Programs Home | Climate Energy | Plutonomy | Silos | Rio+20 | False Solutions | Population | Post Capitalism | Technology | Archive Programs IFG PROGRAMS: ASIA-PACIFIC ACTION NETWORK Jeju | Moana Nui Moana Nui I Our new Asia-Pacific resistance movement was launched in November 2011 as co-producer of Moana Nui 2011, Honolulu, three days of public events (and marches) in opposition to the APEC/TPP trade agreement meeting of 21 heads of state as they worked to divvy up the resources and lands of the region. Our teach-in presented 80 scholars, activists, policy analysts, lawyers, labor union leaders, cultural practitioners, and artists traveled from 30 Pacific Rim and Pacific Island nations who argued against APEC and TPP, as well as ongoing militarism and colonialism in the Pacific, environmental devastation, and in behalf of indigenous rights. Participants proclaimed they’d never seen an event with as many diverse cultures, nations and peoples focused on the Pacific, and the urgent need to generate a new movement. To find out more about Moana Nui II CLICK HERE The Battle for Jeju The South Korean government, which is subordinate on military matters to the U.S., under the US-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty, is building the enormous base on the coast at Gangjeong, Jeju, South Korea, a traditional farming and fishing community. If the project is allowed to continue, it will be large enough to hold 20 warships, including Aegis destroyers, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and 8,000 troops. South Korea is already one of the most militarized places in the world. But this new base is part of the Pentagon’s recently announced plan to move 60 percent of its military resources from Europe and the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region – the “Pacific pivot.” The idea is to circle China with Aegis missiles. Islanders fear the base would destabilize the region, lead to a new Cold War, and turn their home into a first-strike target. Korean Village Could Be First Casualty of US Military’s “Pacific Pivot” by Koohan Paik – October 29, 2012 Residents of Jeju Island are protesting construction of new joint US-South Korean Navy base This article by IFG's Koohan Paik summarizes the enormous battle on the island of Jeju, South Korea.  The indigenous Gangjeon villagers are trying to block a U.S.-Korea military base that will be environmentally and socially disastrous.  The story is typical of what U.S. policy is achieving throughout the Pacific right now. In November 2011, President Barack Obama, joined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, announced the “Pacific Pivot,” a strategy to shift the US military’s focus to the Asia-Pacific region. The announcement was a signal to China that the United States would not permit its ascendance to advance any further into the US’s historic zone of economic and military domination, which dates back to the nineteenth-century occupations of the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii. But the announcement of the Pacific Pivot also raised a red flag for environmentalists, Indigenous peoples of the region, and small states within the Pacific Basin, who fear the consequences of this new geopolitical struggle. As an African saying goes: “When the elephants battle, the ants get crushed.”   Resistance to US military bases in the Pacific is not new. Massive protests in Okinawa sometimes draw as many as 100,000 people into the streets in opposition to the decades-old US bases there. On the island of Guam, a new, youth-driven movement has recently emerged to challenge the US military presence there. And in Hawaii, the long battle that began with the occupation of Pearl Harbor at the end of the nineteenth century continues today.   READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE OPEN LETTERS TO: THE LEADERSHIP OF THE IUCN, PARTICIPANTS, AND, GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL, HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS OPEN LETTER #1. OPEN LETTER #2. OPEN LETTER #3. OPEN LETTER #3   TO:   IUCN Leadership, Participants, and, Global Environmental, Human Rights Organizations.   FROM: Emergency Action Committee to Save Jeju Island   ***********   UPDATE:     IUCN OFFICIALLY BLOCKS PARTICIPATION BY JEJU VILLAGERS WHO OPPOSE NAVAL BASE CONSTRUCTION NEAR CONVENTION  IUCN leadership still refuses to criticize Korea's destructive naval base, though construction work is killing rare soft corals, numerous endangered species (including from IUCN's Red List), and destroying indigenous communities and livelihoods. This stance from IUCN defies its traditional mission, conserving nature and a "just world." NEW RESOLUTIONS ARE NEEDED FOR EMERGENCY VOTE OF ALL IUCN MEMBERS   ********************************   Police crack down on Gangjeong villagers protesting navy base construction a few minutes from the IUCN convention site.  ABOUT A MONTH AGO, this committee was joined by dozens of co-signers from around the world, in circulating open letters to the leadership of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its associated members. The statements were remarking on recent actions of IUCN that directly conflict with its important historical mandates.   While continuing to proclaim its devotion to protecting Nature, including the planet’s endangered places and species, IUCN leadership has ignored or whitewashed projects that are assaulting these wonders, and undermining human rights and sustainable livelihoods. For example, the organization inexplicably planned its giant September convention only a few minutes’ bus ride from one of the world’s great current outrages---the construction of a large new naval base near the village of Gangjeong, on Jeju Island, the “jewel” of South Korea.  The naval base project, meant to become home-port for Korean and U.S. missile-carrying warships 300 miles from China, is threatening one of the planet’s last great soft coral reefs, and other coastal treasures, killing numerous endangered species (including one on IUCN’s famous Red List), and destroying centuries-old sustainable communities of local farmers and fishers. The Gangjeong villagers have been protesting the base project for years, and are being met with daily police brutality.  Such activities represent all that IUCN has traditionally opposed. Read full text here