Friday, October 10, 2003

-Talk by the Japanese Ambassador Fired by Japanese Government

Several Appearances have been scheduled, the most recent being
at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.  The next is
in Takadanobaba in Tokyo.

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–â?‡‚¹?FŸÇ?ì(Tel/fax: 048-825-1006),
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Naoto Amaki used to be Ambassador to Lebanon, now he’s battling the Foreign Ministry. Amaki claims he was expelled from MOFA last August because of his criticism of Prime Minister Koizumi’s support for the war in Iraq. A skeptic of MOFA’s traditional U.S.-first policy, Amaki views Koizumi as a poodle following his master.

Before and during the war, Ambassador Amaki twice offered his opinion in writing to Foreign Minister Kawaguchi, attaching a note that it be forwarded to PM Koizumi and Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda. He also distributed his statement to all Japanese embassies abroad. His opinion was shelved, he was removed from his position and coerced to resign.  Amaki took this as an outright suppression of debate within MOFA and decided to disclose everything he has seen at MOFA in his upcoming book “Saraba Gaimusho” ("So Long MOFA") - a book of accusation and revenge. He criticizes Koizumi’s foreign policy stance as a grandstanding performance and condemns MOFA as a corrupt and demoralized bureaucracy.

Mr. Amaki has served the ministry for 34 years since he passed the diplomat examination during his Kyoto University days. He has served at Embassies in Malaysia, Australia and Canada, and as Consul General at Detroit, USA, before being appointed Ambassador to Lebanon.

-Peace Study Walking in Yokosuka Oct 19/‘æ‚S‰ñƒs?[ƒX?EƒXƒ^ƒfƒB?EƒEƒH?[ƒLƒ“ƒO

Peace Study Walking in Yokosuka
Please join our walking tour/one hour boat tour in Yokosuka bay, observing the US base. It is a part of the 18 th annual peace festival at Mikasa Koen.
1000 yen will be coasted on board.
Date: October, 19 Sunday
Meet: 12 oclock, at Yokosuka Cyuo station East exit (Keihinkyuko)
Prof. Hideo Fujita will accompany us and English interpretation will be provided by a volunteer.
The follow up discussion will be held at Sogogukushi Kaikan with peace activists in the area.
Further info: Mr. ASAKAWA(Tel/fax:048-825-1006) or Mr. Kentro Kojima(e-mail:  �j

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REGISTRATION

http://www.jcafe.net/english/sympo03/contact.html

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Japanese/English
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Tokyo, Rikkyo University
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11 Oct
U.N World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS),
Asian Regional NGO Conference
In preparation for the coming U.N World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), to be held in December 2003 in Geneva, Asian NGOs which support the development of communications networks will come together and discuss the issues relevant to the Asian region, as part of a larger global problem, and how to solve them.

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12 October
Conference of Networking Specialists
NPOs and NGOs working in the field of information and communications, members from NGOs and NPOs related to the field of community media, and IT researchers will gather at this conference to discuss the subject of networking. This will be the first time that this conference will have been convened in Japan. We will discuss the way to facilitate the use of the internet in the wider community, what communications media should offer, then, what we will do next such as the creation of working groups.
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13 october
International symposium, ‘Civil Society and the Internet; Twenty Years of Networking and Future Prospects’

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Sendai Thurs., Oct. 16th Sendai Mediatheque
1) Workshop for the use of Information Technology in Support of the Activities of Citizens’ Groups
2) ‘Citizens’ Activities and the Internet’ Symposium

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Hiroshima Sat., Oct. 18th Hiroshima City Plaza for Town Development through Citizen Exchange ‘Citizens’ Guide to Transmitting Information Using Various Media’ symposium

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Kobe Sun., Oct. 19th Kobe Crystal Hall ‘Civil Society and Networking’ symposium

-Japan is a laughing stock of the world

The Koizumi Cabinet is expediting preparations to send Self-Defense Forces troops to Iraq and to contribute funds.

The law to send the SDF to Iraq was enacted, but the government first decided not to send the SDF this year. But, once U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage expressed hopes that Japan’s contributions will be “quite generous” and the U.S. president’s visit to Japan was set, the prime minister began to say, “Japan must not hesitate” to send troops and contribute funds.

The U.S. president in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly called on members to provide troops and money. But other U.N. members gave him the cold shoulder, and the U.N. Security Council is unlikely to adopt a resolution to that effect. Japan’s Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro will be the only shameless follower of the U.S. Bush administration in addition to Blair.

Aberrant Japan

U.S. news wires reported that many countries were “unmoved” by the Bush speech. The U.S. authorities admitted that no one was willing to respond to the call.

Given the fact that the United States initiated the lawless war in defiance of extensive international opposition and that it controls the occupation of Iraq without showing any remorse for the outrage, it is natural for many countries to be reluctant to respond to the U.S request for soldiers and money.

By contrast, how stupid it is for Japan to take every order of the U.S. Bush administration and contribute military personnel and money!

By uncritically following the failing hegemony of one country, Japan will become a laughing stock of the international community.

The point is that providing troops and funds to help the military occupation of Iraq will add fuel to Iraqi people’s anger and by no means help Iraq to become stable and reconstruct itself. Instead, they will be obstacles to stability and reconstruction.

In Iraq, public order has not been recovered and little progress has been made in reconstruction efforts because public anger is mounting at the United States for killing and injuring many Iraqi citizens during the lawless war and for murdering and detaining people whom the U.S. forces unilaterally branded as remnants of pro-Hussein forces during the occupation.

Japan’s support for U.S. forces will only serve to prolong the occupation of Iraq and add fuel to the Iraqi people’s anguish and repugnance.

Japan’s support may help consolidate the occupation of Iraq, but not help solve the Iraq question.

In the United States, opposition is increasing to additional funding for the war as illustrated by a sharp decline in the Bush administration’s approval rating after the president asked for more money.

The deployment of SDF personnel will be in harm’s way.

Day after day, U.S. soldiers are being attacked and killed or wounded in Iraq. Iraqi citizens who are regarded as collaborators of U.S. forces are also being targeted. Some East European governments are considering pulling their forces out of Iraq. Even the U.N. staff are urged to consider temporarily withdrawing from Iraq.

By contrast, Japan’s prime minister seems to be trying to please the U.S. president even at the expense of the people and its possible isolation from the world.

The Koizumi Cabinet reportedly wants to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq this year but withhold the plan from the public until after the general election. The government is thus playing with people’s lives and holds the public in contempt.

The majority of the Japanese people have opposed the Bush war.

Prime Minister Koizumi, who supports the Iraq war in defiance of public criticism, has no right to use huge amounts of tax money only to further the war of aggression.

Gather public criticism to stop Japan’s support for the war

To help Iraq get out of the turmoil, it is necessary to support U.N.-led efforts to help in Iraq’s reconstruction, get U.S. forces withdrawn, and restore Iraq’s sovereignty to the Iraqi people.

Many delegates to the U.N. General Assembly made these points. Japanese Foreign Minister Kawaguchi Yoriko was the only exception.

Let’s increase criticism against the Koizumi government and governing parties for supporting the war of aggression. The task now is to stop Japan’s absurd support for the lawless war. (end)

From Japan Press Service
http://www.japan-press.co.jp/2352/sep29.html

-Cluster of U.S. bases in Metropolitan Tokyo

Extraordinary for a capital city, Tokyo and its metropolitan areas have a number of U.S. military bases. The September 14 issue of Akahata explained how extraordinary the situation is in this part of Japan.

The Tokyo area with its overcrowded population has an extraordinarily concentrated presence of U.S. military bases; Yokosuka, the only homeport for the U.S. aircraft carrier other than those in the U.S. mainland, and two major air bases at Yokota (air force) and Atsugi (navy) exist.

These facts clearly indicate that Japan is “virtually a dependent country, with an important part of its land, military matters, and other affairs of state being controlled by U.S. imperialism.” This is what the Japanese Communist Party in its draft revision to the JCP Program points out.

Unthinkable in Europe

The headquarters of the U.S. Forces in Japan and the U.S. Air Force in Japan are located at the U.S. Yokota Air Base in the outskirts of Tokyo, with an airlift wing functioning as a hub of the Pacific linking the U.S. mainland with Asia.

About a half million people living near the Yokota Air Base are exposed day and night to sonic booms from U.S. aircraft .

Only one homeport outside of the U.S. for aircraft carriers

Kanagawa Prefecture hosts 16 U.S. military bases, second only to Okinawa.

The U.S. Yokosuka Naval Base, a stronghold of the U.S. Seventh Fleet operating from the Western Pacific to Africa’s East coast, has been used as the homeport of the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, the only homeport outside of the United States for U.S. aircraft carriers.

Also, one carrier-aircraft unit is deployed at the U.S. Atsugi Naval Air Station located in an area near Yamato and two other cities, the only deployment of this kind in the world.

The Kitty Hawk will reportedly retire before 2008 and will be replaced by a nuclear-powered carrier.

In March 1953, before the first Japan-U.S. Security Treaty came into effect, the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed that the U.S. ground and air forces in Japan would be deployed outside of urban areas and that the U.S. naval force would be concentrated in the minimum number of Japanese ports.

However, the U.S. has betrayed this agreement as it has increased its presence in Japan’s urban areas in order to cover the whole of Asia and the Middle East with their reinforced military facilities.

The Pentagon’s Quadrennial Report (2001 QDR) states that U.S. bases in Europe and Northeast Asia are assigned to play a new role as a hub in contingencies in regions outside of Asia or Europe.

Under this plan, a berth at the Yokosuka base is being extended and Army landing ships are being deployed to Yokohama Port’s North Dock.

Sonic booms affect 1.5 million people

The U.S. Atsugi base is responsible for about 30,000 flights a year. U.S. aircraft fly over the densely populated area with a population of about one and a half million. Daily flight trainings by carrier aircraft are causing noises over 90 WECPNL (the Weighted Equivalent Continuous Perceived Noise Level), the highest level of all airfields in Japan in 1999 and 2000, exceeding those even of Kadena in Okinawa and Yokota in Tokyo.

Last July, residents had to live under extraordinary noise with low-altitude flights by U.S. aircraft coming back from the Iraq War. Many calls of protest were made to local governments concerned.

Also, night landing practices (NLPs) were carried out last January in preparation for the Iraq war. About 300 thousand people live within the area designated by the Japanese government to pay part of the cost for soundproofing. Such NLP operations do not take place on the U.S. mainland.

Deploying new aircraft needs further assessment in U.S.

The state-of-the-art aircraft FA18E Super Hornet is going to be deployed at the Atsugi Base in place of F14s. FA18Es, with an engine power increase of 133 percent over FA18’s, will cause extremely serious noise pollution in this area.

A similar reformation is scheduled for the F14 squadron at the Oceana Naval Base in Virginia, the U.S.A. with about 400,000 residents near the base, where the U.S. Navy carried out an environmental assessment and held public hearings fourteen times. It recently decided to divide and deploy the squadron at two bases, and construct a landing on/off field away from the Oceania base.

In contrast, the U.S. Forces in Japan have done no assessment and held no public hearings. Notices of an introduction of new types of aircraft and carrying out of exercises to the Japanese side have always been made on extremely short notice. No public hearings have been held at all.

Japan’s government urging people to endure noise

The Japanese government is to blame for giving top priority to allow the U.S. Forces operation without restriction in Japan. Defense Agency chief Ishiba Shigeru stated that the more U.S. pilots’ skills are upgraded through NLPs, the more Japan’s war deterrence is increased (February 18, 2003, at the Lower House Budget Committee).

This is the type of attitude that the people living near the U.S. bases must endure because U.S. bases are supposedly functioning in the service of Japan’s national interest. (end)

From Japan Press Service
http://www.japan-press.co.jp/2352/culster.html

-Edward Said-Palestinian, intellectual, and fighter, Edward Said rails against Arafat and Sharon to

by Robert Fisk

The last time I saw Edward Said, I asked him to go on living. I knew about his leukaemia. He had often pointed out that he was receiving “state-of-the-art” treatment from a Jewish doctor and - despite all the trash that his enemies threw at him - he always acknowledged the kindness and honour of his Jewish friends, of whom Daniel Barenboim was among the finest.

Edward was dining at a buffet among his family in Beirut, frail but angry at Arafat’s latest surrender in Palestine/Israel. And he answered my question like a soldier. “I’m not going to die,” he said. “Because so many people want me dead.”

On Wednesday night he died in a New York hospital, aged 67.

I first met him in the early years of the Lebanese civil war. I’d heard of this man, this intellectual fighter and linguist and academic and musicologist and - God spare me for my ignorance in the 1970s - didn’t know much about him. I was told to go to an apartment near Hamra street in Beirut.

There was shooting in the streets - how easily we all came to accept the normality of war - but when I climbed the steps to the apartment, I heard a Beethoven piano sonata. No, it wasn’t the “Moonlight"- nothing so popular for Edward - but I waited outside the brown-painted door for 10 minutes until he had finished.

“You’ve read my books, Robert - but I bet you haven’t read my work on music,” he once scolded me. And of course, I scuttled off to Librarie Internationale in the Gefinor Building in Beirut to buy his definitive book to add to my collection; his wonderful essays on the Palestinians, his excoriation of the corruption and viciousness of Yasser Arafat, his outraged condemnation of the criminality of Ariel Sharon.

He was not a flawless man. He could be arrogant, he could be ruthless in his criticism. He could be repetitive. He could be angry to the point of irradiation. But he had much to be angry about. One afternoon, I went to see him at the Beirut home of his sister Jean - a fine lady whose own account of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Beirut Fragments, is worthy of her brother’s integrity - and he was half-lying on a sofa.

“I’m just a bit tired because of the leukaemia treatment,” he said. “I keep on going. I’ll not stop.”

He was a tough guy, the most eloquent defender of an occupied people and the most irascible attacker of its corrupt leadership. Arafat banned his books in the occupied territories - proving the immensity of Said and the intellectual impoverishment of Arafat.

At that first meeting in Beirut in the late Seventies, I had asked him about Arafat. “I went to a meeting he held in Beirut the other day,” he said. “And Arafat stood there and was questioned about a future Palestinian state, and all he could say was that ‘You must ask every Palestinian child this question.’ Everyone clapped. But what did he mean? What on earth was he talking about? It was rhetoric. But it meant nothing.”

After Arafat went along with the Oslo accords, Said was the first - rightly - to attack him. Arafat had never seen a Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, he said. There wasn’t a single Palestinian lawyer present during the Oslo negotiations. Said was immediately condemned - all of us who said that Oslo would be a catastrophic failure were - as “anti-peace” and, by vicious extension, “pro-terrorist”.

Said would weary of the need to repeat the Palestinian story, the importance of denouncing the old lies - one of them, which especially enraged him, was the myth that Arab radio stations had called upon the Palestinian Arabs of 1948 to abandon their homes in the new Israeli state - but he would repeat, over and over again, the importance of re-telling the tale of Palestinian tragedy.

He was abused by anonymous callers, his office was visited by a fire-bomber, and he was libelled many times by Jewish Americans who hated that he, a professor of literature at Columbia University, could so eloquently and vigorously defend his occupied people.

An attempt was made, in his dying days, to deprive him of his academic job by some cruel supporters of Israel who claimed - the same old, mendacious slur - that he was an anti-Semite. Columbia, in a long but slightly ambivalent statement, defended him. When the Jewish head of Harvard expressed his concern about the rise of “anti-Semitism” in the United States - by those who dared to criticise Israel - Said wrote scathingly that a Jewish academic who was head of Harvard “complains about anti-Semitism!”

As his health declined, he was invited to give a lecture in northern England. I can still hear the lady who organised it complaining that he insisted on flying business class. But why not? Was a critically ill man, fighting for his life and his people, not allowed some comfort across the Atlantic? His friendship with the brilliant Barenboim - and their joint support for an Arab-Israeli orchestra that only last month played in Morocco - was proof of his human decency. When Barenboim was refused permission to play in Ramallah, Said rearranged his concert - much to the fury of the Sharon government, for which Said had only contempt.

The last time I saw him, he was exalted with happiness at the marriage of his son to a beautiful young woman. The time I saw him before, he had been moved to infuriation by the failure of Palestinians in Boston to arrange his slides to a lecture on the “right of return” of Palestinians to Palestine in the right order. Like all serious academics, he wanted accuracy. All the greater was his fury when one of his enemies claimed that he was never a true refugee from Palestine because he was in Cairo at the time of the Palestinian dispossession.

He had no truck with sloppy journalism - take a look at Covering Islam, on the reporting of the Iranian revolution - and he had even less patience with American television anchors. “When I went on air,” he told me once, “the Israeli consul in New York said I was a terrorist and wanted to kill him. And what did the anchorwoman say to me? ‘Mr Said, why do you want to kill the Israeli consul?’ How do you reply to such garbage?”

Edward was a rare bird. He was both an icon and an iconoclast.

Originally published on Znet

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4266

-Israel’s attack is a lethal step towards war in Middle East

by Robert Fisk

Beirut. Israel received the Green Light. It came from what is called the Syria Accountability Act, moving through the United States Congress with the help of Israel’s supporters, that will impose sanctions on Damascus for its supposed enthusiasm for “terrorism” and occupation of Lebanon.

Speaker after speaker in the past week has been warning that Syria is the new - or old, or non-existent - threat previously represented by Iraq: that it has weapons of mass destruction, that it has biological warheads, that it received Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction just before we began our illegal invasion of Iraq in March.

The Israeli lie about “thousands” of Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon has been uncloaked yet again. In reality, there hasn’t been an Iranian militant in Lebanon for 20 years. But who cares? The dictatorial Syrian regime - and dictatorial it most decidedly is - has to be struck after a Jenin woman lawyer, who has probably never visited Damascus in her life, blows herself and 19 innocent Israelis up in Haifa.

And why not? If America can strike Afghanistan for the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and if America can invade Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with 11 September, why shouldn’t Israel strike Syria?

Whole article...

Thursday, October 09, 2003

-When is a Terrorist not a Terrorist? (When he is ISHIHARA Shintaro?)

by Tessa Morris-Suzuki

Unless the Japanese system is capable of responding seriously to the challenges posed by Ishihara’s comments, there is a danger that he may instead come to represent the public acceptance of a sinister new concept in the political vocabulary of Asia: “healthy terrorism.”

Imagine this scenario. A bomb is found at the home of a prominent Foreign Ministry official currently engaged in delicate international negotiations. The bomb is linked to a series of recent threats and attempted attacks on public buildings, all believed to have been carried out by the same political group. In one case, explosives were found outside a bank in the middle of an urban area, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people from their homes.

A prominent politician, speaking at a rally in the midst of a crucial battle for the Prime Ministership, chooses the attempted bombing of the official’s home as a theme of his speech. His message is simple. The official’s own actions had made the attempted bombing an entirely natural response. In short, he had it coming to him.

Which country am I describing? Not Palestine, not Iran, not Malaysia, but Japan – a country that prides itself on its maintenance of law and order, and on its quick response to the events of September 11, 2001. Extraordinary though it seems, these events took place in Japan on the eve of the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Whole article...

Read more...

-Conscientious Objectors and Jailed NonViolent War Protestors

December 1st is Prisoners for Peace Day. War Resisters’ International needs information on peace activists in Japan imprisoned for their nonviolent action against war.

Each year for December 1st War Resisters’ International publishes the Prisoners for Peace list, and calls for support actions and greetings cards to those in prison all over the world. War Resisters’ International depends on the support of peace activists everywhere to collect the information on Prisoners for Peace.

Prisoners for Peace are all those who are imprisoned for conscientious objection to military service, or for nonviolent action against war and militarism, and for peace. This includes that the person concerned should not be known for supporting violence, even when the action where he or she was arrested was an action without violence.
Information on prisoners can be submitted by email, or by using the web form at http://www.wri-irg.org/co/pfpform.htm Anonymous information will not be included.

-Radio LavaLamp Osaka

Call for programming & listing of current line-up on Osaka-based volunteer-run webcast. 
Radio LavaLamp, the webcaster from Osaka via the Live 365 network is still in operation despite a summertime computer crash and near-silence on the publicity front.

Remember, we are always open to “home-made” progressive socio-political programming, as well as original music or spoken word performances by
individuals or groups. All you need to do is to forward an MP3 file, or CD,MD, cassette. Your audio contributions can be on a regular basis
(monthly, every-other-month, etc.) or a 1-time deal.

If you’re interested in sending your voice across the internet with news, interviews, opinions or performance, please contact:
radiolavalamp (at) hotmail.com

Current schedule (from 6 October):

Hour 0
*Seldom Heard Radio 1003: DJ Frederick with obscure & non-commercial music.

Hour 1
*Purple Nucleus of Creation 1003: DJ Frederick presents an ethereal music selection.
*Between The Lines: Weekly non-corporate controlled news from WPKN.

Hour 2
*Shortwave Report: Weekly world news from international broadcasters.
Produced & presented by Dan Roberts.
*Making Contact: A Different Kind of Info War.
National Radio Project.

Hour 3
*Changesurfer Radio: Walt Anderson argues that humanism, psychoanalysis, existentialism, etc. are the basis of a Western “enlightenment”.
Presented by Dr. J. Hughes. WHUS.
*Radio Free School: “The Buzz About Bees.” Program for home learners or anyone interested in quality educational programming. Courtesy of CFMU.

Hour 4
*Sonic Boom Radio #7: Electro-Experimental music presented by Dr. Boom.
*The Latest Show on Earth. Listener-contributed alternative music & experimental genre. This installment features alternative rock by British
bands, Micawba and The Psychedelic Breakfast + a very unique audio collage by NY-based, Scott Marshall. Radio LavaLamp.

Hour 5
*Voyage of the Illuminati: “The Talking Mushroom.” New Time psycho-sci-fi radio show by Alan Maxwell.

Hour 6
*Undercover Radio: Originally a shortwave pirate broadcast, the show features an eclectic mix of music & spoken word, including William S. Burroughs.

Hour 7
*PopDefect Radio: “Resistance Freakuency.” Alternative political tunes.
Produced by Skidmark Bob/ Free Radio Santa Cruz.
*Beneath the Surface (Excerpt): The Strange Case of Josh Canole. KPFK interview with 25 year-old pacifist, arrested at gunpoint & released 4 days later without charges ever being brought.
*World Rythms: Truncated show featuring a sufi musical piece simply called, “Qawwali.”

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