 Happy Aloha Friday and welcome to Perspectives on Global Justice, Pink Tech Hawaii program. This is your host, Beatrice Cantelmo. Does the military presence and activities bring more security and peace around the globe? As the U.S. and Japan intensify the missile crisis in the Korea Peninsula, should the Pacific continue to be used as a U.S. military keystone, or is it time for the Pacific to make a keystone call for peace instead? First wars have taught us painful lessons that should never be forgotten or repeated. In 2018, millions of people across the globe are calling for peace, building and diplomacy to be practiced to maintain potent ties with the rest of the globe and for the escalation of conflicts to prevent new nuclear war, unnecessary destruction, suffering and that. Let's welcome Pete Doctor to this important discussion. Pete will also share insights from his visit to Okinawa in December, as well as the urgent call from the people of Okinawa's resistance against U.S. military base expansion and their self-determination to fight for their basic human rights to continue to exist and to live in peace. Pete Shimazaki Doctor is a former Army medic, history teacher and the co-founder of HUA, which stands for Hawaii Okinawa Alliance and the Valerance for Peace chapters in Hawaii and Okinawa. Welcome darling. Aloha. Aloha. Wow. So it's been a little while, but you were here last year with us and Pete, to those of our viewers who did not have a chance to visit the last program, can you give us a little background about what is going on in Okinawa? Well, a little background is Okinawa was formerly the U.Q. Kingdom. It was a sovereign nation like Hawaii. It was overthrown illegally by Japan and after that it was started the militarization of Okinawa began as Japan built its empire, which of course led to World War II where it was the site of the biggest Pacific battle between the U.S. and Japan in which almost one of three Okinawans perished. So it's quite a traumatic historical event. And subsequently after the war the U.S. didn't leave. They set up. They expanded those military bases formally from Japan and expanded them with bayonets and bulldozers while people were in concentration camps essentially after the war when there was much chaos and a lot of leases and whatnot from the land that was destroyed from the war. And that brings us up to 2018 where the military instead of leaving has now entrenched itself. They're proposing more military bases. And right now we have about 30 U.S. military bases in Okinawa and a large one to be built in Henokko Bay. So I think for our viewers here in Hawaii that would be the equivalent of like having Waimea Bay or perhaps Waimanama Bay pretty much destroyed and taken over in order to have like a new military base. That's one way to put it to get across the pristine beautiful bay and marine life that exists in there are many endemic and dangerous species there. So that's an accurate analogy including the filling it with literally hundreds of tons of concrete which has started they started the Inazuma Initial Foundation. So obviously there is an environmental impact which is disastrous to Okinawa and the people of Okinawa but also there is big concerns about their human rights and their desire to live their lives in peace and being demilitarized. So we get to talk a little bit about that but I wanted to talk with you about your visit to Okinawa in December and how did you end up getting that? What was your role going to Okinawa? Well this last month's visit was part of Veterans for Peace which is a national growing family international organization it's a third delegation they've had however my history of Okinawa goes quite back farther going there as a child my mother's from there and my whole maternal family is still in Okinawa so that's my introduction to it. However again this is... So very deep and personal connection to wanting to be an advocate to be a part of this process too. It is very much personal you know I have family there that are threatened you know by the presence of the US military however it's trans-personal too this is hardly Okinawa's hardly the only place with such militarization and unfortunately it's one of many colonies. And so could you show us a minute of a video that we have featuring Yamashiro? So wow one minute and I got the goosebumps just to watch those images and to hear the words and the fight of Hiroshi Yamashiro so let's talk a little bit about why you know we have so many thousands of people of Okinawa doing massive peaceful nonviolent protests and also cover a little bit of the history with what happened with Mr. Hiroshi Yamashiro because I think it's important for our viewers to understand the seriousness and the power of US militarization, military presence in certain areas and how does this note walking out for the people of Okinawa, does one can go on from that? Ok well first I want to say that for the encourage folks to watch the rest of that video that was just the first minute and so if you go to the peace report online and you will find that video from Yamashiro Hiroshi and others from Okinawa where they can see more of those. I also mentioned that not just to give them credit the peace report but also one of the main people behind the peace report, Will Griffin is also a member of Veterans for Peace and he was there on the delegation so that's how he got the footage and so forth. It's relevant. So I'll ask you a question like how did Hawaii or Okinawa's upset? Why gave a very brief history? What I overlooked in that very brief history is just that Okinawa was a really small kingdom has always had neighbors that could military threaten or you could say as they had many neighbors of which they could trade and exchange and enrich themselves so they chose a former the latter path that is and as an independent nation they demilitarized themselves. They collected arms and the reason for that is they realized that if they were to come up to battle Japan, China or any other neighboring kingdoms that they would be easily crushed as such as an island smaller than Hawaii. They have like 1.5 million people living there nowadays which is almost the entire population of Hawaii. It's more and a region that's seven times smaller. So but the point is that peace has brought prosperity and life as they say in Okinawa that life is a treasure. That has been experienced because counter that is war and militarism has brought great suffering as we saw and not just in World War II but prior to that when Japan started militarizing Okinawa and expanding through Asia it's colonies for its empire. So it's not a political ideology necessary that unites people in fact the political movement spans from the most progressive to conservative and commercial business and cultural practitioners and other business and government united because of the many detrimental impacts from the military. So it ranges from the numerous accidents of which war and no war threaten life and that would include the many chemical contaminants that are present from military bases not just in Okinawa but right here in Hawaii and across around the planet. And so it really is counter to that new to do talk about the life is a treasure to have a economy in a way of life that's all centered around war and preparing for war because the war in Okinawa ended in 1945 but here we are 72 years later. One war after another Korea Vietnam Iraq Afghanistan and so forth and it continues using these colonies as forward deployment basis for the military. Right and now that unfortunately we are having so many issues with the escalation of the relationship between US military and North Korea. I think Okinawa isn't a really bad place because if anything were to happen they're gone as many older places you know in that region of the Pacific but I think also it's very important to say that it's this this cry of you know 1.5 million people who also happen to be of indigenous descent saying you know our land does not belong to United States and there are questions about Japan being also you know even part of this process but they have their own political process and they have expressed I think it was like over 75% of the people of Okinawa said we don't want a military expansion another one in Okinawa and yet exactly yet that was completely not considered by the Japanese government who made that decision for the people of Okinawa that it was in their best interest to have another massive military base expansion there so these people are really struggling and I think what was very alarming to me in addition to not having the voices of the people of Okinawa and heard by Japanese government was also the retaliation when the people went around the bases to do protest and Mr Hiroshi Yamashiro his story was very compelling I think to many people across the globe because he was unjustly arrested and sent to Japan you know to be in jail peaceful protest and so the authoritarian government regimen of Japan also supports this movement of United United States military movement around you know that area too so do you want to talk a little bit about what was it like for you I think as a variance for peace organizer and also as an army you know medic but to see people going through this and having their most basic human rights taken away from them well it's clearly not security and then that's everything that's there the military and the role of US and Japan like you said it's a it's collusion they're both equally guilty for this situation it just strikes you as contradictory that if we are there to liberate a people and bring them freedom then consequently take it away from them you know that is their sovereignty their self-determination and whatnot if in fact the US military was protecting the lives and the economy of the people of Okinawa they wouldn't be resisting that you know it's a common lie that you know we saw in Iraq when they said when they said we're going there to liberate Iraq and then to protect then people are like insurgents are shooting back as like okay if you're there to help them why are they shooting at you you know unless if it was genuine aid and so you know I know generations of vets including the ones on the delegation that it just defies any logic in terms of uh a defensive use of military so let's take a minute break and we're going to get back to this issue good afternoon my name is Howard wig I am the proud host of code green a program on think tech Hawaii we show at three o'clock in the afternoon every other monday my guests are specialists both from here and the mainland on energy efficiency which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket aloha i'm kelly akina and i'm here every other week on mondays at two o'clock p.m on think tech hawaii's hawaii together in hawaii together we talk with some of the most fascinating people in the islands about working together working together for a better economy government and society so i invite you into our conversation every other monday at two p.m on think tech hawaii broadcast network join us for hawaii together i'm kelly akina aloha welcome to prospectors on global justice think tech hawaii program this is your host pete riskant aloha and we are back with pete jimasaki doctor so pete we were talking about um it's a big question it's them it's that million mega saner questions not only for the united states but i think for people over the globe is military presence able to really make people in places safer and better what is your perspective on that okay well first of all we let's differentiate military from militarism yes they they're related they overlap the difference is not necessarily making a pacifist argument of no military period necessarily we're talking a little bit more about militarism what militarism is is using the military for purposes other than self-defense say on one's border so for example when the military is not just for self-defense but it's used for getting kids to go to college when it's used for economic and political agendas and so forth so dictatorships for example countries well dictatorships but even right now like and trump and the republicans current not to mix up issues but they're claiming that democrats are putting illegal immigrants over the over the military okay that's not really what's that the issue at hand with immigration but they've dragged in the military as political the political aspect of political and cultural because the other part of militarism is it's like the military supreme over civilians like white supremacy military supremacy so that's you see that in the way they have so many military holidays and months and recognition and this one of the highest honors is to be recognized you know as a former sergeant soldier you know I get thanked for my service you know as you know that could be said the same for doctors teachers and so forth right but with people in the military in this culture whether it's democratic or not their turn right so actually one example to come to mind for me as an example of militarism and not feeling safe at all or having a sense of peace and security I had to do with my experience growing up under a military dictatorship in Brazil so the first 13 years of my life that was the regime we had and the military wasn't really there to make sure that you know the population was okay it was actually quite a repressive regime and very punitive you know those who dare to speak or to go against their government structure who you know seized they were tortured they were killed so definitely a very personal example of where militarism didn't work and it doesn't work no and I think with the recent false alarm in Hawaii of course there's many different reactions to it there was no perspective on that in militarism well on this topic I mean it just when the I got the alarm like many people did in Hawaii and it struck me as odd because I didn't hear the sirens and so I kind of questioned it right away while we you know got our family secure but I went to investigate it you know looking online and finding the validity of it but you know first what struck me was the information itself even if that was not a false alarm it was a false sense of security like the information wasn't really helpful anyway so it was like turning on a light light to think make you feel like you're safe or secure but it really didn't provide it and it brought home to me personally the way people in Okinawa feel every day could be that day if not an actual attack a real accident as happens monthly weekly in Okinawa and we have 38 minutes of like not being sure what was really going on but I can't imagine living under that threat every day 24-7 and I think expanding on that is really the absurdity of having to have these systems in place and to have to prepare for the eventuality of a nuclear attack where there are so many other options that we could resort to not only to de-escalate conflict in you know like zones like North Korea and the United States but also to work with nuclear disarmament in itself and so the reality is that we're not only are not protected but I don't think we really even realize you know that overall it could happen at any time and that we're not even it's not even in our radar I think in the United States to think that even if you have a siren telling you to get ready we are under risk all the time right and the biggest outrage is why are we in such a position of risk I don't know that Canadians live with the same paranoia that Americans do and they have a military too right it's just they don't have 800 plus bases around the world on top of that and this all this history of intervention and using the military for their political and economic interests so let's talk a little bit about how many bases does the United States have abroad to die to that more or less you know there are different numbers so I'll cite the conservative number of over 800 the reasons why it's not just a simple yes or no answer is that there are places where there are military advisors that train they may not necessarily have a base there but they have US military there and other functions or capacity as well on visiting forces and whatnot on top of the permanent bases like we see in Germany Japan and so forth right so and I want to talk a little bit about very briefly a couple of different military presence in all the countries in all the regions and how the people there are impacted so it didn't give me two countries two countries well that's I mean easy there's so many I you know there's Korea of course you know because we've talked about a little bit about the threats the Myanmar people yeah but from Guam to but you know like I can go on with American ones but you think about it you know China has their Tibet Russia has their Crimea that happened not really that long ago so I don't just we're not just pointing fingers at the US as we are pointing at militarism whether it's Chinese American or otherwise that really doesn't bring security because if you think about the one of the arguments four bases in Japan and Okinawa is to bring regional security well how stable is that region now you know so that argument completely failed in fact it's aspirated tensions as we see with China coming in there now in the China seas so we have two minutes left for our program and I wanted to spend some time in this last segment talk about the movement of veterans for peace in Okinawa in the room if you could show a little bit of that video for us so wow so the man that was arrested wearing a brown and who was he that was Miles Megasife he was actually a former ex marine station in Okinawa around the time of the 95 infamous rape so returning there to you know now that he's a little more knowledgeable what happened but that was we joined local protesters that they do every week blocking construction vehicles going in there to build in Henoko and he was actually arrested and for Naya to fuel was released eventually so who is responsible for the arrest is at the U.S. or is it the Japanese police you know ultimately I would say Japan has that the law you know that they maintain with the U.S. so we could say Japan however that wasn't a Russian base they were protecting or a Japanese one that was an American one so I don't think they're doing you say who's at fault there again it's it's collusion between Japan and the U.S. yes so like you know before we wrap up with our show I think that it's something very powerful to actually have people who have served under the U.S. military system to get out and to join a variance for peace group inside this is not right so can you elaborate before you know a minute or so what is the role of veterans for peace not only in Okinawa but here in the United States as you think about nuclear design and actually using more peacekeeping and peacemaking as opposed to militarization efforts you know to keep us protected and safe well you know that veterans for peace or these veterans working for justice and whatever organization there's other veterans organizations as I mentioned we live in a culture of militarism which prioritizes military voices over civilian and so we are simply joining the masses of people who've for generations and across time have fought for justice and and so forth however having that military background many of us feel a kind of a responsibility of Kuliana to speak out when you live in a culture that prioritizes military voices over civilian voices so it is a call if you will and also for a lot of people some people are learned to serve because they think they're actually protecting the Constitution and like I was I naively thought was raised to believe that the military was defending all things good and righteous and so once you find out what's really behind the machine and find that we're being exploited then again we just veterans for peace are simply people everyday people who are really working for peace and justice and security in the world and not the image of it thank you so much for your wisdom your courage and your strength to move forward I know you've been doing advocacy work for peace in Hawaii for over 20 years and that this is not at all this faint for the heart and I look forward to seeing you here many times you know as our guest and out in the community so thank you for your your service absolutely well that concludes our episode of perspectives on global justice so see you next Friday who we hope