NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

 

Since 2010 I have traveled to Okinawa just about every year. Usually I have gone with my friend Ed Alvarez. We first travelled to Okinawa together in 2012 to present at a number of conferences focusing on issues of demilitarization, indigenous rights and also decolonization. Ed was the Executive Director of the Guam Commission on Decolonization and had made some important connections to academics and protest groups. One of my goals at some point is to write an academic article about the ever-evolving conversation in Okinawa about decolonization and political status. It is fascinating and often goes far beneath the radar, as most focus on the demilitarization and anti US base protests. But since I have been traveling there, I have regularly heard the makings of a decolonization conversation. When I say this, I don't mean it looks the same or sounds the same, or takes the same shape as Guam's. I mean that for Okinawa, which faces a number of fundamental and structural issues ab

A very good overview of the global network of US bases in the world and also the movements against them. It was written in 2008 but still has lots of relevant information for readers today. As I've been teaching my course, articles such as this have been very helpful in giving my students a very brief by thorough overview of US military plans and strategies in terms of their bases. ************** "Resisting the Empire" by Joseph Gerson Foreign Policy in Focus March 19, 2008 Ecuador’s decision not to renew the U.S. lease for the forward operating base at Manta (see Yankees Head Home ) is the culmination of just one of many long-term and recently initiated community-based and national struggles to remove these military installations that are often sources of crime and demeaning human rights violations. A growing alliance among anti-bases movements in countries around the world, including the United States, is preventing the creation of new foreign military

Published on Tuesday, May 27, 2014 by Common Dreams From Jeju and Afghanistan, an Asia Peace Pivot by Hakim   Mi Ryang, standing with Gangjeong Village Association members and Gangjeong’s mayor, outside the Jeju Courts, to refuse paying fines for protests against the U.S. naval base construction. (Courtesy of the author) “Don’t you touch me!” declared Mi Ryang. South Korean police were clamping down on a villager who was resisting the construction of a Korean/U.S. naval base at her village.  Mi Ryang managed to turn the police away by taking off her blouse and, clad in her bra, walking toward them with her clear warning.  Hands off!  Mi Ryang is fondly referred to as “Gangjeong’s daughter” by villagers who highly regard her as the feisty descendant of legendary women sea divers.  Her mother and grandmother were Haenyo divers who supported their families every day by diving for shellfish.

Published on Thursday, October 3, 2013 by TomDispatch.com The Italian Job: The Pentagon Goes on a Spending Spree How the Pentagon Is Using Your Tax Dollars to Turn Italy into a Launching Pad for the Wars of Today and Tomorrow by David Vine The Pentagon has spent the last two decades plowing hundreds of millions of tax dollars into military bases in Italy, turning the country into an increasingly important center for U.S. military power. Especially since the start of the Global War on Terror in 2001, the military has been shifting its European center of gravity south from Germany, where the overwhelming majority of U.S. forces in the region have been stationed since the end of World War II. In the process, the Pentagon has turned the Italian peninsula into a launching pad for future wars in Africa, the Middle East, and beyond. At bases in Naples, Aviano, Sicily, Pisa, and Vicenza, among others, the militar