Blocking construction at Camp Schwab

We arrived early this morning at the gates of Camp Schwab at Henoko.  We held the great banner made by fellow Mainer Russel Wray (Hancock) as GI’s and Okinawan civilian employees began arriving for work.  The line of cars was long so entering the base was slow going which made it possible for the car drivers to get a good look at the banner.

Soon enough two Stryker assault vehicles (produced by General Dynamics) tried to leave the base carrying several decked-out combat Marines on top of each of them.  We moved out in front of the gate and blocked them for quite a while.  When the Japanese police were finally sent in to move us we all sat down in the road and the police tried to move us but we held on tight to each other.  They finally moved the Stryker’s around us so we just got up and continued with holding the banner. 

                                                                                                                  

At 8:15 am we moved to the construction gate entrance and were joined by about 100 Okinawan people (mostly elderly).  We all sat down and waited for the construction trucks to arrive.  About 8:45 lots of police came and began trying to tear us apart as we locked arms and legs.  One by one they dragged and hauled us away to a nearby cage that was guarded with many Japanese police.  

After sometime in the ‘cage’ we devised a plan to create a diversion at one part of the cage so that the police would be drawn there and then several of us lept over the fence and ran into the middle of the road and laid down in front of a couple construction trucks. Right behind me dove in VFP board member Monisha Rios who grabbed ahold of my leg and held on for life.  One of our guys, Miles Megaciph who is a former Marine who was once stationed at Camp Schwab (and is a rapper), dove under the truck that we were blocking.  The police worked hard to drag me and a couple of our other VFP folks back to the cage.  Miles was arrested for going under the truck and taken to the local jail house.

After a couple minutes I jumped the fence again, put on a side-step football move to get past the police, and got in front of the truck again.  After a bit the cops threatened to arrest me too and one of the protest leaders came and asked me to not be arrested.  So, I got up and moved back to the cage which was really hard for me to do under the circumstances.

All in all, we held up the line of construction trucks for maybe 30 minutes but when you figure that every day people are blocking the gates and slowing down the process to build the twin-runways for US Marine aircraft right on top of Oura Bay it makes it all worthwhile.  This whole movement is slowing down the war machine and forcing them to spend a lot more time and money.

Around mid-day we got a report that another Marine helicopter accident happened at Futenma where we protested yesterday.  The story is that a window fell out from a chopper and landed on top of an elementary school.  So, it’s almost like a daily occurrence now that parts of these US Marine choppers are falling from the sky and landing on schools and day care centers.  A quickly called protest was planned for this evening at the Futenma base but we are now an hour north of there and could not attend.

We’ve not had decent Internet connection for the last two days so its been tough to get out all the photos and video that our crew have been taking.  Every one is chomping at the bit to get the word out but we are doing the best we can to share information.

We heard that Trump’s Senate candidate Roy Moore in Alabama lost the special election today which will be a real set back for the Donald.  Nice to get some good news now and then.

Bruce