In solidarity with the Japanese people, Karapatan strongly denounces the construction of an X-band radar base in Ukawa district, Kyotango City, Kyoto. This new US base in Japan is in line with the US pivot to Asia and the Pacific for its political, military and trade interests in the region. A new comprehensive trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) which is a follow through to the World Trade Organization that engendered neoliberal globalization, will lay open all remaining trade restrictions of countries in Asia and the Pacific.
In solidarity with the Japanese people, Karapatan strongly denounces the construction of an X-band radar base in Ukawa district, Kyotango City, Kyoto. This new US base in Japan is in line with the US pivot to Asia and the Pacific for its political, military and trade interests in the region. A new comprehensive trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) which is a follow through to the World Trade Organization that engendered neoliberal globalization, will lay open all remaining trade restrictions of countries in Asia and the Pacific.
In the Philippines, the US and the Aquino government are hatching a new access agreement titled “Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.” In 1991, the Filipino people have successfully driven away the US bases in the country, but they maintained their political and economic domination. Through various treaties, such as the Visiting Forces Agreement and the Mutual Defense Treaty, and in the guise of joint military exercises, the US military occupation of the Philippines has continued. Now, there is this new access agreement providing for the rotational presence of US troops in the country and the use of Philippine military and naval facilities by US warships, drones, missiles and electronic espionage equipment. Such arrangements are tantamount to US occupation in the country.
Meanwhile, South Koreans are also rallying against the planned building of a US naval base in their beautiful island of Jeju.
The US shift to the Asia-Pacific for its economic agenda is backed up with a strategic military pivot to ensure its hegemony in the region. Let us thwart this planned military build-up of the US in the Asia-Pacific. Let us unite and vehemently oppose US imperialist domination of the region and elsewhere in the world.
April 15, 2014