A radar-‘strange ball’ in Gunsan. . . Photo by Wooki Lee . . .For more photos, see here.
17th day of Grand March at Gunsan. . . After the meeting with renowned Buddhist monk Do-Beop…on the way to Gunsan, participants meet bus drivers who shows warm solidarity on the road. . .They did Sam-bo-il-bae (three steps and one full bow) on the street in solidarity with bus drivers’ struggle in Jeonju 3 days ago. . Arriving in Gunsan, participants looked around the US Air Base. . .had lunch at Peace Wind House where Fr. Mun’s actual house and office are located. In the afternoon had a solidarity demonstration at the air base gate and marched along the fence of US air base where villagers are suffering from the pollution, the noise of fighters and etc.. . .( from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunsan_Air_Base : Kunsan Air Base is a United States Air Force
The base is located on the west coast of the South Korean peninsula bordered by the Yellow Sea. It is at the town of Gunsan about 150 miles (240 km) south of Seoul. The town (군산시 in Korean) can be romanized as both Gunsan and Kunsan. The United States Air Force uses Gunsan to refer to the town, and Kunsan to refer to the base .
Kunsan Air Base is the home of the 8th Fighter Wing, “The Wolfpack,” assigned to the Pacific Air Forces Seventh Air Force(*which uses most part of the base area) and the 38th Fighter Group of the Republic of Korea Air Force (*which uses only 10% of the base area). It is one of two major Air Force installations operated by the United States in Korea, the other being Osan Air Base. . . .)
‘Wright, who resigned in protest of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, points to the South Korean naval base on Jeju which, when finished, will house AEGIS-equipped destroyers linked to U.S. missile defense as an example of how the United States pressures its allies to follow certain paths.
Speaking at a Pentagon news briefing last June, PACOM commander Admiral Samuel J. Locklear basically said the same thing: “We’re not really interested in building any more U.S. bases in the Asia-Pacific,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to at this point in time. We have reliable partners and reliable allies, and together we should be able to find ways to—not only bilaterally, but in some cases to multilaterally—to be able to find these locations where we can put security forces that respond to a broad range of security issues.”
Fresh from hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Honolulu last autumn, U.S. President Barack Obama recently told members of the Australian Parliament that America’s defense posture across the Asia-Pacific would be “more broadly distributed…more flexible—with new capabilities to ensure that our forces can operate freely.”
The announcement of America’s “Asia-Pacific pivot” by its first Hawaiia-born president was highly fitting, since the Hawaiian Islands are at the piko (“navel” in Hawaiian) of this vast region.
A less flattering metaphor for Hawaii’s role in the Pacific is what Maui educator and native Hawaiian activist Kaleikoa Kaeo has called a giant octopus whose tentacles reach across the ocean clutching Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Jeju island, Guam—and, at times, the Philippines, American Samoa, Wake Island, Bikini Atoll, and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The head of this beast is in Hawaii, which is home to U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), with sonar, radar, and optical tracking stations as its eyes and ears. Its brain consists of the supercomputers on Maui and the command center on Oahu that connects PACOM to distant bases. This octopus excretes waste as toxic land, polluted waters, abandoned poisons, blown-up and sunken ships, and depleted uranium (DU). Like a real octopus that can regenerate severed limbs, the military in the Pacific grows in new locations (Thailand, Australia) and returns to old ones (Philippines, Vietnam).
PACOM headquarters at Camp H.M. Smith on Oahu is a short drive from Waikiki Beach, but it’s unlikely many tourists pause to consider that tensions between the United States and Russia over missile defense, the war in Afghanistan, the destruction of Iraq, the use of drones in Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and the Philippines—as well as growing opposition to military bases in Okinawa, Guam and Jeju—are all linked to Hawaii.
Thirty-six nations— and over half the world’s population—live in PACOM’s “Area of Responsibility” which spans from the Bering Strait to New Zealand, as far west as Pakistan and Siberia and east to the Galapagos. This behemoth’s self-proclaimed duty is to defend “the territory of the United States, its people, and its interests,” and to “enhance stability in the Asia-Pacific,” “promote security cooperation, encourage peaceful development, respond to contingencies, deter aggression and, when necessary, fight to win.”
Sovereignty violated
Hawaii’s relationship with the U.S. military was cemented on January 16, 1893, when U.S. Marines overthrew what had been a sovereign kingdom recognized by the United States and dozens of countries around the world. Encouraged by Anglo-American subjects of the Hawaiian kingdom seeking tariff-free access to American markets for their sugar cane, the U.S. military—pursuing what was then already a mission of expansion in the Pacific—toppled Queen Liliuokalani, making way for the 1898 U.S. declaration of the Territory of Hawaii and, in 1959, statehood.
In 1900, President Theodore Roosevelt said, “I wish to see the United States the dominant power on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.” He and every president since have understood the importance of Hawaii in fulfilling that goal. “Our future history will be more determined by our position on the Pacific facing China than by our position on the Atlantic facing Europe,” Roosevelt said.
Since even before World War II, but especially since the 1947 establishment of PACOM, Hawaii has been at the center of testing, training, and deployment of U.S. military hardware and personnel around the region. Today Hawaii is home to118 military sites, from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai to Kaena Point Satellite Tracking Station on Oahu, from the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing observatory to the Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island (Hawaii Island).
Besides Hawaii’s four largest islands, the military has used smaller Hawaiian islands and offshore islets for live-fire testing for decades. Best known isKahoolawe, which was a bombing range from 1941 until 1990 when, after more than a dozen years of protests and legal challenges, President George H.W. Bush ordered a cessation to bombing and the removal of unexploded ordnances. Yet as of 2004, one-quarter of Kahoolawe still had unexploded ordnances and was considered “unsafe.”
On Hawaii Island, at 133,000 acres, Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) is over four times the size of Kahoolawe. The high-altitude site between the volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea has been used by all branches of the military for small arms training, mortar firing, and other live-fire tests.
In addition to being shelled with millions of rounds of ammunition annually—and on the receiving end of 2,000-pound inert bombs dropped from B-2 bombers—PTA is contaminated with an undetermined amount of depleted uranium (DU). In 2008, the Hawaii County Council voted 8-1 for a resolution calling for a halt to live-fire training until further assessments and clean-up can be conducted. The military, however, continues to exploit the site, according to Jim Albertini with the Malu Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action.
Below PTA, in the sleepy town of Hilo, community advocate Lori Buchanan describes Pohakuloa today: “It’s so disheartening to drive past and see the degradation to the land. What I see will bring tears to your eyes—not only animals with no place to go, but dust storms reminiscent of Kahoolawe because of the erosion and impact of military training.” She says the bombing doesn’t make sense. “Why would you bomb the hell out of the land when it’s so limited? We live on an island…and they’re bombing a huge area, making it a wasteland.”
Although a native Hawaiian, Buchanan says she isn’t instinctively anti-military. “It’s the whole patriotic [thing]. It’s ingrained in us. We understand the importance of defense—no one is challenging that, but is all this really necessary? You cannot kill your own resources when you live on an island and have nowhere to go once you’ve killed everything off.”
“It isn’t just Pohakuloa. It’s Kahoolawe, Makua, Barking Sands, the proposed training on Maui and it’s Kalaupapa,” says Buchanan, talking about Kalaupapa peninsula, on the island of Molokai. Kalaupapa is a quiet place, best known for its 19th-century leprosy colony at the bottom of Hawaii’s highest sea cliffs. Less well known is that Kalaupapa and “topside” (upper) Molokai are used by the Navy for confined area and field carrier landing “touch-and-go” training by CH-53Dhelicopters, the type used in Afghanistan. In July 2012, activists on Molokai helped thwart plans to increase night training exercises for the controversial MV-22 Osprey and Huey attack helicopters from 112 takeoff and landings per year to 1,388.
The Navy plans to base two squadrons (12 aircraft each) of Osprey and one squadron of light attack H-1 Cobra and Huey attack helicopters in Hawaii. The Osprey, which takes off like a helicopter but can fly like an airplane, has been heavily criticized over safety concerns following at least seven fatal crashes—including two this year, in Florida and Morocco. Osprey helicopters have been used in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and they’re being deployed in Japan and Okinawa despite fervent protests.
In addition to concerns about some 2,000 new active-duty personnel and their dependents being transferred to Oahu, civic and cultural groups are worried about the impacts of the aircraft on local communities, wildlife, and historically and culturally sensitive areas on Kalaupapa, which is designated a U.S. National Historic Park. The military has said the increased training will have “no significant impact on noise levels for most communities,” but local groups wedged between high cliffs, mountains, and the sea fear otherwise.
Under my thumb
An Asia-Pacific pivot will increase testing and training beyond what has taken place in Hawaii for years—from live-fire testing in Makua Valley on Oahu to missile defense, rocket, and drone testing at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. Additionally, every two years, the U.S. military holds its Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) training—the “world’s largest international maritime exercise,” which was most recently held this summer across the islands.
RIMPAC 2012 included 22 regional allies (including Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea) and more distant nations like Colombia, Netherlands, Tonga, India, and Russia. Notably absent was China, but in September 2012, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that Beijing would be invited to participate in a limited capacity in the 2014 exercise.
Retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright sees RIMPAC and the growing number of multi-national joint military “exercises and engagements” in the region as an opportunity for the United States to test (and show off) its next generation of weaponry: laser-fueled, computerized, and submarine-launched drones. It’s also a chance to closely assess regional capabilities while positioning the United States to more effectively “push around” other countries and persuade them to do the foreign policy and military operational bidding of the United States, Wright says.
Wright, who resigned in protest of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, points to the South Korean naval base on Jeju which, when finished, will house AEGIS-equipped destroyers linked to U.S. missile defense as an example of how the United States pressures its allies to follow certain paths.
Speaking at a Pentagon news briefing last June, PACOM commander Admiral Samuel J. Locklear basically said the same thing: “We’re not really interested in building any more U.S. bases in the Asia-Pacific,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to at this point in time. We have reliable partners and reliable allies, and together we should be able to find ways to—not only bilaterally, but in some cases to multilaterally—to be able to find these locations where we can put security forces that respond to a broad range of security issues.”
“It’s complicated”
Much has been made of the Asia-Pacific pivot, but Oahu activist Kyle Kajihiro ofHawaii Peace & Justice says this is just the most recent wave in a series of endless waves.
“Every pivot needs a fulcrum in order to turn. Hawaii was the first fulcrum for U.S. in the Pacific and has allowed it to leverage their power to greater effect,” he says. Kajihiro points out that questions of land use and the military’s social, cultural, and environmental impacts on Hawaii are frequently overlooked or sidelined by the notion that seemingly endless infusions of money and military-based employment always trump the needs of people and the environment.
For decades the military has enjoyed solid backing from Hawaii’s congressional delegation in Washington, the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce, and unions with construction interests. Hawaii’s own population, which overwhelmingly votes Democratic, has largely accepted what Kajihiro calls “the dominant myth” that a large military presence is organic, inevitable, and naturally beneficial. He refers to events like “Military Appreciation” month and the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, where he says militarism and war are monumentalized as forms of “redemptive violence”—that is, as a source of goodness, honor, and valor from which the United States always emerges “stronger and better.”
In Hawaii, the military has widespread local support, even from some native Hawaiians (whose kingdom was overthrown), people of Japanese descent (who have suffered discrimination and internment) and others whose ancestral homelands have born the brunt of the U.S. military (Koreans, Okinawans, Chamorro, Pacific Islanders).
“When you’re severely addicted to something like the military,” asks Kajihiro, “how do you transition away without causing trauma?” He says Hawaii would face serious economic hemorrhaging if it turned away from the military cold turkey. “How do we plan for and invest in an alternate course that will take us off an addictive substance that deteriorates the body to a more diversified, healthy economic sustenance?”
Hawaii is a remote archipelago almost wholly dependent on imported oil, commodities and manufactured goods, but increasingly its people are recognizing the need to become more self-reliant, especially in terms of local food production.
In the last decade Hawaii has seen a mushrooming of businesses and educational efforts to pursue alternative energy based on sun, wind, waves and waste. Author Richard Heinberg, a senior fellow in residence at the Post Carbon Institute, has suggested Hawaii should move in a direction like New Zealand, which places very little emphasis on military strength but has become a global leader in environmental conservation.
Under the banner of an “Asia-Pacific pivot,” the United States is positioning its military to secure access to remaining resources and drive the economic and political winds of the region, but it also demonstrates that it understands the importance of finding alternatives to building large, new bases that rely on increasingly hard-to-obtain money and oil.
In order to successfully secure a place for its people in a more crowded, resource-strained world, Hawaii would do well to pursue its own pivot away from militarism and instead shift its efforts to food and energy self-reliance, environmental protection, and planning for survival in a world beset by climate change.
The sooner Hawaii recognizes that it would be better off with a drastically reduced dependency on the military, the sooner it can begin to move toward a healthier, safer, and more secure future.
Gangjeong and the Naval Base Issue stir up the IUCN’s WCC 2012, New U.S. Links to the Naval Base found, ROK Government ignores the UN on Gangjeong, Interviews with Prisoner Kim Bok-Chul and a WCC participant, Articles from several Veterans for Peace visitors to Gangjeong, and more!
Update: Format/Spacing Problems Fixed in PDF. Re-download Below
Environmental Assessment recently released by Endangered Species International (ESI), regarding the relocation of several endangered species found on the Gureombi Rock. From the Report:
1.0 Executive Summary
During 2010 and 2011, Sesarma intermedium (estuary crab), Caridina denticulata keunbaei (Jeju freshwater shrimp), and Kaloula borealis (boreal digging frog) were all relocated to three different sites from the navy base construction site in Gangjeong-dong Village, Seoqwipo City, Jeju Island, South Korea. Further investigations were carried outindependently by Endangered Species International (ESI) during August 2012 to assess the habitat and relocation of these three endangered species.
Findings from the habitat and species relocation assessments show failed relocation for the endangered K. borealis where all breeding frogs were left on site andonly tadpoles were removed. The released tadpoles are thought to have a low survival rate due to the presence of potential predators. Monitoring for K. borealis should have been conducted just after the release event in August 2011 but only started in part during 2012. Early observations of larval growth and development stages to metamorphosis were therefore not recorded. Finally, the lack of transparency from the government and those conducting monitoring activities preclude the need for adequate independent monitoring of the boreal frog relocation.
The relocation of the C. denticulata keunbaei was incomplete, as a population still remained on site. Further, 5,300 shrimps were released downstream along Gangjeong Creekwhere a population of C. denticulata keunbaei had already been established. This increased the risk of surpassing the carrying capacity of this area. Shrimps should have been released at other alternative suitable sites to increase the chance of their survival. Since no further monitoring is possible for shrimps, thesuccess of their relocation will remain unknown.
The endangered S. intermedium was released along Gangjeong Creek,but this area was later impacted by human activities. Suitable habitat protection was therefore not provided as stated in the relocation report as allrelocation sites should have been protected to allow for successful survival and establishmentof the species.
Immediate measures are urgently needed to insure survival of the three relocated species. Since a population of endangered K. borealis and C. denticulata keunbaei remain on site it is essential to stop construction activities until the frogs and shrimps are removed using appropriate survey method. The population should then continue to be independently monitored. Further important measures and recommendations are included in this report.
Update! Deadline extended to September 30! Sign Now!
“Bring peace and cooperation to East Asia!
Don’t militarize Jeju Island and the pacific!
Make Jeju an Island of World Peace!
While witnessing the construction of a gigantic naval base in beautiful Gangjeong village in Jeju Island, located in the Western Pacific Ocean, we cannot help but raise questions again: why war and destructions are repeated under the name of peace and prosperity?”
Korean group People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) is promoting an asia-pacific peace declaration against the Jeju Naval Base during the International Solidarity Action Week. Please sign before September 15 30!
In this month’s issue: The navy pushes to steal more land, water issues, London Samsung Boycott, Construction Mocks Environmental Standards, Prison Letter from Dr. Song Kang-Ho and more!
In this month’s issue: 6000 bows for peace in front of the Governor’s building, special international solidarity feature, harassement of village elderly, Father Mun wins the 5.18 Human Rights Prize, a letter from Guam and more!
“I would invite Ms. Park to take a swim in Hawai’i’s most famous military-tourist attraction: Pearl Harbor (the true name given by Native Hawaiians is Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa). However, the water is too toxic. And before she could get very far, she would be arrested by the Navy for trespassing in military waters. There is no tourist activity within Pearl Harbor except for those museum sites controlled by the government.” (Kyle Kajihiro)
Photo: Sisa Jeju, May 1, 2012/ Park Geun-Hye met protests in the Jeju
On May 1, Labor Day, Park Geun-Hye, daughter of deceased ex-President Park Chung-Hee who ruled South Korea for decades with military dictatorship made absurd remarks that, “In case of Hawai’i, tourism income is 24% while military-related income is 20% in its whole finance,” and “If we construct the Jeju naval base as civilian-military dual use port and make it well so that 150,000 ton cruise can enter and exit, it would not likely to be less than Hawai’i” (Headline Jeju, May 1).
On March 30, before General election on April 11, Park, supporting the candidates of the Saenuri Party (the ruling conservative Party)-though none were eventually elected in the Jeju Island whose citizens has been furious on the naval base project, has said, “We should make Jeju like Hawai’I famous for global tourism site and naval base.” It was a happening that reminded absurd remark by Kim Tae-Yong, ex-Minister of National Defense on March 20, 2010.
Amidst raining all day, Gangjeong villagers and activists protested against her spreading absurd remarks of so called civilian-military dual port, from morning to afternoon.
Kyle Kajihiro has sent a below writing refuting her remarks on April 25. Kyle Kajihiro is the program director for the American Friends Service Committee in Hawaii. He works on demilitarization, environmental justice, and Kanaka Maoli human rights issues. He has been involved in immigrant worker organizing, community mural projects, antiracist/antifascist activism, the Central America Solidarity movement, Hawaiian sovereignty solidarity efforts, and community radio and television. He has visited the Jeju and has many times expressed his solidarity on Jeju. Please refer to DMZ Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina (http://www.dmzhawaii.org/)
The Military Impacts in Hawai’i should be a Warning to Koreans about the threat to Jeju island.
By Kyle Kajihiro
April 25, 2012
Source: DMZ Hawai’i/ Militarized areas of O’ahu, Hawai’i
Ms. Park Keun-Hye is gravely mistaken to claim that military bases have been good for Hawai’i and therefore would be good for Jeju. The U.S. invaded and occupied the sovereign country of Hawai’i in order to build a military outpost. This included the taking of more than 200,000 acres of land for military bases, training and other activities. The result has been the destruction of the environment with more than 900 military contamination sites identified by the Department of Defense. The military’s toxic cocktail includes PCB, perchloroethylene, jet fuel and diesel, mercury, lead, radioactive Cobalt 60, unexploded ordance, perchlorate, and depleted uranium.
When the U.S. took over, especially during WWII, the military seized thousands of acres of Hawaiian land. Whole communities were evicted, their homes, churches and buildings razed or bombed for target practice, their sacred sites destroyed by bombs or imprisoned behind barbed wire.
Recently, hundreds of landless Native Hawaiian families were evicted from a secluded area of O’ahu where they had been living in cars and makeshift tents. They are the internally displaced native people, evidence of the so-called ‘benefits’ of militarization. Meanwhile the military occupies more than 13,000 acres of Hawaiian land, comprising a third of the land in that part of the island.
The enormous military presence did not bring security. On the contrary, it made Hawai’i the prime target during WWII and the Cold War. Militarization imported the most virulent forms of racism and martial law to the islands and provided the U.S. a launching pad from which to expand its empire. The military interests of the U.S. continue to override the needs and security of local communities as it distorts our development in ways that serve empire.
I would invite Ms. Park to take a swim in Hawai’i’s most famous military-tourist attraction: Pearl Harbor (the true name given by Native Hawaiians is Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa). However, the water is too toxic. And before she could get very far, she would be arrested by the Navy for trespassing in military waters. There is no tourist activity within Pearl Harbor except for those museum sites controlled by the government.
Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa is a perfect example of the dangers of militarization. The U.S. invaded and occupied the Kingdom of Hawai’i in order to take Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa as a strategic port. What was once one of the most productive fisheries for Native Hawaiian people with extensive wetland agriculture and aquaculture complexes that fed many thousands on O’ahu island has become a giant toxic Superfund site. Today there are approximately 749 contaminated sites that the Navy has identified within the Pearl Harbor Naval Complex. The seafood from Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa is no longer safe to eat. The famous pearl oysters are no more.
It is partially true that the military has become a major economic source in Hawai’i, but at a very high price. The military economy is artificial. It is largely a result of the corrupt processes of the military-industrial-political complex that injects money for pet projects in the islands like a drug. Politicians, businesses, and even unions become addicted to the quick high of these federal infusions and then become desperate to chase the next fix, even at the expense of the environment, Hawaiian rights and sovereignty and peace in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile the real source of Hawai’i’s economy – the beauty and health of our natural environment and our cultural richness – deteriorates at an alarming rate.
The questions that we must always ask about the alleged economic benefits of the military in Hawai’i are: “Who gets paid? Who pays the price? What are the real social, cultural and environmental costs of such a dependent economy?” The native people of the land are the ones whose lands are always stolen and destroyed by the military. They and other poor groups live in the toxic shadow of the bases. Other productive capacities wither away as Hawai’i has grown completely dependent on imports (90% of food is imported) and federal spending. Meanwhile those who benefit most from the military economy are the contractors (many who flock to Hawai’i when new military funds are approved) who feed on the destruction wrought by all this so-called ‘prosperity’.
Jeju island is a unique cultural and natural treasure that must be protected from military expansion. The beautiful islands of the Pacific are being targeted because the governments think we are small and insignificant. But islands do not have to be isolated. As the peoples of the Pacific have known for centuries, Ka Moananuiakea (the great ocean) unites us, brings us life, culture, food and solidarity. We must join our efforts and broaden our solidarity beyond our local shores, we can weave a net that is big and strong enough to restrain those monstrous fish that threaten to devour us all.
