Tag: Movements and Resistance

Posted on

Thanks, But No Tanks

Thanks but no tanks — Stryker draft EIS ready for comment

Public hearings set for September 25 & 26
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 8:44 AM HST

As long as Senator Daniel Inouye has been representing Hawai`i in congress, the islands have received more than their fair share of military pork. With the recent discovery of depleted uranium on Hawai`i Island and O`ahu and a growing awareness about the contamination that results from military operations, public opposition to a greater presence of armed forces is growing.

The United States Army will be holding public hearings on their proposed permanent home stationing of the Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Hawai`i. With a recent environmental impact statement finding that the brigade would cause less damage if based in Alaska or Colorado, and with the controversy surrounding the Stryker’s capability to fire depleted uranium (DU) munitions and possible contamination upon return from the Iraq Occupation, the conclusion could very well be “thanks, but no tanks.”

In 2004, the Army’s top brass decreed that the 2nd Brigade of the 25th Infantry would be transformed into a Stryker unit, and that Hawai`i would be the brigade’s home base.

On the Army’s Stryker Brigade Combat Team website, the Stryker is described as a new force for “strategic dominance across the full spectrum of operations — agile . . . versatile . . . lethal,” one which can be “rapidly deployed anywhere in the world in a few days time.” It includes approximately 4,000 soldiers and 1,000 vehicles, including 320 of the eight-wheeled, light-armor tanks.

Disregarding U.S. law, the Army failed to consider other base locations for the Stryker, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Three kanaka maoli groups — Kipuka, Na `Imi Pono and `Ilio`ulaokalani Coalition — filed a lawsuit against the Army, which was ruled upon by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last October. The court ordered the Army to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) “to address a full range of alternatives” to permanently stationing the Stryker Brigade in Hawai`i.

The Army’s recently released draft EIS examines “a fuller range of reasonable alternatives” for permanently stationing the 2/25th Stryker Brigade Combat Team. Initially, the Army included alternate locations in Alaska, Washington, Colorado and Kentucky. The draft EIS was then limited to locations that have an infantry brigade that could be moved to Hawai`i to replace the Stryker — either Fort Carson, Colorado, or Fort Richardson, Alaska.

The locations in Alaska and Colorado are both military garrisons with large tracts of land that are far removed from civilian populations. Lt. Col. Jonathan Allen, public affairs officer for U.S. Army Garrison-Alaska, said “there’s a lot of maneuver room available here in Alaska. There’s 1.6 million acres between Fort Wainright, Fort Greely and Fort Richardson. We’re looking at having a lot of forces stationed here in Alaska . . . The community in the area is supportive of the military.”

Pat Everett of the Beauty Shop Post Exchange at Fort Carson, responded to the opportunity of the Stryker Brigade relocating to Colorado by saying “Oooh! You mean some more of the boys gonna come down?” Everett was clearly excited at the prospect of giving more buzzcuts.

Checking news reports in the Fort Carson newspaper for controversy over the possibility of basing Styrker units there seemed unecessary as it is a military publication.

Explaining Senator Dan Inouye’s position on the Stryker Brigade, Communication Director Mike Yuen said the senator is “very hopeful that when the Army concludes this process, it will reaffirm the need for the Stryker’s presence in Hawai`i.” Yuen said Inouye “believes Hawai`i is a prime location for basing the Stryker, given it’s strategic location in the Pacific, and given the political situation in S.E. Asia. With regards to what appears to be a condition for the proposal — that only locations with swapable infantry units would be considered — Yuen said “with 100 percent certainty that the senator was not involved with the Army’s decision making process.”

David Henkin of Earthjustice, the law firm representing the Native Hawaiian groups, said “my concern is that this draft EIS assumes that if the Stryker were to go somewhere else, Hawai`i will necessarily have another brigade come replace it. They limited the scope only to places that have a brigade to swap out.

“In their presumption that another infantry brigade would come to Hawaii,” Henkin added, “the Army hasn’t analyzed the impacts of bringing that brigade in. The one from Alaska is airborne, will need airborne facilities, and different cultural sites will be impacted. The Army needs to put all the facts on the table.”

The draft EIS maintains that the controversial discovery of DU munitions fragments at Pohakuloa Training Area, and the radioactive DU particles found at Schofield Barracks, dates back to weapon tests done in the past, and is not related to the Strykers. The document cites their official policy, Army Regulation 385-63, which “prohibits the use of DU ammunition for training worldwide.”

A bi-product of the nuclear energy industry, DU is a radioactive, heavy metal used by the military for its superior, armor piercing force.

BIW sent the following inquiry to Dave Foster of Army Public Affairs: “The Army assures that no DU ammunition will be used when the Styker Brigade Combat Team trains at the Pohakuloa Anti-Armor Live-Fire Training Range on the Saddle Road. What measures does the Army have in place to assure that the Strykers returning from Iraq, which use DU munitions in combat, will be decontaminated for aerosolized, microscopic DU dust?” As of press time, Foster had not responded.

“The Army says they ‘don’t train with ’em in Hawai`i.’ But there’s no question that they fire DU in Iraq,” said Henkin. “Do they clean the vehicles adequately? Under the National Environmental Protection Act, if there’s a scientific dispute, they have to disclose and discuss.”

According to the draft EIS, it was only after “a prescribed burn of the survey area” at Schofield that the Army found DU munitions fragments and 45 separate locations with “Gamma levels higher then background.”

“One of the biggest fears is from the DU oxides created when the material is fired, exploded or burnt,” said Dr. Lorrin Pang, a former military physician. “When inhaled into the lung, the particles are insoluble, and have a half-life of many decades. They are eventually picked up by the lymphatic system, like miner’s lung, and get into the urine.”

Neither the Army nor the Hawai`i Department of Health is testing soldiers who might be contaminated. The DU issue will continue to emit high levels of controversy, distrust and anger until the Army takes the community’s concerns seriously. If individual veterans want to be tested, Pang said Dr. Chris Busby of the European Committee on Radiation Risk has a clinical lab in the United Kingdom that will analyze urine samples for free, because as Pang puts it, “he believes in the cause.”

Explaining Senator Inouye position on Iraq, Yuen said “the senator thinks that the war is a mistake, and that it has devolved into a civil war. Hopefully, some new way will evolve to bring the troops home. Be that as it may, the Stryker should not be a referendum on the Iraq War. Once troops are committed, they should be provided with the equipment they need.”

While the Stryker Brigade draft EIS makes no other mention of DU other then that it was found in Hawai`i and the Army doesn’t use it for training, the EIS does detail a range of other adverse environmental impacts the Stryker will cause. The document lists a summary of impacts on the “valued environmental components” — the land, water and air of Hawai`i, Alaska and Colorado. Adding up the symbols that indicate “significant impact,” the harm to Hawai`i outnumbers the other two.

“Where they put an X, they should have put a double X,” commented Kai McGuire of Mau Pono, a Hilo-based indigenous/environmental action group. “This EIS doesn’t account for the sacredness of the area.”

William `Aila of Na `Imi Pono said “we found records that actually say the Army disposed of Napalm, disposed of ethyl bromide . . . the method of disposal — get this – they dug trenches and dumped ’em in and set it off with munitions.”

`Aila observed “Native Hawaiians have a disproportionate share of asthma and disproportionate rates of leukemia – that’s supposed to be a rare disease — just by looking around at the people in the neighborhood. Around Wai`anae, downwind of Schofield, there’s firing, jet takeoffs. The tradewinds blow right through Kolekole Pass.”

“Our kuleana in Hawai`i is to protect Hawai`i,” said Henkin. “Groups in Alaska and Colorado need to do the same.”

In only two out of the 19 categories, the draft EIS said Stryker’s impact on Hawai`i will be “less then significant” on vegetation, and on transportation. Asking a Pohakuloa Training Area botanist about the findings, she replied “‘less then significant?’ What does that mean?”

`Aila concluded, “to everybody on the Big Island, you need to think about this. Analyze it. Ask the hard questions. Make the decision for your kids and grandkids.”

Army Officials will be on Hawai`i Island next week to hear testimony on the Stryker DEIS. The public hearings will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 25 at Aunty Sally’s Lu`au Hale in Hilo, 799 Pi`ilani Street, from 5:30-9:45pm, and on Wednesday, Sept. 26 at the Waimea Community Center, 65-1260 Kawaihae Rd, from 5:30- 9:45pm.

The complete DEIS is available at the Kona, Waimea and Hilo libraries, and online at http://aec.army.mil/usaec/

To request more information or send written testimony, contact Public Affairs Office, U.S. Army

Environmental Command, Building E4460, 5179 Hoadley Road, Attention: IMAE-PA, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21010-5401, telephone: (410) 436-2556, fax: (410) 436-1693, e-mail:

PublicComments@aec.apgea.army.mil

Source: http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2007/09/19/read/news/news03.txt

Posted on

6th International Meeting of Women Resisting Militarism

6th International Meeting of Women Resisting Militarism: San Francisco, CA

The International Women’s Network Against Militarism’s 6th international meeting: Women Working for Human Rights, Sustainability and Everyday Security. This meeting brings together 80 women from Korea, Okinawa, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Philippines, mainland Japan and the U.S. to share information and strategize about the negative effects of US military operations in all our countries.

Visit the Women for Genuine Security website for more information or download the public presentation and performance flyer (2MB PDF). 

Posted on

Superferry Protests on Kaua’i

DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina Action Alert
August 28, 2007

Call To Action to support Superferry Protests on Kaua’i

DMZ Hawaii Aloha ‘Aina calls on O’ahu people to protest the Hawaii Superferry sail from Honolulu to Nawiliwili
PROTEST at PIER 19 / Meet at Nimitiz Highway & Kukahi Street 2:15pm

We stand in solidarity with the people of Kaua‘i and Maui fighting to protect their communities from the invasion of the Superferry. In a flagrant violation of Hawai‘i’s environmental laws, the Superferry has set sail without completing an environmental impact statement, as required by a court of law. What’s worse, they are bribing residents at $5 a ticket to aid them in their illegal voyages.

We are not surprised that the Superferry’s operators are so shameless and reckless with our precious environment. These are the exact same tactics used to push through the Stryker Brigade Combat Team, a cousin project to the Superferry, in the Hawaiian Islands. Both projects are part of the war machine & the military-industrial complex invading our islands.

The military and the industries it supports have proven themselves to be bad neighbors – sacrificing Hawai‘i’s unique natural and cultural environment for war-profits. It is because our leaders have long placed the demands of the military-industrial complex over the needs of Hawai‘i’s people that our neighborhoods are contaminated with Depleted Uranium and our oceans filled with chemical weapons. The military in Hawai‘i – in all its forms – is an issue of environmental justice. And situations like the Superferry prove that it is up to Hawai‘i’s residents to protect their own health and welfare.

The people of Kaua’i and all the surfers, canoe paddlers & fishermen, who have courageously conducted non-violent protests at Nawiliwili for the last two days, should be commended. These acts of true aloha aina (love for the land) and malama aina (care for the land) for the moku (island) and kai (ocean).

We believe that the government should drop the charges of those who have been arrested in connection with this protest and refrain from any further arrest of people on Kaua’i. We call upon Governor Linda LIngle to order the appropriate State agencies to halt any further sails of the Superferry, until Hawaii environmental laws and other community concerns have been properly addressed.

Posted on

Hawaiian Activists Fight US Military Bases

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/hawaiian-activists-fight-us-military-bases/

Hawaiian Activists Fight US Military Bases

June 29 2007

Two Hawaiian land rights activists visited Sydney in June and spoke to The Guardian about their struggles against US militarization of Hawaii and their support for protests against the Talisman Sabre war games in Shoalwater Bay, Queensland.

Terri Keko’olani and Leimaile Quitevis are Indigenous leaders from the island of O’ahu, Hawai’i. They are both long-time activists who have campaigned tirelessly US militarization, environmental destruction and the decimation of their traditional Hawai’ian culture.

The Guardian: Can you tell us about your organisation?

The group that we are representing is DMZ Hawai’i/Aloha Aina — a network of communities and organizations in Hawai’i, which oppose the occupation of Hawai’i and are opposing the expansion of military forces in Hawai’i. It is a network of organizations and individuals working to counter the US military’s negative social, cultural and environmental impacts in Hawai’i.

In 1898 our country was an independent nation. It was called the Kingdom of Hawai’i. In 1898 the United States participated in the overthrow of our government. Since that time we have been under occupation by the US military in our own homeland.

As soon as the takeover took place the military took root and started to grow. One of the first places that was strategic was Pearl Harbor, which we call Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa

It was the hugest fishery, in the island of O’ahu. The US used possession not only as a commercial port but as a military port. They used our islands as a calling station for war.

Once the Spanish were kicked out the Americans then had a war with the Filipinos and they sustained that war from our islands.

World War II came along and their ships are there in Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attacked and then several ships went down, big fires, and today Pearl Harbor is one of the most contaminated naval sites in the world — there are about 800 contaminated sites in the Harbor.

The US military owns about a quarter of the island of O’ahu and it has control over it — the army, the Marine Corps, the navy and the marines.

Since 9/11 there has been the biggest build-up of military expansion. Right now the army has proposed bringing in 300 Striker 20-ton tanks and there is a very big campaign among people to stop the Strikers from being stationed in our islands.

We are really experiencing a lot of pressure and also a lot of money is coming in to expand not only the bases but life on the bases.

The army intends to seize an additional 25,000 acres of land on O’ahu.

The US military in Hawai’i is the largest polluter of our land. In total there are about 1,000 identified contaminated sites.

These are some of the messages we are trying to convey to the people of Australia — if you allow the US military to come into your country, which is a sovereign country, you are allowing this type of experience. It’s no good. It’s going to bring a lot of toxicity, a lot of contamination. You will not be able to access these lands.

We had an experience with the army as well. They don’t tell you the truth. I personally asked the army whether they used depleted uranium. They said no. But just a year ago we found in army communications and memos, a memo which stated that they had used depleted uranium in an army training area.

Our movement in Hawai’i as such, has been non-violent. We have an issue of taking non-violent resistance but we have not gone to the streets.

We are very firm and we are moving forward to reclaim and to reinstate our government that represents our interests as native people.

Hawai’i now is under US occupation. We are a state of the United States. But there is an undercurrent of native people in the midst of nation-building right now. There are people who have already had plans to reinstate the Kingdom of Hawai’i. There are people who are thinking along the lines of creating a new constitution.

The main idea I want to get across is that our people are moving forward in building a nation.

When it comes to the militarization of our lands we are totally opposed to it. There are people in our community who were for it because they believed that it would provide us with income and they became addicted to that kind of money.

The military economy is not sustainable to an environment at all. These are some of the contradictions we are talking to our people about.

We have to get out of a dependency on a military economy.

The Guardian: How has emigration impacted upon Hawai’i?

White people have a lot of land. We had in our history missionaries who came from the east coast of America — they were American missionaries, Calvinists who settled and actually taught our chiefs their economic system and language.

They translated our language into a written form and gave us Bibles.

We have missionary families who actually became capitalists. Their missions were cut off from getting funds and they had to learn how to survive in our country without the mission funding.

So they emigrated, some of them married but they began to actually help put the laws together for land ownership and eventually became the land owners.

So they had a huge part to play in the imbalance that took place in our system — introducing private property, registering private property and holding a lot of that private property such as running sugar and pineapple plantations.’

The Guardian: What is the meaning of Land to the Indigenous population?

We are the land. There is really no separation. When you look at the lot of the places where the bases are — that’s where some of our most secret sacred sites are too.

There is no separation. Our elders, our ancestors are buried in that land which gives us guidance to do the things that we need to do.

A lot of it has been damaged and destroyed. At the same time we have a very strong movement to rebuild things that have been damaged by reclaiming our ancient fish ponds.

The two biggest challenges are the developers and the military. We have a strong will and a lot of people are committed to the land and do the work that is needed in our communities.

The Guardian: Has this been a long struggle?

Before the 1900s, the land Commissioners mostly came from missionary families. Land commissioners held a very important position and were in charge of all the land titles.

So there was much arguing with the titles and the deeds and the land commission awards for each lot of the land.

Missionaries actually introduced the concept of private ownership to our society. Prior to that there was no such concept.

A lot of our culture today is based on a communal idea, not only of the land but of our society.

It’s something similar to the [Indigenous] people here — you cannot own land. It’s part of who you are. There is always a conflict between native land and environment and ideas that were introduced from a Western capitalist point of view.

Even though we have that part of our history where there was conflict, our chiefs in the 1800s knowing that we were getting pushed into a very modern world … began to think about how they were going to use their lands in order to help our people. There were chiefs who put aside their estates for the benefit of our people. For example, there was a Bernise Pourheepship, she put aside her lands for the benefit of education of native Hawai’ian children. Luna Leelo his lands for the elderly; Hono Colondily for orphans; …

Today there is a movement in Hawai’i by right-wing Americans to break the estate saying that we are ALL Americans now and that these estates are based on ethnicity of a people should not be legal.

Hawai’ian homelands are lands that are set aside for the use of our people. In order to qualify you have to have 50 per cent blood, there is a blood content. You have to prove through birth certificates etc that you have 50 per cent — not 49 per cent.

For many of us, we definitely want to keep these estates alive but at the same time we realize that our goals are higher and that is to reclaim our actual government as a nation.

The Guardian: Can you please tell more about your experiences?

When we are going to community meetings and I tell them about the possible contamination of depleted uranium and other toxins, people are appalled. Nobody knew.

In the beginning they don’t really want to hear anything because they have had a long history of association with the military.

Now people are just starting to open their eyes.

In November 2006, some of the military contaminants found in O’ahu, Hawai’i’s largest island included: depleted uranium, phosgene, TNT, lead and trichloroethylene.

Ongoing military expansion in Hawai’i also currently threatens a number of traditional cultural and sacred sites including the birthplace of elders and ancient temples. Fires, toxic chemicals, unexploded ordnances and destruction of endangered species on the islands are a major crisis.

More than 25,000 acres of land is also earmarked to be seized at Phakuloa and Honouliuli. Plans to base hundreds of new troops, cargo planes, marines’ bases, missile launchers and sale of public land to private developers concerns the group.

The DMZ group notes that The US assumes it has control and domination, but the First Peoples do not agree. The unique identities and sovereignties of the world’s peoples are just open spaces for the projection of US military force, to make way for WalMart, McDonalds and MTV.

The experiences of Indigenous peoples vis-à-vis the militarized empire are multiple and unique. We are not singular, but plural; we obtain our life and very existence from specificities of our particular ancestors, our particular gods, our named and worshiped sacred sites.

When Talisman Sabre 07 takes place here in Shoalwater Bay … all of it is really being directed from Hawai’i — from the US Pacific Command (PacCom). PacCom is the oldest and largest of the US unified commands. It was established in Hawai’i in 1947 and its HQ are on an island called Camp Smith. The PacCom area of responsibility stretches over more than 50 per cent of the earth’s surface … from the west coast of North America to the east coast of Africa, from Alaska to Antarctica including Hawai’i.

The two Indigenous leaders concluded their remarks by stating: WE have a right as native people to clean water, clean land, clean ocean and clean air in order to survive.

From The Guardian

Posted on

NATIVE HAWAIIANS & CHAMORRO (GUAM) WARN AUSTRALIA OVER TALISMAN SABRE 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 22, 2007

NATIVE HAWAIIANS & CHAMORRO (GUAM) WARN AUSTRALIA OVER TALISMAN SABRE 2007

Two indigenous Native Hawaiian activists and a Chamorro (GUAM) activist visiting Central Queensland expressed their shock and outrage at the destruction being inflicted on the local environment by the Talisman Sabre US/Australian joint military exercises.

” We are appalled that there will be live firing, bombing and sonar testing on the Great Barrier reef and in the habitat of endangered dugong, whales and green turtles,” said Terri Keko’olani of DMZ Hawai’i Aloha ‘Aina.

Terri Keko’olani & Leimaile Quitevis from DMZ Hawaii Aloha ‘Aina and Fanai Castro from Guam (GUÅHAN) are in Australia to support the protest against the 30,000 strong US/Australia war games.

“We are also appalled at the complete indifference of the Australian Department of Defense in asserting that the war games will not be interrupted simply because 7 peace activists are occupying the military danger zone,” said Leimaile Quitevis

“The demands of the peace protestors include: stop the war games, no more military exercises, close the Shoalwater Bay base, and return the land to the indigenous people,” said Denis Doherty, national co-ordinator of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, one of the peace protest organizers.

” In 1976 I occupied the island of Kaho’olawe to stop live bombing by the US military, said Terri Keko’olani. ” My heart goes out to June Norman, a 66 year old grandmother who is presently occupying the Shoalwater Bay training area to stop live bombing of an environment considered to be a world heritage treasure. ”

Fanai Castro of the Organization of People for Indigenous Rights (OPI-R) added, “There is no justification for the toxic contamination of our lands and waters, therefore we uphold the actions demonstrated here to protect these precious resources.” She continued, ” This Peace action is significant in that it brings together a diversity of people who believe that, beyond war, another world is possible.”

For further information, please contact:
Denis Doherty on 0418 290 663 or Dr Hannah Middleton on 0418 668 098.
Terri Kekoolani, Leimaile Quitevis and Fanai Castro can be contacted on either of these numbers.

Posted on

GUAM AND HAWAII BRING WARNING ABOUT MILITARY EXERCISES

PEACE CONVERGENCE – MEDIA RELEASE – 20 JUNE 2007
GUAM AND HAWAII BRING WARNING ABOUT MILITARY EXERCISES

Three international guests arrived in Yeppoon – Rockhampton on Wednesday to add their voices to the protest of over 500 Australians concerned about the Australian-US Talisman Sabre 2007 military exercises at Shoalwater Bay Training Area near Yeppoon, central Queensland.

Coming from Guam and Hawaii, the three women carry warnings about the social, political, Indigenous rights, health and environmental price paid by small communities when their homelands become militarised.

A Welcome Ceremony was held at the Rockhampton Airport by the Fitzroy Basin Elders. They were also welcomed by the Peace Convergence which is protesting the military exercises. The Guam and Hawaiian visitors responded with chanting and the giving of gifts.

The guest from Guam is Fanai Castro from the Organisation of Peoples for Indigenous Rights. OPIR campaigns for the Indigenous right to an act of self-determination and opposes the expansion of US militarisation of their small island.

>From Hawaii, Terri Keko’olani and Leimaile Quitevis represent the Demilitarize Zone Hawaii Aloha ‘Aina, a pan-Hawai’ian movement for demilitarisation and Indigenous rights.

All three women are Indigenous rights activists in their respective countries and identify militarisation as one of the manifestations of ongoing colonialism.

“Our guests have firsthand experience of the impact of militarisation on people’s lives. They bring a timely warning about the real price paid by local people when their home communities become militarised,” Dr Zohl de Ishtar from the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Queensland. Dr de Ishtar is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

“It is an honour to receive such a welcoming from the Indigenous elders, since it is with us Indigenous peoples that the atrocities of colonialism first made its mark. In these days it seems that militarisation is the new colonialism,” said Fanai Castro a Chamoru (Indigenous) social justice activist from Guam.

“Shoalwater Bay Training Area is the only facility in the north-western Pacific which provides such extensive air-land-sea live-fire training capacity to the US military. Many of the planes, ships and submarines participating in the exercises come are homebased in or transit through Guam. Hawaii is the headquarters of the Pacific Command under whose jurisdiction the Talisman Sabre exercises fall,” said Dr Zohl de Ishtar.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Dr Zohl de Ishtar, Phone: 0429 422 645
Australia Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Queensland

Posted on

Hawai’i representatives participate in Demonstrations against Talisman Sabre

June 2007

DMZ Hawai’i/Aloha Aina Head to Australia to Particpate in Solidary Actions Opposing Talisman Sabre 07 – OZ/US Joint Military Exercises

Operation Talisman Sabre is scheduled to taking place over a six week period from the end of May to 2 July 2007. According to the Public Environment Report released October 2006 it will involve approximately 13,700 US personnel and 12,400 Australian personnel. Indigenous Chamoru and Hawaiians arrived in Australia to demonstrate solidarity with Indigenous Darumbal elders and to raise awareness within the Peace Convergence – a week of activities protesting the Australian-US military exercises called Talisman Sabre.

For more information on the actions, visit the following Australia-based websites:

Shoalwater Bay

Peace Convergence

Posted on

Nuclear War and Its Consequences

http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston04212007.html

April 21 / 22, 2007

Reparations (and a Little Justice) for the the People of Rongelap

Nuclear War and Its Consequences

By BARBARA ROSE JOHNSTON

In 1946 the United States detonated two atomic weapons in the Marshall Islands. In 1947, the United Nations designated the Marshall Islands a United States Trust Territory, and over the next eleven years the territory hosted another sixty-five atmospheric atomic and thermonuclear tests. The largest of these tests, code named “Bravo,” was detonated on March 1, 1954. A 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, Bravo was exploded close to the ground, melting huge quantities of coral atoll, sucking it up and mixing it with radiation released by the weapon before depositing radioactive ash fallout – on the islands and its’ inhabitants. The wind was blowing that morning in the direction of inhabited atolls, including Rongelap and Utrik, some 100 and 300 miles from the test site at Bikini. Some communities, and Japanese fishermen aboard the Daigo-Fukuryumaru (Lucky Dragon, a tuna ship working in near-by waters), received near-lethal doses of radiation.

In an atomic detonation, uranium atoms are transformed through fission. One of the radioactive isotopes formed is krypton-90, a very hot isotope that almost immediately deteriorates, changing into rubidium-90 with a half-life of 4.28 minutes. Rubidium-90 decays into strontium-90, an element in global fallout that presents a great threat to human health. In humans, strontium-90 behaves chemically like calcium and easily finds its way to bones, teeth, and even arterial plaque, emitting beta radiation throughout its half-life of 28.9 years. Strontium-90 can be absorbed by eating food, drinking water, or breathing. Like a great many environmental toxins, it is bioaccumulative, meaning it is easily incorporated into the environment, and concentrations increase as one moves up the food chain. The derivative element of strontium-90 is yttrium-90, which decays after some 64 hours into the nonradioactive zirconium-90. When absorbed in humans, strontium-90 and its energetic daughter, yttrium-90, can generate bone deformities, bone tumors, and cancers of the blood-cell- forming organs. Irradiation of the bone marrow also impairs the immune system. Another fallout element, cesium-137, emits beta particles and relatively strong gamma radiation in its decay to barium-137, a short-lived decay product that in turn decays to a nonradioactive form of barium. The half-life of cesium-137 is 30.17 years, and because of the chemical nature of cesium, it moves easily through the environment at increasingly concentrated levels. Upon entering the human body, cesium-137 can produce acute and chronic health effects, including cancer. Iodine-131, with an eight-day half-life, is quickly absorbed in the human body and is one of the elements of greatest concern in local fallout. Iodine-131 accumulates in the thyroid. Acute exposure causes thyroid disease and tumors, and long-term exposure to lower levels of iodine-131 causes thyroid cancer.

Over the 12 years that the United States played their nuclear weapons war games in the Marshall Islands they released some 3 billion curies of iodine-131, a highly radioactive isotope with an 8-day half-life. To place this figure in broader context, over the entire history of nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Proving grounds some 150 million curies of iodine-131 were released, and varying analyses of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster estimate an iodine-131 release of 40 to 54 million curies.

Human Health Effects of Nuclear War

What does it mean to host the largest and dirtiest nuclear weapons ever detonated by the United States? Declassified studies of the Marshallese following their acute exposure to Bravo fallout in 1954 documented beta burns, loss of hair, depressed red cell and leukocyte counts, flu-like symptoms, nausea, fingernail discoloration, radioactivity in the urine, and changes at the cellular level in blood and bone marrow. Over the next four decades US scientists regularly visited Rongelap, conducting medical exams and collecting biological samples. Their classified research documented immune-deficiency diseases, metabolic disorders (diabetes), growth impairment in children, cancers, leukemia, premature aging (dental decay, cataracts, degenerative osteoarthritis), and a host of reproductive problems including miscarriages, congenital birth defects, and sterility. The long-term study of the Marshallese also confirmed what other classified research suggested: that radioiodine-131 adheres to and accumulates in the thyroid, stimulating the production of benign and cancerous nodules and interfering with the production of hormones, leaving children and pregnant women especially vulnerable. Thyroid cancer and other radiogenic changes occur not only in people exposed to an acute level of ionizing radiation but also in those who were born or moved into contaminated areas long after the initial blast and fallout had occurred.

How Do You “Repair” the Damages from Nuclear War?

In 1988, the United States, acknowledging its remaining obligations to the people of the Marshall Islands, established a Nuclear Claims Tribunal as part of the terms by which the Marshall Islands gained independence from its former colonial master. The NCT functions as an administrative court governed by Marshallese and United States law and international legal norms. It received claims and issues payments from the $150 million fund established in 1988. Since 1991, the NCT has paid a portion of the personal injury claims of Marshall Islanders, and a much smaller portion of property damage claims. Despite the obvious inadequacy of the fund to cover all of the health damages, let alone provide funds to remediate and restore the environment and compensate the Marshallese for the long-term or permanent loss of their homelands, the NCT continued to function under its established mandate to hear and act upon claims, with the Marshallese government retaining the right to return to United States Congress and request additional monies should the initial fund prove inadequate because a broader array of damages are understood as circumstances change and new information has come to light.

In 1994 Holly Barker began working with the Marshallese people to document the experiences of life after being so horribly exposed to radiation. Her efforts were sponsored by the Marshallese governments and helped to encourage the development of personal injury claims. In 1999 I began, with Holly Barker, efforts to rethink the meaning of land value with regards to the methods used to define and assess property damage.

Our work was sponsored by the Public Advocate for the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, Bill Graham. He was concerned that the methods used in the claims for atomized islands (Bikini and Enewetak awards) used Western notions of property and the values associated with loss of access and use of dry land, and such methods would fail to properly address the damages experienced by the people of Rongelap who had their land, but had intensely contaminated lands. We approached this problem by establishing for the Nuclear Claims Tribunal the traditional way of life–where land is not owned, rights to use land reflect maternal ties and the stewardship performance. Land cannot be bought or sold, it is larger than money–land is the means to sustain a way of life. And we argued that the compensation principle should reflect the loss, and related consequential damages, of a healthy way of life. To support this approach, we drew the Tribunal’s attention to methodologies and case precedents used in the United States, Canadian and Australian courts that identify and value the material resources that support Native American/First Nation/Aboriginal ways of life, as well as the methodologies used to assess impact to human health and related values assigned to environmental contamination.

Our 1999 land value research occurred with the help of a Marshallese advisory committee, and this work was followed by the 2001 hardship report and expert witness testimony in a “consequential damages” hearing that was three days of testimony and tears. The hearing took place in Majuro, the capital city of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in October 29–November 2, 2001. With the testimony and lived experiences of the Marshallese supported by the declassified words and findings of US scientists, we documented and recounted the traditional way of life, the chain of events as experienced by a community immediately downwind from 67 atmospheric weapons tests, the pain and hardship of radiation exposure, evacuation, and serving as scientific objects in a scientific research study that went for some four decades, and the struggles to understand (let alone adjust) to the many new health problems that increasingly constrained life in a radioactive world. And as participants in this proceeding, all of us – judges, experts, witnesses, lawyers, and the attending Rongelap community – learned that “reparation” involves process as well as material outcome. When the hearing was concluded, a Marshallese elder told me, we do not need the judges findings, this was our Nuremberg Tribunal, and we know we have won.

But then the months turned to years. Post-hearing proceedings slogged on, and no judgement was issued. Pain became muted, the intensity of the claim and the hearing distant. So many people have died in the years since – several the Marshallese “land valuation” advisors are now dead from cancers, as is the chief judge on the Marshallese Nuclear claims tribunal, and two of our primary Rongelap witnesses.

One Billion Dollar Judgement

On April 17, 2007, some sixteen years since the first claims were filed, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal finally issued their decision in the Rongelap case. As laid out in the 34-page judgement: “The Tribunal has determined the amount of compensation due to the Claimants in this case is $1,031,231,200. This amount includes $212,000,000 for remediation and restoration of Rongelap and Rongerik Atolls. This award further includes $784,500,000 for past and future lost property value of Rongelap, Rongerik and Ailinginae Atolls as a result of the Nuclear Testing Program. Finally, it includes $34,731,200 to the Claimants for consequential damages.”

Notably, the loss of land award reflects “loss of way of life damages” including the loss of the means to live in a healthy fashion on the land (people were on island, but exposed to high levels of radiation).

And, the consequential damages award includes not only the resulting pain, suffering and hardships from “loss of a healthy way of life” but also awards personal injury awards to subjects identified as receiving chromium-51 injections which were “an additional burden to the already considerable exposure from consuming contaminated foods and living in a radioactive environment.” With regard to the larger involvement of the Rongelap people in four decades of human subject research, the Tribunal found that “the emotional distress resulting from the participation in these studies and the manner in which they were carried out, warrants compensation, and is a component in the consequential damages related to the period of time the people spent on Rongelap from 1957 to 1985.”

The Nuclear Claims Tribunal was forced to halt payments in 2006 due a lack of funds. Today there is approximately $1 million left in the fund. The Rongelap award, the prior awards to Bikini, Enewetak, and Utrik, as well as a huge portion of the personal injury awards – will not be paid unless US Congress acts on the RMI’s “changed circumstance” petition filed in September 2000. New information not only includes public awareness that nuclear weapons tests adversely affected the entire nation, but new scientific evidence that low-level exposures to radiation produces significant health risks, and that these risks were not understood when the Compact was originally negotiated. In 2004, the National Cancer Institute predicted that nearly 500 cancers will manifest in the years to come in Marshall Islands as a direct result of the testing program–cancers that would not exist had the U.S. government not used the Marshall Islands to conduct atmospheric weapons tests. More than 200 of those cancers have yet to surface because of the long latency period of certain types of cancer and the aging of the population. In 2006, the Bush Administration, in their report to Congress responding to the RMI’s request for additional funds, argued that no new information has come to light and the United States has fulfilled all its obligations with regards to the damages associated with atmospheric weapons program.

Given this impasse, the local governments for Bikini, Enewtak, Utrik, and now Rongelap, are appealing to the US Court of Claims to consider the findings of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal and issue a judgement ordering the United States government to pay. A hearing on these cases is expected to take place on April 23, 2007 in Washington.

Reparations

Despite the questions surrounding payment of the award, the judicial findings in the Rongelap Claims are significant and create precedents that other cases can build upon. For the people of Rongelap, who began their petitions for help and justice more than 50 years ago, a formal decision has been announced to the world, and the injustices they suffered have been acknowledged.

This is reparations: the years and decades and lifetimes of struggle to insure that historical injustice is not pushed aside, dismissed, and denied. The ceaseless efforts to secure your day in “court.” To stand face to face with responsible parties and have experience accepted. To have the consequences of injustice assessed and the pain, suffering and hardships understood. To hear culpable parties acknowledge their wrong. To see judgements issued against those parties. To be asked “how can we make amends” and to have your voice heard. Reparations is about the process as much as it is about the outcome. And most of all, more than all the money in the world, reparations is about insuring never again. Now, more than ever, this world needs to consider what the Marshallese know all to well.

Barbara Rose Johnston is the senior research fellow at the Center for Political Ecology and 2006-07 residential scholar at the School for Advanced Research on the Human Experience in Santa Fe, NM. Her most recent book, Half-lives and Half-Truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War (SAR Press 2007) includes chapters by Johnston and by Holly Barker on human subject experimentation in the Marshall Islands, the health consequences of radiation exposure, and the problematic history of the United States response to Marshallese needs. She can be reached at bjohnston@igc.org.

Posted on

New Network Forms to Close Foreign U.S. Military Bases

A New Network Forms to Close U.S. Overseas Military Bases

Thursday, 15 March 2007

By Medea Benjamin

In a new surge of energy for the global struggle against militarism, some 400 activists from 40 countries came together in Ecuador from March 5-9 to form a network to fight against foreign military bases. The conference began in Quito, then participants traveled in an 8-bus caravan across the country, culminating in a spirited protest at the city of Manta, site of a U.S. base.

While a few other countries such as England, Russia, China, Italy and France have bases outside their territory, the United States is responsible for 95% of foreign bases. According to U.S. government figures, the U.S. military maintains some 737 bases in 130 countries, although many estimate the true number to be over 1,000.

A network of local groups fighting the huge U.S. military complex is indeed an “asymmetrical struggle,” but communities have been trying for decades to close U.S. military bases on their soil. Their concerns range from the destruction of the environment, the confiscation of farmlands, the abuse of women, the repression of local struggles, the control of resources and a broader concern about military and economic domination.

The Ecuadorian groups who agreed the host the international meeting had been fighting against a U.S. base in the town of Manta. The U.S. and Ecuadorian governments had signed a base agreement in 1999, renewable after 10 years. The purpose of the base was supposed to be drug interdiction, but instead it has provided logistical support for the counterinsurgency war in Colombia, placing Ecuador in a dangerous position of interfering in the internal affairs of its neighbor. The base has also affected the livelihoods of local fishermen and farmers and brought an increase in sex workers, while the promised surge in economic development has not materialized.

During Ecuador’s presidential race in November 2006, candidate Rafael Correa criticized the base and after winning the election he quipped, “We can negotiate with the U.S. about a base in Manta, if they let us put a military base in Miami.” His comment displayed the stunning hypocrisy of the U.S. government, a government that would never deign to have a foreign base on its soil but expects over 100 countries to host U.S. bases.

In a great boost to the newly-formed network to close foreign bases, President Correa sent high-level representatives to the conference to express support, and he himself, together with the Ministers of Defense and Foreign Relations, met with delegates from the network to express their commitment to closing the Manta base when it comes up for renewal in 2009.

But the Ecuadorian government’s courageous stand is unfortunately not echoed in most countries, where anti-bases activists usually find themselves fighting against both the U.S. bases and their government’s collusion.

Indigenous representatives attending the conference talked about the destruction of indigenous lands to make way for bases. In the island of Diego Garcia, the indigenous Chagossian people have been driven off their lands, as have the Chamorros from Guam and the Inuit from Greenland. Kyle Kajihiro, director of the organization Area Hawaii, explained that the U.S. military occupies vast areas of Hawaiian territory, territory which was once public land used for indigenous reserves, agricultural production, schools and public parks.

The delegation from Okinawa, Japan, has been trying to dismantle the U.S. bases for the past 50 years. One of their main complaints has been the violence against women. Suzuyo Takazato, the director of Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, has compiled

Posted on

Upside Down World on the No Bases Conference

Ecuador: International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases

Written by Marc Becker
Thursday, 15 March 2007

Activists gathered in Quito, Ecuador the first week of March in an International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases. The International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases is a global network of individuals, organizations, social movements, and coalitions working for the closure of foreign military bases and other forms of military presence worldwide.

The no-bases coalition which organized the conference began to converge three years ago at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India. The conference brought together 300 activists from 40 countries from around the world united in a common concern for the proliferation of military bases, primarily those operated by the United States. At the same time, others strongly urged broadening the network’s scope to include the actions of other countries, particularly the French and Brazilian military presence in Haiti.

The week-long conference began with three days of meeting in the capital city of Quito and was designed to strengthen coordinating efforts. Speakers presented perspectives from around the world on the impacts of military bases, and the struggles of social movements to abolish them. Panels focused on the impact of military bases on the environment, gender, human rights, peace, democracy, and sovereignty. Discussions included struggles against military bases in Vieques, Japan, Korea, Hawaii, and the Philippines. A series of film screenings on struggles against military bases and broader peace issues also ran throughout the event.

On Thursday, March 8, International Women’s Day, activists joined a Women for Peace Caravan from Quito to Manta with intermediary stops demanding the closure of foreign military bases. Local organizers emphasized that the dates were specifically selected to correspond with International Women’s Day. The week culminated with a march calling for the withdrawal of United States troops from the Eloy Alfaro Air Base in Manta, and a festival celebrating the successes of the no-bases campaign.

The gathered delegates drafted a declaration that condemned foreign military bases for their role in “wars of aggression [that] violate human rights; oppress all people, particularly indigenous peoples, African descendants, women and children; and destroy communities and the environment.” Delegates demanded a closure of existing bases, cleanup of environmental contamination, and an end to legal immunity for foreign military personnel. The statement concluded with support and solidarity for “those who struggle for the abolition of all foreign military bases worldwide.”
Manta

Ecuador was selected as the location for the conference because of a growing movement to evict United States troops from the US military base in Manta. When the United States withdrew its Southern Command from Panama, it began to search out alternative methods of maintaining a military presence in the region. Since 1999, the United States has used the Manta base as a so-called Forward Operating Location, purportedly to halt drug trafficking from neighboring Colombia. Some opponents consider former president Jamil Mahuad’s signing of the lease which gave the US military permission to use the land in Manta to be unconstitutional and a violation of national sovereignty. Rather than wait until the lease runs out in 2009, they would prefer to have the troops withdrawn now.

Nieve Solórzano from the Ecuador No-Bases Coalition noted how surprised many in the country were by Mahuad’s agreement, and the negative impact that the foreign military presence had on the city of Manta. The majority of the country is against the base. Instead of impeding drug trafficking, it converts Manta into a trafficking center and increasingly draws Ecuador into regional conflicts. Solórzano welcomed the international gathering as strengthening the local struggle against the base.

A Transnational Institute study documents Manta as just one of about one thousand foreign military bases around the world. The majority of these bases are United States institutions. The United States disputes these figures, claiming instead that they only have 34 permanent bases, and that the rest are just bilateral cooperative agreements that allow for a small military presence. In addition to the United States, several European countries also maintain extra-territorial military bases. Activists criticize foreign bases for their violations of human rights and negative ecological impacts. United States bases in particular have become targets for strong anti-imperialist sentiments.

Correa once famously quipped that it would be ok with him for the United States to maintain a military presence in Manta if in exchange Ecuador were allowed to have a base in Miami. The unlikeliness that the United States government ever to allow a foreign government to maintain troops on its soil highlights the fundamentally unequal nature of international relations, and the hypocrisy of United States pressure on local governments to host such institutions.

Critics charge that the presence of U.S. troops in Manta is dragging Ecuador into a growing regional conflict, and that the mission has expanded into other unrelated activities-especially that of providing surveillance on Colombia’s internal political conflicts and interdiction of immigrants leaving Ecuador. Manta represents more than just a landing strip: it is a vital and strategic position in Bush’s global war.

Official support

The Abolition of Foreign Military Bases conference was planned well in advance of left-populist Rafael Correa’s election last fall to the presidency of Ecuador. The timing, however, provided to be very convenient for the success of the conference. Correa rode a rising tide of anti-imperialist sentiment into office, including campaigning on promises to close the Manta base.

The conference opened on Monday, March 5 at the Catholic University in Quito with an inaugural panel that presented a mixture of ceremony and an opening salvo of forceful statements against foreign military bases. Quito’s mayor, retired General Paco Moncayo, welcomed delegates to Quito, and then Manuel Corrales, the university’s rector, presented a welcome to the university. Correa was invited but unable to attend. In his place, to the cheers of the audience, Subsecretary of the Ministry of Defense Miguel Carvajal confirmed that the Ecuadorian government will not renew the United States lease on the Manta base when it expires in 2009. Correa himself publicly ratified that decision later in the week.

After a full day of speeches, the mayor arranged for a tour of Quito’s historic center and a reception in the City Museum. A mayor’s representative greeted Lindsey Collen from the Mauritius Islands as an honored guest of Quito, and in turn Collen accepted the honor in the name of all of the delegates. A folklore ballet then entertained delegates with traditional Andean songs and dance.

In Manta, Manabí’s governor Vicente Veliz defended Correa’s action to terminate the lease agreement. Veliz condemned the oligarchy that extracted wealth from the country, and congratulated Correa as being the first president in Ecuador since Eloy Alfaro, one hundred years ago, to stand up to the international finance system. Veliz applauded Correa’s support for education and health programs that benefit the Ecuadorian people.

At the conference Correa’s advisor, Fernando Bustamante, reiterated that government would not be renewing the Manta base lease. Bustamante called for respect for Ecuador’s sovereignty, and articulated political stances for peace and ecology instead of militaristic and war-based policies. In particular, Bustamante outlined a peace plan for Ecuador’s northern border to contrast with Plan Colombia.

No-bases

Activists debate whether efforts to terminate foreign military bases are better directed at local host governments or at United States policy. Some argue that the United States government needs to be targeted since it pressures host governments to accept the agreements. Others point to the examples of Vieques and Ecuador, where determined local movements could evict bases, and say that efforts are better targeted there. The cause of the creation of foreign bases is not only imperialism, but also domestic neoliberal policies.

At the conference, Filipino anti-base activist Baltazar Pinguel argued that the movement needs to build on both levels: targeting U.S. policy as well as pressuring local host governments to terminate military agreements. The two struggles are directly linked on a variety of levels, including the cost of the bases to people on both foreign and domestic fronts. Pinguel also pointed to the importance of international coalitions and meetings such as the World Social Forum to build a strong movement. This sentiment echoed throughout the conference.

“The problem is global,” Corazon Valdez Fabros from the international no-bases committee emphasized, “and we need to fight it globally.” Fabros saw this meeting as a step in the right direction. However, some participants cautioned against jumping from national to global struggles and ignoring work on a regional or continental level that could also significantly strengthen the movement.

Miguel Moran, from the local Ecuadorian organizing committee, noted that this was the first international anti-imperialist conference of the new century. He emphasized the importance of the conference as a meeting of peoples, rather than governments, to plan the future of humanity. Chilean activist Javier Garate echoed the necessity of attacking the no-bases issue on various levels and through various strategies, including engaging issues of pacifism and economic profiteering. Baltazar Pinguel noted that the caravan was an effective tool which allowed international and local activists to connect with each other to build a stronger movement. He also encouraged increased anti-base activism in the United States in order “to become an active force for peace right in the eye of the storm.”

Throughout the conference, delegates connected their local struggles with Manta. For example, Nilda Medina from Puerto Rico noted the common links between the struggle at Manta and in Vieques, Puerto Rico, where local pressure forced the United States Navy to withdraw from its base in 2003. Women organized against the base, Medina emphasized, and the government could not stop them. However, “evicting the military is only half the struggle,” Medina emphasized, because recovery and cleanup remain as unfulfilled tasks. “We have to keep walking together,” she declared, “because victory will be ours.”

Kyle Kajihiro pointed to the heroic example of the Vieques struggle as a symbol which encourages Hawaiians to struggle more determinately in the face of oppression. “We cannot just fight on one level,” Kajihiro emphasized, “because this will just move the opposition to another level.” The conference facilitated the development of these networking connections on multiple levels.

Similarly, a delegate from Cuba stood in solidarity with Correa and declared that the Guantanamo and Manta bases are not isolated phenomena, but part of Bush’s international war pattern. Other activists linked Manta with the one hundred year presence of U.S. troops in Panama; the long military presence in Germany, Korea, and Japan; and growing involvement in Paraguay’s triple border region. Finally, Leslie Cagan from United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) denounced the Bush administration for its occupation of Iraq and construction of massive bases in that country.

Despite the apparently overwhelming presence of foreign military bases around the world, delegates seemed far from defeated. Rather, activists pointed to the fact that foreign military bases are being met with oppositional movements world-wide. The examples of Vieques and Manta illustrate that, through the use of a variety of tactics, foreign military presences can be overcome.

Marc Becker is a Latin America historian and a member of Community Action on Latin America (CALA) in Madison, Wisconsin. Contact him at marc(at)yachana.org

Source: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/664/1/

Proudly powered by WordPress