Paju map (English title added)

5. source from the Committee from P. 15, “Defense Reform 2020 by the SK Ministry of the National defense/ English title added

6. An Alliance For The 21 st Century And Beyond: United States Forces Strategic Digest, October, 2008

“On the basis of an agreement between the ROK and the US, the land was offered to the US military as a training area. It has become an international training ground, used not only by the USFK, but also troops based on Guam, Okinawa, and even the US mainland. This means that this training area was prepared for the purpose of permitting the US to carry out its new military strategy, based on “strategic flexibility”, which allows the USFK to conduct offensive operations outside the boundaries of the ROK.”

Written by Pan-Korean Committee against the Expansion of the Mugun-ri Military Training Fields, http://www.peaceoh.net/

Translation by Agatha Haun http://www.tlaxcala.es/

The Progressive Expansion of the Mugeonri Training Area

1980: In the vicinity of Mugeonri, a village in the Paju township, Kyeonggi Province, 3,500,000 pyeong of land (more than 10.5 million square meters) are cleared, followed by continuous expansion of the area after that.

1986: Up to this year the training area was expanded to 5,500,000 pyeong (more than 16.5 million square meters). All the residents who lived in Mugeonri at that time were evicted, and some of them moved to Ohyeonri. Now it is expected that the training ground will expand into that area.

1996: There are plans for enlarging the training area again, to 10,500,000 pyeong (more than 31.5 million square meters).

2008, September: A rushed announcement is made, afterward evaluation and assessment in Ohyeonri is moved forward.

2009: At present, the great majority of the residents do not accede to the National Defense Ministry’s plan to buy them out, and appeasement and threats are used to win them over.

In September last year, residents protested against the National Defense Ministry’s high-handed evaluation and assessment methods. Because of that, in connection with the illegal arrest of some residents, and the investigations that were set in motion, residents were summoned and compelled to make written apologies. This ran parallel with disgraceful coercion and pressure on residents.

The nature of the Mugeonri training area

As the only joint type of large-scale training area in the north part of Kyeonggi Province, it has been used for practicing the military strategy of an offensive against the North. It is expected that from now on it will seriously hinder the peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula.

On the basis of an agreement between the ROK and the US, the land was offered to the US military as a training area. It has become an international training ground, used not only by the USFK, but also troops based on Guam, Okinawa, and even the US mainland. This means that this training area was prepared for the purpose of permitting the US to carry out its new military strategy, based on “strategic flexibility”, which allows the USFK to conduct offensive operations outside the boundaries of the ROK.

Residents of Ohyeonri living in the area where the enlargement of the training area is planned

Currently there are more than 200 residents, living in more than 100 households. They live mainly by raising livestock and farming. It is a handsome village with beautiful scenery and many natural monuments. During the more than 30 years since the training area was first created, the residents have endured the suffering caused by the noise of tanks and so on during training exercises. In the meantime, the state, far from paying any compensation for the harm suffered by the residents, now is again trying to force their eviction. The majority of residents are outraged by this violence and oppose it.

The residents’ demands

Out of the entire area planned for the expansion of the training ground, more than 9,300,000 pyeong (over 28 million square meters), essentially 8,400,000 pyeong (more than 25.2 million square meters) is now secured by the Ministry of National Defense. In connection with this, on the occasion of the inspection of government offices, some National Assembly members asked the Minister of Defense why the military cannot conduct exercises in the training area in its present condition. Lee Sang Hee, the Minister of Defense explained that the training space had already been sufficiently enlarged, and that the residents were being made to remove simply for the sake of their own safety and security. However, in the middle of the training area where the village is situated, there is a national highway where every day several hundred thousand vehicles pass by. If one looks at it in light of the fact that there were already military units within the training area, this is merely an unconvincing, deceitful answer. The residents have already been living there for several decades already without any problem at all and training has gone on, and since the Minister of Defense himself said that the space needed for training had been enlarged enough, the residents demand that they be allowed to continue to live in their homes. Along with compensation for harm caused by living inside the training area, the residents are demanding the construction of sidewalks, in order to put an end to the danger caused by the careless driving of tanks. (In fact, this is the place where two middle school girls were run down and killed by a US armored vehicle in 2002.)

The need for international solidarity

As has been mentioned, this place is being used by the US as a training area for the purpose of implementing the aggressive, new military strategy that it intends to follow in Northeast Asia. Even so, although at present the US military has somewhat reduced its training exercises here, because of the residents’ struggle, it is expected that if the residents all are expelled and forced to leave, the US military forces’ training will proceed in earnest. (Due to an agreement between the ROK and the US, it was decided already that the US forces would use more than half the entire number of training days (91 days).) It is clear that this increases tension in Northeast Asia and has become a serious obstacle to reconciliation and cooperation between South and North Korea. Deepening military antagonism on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia has become a major challenge to the peace of the entire world. Accordingly, the struggle to prevent the enlargement of the Mugeonri training area must become an significant concern and a matter of solidarity among the peace-loving people of the entire world.

We hope for your international solidarity and support for the Ohyeonri residents’ hard struggle!

* For more *

Candle light vigil
About Mugeonri training centerLink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paju

http://activistphoto.net

* For more reference*

Realignment of U.S. Forces in Korea and Changes in US-ROK Military Alliance(Oct 2008)

http://usacrime.or..kr/ (Check English in the top right)

Posted by NO Base Stories of Korea at 6:20 AM
Labels: Mugun-ri/Ohyun-ri, United States Forces of korea(USFK), United States’ Strategic Change in Korea

THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

THE INTERNATIONAL NO BASES NETWORK

Belem do Para, Brazil

February 1, 2009

The International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases, meeting at the WSF in Belem do Para, Brazil, from 27 January to 1 February 2009, recognized that:

The single biggest challenge in the militarization of Africa is the installation of the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, in Stuttgart, German, from where the US provokes rebellion, civil unrest and fabricated terror attacks, in order to deal with this by using military means, as well as controlling the ongoing occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan;

The Latin American and Caribbean region’s sovereignty has been violated with the re-installation of the U.S. Fourth Fleet, the increased militarization through foreign military bases and other forms of military presence, the military occupation of Haiti and the probable transfer of the US Base in Manta, Ecuador to another country in the region;

The remodelling of NATO to go beyond the North Atlantic and act offensively in its military expansion, makes NATO an unacceptable threat to world peace and complicit with the United States in the war against terror. People all over the World will join forces in April to demand an end to NATO.

Asia and Pacific denounces the presence of the nuclear destroyer George Washington, which spreads nuclear radiation off the coast of Japan and the continued US military presence in Japan, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, Korea, among others.

North America has an important role, especially in the US, because of the awareness that needs to be raised in the country in relation to the imperial power represented in its 946 military bases abroad and more than 4000 in mainland US, 165 in Alaska, 121 in Hawaii and 17 in Washington D.C.

The No Bases Networks shares with all movements that work for global justice, human rights, demilitarization and global peace, its commitments:

We express our solidarity with the Palestinian people, especially the people in Gaza, for their struggle against occupation. We demand that Israel be taken to the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity.

We support the US decision to close the torture center in Guantanamo, Cuba, but find it inadequate if the bay is not returned to its rightful owners, the people of Cuba.

We celebrate the withdrawal of US troops from the Manta Base in Ecuador, and urge social movements to be vigilant that it is not relocated in another country in the region.

We support the Anti-NATO campaign and activities to be carried out around the 60th Anniversary, where we will actively participate in Strasbourg on April 5th and all activities planned around the world. We express our solidarity with the people of Vicenza who have reclaimed their land which has been occupied by a US Base.

We denounce the 4th Fleet and will develop common strategies to fight its expansion and continued presence, during the meetings in Argentina in March, Trinidad and Tobago Presidents’ meetings in April, Brazil in June, Ecuador in October.

We support the people of Diego Garcia, displaced by the British government to install a US base, even after a favourable court ruling that gave them back their land, only to be dismissed by the House of Lords.

We condemn the establishment of AFRICOM and urge all African governments, social movements and others, to deny its presence in Africa. The global network should support African initiatives and a regional gathering to address this crisis.

We support the struggles against foreign military bases in Asia and Pacific and urge the global movement to join with the organizations and networks in the region to develop regional strategies and campaigns.

We invite all organizations to the Security Without Empire – National US Conference on Foreign Military Bases to be held on February 27 – March 2, 2009 in Washington D.C.

We condemn the hypocrisy of the US for endorsing the budget presented by George Bush, which includes the military budget, without any caveats, that presents an obstacle to our struggle.

We propose the development of a Treaty to Ban Foreign Military Bases, similar to the Ban Landmines Treaty.

We demand civilian oversight of US military activities in the world, with the involvement of multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations, among others.

We need to challenge and counter the “War on Terror” rhetoric, when analyzing in particular actions of resistance groups and Islamic political organizations.

WE COMMIT TO CONTINUE IN OUR STRUGGLE TO ABOLISH ALL FOREIGN MILITARY BASES, END ALL OCCUPATION AND SEND ALL TROOPS HOME.

For more information or to join the No Bases Network find us or contact us on:
www.no-bases.net or secretariat@no-bases.net or Wilbert@tni.org

Published on Thursday, February 5, 2009
by Agence France Presse

Protests as US Warship Docks in Nagasaki

by Agence France Presse

TOKYO – A US warship docked Thursday in Nagasaki to the protests of residents and a boycott by local leaders who said the visit was in poor taste in a city obliterated by a US atomic bomb.

The USS Blue Ridge, which is stationed in Yokosuka near Tokyo, sailed to Nagasaki with a stated goal of promoting friendship between Japan and the United States.

Hundreds of residents including atomic bomb survivors chanted, “We are opposed to the port call!” as the 19,600-ton vessel arrived in the southwestern city.

“We don’t want to see the US flag flying at this port and this feeling will not change until the United States takes a policy towards the elimination of nuclear weapons,” Osamu Yoshitomi, an official at Nagasaki city, told AFP.

Nagasaki’s mayor and regional governor both refused to take part in the welcome ceremony after unsuccessfully asking Japanese and US authorities to cancel the visit.
The United States stations more than 40,000 troops in Japan under a post-World War II alliance. Under a 1960 agreement, local authorities do not have the right to refuse US warships’ port calls.

It was the seventh visit by a US military vessel to the city of Nagasaki. The US Navy also maintains a major base in the nearby city of Sasebo, part of Nagasaki prefecture.

Nagasaki Mayor Tomohisa Taue regretted the timing of the visit, saying that atomic bomb survivors had been optimistic that newly installed US President Barack Obama would move towards nuclear abolition.

“Nagasaki cannot accept a port call which rouses anxiety in a city hit by an atomic bomb,” Taue said in a statement.

Some 70,000 people died on August 9, 1945 when US forces dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Three days earlier, another atomic bomb killed more than 140,000 people in Hiroshima.

Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II.