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| Jeju navy base gate protest |
Cancel the RIMPAC War Exercises!
Translation by Kaia Vereide
On the afternoon of June 7, 2024, Korea’s RIMPAC squadron left the Jeju Naval Base and headed to Hawaii to participate in the 2024 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) war exercises. Led by the U.S., RIMPAC is the world's largest multinational maritime war drill, involving 40 surface ships, 3 submarines, 150 aircraft, and 25,000 troops from 29 countries. Nine NATO members will participate, and of course Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand will join; these countries are building an Asian NATO system by strengthening U.S.-led alliances such as the Korea-U.S.-Japan alliance and AUKUS. Furthermore, Israel, which is carrying out anti-humanitarian and anti-life massacres in Palestine, will also participate, so the countries that have decided to participate in the war exercises will be complicit in the international crime of tolerating Israel's slaughter and destruction.
Massacre and destruction do not only occur in Palestine. The U.S. Navy has been granted a legal exemption allowing it to slaughter more than 10 million marine mammals from 2018 to 2025. Who will take responsibility for the death of marine life due to sonar and chemical pollution from warships, for the destruction of endangered animals and plants crushed to death by amphibious tanks landing on the coast, and for the suffering of the animals that have miscarriages due to the sound of missiles and gunfire? Already an estimated 2.45 million pyeong (2,000 acres) of land at the Pohakuloa Training Area was destroyed by fire during RIMPAC in 2018.
We strongly demand the cancellation of RIMPAC, which accelerates the momentum towards war and destroys marine ecosystems and the environment. Pacific islands such as Hawaii, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau continue to suffer from multinational war exercises. And RIMPAC-participating Korea is not free from responsibility. Korea is thoroughly militarized; it is the world's ninth-largest arms exporter and has the world’s fifth-largest current available firepower. Korea’s military emits more carbon dioxide than any other public institutions. The way for Korea, the world's seventh-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, to get rid of its stigma as a climate criminal is to stop producing and exporting weapons as soon as possible. Astonishingly, Hyundai Heavy Industries recently said that half of the ships that will participate in RIMPAC in the 2030s will be made in Korea.
Korean weapons companies, such as Hanwha Systems, are implicit in technical cooperation that facilitates Israel's genocide in Palestine. Hanwha Systems plans to build the Hanwha Space Center to produce satellites in Jeju and is promoting a military communication system construction project. Weapons companies not only profit from close contact with the military, but they also expand the scale and level of wars and war exercises by promoting technology for killing.
Following the opening of RIMPAC on June 26, Freedom Edge, a Korea-U.S.-Japan trilateral land-sea-air, cyber and space multi-domain exercise will be held in late June. A naval exercise will be held in the international waters of the Korean peninsula, involving the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which also took part in a Korea-U.S.-Japan joint exercise to the south of Jeju Island in April. Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, a U.S. conservative right-wing think tank, said the Freedom Edge exercise "suggests that we're linking Japan into the US-South Korea war plans.” Freedom Edge means that Japan's transition to a so-called “normal country” (a country that can go to war) has entered its final phase. We are firmly opposed to both RIMPAC and Freedom Edge as they solidify the U.S. war alliance against North Korea, China and Russia and threaten peace. The war drills violate Article 2 (4) of the U.N. Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force. South Korea should immediately withdraw from all war alliances and war exercises. In addition, the Jeju Naval Base, an outpost for U.S. hegemony in Northeast Asia, should be closed.
Gathered together in front of the Jeju Naval Base, where the U.S. Aegis destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76) has been docked since it arrived on June 22, after participating in the Valiant Shield war exercises (held from June 6-17), and from each of our respective locations, we conclude our statement with the following slogans:
- Cancel RIMPAC, which is complicit in genocide and destruction!
- Cancel RIMPAC, which increases the risk of war and strengthens the military industry!
- Stop all war exercises, which destroy ecosystems and aggravate the climate crisis!
- Diplomacy and dialogue are important. Abolish all war alliances!
- Close the Jeju Naval Base, which turns the Peace Island into a military outpost!
Association of Gangjeong Villagers Against the Jeju Navy Base, Gangjeong Friends, Gangjeong Peace Network, the Frontiers, The Climate Performers, Climate Christian Solidarity, Green Party Korea, Extinction Rebellion South Korea, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (Jeju), People Making Jeju a Demilitarized Peace Island, Citizens Who Want Green Space Instead of the Seogwipo City Bypass Road, St. Francis Peace Center Foundation, Citizens' Political Solidarity for Jeju Values, Martyr Yong Chan-Yang Memorial Association, People Opposing the Militarization of Space and Rocket Launches, e-sang, Korea Federation of Service Workers' Unions (Jeju Regional Branch), Jeonbuk Green Korea United, Justice Party in Jeju, Jeju Pan-Island Committee to Stop Military Bases and Realize the Peace Island, Jeju Green Party, Jeju People's Assembly Against the Jeju 2nd Airport, Jeju Peace Human Rights Institute WHAT, The Progressive Party Jeju Committee, Palestine Peace Solidarity (BDS Korea), Women Making Peace, Peace Wind, Inter-Island Solidarity for Peace of the Sea Jeju Committee, Platform.C, Korean Association of Evangelical Churches, Hot Pink Dolphins, and individuals calling for the closure of the Jeju Naval Base and for the cancellation of RIMPAC
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