This week, we present to you the audio from our most recent event - 'Calling for a Peaceful Pacific' co-hosted by the Justice and Peace Office and the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN). Focusing on renewing our solidarity for a Nuclear-Free Independent Peaceful Pacific and Australia's need to have a position of armed neutrality, the discussion panel featured two keynote speakers Indigenous to islands/territories that are heavily occupied and have been damaged by US military bases -Shinako Oyakawa from Ryukyu (Okinawa) and Monaeka 'Naek' Flores from Guahan (Guam). Accompanied by IPAN's Nick Deane and JPO's Julie Macken, the panel delved into the ongoing military occupation in the pacific and its effect on current and future populations. Specifically, Shinako discusses the history of militarisation within Okinawa, its impact on the Indigenous Peoples of Okinawa and how this military base alone has the highest instance of sex crime in the world. Naek goes further into the violent and destructive war crimes committed, the exacerbating climate crisis, the violence inflicted on Guam's Indigenous Peoples and their land, and the contamination from nuclear testing fallout and associated illnesses. "This is not something in the future, this is something happening now."
No More Tailsman Sabre | No More AUKUS | No More RIMPAC
