Calling for an end to RIMPAC Exercises in Hawai'i

June 22, 2018.  Women's Voices Women Speak is part of a coalition of organizations, such as Hawaiʻi Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace, World Can't Wait Hawai'i, Hawaii-Okinawa Alliance, asking the State of Hawaiʻi to end the Rim of the Pacific Exercises planned to begin in Hawaiian waters at the end of June to August 2018.  We are asking the settler state of Hawaiʻi to make the decision to protect the peoples of this place.

While some members of WVWS are non-Indigenous settlers in  Hawaiʻi, we have seen and felt the violent effect of militarization in Hawaiian lands and on Kanaka Maoli people. We have felt that violence in our own homelands and our families today. An article by 2 Hawai'i born Filipina organizers spoke out against the Philippine Navy's participation in RIMPAC, reminding our communities of the violence that militarization has done in ancestral lands outside of Hawai'i--why should we continue to join and support current military efforts if it has never benefitted our lands and peoples?

As such, we ask those who work or reside in the settler state of Hawaiʻi to realize their responsibility to decolonize and heal.  This includes making the decision to affirm the truth of Hawaiian Sovereignty by standing up for the protection of Hawaiʻis lands from more military training. The bombing on Pōhakuloa will continue to intensify under RIMPAC. There will be an increase in sex-trafficking as soldiers from around the world will be using our islands for rest and recreation and justifying the commercialization of children's, women's and LGBTQ bodies.

We ask for our society to believe in the Indigenous people's values and knowledge to take care of our lands, instead of siding with capitalist industries and markets that extract or build over our natural environment for more urbanization, commercialization and militarization, which will not solve our problem of houselessness that all of us cannot ignore in the streets.

We envision Hawai'i to be the center of Peace Restoration, instead of war mongering. We believe in all of our capacities to reconnect and find the truth that there are other ways that we can build our communities based on sustainability and clean energy, based on healing our relationships for future generations.