\nInternational Women\u2019s Day rally during the military bases conference in Ecuador.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Hawai\u2019i is a case in point. The U.S. military in Hawai\u2019i has displaced entire communities and generations of families from their ancestral lands and accelerated the influx of foreign settlers, impeding Hawaiians\u2019 efforts at self-determination. It has destroyed ecosystems and sacred places, and endangered community health with widespread military contamination. It also has exacerbated violence, crime, accidents, and had a negative impact on other aspects of Hawaiian society, economics, and culture. In response, the AFSC Hawai\u2019i Area Program has made demilitarization a priority of our peace building work for more than thirty years. In 1976, AFSC staff participated in the first boatload of protestors to land on the Hawaiian sacred island of Kaho\u2018olawe in the successful campaign to stop the Navy bombing.<\/p>\n
AFSC-Hawai\u2019i continues to work with communities struggling to stop military expansion and promote the clean up and return of lands in Makua, Pohakuloa, Wahiawa, Nohili, and other sites.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, AFSC programs have had a similarly positive impact on demilitarization efforts.<\/p>\n
In the Philippines, the AFSC supported the \u201cPeople Power\u201d movement that ended the violent Marcos dictatorship and ousted U.S. bases from their country. In Puerto Rico, the AFSC supported the successful campaigns to end the military bombing of Culebra in 1975, and Vieques in 2003. AFSC programs also stood in solidarity with anti-bases movements in Okinawa, Guam, Korea, the Marshall Islands, and Japan.<\/p>\n
AFSC\u2019s efforts to eliminate foreign U.S. military bases reached a new apex this past March when an AFSC delegation participated in the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases in Quito, Ecuador. There, AFSC staff joined more than four hundred grassroots peace and justice activists from forty countries. It was the largest meeting ever of grassroots leaders of the anti-military bases movement.<\/p>\n
Participants shared stories about their struggles, forged relationships of mutual solidarity, took to the streets to protest the U.S. base in Manta, Ecuador, and, most importantly, launched a global network for the abolition of foreign military bases.<\/p>\n
The conference proclaimed a powerful, shared vision of a world free from what renowned scholar and author Chalmers Johnson has dubbed \u201cThe Empire of Bases.\u201d It also helped create strategic alliances among movements.<\/p>\n AFSC\u2019s leadership and support contributed to the success of this historic gathering.<\/p>\n Through its Ecuador office, AFSC supported and contributed to the efforts of the conference\u2019s organizing committee to hold the gathering in Ecuador. AFSC\u2019s experience in the region has taught us the connections between human rights conditions of communities subjected to toxic fumigation, chronic violence along the border between Colombia and Ecuador, and the U.S. base in Manta.<\/p>\n A delegation from the conference met with Ecuador\u2019s newly elected president, Rafael Correa, who expressed his thanks and reiterated his commitment to end the agreement allowing U.S. military use of the Manta base. Unfortunately, this would not prevent the U.S. from establishing a base elsewhere in the region.<\/p>\n While the conference marked an important milestone in the global anti-bases movement, it is just part of a continuing process of awakening, convergence, and movement building that will be an enduring gift from Ecuador, the \u201cMiddle of the World.\u201d<\/p>\n Kyle Kajihiro is the director of AFSC\u2019s Hawai\u2019i Area Program. For more information on AFSC\u2019s work on military bases log onto www.afsc.org\/no-bases<\/a>. Also go to www.abolishbases.org<\/a> for information about the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases.<\/em><\/p>\n Number of foreign military bases: 1,000+ <\/strong> Number of U.S. foreign military bases: 737 <\/strong>(officially) Number of U.S. soldiers deployed overseas: 2.5 million+<\/strong><\/p>\n Number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq: 133,000<\/strong> (as of March 2006)<\/p>\n
\nDemonstration against U.S. military
\nexpansion in Hawai\u2019i.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\nBy the numbers<\/h3>\n
\n(from the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and Italy)
\nNote: These do not include secret military bases, like the four operated by the U.S. in Iraq.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nMany estimate the true number to be more than 1,000<\/p>\n