Center for Okinawan Studies Lecture Series

“Constancy & Change: The Movement to Demilitarize Okinawa – from the 1950s to the 21st Century”

Two doctoral students at the University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa will make presentations on sixty-five years of diverse resistance by the movement to demilitarize Okinawa.

Mami Hayashi’s presentation, “Military Bases in Okinawa: A Pressure for Migration,” covers the contrast between pre-war and postwar emigration and how a desire to defuse domestic dissent led the pre-Reversion U.S. military and the U.S.-controlled Ryukyu Government to encourage migration from Okinawa.

Rinda Yamashiro’s presentation, “Women’s Rights Perspective: A New Direction in the Anti-U.S. Base Movement in Okinawa,” draws on empirical research to articulate how the contemporary Okinawan women have engaged in resistance against U.S. military bases.

Presenters:

Mami Hayashi (Ph.D. Student, American Studies)

Rinda Yamashiro (Ph.D. Student, Sociology)

Discussant:

Vincent Pollard (Lecturer, Asian Studies)

Vincent Pollard teaches in the Asian Studies Program and conducts research on anti-bases movements.

Date: January 21, 2010 (Thursday)

Time: 3:00-4:30 pm

Location: Center for Korean Studies Auditorium

Event is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Center for Okinawan Studies, tel. 956‐0902 / 956-5754

For disability access, please contact the Center for Okinawan Studies.

University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution

January 8, 2010January 8, 2010

Afghanistan and the Marketplace of Violence

The following article was published in the online newsletter War TImes:

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Afghanistan and the Marketplace of Violence

By H. Patricia Hynes

The national spotlight on U.S. troop escalation in Afghanistan has overshadowed the prevalence of private military contractors in that conflict. The number of Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan could grow to 160,000 as the number of U.S. soldiers reaches 100,000 in 2010, the highest ratio of private military contractors to soldiers in U.S history. The Afghanistan war has been called the first U.S. contractor war. It heralds a future in which waging war no longer requires citizens, only money. These corporate warriors are a potent but barely perceptible component of U.S. militarism and foreign policy.

WAR AS A ‘MARKET NICHE’

After 9/11 one of the few sectors to enjoy growth was the young market niche of private military contractors, known as “privatized military companies” or PMCs. These are lean, nimble global companies formed and managed in many cases by former military men and specialized in armed conflict services. They offer “expertise” for combat in conventional and counterinsurgency warfare; intelligence and spying; war logistics and strategy; training militaries and operating drones; building and servicing military bases; post-war de-mining operations and peacekeeping. Their clients include governments of all ilk from “democratic” to “rogue,” the UN and NGOs, rebel groups, paramilitaries and drug cartels. Sometimes they contract with both sides of a conflict. Some garner business concessions in oil and natural resources in client countries, thus the cachet of conflict in resource-rich countries.

According to Allison Stanger, author of One Nation Under Contract (2009), PMCs have made the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan possible, given the low support of Allies. Stanger observes that the core pillars of national security – intelligence, diplomacy, development and defense – are increasingly handled by private contractors, a troubling trend unremarked by most Americans.

Peter Singer of the Brookings Institute generated a detailed taxonomy of their militarized services and case examples of their clients and covert activities in his book Corporate Warriors (2003). He raises many vital concerns about the impact of war profiteering by military mercenaries – namely the jeopardizing of human rights in war, the increased traffic in arms, the profit motive as stimulant for armed conflict, and little public scrutiny.

FRAUD, ABUSE, AND BEYOND

Here are five caveats regarding military merchants in corporate clothing:

1. Corporate profit vs. public good. Being in the “marketplace of violence,” PMCs rely upon and are positioned to promote continuous armed conflict, with few, if any, public checks and balances. Fraud is common: According to a federal audit of Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan, 16% of monies paid the contractors has been for “questioned and unsupported costs.” See: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/12/17/afghanistan.contractors.probe/

2. Global glut in ex-soldiers and arms. Since the end of the Cold War, the market has been saturated with ex-soldiers and military weapons unloaded by governments to arms brokers. On the “demand” side of violence, the incidence of conflicts within countries has doubled since the end of the Cold War and zones of conflict have doubled as well, creating a perfect storm of opportunity for corporatizing war.

3. Under the radar screen and outside the law. Contract and subcontract oversight of private firms in Afghanistan is severely compromised, due to distance and dependency on their services. Case in point: a two year paper trail and a recent lawsuit reveal that ArmorGroup security guards for the U.S. embassy in Kabul have been involved in security lapses, drunken and lewd hazing rituals, intimidation of whistleblowers, petty corruption, abusive work conditions, and sexual predation. With little evidence of disciplinary action, except company assurance, and with virtually no other option at hand, the State Department renewed the ArmorGroup contract in 2008 and 2009. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/world/asia/12secure.html

4. Abuse; here are a few from a huge list:

*Afghan militias hired and armed as security contractors. Having fewer soldiers than needed for a counterinsurgency war, the U.S. and NATO depend heavily on private security firms for security and training of Afghan police. According to one expert on Afghanistan, security contractors “have hired, armed and trained local militias that were supposed to be demobilized and disarmed, enabling them to persist and profit as part of the ‘private sector,’ awaiting the spark that will set off another civil war.” See: http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=TN&pubid=1721

*Funding the Taliban. Between 10 and 20% of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts in Afghanistan – hundreds of millions of dollars – end up as extortion payments to the Taliban for protection of U.S. supply convoys from attacks on Afghan roads and highways. Further, many of the local security companies hired by the U.S. for the war effort are run by warlords. The “right war” is riddled with crime and contradiction as the Pentagon pays its enemies for protection. See: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091130/roston/print

*Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Women. The patterns of sexual exploitation by military contractors in the Iraq war provide insight into the war in Afghanistan. In an original study of military prostitution and trafficking during the Iraq war, the researcher concludes that the privatization of war – through heavy reliance on military contractors – has worsened the prostituting of women in war zones. Private military contractors are more seasoned and sophisticated about prostitution and trafficking of women and they have more disposable income than the military (some earning between $650US and $1000US per day). When violating the U.S. military prohibition against involvement in prostitution they are not prosecuted; and they are accountable only to their companies. See: http://www.counterpunch.org/mcnutt07112007.html

According to a former manager of the PMC ArmorGuard security guards for the U.S. Embassy routinely frequented brothels in Kabul where Chinese girls had been trafficked for sexual exploitation. One guard bragged of planning to buy a prostitute for pimping her. Other guards were alleged to be involved in sex trafficking also. The whistleblower was forced from his job, and his requests to the company and the State Department for investigation were ignored for two years. See: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/10/afghanistan.embassy.whistleblower/

5. Risk of militarizing governments and non-state networks. There are many risks to peace and security in the proliferation of PMCs, among them: abetting repressive and criminal clients; promoting and sustaining conflict; enabling covert warfare; and moving the military industrial complex even more centrally from the public sphere to the private where the only checks and balances are shareholders.

POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY, ROAD TO DISASTER

In the end, the use of private military may be more palatable to the U.S. public whose media reports the numbers of U.S. military deployed, injured and killed yet rarely spotlights the number of corporate warriors employed in conflict, injured and killed. Thus, a private military can be politically expedient for the government, given the fear of arousing public “war fatigue” with news coverage of soldiers’ deaths. Further, private military employees – many of whom are not U.S. citizens — relieved the government from instituting a draft to cover the personnel needs of two concurrent, stalemated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Private militaries make it possible for even the poorest countries to purchase the most sophisticated systems in the world and the capacity to use them. The dreaded outcome of the privatization of war is that some military companies would arm and train traffickers in weapons, drugs, and humans; terrorist networks; and “rogue states” – with the rationalization that if they don’t do it, another company will.

The inevitable breakdown of social order within war has hazardous results for civilians — most particularly the sex trafficking, rape and torture of women. Ceding armed conflict and ultimately national security to the private market of military contractors is a dire and disastrous trend.

ADDITIONAL SOURCES &D RECOMMENDED READINGS

Sarah E. Mendelson. Barracks and Brothels: Peacekeeping and Human Trafficking in the Balkans. 2005. Washington DC: CSIS Press.

P.W. Singer. Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 2003. *Source of term “marketplace of violence.”

Jeremy Scahill. Blackwater: the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Army. New York: Nation Books. 2007.

Allison Stanger. One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of American Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2009.

Pat Hynes, a retired Professor of Environmental Health, is on the board of the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice. A longer version of this article can be found on the Traprock Center website at: http://traprock.info/focus%20areas/privatecontractors.htm

You can sign-on to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras e-mail Announcement List (2-4 messages per month, including our ‘Month in Review’ column), at http://www.war-times.org. War Times/Tiempo de Guerras is a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Third World Organizing. Donations are tax-deductible; you can donate on-line at http://www.war-times.org or send a check to War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, c/o P.O. Box 22748, Oakland CA 94609.

December 18, 2009

Military men are silent victims of sexual assault

http://hamptonroads.com/2009/10/military-men-are-silent-victims-sexual-assault

Military men are silent victims of sexual assault

By Bill Sizemore

The Virginian-Pilot

For years after the parachute accident that ended his Army service, Cody Openshaw spiraled downward.

He entered college but couldn’t keep up with his studies. He had trouble holding a job. He drank too much. He had trouble sleeping, and when he did sleep, he had nightmares. He got married and divorced in less than a year. He had flashbacks. He isolated himself from his friends and drank more.

“His anxiety level was out of this world,” his father said. “This was a young man who got straight A’s in high school, and now he couldn’t function.”

Openshaw had the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, even though he had never been in combat. His parents attributed the trauma to the accident and the heavy medications he was taking for the continuing pain.

But there was more.

Finally, he broke down and told his father.

A few months after his accident, as he was awaiting his medical discharge from the Army, he had been sexually assaulted.

The attack left him physically injured and emotionally shattered. Inhibited by shame, embarrassment, sexual confusion and fear, it took him five years to come forward with the full story.

What truly sets this story apart, however, is not the details of the case, horrific as they are, but the gender of the victim.

There is a widespread presumption that most victims of sexual assault in the military services are women. That presumption, however, is false.

In a 2006 survey of active-duty troops, 6.8 percent of women and 1.8 percent of men said they had experienced unwanted sexual contact in the previous 12 months. Since there are far more men than women in the services, that translates into roughly 22,000 men and 14,000 women.

Among women, the number of victims who report their assaults is small. Among men, it is infinitesimal. Last year the services received 2,530 reports of sexual assault involving female victims – and 220 involving male victims.

One of them was Pfc. Cody Openshaw.

Now his family has made the difficult decision to go public with his story in the hope that it will prompt the military services to confront the reality of male sexual assault.

As Openshaw’s father put it in an interview, “Now that they know, what are they going to do about it.”

Openshaw grew up in a large Mormon family in Utah, the fifth of nine children. He was a mild-tempered child, an Eagle Scout who dreamed of becoming a brain surgeon.

He was an athlete, a tireless hockey player and a lover of the outdoors. He was prone to take off on a moment’s notice to go hiking or camping – sometimes with a friend, often just him and his tent – among Utah’s rugged canyons and brown scrub-covered mountains.

He had a sensitive side, too: He was a published poet.

He looked big and menacing but he was really a teddy bear, one of his brothers said.

When he walked into a room, a sister said, everyone would light up.

He also had a mischievous streak. Once after joining the Army in 2001, he went home on leave unannounced for his mother’s birthday. He had himself wrapped up in a big cardboard box and delivered to the front porch. When his mother opened the box, he popped out.

Openshaw volunteered for the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he excelled as a paralegal and paratrooper. But his military career came to an untimely end shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

As his unit was training to invade Afghanistan, a parachute malfunction sent Openshaw plummeting 60 feet to the ground, causing severe stress fractures in his spine and both legs.

For months as he awaited his medical discharge, he was plagued by chronic pain. The medications prescribed by the Army doctors only helped so much, and alcohol became a kind of self-medication.

After a night on the town with a fellow soldier, his father learned later, Openshaw returned to the barracks and encountered a solicitous platoon sergeant.

His legs were hurting, and the sergeant said, “Let me rub your legs.” Then the contact became violently sexual. Openshaw – drunk, disabled and outranked – was in no position to resist.

The next day the sergeant told him, “Just remember, accidents happen. They can happen to you and to your family. You know, people show up missing.”

The story came out in tortured bits and pieces.

Openshaw confided in his older sister the next day in an agonized phone call but swore her to secrecy. He took his assailant’s warning as a death threat.

“He was worried about me and the rest of the family,” his sister said. “He said ‘We need to keep it quiet.’ ”

Because of the reported threat to Openshaw’s family, their names and locations have been omitted from this story.

He finally told his therapist at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Salt Lake City, who referred him to a VA sexual assault treatment center in Bay Pines, Fla. As part of his therapy there, Openshaw shared more of the traumatic episode in a letter to his father.

“He wanted to get better,” his brother said. ” He decided, ‘I’m going to beat this. I’m tired of five years of depression. I want to feel alive again.’ ”

A longtime friend thinks guilt was a factor in Openshaw’s reluctance to come forward with his story.

“I think he blamed himself because he was drinking,” the friend said. “When the assault happened, he said he remembered laying there and he was so drunk that he couldn’t do anything about it.

“It really affected him. He struggled even with asking a girl out on a date. He felt unworthy.”

Trauma from sexual assault has become so commonplace in the military that it now has its own designation: MST, for military sexual trauma.

The VA was first authorized to provide sexual assault outreach and counseling to female veterans after a series of congressional hearings in 1992. As the realization dawned that this was not just a women’s issue, those services were extended to male veterans.

According to a 2007 study by a team of VA researchers, a nationwide screening of veterans seeking VA services turned up more than 60,000 with sexual trauma. More than half of those – nearly 32,000 – were men.

Those numbers almost certainly understate the problem, the researchers wrote, concluding that the population of sexually traumatized men and women under the treatment of the VA is “alarmingly large.”

Sexual trauma, the researchers found, poses a risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder “as high as or higher than combat exposure.”

Among active-duty personnel, the Defense Department has embarked on what it says is an unprecedented effort to wipe out sexual assault in the ranks.

Key to that effort, the department says, is encouraging a climate in which victims feel free to report the crime without fear of retribution, stigma or harm to their careers.

In 2005, Congress authorized the creation of the Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services to examine how well the services are carrying out that mission. Its final report is being prepared now.

The task force fanned out across the world, hearing stories from dozens of service members who had been victimized by sexual predators. In April, at a public meeting in Norfolk, the group saw a slide presentation prepared by Cody Openshaw’s father.

As the story unfolded, the hotel conference room fell silent. By the end, the staffer who presented it – a crusty retired general – was close to tears.

It was a rare event: Of 58 stories collected by the task force over a year of meetings and interviews, only seven involved male victims.

If the crime is seldom reported, it follows that it is seldom prosecuted. According to Army court-martial records, 65 sexual assault cases involving male victims have been prosecuted worldwide in the past five years. There were almost 10 times that many cases, 621, involving female victims.

The Air Force, Navy and Marines were unable to provide a breakdown of sexual assault cases by gender.

Jim Hopper, a psychology instructor at Harvard Medical School who has studied male sexual abuse, said victims’ reluctance to come forward is rooted in biology and gender socialization.

Males are biologically wired to be more emotionally reactive and expressive than females, Hopper said, but they are socialized to suppress their emotions.

“Boys are not supposed to be vulnerable, sad, helpless, ashamed, afraid, submissive – anything like that is totally taboo for boys,” he said. “The messages come from everywhere. Right from the start, a fundamental aspect of their being is labeled as not OK.”

Military training reinforces that socialization, Hopper said. “It conditions men to accept physical wounds, death and killing while leaving them unprepared for emotional wounds that assault their male identity.

“When they get assaulted, they’re unprepared to deal with their vulnerable emotions. They resist seeking help. They believe that their hard-earned soldier-based masculinity has been shattered. They’re going to feel betrayed, alienated, isolated, unworthy. They feel like they’re a fake, a fraud, not a real man,” Hopper said.

Openshaw’s father, a marriage and family therapist, fears that the plight of male victims will continue to get short shrift.

“The military should take a more proactive role in understanding male sexual assault,” he said. “They need to set up some way that these young men can get some services without feeling so humiliated. They don ‘t have to be so macho.”

When Openshaw returned home from treatment in Florida in April 2008, his family and friends were buoyed by hope that he had turned a corner.

The two months of treatment “did a world of good,” one friend said.

“He texted me and said, ‘I’ve learned so many things. I’ve learned that bad things can happen to good people, and it’s not their fault.’ ”

“He was so excited to come home,” a sister said. “He was planning a big party. He wanted everybody to see he was better.”

He was still heavily medicated, however – with narcotics for the lingering pain from his parachute accident and antidepressants for his post-traumatic stress disorder.

His first night at home, he went to bed and never woke up.

The cause of death was respiratory arrest from prescription drug toxicity. He was 25.

“These medications that he was on, they build up in your bloodstream to the point of toxicity,” his father said. “And that’s what we’re assuming happened.”

He does not think his son committed suicide.

“I have nine children, including Cody, and 15 grandchildren,” he said. “Cody had made arrangements for them all to come over the next day. There was absolutely nothing in his affect or demeanor that would suggest that he would kill himself.”

He is buried beside a pine tree on a flat, grassy hilltop in the shadow of his beloved mountains. His gravestone is adorned by U.S. flags, flowers and cartoon bird figures recalling his whimsical streak.

A year later, his death remains an open wound for the family. One younger brother is “very angry with God,” his father said. He refuses to visit the grave.

Openshaw’s young nieces and nephews still talk about him and ask when he’s coming over to play.

“Kids loved him to pieces,” his mother said. “He affected everybody he met.”

She, like her husband, hopes her son’s story will prompt the military services to take male sexual assault more seriously: “Something needs to be done so other service members and their families don’t have to go through this.”

The Army Criminal Investigation Command investigated the case, but with the victim dead and no eyewitnesses, the initial conclusion was that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.

The suspect has been questioned but remains on active duty. He has been recently deployed in Iraq.

If the case is not prosecuted, the suspect may be subject to administrative sanctions.

Louis Iasiello, a retired rear admiral and chief of Navy chaplains who co-chairs the sexual assault task force, said that when commanding officers take the crime seriously, victims – whether male or female – are more likely to come forward.

“The command really does set the tone,” he said. “In places where the command set a positive tone and also set a zero tolerance toward this crime, it was very obvious that people felt more comfortable coming forward and reporting an incident and getting the help they needed to begin the healing process.”

In the Openshaw case, that clearly didn’t happen, said Thomas Cuthbert, the task force staffer who presented the story in Norfolk.

At the time of his attack, Openshaw was in a holding unit at Fort Bragg for soldiers awaiting medical discharge.

“Instead of protecting him while he was being treated, he was left alone and subject to a predator,” said Cuthbert, a retired brigadier general.

“The kid was not in a position where he was fully capable of defending himself, and he got hurt by some hoodlum wearing a uniform. Any Army officer worth his salt, looking at those facts, would get angry.

“He needed help, and instead he received abuse of the worst kind. Leadership can’t prevent all crime. But when someone in authority takes advantage of a subordinate, leadership should be held accountable.”

If the services are serious about coming to grips with male sexual assault, Cuthbert said, there is still much work to be done.

If it can happen to a talented, promising soldier in the 82nd Airborne, he said, plenty of others who aren’t as independent or as capable of taking care of themselves also are at risk.

“Nobody in uniform is very happy talking about this issue. They don’t want to publicly admit it’s there, although we all know it’s there.”

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com

Resources

To report a sexual assault in a military service, contact a sexual assault response coordinator or victim advocate. Local contact information is provided by each military service. There also is a central hot line:

* Stateside: 800-342-9647

* Overseas: 00-800-3429-6477

* Overseas collect: 484-530-5908

Reports can be confidential; victims are encouraged but not required to notify their command or law enforcement. For Navy personnel in Hampton Roads, contact a Fleet & Family Support Center:

* Norfolk (757) 444-2230 Little Creek (757) 462-7563

* Oceana (757) 433-2912

* Northwest (757) 421-8770

* Yorktown (757) 688-6289

* Newport News (757) 688-6289

* Fleet & Family Support 24/7 phone numbers:

1-800-FSC-LINE (372-5463)

(757) 444-NAVY (6289)

On the Web

o Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a national anti-sexual assault organization: www.rainn.o rg Safer Society Foundation, a national research, advocacy and referral center on the prevention and treatment of sexual abuse: www.safersociety. org

o 1 in 6, a support group for men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences: www.1in6 .org

December 6, 2009

U.S. Army Rapes – The Hidden War

http://indiejourno.com/2009/12/06/u-s-army-rapes-the-hidden-war/

U.S Army Rapes – The Hidden War

Sunday, December 6, 2009

By Smriti Rao

During her deployment in Baghdad, Sandra Lee was raped twice by a fellow American soldier. Back home, she works to draw attention to the rising cases of sexual assault within the ranks. (Photo Credit: Peter Ash Lee)

On Veterans Day, as President Obama laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery, he did so with the full knowledge that for Americans serving across the world, the face of war had changed forever.

No longer are our wars overseas fought solely by men—but also, by an increasing number of women.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the first conflicts in which tens of thousands of American military women have lived, worked and fought for prolonged periods, cultivating a new breed of female combatants.

Yet a startling congressional report by the Department of Defense (released in March) revealed that one in three female combatants experience rape or attempted rape during their military service. The data indicated that there were 2,923 sexual assaults reported in fiscal 2008—a nearly 8 percent spike over the previous year.

In The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, author Helen Benedict describes sexual assault against female service members in Iraq. As one soldier explains in the book, “There are only three kinds of females the men let you be in the military: a bitch, a ho or a dyke.”

One 21-year-old soldier Benedict profiled took to carrying a knife with her at all times. “The knife wasn’t for the Iraqis,” said Spc. Mickiela Montoya, who served in Iraq with the National Guard in 2005. “It was for the guys on my own side,” she told the author, who interviewed more than 20 Iraq veterans for her book.

Staff Sergeant Sandra Lee, who served in Iraq from December 2003 to October 2004, knows exactly what Montoya is talking about.

Raped twice by a fellow soldier during her deployment in Baghdad, Lee, 33, has been drawing attention to the rising cases of sexual assault within the ranks.

Working with Veterans for Peace, a nonprofit organization based in St. Louis, Missouri, Lee kicked off their “Military Awareness” campaign in October by making her first public statement about the assaults.

That statement is documented on YouTube. On October 13, during a march in New York City, Lee said, “How could I let this happen to me? I feel stupid, I feel ashamed, I feel shattered,” she continued, recalling her emotions after getting raped. Her voice trembled as she expressed her shame and her failure to report the crime.

After several years of silence, Lee is determined to help other women cope with sexual assault by talking openly about it. “This person,” says Lee, referring to her rapist, “was someone I knew and trusted. It was a friend and a trusted relationship.”

On a recent evening in Manhattan, Lee, a trained opera singer, jokes that she can hold her high notes just as well as she handles her service weapon.

In New York’s glitzy theater district, she could not be farther away from Iraq’s bombs and mortars, but diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder upon her return, the war still rages in her mind.

Lee, deployed as part of the Civil Affairs brigade in 2003, was one of the thousands of soldiers in Iraq who despite holding non-combat roles, ended up performing dangerous duties, including looking for improvised explosive devices (commonly referred to as IEDs or roadside bombs) and tasked with rebuilding infrastructure in a war zone.

When Lee first heard about her deployment to Baghdad she recalls her jubilant reaction. “My first reaction was ‘Great!’ Iraq was the place to be!” she says. But when her unit landed in the ravaged city, reality hit home. “There can be no training on what to expect [in a war zone],” she says. “It’s so unpredictable. You can’t train for that.”

Lee was overcome with exhaustion, coping not just with the physical toll of being in Iraq, but also with the mental fatigue of being on guard 24/7.

She recalls an atmosphere where inappropriate remarks and unwanted attention from the male soldiers was the norm. “The harassment is shocking!” exclaims Lee. “It is unreal.”

Then one evening in 2004, a male colleague raped her. It was the first of two such incidents. Lee kept her silence.

Lee’s story echoes the findings of an annual Pentagon report to Congress earlier this year, stating 165 instances of reported sexual assault during a six-month period from the Iraq and Afghanistan military campaigns alone; a 26 percent rise over the previous year.

Despite the assaults, Lee, bogged down by shame and a fear of retribution, did not report the incidents to her superiors. “How will they judge me?” she recalls thinking, explaining her reluctance.

Female soldiers can report rape in the military in two ways. “Restricted reporting” allows a victim to report rape anonymously and seek medical and emotional counseling. But restricted reporting does not trigger an official investigation, leaving victims wary that their attackers will find out about the complaint and come after them, analysts say.

Under “unrestricted reporting,” victims can go directly to the commanding officer of their unit and register their complaint. But most of the commanders are male and as a result, notes retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel Ann Wright, less than 8 percent of reported rapes result in prosecution.

“Even when the perpetrators are convicted, they seldom go to jail for rape,” adds Wright, who is a member of Veterans for Peace. “The atmosphere in the military is looking the other way and not forcefully prosecuting. In their eyes, the value of a man’s career is higher than a woman’s.”

Due to shame, fear and low prosecution rates, less than 20 percent of assaulted female soldiers report these crimes. For victims, however, the trauma barely ends there.

In an institution where esprit de corps and camaraderie are the name of the game, the victim and perpetrator continue to serve side-by-side.

“The difficult thing is to turn around and defend this person,” says Lee, referring to her rapist, with whom she continued to serve in Iraq for an entire year. “I felt awkward, uncomfortable.”

When these victims return home from duty, depression sets in. “They have anger, mistrust, and go into periods of isolation,” says Wright. “They start going down a dangerous spiral.”

Which is exactly what happened to Lee. In October 2004, she returned home, harboring her dark secret. She went back to school in Portland to continue pursuing her degree in international relations.

In class, Lee was angry and irritable. Off campus, she felt agitated, constantly sweeping her eyes to the sides of the road while driving, mentally checking for bombs as she’d done in Iraq. She withdrew completely and didn’t share her anxieties with family or friends.

Lee continued to train as a reservist with her unit in Portland, but it wasn’t until 2007 that her symptoms were recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Lee finally admitted to her doctors that she was raped. All the emotions she’d suppressed over the years came flooding back.

Now, Lee bristles with anger over how the military is “sweeping this issue under the rug.” Though she still has not officially reported her rapist, she is urging victims to speak openly—as she has. As Lee confronts her past, she is also currently engaged in a dispute with the military over disability benefits and worries she might be “other than honorably discharged.”

But she says she has no regrets. “I don’t disdain the military,” says Lee. “My job was fulfilling. I went to Iraq. I was part of history!” she exclaims, even as her eyes well up with tears.

So what can the U.S. military do to prevent these alarming rises in sexual assault?

“There needs to be more than a PowerPoint presentation,” Lee says, referring to the mandatory sexual assault awareness training that many soldiers find tedious.

Wright of Veterans for Peace, meanwhile, calls for greater prosecution.

As more women continue to volunteer for the army, Wright cautions them to be cognizant of what they are signing up for. “Women are not warned that they could be raped in the army,” she says. “Women are being treated improperly by the institution, only because they don’t press charges. It is high time the institution started acting responsibly towards this huge sector of the population.”

Social scientist Dr. Laura Miller of the non-partisan, nonprofit think tank, The Rand Corporation, emphasizes that female soldiers need to talk openly about their assault to break the circle of shame.

“The role has expanded in terms of women who are serving in the military,” she says. “Women are now more integrated; they’re in fighter aircrafts, combat ships. But the military is still disproportionately male.

“Being in a war zone is not like being on a base in the U.S., where you have cameras, lights,” Miller adds. “In a deployed environment, you have a lot of people coming and going, you are exposed to each other 24/7, so it provides opportunities for people with those proclivities.”

Today, there are more than 216,000 women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, making up almost 11.3 percent of the nearly 2 million U.S. active duty and National Guard troops and reservists sent to both war zones.

Many of these mothers, daughters, sisters and wives will eventually return home—some scarred by the violence of war and mutilated bodies. Others, by the trauma of sexual assault.

Some soldiers, like Lee, remain haunted by both.

This piece first appeared in Koream Journal – a magazine on Korean American affairs.

November 19, 2009December 4, 2009

LIVING ALONG THE FENCELINE: Women Resisting Militarism and Creating a Culture of Life

Click here to download the flyer

Film Preview event & poetry + performances from inspiring local women

LIVING ALONG THE FENCELINE

Women Resisting Militarism and Creating a Culture of Life

Friday, Dec 4, 6:30 pm

Harris United Methodist Church, Miyama Hall

Corner of Nuuanu Ave. & Vineyard Blvd. Honolulu

Suggested donation: $5–$10

No one turned away.

Proceeds go towards completion of Hawai’i segment.

Contact: Deborah Lee

(415) 297-8222 (415) 297-8222

rev.deb.lee@gmail.co

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 women’s courageous stories of transformation as they emerge as inspiring leaders who create hope, change, and genuine security for their people.

We will be showing selections from the film which focus on these seven women:

Philippines: Alma Bulowan, Buklod Center

Guam: Lisa Natividad, Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice

Okinawa: Tomiko, Okinawa Women Act Up Against Military Violence

Puerto Rico: Zaida Torres, Vieques Women’s Alliance

Texas, US: Diana Lopez, Southwest Workers Union

Korea: Sumi Park, Durebang (My Sister’s Place)

Hawai’i: Terri Keko’olani-Raymond, AFSC & DMZ Aloha (not yet completed).

Filmmakers will be present for Q & A.

Event sponsors: American Friends Service Committee Hawai’i, Brown Sisters Guerrilla Theater Collective, Harris United Methodist Church, International Women’s Network Against Militarism, Nakem Conferences International, Pacific Justice and Reconciliation Center, Nakem Youth, Third Path Hawai’i for Reproductive Justice, UH-Manoa Ilokano Program, UH-Manoa Women’s Studies Program, Women for Genuine Security

October 22, 2009

Does Military Service Turn Young Men into Sexual Predators?

http://www.alternet.org/story/142942/

Does Military Service Turn Young Men into Sexual Predators?

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
Posted on October 22, 2009, Printed on October 22, 2009

Every day, for four years as a West Point cadet, Tara Krause lived and worked alongside the men who had gang-raped her.

Still, she managed to graduate in 1982. She served as a field artillery officer during the Cold War and was attached to the 518th Military Intelligence Brigade during the Gulf War. In what she calls “an act of incredible self-destruction,” she married a three-tour Vietnam vet in 1985 and, for the next eight years, lived “the private hell of his PTSD.”

“Suicidal behavior, violence and degradation were common threads of daily life,” she told me. She survived only because when he put his gun to her head one day, it finally gave her the courage to flee. “Like Lot’s wife,” she says, she struggles not to look back.

It’s been almost 30 years since the rape, and Krause says she still “dance(s) the crushing daily struggle” of her own PTSD: “The nightmares, panic attacks, flashbacks, cold sweats, suicidal thoughts, zoning out, numbing all emotion and desperately avoiding triggers (reminders) — I have become a prisoner in my own home.”

Krause is rated 70 percent disabled by the Veteran’s Administration and has been in treatment at the Long Beach [Calif.] VA for the past six years.

For all the work she has done to heal her own injuries, she still has no answer for the question: “How do you get a group of Southern white teenagers, all of whom were Eagle Scouts, class presidents, scholars and athletes, to be capable of raping a classmate?”

The question deserves an answer, and not a simplistic one. A 2003 survey of female veterans from Vietnam through the Gulf War found that almost 8 in 10 had been sexually harassed during their military service, and 30 percent had been raped.

Yet for decades, in spite of the terrible numbers, the military has managed with astonishing success to get away with responding to grievances like Krause’s with silence, or denial, or by blaming “a few bad apples.” But when individual soldiers take the blame, the system gets off the hook.

And it can be shown that the patterns of military sex crimes are old and widespread — for generations, military service has transformed large numbers of American boys into sexual predators.

So it seems reasonable to ask if perhaps there is something about military culture or training or experience that can be identified as causative, and then, perhaps, changed.

The correlation is difficult to dismiss. The majority of veterans behind bars today are there for a very specific type of crime: violence against women and children. That fact has held true since the first Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) surveys of veteran populations in the nation’s prisons in 1981, and there is evidence that those surveys only identified a much older problem.

The orgy of demonization, however, that both fueled and justified the disgraceful neglect of veterans in the aftermath of Vietnam makes this an especially fraught issue to take on.

But — without making any excuses for behaviors that cause irreparable harm to those who are victimized — there is little hope of change unless the tacit complicity of military institutions and culture is acknowledged. And that complicity most certainly did not begin recently.

World War II is remembered as a crucible and a coming-of-age ritual for the baby-faced boys it turned first into men and then into the “greatest generation.”

The butchery, the civilian atrocities, the summary executions, the appalling racism and the breakdown of hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been largely erased from communal memory. And so have the rapes perpetrated by American soldiers on our female enemies and allies alike.

In August and September 1944, when the fighting eased, French women were raped by their American liberators at three times the rate of civilian women in the U.S. And during the final drive through Germany in March and April 1945, more than 900 German women were raped by American soldiers, causing Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to issue a directive to Army commanders expressing his “grave concern” and instructing that speedy and appropriate punishments be administered.

According to Madeline Morris, the Duke University law professor and military historian who uncovered that lurid fragment of history, those numbers are almost certainly on the low side.

“Rape is particularly likely to have been undercounted because it is less serious than murder,” Morris explains, “it is reputedly the most underreported violent crime, even in the domestic context, and it was perpetrated in the ETO (European Theater of Operations) almost exclusively against non-Americans.”

Those women, especially German women, could not easily have found the courage — or the opportunity — to file complaints.

The memories of rape brought home by World War II soldiers surely changed their lives forever.

“What does rape do to the rapist?” is a question Krause has struggled with for 20 years. “Somewhere out there is that Rotarian, happy grandfather, son-done-good, solid citizen. Does he block it out, does he remember, does he feel a shred of guilt? Is it truly done with impunity?”

It is important to note that during World War II, according to Morris’ research, patterns of violent crime in the United States’ civilian population underwent sharp changes as well.

“While civilian murder and non-negligent manslaughter rates decreased 7.5 percent from prewar rates, aggravated assault rates increased substantially (19.9 percent), and forcible-rape rates increased dramatically (by more than 27 percent) above the prewar average.”

Similarly, since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, BJS statistics show a 42 percent increase in reported domestic violence and a 25 percent increase in the reported incidence of rape and sexual assault.

Except for simple assault, which increased by 3 percent, the incidence of every other crime surveyed — including violent crimes overall — decreased, but once again, mirroring Morris’ World War II data, domestic violence, rape and sexual assault showed daunting increases.

The first BJS survey of incarcerated veterans found that two-thirds of those veterans had been convicted of rape or sexual assault. In military prisons as well, the report noted, “sexual assault was the most common offense for which inmates were held … accounting for nearly a full third of all military prisoners.”

That chilling aspect of soldiers’ criminal behavior held true in subsequent BJS surveys.

In 2000, veterans in state and federal prisons and local jails were twice as likely as non-veterans to be sentenced for a violent sexual crime. In the 2004 survey, 1 in 4 veterans in prison were sex offenders (1 in 3 in military prisons), compared to 1 in 10 incarcerated non-veterans.

Chris Mumola, author of the two most recent BJS reports, points out that “when sex crimes are excluded, the violent-offense incarceration rate of non-veterans is actually greater than the incarceration rate of veterans for all other offenses combined (651 per 100,000 versus 630 per 100,000).”

In fact, when sex crimes are excluded, adult male veterans are over 40 percent less likely to be in prison for a violent crime than their non-veteran counterparts. The same holds true for property crimes, drugs and public disorder — the rates are much higher rates for adult men without military experience.

“The one notable exception to this pattern,” Mumola says, “is sex assaults, including rape.”

The Veterans’ Health Administration has adopted the term military sexual trauma (MST) to refer to severe or threatening forms of sexual harassment and sexual assault sustained in military service.

Their records for 2007 show that 22.2 percent of female veterans and 1.3 percent of male vets (from all eras) who used the agency’s health services screened positive for MST. That represents a daunting increase of about 65 percent for both men and women over the agency’s 2003 data.

And the small percentage of men is somewhat misleading; the 2007 percentages translate into 45,564 women and 47,719 men whose injuries forced them to acknowledge their victimization and to seek help from the VA.

Some of that increase can perhaps be attributed to a 2005 congressional directive requiring the VA to improve its rate of screening returning soldiers for MST, but given that almost 90 percent of veterans don’t (or can’t) use VA health care services, it seems safe to assume that the actual numbers are considerably higher.

Those are just the numbers for veterans.

In 2008, the Pentagon received more than 2,900 sexual assault reports involving active-duty service members. That represents a 9 percent increase from 2007, a 26 percent increase in combat zones. Almost a third of those reports involved rape, and more than half involved aggravated sexual assault.

In a dazzling display of unapologetic spin, the increase was called “encouraging,” an indication of more reports rather than more assaults. It offered no evidence to back up that interpretation, save that the department “encourages greater reporting to hold offenders accountable for this crime.”

That seems an unlikely incentive given that only 10 percent of the 2008 complaints led to a court-martial (compared to a civilian rate of 40 percent). The rest received minor punishments, almost half were dismissed, and the report acknowledged that 90 percent of sexual assaults in the military aren’t reported at all.

Rape occurs almost twice as frequently in the military as it does among civilians, especially in wartime.

When a 2008 House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee subpoenaed Kaye Whitley, director of the DoD’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), to explain what the department was doing to stop the escalating sexual violence in the military, her boss, Michael Dominguez, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, ordered her not to appear.

Only after the department was threatened with a contempt citation was Whitley made available to the committee. She then sought to reassure the members that DoD is conducting a “crusade against sexual assault,” and itemized all of the heroic measures the agency was planning to implement in the very near future — efforts that somehow, despite explicit directives and deadlines from Congress, the agency had not managed to launch at the time.

Tia Christopher, women veterans coordinator at Swords to Plowshares in San Francisco, holds Dominguez, not Whitley, responsible for flouting congressional directives.

“I heard him claim that the reason sexual assaults are so high in the military right now is the hip-hop influence. I don’t need to spell out why I found that so offensive. I fault Dominguez for not recognizing that it is a leadership issue.”

Christopher loves the military and calls it “a really beautiful machine” when it is working correctly. But she is a rape survivor, and she feels doubly betrayed by her superiors in the Navy. “They can respond to other situations, why not to sexual assault?”

Christopher was 18 when she joined the Navy, training to be a cryptologist. The night she was raped, she had been drinking.

“Underage drinking,” she notes, “is a big issue in the military. It gets you an Article 15, and it’s 100 percent guaranteed that you will be prosecuted for collateral misconduct. It is far more likely that you will get in trouble for collateral misconduct [from drinking alcohol] than for raping someone. So I destroyed all the evidence. I bleached my sheets and scrubbed myself up and didn’t come forward until two weeks later. I wanted to keep my military career, and I thought I could just get through it.

“But I saw him every day. I mustered with him. He would follow me into the chow hall and sit across from me while I ate. I stopped eating, couldn’t concentrate, started failing my courses. And I started having flashbacks, hallucinating. I thought I saw him everywhere.”

Christopher finally realized she needed help, but the female petty officer she first spoke to got her chief involved and, as the report went up the chain of command, her nightmare just got bigger.

“In my case, there were witnesses. They heard my head hit the wall in the barracks room, but they were drinking [underage], too.”

Her commanding officer promised them all immunity if they agreed to testify on her behalf, and then reneged on the deal.

“It ended up that they all got in trouble, and [her rapist] got off.” (In 2006, Christopher’s attacker was expelled from the military for another rape.)

“The last few months that I was in the service, I was assigned to X Division, mopping the stairs, cleaning the heads, picking hair out of the drains. It was my job to vacuum the different chief’s offices, and these sleazeballs would say things like, ‘Hey, Christopher, bend over when you’re sweeping.’ Or, ‘Hey Christopher, let me see them titties.’ When you come forward about a rape, basically you are just a slut.”

Christopher left the military in 2001, and it took her a long time to get her life back together. She still has panic attacks, flashbacks, trouble sleeping. But, with help from a women’s psychotherapy group at the Seattle VA, and the rich support from sympathetic colleagues at Swords to Plowshares, she has developed a lot of coping skills.

After seven years, and some good therapy, she feels strong enough to manage her advocacy and policy work.

“I’ve testified before the California state Legislature, and I was invited to testify before Congress. I speak out about MST as much as I do so other women don’t have to. This is not just my job. There is no way I would ever give my clients to the media. I remember what it was like, being fresh out of the service and going through that trauma.”

Lisa Pellerin, who has facilitated sex-offender programs for the New York State Department of Corrections for six years, believes that “everyone has the potential to be a sex offender. It depends on how they have been conditioned. When they are in the military, supporting the brotherhood is the most important thing. Soldiers do what they feel they have to do because they don’t want to be seen as weak or unable to perform.

“Sexual abuse has always been about power and control. If you are exposed and desensitized to certain sexual behaviors, they become normalized.”

One of the most basic conditioning strategies military training uses to destabilize a recruit’s inherent disinclination to kill is the inculcation of a dehumanized enemy. Soldiers are taught that “we” are the good guys; “they” are the “others.” “They” are easier to kill because they are not us. They are also easier to despise. “Others” — the nips, the gooks, the hajis — come and go, but ever reliable and constant is “the girl.”

Even in this new 20 percent female military, misogynist marching rhymes (aka jodies) are still used, and drill instructors still shame recruits with taunts of pussy or sissy, faggot or girl. Patty McCann, who signed up with the Illinois National Guard when she was 17 and deployed to Iraq when she was 20, still feels betrayed when she remembers her drill sergeant yelling, “Does your pussy hurt?” and “Do you need a tampon?”

A culture that encourages violence and misogyny, says Helen Benedict, attracts a disproportionate number of sexually violent men: half of male recruits enlist to escape abusive families, a history that is often predictive of an abuser.

But whatever attracts them, and wherever they come from, this is about a system plagued by rot, and not about a few bad apples. American veterans embody the inevitable, predictable blowback from that rotten system.

It is both unjust and disingenuous to focus on what our soldiers have become without talking about what we have become: A society that romanticizes its warriors, demonizes its veterans and devalues its women.

“Did I serve my full enlistment?” Christopher says. “No. But that’s because some shitbag sailor who shouldn’t have been wearing the uniform came into my life. Why is that my issue?

“This is a leadership issue.”

Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her book Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War was released on Memorial Day 2006. Her Web site is Flashback.

October 15, 2009

Military rape awareness week

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Military-Rape-Awarness-Wee-by-Elaine-Brower-091013-340.html

October 13, 2009 at 16:05:25

Military Rape Awarness Week Starts At Times Sq. Recruiting Station

By Elaine Brower

To kick-off a weeklong list of nationwide events aimed at educating the public about recent reports that one in three women in the military are raped, Veterans for Peace, the sponsor of this campaign, along with activists from local New York city area groups descended upon the Times Square Recruiting Station in Manhattan. A press conference was conducted by retired US Army Col. Ann Wright, where media attention on this topic was quite impressive. The cameras and reporters swarmed Col. Wright as she began to make her statements. She said, “It is a responsibility of us as veterans to warn young women that according to Veterans Administration studies, one in three women are sexually assaulted or raped while they are in the military.”

Staff Sgt. Sandra Lee of the US Army Reserves was there to speak out for the first time about the fact that she was raped twice while in a combat duty station in Iraq in 2005. She was physically, emotionally and mentally upset to recount her abuse in the military by a member of her own unit. She stood, supported by Ann Wright and Eve Ensler, author and playwright of the “Vagina Monologues and V-Day”, recounting the details of how she survived her ordeal to come forward today in front of cameras standing in Times Square.

VFP chapters will have actions during the entire week from October 13th to the 16th at Armed Forces recruiting stations around the Country to demand that military recruiters alert women who are thinking about joining the military about the high possibility they will be raped while in the controlled, highly disciplined military environment. Sexual assault and rape of women and men in the US military increased so dramatically during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that in 2005 then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld formed a task force on sexual assault; however, the task force did not meet until 2008. Nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of women veterans who sought health care through the Veterans Administration said they experience rape or attempted rape during their service. Of that group, 37 percent said they were raped multiple times and 14 percent reported they were gang-raped. The Department of Defense has been reluctant to release statistics on sexual assault of men in the military, but anecdotal evidence indicates that the statistics are alarmingly high. Over the past 10 years, more than 700 US Army Recruiters have been accused of sexual misconduct or rape. Sixty years of US military studies and task forces since women began entering the military in larger numbers have not lessened the incidents of assault and rape.

Also speaking at the rally and press conference was Leah Bolger, National Vice-President of Veterans for Peace. She stated that although she was not herself a victim while she served 20 years in the US Navy as an officer, she had witnessed abuse inflicted on others under her command. After, about 50 activists marched upon the Times Square Recruiting Station, holding signs announcing “STOP RAPE IN THE MILITARY!” and bumper stickers stating that “1 in 3 women are raped in the military”, which they planned to paste on the windows of the target building. But this proved unsuccessful since there was a media event surrounding the area, and although Col. Wright demanded access to the recruiting station building, none was granted. The march was spirited and angry, and continued around the island positioned on 47th and Broadway.

For more information please visit:

Recruiter Sexual Abuse: Friendly Fire at Home?: http://www.alternet.org/story/57378/

Pentagon Acts to crack Down on Recruiter Misconduct:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washinton/articles/2007/03/19/pentagon_acts_to

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/magazine/18cover.html?ref=magazine

Amy Goodman, “The Private War of Women Soldiers: Female Vet, Soldier speak Out on rising Sexual Assault Within US Military: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/08/1443232

www.elainebrower.com

Anti-war activist, mother of U.S. Marine currently on his way to Iraq for a 3rd tour of duty; member of Steering Committee for the “World Can’t Wait, Drive Out the Bush Regime” and Military Families Speak Out.

September 23, 2009

Women Against Militarism Discuss Impact Of Military Build Up

September 18, 2009September 23, 2009

Women Activists Explore Post-military economy

Activists explore post-military economy

Friday, 18 September 2009 03:18 MVG Reporter

PEOPLE will have to work together if they want to sustain an economy after the military. This was emphasized during the fourth day of the 7th Meeting of the International Network of Women Against Militarism at the University of Guam in Mangilao.

The morning a panel focused on the topic “Beyond the Military Economy: Exploring Alternatives for Sustainability.”

Participating were Alma Bulawan of the Buklod Center Philippines, Dr. Hannah Middleton of the Australian Anti-Base Campaign, Dr. Miyume Tanji of Curtin University of Technology in Australia, and Isabella Sumang of Palau.

Each panelist gave a perspective of the impact the military has had on their respective regions.

Bulawan had indicated that when there were bases in the Philippines, businesses were set up to cater to the military as well as prostitution. It appears now that with those bases closed, businesses and the prostitution still remain.

She referred to the Subic Bay and Clark Freeport Zones, which formerly hosted the U.S. Naval Base and the Air Force Base and have each seen the creation and development of businesses.

Despite the conversion of the old bases, Bulawan said the Philippines continues to face economic challenges.

As for Australia, Middleton explained how millions of Australian dollars are spent on military defense and other armed forces programs. A recent poll showed that 70 percent of Australians do not want any more money spent on the military.

She added that the Australians believe the money should go on helping the environment, improving hospitals and even to create jobs.

“We expect one million Australians will be unemployed in 2010, money should be spent to help them find jobs,” she said.

During the open forum, several concerns were brought up including a question on whether they felt that the threat of an invasion and war is real here in Micronesia.

Sumang responded that it could be the case especially when there is a military presence. “You have that threat hanging over your head,” she said.

Middleton offered another perspective saying that the threat is an excuse to keep military bases in the region.

“It’s not real,” she pointed out.

The women’s conference concludes today at the Carmel on the Hill Retreat Center in Malojloj or the former Carmelite Convent.

Participants are expected to discuss Human Trafficking and Prostitution and gather together in group meetings to develop short term and long term goals.

The conference wraps up with an art celebration featuring music, visual artworks and poetry reading starting at 6 p.m.

Source: http://mvguam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8568:activists-explore-post-military-economy&catid=1:guam-local-news&Itemid=2

September 17, 2009

Women’s Vigil for Peace and Solidarity

In Solidarity with the 7th International Network of Women against Militarism (INWAM) Meeting: Guahan

Hafa Adai, my name is Angela T. Hoppe-Cruz. I am a Chamoru woman born and raised on the island of Guahan, now residing in Makaha. The INWAM formed in the mid 1990’s in response to the rape of a young Okinawan woman by a U.S. Marine. In 2004 women from Hawaii represented DMZ Hawaii Aloha Aina at th 5th INWAM Meeting held in the Phillipies. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is part of the alliance that makes up DMZ. Hawaii’s participation continued, followed by the 2007 delegation in San Francisco, and this year Guahan. This year Hawaii is represented at the Guahan conference by Auntie Terri and Melanie Medalle. The meeting location is strategically selected based on the current militarism efforts against the people. In 2006 the U.S. military announced the transfer of U.S. Marines stationed in Okinawa to Guahan. The influx will result in 50,000 more people and immense development of the land for military use.

The 7th INWAM Meeting kicked off early this week, as I followed in spirit and prayer our sisters and brothers, there is an ache to be part of such a historic event, especially at this moment in time. Many sisters from the Micronesian region, here on Oahu have expressed that same ache and desire. I was moved and inspired by them to organize a gathering for our sisters living on Oahu, who cannot be in attendance at the INMW. On the final day of the conference there will be a community vigil to “honor the past and heal for the future “Fuetsan I Lina’la’: Famalao’an I Tano’ Strength of Life: Women of the Land”. Detailed information regarding the conference is at this site: http://genuinesecurity.blogspot.com/.

In solidarity with the INWM Guahan conference, we ask that you join us for a community vigil to be held on Oahu, to honor the past and heal for the future. This is a call for solidarity and sisterhood and that our connection brings hopeful collectivity. Militarism and empire building has wrought upon indigenous peoples’ across the globe a deep trauma and loss. The INWM is a collective of women standing up against the continued injustices and desecration of our lands, and communities. This is the thrust of the Gathering, women collectively overcoming militarism and putting forth a new vision of security. We ask for your full participation, this is not a performance. It is a space for us to gather, to re-member. Please call with questions Angela at 366-5777 or e-mail atacruz@gmail.com.

When: Sunday, September 20th at 4:00p.m.

Where: Makua Beach, Ku la`i la`i

Hi`uwai (water cleansing ceremony). Procession to Papa Wai Ola cared for by Auntie Leandra.

Oli by Auntie Leandra

Song from our Sisters’ (open to all)
- Chamoru, Chuukese, Palauan

Resilience and Healing across Oceania
- Sharing our stories of struggle and hope

Potluck and drinks

**Please bring a potluck dish and drink to share. Also, please bring kukui nuts they will be used to represent the hurt you wish to be transformed.

The following is a timeline of military rule and impact in the Micronesian Islands and Hawaii. There are not words to describe the history of oppression and hurt that connects us. Nor are there words to describe our inherent power to heal and move beyond. We take with us not spears, but the power of our voice, love and ancestors collectively to challenge and resist the continued rape of our tano/aina.

The Transgressions: A timeline of militarism in our islands. (this is not a comprehensive list)

1893: The Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown and placed under U.S. rule, annexed as a territory.
1898: The islands of Micronesia, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Isalnds and the Republic of Palau were divvied up as spoils of war after the Spanish American war.
Guam was ceded to the United States of America while the rest of the islands were awarded to Germany.
1919: The Japanese through the Treaty of Versailles took control of the islands, except for Guam, which continued to be ruled by the U.S.A.
1920: Guam is forced to follow: English Only Law.
1941: Guam was under U.S. rule, until the Japanese Occupation, which lasted until 1944
1944: Guam was ‘liberated’ from Japanese Occupation by the United States of America.
1944: Following WWII the FSM, RMI, ROP and CNMI became Trust Territories of the Pacific, through the UN administered by the USA.
1950: Through the Organic Act of 1950, Guam became a United States Territory.
1954: In the name of Humanity, Marshall Islands are used as testing site of BRAVO an HBOMB, the equivalent of 10000 Hiroshima bombs.
1959: Hawai`i nei annexed into statehood.
1979: Four of the trust territory islands ratified the constitution to become the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Ponepei, Kosrae, Yap). RMI, ROP and CNMI chose not to participate.
1986: Compact of Free Association took effect, for the FSM and RMI entities.
1993: President Clinton issued an apology to the Kanaka Maoli for the overthrow of their Kingdom.
1996: Compact of Free Association took effect. The conflict which this contract brought to the people of Palau was devastating. Their first President was assassinated and the 2nd committed suicide as a result of the pressure to get the people to agree to this. From the perspective of an elder, the third President gave in.
1996: Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act, distinguishes Micronesians as aliens and ineligible for Medquest, based on “alienage” Sect 412, 431.
2006: US announced transfer of Okinawan base to Guam, influx of 50,000 people and development as result. No community consultation.
2009: Linda Lingle attempts to alter healthcare coverage to migrants from Micronesia, possibly endangering lives of individuals in need of chemo and dialysis.

As I write this my heart is heavy…the connections that have severed us are many and have been brutal. I ask you to join us; sisters in solidarity, to relieve ourselves of the cultural historical trauma…if not relieve, to ask for the strength to continue fighting for our people, our land. What we shed will flow out into the ocean and become one with the current.