More U.S. Rape on Okinawa — Enough!
Posted by Mike E on February 22, 2008
 |
|
|
This important message from Okinawa reaches us via the CounterPunch News Service. Thanks to “somecomments” for submitting it for posting on Kasama. Okinawa is a grouping of Pacific Islands occupied by U.S. forces since the end of World War 2, and used as a base for threatening people throughout the Asian Far East. The people of Okinawa have suffered continual outrages from the occupying forces, including repeated incidents of rape.
A Message from the Women of Okinawa
(Feb. 21, 2008) Once again, American GIs have raped an Okinawan girl, one from junior high. We are angry.We do not believe that all of you are rapists. But given the long history of similar crimes over the sixty years from the Battle of Okinawa continuing to today, one could be forgiven for thinking so. If you are a female GI, can you trust these male GIs ?
We know that this incident is only the tip of the iceberg. There have been so many rape victims who have told no one and wept silently in their beds, that you are probably confident that you could get away with it, aren’t you. But those days are now over.
We are not going to let us and our mothers, our sisters and our daughters be humiliated any longer. Whatever you do, wherever you go, we’ll be watching you.
 |
|
|
You have been turned into killing machines. The military organization has sought to teach you to see people not as people, but as something to kill. It is that same training that has taught you see us as someone you can rape casually. Go back to your hometown, where your mother is, and try to get yourself back to being a decent human being.
We do not hate you as individuals. But as members of the US military organization, you are unwelcome here. Maybe you imagine you are protecting Okinawa. But because you are here, we never feel safe. Because you are here, we feel constant fear.
You think that because the US military shed blood to seize Okinawa in World War II, the place belongs to you and you can do anything you want here, don’t you.
But whatever countries or governments may have won or lost whatever wars, we have our dignity, our honor, and our freedom, and these are our islands, our land, our sky, our sea. It is here that we maintain the chain of life, giving birth to children, and raising them to be adults. This is the women of Okinawa. And this is what we are proud of. We will not allow you to continue to insult the pride, the honor, the dignity of us and our mothers, sisters and daughters. Go back to America. Now.
Okiinawan women are handing this statement to US military personnel. Contact address: ushiibaakami@yahoo.co.jp
Marco said
Why so much propaganda against America?
Why there are no rape cases in Germany with a big American base?
Japan and Taiwan needs America, without it Japan would be attacked by China or North Korea.
Okinawans should stop blaming Americans
Mike E said
The controversy is, of course, not limited to Okinawa.
As U.S. soldiers advanced up the Italian “boot” during World War 2, they were notorious for raping large numbers of Italian women who fell into their hands. And in Vietnam, the incidences of horrific rape (often followed by murder) were massive (even routine), and reached the level of war crimes. It also went hand-in-hand with the creation of the modern global sex trafficking (which originated in places of major U.S. military presence or R&R: like Luzon air base and Bangkok and Hong Kong.)
And it is, of course, not just limited to U.S. occupying troops: Recent rape controversy in Germany — involving British soldiers
Rape of Iraqi women by U.S. soldiersis a significant (and suppressed) element of the occupation (and of course of the Abu Ghraib exposures).
* * * * * *
Here is an article with some more revealing background on Okinawa:
Sex crimes and prostitution — Outposts of Empire: The case against foreign military bases, TNI, March 2007
The heady mix of machismo and militarism that pervades US army bases generally means trouble for relations with local women. The areas surrounding many bases have high levels of prostitution, while the government agreements protecting US soldiers from prosecution mean that sex crimes are rarely met with adequate severity.
Contents
The heady mix of machismo and militarism that pervades US army bases generally means trouble for relations with local women. The areas surrounding many bases have high levels of prostitution, while the government agreements protecting US soldiers from prosecution mean that sex crimes are rarely met with adequate severity.
US military authorities have tended toward the idea that prostitution provides a useful way for soldiers stationed thousands of miles from wives or girlfriends to “let off steam”. The welfare of the women providing these “rest and recreational” opportunities is rarely of concern: prostitution around bases and ports used by US navy ships in the Philippines and Thailand fuels the trafficking of women throughout south-east Asia, while living conditions and standards of health amongst sex workers are often low. The attitude of US army doctors to local women seeking HIV tests illustrates military attitudes – women are tested to ensure that they are a safe, HIV-free commodity for the soldiers, but are not offered safe sex advice or supplies to protect themselves.
While military chiefs are able to dismiss the welfare of sex workers as an issue of the womens professional choice, reality shows a more complex situation, with many women not selecting this as a profession but regarding themselves as genuine partners who are then shocked to find themselves abandoned when military personnel move on. It is estimated that since 1945 there have been 50,000 unacknowledged children of US soldiers in the Philippines alone, and these receive none of the benefits of US military families, such as healthcare, housing and education. Similar problems have been reported around US bases in Germany and the UK.
The most extreme examples of the use and abuse of women by the US military are found in the high rate of sex crimes, including pedophilia, around army bases. High profile examples, such as the grotesquely sexualised murder of a young woman bar worker by a US serviceman in Korea in 1992 and the rape of a 12 year old girl in Okinawa by three GIs in 1995 are just the visible end of the everyday difficulties faced by women and girls in base towns from Honduras to Guam to Labrador. Studies from the US occupation of Japan in the 1950s show soldiers giving rape victims rationed food items, in order to turn the crime – at least in the perpetrator’s eyes – into a commercial event encouraged by military policy. In its continued condoning of the use of large-scale prostitution and its refusal to take responsibility for the safety of women around its bases, the US military’s attitudes continue to facilitate the use of women as objects in this way.
Okinawa
Seventy-five per cent of the US bases in Japan are concentrated on Okinawa, a tiny island occupying just 0.6 per cent of the country’s land area. These occupy many of the island’s best agricultural and fishing sites, as well as causing serious environmental and noise pollution. The bases have resulted in high crime rates, and a disturbing level of sexual violence, as Suzuyo Takasato of Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, explains:
Okinawa is a place where the armed forces have learnt how to kill and hurt people in close proximity to the local population for more than 60 years. This situation breeds a structural violence, rather than one that can be understood simply in terms of the crimes of individual soldiers.
When a 12-year-old girl was raped by three US soldiers in September 1995, an infamous case, the shock was too enormous for society to remain silent. But there is a long history of violence and harassment on Okinawa derived from the presence of the US bases.
In the post-war period, including after the Battle of Okinawa and during the Korean War, the whole of Okinawa turned into a land without law. US soldiers raped women, threatening them at gunpoint in crop fields and on the streets, and even abducting them in front of their families. Many unwanted and forced pregnancies resulted as female Okinawans of all ages were targeted. The victims of sexual violence on the island included a nine-month old baby in 1949 and a little girl of six years old, who was raped and killed in 1955.
“During the Vietnam War, the terrible violence committed by US soldiers, operating in an extremely unstable and frantic psychological condition was also directed towards women working in areas surrounding the US bases. At that time, two to four people were strangled to death each year, and many women in the area lived in fear of this fate.
Okinawa reverted to Japanese administration in 1972 but the violence continued, and even became more chronic. There were a number of rapes and attempted rapes, as well as sexual abuse in public areas and even a case where a private house was invaded. The victims included a 10 year-old girl and a 14 year-old girl.
When the 1995 rape case of a girl happened, I was hosting a workshop with other Okinawan women at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing on the topic of ‘Military Violence against Women in Okinawa’. When we returned home and learnt more about the case, we decided to break the silence that was a supplement to the violence. We established ‘Okinawa Women Act against Military Violence’, an association to stop military power and violence. At the same time, we opened the ‘Rape Emergency Intervention Counseling Centre – Okinawa’, which offers supports to the victims of sexual violence. We made a chronology of sex crimes against women by US soldiers in the post-war period, which shed light on the previously unknown level of this violence. We also organised a ‘Peace Caravan to the USA’ in 1996 and 1998 to make US citizens aware of the realities of their soldiers’ activities and discuss with them. In 1997, we formed the ‘East Asia-US-Puerto Rico Women’s Network Against Militarism’ together with women from the Philippines, Korea, the USA and Puerto Rico, where we share our experiences on the negative impacts of the bases to women, children and environment, learn collectively from our own activities, and support each other. In Okinawa itself, 34 organisations came together in 1999 to launch the ‘Okinawa Citizens’ Network’, of which I am one of the coordinators.
The bases remain, however, and a new ‘floating’ facility is being constructed in Henoko Bay, also in Okinawa province, as a replacement for the dangerous Futenma base. A citizens’ referendum showed a clear ‘no’ to this new base, while various citizens’ groups engaged in resistance actions on the sea for more than 600 days, forcing construction plans to stop. It was the victory of the power of hope: believing in life, peace and co-existence.
Quorri Scharmyn said
Marco says:
“Why so much propaganda against America?…Japan and Taiwan needs America, without it Japan would be attacked by China or North Korea. Okinawans should stop blaming Americans”
Propaganda is not defined by but implies that there is something untrue about the information supplied or that the ends sought after by the supposed propagandist are unworthy or wrong. The information being spread by the people and, specifically, the women of Okinawa is more than true, it is not even the entire truth, as both the articles and Mike have pointed out.
The history of women’s oppression and the general societal dismissal of women’s oppression both lead women toward a place of dis-empowerment from within which they often fall silent. For every reported case of rape or sexual abuse or harassment we can safely assume that there are plenty more going on that have not been and will never be reported. This has been shown over and over (BACHMAN, RONET, The Factors Related to Rape Reporting Behavior and Arrest: New Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Criminal Justice and Behavior 1998 25: 8-29; Allen WD (2007) The Reporting and Underreporting of Rape. Southern Economic Journal: Vol. 73, No. 3 pp. 623–641; etc.).
As to your assumption that Japan and Taiwan need America, I’d just point you toward the very clear declaration that they, in fact, do not, given by the people of Okinawa themselves. Who are we to tell them they are wrong? If they choose for us to leave their country and then they do get attacked, isn’t that primarily up to them to decide? It’s definitely not up to me…. or you.
Finally, when you say that Okinawans should stop blaming Americans, exactly what are you saying? They should stop blaming them for the rapes that they’ve committed? How is that logical or correct? If someone does something, you can objectively see it and it exists. The Americans have raped Okinawans over and over again. This is fact. Why should we ignore that? How can you argue that should be ignored?
Mike E said
Yes, I agree, Quorri Scharmyn.
The idea that either China or North Korea threaten to invade Japan, or that U.S. troops in Okinawa are a bulwark against that has zero factual basis.
The reality is the opposite: Okinawa has been used as a forward staging area for the U.S. attacks in this whole region: including their war in Korea, Vietnam, and numerous military threats on China. These countries never threatened Japan (i.e. Japan was in fact the occupier of Korea and China in the last century, NOT the other way around). And they never threatened the U.S. These are outposts of empire, and (as the letter from the women notes) the soldiers are trained in a view of other people (and of women) that leads to rape (both of the surrounding populations and also of female GIs).
Those are the facts.
zerohour said
The reality is the opposite: Okinawa has been used as a forward staging area for the U.S. attacks in this whole region: including their war in Korea, Vietnam, and numerous military threats on China.
According to Chalmers Johnson in Blowback, one argument for the US leaving is that if China ever attacked Japan, it would be BECAUSE of the US bases there.
antiimperialistgirl said
I really like the article that Mike Ely linked to (Rape of Iraqi women by U.S. soldiers) because of its exposure of the epidemic sexual-assault on women in the military, and its exposure of rape as a side-dish (my words) to US militarism.
I disagree with the author’s thesis as to why rape is perpetrated by men in the US military, which leads her/him to the conclusion that rape is a side dish, and not a tactic. The author’s thesis is that men in the military are mostly young, horny, men, who have gone too long without sex and need to “get some” (authors words). I think the contradictions that propel men in the military to rape are much more sinister and are in fact a tactic, of oppressing the local population, and act to further reinforce the break down a soldier’s bonds to humanity.
US/UN/NATO/German?etc. soldiers are needed to commit tremendous acts against humanity and need appropriate training/incentive/situation to do this. These soldiers are systematically desensitized to human suffering, and are taught to actively dehumanize people. This reprogramming, this new political line they are forced to adopt is what leads them to rape.
Rape is an act of violence, which has nothing to do with healthy sexual gratification. People are not driven to rape because they are horny, they are driven to rape because they get off on the sense of power they derive from the act.
Stanley W. Rogousk said
As U.S. soldiers advanced up the Italian “boot” during World War 2, they were notorious for raping large numbers of Italian women who fell into their hands.
Damn. Never even heard of this. I thought it was only Russians who did stuff like this.
Mike E said
A film was made on the rapes by Allied forces in the Italian campaign — the award winning ‘Two Women” (1960 with Sophia Loren). However in that film the rapes themselves are carried out by North African troops (not directly by the Americans) — so the impact and content of it is different.
rcvet said
Here’s a statement from Gabriela (an anti-imperialist alliance of hundreds of women’s organizations in the Philippines) about the recent sexual assault on a Filipina by a US soldier in Okinawa.
23 February 2008
GABRIELA CONDEMNS SEXUAL ASSAULT OF PINAY BY US SOLDIER IN JAPAN
DEMANDS PULL OUT OF US MILITARY IN ASIA
GABRIELA National Alliance of Women is outraged that yet another
Filipina was sexually assaulted by a US soldier, this time in Okinawa,
Japan. Following the arrest of a US Marine on suspicion of raping a
14-year old Japanese girl in Okinawa, it is high time that the United
States government ceases its military interventionist policy and pulls
its troops out of sovereign nations.
The presence of US troops in foreign countries clearly undermines and
infringes on the affairs of sovereign nations across the world. In
particular, Asian women are not safe with chauvinist and sexually
violent US soldiers roaming the continent. Armed with the belief that
the US is the world’s super cop, coupled with the military’s culture of
sexism and violence, it is not unexpected that US soldiers would
sexually assault Asian women with impunity. This is compounded by
the seeming immunity of US soldiers from punishment.
One of the most celebrated cases of US military atrocities was the rape
of 22-year old “Nicole” and her courageous fight against the four US
servicemen who violated her. But despite the Makati Regional Trial
Court’s decision finding Lance Corporal Daniel Smith guilty, justice for
Nicole was virtually nullified when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
turned over Lance Corporal Daniel Smith’s custody over to the US
Embassy. President Arroyo’s action sends the message to all US
servicemen that they can violate any woman and yet go unpunished.
To date in the Philippines, there have been 17 to 24 joint US-RP
military exercises (otherwise known as Balikatan Exercises) and has
resulted to innumerable damages on the lives of Filipinos. Despite
this, President Arroyo maintains her US subservient stance, further
putting Filipinos easy prey for abuse and exploitation of US troops.
Thus, GABRIELA enjoins all women in all nations, especially those who
suffer from U.S. military intervention and consequent abuses of U.S.
soldiers to voice out our protest and demand: US Troops, Out Now! End
U.S. military intervention! ###
Source: Emmi de Jesus, Secretary General, 371-2302 / 0917-3221203
CJ said
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1000625,00.html
The amount of crimes committed by American Servicemen is significantly smaller then the amount caused by Okinawa’s own population,
its important to remain unbiased in discussions of this nature and understand that American forces in Japan and Okinawa provide essential military defense against historically the soviet union and presently the at times aggressive regimes of China and North Korea. To ignore these power houses and their threat to Japan, Taiwan and other Asian allied nations would be foolhardy.
Green Red rev said
Thanks a lot 9th posting by Rc Vet for posting Gabriella’s statement.
Glorya M Arroyo’s action was supposedly justified since the US had put US Philippine military exercises under conditions for their bloody rapist soldier to be relased.
In the meantime same bloody president who is making Marcos as less terrible has started her crusade to save environment and anti drug propaganda show.
Please provide more on her lies machine.
redflags said
#10 – CJ: That’s very funny. The US is occupying Okinawa to “protect” it.
Right. Of course. Just like the US is “protecting” Gitmo from… Cubans?
zerohour said
CJ-
Read Chalmers Johnson’s Blowback for a different take on Japan’s attitude towards US bases. According to Johnson, the Japanese feel no military threat from China. In fact, they want the US to leave because those bases would be a possible target if US-China tensions rose to the level of military conflict.
Make no mistake, those bases are not defensive, they are forward bases for imperial deployment.