It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Chile's constitutional assembly rejects major mining overhaul
Reuters May 14, 2022 An aerial view of open pits of CODELCO's Andina (L) and Anglo American's Los Bronces (front) copper mines with Olivares glaciers in the background (top) at Los Andes Mountain range, Chile, November 17, 2014. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado
SANTIAGO, May 13 (Reuters) - A constitutional assembly in the world's top-copper producing nation on Saturday rejected a major overhaul to mining rights, including expanding Chilean state ownership. Controversial Article 27, which would have given the state exclusive mining rights over lithium, rare metals and hydrocarbons and a majority stake in copper mines, faced fierce opposition from the mining sector and was voted down last week. read more The environmental commission submitted multiple variations of the article to a vote on Saturday, but they all failed to achieve the 103-vote supermajority needed to pass into the draft constitution. Article 25, which states that miners must set aside "resources to repair damage" to the environment and harmful effects where mining takes place, did get a supermajority and will be in the draft constitution.
The assembly also approved banning mining in glaciers, protected areas and those essential to protecting the water system. Articles guaranteeing farmers and indigenous people the right to traditional seeds, the right to safe and accessible energy and protection of oceans and the atmosphere were also approved.
Voting to approve articles concludes after Saturday's votes, and new commissions in charge of fine-tuning the text take over on Monday. The final draft is due in early July and citizens will vote to approve or reject it on Sept. 4.
The environmental commission, dominated by self-proclaimed eco-constituents, saw just one of 40 of its proposals approved during their first votes in the general assembly.
The commission has since moderated its proposals but its articles including expansion of protected lands, restricting private water rights and making combating climate change a state obligation were included in the new draft text.
ECOCIDE
Peru demands $4.5 billion in compensation over Spain's Repsol oil spill
Peru's intellectual defence body has sought $3 billion dollars for environmental damage to Peru's coast, and another $1.5 billion dollars as compensation to consumers, locals and others affected by the disaster.
Workers continue the clean-up of beaches after contamination by a Repsol oil spill. (AP)
Peru has filed suit against Spanish energy company Repsol over the massive January oil spill that ravaged its coast, seeking $4.5 billion in damages.
The lawsuit was filed before the 27th civil court in Lima against six companies: Repsol (Spain), Mapfre Global Risks (Spain), Mapfre Peru Insurance and Reinsurance Companies (Peru), La Pampilla Refinery (Peru), Transtotal Maritime Agency (Peru) and Fratelli d'amico Armatori (Italy, owner of the tanker involved), Peru's consumer protection agency said.
"These suits could create precedents for oil spills that cause damage and collective non-material damages due to environmental pollution of coastal areas," said Julian Palacin, executive director of the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property (INDECOPI), in a statement released late Friday.
INDECOPI has sought $3 billion for environmental damage to Peru's coast, and another $1.5 billion as compensation to consumers, locals and others affected by the disaster, the suit says.
Repsol in a statement on Saturday rejected the suit as baseless.
"(INDECOPI's) estimates are lacking the bare minimum needed to support the indicated figures," the Spanish oil company said, regarding the $4.5 billion sought by Peru.
The spill occurred on January 15 while the Italian-flagged tanker "Mare Doricum" was unloading crude oil at the Repsol-owned La Pampilla refinery in Ventanilla, 30 kilometers north of Lima.
The oil company attributed the incident to waves caused by a massive volcanic eruption on the island of Tonga, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, and the Peruvian government described it as an "ecological disaster."
The oil spill affected more than 700,000 residents, mostly fishermen, and forced the closure of 20 beaches and dozens of businesses in the area.
Duwamish Tribe Prepares to Sue Federal Government to Secure Tribal Sovereignty
The Duwamish Tribe has lived in the Seattle area since time immemorial. Though the tribe signed the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855 creating a government-to-government relationship with the U.S., it is still not federally recognized. This week, the Duwamish Tribe plans to file a lawsuit against the U.S. federal government to defend its tribal sovereignty.
“From 1859, when the Treaty of Point Elliott was ratified, until at least 2001, Congress and other federal authorities have unambiguously recognized the Duwamish Tribe,” the Tribe wrote in a media advisory Tuesday. “Yet, today, the U.S. Department of Interior refuses to officially recognize the Duwamish Tribe in violation of the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws.”
The lawsuit will be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. After filing the complaint, the legal team representing the tribe will summarize the arguments in support of federal recognition at an event at the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center in Seattle at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. Speakers at the event include Duwamish Tribal Chairwoman Cecile Hansen, Duwamish Tribal Council members and the tribe’s attorneys, among others. Participants can also join the event virtually on Zoom by registering here.
“In the absence of federal recognition, funding, and human services, Duwamish Tribal Services has struggled to provide numerous social, educational, health, and cultural programs,” the tribe says on their website. The tribe, which has over 600 enrolled members, adds that “many more” Duwamish people have chosen not to enroll, instead enrolling in federally recognized tribes that provide health and other human services.
Over 100,000 people have signed the Duwamish Tribe’s petition for federal recognition. “Momentum has been building publicly and politically in support of restoring federal recognition,” the media advisory stated.
BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE
Native Bidaské (Spotlight) with Carlisle Indian School Project Leader Gwen Carr
Carr talked about Carlisle's most famous student Jim Thorpe. (Photo/Courtesy)
BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE STAFF
On Friday, May 13, Native News Online met with Gwen Carr, Cayuga Nation, for the weekly Native Bidaské (Spotlight). With over 30 years of experience working with Indian Country, Gwen Carr is currently the Executive Director for the Carlisle Indian School Project.
The Carlisle Indian School Project seeks to honor every child that attended this school by uncovering and sharing the truth about the school. Carlisle was the first federally-funded Indian boarding school.
“People looked at it [Carlisle School] for guidance on how to assimilate more Indians,” she explains. “When you want to tell a story and when you want to really go back and start at the beginning of something in order to heal, in order to understand, in order to bring context to the modern world that we live in, you have to start at the beginning. Carlisle is the beginning.”
Carr also referenced the PBS documentary film about Carlisle called “Home From school The Children of Carlisle “ by Geoffrey O Gara and Sophie Barksdale featuring Eufna SoldierWolf.
Through Ignorance, They Maintained Power
The author’s childhood backyard and long-time canine companion. (Photo/Krysti Shallenberger)
BY KRYSTI SHALLENBERGER
GUEST OPINION. Raised deep within the evangelical, far-right movement, I knew overturning Roe v. Wade was a top priority.
Being a woman means inheriting a violent, complicated and oppressive history where men have sought to suppress our knowledge and our bodies. Living in America, that legacy is even more complicated by white women such as I, who participated in even more violent suppression of knowledge and bodies that were not white and that have lived here for millennia.
It’s a tragic result stemming from centuries ago, in Europe, where violent nations, usually through the tool of Christianity, tried to erase Europe’s own Indigenous cultures that once shared similar lifestyles and beliefs as the Indigenous people in America. Some of that knowledge survived, passed down by women to other women through the knowledge of plants, of healing and of birthing. For millennia, women turned to the healers who gave them herbs or other medicine for birth control, and for abortions to protect their own health and to escape severe social punishment.
For that knowledge, many paid with their lives. The Church - and Western governments - murdered thousands of women for daring to use this knowledge to take care of their bodiesl. Midwifery especially was a lucrative business and men decided they wanted part of that bounty. Through laws, death, and fear, men succeeded. The 1970s pamphlet, Witches, Midwives & Nurses, lays out how European governments deprived women of practicing midwifery through licensing laws, and dispossessed them of their own knowledge of how their bodies worked. Through ignorance, they maintained power.
My own ancestry bears witness to this atrocity. My maternal family is Scottish, coming from the Highland and Lowland clans. Great Britain outlawed the Scottish Gaelic language, and Scotland can grimly boast of the most people killed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563 in the British Isles. My great-grandmother could still speak Gaelic - but she never passed that language down to her daughter, my grandmother.
If these tactics seem familiar, they are. These tactics created the United States government, and the fervent Christian tradition that banned sacred healing practices, language, and spiritual beliefs of the Indigenous people. Punishing women who dared to use their knowledge to heal others - branding them as witches which, frankly, is one of the smartest PR efforts in history - kept power firmly within the realm of colonizers.
These practices still endure, however, just underground. In the deep South, where I was raised, Appalachian folk magic and healing practices - from women often known as Granny women - braided together knowledge from the Indigenous communities that they displaced and the enslaved Africans who still carried their knowledge and culture with them to America, with their own secret knowledge from the Old Country.
But, like many white women, I don’t have access to that knowledge because of how successful the suppression became. Men, through medical schools and licensing, have been held up as the ultimate experts of a woman’s body.
After I left the fervently evangelical home in which I was raised, I began befriending people who were not white and were willing to educate me with their own stories. I lived in the Yup’ik community of rural Alaska as a journalist. There, the Yup’ik women gently taught me about their own healing knowledge of plants, of their own ancestry and stories that they kept alive despite the efforts of the U.S. government to kill them, legally, through education, disease, hunting regulations, and displacement.
In fact, I remember vividly one such conversation as I dry-coughed through a painful phone call with a tribal administrator.
“Do you have tundra tea?,” she finally asked me.
“I think so,” I told her. She told me she was surprised that I knew about tundra tea. I told her that my roommate and I had horrible fall colds a few months earlier, and my roommate’s Yup’ik coworkers sent her home with dry sprigs of labrador plants and a couple gallon bags of salmonberries. We boiled the sprigs in hot water, and made smoothies from the salmonberries, packed with vitamin C. Within days, our colds dried up and our chests cleared from congestion. I don’t think I used Western medicine, which is what I normally reach for when I come down with a cold.
This conversation, and the experience from the colds, convinced me that I needed to learn about this kind of knowledge, especially from my own ancestry.
The first step, of course, is to interrogate my own family history. This is the theme of the wonderful Canadian podcast Missing Witches, hosted by two white women, who stress acknowledgement of a person's socio-economic and cultural background, and include cultural context in their conversations.
That’s key to resisting efforts that lead to the draft Roe v. Wade decision. Acknowledging the history of the land; learning about the land itself and how to care for it. And to learn about my own family history, the tragedies that led them to America, the complicity in policies to remove Indigenous peoples from land, the loss of our own plant knowledge and language, and also the strength and resilience to survive and tell these stories to future generations. It also means learning about other spiritual cultures so I do not take from them, so that I tap into my own family customs instead.
It’s ironic that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito would point to “U.S. traditions” as key to overturning Roe V. Wade. What traditions is he referencing? Not the sacred traditions that Indigenous peoples practice here since time immemorial; not the healing and birthing knowledge women have owned despite efforts to strip them of it; not the fact that abortion has been a “traditional” form of healthcare for millennia. It’s clear the only “tradition” that Alito respects is the tradition of stripping rights of women to take control of their bodies. That is a tradition that dates back centuries.
So in another tactic of resistance, I push against male participation in women’s healthcare. Even in my most conservative days, I intuitively knew men would not understand the pains, the quirks, and the emotional psychology of being “woman.” I choose women for most of my medical needs because I simply do not trust a man to take care of my health.
There are small pockets of resistance to the longstanding medical tradition of birthing in my conservative Alabama town. A few women meet once a month to learn and talk about midwifery. Another woman in my mother’s church is purchasing land so she, and her fiance, can farm it and sustain themselves in a healthy manner.
Even now, when I know the women in my hometown and I disagree sharply over abortion and American history, we can still connect through sharing our stories, our own histories and our pain of being overlooked. Indeed, one day I was helping my mother and the older ladies sort snacks in the food bank of her church and I told them stories of women in history that are hidden.
“Women’s contributions have always been overlooked,” one woman said, shaking her head. “Even in the Bible.”
Slowly, as we connect with these stories, I share more stories that my friends have told me - the pain of hearing racist slurs thrown at them as youth, of grandparents being abused in boarding schools, of our government stripping others of language and culture.
Slowly, in their faces, I can see empathy and outrage blossom. It gives me hope that by sharing this knowledge, we undermine efforts to take away our control and our right to healthcare.
After all, I realize, they haven’t won. Men and powerful governments have been doing this for centuries and still this knowledge of how to heal our bodies, how to use plants and the land to take care of ourselves and our families, persists.
NATIVE NEWS ONLINE
Indigenous Women on Roe v. Wade
(Photo/WikiCommons)
BY NATIVE NEWS ONLINE STAFF
The recent leak of the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade has women across Indian Country talking. Here are some of their public statements on the issue.
Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan: Abortion is health care. Period. In Minnesota, your rights will stay protected.
U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk: If this opinion holds true, it will be a monumental step backwards. And when Kansas votes on a constitutional amendment in August, we will be the first state to decide if we agree that the government has control over women’s health care choices. I’ll tell you this: I don’t.
Mary Peltola, Yup’ik, Congressonal Candidate, Alaska (Democrat): I’m the only pro-choice woman in this race and as your U.S. Representative I will stand up for women and fight to enshrine abortion protections in federal law. Vote Pro-choice. Vote Mary Peltola.
Tara Sweeny, Iñupiaq, Congressional Candidate, Alaska (Republican): Don’t make the mistake of assuming all Republicans think alike on this issue. @MaryPeltola and @lruskin I am pro-choice, very much in this race and a proud Alaska woman.
Stacy Leeds, ᏣᎳᎩ, Arizona State University Law Professor: Native women’s modern reproductive rights battles have included: (1) being sterilized w/o consent + (2) being denied meaningful access to contraception. If these 2 facts are news to you, please stop w/ the “can an abortion clinic be opened on tribal lands” questions (1/4)
Dr. Twyla Baker, Mandan-Hidatsa: The hypocrisy of 'sanctity of life' arguments is more glaring when you know about forced sterilizations of Native women. When you know about the theft of generations of Native babies through boarding school systems & the foster system. It's not about life, it's about control.
Caitlin Newago, Ojibwe/Oneida: Hey fun fact: I’ve had 2 abortions. Without them, I’d likely be seriously injured or not alive today- these procedures were literally life saving. I would have been trapped in an abusive relationship indefinitely without access to abortion.
Sierra Ornelas, Navajo/Mex-American, Showrunner for Rutherford Falls, Writer for Brooklyn99/Superstore/Happy Endings (Thread): I've never had an abortion. But there’s no way I’d have the life I do without one. I was a really curious kid, always asking my parents questions and even though they were always busy working, they took the time to answer them. Once I asked my mom, “What if I got pregnant?” 1/
My mom said “If you wanted to keep it, we would help you. And if we didn’t, we would help you get an abortion.” I was kinda shocked she said it so matter of factly. We lived in AZ and people didn’t talk like that. My mom proceeded to tell me a story. 2/
In the 1970s my mom participated in Relocation, (the US Gov. gave Native folks a one-way bus ticket to big cities.) She went to Phoenix because there was no snow and it was too far for her parents to visit. There she met a man with a motorcycle. And fell in love. 3/
They moved in together and planned to be together forever. One day his father shows up and said it was time to come home. That’s how she found out he was married with children. He walked out on her leaving her with rent/a bunch of bills. Then she found out she was pregnant. 4/
She got an abortion. She explained to me that there was a time when she wasn’t legally allowed to, but luckily it was legal then. After that, she worked hard to stay in AZ, met my dad, went on to become an award winning Master Navajo Tapestry Weaver and raised two children. 5/
I’m so fucking grateful these were my bed time stories. Her honesty taught me that my dreams mattered. That it was okay, for any reason, to be a brown woman and advocate for your future. I wouldn't be here without her abortion. My path is bound to decisions she made. 6/
This shit has ripples. That's what anti-choice folks will never absorb. That we can be the leads in our stories, that we have ownership of our futures. Our bodies are guided by our choices. I’m so mad. I feel like we’ve failed these women. These mothers who remember when. 7/
I have no answers. I asked my mom for permission to share this story and she said “Yes. You have my permission. Go give it a good fight. We can’t lose our rights as women.” Go give it a good fight. 8/
Kelly Lynne D’Angelo, Haudenosaunee: They are going to start “outlawing” our rights, one-by-one. They are going to make things “illegal,” like abortion, to jail us. We need to resist NOW. Loudly.
Kansas State Rep. Christina Haswood, Diné: With #RoeVWade on all our minds, I’m fired up to be in DC right now with my fellow pro-choice Democratic women who are going to lead the charge in their home states. We need all hands on deck.
Rebecca Nagle, ᏣᏗᎮ:I don’t want to hear outrage from Democratic elected leaders. I want to hear what the [expletive] plan is. #RoeVWade
Deoné Newell, Blk.native: When a Navajo (Diné), we believe they are a part of two worlds: the spirit world and the physical world. Yet they still belong to the Holy People (Diyin Dine’é). It’s not until the baby’s first laugh that we believe the baby is chosen to transition from the spirit world into our world. When a Navajo baby laughs, they are telling the Holy People they are happy with their new family. They have made a connection in our world and have chosen to stay with us. During pregnancy, the mother and the spirit of the unborn are in communion. The mother decides if it is time to bring that spirit into the world. This decision is reserved strictly for the mother. If it is not time, for any reason (including but not limited to climate, war, famine, the well-being of the mother and/or other children, intuition, etc.) the mother can choose to abort a pregnancy. This decision is celebrated. The mother along with the elders, midwives, her guides, and the ancestors go into ceremony specifically with the intention of aborting a pregnancy. The woman is provided with tinctures, herbs, and talismans to help this process. Specific songs are sung and prayers are said thanking the Holy People for temporary fellowship with the unborn. The entire community is in support of this process. For centuries, midwives and healers have held sacred knowledge of which contraceptive and abortifacient plants could be made available to women in their communities. Abortion has always been a part of Indigenous communities and is celebrated. The anti-abortion movement is rooted in colonial oppression and assimilation.
U.S. Abortion Rights Advocates Fuming Over Biden, Democratic Response To Looming Threat
By Nandita Bose, Gabriella Borter and Andrea Shalal
IBT 05/14/22
Frustration with President Joe Biden and his Democratic Party over their perceived lack of leadership on abortion rights is likely to add fuel to months of planned protests nationwide, activists said.
An unprecedented Supreme Court leak two weeks ago showed the conservative majority of justices may soon reverse the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 that established abortion rights. Galvanized by the prospect, protesters marched across the country on Saturday, the start of what organizers said would be a "summer of rage."
Since the Supreme Court leak, the Biden administration and Democrats have not put forward a meaningful plan for dealing with such a decision, critics said. They urged Biden to take a more active, vocal role in a national response to the potential ruling.
"I would like to see the White House say,'We are holding an emergency summit with every Democrat in this country because we are going to pass a federal law that guarantees abortion rights,'" said author and women's rights advocate Mona Eltahawy.
"I am astounded at the lack of urgency, generally, whether it is from the Biden White House or the Democrats at large," she said.
Biden, a devout Catholic who has said he is personally against abortion but respects a woman's right to choose one, has been a reluctant ally on the issue, some activists believe, noting he rarely talks publicly about it.
Disappointment is compounded by the sense that Democrats had plenty of time to prepare. Conservatives have been open about their goal of a total ban on abortion for decades, and women's rights groups have sounded alarms about the consequences of a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for years.
"Their constant solution is, 'Well, just vote in November.' I cannot stress to you enough how offensive it is to be asked to hope...that they win in November, they take office in January and eventually they come up with a solution," said Renee Bracey Sherman of We Testify, an organization that promotes open discussion about abortion.
Women in the United States have shifted to the Democratic Party in recent decades. Some 56% of registered women voters identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning in 2018 and 2019 polls, up from 48% in 1994, according to Pew Research.
Democratic women polled last year by Reuters and Ipsos said abortion rights was the issue that would make them angriest if the government moved against their views. About 60% of Americans overall say abortions should be legal in some or all cases.
The threat of the Supreme Court restricting abortion access despite popular opposition and the importance of the topic to women voters illustrates how ineffective Democrats are, critics, including some elected officials, said.
"Where is the Democratic Party?" California Governor Gavin Newsom asked in the days after the May 2 leak. "Why aren't we standing up more firmly, more resolutely? Why aren't we calling this out? This is a coordinated, concerted effort (by Republicans). And yes, they're winning."
A Democratic bill to guarantee abortion rights failed in the Senate this week. There is little hope such a law will pass next year either, political strategists said, unless Democrats control 60 Senate seats after November's elections, a long shot, or Biden is willing to seek the end of a procedural norm in Congress known as the filibuster. It prevents them from passing a bill with a simple majority.
The White House has already ruled out what some women's rights advocates have held out as a last-chance option, expanding the Supreme Court to balance out the conservative majority of justices.
SURPRISE IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Across the Biden administration, officials were startled by the harshness of the draft court ruling's language, several told Reuters. Some had hoped that the Supreme Court would not fully dismantle the Roe v. Wade decision, but the draft left no doubt that was the intention.
Inside the White House, a sense prevailed that little could be done to overcome the pivotal opposition of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin to ending the filibuster, officials said.
Biden's Gender Policy Council, an advisory body on gender equality, is trying to push the president to act, outside groups and people involved in the meetings said.
Biden is weighing ideas including expanding access to medical abortion drugs to increasing funding for lower income women who need to travel for abortions.
However, "there's no clear, actionable, winnable plan on the table" about how to protect abortion rights nationally, one adviser to the White House on the issue said.
Biden also faces a generational gulf. Biden's rare remarks center on the Roe v. Wade ruling's focus on privacy, but many young millennial and Gen Z voters, those most likely to need abortion services, think differently, said Amanda Klasing, women's rights associate director at Human Rights Watch.
"Instead of privacy, there is a real embrace of telling your abortion story, to live your experience and not hide your experience," she said.
Discontent simmers as Okinawa marks 50 years since US rule ended
Tomohiro OSAKI AFP Published May 14, 2022 Anti-US military base activist and native Okinawan Jinshiro Motoyama is on a hunger strike to protest the troop presence - Copyright AFP Philip FONG
The Japanese island of Okinawa marks 50 years since the end of US rule Sunday, with discontent simmering about the ongoing presence of American troops and fears about growing regional tensions.
The post-World War II US occupation of Japan lasted until 1952, but it took another 20 years for Okinawa, the country’s southernmost prefecture, to regain its sovereignty.
The anniversary is being marked with official ceremonies, but behind the pleasantries are longstanding concerns for Okinawans about the US troop presence and more recent worries about the threat of a military confrontation involving China.
“I’m not in the mood to celebrate at all,” Okinawan native Jinshiro Motoyama told AFP ahead of the anniversary as he sat outside a Tokyo government building on a week-long hunger strike.
Like many Okinawans, he feels the region bears an unfair burden in hosting the majority of about 55,000 US military personnel in Japan and is protesting to draw attention to the issue.
Okinawa accounts for just 0.6 percent of Japan’s landmass but hosts about 70 percent of all US military bases and facilities.
And that presence has produced a host of issues — from crashes and noise pollution to crimes involving servicemen, including the 1995 gang-rape of a local schoolgirl.
“Only when issues surrounding US bases have been resolved in a way that satisfies Okinawans can we celebrate,” said Motoyama, a 30-year-old graduate student.
A nationwide poll by broadcaster NHK this month found 80 percent of Japanese consider the current disproportionate distribution of US forces “wrong” or “somewhat wrong.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who will be in Okinawa on Sunday to mark the anniversary, acknowledged the discontent in remarks Friday before the parliament.
“The government takes seriously the fact that the burden of hosting bases is weighing on residents in Okinawa,” he said.
“We will have to make a greater effort to reduce this burden,” he added, without providing specifics.
— ‘Excessive burden’ —
A key flashpoint is the planned relocation of Okinawa’s Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, sometimes dubbed the “world’s most dangerous base” due to its proximity to residential areas.
It is scheduled to move to less-populated Henoko, but many Okinawans want it transferred elsewhere in the country, with 70 percent of local voters rejecting the relocation plan in a non-binding 2019 referendum.
“Residents in the prefecture remain saddled with the excessive burden of hosting the bases,” Okinawa governor Denny Tamaki said in a petition against the relocation submitted to Kishida ahead of the anniversary.
Construction in Henoko has continued nonetheless, with the central government defending it as the “only possible way” to mitigate Futenma’s dangers and maintain the Japan-US alliance’s deterrence.
US President Joe Biden visits Japan later this month for the first time since taking office, with concerns about China’s growing military assertiveness in the region likely to be on the agenda.
Increasing military activity by Beijing makes Okinawa ever-more important as a base for US and Japanese troops and has left some of the region’s residents fearing they could be caught in a future conflict.
50 years on, U.S. bombings still terrorize Cambodia
Xinhua, May 15, 2022
Yan Sam En is a farmer in northeast Cambodia's Chetr Borei district. One day, almost 20 years ago, the father of five was working in the forest close to his home when he found four cluster bombs, unexploded remnants of the U.S. carpet bombing that devastated the area in the 1960s.
A USELESS PERSON
"I didn't want my children to play with the bombs, so I collected them, and as I did, one exploded. It blew off both my arms, and left me totally blind," Sam En told Xinhua on Friday. "I was 43 years old. I'm almost 61 now, but time has not healed me."
Sam En says he has been nothing but a burden to his family since the blast. He cannot do anything. He just sits at home all day. "The U.S. deprived me of everything. In a few seconds, I went from breadwinner to useless person."
The cluster bombs that claimed Sam En's eyes and arms are just a reminder of countless bombs that the U.S. dropped on Cambodia during the U.S.-Vietnam War, claiming countless other arms, legs and eyes, and thousands of lives. Between 1965 and 1973, the U.S. dropped 230,516 bombs in Cambodia. In April alone, at least five U.S. Mk 82 bombs, weighing about 500 pounds each, were found across the country. On May 5, a Cambodian bomb disposal team safely removed a U.S. bomb, weighing 2,000 pounds, from the Chaktomuk river opposite the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.
"At that time, I saw U.S. warplanes flying around. They dropped bombs to cut off roads and bridges," Sam En said. "We lived in fear every day and ran to hide in trenches when we heard the warplanes."
Sam En said the U.S. has not provided any support to victims like him of its leftover bombs.
'VICIOUS, UNDECLARED WAR'
Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen wrote in his book "10 Years of Cambodia's Journey, 1979-1989" that the bombings killed "tens of thousands of civilians" in a "vicious, undeclared war"
Ly Thuch, first vice president of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA), said Cambodia is still suffering from the huge legacy of the U.S.-Vietnam war and Cambodia's own internal conflicts. "There are a lot of bombs scattered on the ground, under the ground and in the water. We have not even conducted a large-scale search for underwater bombs, yet," he told Xinhua.
"Unexploded ordnance is a constant danger. Villages, farmland and rice fields still contain explosive remnants of war and the affected land cannot be farmed," he added.
Joseph Matthews of BELTEI International University in Phnom Penh said because of U.S. bombs many people have lost their lives or been maimed. According to the CMAA, from 1979 to March 2022, unexploded ordnance and landmines had killed 19,816 people and injured 45,175 others in Cambodia.
"I strongly believe that the U.S. is morally responsible for the suffering of these people and ethically and legally bound to adequately compensate the families of those who had lost their lives or were maimed by these unexploded ordnance and landmines," Matthews told Xinhua.
WOUNDS TO BE HEALED
Chhum Thea is 62 now. He lost his left arm to a mine in Kampong Cham province in 1990.
"U.S. planes bombed my village often during the war. The earth trembled as if it was an earthquake," he told Xinhua.
The bombs caused huge destruction. The U.S. must help Cambodia and compensate the innocent victims. I want the U.S. to heal the wounds that it created."
2 years on, anti-Asian hatred persists in New York
Xinhua, May 15, 2022
About two and a half years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States has seen not only an increase in infections and deaths, but also an orgy of racism and hate crimes against minority groups, particularly the Asian-American community.
Following an apparently random yet violent murder of a young Korean-American woman in a Chinatown apartment here in February, mourners placed flowers, candles, photos, and cardboard signs condemning anti-Asian hatred around a tree outside the residential building where Christina Yuna Lee was stabbed to death.
While the shock of Lee's death had yet to wear off, mourners were outraged that the makeshift memorial for Lee had been repeatedly vandalized.
The temporary memorial was first vandalized in the middle of the night just three days after Lee's death, and it continued to be vandalized even in broad daylight.
"So five times last month, and it just keeps increasing. It is very sad," Brian Chin, Lee's former landlord, told Xinhua.
According to video clips from a surveillance camera shared by Chin, a man kicked at the flowers, candles, and signs in the early morning on March 2, and another pedestrian pulled down a cardboard sign about a week later.
Every attack on the memorial is pretty much anti-Asian and "it is very scary right now," said Chin, whose family came to the United States from China over 60 years ago.
"They're doing it with hate. They see her picture. They see the flowers and candles," Chin added.
Lee's tragic death followed the fatal shoving of Asian American Michelle Alyssa Go onto subway tracks by a man at Times Square station on Jan. 15 and the death of Yaopan Ma in January in a racially motivated attack in East Harlem.
"Her (Lee's) death is part of an alarming pattern of unchecked, hateful violence against women, namely women of Asian descent and women of color that can no longer stand without consequence," said one of Lee's relatives in an appeal on Gofundme.com.
For Chin, a middle-aged man, the continued anti-Asian hate crimes had brought about unprecedented depression.
"I think everyone is terrified right now that they will be attacked on the subways, on the streets, and then the guy will be out on the same day," he said.
According to Chin, this wave of anti-Asian hatred began with very vitriolic language which claims COVID-19 as the so-called "Chinese flu" or "Wuhan flu."
Kathleen Flynn-hui, whose husband originally came from Hong Kong, said that anti-Asian prejudice affects her family on a daily basis.
"We've kind of always felt it, but not as strongly as now," said Flynn-hui, adding that she "dealt with discrimination against my husband because he was Asian the whole time."
Chin said the situation is deteriorating due to a combination of politics, the impact of new laws, and the new Manhattan District Attorney's lenient stance on crime.
"The cops are doing their job, but they arrest them, and they're free the next day due to the laws," said Chin.
Right now, much stronger laws are needed to protect the Asian community, Chin said, calling on lawmakers, the city council, and the mayor to take stronger and more enforceable action.
The Committee of 100, a non-profit leadership organization of prominent Chinese Americans, recently called on U.S. elected officials, law enforcement, and responsible media to address racism, discrimination, and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders immediately with actionable and concrete results.
