Thursday, September 11, 2003
-Human Rights Rap (from Akko)
On September 4th and 5th, the United Nations convened a meeting of
dozens of non-governmental organizations on the question of Palestine.
The meeting in the General assembly area of the UN was well attended
with hundreds of representatives of various NGOs. However, it was a
bit disappointing as there was no media coverage and some speeches
were the usual lip service and calling on Israel to “end the
occupation.” Very rarely did any of the speakers address Israeli
apartheid policies and laws or the Israeli continuing ethnic cleansing
as part and parcel of the Zionist ideology of conquering Palestine and
emptying it of its population for the sake of colonial settlers coming
in from all over the world for automatic citizenship and subsidized
housing (subsidized by my US taxes). On the positive side, dozens of
attendees wore pins that clearly symbolized that that the right of
Palestinian refugees to return is key to peace. And the vast majority
of attendees were disturbed by the lack of International pressure on
Israel to implement the respect over 69 UN Security Council
resolutions and over 300 General Assembly resolutions.
As I drove to JFK Airport from the United Nations on Thursday
afternoon to pick up a visiting scholar from Gaza, I was pleasantly
surprised to hear a great presentation in a talk show (WBAI) with Ora
Wise. Ora was born of a Jewish Rabbi father in Jerusalem and now live
in New York. Her work with the International Solidarity movement was
inspiring. Equally inspiring was that essentially all the calls
received were supportive (and the lines were busy). Callers and Ora
(and even the host) wondered why we in the US fund Israeli apartheid
to the tune of billions per year and to the detriment of many nations.
The adverse effects extend beyond the Palestinians, the primary
victims of Zionism, to many secondary victims (Israelis Americans). I
wanted to call to thank them for having Ora who is an activist also
with our Wheels of Justice Tour (see
http://www.al-awda.org/wheelsofjusticetour/ and
http://justicewheels.org/) But I also because I wanted to ask how I
may get a hold of the great rap music they played in the intermission.
It was a hip-hop group from Palestine 48 (area that became Israel in
1948). While I did not get through, a search of the internet got me
their web page. I encourage you if you understand Arabic to hear this
wonderful hip-hop Palestinian group. Here is a link to their web page
(where you can download a couple of songs) and a link to an AP story
about them:
http://www.mwr-rap.com
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/020712/ap/d7knids80.html
Friday September 5th the Israeli army destroyed an apartment building
in Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Palestine 1967). This single
action made over 100 Palestinians homeless. Apparently, a Palestinian
resistance fighter exchanged gunfire with Israeli soldiers earlier in
the day at the site. Now imagine if police forces in this country or
any other demolishes a building housing over 100 residents because of
the action of a gunman (who was killed). Such state terrorism (and
there is no other way to describe it) would be unimaginable and would
never be allowed if the residents where Jewish or Protestant White
Europeans. Being Palestinians, lives and livelihoods are considered
cheap and not worth it. This incident was not the only incident of
directed state terrorism on that day and there are days when things
are far worse. Twenty-nine Palestinians were killed in August, most
of them civilians.
On Saturday, Israel attempted to assassinate some more leaders of the
Islamic Resistance Movement (acronym Hamas). Assassinations are
considered war crimes by International Law as are many of Israeli
actions in the occupied territories (including settlement building).
Also on Saturday, and as I and millions of others predicted would
happen, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas resigned as Palestinian Prime Minister
citing first and foremost Israeli and American obstacles to peace.
The “road map” or more appropriately the road kill document was doomed
from the beginning with or without Israel’s 14 reservations that the
Bush administration allowed for Sharon. It was doomed partially
because it neither mentions nor accepts the simple words called “human
rights” and “International Law” and partially because it was intended
to “manage” the conflict rather than deal with its root causes.
Now, what can you do besides listening to some good hip-hop rap music?
Visit http://www.al-awda.org/mediaactivism/ and ACT. Speak out and
speak truth to power.
A Luta Continua
Mazin B. Qumsiyeh
http://Al-Awda.org
http://www.BoycottIsraeliGoods.org
http://AcademicsForJustice.org
http://PalestineRemembered.com
http://www.mideastfacts.com/
http://cflweb.org/
- 9/11 and Aftermath: Tragedy and Deception (Families of Victims Speak Out)
Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org *
___________________________________________________
PM Monday, September 8, 2003
9/11 and Aftermath: Tragedy and Deception
* Relatives of Sept. 11 Victims * Military Families
DAVID POTORTI, , http://www.peacefultomorrows.org
Potorti is the primary author of the new book “September 11th Families for
Peaceful Tomorrows: Turning Our Grief into Action for Peace.” His brother
was killed in the World Trade Center. He said today: “With the worst kind
of cynicism, George W. Bush continues the hallucinatory link of Iraq to the
deaths of our loved ones on Sept. 11.... Calling the invasion of Iraq ‘one
of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history’ is not just
a lie, but a damned lie. Between 6,000 and 10,000 civilians have been
killed—two to three times the number who died on 9/11. To deny the
reality of these deaths is not only dishonest to the innocent people of
Iraq, but to the Americans in whose name we are waging the ‘war on
terror.’” This week about 25 members of the Peaceful Tomorrows
organization, including Potorti, are in New York City, where they will
participate in a series of events.
RITA LASAR,
Also a member of Peaceful Tomorrows, Lasar lost her brother at the World
Trade Center. She is available for a limited number of interviews. She said
today: “Bush says he’s doing this to avenge the victims of 9/11 and to make
us safer. But with the course he is taking us on, children are not yet born
who will be fighting over this. This isn’t about keeping us safe, but
because he wants to keep himself and his cronies rich.”
NANCY LESSIN, CANDANCE ROBISON, , http://www.mfso.org
Members of Military Families Speak Out, both Lessin and Robison are in
Washington, D.C., and will speak at a congressional briefing Tuesday
afternoon. With several other military families, they watched Bush’s speech
last night together.
WILLIAM HARTUNG, ,
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms
FRIDA BERRIGAN,
Hartung is director of the World Policy Institute’s Arms Trade Resource
Center; Berrigan is senior researcher with the group. They said today:
“Former White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay was ridiculed for
estimating a year ago that the invasion would end up costing $200 billion.
It now looks like it will exceed that. Contrary to the impression given by
Bush, the bulk of the $87 billion will go to military-related activities,
much of which will profit companies close to his administration.”
NORMAN SOLOMON, ,
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/07/IN302705.DTL,
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0309/06/cst.01.html
Executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Solomon is
co-author of “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You.” He wrote
in an essay published on Sunday by the San Francisco Chronicle: “In a
cauldron of media alchemy, the human suffering of Sept. 11 became
propaganda gold. Sorrow turned into political capital.”
-Information Clearing House latest issue (please visit their page for articles)
WEB SITE: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
MIRROR HERE: http://informationclearinghouse.literati.org/
ARCHIVE: http://www.ymlp.com/pubarchive.php?feminine
================
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/emaildigest.htm
==========
Noam Chomsky: There’s Good Reason to Fear U.S.
“Those who want victory” against terror without addressing underlying grievances “want an unending war.” 09/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4653.htm
===
5 Afghan troops killed, 2 US soldier wounded in separate attacks:
Five other government troops were wounded when their patrol was ambushed last night in a mountain gorge in southern Afghanistan. 09/08
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1432920
===
Warlords wear out Afghans’ welcome:
“The big mistake is from the Americans. They want to bring peace to Afghanistan with thieves and killers. The Americans after two years have learned nothing,” said Abdul Raouf, a car dealer in the eastern city of Jalalabad. “Every day the situation is worse.” 09/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4648.htm
===
Bomb Attack in Iraq Wounds 2 U.S. Troops: 09/08
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3121765,00.html
===
Saboteurs blow up pipeline in northern Iraq:
Commander Saleh Mohammed called the blast, which erupted near the Taaza electric power plant 15 kilometres south of Kirkuk, an act of sabotage. 09/08
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/08/1062901997371.html
===
Palestinian says he will accept premier post if U.S. presses Israel:
Qureia also said he would not be able to govern without Arafat’s support, and said Israel must change its approach to Arafat. Israel and the United States want to sideline Arafat, who has been confined to his West Bank headquarters by Israeli sieges and threats. 09/08
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0908IsraelPals08-ON.html
===
Who is Ariel Sharon: A lifetime credo of killing unarmed civilians
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4652.htm
===
Rumsfeld: Criticism of Bush Strengthens U.S. Foes:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday opposition to the U.S. President was encouraging Washington’s enemies and hindering his ‘war against terrorism’. 09/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4647.htm
===
Navy coverup alleged on drug side Effects:
A Naval Reserve commander says the military doctored his medical file to eliminate all traces of an anti-malaria drug that he believes made him severely ill, suicidal and aggressive - and that he has the before-and-after evidence to prove it. 09/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4649.htm
===
Al-Qaida issues a chilling warning:
A new tape purporting to be from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network yesterday threatened an onslaught against Americans so devastating it would obliterate memories of the September 11 suicide attacks. 09/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4646.htm
===
President Bush’s Greatest Victory?
Saddam’s henchmen may finally have thrown in their lot with their ideological adversaries in Osama bin Laden’s terror network to wage war on their common foe two years after the suicide hijackings in the United States, analysts say. 09/08
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030907/1/3dzk3.html
===
Text of President Bush’s Speech 09/08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39816-2003Sep7.html
===
The lights are on but is anyone home?
Bush the smaller made his pitch to the nation over the weekend to “save civilisation” from terrorism and told us that the “frontline” was now Iraq. So Saddam disappears not only literally but also figuratively to be replaced by the generic ‘threat?Ethat has been the real core of the propaganda since 9/11. - 09/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4650.htm
===
This site is 100% reader supported. Click here If You Can Help To Support Our Efforts
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/support.htm
===
Iraq Aid Will Dwarf U.S. Foreign Aid Budget:
President George Bush last night proposed $87 billion in new spending to fight terrorism. The $87 billion would come on top of the $79 billion that Congress approved in April for the initial costs of the war and its aftermath . 09/08
http://www.forbes.com/home/2003/09/08/cx_da_0908topnews.html
===
Monthly costs of Iraq, Afghan wars approach that of Vietnam:
The monthly bill for the U.S. military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan now rivals Pentagon spending during the Vietnam War, Defense Department figures show. 09/08
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-07-cover-costs_x.htm
===
Show me the weapons!
A great many federal workers are seeing their pay raises getting slashed. That’s because President George Bush’s failed Iraq policy will cost at least $60 billion more, just for the rest of this year. 09/08
http://www.star.niu.edu/perspective/articles/090803-weapons.asp
===
What about the 90-day occupation?:
Pentagon officials also claimed that Iraq’s oil wealth would make it unnecessary to ask other countries for financial help with reconstruction. “I don’t see the need for panhandling like that,” the Pentagon source said.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4651.htm
===
Iraq will remain an American problem:
If the Bush administration is expecting grateful thanks for its proposal to give the UN a bigger role in Iraq, it is going to be sorely disappointed.
http://www.dawn.com/2003/09/08/int15.htm
===
US, Iraqi Militias Headed For Showdown:
The US-led coalition appeared Sunday headed for a showdown with Iraqi militias after giving them an ultimatum to lay down their arms that was immediately rejected by a leading anti-US firebrand. 09/08
http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/ac/Qiraq-disarm.RwwG_DS7.html
===
War Wounded Abound in ‘Post-War’ Iraq:
Iraqis hit by stray bullets, grenades or bombs and flocking to hospitals with only a long-shot hope of getting full treatment. 09/08
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/afp/20030907/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_hospitals_030907220437&e=4
===
DNA tests sought ‘for every Briton’:
Every single person in the UK should be compelled to have their DNA on the national database in an effort to prevent crime, a senior police officer has argued. 09/08
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3088920.stm
===
Abbas’s successor picked: Asked when Qorei would officially be declared prime minister, Saleh al-Rafat told AFP: “Maybe tonight or tomorrow morning.”
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1412933,00.html
===
Liberty can not be preserved without general knowledge among people.” (August 1765) John Adams
-9/11: What Did the EPA Know and When Did It Know It?
Note from Paul
Just a few days ago there was an article about a 20 or 30 year health study, I think by NYC and NY State on people who were around the World Trade Center. Is this going to be a
clandestine effort by the Pentagon to see what the effects of asbestos and other agents were on people, presumably to use the data in manufacturing their own weapons, will it actually serve to protect people in the future by helping to create better building standards? Note
that the Environmental Protection Agency withheld information and still does at the behest of the Bushites. (See below). Note too that after Hiroshima the U.S. military conducted extensive tests on victims probably to plan for the next bombings in order to maximize the terror caused.
Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org *
OEL KUPFERMAN, , http://www.nyenvirolaw.org
Kupferman is the executive director of the New York Environmental Law and
Justice Project. He said today: “On September 19, 2001, one day after the
EPA declared that the ‘air was safe to breathe,’ we took samples in lower
Manhattan and sent them to two respected labs—the results came back with
alarmingly high levels of toxins such as asbestos and fiberglass. We filed
a Freedom of Information Act request to the EPA, resulting in 800 pages of
raw data which revealed that—in spite of their assurances to the
contrary—EPA, OSHA and the various other health and environmental
agencies knew of the dangers present at Ground Zero and beyond, on the
ground and in the air.” Kupferman said the documents showed that:
* “Analyses prepared for the EPA by scientists were held back from
publication, though their findings were highly relevant to health care
providers trying to diagnose and treat those with acute symptoms, to say
nothing of the public at large, which deserved to know its own risks.”
* “High concentrations of dangerous contaminants remained even three weeks
after the towers collapsed—after, at EPA’s urging, people were back in
the area, living and working full-time.”
* “In the three weeks following September 11, the agency was testing the
ambient air but not releasing the results, and it was not testing settled
dust with the highest-scrutiny techniques available—choosing, instead,
cheaper and non-aggressive techniques that, predictably, yielded lower
results. Nor was it testing air inside offices or apartments near Ground
Zero, where people were told it was safe to return within three days of the
disaster.”
* “EPA also failed to reveal that, for its own headquarters cleanup, it
used a particular type of high-sensitivity sampling method, called
micro-vacuum. EPA then took a position that micro-vac testing was
unnecessary for schools and residences in lower Manhattan. EPA cleaned up
its own headquarters using professional abatement methods while directing
residents to follow the city’s Department of Health instructions which
recommended using ‘a wet rag or wet mop.’ EPA also actively discounted
results obtained when the micro-vac was used independently in the
neighborhood.”
Kupferman added: “In April 2002, the Uniformed Firefighters Association,
concerned about members’ exposure, asked my organization to conduct testing
on fire engines; our testing showed up to 5 percent chrysotile
asbestos, five times the level at which the law requires immediate
de-contamination, on vehicles that had already been ‘decontaminated’ by a
city contractor.”
TOM BRAZAITIS, ,
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0831-05.htm
Brazaitis, formerly a Cleveland Plain Dealer senior editor, wrote an August
31 column titled “Promises Turn to Toxic Dust.” He said today: “A report
released by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA ... [states
that] ‘the White House Council on Environmental Quality influenced the
information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press
releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete
cautionary ones....’ The National Security Council operatives played a
similar role in an earlier scandal involving the false assertion ... that
Saddam Hussein had tried to acquire uranium in Africa for weapons of mass
destruction.”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 332-5055 or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
-Japan wheat buyers warn against biotech wheat in US
USA: September 10, 2003
WASHINGTON - The premier export market for American wheat could be
destroyed if the United States approved production of a genetically
modified variety of the commodity, a Japanese industry official said this
week.
“If there is GM (genetically-modified) wheat, there is some potential for
the collapse of the U.S. wheat market in Japan,” said Tsutomu Shigeta,
executive director of Japan’s Flour Millers Association.
In the year that ended March 31, Japan bought nearly 2.5 million tonnes of
U.S. wheat, slightly more than half of its import needs, according to the
U.S. Wheat Associates, which promotes sales of American wheat abroad.
St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. MON.N has asked the U.S. and Canadian
governments to approve a herbicide-tolerant biotech wheat hybrid. The
company has estimated it could be at least two years before the first
biotech wheat might be ready for market. American wheat farmers are deeply
split over the idea.
Members of the Japanese Flour Millers Association are beginning a week-long
visit to the United States to meet with federal regulators and to assess
the quality of the U.S. wheat crop in North Dakota and Oregon. The group
accounts for about 90 percent of the wheat milled in Japan.
Speaking through an interpreter, Shigeta told reporters that his
association’s opposition to biotech wheat is a “business matter” and is not
based on an assessment of its safety.
In this case, the association’s concern is widespread consumer opposition
to biotech wheat.
Shigeta referred to a Japanese government-sponsored survey conducted a few
months ago, which he said showed that almost 68 percent of consumers
opposed a biotech variety of wheat.
In an attempt to soften opposition, Monsanto has begun meeting with food
processors in Japan and Europe, a company official said recently.
In May, a group of South Korean wheat millers visited the United States and
delivered a similar message in opposition to genetically modified wheat.
From Reuters by way of IGNJ
-"The Other 9/11”—30-Year Anniversary of Coup in Chile
On Sept. 11, 1973, a U.S.-backed coup brought down the democratically
elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. The coup began a
repressive dictatorship under Gen. Augusto Pinochet that lasted until the
end of the 1980s.
Here are the stories of some Chileans now living in California:
HECTOR SALGADO
A few days after the military coup 30 years ago, Salgado—then a high
school student in Chile—was abducted by the secret police for three
months. After that, Salgado spent three years imprisoned in the
concentration camp of Isla Quiriquina in the south of Chile. Today, Salgado
is a teacher and a musician. He is currently working on a documentary and a
book about his experiences as a political prisoner.
“According to a recent survey in 49 cities all over Chile, 67.5 percent
of Chileans aren’t interested in remembering or knowing more about the
military coup of 1973,” Salgado said today. “This is important because it
is representative of a generation with no memory. It is the sad legacy of
17 years of dictatorship and 13 years of a never-ending
transition-to-democracy period, negotiated among the political elite. For
me it is very important to remember our recent history—so we do not
repeat horrible mistakes and because there is still no justice for the
abuses against human rights from those dark years.”
FERNANDO TORRES
Torres was a political prisoner in 1975-76 in the northern Chilean city of
Antofagasta. After being abducted by the secret political police, Torres
was secretly transferred to the concentration camp of Tres Alamos in
Santiago. Torres is currently a freelance journalist and a longtime member
of the staff at the La Pe Cultural Center in Berkeley, Calif.
“Both Sept. 11s are connected by the many failures of U.S. foreign
policy,” Torres said today. “After calling us ‘irresponsible people’
because we elected the socialist Salvador Allende, Henry Kissinger
supported and financed the coup that killed thousands of people. He is our
own Bin Laden.”
CLAUDIO DURAN
Duran, who is also known as Quique Cruz, was captured by Gen. Pinochet’s
secret political police in 1975. After having been “disappeared” for two
months in the torture center Villa Grimaldi, Duran was sent to Santiago’s
concentration camps Tres Alamos and Puchuncavi. Duran is an author and
musician and a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University.
“Let’s put aside the political amnesia for a while and read the reports
from the U.S. Senate’s Church Committee,” Duran said today. “Nixon and
Kissinger are responsible for terror in our society. They plotted and gave
a lot of U.S. taxpayer money to the Chilean terrorists who air-raided and
bombed many buildings in September 1973.”
- Constitution revision call analyzed/Missile Defense (Akahata)
The following is the gist of an Akahata reporter’s analysis (Aug. 27) of the recent Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro’s move to instruct the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to draft a constitutional revision.
When he directed the LDP secretary general to finish drafting amendments to the Constitution by November 2005, Prime Minister Koizumi assured that this will not be on the Cabinet’s agenda. Apparently, he tries to assign the Cabinet and the ruling party different roles for one purpose.
Notably, this is the first time for a prime minister to set a deadline for the LDP effort to come up with a draft revision of the Constitution. Koizumi, who has often expressed his contempt for the Constitution, is now setting out to destroy the present Constitution. His remarks could have serious consequences for Japan’s future.
Continued at Japan Press Service
Missile defense program brings arms race for preemptive attack strategy
The Defense Agency will request 140 billion yen as expenses for the country’s missile defense in FY 2004 budget.
The amount is about ten times as much as the sum budgeted for “the Japan-U.S. technical research on missile defense” since FY 1999. The amount, however, is only a fraction of the cast of taking part in the U.S. missile defense system, reportedly somewhere between 1.2 trillion and 5.9 trillion yen.
The agency seeks to field standard missiles (SM3) and surface-to-air guided patriot missiles (PAC3) in 2007, following the deployment of a missile defense shield in the United States from next year.
-U.S. Military Bases and Environmental Problems by UI Jun
Introduction: Sixteen years ago, in 1987, Ui Jun left his post as an assistant in the engineering department at Tokyo University to go to Okinawa, then becoming an important new front in the anti-pollution struggle. With three of Japan’s five most polluted rivers, and with the nation’s worst water pollution, tropical Okinawa was simultaneously the crucible of American military bases, Japan’s poorest prefecture and its most polluted. Ui’s report is the summation of his sixteen years of teaching, research and working in the environmental movement on Okinawa.
A lifelong experimenter, Ui began his lifelong commitment to science in the second grade when he observed that adding vinegar to the juice of morning glory turned the blue juice red. After graduating in applied chemistry at Tokyo University, Ui went to work for Nippon Zeon, a company that used mercury as a catalyst in producing fertilizer and other products, disposing of the waste in the river.
Zeon released the effluent secretly into the river at night, Ui recalled. About the time that he returned to Tokyo University after working for three years at Zeon, the news broke about the deadly mercury poisoning that was soon labeled Minamata disease, the product of the Chisso Corporation’s polluting the water at its chemical plants.
Ui’s research showed that if one put the crystal of methyl mercury, which was the pollutant from the factory disposal water on fish and fed it to cats, the result was Minamata disease. The cause and effect relationship was found within the factory. But, he recalled, “when I discussed it with colleagues in the medical school, no one wanted to listen, perhaps because medical research was funded by the company.”
1968-69, at the time of the university struggles in Japan, Ui was researching pollution and water purification in Scandinavia. He returned to find that the students he had studied with had scattered: some had been jailed, some were in hospital with injuries incurred in the student struggles, some had joined sects and their whereabouts were unknown. The civil engineering department was in shambles after the administration called in the police to quell student protests.
No one in the engineering school was interested in the study of pollution. So Ui, a lowly assistant, after winning support of Tokyo University President, Kato Ichiro, was granted permission to set up a lecture series, with all classes open to the public. Because the course was offered at night, Ui was able to ignore strictures that he stick closely to technical questions and ignore issues of political economy such as power and profit that he quickly realized were central to the understanding of environmental pollution. Beginning in 1970, Jishu Koza, as the series was called, initiated both the first extended study of pollution in Japanese universities and the citizens movement to publicize and combat pollution. Within a year, eight hundred people, many of them traveling great distances, were attending the lectures and investigating and fighting pollution in their localities.
But this open democratic approach, enormously successful in the cultivation of a generation of citizen-scientist civic activists, and the model for the subsequent anti-nuclear forum established by the late Takagi Jinzaburo, did not impress Ui’s employers at Tokyo University. They refused him any promotion, keeping him longer on the lowest level, joshu or assistant, for more than fifteen years, longer than almost anybody in the history of the institution, and shed no tears at his departure for Okinawa.
This article appeared in Gunshuku (Arms Reduction), May 2003, pp. 18-25.
The sixteen years since 1986 when I moved to the University of Okinawa from my position as research assistant at the University of Tokyo have gone by in a flash and I have reached retirement from the university. During the time I taught environmental theory in independent courses at the University of Tokyo, I had planned to stay there as an assistant until my retirement and then go to Okinawa. However, I was shamed by my senior colleague, Professor Tamanoi Yoshirô, who said that with my leisurely attitude the island would dissolve before I got there. Indeed, when I came to Okinawa it turned out to be almost too late, and I must admit that time had run out while I had been trying to tackle the problems in front of me one after another. I had absolutely no time to dig and try to figure out why things had come to this state.
The overall picture is quite clear. Okinawa, which makes up just 0.6 per cent of Japan’s land, contains more than 70 per cent of the U.S. military bases. If the U.S. bases were spread out evenly, Okinawa would have more or less 0.6 per cent of them, but it has more than one hundred times that share. Since this is clearly an enormous burden, it creates all kinds of frictions. The central government pours huge sums of money on to this little island as compensation for the burden that it places on Okinawa and each unexpected incident that occurs there. Most of the funds are for construction projects, which do not match Okinawa’s reality, so they end up being utterly destructive to the coral reefs and primeval forests that symbolize the subtropical environment. For example, after the 1995 incident in which three GIs raped a twelve year-old girl, 5 billion yen were immediately provided. 10 billion yen were provided when the prefectural governor changed from an anti-base reformist to a pro-base conservative. When it was decided that an alternative to Futenma base would be built in Northern Okinawa, twelve cities and towns were promised 10 billion yen per year for a duration of ten years - a total of 100 billion yen - for public-works projects. The sixteen years of my stay in Okinawa have been a continuous and never-ending struggle against these destructive developmental projects. I meekly accept the criticism that things have come to this state because I have been engaged in minor details without fighting against the fundamental problem of the Japan-U.S. security system. However, just as doctors cannot leave sick people to their own devices, technicians cannot help getting engaged in the problems they can handle right in front of them and they worry day and night about how to distribute their abilities. In the case of Okinawa, since examples of excellent research regarding the contradictions of the Japan-U.S. security system and its burden on Okinawa are produced even under difficult circumstances and are available close at hand - for instance that of Arasaki Moriteru - one cannot help but allocate one’s own energy and time to address immediate problems. Having reached the end of my work after sixteen years in Okinawa, it is necessary to reevaluate the choices I made. Just as I was beginning to think about this, I was given the opportunity to write about foreign policy through the lens of Okinawa, and so I have tried to take up the matter here.
Right now, what goes on at U.S. military bases today is discussed when waste oil flows outside a base as a result of accidents, but there is hardly any accumulation of concrete data. Thus the possibility of harmful substances inside bases became an issue only in 1995 after the return of the Onna Communication Base to Japan. There, it was found that the soil left inside the purification tanks, which was considered as fertilizer, turned out to contain high concentrations of harmful substances including mercury, cadmium, arsenic and PCBs, and the idea of using it as fertilizer was abandoned. Until then, I think that the possibility of harmful substances on U.S. military bases had hardly been discussed.
There had been news that could have become a key to understanding the issues at hand if attention had been paid to them. The Fukuchi Dam, which provides most of the water to the main island of Okinawa is used by the U.S. armed forces for river crossing exercises. It was reported numerous times that in the forest surrounding the dam, large amounts of unused munitions had been thrown away. It just so happened that the abandonment of munitions was discovered during biological surveys on the maneuver grounds in the Northern parts of the island. At the time of the Persian Gulf War, the use of depleted uranium munitions became an issue. However, it was only in 1997 that the United States Marines admitted using munitions containing depleted uranium during its exercises from 1995 to 1996 on the islands west of Kume Island, acknowledged that this was a violation of the Law for the Regulation of Nuclear Power in Japan, and notified the Japanese government that most of the munitions had been recovered and removed. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not pass on this information to the prefectural government of Okinawa and the citizens of Okinawa prefecture only learned about the problem through an article in the Washington Times. This announcement itself was made reluctantly after a Japanese television station had come to report it, and if there had been no television coverage, it probably never would have come to light. The Japanese government subsequently carried out two surveys of the concerned area and reported that – with the exception of the immediate surroundings of the remaining abandoned munitions – high figures indicating pollution were not recorded.
The existence of this kind of pollution cannot be ascertained unless exhaustive tests are conducted. I had the bitter experience of taking and analyzing samples from several places that seemed polluted within Futenma Base without finding anything suspicious. To find this kind of pollution, one must collect samples in broad daylight with a detailed map indicating where the munitions had actually hit. Otherwise, one will be unable to identify the real state of pollution. One also needs high-level experience in sample taking. In any case, we can assume that it is still premature to conclude that pollution from depleted uranium does not exist or that one does not need to worry about it.
When the transfer of the airport away from the Futenma Base and its return to Japan became a political issue as a result of the 1995 rape, apprehensions regarding base contamination came to the fore. The data about the pollution of the soil in the purification tanks at Onna Communication Base were published right after that incident.
However, regarding the return of land that has been polluted, Paragraph 1 of Article 4 of the Status of the United States Armed Forces Agreement clearly states that the responsibility for the reestablishment of status quo ante does not lie with the United States. When we rent a house in our everyday lives, it is common sense to agree to return the house to its previous state when we move out. From this perspective, it seems obvious that if the value of the land has decreased due to pollution, the renters should return it after removing the pollution at their own cost. Thus this clause seems very one-sided. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims, however, that this clause should be seen against Paragraph 2 of Article 4, which provides that the Japanese government does not have to pay for the facilities and buildings constructed by the U.S. armed forces when the land is returned. Thus, considered as a whole, they argue that Article 4 is bilateral and equal. Certainly, the area had probably been wasteland when it was adopted as a base, so returning it with the facilities and buildings on it might have increased the land’s value to Japan’s advantage. However, as with a rented house, one usually anticipates the problem of diminished value due to wear and tear and dirt. From this commonsense perspective, Article 4 as a whole is utterly unilateral and no doubt disadvantageous for Japan. Was this not considered when the agreement was formulated? Or perhaps there was no other way due to the unequal power relations between the two parties.
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
- Book Review: Nanking 1937: Memory and Healing (Review by Herbert Bix)
Nanking 1937: Memory and Healing
Edited by Fei Fei Li, Robert Sabella and David Liu
M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, 2002; 304 pp.
This is an article from the September 2003 issue of Z Magazine that may be of particular interest to our readers in Asia as the reviewer was a visiting professor at Tokyo’s Hitotsubashi University two years ago.
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After Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria in 1931, the Nationalist Party government of Chiang Kai-shek sought to resist diplomatically. But as the Japanese imperium widened, Chinese resistance stiffened. In autumn 1937, small-scale fighting between Japanese and Chinese forces in North China spread to Shanghai and turned into full-scale war. In early November, Nationalist Chinese troops abandoned the Shanghai front, where for nearly three months they had battled the JAPAnese. Pursued by the invaders who killed prisoners on the spot, Chinese soldiers, accompanied by civilian refugees, retreated through villages and towns along the Yangtze River toward the walled-city of Nanking. Encircled on all sides, the Nationalist capital fell after five days of resistance on the night of December 12-13.
In the course of occupying Nanking and its surrounding administrative districts, tens of thousands of frustrated, vengeful, war-weary Japanese soldiers entered the area and began to execute, en masse, military prisoners of war and unarmed deserters who had surrendered. Order and discipline, already frayed on the Shanghai front, collapsed completely. An unprecedented rampage of arson, pillage, murder, and rape ensued. Though unplanned by the high command in Tokyo, the criminal violence was abetted by field commanders and staff officers and lasted over two months. The total number of Chinese atrocity victims remains in hot dispute to this day. Chinese sources range as high as 340,000; the best Japanese estimates put the figure at ?gno fewer than 200,000.?h
Japanese public exposure to the crimes of Nanking did not occur until the Tokyo trials, nearly a decade later; even then the story was not followed up. In Japan some right-wing researchers and critics later claimed that no massacre ever occurred; other rightists insisted that the atrocities have been greatly exaggerated by Chinese political propaganda. Through four long decades of cold war, issues of war responsibility were covered up. Only since the mid-1980s have Japanese citizens gradually become aware that their country once fought a war of aggression symbolized by the Nanking massacre. The re-discovery of Nanking in Western countries occurred in the late 1990s, sparked by Iris Chang?fs best-selling The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.
-This war on terrorism is bogus (former UK Environment Minster)/This story censored in U.S.
Massive attention has now been given - and rightly so - to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier.
We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld’s deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush’s younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney’s chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America’s Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Continue:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=4146
The above story was censored (voluntarily?) in the United States:
“....The question we are left with is: Did 1,457 daily newspaper editors and 2,000 TV news directors all reach the same decision independently, not to run this story, based on the first scenario of facts? Or has the extreme concentration of economic-political power in mass media reached the point of “absolute control”?....
More:
http://www.unknownnews.net/030909a-pm.html
-Defying the U.S. Death Machine: Support Voices in the Wilderness
This email is to inform you of a new video clip that is available on our
website:
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pages/newPages/movie1.html
This clip will provide images and voices of two of our members currently
in Iraq as they talk about the recent OFAC lawsuit against Voices in
the Wilderness. It also has new footage from Iraq. To view this clip,
you will need Quicktime software which is available for free on the
internet.
Read up-to-date stories from Iraq from our web page. Two stories are
included in this email, right below this text! When you browse through
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frequently. http://vitw.vitwmedia.org/weblog/
These stories contain information about ordinary Iraqis living under US
led sanctions, and US occupation. Hear how our team members
respond to and report what they see and hear in Baghdad, Basra, and
other cities in Iraq. Stay informed and read the reflections of our team
members as you get to know more Iraqis and understand their plight.
Voices in the Wilderness has been traveling to Iraq in the effort to
educate US and global citizens about the devastating effects of
economic sanctions since 1996. Now we go to continue the
educational work and to unmask the truths of US led occupation.
We are still collecting funds for medical relief to Iraq. We are also
maintaining a list of names who are signing on to oppose the OFAC
fines. See our appeal for 20,000 Voices. Please sign the petition and
join in our struggle.
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Sincerely,
Voices in the Wilderness-Chicago
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pages/newPages/movie1.html
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
-The Lonliness of Noam Chomsky (Arundhati Roy)
SITTING in my home in New Delhi, watching an American TV news channel promote itself ("We report. You decide."), I imagine Noam Chomsky’s amused, chipped-tooth smile.
Everybody knows that authoritarian regimes, regardless of their ideology, use the mass media for propaganda. But what about democratically elected regimes in the “free world”?
Today, thanks to Noam Chomsky and his fellow media analysts, it is almost axiomatic for thousands, possibly millions, of us that public opinion in “free market” democracies is manufactured just like any other mass market product — soap, switches, or sliced bread. We know that while, legally and constitutionally, speech may be free, the space in which that freedom can be exercised has been snatched from us and auctioned to the highest bidders. Neoliberal capitalism isn’t just about the accumulation of capital (for some). It’s also about the accumulation of power (for some), the accumulation of freedom (for some). Conversely, for the rest of the world, the people who are excluded from neoliberalism’s governing body, it’s about the erosion of capital, the erosion of power, the erosion of freedom. In the “free” market, free speech has become a commodity like everything else — — justice, human rights, drinking water, clean air. It’s available only to those who can afford it. And naturally, those who can afford it use free speech to manufacture the kind of product, confect the kind of public opinion, that best suits their purpose. (News they can use.) Exactly how they do this has been the subject of much of Noam Chomsky’s political writing.
