Wow and these are all scenes that come from the rim pack the rim of the Pacific these are the ships that were a part of the exercise in 2016 or 200 ships and aircraft were and submarines a huge armada that practices in the waters off Hawaii and one of the things that they do is practice bombing ships so they bring ships out of mock walls and from Pearl Harbor and Honolulu and bomb at least one of them to the ocean floor every year which is a great environmental hazard they also here's another shot of them bombing this ship and lots of or that's used very nasty stuff and of course the waters of Hawaii have all sorts of marine life in them that can certainly be harmed and if the eardrums of the mammals of dolphins and whales but it's a very brutal exercise as as war is and practicing for war and they practice using lots and lots of munitions and if you look closely you'll see the blacks of many many different countries that participate 26 countries participated in the last the last size or war maneuvers war practice they use torpedoes they use bombs they use artillery shells all of this now littering the floor of the Pacific very large sophisticated terrible war machines that are capable of shooting not only in the ocean but also from the ocean on to land as they've done in Syria Israeli Navy sending artillery shells from ships into Gaza with great frequency it's a very strong strong explosive time see the lineup this is their parade of ships of warships as you can see that they do for the publicity the pictures that they want to show to their governments to show how important it is that their country participate in these exercises these war maneuvers play stop now let's go one just a little bit more and then it shows some marine mammals that we'd like to see okay we don't like to see them but it's an important part of this that they should and just to see the you know these there's a lot of very very expensive munitions that are used in this war practice and monies that could should be used for many many other things we should be coming up just in a moment to the well and here's some of the underwater explosives like the torpedoes or bombs so yes that's that's good thank you well and here here we have some of the marine mammals that will be injured if not killed by by these war maneuvers and we know that the sonar of these ships will kill these animals that's that's good right there Jody thank you so much thank you we we say welcome to stop when pack rampac seminar the video you've just seen gives you an idea of the scale and of the largest naval war games in the world which are called rim of the Pacific or rampac for short we thank orange to sue me of Honolulu for the film which he put together in 2018 please consider watching the entire video and we'll put the link up on the chat we also want to thank code pink women for peace we're sponsoring the women the webinar my name is Anne right now I'm going to be the moderator of this I'm a code pink member living in Hawaii but staying in Houston during the COVID pandemic I'm a retired Army colonel and a former diplomat and I resigned from the government in 2003 in opposition to Bush's war on Iraq and have been challenging US militarism ever since finally leaving the US government I'm also a member of Hawaii peace and justice and veterans were peace in Hawaii but before we begin our discussion of rim pack since tomorrow is Mother's Day for people in the United States and mainland and Hawaii the continental United States we know that in in Guahan and in poor and Japan right now it's already in the morning on Mother's Day and we wish you all happy Mother's Day and we'd like to ask Jody Evans the co-founder of code pink women for peace the sponsor of our webinar today if she would please show us the video made by code pink about Mother's Day and why it is it relates so much to what we're talking about trying to stop wars thank you Jody let's see are you able to get the the volume on it Jody here we go it's not coming through you can't hear the sound can you turn it up a little more instead of flowers give us peace and the wars let no more mothers raise their children to kill other mothers children give us instead the abolition of war the promotion of peace the care of people and planet each day the cruelties of war demand the blood sacrifices of mothers children young and old civilian and soldier foreign and domestic it is time to say no more to put down our foot each and every one and reject military's demand for blood sacrifices in all their many forms neither the flesh of our flesh or the children of other mothers or the prosperity of our labors or the earth's vitality should be sacrificed to false idols of war we the mothers and the children of mothers demand respect for common mother the earth and for the end of the military's violations of her being to commemorate Mother's Day without demanding these changes rings flat for every mother appreciating the beauty of the spring there is another mother screaming under the terror of bombs and bullets for every mother safe right breakfast in bed there is another mother hungry and unhoused stateless and fleeing for more we the mothers and the children of mothers stand united against war and united for the well-being of people and planet on this Mother's Day 2019 let us promise to protect all children and our imperiled planet let no mother's child kill another mother's child let every mother stand against war let every mother call for peace let every mother's cry be heard this Mother's Day instead of flowers give us peace instead of brunch and all worse thank you Jody thank you very much that's a very meaningful film today today we have four panelists from the pacific in asia to discuss the upcoming rim of the pacific rim pack war games or war practices or war maneuvers all of them preparations for war which we as citizens want to prevent rim pack is the world's largest international maritime exercise and is very provocative in regional terms for asia and the pacific the rim of the pacific rim pack naval practice in hawaiian waters was originally scheduled from june through august of 2020 but due to citizen activism and COVID-19 is now scaled back to the middle to the end of august even the shortened war practice is provocative on a regional level and with the COVID virus military personnel arriving in hawaii would endanger citizens of our isolated island state of Hawaii to give you an idea of the size and scale of these manila military maneuvers more than 25 000 military personnel from 25 countries would be in the hawaiian waters on over 250 ships and aircraft in 2018 military personnel from 24 other countries including australia canada india israel japan malaysia mexico singapore south korea sarulanka and vietnam came to hawaii our four panelists from guahan guam hawaii and osaka japan will provide more information about the effects of this massive military gathering on their communities firstly we'll have kisha borja kavo from guahan she is currently an instructor of english and chamorro studies at the university of guam kisha is also a phd candidate in the political science program with specialization in indigenous politics at the university of hawaii in manila she has worked to curb the military build-up in guahan she is a member of the women's voices women speak and the international women's network against militarism and the cancel rem pat coalition kisha would you like to honor us with your words um let me just um hafeed from guahan uh sida smasi or thank you to the code pink organization uh to jody and an for coordinating this webinar and the other women activists presenting with me today from okinawa japan and holi this webinar is a great opportunity to connect with other activists and to share what is happening on my home island of guahan particularly in terms of covid-19 and the recent situation with the u.s navy and one of its aircraft carriers the uss theodore roosevelt before discussing the current covid-19 and uss theodore roosevelt situations i wanted to provide a brief overview of the current militarization of guahan guahan is about 30 miles long and eight miles wide and about one third of our lands is occupied by the u.s military um there are largest installations include an air force base and a naval base so these lands are located the occupied lands are located throughout the northern central and southern parts of the island so essentially you can't drive around the island without seeing military fence lines and no trespassing signs um construction for the marine corps base has also been ongoing this is involving the what's now known as the military build-up the relocation of about 5 000 marines from okinawa to guahan so the construction has for the marine corps base itself has continued despite an over decade long resistance to the relocation of these marines from okinawa to guahan so as it's evident as it's evident guahan is a hyper militarized island and because of our political status as an unincorporated u.s territory um we do not have much power when it comes to making decisions regarding the military's presence on our island and this has been especially obvious with the uss theodore roosevelt debacle um towards the end of march it was announced that the uss roosevelt which had about 4 800 people on board needed to dock on guahan because there were 23 confirmed covid 19 cases on the ship initially the idea was that the sailors would stay on board the ship however immediately after realizing that the cases were increasing the military worked out a deal with our governor which allowed more than half of the crew to stay in local hotels outside of the base and these initially these were um sailors who had tested negative for covid 19 um this was quite concerning though for many community members outside of the fence as we knew that it would put us directly at risk local grassroots organizations such as i hagan from a lot in guahan at some modern women's organization wrote to our governor about our concerns and asked her to reconsider her decision uh first our community knew how many sailors had tested positive but we were not informed about the contact that may have possibly been made between those who tested negative and those who were infected um so that that was a big concern for us who were also worried about the sailors who initially tested negative but would later retest positive our skepticisms were eventually actualized so many sailors who at first tested negative and were moved to these hotels off base later did retest positive as of may 1st there were about 1156 positive cases from the us s roosevelt and up until last week friday the joint regent mariana was reporting how many positive cases the us s roosevelt had however they recently revealed that they would no longer be providing that information so at this point we um the last number that we heard was 1156 but we're still not sure what the numbers actually are and at the start of this week sailors were being moved from the hotels back to the ship in preparation to leave for training and those being quarantined will remain on guahan and then the ship is planning to return after the training is completed of course our community is still unaware of the details behind the navy's plans meaning we still don't know how many sailors actually left the hotels how many are still in the hotels um who's staying on the base who who are being quarantined we're not aware of any of those specifics which is which is very problematic for for our local community um so the us s roosevelt situation has raised many concerns and though it seems that outside the fence our community has been doing fair we have about 151 cases uh five deaths the impacts of the uss roosevelt crew and other future military personnel on the health of our community is great um the situation with the uss roosevelt is is concerning in in and of itself however we are also worried that it kind of sets the precedence for future carriers or other military personnel um who may be in be infected um who will be coming to our island or having to stay off base so in addition to the uss roosevelt situation there have been increased naval trainings and these trainings usually occur once every few months but in the last five weeks alone the navy conducted trainings during four four of those weeks four weeks out of these past five weeks this is with little warning provided to our community so these trainings are happening much more frequently just in the past month and they're very dangerous for our community because they occur in civilian lands and uh residential areas and in civilian waters where our local fishermen are fishing for sustenance these trainings again are happening too frequently and they bring issues with in terms of the lack of transparency the contamination of our lands our waters our local food source as well as the safety of our community so so tying this all together with rimpak we have to consider what happened with the uss roosevelt the outbreak on the ship and the need for sailors to be housed off the ship this should be very alarming for our brothers and sisters in hawaii because even though the military is currently proposing only at sea trainings for its rimpak exercises it is very possible that an outbreak could occur on the sea vessels and that the hawaii government and local community would be directly impacted it's also troubling that the military continues to keep information such as the number of positive cases away from the civilian community and with this kind of track record who knows what else they're hiding and how it could further devastate our island communities so to close i just wanted to say that as we know our respective issues aren't just our own we must continue to work together in spaces like these across our lands and our oceans to connect and raise awareness about the impacts of us militarization in our communities thank you so much kisha that's it's uh very disturbing to hear what has happened to guahan with the huge numbers of infected military who have descended on the island and our hearts go out to everyone to the people of guahan and of course the the young men and women who have contracted the the covid also yes next we'll have tina granadetti who is of hawaiian heritage pardon me of okinawan heritage but born and raised on the island of oahu she is a lecturer in the political science department at the university of hawaii and a phd candidate at rmit university in australia formally known as the royal melbourne institute of technology she is on the board of hawaii peace and justice and a member of the international women's network against militarism and the cancel rempact coalition please tina thank you aloha everybody um thanks to cold pink and and right for organizing this and thank you to everyone for joining us i see friends in the audience um i before i start i just wanted to quickly share a little bit about my genealogy as um and mentioned i i'm going to be speaking about hawaii but i'm not kanaka maoli i'm a settler um here in occupied hawaii uh my mother is from okinawa um she's uchinanchu the indigenous peoples of yukyu or okinawa um and though we both grew up in really different places um we both grew up under or in a place under u.s occupation both on islands where nearly a quarter of the land is controlled by the u.s military um and so i share this not only to like talk about my positionality but also because my genealogy really speaks to the pervasiveness of u.s empire in um oceania and the pacific so um i think i'll quickly talk about um rimpak 2020 um and the situation in light of covid-19 and then talk a little bit more broadly about um rimpaks impacts beyond the pandemic as well so right now in hawaii we're really facing a kind of reckoning with the fact that our two major the two major drivers of our economy tourism and the military are predatory and they're making us more vulnerable in crises like this after so many decades of trying to convince us that they were keeping us safe and prosperous um thanks largely to our dependence on tourism hawaii's at last count around 30 unemployment um and that's really devastating but also thanks to that sacrifice of our island community we have been pretty successful at flattening the the curve of covid-19 so for me it's a real slap in the face of that sacrifice to see the ways that the u.s military is putting lives at risk firstly like kisha said they're refusing to share local data about um covid-19 because they say that that disclosure would threaten national security which i really think highlights that the disconnect between national security and genuine security for our communities and then second um there's been um we're hearing constant air traffic um from fighter jets and helicopters and other military aircraft overhead and it started out anecdotal but representative aini pruso of wahua confirms that maybe partial uh well the official justice the official um explanation is that um the shutdowns um the shutdown shutdown certain airfields so certain communities are feeling the burden of these flights much more heavily but even still every time i hear one of those aircraft roaring overhead i think about how much each one of those flights costs and how that money could be used um to help people who are now sitting in up to four hours of traffic just to receive food aid um and then thirdly they're risking lives by insisting on hosting rim pack um bringing they just sent out the invitation to 25 countries today um and the real question is how can we be telling people to stay at home sacrifice paychecks um confine themselves to small overcrowded multi-generational homes worry about rent and bills while we're bringing thousands of military personnel from around the world to blow things up um as an mentioned the exercises have been postponed and shortened so they're now scheduled for august 17th to 31st um and they're limited to an at sea event um and you know we could celebrate this as a small victory but it's just such a low bar um because the idea that they would ever bring the usual 47 surface ships five submarines 200 aircrafts and 25 000 troops is just like completely absurd and it never should have been an option um the justification is that um it's needed to foster international cooperation and to demonstrate to the world that um our military is ready to um keep sea lanes open for commercial shipping and trade but we know that this reduction is still not enough and i think obviously on this call at least most of us can agree that um hosting war games in the middle of a pandemic is a gross misappropriation of resources we should be actively working to save lives instead of practicing taking them away um but even a limited rim pack will bring logistical support teams on land and as we've learned from guahan and from what kisha just shared with us um these ship like keeping sailors at sea isn't necessarily safer ships that have been shown to be incubators of by of the virus the military has elevated rates of COVID-19 and 40 us ships have had confirmed cases of um coronavirus where i think 26 having active cases and again the navy doesn't disclose which of these ships are um or have active outbreaks so if an outbreak were to occur at sea during rim pack then rim pack would absolutely not be an at sea only event anymore because those sailors would have to disembark to be quarantined and to seek medical care and the people of hawaii would be the ones to bear the burden of quarantining those sailors and personnel so what we're trying to do is in hawaii we've formed the cancel rim pack coalition which is a broad coalition of activists environmentalists kiai or protectors of aina land um to demand that rim pack is not only postponed but canceled and right now we're tactically just focusing on rim pack 2020 and um the pandemic which has already been an interesting process because we see how undemocratic this decision is that none of our elective officials actually have any authority to call the games off um but we can at least demand that they try right um and then beyond that we're thinking much more deeply about militarism across mona nui oceania and we have an international committee so far with members from guahan kisha um south korea okinawa and hawaii um forms not only for political power but also so that we can be in touch with each other to avoid um having our communities pitted against each other like we've seen between okinawa and guam and then we're also working from the basic idea that rim pack should be canceled after 2020 as well um i'm wondering how much time i have but um so we need to think about cancelling rim pack beyond this year because every year for the or every two years rim pack has come to destroy our island resources um live fire maritime exercises these sink exercises where they shoot out decommissioned ships until they sink them to the bottom of the ocean just like 55 kilometers offshore um they've been shown to release chemicals and car carcinogenic materials into the waters um in 2018 um exercise that poha kuloa set 2000 acres of land on fire and that's at the base of mauna kia the people of hoian cosmologies and the center of the kukia imauna movement um and then after all that destruction we're told that we should be grateful for this 50 million dollar boost to our economy but this doesn't take into account the real costs of militarism in hoi we have corroding fuel tanks at redhill threatening our aquifers um military allowances driving up the cost of housing um destruction of cultural sites unexploded ordinances they just had to detonate a few off of the coast of kai loa um a couple weeks ago and of course the suppression of point and sovereignty and self-determination um one of our coalition members billy kimmy he's kanaka and a member of the kia i kanaloa network he did this really beautiful video talk story about the impacts of um impact on the kanaloa realm and kanaloa is a aqua or god associated with the ocean and who's kinola or like different manifestations are they include cetacean species like whales and dolphins and the kia i kanaloa network has um been working to protect and care for those species through cultural practice but of course under occupation that becomes a political act so they've had to engage in the struggle against impact because of the harm that it does um to kanaloa through especially through the barrage of sonar activity um the u.s navy's own eis said that um in previous years rimpac has exposed 250 000 marine mammals to hearing loss from sonar which risks their survival um and billy called this ecocide and he said what is done to kanaloa in the ocean is done to kanaka on land which um really stuck with me um because we can see how this disregard for indigenous lands and waters is basically one in the same with its disregard for indigenous lives and bodies and the lives and bodies of other victims of imperialism um and then one last thing i wanted to touch on is the way that rimpac also um can be understood through this idea of militarism which is a term coined by um teresia tea yua who um talks about the ways that these two industries disguise one another and enable one another and at rimpac um during most years maybe not this year um the troops are given up to 12 liberty days which means they can take those days to participate in tours around the island go snorkeling learn to surf um and you think about that these men coming to blow up the ancestral sacred lands of kanaka mauli um and at the same time consume the beauty of those lands as though they're on vacation and then this is of course is tied into the spike in sex trafficking and gendered violence that we see during rimpac those same men coming to a feminized and exoticized island nation and expecting to be welcomed by women and feeling entitled to their bodies um it's militarism it's imperialism it's heteropatriarchy all rolled up in one and it needs to stop but it won't stop until we organize to stop it and um as one kind of final bit of bad news the in no pacific command just submitted a report to congress calling for 20 billion dollars of additional funding over the next five years to detain or sorry for china deterrence essentially um they cited um coven 19 and increased instability in the region as more justification for further militarization um and you know this is to secure the economic and political dominance of the u.s. but it does nothing to support the well-being of the people of the united states or the people of hoi or in this case even the troops and sailors who are also living through a pandemic um so i guess we're like so disturbed by these attempts to appropriate the language of cooperation for these war games but also a little bit hopeful because we're also hearing kind of unprecedented calls to a for a global ceasefire and for a global reduction in military spending so maybe there's hope that in this moment we can kind of push forward different visions for our future in pacific in oceania thanks well thank you thank you tina very much and just to add something to what you had said the whole issue of sexual exploitation during these military exercises the hawaii state commission on the status of women has an anti trafficking campaign that's been going on for a long period of time and some of the statistics that they have or some of the data comes from actually the arizona state university that that has done a lot of research on this and says that hawaii is one of the worst demand problems in america and a large number of buyers of sex are from the military bases and when you do have this influx of 25 000 coming from all over the world even though we will not have that many on land this time we hope the the scale back that the military talks about and just having command and control units and logistic units mean that a low estimate of the number of military that will be coming ashore will be at least 250 and probably more 450 and probably more so that that potential is there as as you have noted we'll go on to our next um he says is on i can allow her to talk she doesn't seem to be able to get on the participant but i could i could unmute her if you want her just to talk so i'm going to unmute her and you can introduce her yes that would be great and he said we're glad you're here even though we can't see you right now but we are so thrilled to have with us two members of code pink from japan code pink japan has been in an organization gosh we're over 10 years and they've been so kind to ask several of us to come to mainland japan and have assisted us in traveling throughout the mainland of japan and have taken groups on down to okinawa we've been to guajan uh so our code pink sisters in in japan have been very very active hisai odawa is the organizer for code pink women for peace in japan she has a long history of opposing japanese militarism uh and us bases in japan and okinawa and nuclear weapons she has led code pink japan delegations to washington dc to new york city and to san francisco among other places so he said oh now we can see you yay can you hear me we can hear you when we hear you so please go ahead can can can you hear me yes we can oh good good good sorry sorry um um now can i start yes please go ahead please go ahead okay um so and and jody and everyone thank you very much for letting me in i had some technical problem and i was so i'm sorry then um then i'll just start okay yes okay um so let me start with a brief introduction of code pink osaka moan already um told told it about it but let's just add something about what we are doing so uh code pink osaka started um when we visited the code pink house in dc back in 2007 and since then uh we've been very active uh organizing peace actions together with and and media and jody thank you um and the global actions we are very grateful for your support and so domestically in in japan and since we are living in osaka uh we are working western part of japan mainly uh some peace actions and also uh national issues of no no war and and issues and against our abbey administration because he's a big liar and a big um he doesn't respect uh the right of our constitution that peaceful constitution so um and then um my personal career as a peace activist started back in 1960s when i was a university student the civil right movement was on the upswing in the united states and the vietnam war started in asia as a student of american studies i got interested in the civil rights movement in the united states and when united states started attacking vietnam i was in the student protest movement my college campus was very close to us military bases in tokyo namely yokota airbase and tachikawa base and jet bombers flew over our campus with roaring noise toward north vietnam i couldn't let it go and got involved no war actions later i studied in the united states college for master's degree i tried the comparative study between the us occupation of japan after the world war two and the young keys what you call young kids occupation of the south after the civil war it's very interesting comparison and then um in 1970s i'd been in the international women's movement in support of united nations international women's year initiative so uh i respect the women's leadership and initiatives in the peace and justice movement women play the vital role in the movement i'd like to be a part of it wherever i am and then that my my my point of argument on this today's uh panel uh ring back cancel ring back the reason why the japanese people are against sending sdf forces self defense forces of japan to to ring back with because we are against it because in our in my view and in our view sdf's operations overseas such as joining ring back are against the constitution of japan and not in nine of our constitution we renounce war and any war related actions so ring back is really joining jim ring back itself is against our constitution but sending sdf of sdf forces is really the violation of article nine that's my interpretation so uh since japanese people have the sovereign right to decide our policy our government we have to watch very carefully about the operation of sdf and if they operate against our constitution we have to say no when the that's my our obligation our japanese people's obligation so and then in terms of uh covid 19 sdf forces sdf's work main work should be confined in the domestic field and sdf role is help people at the time of natural disasters such as earthquakes typhoons tsunami and banco's pandemic such as covid 19 so now that covid 19 pandemic is attacking us japanese people as well sdf should stay in japan and help us by all means they have no time to go overseas to join the military exercise we are against this sdf being sent to the middle east or any other conflict in war-stripping areas that's not their role so uh we say with all your viewed sisters cancel reimpact medicare not warfare in solidarity thank you let's see we totally agree with you uh cancel reimpact and medicare health care and not warfare for sure that's one of codepinx mottos that's right we have with us also from osaka japan a kiko aguchi who is an active member of codepinx working for in local local issues in osaka and also in okinawa and elsewhere in japan she's active in global issues as well joining in the codepink actions in the us and in new york san francisco and she's the one that drafted the letter uh to the japanese ministry of defense uh arguing that uh the the country of japan should not participate in reimpact and a kiko we are so glad that you're with us please go ahead thank you thank you and everyone uh sorry i'm not a good english speaker so i wonder i can tell you my feeling perfectly but i'll try thank you and yeah my my mother told me this story when i was a small child she was a young mother living in isahaya a neighboring town of nagasaki on august 9 us dropped an album on nagasaki next day on august 10 she ventured into nagasaki city in search of her sister who was a nurse working in a hospital in nagasaki my mother told me holding a story of nagasaki bombing she witnessed to nobody but me she passed away without saying anything more so i feel very fair about a bomb in 1910 i participated in a parade in new york to appeal bombing nuclear weapon i met she's there and started supporting code pink uh on this year on january 25 and code pink invited us to join the international peace action we as code pink osaka organized our peace action in osaka city in solidarity with sisters in us and in the world over i contributed an article on this action to asahi shinbun daily journal and it appeared on the reader's column i sent requests to mail to the friends all over japan hokkaido shizuoka kyoto et cetera they tried their own actions and upon the request of joining canceling my back campaign i drafted the protest letter to the defense military to withdraw from limpac and send it from code pink osaka like this letter abe administration keeps ignoring the lives of the japanese people we will continue to demand the measures of the government for everyone living in japan to survive yesterday uh young people stand uh standard in osaka city and i supported them so uh i stand with them and i think abe is over and abe no mask i tried two songs it's very fantastic thank you thank you so much well thank you akiko and let me tell you that when i first met akiko she spoke very very very very little english and she's been taking english lessons and you you're speaking very very well thank you thank you and um thank you everyone uh but hissai and akiko the code pinkers in osaka japan and other parts of japan uh what they do is is so important in international solidarity and we appreciate you all so much and caring the the flag of the pink code pink uh we really do appreciate it and we're looking forward for your next trip to the u.s i i know you were planning on coming to new york city uh in march for the non-proliferation uh conference but with that canceled so we look forward to you returning to the u.s at at some stage now we have about eight minutes left and uh i haven't really seen any questions in our chat so if anybody has some please go ahead and and put some questions in but i i have a couple of little questions not little questions but other questions tina you you went through a list of military exercises or military bases uh in the hawaiian islands i know that there are there are a lot of problems with them could you mention to the audience more about what red hill is and some of those types of environmental things we're working on sure um i haven't been super active in the red hill issue but um basically there are massive fuel tanks underground sitting on top of oahu's freshwater aquifer i think they were built in like world during the world war two era and haven't been properly maintained and now they've corroded so that in some places they're only about as thick as the width of a dime and right now there is a battle going on to try to get the military to replace them or move them entirely and i think they're kind of insisting that that's not really necessary um the thing is that part of the wall is right up against like rock face so you can't easily access it and that's one of the major issues that we're facing here on oahu right now yes it and it is the major one it's these were built during world war two to store all the the fuel that was needed for all of the fleets that were going out for the war they are 20 stories tall or 20 stories deep 20 of them that are 20 stories deep holding all of this jet fuel 100 feet above the water aquifer of hawaii or of oahu so it's really really a very dangerous place dangerous place we do have two questions and they center around environmental issues one is a general one of the what is the environmental impact of uh impact exercises and then a specific one on does the military have to get permission to kill marine animals essentially in in their war games kisha would you like to address some of this sure so for um the environmental impact of the impact so yeah live fire training is is done during these during the impact trainings um both on usually in the ocean as well as as well as on land but now that they're proposing to now that the navy's proposing to just have the exercises in the ocean then live fire training will be conducted there um as far as the you know requesting for permission or having to access permission to conduct these exercises um typically there's an environmental impact statement that's usually the process that usually has to be completed before major any other major military construction or other projects like like the construction of a base for example however with impact this is one of those like exceptions where they can engage in these kinds of exercises without getting the permission of the community or or anybody or any kind of environmental agencies they they're able to kind of engage with these exercises which is very concerning because as in that video we saw earlier when where Anne was talking about um how they basically bomb a ship and let it sink to the sea you know the kinds of environmental impacts that those have on um on the waters and on the contamination of the water but also on the marine marine life in in those ocean waters um they're very concerning um but it's also you know the exception right so this is the exception to their own kinds of environmental policies um and that's very problematic for the situation thank you uh two other questions we have one is does anyone know the cost of REMPAC and the second one is what is the call to action for us uh does anyone know what the cost is it's uh I would just say it's way too much uh you can probably get the some figures from each of the national um militaries but I've never seen a document that has it all added up to what really it is costing the world's environment um by this um then on what is our call to action well we do have a petition you know there's always a petition for everything and uh we all we have over 11,000 signatures on our petition to cancel REMPAC and if you haven't uh uh been able to sign it yet if you go to roots action roots action and cancel REMPAC uh you can sign up there uh Tina could you tell us what's going on in Honolulu or in Hawaii about trying to work with the political leaders to try to get this cancelled sure um quickly on the question of cost you know we're always told that Hawaii gains 50 million dollars from these exercises um which it's only one way of measuring cost and value um like Keisha said um it can't measure the damage that it does to our oceans and the wealth that could come the different kinds of wealth and abundance that could come from our oceans if we really valued and respected them um so earth justice sorry i'm kind of backtracking to the question about the um marine mammals as well but earth justice in 2013 sued um saying it was challenging fishery services decision to allow these trainings and i think that they um eventually settled so that and this this was based on the navy's own reporting of how many mammals were killed um and they settled and the navy said it would try to reduce um its use of sonar um and reduce its impact on these mammals but it still continues um to impact them and then in terms of um actions um i think there are probably a lot of activists on this call um and so it would be great if you could get in touch um we're thinking one strategy that we've come up with as the cancel impact coalition is um for folks from participating nations to lobby their governments just as um hisa and akiko have and even like rim pack in previous years has also involved training in southern california so um if there are folks on the call from california there are probably ways that you can help us by um lobbying your elected officials or military officials where you live um the petition's great but also we can get in touch directly and try to maybe come up with other strategies as well absolutely and the as we speak of other countries trying to get their their national government to cancel them as uh uh our code pink sisters in in japan have tried also in new zealand there have been a there's been a very strong letter to the minister of defense from a large number of organizations asking that uh new zealand pull their their uh military out of it i'd like to ask uh hisa and akiko a question you all are usually attend the august 6th and august 9th ceremonies in hiroshima and nagasaki are those ceremonies going to be held in person this year or will they be virtual issued in virtual webinars uh because of the covid 19 if you could unmute yourself hisa yummy yeah now we can okay um probably they have uh online conference instead of yeah but they are still discussed discussing i think but uh but probably it's not possible to organize such a conference in hiroshima this year well yeah and uh and i can just give me one one few minutes to add more um you know um of course we're against the the sdf operations but also you know we saw uh so mad at uh abe administration is spending so much um spending for military and and entertain american bases and american military so so even in this uh covid 19 pandemic he uh abe doesn't make any cut in our national budget and and spend more buying uh such an expensive uh military um goods from military uh spending and then he buys that um for instance um what what what that um where'd you go bring your face back any aircraft aircraft yeah many things so we have to really push our government spend money to to medicare not military that's really our point and so and i just downloaded some information from how the korean government they may uh korean now korea republic of korea i mean uh they they cut the spending of military so so our japanese government is really the worst government you know in now with this to to attack the pandemic pandemic now the covid 19 situation that's what i wanted to add to one point thank you very very much we appreciate that and uh it doesn't look like uh military spending in virtually any country except perhaps south korea is going down the u.s military as tina has mentioned is asking for even more money um we know that the program for development of nuclear weapons for the united states continues unabated we are now at the end of our one hour and we want to thank all of you all for being with us our panelists from all over the pacific and from asia we want to thank codepink women for peace and jody evans the co-founder for being our host and and our technical advisor on this the the council reimpact coalition is having a series of webinars with various groups representing different perspectives on this and we will certainly let codepink know so that they can advertise through their very extensive network and we thank everyone and uh stay safe stay safe and cancel rempat thank you all very very much thank you thank you jody thanks to everyone happy mother's day okay thank you all right take care have a good day everyone bye