Demilitarize coalition calls for an end to RIMPAC war games
Coalition’s letter to the federal and Hawaiʻi state governments charges United States’ militarism with the perpetuation of violence and oppression across the Pacific.
Occurring every two years, the Rim of the Pacific Exercises—RIMPAC—is emblematic of the heightened militarization of the Pacific (and the world) that the United States has championed since the post-World War II era. The biannual war games have expanded since the first RIMPAC in 1971, which included units from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. As of this year, about 25,000 naval personnel and 52 ships and submarines from 26 different countries will participate over the course of July–August, 2018.
A coalition of peace activists from Women’s Voices Women Speak, Hawaiʻi Peace and Justice, World Can’t Wait-Hawaiʻi, Veterans for Peace-Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiʻi Okinawa Alliance and community allies has delivered a letter calling on the federal government and the Hawaiʻi State government to cancel RIMPAC. The letter describes the destructive impact militarism has on communities and the environment and calls for a pathway to demilitarization, beginning with an end to the war games.
The authors write:
Instead of the practice of war and more militarism, we call for practicing peace and intergenerational healing in Hawaiʻi, Moana Nui (Oceania) and across the Earth. We envision a future of genuine security where our efforts focus on sovereignties, cultural resurgence, health, food, education, sacred places, housing, sustainability and respect and dignity for all peoples.
RIMPAC is the largest naval exercise in the world, and it takes place in Hawaiian waters. It is part of the U.S Navy’s effort to coordinate military exercises and weapons training with military forces of other nations to control the Pacific and Indian Oceans. RIMPAC was established in 1971 with militaries from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the U.S. Since then, Chile, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Ecuador, India, Mexico, the Philippines and Russia joined. RIMPAC 2018 will feature 26 nations, including Israel, Brazil, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
RIMPAC increases Hawaiʻi’s dependence on a militarized economy, spending our tax dollars for weapons, assault vehicles, artilleries and technologies to use for domestic and international violence. Tourism colludes with militarism via RIMPAC, as Hawaiʻi hosts an influx of visitors, some of whom contribute to local sex industries supported by sex trafficking. Hawaiʻi can be used for R&R and host for military exercises because it is considered the 50th State of the U.S., an illegal status since the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the 1898 illegal annexation that took place without a treaty and that was opposed by thousands of Kanaka Maoli who signed petitions against it.
The letter goes on to list multiple abuses that the people and land have suffered in Hawaiʻi as a result of its military occupation by the United States:
The U.S. Navy’s fuel storage tank in Red Hill, sits 100 feet over a water aquifer of Honolulu, threatening fresh drinking water of the most populated parts of Oʻahu.
Pōhakuloa, on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, four times larger than Kahoʻolawe, is controlled by the U.S. Army for weapons and military training, affecting the environment and surrounding community with aerosolized Depleted Uranium.
Disinterred and disturbed Kanaka Maoli burial and cultural sites in Mākua Valley (U.S. Army), Mōkapu (Kāneʻohe Marine Corp Base Hawaiʻi), Puʻuloa (Pearl Harbor) and Nohili (Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands) for U.S. military training purposes.
Threats to public information privacy through the Hawaii Cryptologic Center, which houses NSA intelligence, surveillance and cyberwarfare efforts.
But the damage the U.S. military does extends beyond the shores of Hawaiʻi to impact the Pacific, and the entire world:
The negative effects of militarism and RIMPAC extend to places to which many in Hawaiʻi can trace their ancestries. For centuries, western empires have colonized Pacific Islands, transforming them into military outposts that subjected the native people to war, rape, repression of sovereignty, environmental contamination and displacement.
Today, the newest iteration of this ongoing history is the Pacific Pivot / Indo-Pacific Rebalance, in which the U.S. leverages its power over its colonial possessions for military weapons testing through a “transit corridor” that projects from the Southern California Range Complex (SCRC) in San Diego, cutting across the Pacific through the Hawaiian Island Range Complex (HIRC), which includes the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and the military installations on the main island chain.
Another transit coordinator connects the HIRC to the Mariana Island Training & Testing Area (MITT), including Guåhan (Guam), the southern chain of the Mariana Islands, and parts of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument as land, sea and air zones for U.S. Military training purposes. In between are marine national monuments that can be used for military purposes for “national security.” This military infrastructure across the Pacific links with bases in the Korean peninsula (Jeju Island), Japan (Okinawa), and the Philippines.
The Chamoru people of Guåhan are demanding a stop to the creation of live fire bases, such as in Litekyan, Guam, because they threaten cultural sites and endangered plants and animals.
Filipinos are protesting President Rodrigo Duterte’s support for militarization, which extended martial law in Mindanao and increased extrajudicial killings.
The villagers of Gangjeong have resisted a naval base for ballistic missile defense systems on Jeju Island since 2007.
Okinawans have sparked an island-wide protest against military bases’ disruption of local democracy and economy, and the daily endangerment to public health and safety.
While the military bases are promoted to build mutual security in the region, they are really about the spread of a U.S. ideology of nationalist “security” in which nations become addicted to arms and resource-extractive economies that fuel climate change, displace Indigenous peoples, worsen out-migration, destroy natural resources, abuse workers and pollute oceans.
Section 1 of the Hawaiʻi State Constitution states that: “For the benefit of present and future generations, the State and its political subdivisions shall conserve and protect Hawaiʻi’s natural beauty and all natural resources, including land, water, air, minerals and energy sources, and shall promote the development and utilization of these resources in a manner consistent with their conservation and in furtherance of the self-sufficiency of the State. All public natural resources are held in trust by the State for the benefit of the people.”
The coalition is calling on the State of Hawaiʻi to uphold these constitutional principles by ending RIMPAC: “We demand that the Hawaiʻi State Government choose to protect Hawaiʻi citizens, our environment and a peaceful future, rather than supporting military dependence.”
Sign the World Can’t Wait-Hawaiʻi Change.org petition to Stop RIMPAC.
