Japan Aff Michigan
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- All other alternatives fail, measures in the past have failed to reduce crimes and people who have spoken out have been punished by the government Motoyama
- Although the on-going realignment of the U.S. forces is expected to lessen the burden on Okinawa, it will increase the strategic importance of the forces in Japan
- The deep rooted patriarchy in Japan oppresses women, especially in the fight to remove US military bases and in terms of sexual violence Tanji, 03
Must Remove BasesWomen will continue to get beaten, abused, and raped unless the bases are removed Johnson, 8-Ph.D. in political science from University of California, Berkeley, professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute (Chalmers, Asia Times, “The ‘Rape’ of Okinawa”, 7-03-2008, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19481.htm) Massive It all seemed deadly familiar: an adult, 38-year-old US Marine sergeant accused by the Okinawan police of sexually violating a 14-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl. He claims he did not actually rape her but only forcibly kissed her, as if knocking down an innocent child and slobbering all over her face is OK if you're a representative of the American military forces. The accused marine has now been released because the girl has refused to press charges - perhaps because he is innocent as he claimed or perhaps because she can't face the ignominy of appearing in court. Let us briefly recall some of the other incidents since the notorious 1995 kidnapping, beating and gang rape of a 12-year-old girl by two marines and a sailor in Kin village, Okinawa. The convicted assailants in that outrage were Marine Private First Class Roderico Harp, Marine Private First Class Kendrick Ledet and Seaman Marcus Gill. Other incidents of bodily harm, intimidation and death continue in Okinawa on an almost daily basis, including hit-and-run collisions between American troops and Okinawans on foot or on auto bikes, robberies and assaults, bar brawls and drunken and disorderly conduct. On June 29, 2001, a 24-year-old air force staff sergeant, Timothy Woodland, was arrested for publicly raping a 20-year-old Okinawan woman on the hood of a car. On November 2, 2002, Okinawan authorities took into custody Marine Major Michael J Brown, 41 years old, for sexually assaulting a Filipina barmaid outside the Camp Courtney officer's club. On May 25, 2003, Marine Military Police turned over to Japanese police a 21-year-old lance corporal, Jose Torres, for breaking a 19-year-old woman's nose and raping her, once again in Kin village. In early July 2005, a drunken air force staff sergeant molested a 10-year-old Okinawan girl on her way to Sunday school. He at first claimed to be innocent, but then police found a photo of the girl's nude torso on his cell phone. After each of these incidents and innumerable others that make up the daily police blotter of Japan's most southerly prefecture, the commander of US forces in Okinawa, a Marine Corps lieutenant general, and the American ambassador in Tokyo, make public and abject apologies for the behavior of US troops. Occasionally the remorse goes up to the Pacific commander-in-chief or, in the most recent case, to the secretary of state. On February 27, Condoleezza Rice said, "Our concern is for the girl and her family. We really, really deeply regret it." The various officers responsible for the discipline of US troops in Japan invariably promise to tighten supervision over them, who currently number 92,491, including civilian employees and dependents. But nothing ever changes. Why? Because the Japanese government speaks with a forked tongue. For the sake of the Okinawans forced to live cheek-by-jowl with 37 US military bases on their small island, Tokyo condemns the behavior of the Americans. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda called the recent assault "unforgivable" and demanded tighter military discipline. But that is as far as it goes. The Japanese government has never even discussed why a large standing army of Americans is garrisoned on Japanese territory, some 63 years after the end of World War II. There is never any analysis in the Japanese press or by the government of whether the Japanese-American Security Treaty actually requires such American troops. Couldn't the terms of the treaty be met just as effectively if the marines were sent back to their own country and called on only in an emergency? The American military has never agreed to rewrite the Status of Forces Agreement, as demanded by every local community in Japan that plays host to American military facilities, and the Japanese government meekly goes along with this stonewalling. Once an incident "blows over", as this latest one now has, the pundits and diplomats go back to their boiler-plate pronouncements about the "long-standing and strong alliance" (Rice in Tokyo), about how Japan is an advanced democracy (although it has been ruled by the same political party since 1949 except for a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union), and about how indispensable America's empire of over 800 military bases in other people's countries is to the maintenance of peace and security. As long as Japan remains a satellite of the United States, women and girls in Okinawa will continue to be slugged, beaten and raped by heavily armed young Americans who have no other reason for being there than the pretensions of American imperialism. As long as the Japanese government refuses to stand up and demand that the American troops based on its territory simply go home, nothing will change. All other alternatives fail, measures in the past have failed to reduce crimes and people who have spoken out have been punished by the government Motoyama, 08-Executive Director of the Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center in Japan (Hisako, Off Our Backs, Volume 38, Issue 1, “Not a ‘yankees-go-home’ Solution to the Sexual Violence of the U.S. Military”, 2008, accessed via questia.com, Questia Media America, Inc.) Massive In the 13 years since then, we have seen little improvement. Crimes and accidents by American soldiers have not been reduced, and victims still face difficulty in accessing justice. Rather, the voices of complaint and dissent have been silenced, and Japan has been more deeply involved in the U.S. global military order. The communities that voted against the bases were punished by cuts in government subsidies, and three peace activists were convicted for distributing anti-war flyers. Although the on-going realignment of the U.S. forces is expected to lessen the burden on Okinawa, it will increase the strategic importance of the forces in Japan. Issues of environmental impact, noise and the safety of women and children have never been discussed in the realignment processes. The deep rooted patriarchy in Japan oppresses women, especially in the fight to remove US military bases and in terms of sexual violence Tanji, 03-Research Fellow at the Human Rights Education Centre for Advanced Studies in Australia, Asia and the Pacific (CASAAP), Curtin University of Technology, Australia (Miyume, Japan and Okinawa: Structure and subjectivity, ed. by Glenn D. Hook and Richard Siddle, page 182, accessed via questia.com, Questia Media America, Inc.) Massive The 'Okinawa Struggle' itself is gendered. In the past, some male anti-base activists criticized women activists for 'trivializing' the security issue as a women's issue. Today, women are welcomed and accepted into the 'Okinawa Struggle' with an emphasis on their role as mothers and for their supposedly closer relationship to nature. In 1999 in Okinawa I often heard comments from male activists that women were the most 'energetic' forces of today's Okinawan anti-base movement. The Okinawan women activists and predominantly male actors maintain 'Okinawan' solidarity against the US military and the Japanese government, as long as the underlying sphere of conflict, that is, patriarchy in Okinawan society, lies hidden under the surface. This is perhaps why the women activists in Okinawa, even feminists, often rely on the strategic use of the essentialist notions attached to 'Okinawan women'. In many local communities in the Ryukyu Islands, women have been traditionally entrusted with a role as masters of important religious rituals, for their abilities to make contact with spiritual beings. As shamans at the local level, these women have often functioned as guardians of the traditional patriarchal social order, which is oppressive to women. For example, local shamans contributed to the survival of totome, a Confucian-infused local tradition that prohibited female inheritance of ancestry cards and entire family assets including land, laying the groundwork for the local custom of privileging male children. The term 'unai', as used by contemporary Okinawan feminists, embodies the power of goddesses that the ancient women in the Ryukyus were believed to possess to protect the well-being of male siblings, and, by extension, the entire local community (Shinzato 1994). The application of terms that signify 'Okinawan women' entails the risk of supporting gender stereotypes in a patriarchal community of protest in Okinawa. However, the intentional use of the concept of 'unai' establishes solidarity among the Okinawan sisters through an empowering irony; it also creates a healthy distance from the mainstream actors in the 'Okinawa Struggle', which is not a women's movement as such. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 1.23 Mb. Share with your friends:
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