Moana Nui 2011 conference videos are online!

Videos of the Moana Nui 2011 conference are now online.   Of particular interest for the DMZ-Hawai’i / Aloha ‘Aina site is the panel on Militarization and Resistance in the Pacific.

Walden Bello, keynote speech

NATIVE RIGHTS, ECONOMIES, GOVERNANCE–RESISTING GLOBAL POWERS

Passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), coupled with advancing decolonization movements among Pacific Islands peoples, has altered the political geography of Moana Nui. Nonetheless, Pacific Rim economic powers and multi-national corporations continue to dominate our regions. Global trade negotiations in APEC/TPP bring new dangers, as “economic integration” among powerful nations threatens to crush indigenous and small island peoples’ work toward strengthened control. This panel features key leaders from Oceania who have worked to restore Native peoples’ control and management of local resources and economies. They discuss strategies for defending our rights and resources from exploitation.

Moderator: Jon Osorio (O‘ahu, Hawai‘i) Kamakak‘okalani Center for Hawaiian Studies
Nalani Minton (Kanaka Maoli Tribunal Komike, Hawai‘i)
Santi Hitorangi (Practitioner, Hitorangi Clan, Rapa Nui)
Joshua Cooper – (Hawai‘i) UN Human Rights
Mililani Trask – (Hawai‘i) Vice Chair, General Assembly of Nations, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organizations (UNPO)
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (Igorot, Tebtebba Foundation, UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Philippines)
Julian Aguan (Guahan, Guam) Indigenous Chamoru Activist, Attorney, and Author
Public 1,2, Public 3, Public 4-6, Public 7,8

MILITARIZATION & RESISTANCE IN THE PACIFIC

The Pacific basin has been a frequent victim of military domination by global powers, fighting for regional political and economic control. 66 years after the end of World War II hundreds of U.S. military bases still spread from Hawaii across the Pacific to Guam, and many other Pacific islands, with dozens more in South Korea and Japan, and one on Diego Garcia (Indian Ocean), all directed at presumed threats from China. Local peoples are outraged. Popular resistance in Guam, Okinawa-Japan, Jeju Island-South Korea, and elsewhere demands removal of U.S. occupying forces. Similar movements exist in Hawaii, where about 25% of total land area is devoted to military purposes, from nuclear ports to training areas to missile sites.

Moderator: Ikaika Hussey
Poetry: Craig Santos Perez: (Chamorro, poet, author, activist, Guahan, Guam)
Bruce Gagnon: (Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space)
Christine Ahn: (San Francisco, California) Executive Director, Korea Policy Institute; Policy Analyst, Global Fund for Women
Dr.Lisa Natividad: (Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice)
Suzuyo Takazato: (Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence)
Kyle Kajihiro: (O‘ahu, Hawai‘i) Hawai‘i Peace and Justice, DMZ Hawai‘i/Aloha ‘?ina
Mayumi Oda: (Japan/Hawai‘i) Artist/Activist
Public 1, Public 2, Public 3

GLOBALIZATION, DEVELOPMENT & GEOPOLITICS

Economic globalization seeks to homogenize (globalize) diverse regional economies within a unified vision of how we should all live; a vision that suits global corporate purposes, rather than local needs, traditions, visions, cultures, workers and environments. Negotiations like APEC/TPP intend for Pacific Rim and Pacific Island nations to merge within one integrated economic machine. NAFTA of the Pacific! It’s our challenge to learn the full details of what’s at stake, how life will change, how our economies will change—-The role of resource, military, tourist and energy development. What is gained, what is lost? And if we don’t want it, how do we organize to protect ourselves, our lands, resources, and local sovereignties.

Moderator: Jerry Mander (Int’l Forum on Globalization);
Joseph Gerson (American Friends Service Committee);
Dale Wen (IFG China Scholar, Beijing-Hamburg)
Anuradha Mittal (Oakland Institute, India/US);
Adam Wolfenden (Pacific Network on Globalization, PANG, Australia);
Ray Catania (Labor organizer/Hawai‘i Gov’t. Employees Association, Kauai)
Yumi Kikuchi (Peace activist, author, Japan);
Public

PACIFIC RESOURCES, LANDS & ECONOMIES

As elsewhere on Earth, the Pacific faces environmental crises from overdevelopment, resource scarcities, climate change, rising seas, destruction of coral reefs (for military ports and mining), loss of arable soils, and other challenges, threatening local communities. Powerful nations of the Asia-Pacific are fiercely competing for regional resources: oil and gas in Indonesia, fish stocks and minerals from the seas, “rare earths” from China, while diminishing fresh water and agricultural lands are torn between local needs, industrial biotechnology, military dominance, and tourism.  Trade and investment negotiations like Apec/TPP further threaten the already tenuous hold of small island nations and peoples on their economic and cultural viability. How do we organize together to resist this and regain control?

Moderator: Arnie Saiki (Coordinator, Moana Nui 2011, and ‘Imi Pono Projects, Hawai‘i);
Peter Apo (Office of Hawaiian Affairs);
Jamie Tanquay (Well-being indicators, Vanuatu )
Galina Angarova (Pacific Environment, Russia/Siberia/Mongolia);
Albie Miles (environmental indicators)
Walter Ritte (Anti GMO/Hawaiian Rights activist, Molokai);
Richard Heinberg (Post Carbon Institute, author The End of Growth)
Public

APEC & TPP: WHAT WE MUST KNOW; WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

Local sovereignty, militarization and colonization, forms of development, control and ultimate  ownership of resources, worker rights, investment protocols, energy and resource battles are all implicated in the grand bargain sought by great powers and their corporations.  We need to learn every detail of these agreements, and their import. And we need to determine what, exactly, we can do about it.

Moderator: Victor Menotti (International Forum on Globalization);
Jane Kelsey ((Aotearoa/New Zealand)?Prof. of Law, Univ. of Auckland; Author of “TPPA – No Ordinary Deal: Unmasking the Trans-Pacific partnership free Trade Agreement”;
Lori Wallach (Public Citizen, Wash. DC);
Yasuo Konda (People’s Action Against TPP, JAPAN);
Walden Bello (Philippine Legislature, Focus on Global South)
Public 1, Public 2

Occupy APEC with Aloha

Christine Ahn wrote an brilliant article in FPIF on the Moana Nui conference and peoples’ resistance to the APEC neoliberal – militarization agenda.   I quote liberally from the article below.  You should read the full article here.

“The time has come for us to voice our rage,” the Hawaiian artist Makana sang as he gently strummed his slack-key guitar. “Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage, to steal from us the value of our wage.”

Makana wasn’t serenading the Occupy movement; rather his audience included over a dozen of the world’s most powerful leaders, including President Obama and China’s Premier Hu Jintao, at the world’s most secure, policed, and fortified event: the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) dinner in Hawaii.

[…]

Makana, however, wasn’t the only one voicing his outrage during the APEC summit. As government and corporate leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific economies plotted how to expand a global free trade agenda, civil society activists from throughout the Asia Pacific gathered across town at the Moana Nui (the Great Pacific Ocean) conference to discuss pressing issues facing people and the planet, such as climate change, income inequality, and militarization of the region.

Organized by Pua Mohala I Ka Po and the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), scholars, activists, policy analysts, lawyers, labor union leaders, practitioners, and artists traveled from Guam, Marshall Islands, Palau, Tonga, Fiji, Micronesia, New Zealand, Australia, Rapa Nui, Samoa, Japan, Siberia, Okinawa, Philippines, South Korea, Vanuatu, and the United States.

[…]

What’s significant is what preceded and then followed Obama’s China bashing. Ahead of the summit, both State Secretary Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta outlined the United States’ expanded role in the Asia-Pacific. In “America’s Pacific Century,” an article in Foreign Affairs, Secretary Clinton writes that the United States will “substantially increase investment—diplomatic, economic, strategic and otherwise—in the Asia-Pacific region.” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also echoed Clinton on his last trip to Asia, where he promised greater U.S. military presence throughout the Asia-Pacific—that is, more than the 300-plus U.S. bases that have already been there for over half a century.

After APEC, President Obama visited Australia to announce the arrival of 250 U.S. marines to northern Australia next year, with the eventual buildup to reach 2,500. “The goal, though administration officials are loath to say it publicly,” writes Mark Landler of the New York Times, “is to assemble a coalition to counterbalance China’s growing power.” Although Washington is posing China as a military threat, the reality is that in 2010, the United States spent $720 billion on its military, compared with China’s $116 billion, and it’s the United States that has over 300 military bases in the Asia-Pacific, whereas China has none.

Moana Nui: The Alternative to APEC

Moana Nui brought together several social movements—the indigenous and native communities fighting for sovereignty with activists working to stop corporate globalization and militarism. It was significant to be gathering in Hawai’i, a once-sovereign nation whose Queen Lili’uokalani was overthrown by American gunboat “diplomacy” in 1893. Moana Nui opened with a daylong conversation among indigenous and native communities from throughout the Pacific. This was an important reminder of the United States’ long history of stealing indigenous peoples’ lands, without treaties, without democratic process. Moana Nui participants also reframed the Pacific in aquatic terms as the “liquid continent” instead of the continental approach used by hegemonic powers.

Their voices were soon joined by those who have been organizing and resisting against the onslaught of trade liberalization and militarization, the new and more subtle face of colonialism. Moana Nui participants shared how transnational corporations, empowered by free trade and structural adjustment policies, have destroyed local economies, cultural properties, natural resources, and ultimately the sovereignty and self-sufficiency of communities. Jane Kelsey, Professor of Law at the University of Auckland, warned that the TPP will further impact domestic policy and regulation and “give more ammunition to corporations to challenge governments,” by granting foreign investors stronger intellectual property rights and further facilitating corporate global supply chains.

The corporate-led free trade agenda, however, needs the military to secure its profits. Kyle Kajihiro of Hawaii Peace and Justice reminded the audience of Thomas Friedman’s classic quote, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist—McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” The military has gone hand-in-hand with free trade by forcing open new markets for investment and new natural resources for exploitation (let’s not forget Iraq). Although it may allow for the safe and secure transport of vital natural resources such as oil and natural gas, the military is there to project force, a lethal force that could intervene militarily if U.S. interests were compromised.

[…]What was clear during Moana Nui was that the peoples of the Asia-Pacific refuse to fall victim to the growing arms race between the United States and China. Echoing a proverb widely known in the Pacific, Gerson warned, “When the elephants are battling or making love, it’s the ants that get squashed.” Activists from Guam and Okinawa shared how the decades-long presence of U.S. military bases had destroyed their livelihoods, culture, and sovereignty, but also how their organizing has led to victories, such as delaying the transfer of 8,000 U.S. marines from Okinawa to Guam, and mass protests that brought nearly 100,000 Okinawans to the streets to protest the transfer of U.S. bases within Okinawa.

[…]

The final sessions of Moana Nui carried a clear message: the only way to address these challenges to sovereignty is to fundamentally roll back the conditions and laws imposed by FTAs, the WTO, and structural adjustment. As Walden Bello put it, “We need to de-globalize economies instead of being subordinated to free trade and global markets if we want to achieve food security, human livelihoods and ecological sustainability.”

[…]

The final declaration that emerged out of Moana Nui united the struggles of those who traveled across the great Pacific Ocean. “We invoke our rights to free, prior and informed consent. We choose cooperative trans-Pacific dialogue, action, advocacy, and solidarity between and amongst the peoples of the Pacific, rooted in traditional cultural practices and wisdom.”

The declaration also included a Native Hawaiian prophesy which echoes the principles of the Occupy movement: E iho ana o luna, E pi’i ana o lalo, E hui ana na moku, E ku ana ka paia. “That which is above shall be brought down, that which is below shall rise up, the islands shall unite, the walls of our foundation shall stand.” E mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. “Forever we will uphold the life and sovereignty of the land in righteousness.”

Opposing paradigms converge on Hawaii

Opposing paradigms converge on Hawaii
Hawaii is center stage for a meeting between the all-business APEC and international environmental conference Moana Nui

Jon Letman    Last Modified: 07 Oct 2011 10:36

Speaking earlier this year on US National Public Radio, Intel CEO Paul Otellini suggested that the global power shift that occurred from the United Kingdom to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century is now replaying itself, as power moves away from the United States to the Asia-Pacific region, specifically China.

If that’s true, then Hawaii is well poised to serve as the place where the proverbial baton is handed off. This November (8-13), Honolulu will host the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) 2011 summit where 21 member economies will discuss region issues.

Read the full story here.

Indigenous peoples of Peru win a historic victory

This is a win for the indigenous peoples of  Peru, and for all indigenous peoples!  Apologies for posting something ‘off-topic’ from demilitarization. However, consider this passage from Thomas Friedman’s ode to globalization, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999):

The hidden hand of the market can never work without the hidden fist – McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglass, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.

It is clear that the violent pillaging of rainforests in the Amazon, or desecration of burial sites on Ke’eaumoku or Naue, the genocidal march of global capitalism, requires the ‘hidden fist’ of militarization to crush opposition. In this case, the people paid a high price, but won.

peru1_190201s

Friday, 19 June 2009 12:37 UK

Peru Indians hail ‘historic’ day

Indigenous groups in Peru have called off protests after two land laws which led to deadly fighting were revoked.

Hailing victory, Amazonian Indian groups said it was an “historic day”.

At least 34 people died during weeks of strikes against the legislation, which allowed foreign companies to exploit resources in the Amazon forest.

The violence provoked tension with Peru’s neighbour, Bolivia, where President Evo Morales backed the Peruvian Indians’ tribal rights.

“This is a historic day for indigenous people because it shows that our demands and our battles were just,” said Daysi Zapata, vice president of the Amazon Indian confederation that led the protests.

She urged fellow activists to end their action by lifting blockades of jungle rivers and roads set up since April across six provinces in the Peruvian Amazon.

The controversial laws, passed to implement a free trade agreement with the US, were revoked by Peru’s Congress by a margin of 82-12 after a five-hour debate.

Diplomatic dispute

The worst of the clashes occurred on 5 June when police tried to clear roadblocks set up by the groups at Bagua, 1,000km (600 miles) north of Lima.

At least 30 civilians died, according to Indian groups, as well as 23 police.

Peru’s Prime Minister Yehude Simon said the reversal of policy would not put at risk Peru’s free trade agreement with the US, but he has said he will step down once the dispute is settled.

The dispute led to a diplomatic row between Peru and Latin American neighbours Venezuela and Bolivia.

Peru recalled its ambassador to Bolivia for consultation on Tuesday after Bolivian President Evo Morales described the deaths of the indigenous protesters as a genocide caused by free trade.

Peru’s Foreign Minister Jose Antonia Garcia Belaunde called Mr Morales an “enemy of Peru”.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8109021.stm

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