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The Okinawa International Forum for People's Security
Concept and Objectives

Focus on Global South
Tokyo Organizing Committee for the Okinawa International Forum for People's Security


The Conference and Its Context

The International Forum for People's Security will be held in Okinawa from June 29-July 2, 2000. Expected to last three days it is one of several people's assemblies that are timed for the G-7 Summit that will be held on the island later in July. The main aim of the gathering is to highlight the threats to lives and the political, social, and environmental interests of peoples in the Asia-Pacific posed by the current regional and global security systems based on ever growing military power, to redefine the concept of security, and to promote practices to ensure the true security of the people.

The location of the conference, Okinawa, is especially significant since it is the site of sustained popular protests against the massive U.S. military presence. It is where 75% of U.S. bases in the Japanese territory are concentrated, which occupy about 20% best area of the land of this small island. Challenging the popular will against bases expressed in the Okinawa-wide referendum and mounting opposition by local grassroots communities, rapid military base buildup is now pushed ahead. A new major U.S. marine assault base, the only U.S. military base to be newly built in Asia after the end of the Cold War, is going to be constructed in Nago City in the island, the very venue of the forthcoming G7 summit. Okinawa is also where in 1945 the fiercest ground battle was fought between the U.S. and Japanese military that claimed the lives of 200,000 civilians. The people in Okinawa from their experience developed peace movements, during the period of the U.S. military rule as well as after reversion to Japan, sending to the world the warning that military forces and bases are not for the security of the people but, on the contrary, direct physical, economic, social, and environmental threats to people's security. Okinawa offers an ideal environment where to reconceptualize the notion of security and develop strategies to ensure people's security through people's own action.

The Forum is being held at a time marked by critical developments in the Asia-Pacific scene. Among these are:

Another Step towards an Alternative Security System

The Forum is being organized jointly by Focus on the Global South (Bangkok) and the Tokyo and Okinawa Organizing Committees for OIFPS, with the support the Okinawa Citizens' Peace Coalition consisting of 35 grassroots base-concerned groups. The Tokyo Committee is a coalition of peace, women's, labor, religious, and other groups.

The assembly must be seen as the fourth regional conference that the CASAP network has organized to develop an alternative regional security system in the last three years. The first, which took place in February 1997, saw some 200 people come together in Bangkok to form the Asia Pacific Alternative Security Network, later renamed the Council for Alternative Security in the Asia Pacific (CASAP). The second CASAP conference saw over 150 gather in Manila to hold a parallel meeting on the occasion of the annual meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum in June 1998. At that meeting, CASAP passed a resolution to hold a conference on the implications of the India-Pakistan nuclear arms race. This conference took place in Dakha, Bangladesh, in late February 2000 and resulted in the creation of the South Asian Peace Council.

Objectives

More specifically, the objectives of the conference, as defined by its organizers, include the following;

The conference will put particular emphasis on two things. First, it will more explicitly define the content of alternative security or people's security, elaborating a strategy based on this definition, and operationalizing this strategy into a set of regionally coordinated tactics and actions. Only if there is an inspiring, well argued, and practical program of alternative security will people be won from the myth of the "necessity" of the US military presence.

Second, it will accord gender a central role in a system of alternative security since abandoning deeply rooted patriarchal attitudes is essential if we are to break with the current security system that is based on male chauvinist values.

Contours of the Program

Talks, panel discussions, and workshops still have to be concretely worked out. However, the program might be structured around the following themes:


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Okinawa liaison Committee
FAX:81-98-867-4004
Tokyo liaison Committee
c/o People's Plan Study Group
Address: Okubo 2-4-15-3F, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan Zip 169-0072
Tel/Fax: 81-3-5273-8362
e-mail: ppsg@jca.apc.org

Focus on the Global South (FOCUS)
c/o CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok 10330 THAILAND
Tel: 662 218 7383/7384/7363/7364/7365
Fax: 662 255 9976
Web Page http://www.focusweb.org