Subject: [cwj 62] NGOs link military to environmental damage
From: Corporate Watch in Japanese <cwj@corpwatch.org>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 18:48:12 -0700
Seq: 62
NGOs link military to environmental damage Asahi Evening News JUN SAITO July 18, 2000 NAHA-Environmental groups are in the final stages of preparing a message for the July 21-23 Okinawa summit, following their adoption Monday of a declaration urging Group of Eight leaders to put a stop to worldwide environmental destruction caused by military activity. About 200 members of nongovernmental organizations from more than 10 nations wrapped up the five-day International Environmental NGO Forum at Okinawa University in Naha on Monday. They adopted the Okinawa Declaration, which urges G-8 leaders to pay more attention to environmental destruction caused by war and other military activities. The declaration was to be officially announced today at a news conference held in the Okinawa prefectural government office. Forum organizers are to release the declaration to foreign media at a separate news conference during the summit meeting. From Thurs-day, when many G-8 officials gather near the summit venue, they also plan to urge the officials to take their message to the table at the leaders' discussions. ``We focused on the environmental impact of war and militarization,'' said Okinawa University professor Kunitoshi Sakurai, the main forum coordinator. ``For example, it is not persuasive to simply oppose U.S. bases in Okinawa without a scientific basis. Through the forum, we concluded that the U.S. bases should be removed, from the viewpoint of environmental conservation,'' he said. The declaration proclaimed wars to be the greatest source of environmental destruction and demanded an end to the production and trade of all weapons. It cited defoliant used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War and depleted uranium projectiles used by the United States and Britain in the Persian Gulf War as examples of weapons causing both human and environmental destruction. As for overseas U.S. bases, the declaration reads, ``The U.S. military is implementing a pollution clean-up program for its domestic installations, but does not carry out a similar program for overseas bases.'' It called for an end to such double standards. The contents of the declaration reflect the proposals of Saul Bloom, executive director of the Arms Control Research Center in the United States. Bloom says NGOs should urge international organizations to set up a system that would allow citizens of countries in which the U.S. military is stationed to obtain information on environmental destruction and pollution resulting from U.S. military activities. He also proposed that the world's NGOs demand that the U.S. government conduct environmental impact assessments and disclose the results whenever it builds a new overseas base. During the five-day discussions, NGO representatives talked about how military activities are causing serious environmental crises throughout the world. Nguyen Viet Nhan, acting dean of the physiology department at Vietnam's Hue Medical College, reported on the high incidence of birth defects in regions sprayed with defoliant by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Sheila Velez from Puerto Rico spoke of high rates of cancer and infant deaths among people living near the U.S. military's Vieques Bombing Range. Lee See Jae, an executive of an environmental NGO from the Republic of Korea (South Korea), described oil spills and noise pollution near the U.S. Maehyangi Air Base in South Korea. FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Corporate Watch in Japanese is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. ------------------------------------- Corporate Watch in Japanese Transnational Resource and Action Center (TRAC) P.O. Box 29344 San Francisco, CA 94129 USA Tel: 1-415-561-6472 Fax: 1-415-561-6493 Email: cwj@corpwatch.org URL: http://www.corpwatch-jp.org ------------------------------------- ______________________ The Corporate Watch in Japanese http://www.corpwatch.org/japan (CWJ) mailing list is a moderated email list in English designed to connect activists campaigning against Japanese corporations and investments around the world. * To unsubscribe from the CWJ mailing list, send an email to majordomo@jca.apc.org with text "unsubscribe cwj". To subscribe to the CWJ mailing list, send a message to majordomo@jca.apc.org with the text "subscribe cwj" * The CWJ mailing list is NOT intended for wide distribution. If you would like to post messages from this list somewhere else, we ask that you first contact us at cwj@corpwatch.org ______________________