Berkeley joins Steinem & Stone in seeking Justice 4 Jeju.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                      December 11, 2013

Berkeley joins Steinem & Stone in seeking Justice 4 Jeju.

Contacts:    

Paul Liem:  510-414-5575 pliem@mindspring.com              

KJ Noh:  k.j.noh48@gmail.com              

Christine Ahn: christineahn@mac.com  

Stephanie Miyashira 524-2624                           

Councilmember Max  Anderson 981-7130                   

Councilmember Kriss Worthington (510) 981-7170 kworthington@cityofberkeley.info

Berkeley made history by becoming the first City in a growing international movement of environmentalists and peace activists to stand up for villagers on Jeju Island in their long struggle to oppose a massive naval base being built on the beautiful island.

Gloria Steinem emailed the Berkeley City Council:  "…There are some actions for which those of us alive today will be judged in centuries to come. The only question will be: What did we know and when did we know it?  I think one judgment-worthy action may be what you and I do about the militarization of Jeju Island, South Korea, in service of the arms race.”

Jeju Island is UNESCO’s only triple honoree: a Global Geological Park, a Biosphere Reserve, and a World Heritage Site.  This environmental jewel was designated an “Absolute Conservation Area” by the Korean Government, was proclaimed an “Island of Peace”, and voted one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World.”

 Affected local villagers have engaged in seven years of principled non-violent struggle, facing endless beatings, arrests, fines, and imprisonment.  Most recently, Sister Stella Soh, the first Catholic Nun in Korean history to be arrested for an act of conscience, was arraigned in a Korean court. 

Stephanie Miyashira, an activist in a wheel chair, broke down in tears as she implored the council to support the cause of peace. She agreed with Oliver Stone, who stated : “I deplore the militarization of Jeju Island.  I deplore the building of the base. This is leading up to a war, and we cannot have another war here.  We have to stop this thing.” 

Christine Ahn, a scholar at the Korea Policy Institute, wrote in a heartfelt and moving letter to Berkeley City Council that she had named her daughter Jeju because of her passion for the cause of the peace activists on the island. 

Berkeley’s Resolution calls on the US Military "to cease supporting the base which will gravely harm the fragile ecology, damage the livelihood of the people of Jeju, and make this Island of Peace a pawn of the great powers and a magnet for military conflict.” 

This historic vote will be celebrated in a press conference at 6:30 PM on December 17 at Berkeley Old City Hall steps, 2134 MLK Jr. Way, Berkeley 94704

Contacts:    

Paul Liem:  510-414-5575 pliem@mindspring.com              

KJ Noh: k.j.noh48@gmail.com              

Christine Ahn: christineahn@mac.com  

 Stephanie Miyashira 524-2624                           

Councilmember Max  Anderson 981-7130                   

 Councilmember Kriss Worthington (510) 981-7170 kworthington@cityofberkeley.info

Military Sexual Violence: From Frontline to Fenceline

By Annie Isabel Fukushima and Gwyn Kirk, June 17, 2013

As more U.S. military women break the silence about sexual violence committed by their comrades in arms, it is clear that sporadic “scandals”—at the Tailhook Naval Aviators’ Convention (1991), Aberdeen Proving Grounds Ordnance Center (1996), the U.S. Air Force Academy (2003)—are not isolated incidents, but spring from the mycelium of U.S. military culture and ideology. Read more...

Message from the International Women’s Network Against Militarism to the peoples movement for No Naval Base on Jeju!

September 1, 2011

Dear friends in the struggle against US military expansion at Jeju Island,

We women from Okinawa, mainland Japan, the Philippines, Marshall Islands, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Australia and west-coast USA send our greetings in solidarity with the people of Ganjeong who oppose the construction of a new naval base to house Aegis destroyers.

We understand that 94 percent of the residents do not want this base. We admire and respect your strong opposition by occupying land seized by the government and by blocking roads in an attempt to stop construction. We deplore the fact the South Korean government has ordered police to take further measures against you, especially as you have used every possible democratic means to overturn the decision to construct the base in the pristine waters and land that have been your livelihood for many generations.

We agree that this base and the increased militarization of the island of Jeju will create new security threats in an increasingly tense region.

We also live in communities that experience increased militarization and the effects of enormous military investments that distort our local economies and take resources needed for our communities to thrive. The political and military alliances between our governments and the United States jeopardize our genuine security. Indeed, U.S. military expansion in the Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean relies on these alliances to tie our communities together according to their version of security that is not sustainable.

The plan to relocate U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam includes military construction projects that involve labor from Hawai’i, Micronesia and the Philippines. In addition to the destruction and loss of life caused by continued wars in the Middle East, these wars are also destabilizing our economies. For example, Filipinos who have been recruited to work on military construction projects are laid off during times of crisis and return to the Philippines where they have no jobs. On Guam, local companies cannot compete with larger military contractors and are seldom able to get contracts for base construction projects. The establishment of the U.S. military base at Ke Awa Lau o Pu’uloa, or Pearl Harbor, has transformed Oahu's food basket into a toxic “Superfund” site where many of Hawai’i's poorest communities live along its contaminated shores. In Puerto Rico, Governor Luis Fortuño has unleashed brutality against citizens, and suppression of their civil liberties because of protests against budget cuts to public services and education. In the continental United States a new campaign is calling for new priorities in federal spending away from war and toward services to support local communities.

We see your struggle as part of a wider pattern of people’s protest against increasing militarization.
Although we are far away, please know that we stand with you. We thank you for your courage to resist the militarization of your home. Your example inspires and strengthens us.

In solidarity,

Signed, on behalf of the IWNAM:

Kozue Akibayashi, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Japan
Ellen-Rae Cachola, Women for Genuine Security/Women's Voices Women Speak, U.S. & Hawai'i
Grace Caligtan, Women's Voices Women Speak, Hawai'i
Lotlot de la Cruz, KAISAKA, Philippines
Cora Valdez Fabros, Scrap VFA Movement & Philippine Women's Network for Peace and Security, Philippines
Annie Fukushima, Women for Genuine Security, U.S.
Terri Keko'olani, Women's Voices Women Speak, Hawai'i
Gwyn Kirk, Women for Genuine Security, U.S.
Rev. Deborah Lee, Women for Genuine Security, U.S.
Bernadette “Gigi” Miranda, Women's Voices Women Speak, Hawai'i
Eri Oura, Women's Voices Women Speak, Hawai'i
María Reinat Pumarejo, Colectivo Ilé: Organizadoras para la Conciencia-en-Acción
Aida Santos-Maranan, Women's Education, Development, Productivity and Research Organization (WEDPRO), Philippines
Dr. Hannah Middleton, Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, Australia
Suzuyo Takazato, Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, Okinawa
Lisa Natividad, Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice, Guahan (Guam)
Ana Maria R. Nemenzo, WomanHealth Philippines.
Darlene Rodrigues, Women’s Voices Women Speak, Hawai’i

The International Women’s Network Against Militarism was formed in 1997 when forty women activists, policy-makers, teachers, and students from South Korea, Okinawa, mainland Japan, the Philippines and the continental United States gathered in Okinawa to strategize together about the negative effects of the US military in each of our countries.  In 2000, women from Puerto Rico who opposed the US Navy bombing training on the island of Vieques also joined; followed in 2004 by women from Hawai’i and in 2007 women from Guam.  The Network is not a membership organization, but a collaboration among women active in our own communities, who share a common mission to demilitarize their lands and communities. For more information, visit  http://www.genuinesecurity.org.

Women Vets of Color Speak Out

Colorlines, News feature, Michelle Chen, Posted: Aug 02, 2008

Women veterans of color who have returned home from the military. Three of them shared their stories with Colorlines.

WHEN KRISTINA MCCAULEY LOOKS BACK on her time in boot camp, one scene sticks out: she’s standing in the sun as blood flows down her wrist, hoping no one will notice her among the rows of trainees chanting and brandishing bayonets.

Thinking back, she’s not sure why she grabbed her weapon the wrong way during that drill. But when she saw that the bayonet on her rifle had sliced cleanly across her hand, she knew calling for help would only invite her drill sergeants to make her life more miserable.

“I was just standing out there in the heat of the day and bleeding and trying to be quiet about it,” she recalled later in an interview. Soon, a female drill sergeant came over to berate her for her stupidity—as a lesson to the other trainees—and tossed a few bandages at her.

Today, McCauley, a half-Japanese lesbian, has a degree in international peace studies. She’s not your “typical” veteran. As a mixed-race girl with a boyish streak in a straight-laced suburb, McCauley signed up for the military hoping “to belong somewhere.” The service promised respect, power and a chance to test her physical and mental limits.

Today, McCauley, a half-Japanese lesbian, has a degree in international peace studies. She’s not your “typical” veteran. As a mixed-race girl with a boyish streak in a straight-laced suburb, McCauley signed up for the military hoping “to belong somewhere.” The service promised respect, power and a chance to test her physical and mental limits.

But putting on the greens didn’t bring the transformation she had sought. Instead, she discovered the Army’s veneer of uniformity masks deep fault lines of culture, class and sexuality. She eventually emerged from the military’s rigid hierarchy to embrace what she had tried to escape—by reconnecting with her Japanese heritage, coming out to her family and reorienting her political perspective.

“I made a conscious effort to educate myself more deeply,” she said. “I began to study race, sexuality and gender, with a hope to understand my own place in the world more clearly.”

McCauley’s quest resonates throughout the growing ranks of military women of color. Though their decision to enlist is often inspired by hopes of self-empowerment, they may quickly stumble on a landscape of familiar impediments where the rules of race and gender still dictate who fights, who wins and who suffers.

There are about 200,000 active-duty military women today, some 14 percent of the total force, according to federal data. About half of them are women of color. Women of color also now make up around a third of former service members. Of a little more than 1.7 million women veterans nationwide, about 19 percent are Black and 7 percent are Latina. Asian American, Pacific Islander, American Indian and mixed-race women each comprise up to 2 percent or less. Proportionally, people of color comprise a greater share of female veterans than of male veterans.

Women of color, like others, are drawn into the armed forces by both needs and ideals. Some are spurred by patriotism or a desire for adventure; others just want a stable job or money for college. Whatever their economic or social motives, the recruitment rhetoric pushed to youth across the country markets the military as a way out of their current circumstances and on toward where they need to go.
But the soldier’s path leads many women of color back to where they started—to the turbulence and entrenched discrimination besetting their home communities. And for some, the journey veers unexpectedly toward a new political consciousness.

Maricela Guzman, a Latina Navy veteran who now works as a counter-recruitment activist in California, urges youth of color to look past the sales pitch of economic opportunity.

“You’re going to this environment thinking you’re going to make all this money,” she warned, “but you’re going back to a system that is going to keep you down.”

For many young people, spending a 21st birthday in boot camp would be a sobering experience. But Eli PaintedCrow had grown up early; passing a birthday in the Army was one way to ensure her children would spend theirs under better circumstances.

She joined the Army to get off welfare and support her young sons. She also sought a kind of camaraderie she never had growing up in the barrios of San Jose, estranged from her ancestral community, the indigenous Yaqui Nation.

“It really did make me feel like I belonged somewhere and that I could be good at something,” she said.

As a fresh Navy recruit a few weeks into basic training, Maricela Guzman shouldn’t have been surprised to find herself facedown on the floor, frantically doing push-ups. She had not followed proper procedure for addressing a commander in his office—knocking before entering and asking permission to speak. Accordingly, he told her to “drop” as punishment.

But while the penalty was routine, the circumstances were not: she had come to tell him she had been raped.

Before she could say anything, though, she had to repeat the drill to her commander’s satisfaction. “I think it was 20 minutes later after I was able to do it right,” she said. “And I was so numb afterwards that I couldn’t even say anything.”

In the late 1990s, Guzman, a child of Mexican immigrants, was getting back to her education at a Los Angeles community college after leaving high school to work, when a young Black man approached her and told her enthusiastically about the Navy. Guzman researched the military’s education benefits and grilled the recruiter on what the service would be like. In the end, she signed up, confident she wasn’t making her decision blindly.

But she never saw him coming.

One night at boot camp, on watch duty, she recalled, “I passed a dark corner, somebody grabbed me, and I was raped.” Though she only caught a glimpse of her attacker in the darkness, she said, “It had to be one of the drill sergeants. Just the type of uniform that he had.”

Continue reading  here.

*****

To read full article, visit: http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=8e5a5122253a424bdedb43fac6acd95f

Living Along the Fenceline: Women Resisting Militarism and Creating a Culture of Life

This powerful documentary tells stories of women from communities around the world which "host" long-term US military bases. These women and their families have personally suffered the tragic hidden costs of US military bases to their environment, health, land and personal safety. This beautiful film, produced by Women for Genuine Security and directed by award-winning filmmaker, Lina Hoshino, captures seven wome's courageous stories of transformation as they emerge as inspiring leaders who create hope, change and genuine security for their people.

Hawaii Premiere:

Friday, Dec. 4, 6:30PM 
Harris United Methodist Church, Miyama Hall
(Corner of Nu'uanu and Vineyard, Honolulu)

Suggested donation: $5-10 (no one turned away)
Proceeds going to completing Hawaii segment.

contact rev.deb.lee[at]gmail.com

Obama's Denuclearization Policy in N. Korea

Sung-Hee of No Base Stories of Korea shares information on President Obama's policy regarding North Korea's denuclearization.

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2009/11/text-fwd-obama-warns-n-korea-of.html
Friday, November 13, 2009
Text Fwd: Obama warns N. Korea of continued sanctions unless it denuclearizes

But, I just want to remind us how Obama has threatened the North Korea and the world.

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2009/09/text-fwd-us-braces-for-possible-nuke.html
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Text Fwd: 'US Braces for Possible Nuke War With NK'

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2009/11/text-fwd-print-conversation-print-open.html
Friday, November 13, 2009
Text Fwd: Obama to Retain "Nuclear Overkill" Capacity

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2009/11/video-fwd-who-threatens-peace-north.html

And  how about his pressure to South Korea(re-dispatch) and Japan (fund) for the war in Afghanistan?  Koreans had a rally yesterday. Even though I need more compensation in it.

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2009/11/koreans-protest-no-re-dispatch-to.html

Otherwise, I was informed the excellent video today. It is a must-see video! A Gift from Malaysia!

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2009/11/video-fwd-war-crimes-multimedia.html

Women at War

October 21, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor

By PAULA BROADWELL
One ill-informed social norm that has stymied U.S. effectiveness in counterinsurgency operations relates to the efficacy of having female military personnel serving on the frontline. While many women in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown their ability to use force, one particular group exemplifies how women are essential to winning local hearts and minds. The apparent success of the Marine Corps Female Engagement Teams, or F.E.T.’s — first established last February in Afghanistan — illustrates that the odds of success significantly improve when we use these forces to establish bonds with the other half of Afghanistan’s population — its women.

The F.E.T. units are comprised of female marines with various operational specialties who conduct liaison work with Afghan women in remote villages. Their assignments range from searching women at checkpoints to running medical clinics to their core mission of engaging rural Pashtun women, often in their homes.

According to a September Marine Corps After Action Review, the teams have been most effective when Afghans perceive their intent as one of establishing a relationship of mutual trust and interest, rather than one of gathering intelligence. They often are welcomed into village homes while dressed in military drab and headscarves. Afghans purportedly view these American women as a “third gender” — female marines are extended the respect shown to men, but granted the access reserved for women. This access has shown the Americans that indigenous women wield significant influence with their husbands, brothers and, especially, their adolescent sons. The presence of F.E.T.’s sends a strong signal of peaceful engagement to local villages. As one village elder put it, “Your men come to fight, but we know the women are here to help.”

Employing women directly on the front lines in this manner may be critical to meeting our objectives. However, significant impediments inhibit the engagement teams from having a broader impact: The Defense Department’s ground combat policy that excludes women, the ad hoc nature of the teams, and the readiness and quantity of available female troops and qualified Pashto linguists.

The Defense Department’s most recent version of the “ground combat exclusion policy,” established in 1994, states: “Service members are eligible to be assigned to all positions for which they are qualified, except that women shall be excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground.” The policy goes on to define “direct combat” as “engaging an enemy on the ground with individual or crew served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with hostile force’s personnel.

“Direct ground combat takes place well forward on the battlefield while locating and closing with the enemy to defeat them by fire, maneuver, and shock effect.”

However, the persistent threat of counterinsurgencies combined with evidence of women’s proven effectiveness in such situations serve as powerful reasons for updating the law.

The U.S. military’s Central Command recently published a “Memorandum of Law Concerning Women in Combat Support Operations.” It explicitly condones the use of the F.E.T.’s. The Defense Department’s general counsel is scheduled to consider the matter in the near future.

For now, these F.E.T. initiatives are confined to the Marines and there are relatively few women available for these jobs — only 6 percent of Marine Corps personnel are women. Moreover, given the ad hoc nature of the teams — F.E.T. members have “day jobs,” serving as logisticians or intelligence officers or in other vital positions — their commanders are often understandably reticent to give up an individual for an additional duty.

While their efforts pay high yields for the military, the missions are hazardous: F.E.T. convoys have been the target of I.E.D.’s and enemy rifle fire. To prepare for such missions, female marines must find time to pursue supplemental training — in immediate action drills, search techniques and cultural nuances — beyond their own operational specialty. Fortunately, the success of the peaceful engagement teams has created incentives to establish improved training for team members, although the dearth of women Pashto translators remains a critical problem.

The success of the F.E.T. initiative illustrates how the Marine Corps is adapting to the counterinsurgency threat in an innovative way. Now it is time for Defense Department to adapt its regulations as well.

Paula Broadwell, a former U.S. Army officer, is a research associate at The Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University and a board member of Women in International Security.