NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

The_Target_Villageby LemmyCautionTK

 Please watch this video above. It is subtitled and discusses Okinawan resistance to US bases there, most recently protests about the use of the Osprey in the northern forests.

I will be heading back to Okinawa in March for another study and solidarity tour. I'll be speaking at a Island Language symposium at Ryuku University and visiting programs dedicated to revitalizing the Okinawan language. I'll also be meeting again with anti-base and independence advocates there. I'm also hoping to see more of the museums and cultural areas while I was there. During my last trip I was limited in terms of what I could see because my schedule was so packed. This time I'm hoping there will be more room to negotiate.

For those who want to see my thoughts on my previous two trips to Okinawan please check out the links below:

Occupied Okinawa: My trip in May 2012.
Okinawa Dreams: My trip in November 2011.

My pare' Julian Aguon always talks about people on Guam today having no imagination. How they cannot see the world as having any richness or possibility, especially in a local context. They see the world through dependency and inadequacy, and as such everything around them, especially the future is fearful and frightening. You feel like you can't do anything because the delicate threads that you depend upon might snap if you do. 
I agree with this metaphor for understanding things on Guam, but I often use "dreams" instead. Dreams are closely related to imagination. Imagination is what you can see, how you can stretch what you take as given in the world and expand it and push it, and hopefully yourself further. Dreams are what you see as possible, viable or beautiful as you move towards the future. It is a question of desire and what you want. Imagination is what you can want, dreams are an indication of what you want and where you see yourself moving in order to obt…

I have been to Okinawa twice over the past year. The first time last November for the Japan Peace Conference and then earlier this year in May, where I traveled with Ed Alvarez (director of the Commission on Decolonization) and former Guam Senator Marilyn Manibusan on a solidarity trip to meet with Okinawans interested in discussing decolonization. I saw so many things, meggai lini'e'-hu guihi, but one image that has stayed with me is a military fence covered in brightly colored ribbons. 

The fence in question was part of Camp Schwab near Henoko Bay in Northeastern Okinawa. It is the site of a proposed expansion of US facilities in the island and so it has been a site for regular protest and resistance as well. In order to secure the closing of Futenma in Ginowan City, a base that lies right in the middle of a crowded urban area, the US required that their bases in the north of the island be expanded to make up for the loss of their facility. As part of this proposed realignmen…

‘The Fadang Between US’ by Michael Lujan Bevacqua
The Marianas Variety
1/4/12

IN NOVEMBER of last year, I travelled with 10 others as delegates to the 2011 Japan Peace Conference in Okinawa. This conference is held annually in any prefecture in Japan that hosts U.S. military bases, and is attended by thousands from every corner of Japan who discuss issues of peace, demilitarization and nuclear abolition. As delegates from Guam, we spoke about the military buildup, the Pågat lawsuit, and our ideas for peace in the region.

It is not hyperbolic to say that my trip to Okinawa was a dream come true. After reading so much about Okinawa since the military buildup was first announced, it was very enriching to finally visit the place and see things for myself. The fates of our islands have recently been tied together by the strategic and political interests of the U.S. and Japan, but this entwining is very cursory, ti tahdong. In the week prior to my trip, I spent time re…

Below is the joint statement from all the delegates who attending the International Forum during the 2011 Japan Peace Conference last month in Okinawa.As delegates came from around the Pacific and Asia, each area has a separate paragraph which deals with their particular issues. You can see some of the concerns that I raised in my earlier Okinawa Dreams post on Nationalism and Solidarity however. While this statement lays out a clear map of solidarity, the question always remains, how do these ties become more than strands of knowledge or awareness of things? When do they become imbued with power?

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International Forum

Joint Communique
For a US-Base-Free, Nuclear-Free and Peaceful Asia-Pacific
without Military Bases
Japan Peace Conference
Okinawa
Nov. 24-25, 2011

The International Forum “For a Nuclear Weapon-Free Peaceful Asia-Pacific without Military Bases - Solidarity among Okinawa, Guam and Asia-Pacific” was sponsored jointly by Japan Peace Committee and Gua…

I've been posting for the past few weeks about my trip to Okinawa last month where I participated in the 2011 Japan Peace Conference. The posts can be found under the tag O Dreams.

For the next week I'll be posting pics on my tumblr as well. Head over there to I Pilan Yanggen Sumahi...in order to check them out.

After attending two international conferences in Japan, the initial luster has faded a little bit. The conferences are still impressive, but I am starting to see their limitations, but also the ways the organizers are attempting to overcome them.

When I attended the 2010 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, I was completely blown away. Nina'manman yu' ni' i lini'e'-hu guihi. Compared to conferences that I have organized in both Guam and California around similar issues, the level of attention and precision at this conference, (which by the way lasted for more than a week) was incomparable. Kalang taiparehu este. There were more than 100 overseas delegates, and in Hiroshima over 7,000 conference attendees (more than 2,000 in Nagasaki). And despite this logistical nightmare, almost everything started on time and finished on time.

Compare this to the three Famoksaiyan conferences that I helped organize in San Diego and the Bay Area California in 2006,…

Not many people on Guam know about Okinawa, with the exception of the major bases involved in the transfer of Marines from Okinawa to Guam. I've discussed it earlier in my posts from Okinawa, the situation in Takae Village in the Yanbaru Forest in Northern Okinawa. I thought that it would be a good idea to post the following below from the website Okinawa Outreach. It gives a very good overview of the stakes involved with the protests in Takae Village.

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Save Takae ! Voice your opposition to the resumed US helipad construction !

On November 15, the Okinawa Defense Bureau (ODB) returned to Takae in the Yanbaru forest to resume the construction of six new helipads for US military for the first time in 8 months.

According to Yamashiro Hiroji, a sit-in protester, about 70 people including 30 OBD staff members and 30 security guards showed up around 10:18 am in front of the Gate of N-4 Point with heavy machinery, demanding that the local residents and their supp…

I have been writing all week about how we can see similarities or connections between Guam and Okinawa, some of which have nothing to do with the transfer of US Marines from one island to the other. While visiting the protest camp for those opposing the construction of new US helipad facilities in Takae Forest in Northern Okinawa, I found yet another connection.


The image above comes from a protest painting that was at the campsite in Takae. Even prior to visiting this area, I had seen this bird all over the place. It was featured in tourist literature, in advertising, and in posters for activist material or protests. For those on Guam, this bird should look somewhat familiar. On Guam we call this type of bird ko'ko, which in English is known as a rail. Ti gekpu este na klasin paluma, ya achokka' estaba meggai na paluma giya Guahan, i trahi-na uniku. Manggekpu i meggaina na klasin paluma guini, lao i ke'ko yan i sasangat i dos mas annok na ti gekpu.

In Okinawa they refer…

Although our writing is meant to reflect our lives and meant to be an extension of our lives, life regularly has its own agenda and gets in the way of our writing. I still have plenty more to say about my trip to Okinawa last week to attend the 2011 Japan Peace Conference. I have plenty of notes and plenty of pictures. I've uploaded so far 8 sometimes long and sometimes short posts about the trip, but I have much more, I just can't get to finishing them up yet. The semester is winding down now and so the stacks of papers that have been piling up all semester, are close to overwhelming me, and so I might need to take a break from writing about my trip to focus on other things.

But don't worry, Okinawa Dreams will be back hopefully next week.

Kao hoben yu’? Hekkua’. Anggen un kompara ham yan i manestudiante-ku siha, ahe’. Esta bihu yu’.



Lao kao hohoben ha’ yu’? Lao yanggen un kompara ham yan i otro na manactivists siha giya Guahan, hunggan hohoben ha’ yu’.

The conference in Okinawa is an Asia-Pacific conference, but in the International Forum, 10% of the delegates come from the Pacific. In the general Japan Peace Conference around 0.01% of the delegates come from the Pacific. We were incredibly small in terms of presence, yet we had a huge impact on the proceedings. Part of the reason why the Japanese were impressed and enamored with us is because or our youth.

Looking around the conference, you might imagine that the average age of a peace-activist in Japan is somewhere around 50. This conference many many times felt like a Japanese version of the movie Cocoon. It was surreal to see so many friendly old Japanese men, talking about peace and love in such ways that you might expect them to be a hippie girl working for Kuci…

Veteran’s Day passed recently, and that is always a frustrating time of the year for people interested in peace. Veteran’s Day as it is celebrated nowadays in the US and its empire is a blind sort of celebration of militarization. Through the auras of the troops, we are expected to support whatever the military means or is or represents. We are supposed to be teary-eyed and all choked full of emotion at the sacrifice of so many, that we should suddenly forget everything else and just pick up a flag, wave it, and give the screaming eagles of militarization soaring above, a hearty thumbs up!


It is easy to forget that Veteran’s Day began as Armistice Day. It was not a celebration of living troops or military might, but a holiday meant to provide the country a time to reflect on how terrible war was, through the lives lost and how it should not happen again. Over time, it has moved to becoming the exact opposite, becoming a place where you should support any and every way the US enters in…

Just for clarification, there are two components to the conference that I attended in Okinawa last week.

The first component is an international forum on the topic of how to create an Asia Pacific region that is free of military bases and nuclear weapons. For this forum, there are roughly a 100 or so people in attendance, all of whom are the leaders of various anti-base, peace or anti-nuclear civil society groups throughout Japan. The title of this forum is “For a Nuclear Weapon-Free Peaceful Asia-Pacific without Military Bases – Solidarity among Okinawa, Guam and Asia-Pacific.”

The second part is the yearly Japan Peace Conference, which is always held in a part of Japan where the local community hosts US bases. Last year’s gathering was in Sasebo, in Nagasaki. This part of the conference is massive compared to the forum. The International Forum takes place in small hotel in Naha. The full-fledged peace conference takes place in a large amphitheater, that seats 2,000 people. The orga…

A reception was held on the first day of the conference to welcome the activists from Okinawa and Japan and also celebrate the presence of the overseas delegates from the Pacific. As part of this reception, there was food, music, and gifts were exchanged. During one particularly touching exchange, we all received beautiful Article 9 folders. The gift came from the daughter of a very famous communist community leader in Okinawa. He had been the Naha city mayor in the 1950's and later a member of the Diet. He was imprisoned for two years prior to becoming a politician for hiding two suspected communists who were supposed to leave Okinawa. He came to prominence at a time when the island was part of Japan, but governed by the US military after World War II. He had been instrumental in getting the island returned to Japanese control in 1972.

I apologize for not posting an image of the folder now, I'll be sure to take one later.

After receiving these gifts we all joined hands and fo…