私たちの大切な仲間が、米軍によってフェンスを背に後ろ手に手錠をかけられている姿を見るとき、私たちの身体もまた、痛み、傷つく。仲間たちの傷を痛むことを通して、私たちは、戦争に繋がるすべての不正義に抵抗してきた沖縄の闘いの歴史に接続している。
2015年2月22日、辺野古キャンプ・シュワブ・ゲート前で市民2人が米軍により不当に逮捕され沖縄県警によって不当に拘留された。沖縄に駐留する米軍が、平和への希求において徹底した非暴力の反基地運動を続ける市民を、なぜ拘束し逮捕できるのか。なぜ沖縄県警が、米軍による不当逮捕を補佐し拘留を米軍から引き継ぐのか。これらの蛮行に法的根拠はない。限りない不法と不正義そして剝き出しの暴力があるばかりである。辺野古・高江の反基地運動への弾圧に関して、法を逸脱する軍隊と警察の暴力は、既に区別がなくなっている。このとき米軍＝沖縄防衛局そして沖縄県警は、市民をターゲットにする暴力装置であることをみずから証明している。この三つどもえの暴力装置のあり方は、法の精神への明らかな侵害であり、日本国憲法が定める基本的人権への無法な蹂躙である。私たちは、米軍と警察そして日米両政府による、すべての不当な弾圧に強く抗議する。平和的生存権を求める沖縄に生きる者そして沖縄を生きようとする人々の民意は、新基地建設を認めないことを、先の沖縄県知事選をはじめとする選挙で示した。そしてたとえ強硬的に建設されたとしても諦めないことは、東村議会の着陸帯使用禁止決議に明らかである。
この民意において、沖縄における新基地建設への道は完全に断たれている。米軍基地ひいては日米安保体制そして自衛隊配置強化にむけたあらゆる軍事主義的策動は、これから沖縄の民意によって更に苛烈な批判と根源的な反対に曝されていくことになる。
この民意の高まりを、最も恐れているのが、米軍であり日米両政府である。これらの機関による度重なる市民への暴力は、基地反対という沖縄の民意によって追い詰められた日米両政府の焦りによるものである。辺野古・高江で反基地を訴える市民への、沖縄防衛局員、海上保安官、機動隊員らによる妨害・暴力行為の頻発は日本政府の差し金によるものであり、米軍高官の相次ぐ暴言暴挙により米軍の関与も明白となった。コントロールを失った軍＝警察組織の暴走は、いまや民主主義と民衆そのものを標的としている。こうした暴力は、どこまでも不正義であり不当である。
この暴力の組織化を前に想起すべきは、こうした暴力を打ち砕きつつ私たちの平和的生存権と抵抗権を実質化してきたのが、沖縄の反基地運動にほかならないという事実である。
非暴力直接行動が切り開いてきた反戦反基地の訴えは、いま、国家権力と軍そして警察の暴力を排除する極めて広範で揺るぎない抵抗運動となっている。この運動が体現する、平和に生きる権利の無限の正当性において、今回の米軍及び沖縄県警による市民２人への不当逮捕に抗議し、同時に、辺野古・高江の反基地運動へのすべての不当な暴力的介入を強く非難し、これに強く抗議する。
2015年3月3日
合意してないプロジェクト
Statement of Protest against the Illegitimate Arrest and Detention of the Two Citizens by the US Military and the Okinawa Prefectural Police, and against Their Violent Repressions of the Anti-Base Movement in Okinawa
Our own bodies were in pain when we witnessed the US military in Okinawa put handcuffs on our activist friends and left their bodies inside the fence of the US base. Through our own pain that fills us bodily and emotionally, we connect with our wounded friends, detained and arrested by the US military and the local police. Feeling the pain of our activist friends, we also reconnect with the past struggles in Okinawa that resisted all types of injustice that may have subtended or led to war.
On February 22, 2015, two citizens were unjustly arrested by the US military in front of the main gate of the US Marine’s Camp Schwab in Henoko, Okinawa and were later detained, again unjustly, by the Okinawa Prefectural Police.
What legal ground justifies the US military stationed in Okinawa to detain and arrest the peace-seeking citizens who were engaged in their meticulously peaceful, non-violent protest against the construction of the new Marine bases? How can the Okinawa Prefectural Police deliberately fail to protect these citizens and, instead, assist the US military by taking over the detention and interrogation of these citizens? They have committed limitless infringement of law and unabashedly exposed their use of bare violence. There is no legal ground for such barbaric acts.
The distinction between the military and the police has apparently disappeared during the recent repressions of the anti-base movements in Henoko and Takae, the two struggles which are part of the larger, massively popular anti-base movement in Okinawa today.
The US military, the Okinawa Defense Bureau—a section within Japan’s Ministry of Defense—, and the Okinawa Prefectural Police cooperate as an apparatus of violence whose target is oftentimes the ordinary citizens. Their tripartite collusion has resulted in an apparent violation of the rule of law and the basic human rights guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution.
Those of us who live in Okinawa and survive its social conditions pursue our inviolable right to peaceful life. We have shown our collective will to oppose the construction of the new base by having won a series of elections, including the gubernatorial election in December, 2014, through which the current governor of Okinawa Prefecture, Takeshi Onaga, who opposes the new US base construction, emerged as a victor. Even if the construction proceeds, the will of the people remains strong, as manifested in Higashi Village Council’s resolution to prohibit the use of the MV-22 Osprey’s landing pads whose construction was completed by July, 2014.
The will of people will block the current militarist schemes by the US and Japan to strengthen the US bases, the US-Japan security alliance, and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. They will face fierce criticism and strong resistance coming from such will of the people in Okinawa and elsewhere.
The US and Japanese governments and the US military are fearful of such rising popular will. They have repeatedly repressed citizens violently precisely because the two governments feel being surrounded by the massive opposition from the people and think that they are losing time. The Japanese government has covertly ordered the Okinawa Defense Bureau, the Japan Coast Guard, and the riot police to violently harass and detain the citizen activists while the US high officials’ villainous remarks have clearly demonstrated the US government’s involvement in the recent repressions. The unitary apparatus of the military/police mentioned above has lost its control. Thus, its target now is democracy and its enemy is the people. Its violence is immensely unjust and infinitely illegitimate. Okinawa’s decades-long anti-military movement has helped us dispel violence and given a concrete shape to our rights to resistance and peaceful life.
The non-violent, direct action movement in Okinawa holds demands that are both anti-military and anti-war. The movement, massively supported today, resists and dispels violence of the states, the military, and the police. People’s pursuit of their right to peaceful life, which has informed the struggles in Okinawa over the decades, remains infinitely legitimate. By invoking such infinite legitimacy of the people, we strongly denounce the US military’s and the Okinawa Prefectural Police’s illegitimate arrest of the two citizens, and strongly oppose the violent and illegitimate repressions of the anti-base movements in Henoko and Takae.
March 3, 2015
Project Disagree
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