RIMPAC: How US-Led Drills Expose Western Neo-Colonial Push in Asia-Pacific
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The US-led large-scale military drills Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) have been taking place from June 27 to August 1 in and around the Hawaiian Islands. Peace activist Robert Kajiwara told Sputnik that the drills are the epitome of Western neo-colonialism seeking to upend the emergence of multi-polarity.
The US-led military exercise has brought together 29 nations, 40 surface ships, three submarines, 14 national land forces, more than 150 aircraft and 25,000 personnel. This year's RIMPAC is regarded as the largest to date in terms of the number of countries involved.
"RIMPAC is just another form of US militarization and imperialism, which increases the threat of war, and therefore it threatens the lives of people in the Pacific," Asia Pacific peace activist and founder of the Peace For Okinawa Coalition Robert Kajiwara told Sputnik. "Not to mention, the US military is one of the largest polluters in the world, and has poisoned the water in both Hawaii and Okinawa."
Over centuries Pacific nations have been subjected to colonial suppression from the UK, France, Germany and Japan, leading to the elimination of ethnic languages and communities and destruction of island ecosystems.
In the 20th century, the US turned the Marshall Islands, a country that consists of a chain of volcanic islands and coral atolls in the central Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the Philippines, into its test nuclear site. In 2012, UN Special Rapporteur Calin Georgescu found that radiation from the testing resulted in fatalities and acute and long-term health complications for the islands.
Presently, Washington is pushing ahead with the so-called AUKUS pact, a military alliance between Australia, the UK and the US, and is beefing up its military presence in the Pacific. Furthermore, the US is encouraging its NATO allies to deploy their forces in the region.
Last August, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not rule out that the US is seeking the full integration of NATO with the emerging structures of the AUKUS bloc.
In addition, regional US allies, including Japan, Australia, South Korea, and the Philippines, are increasingly concluding bilateral and multilateral military pacts, intertwining them with each other. The US military openly names Russia, China and North Korea as "threats" and potential targets for their push.
Last April, Admiral John C. Aquilino, United States Navy Commander at the US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) told American lawmakers that INDOPACOM was closing ranks with AUKUS, the Quad diplomatic partnership, the Five Eyes Anglophone intelligence organization, and other blocs in order to "execute security cooperation activities, training, and exercises to strengthen those relationships, build partner capacity, and enhance interoperability."
"This is the epitome of neo-colonialism and imperialism. The US (and its close allies) wants to maintain hegemony, while the rest of the world is pushing for multipolarity," said Kajiwara, lamenting the fact that the UN and other international organizations hesitate to raise a red flag over Washington's militarism in the Asia Pacific.
"Is the UN doing anything? Yes and no," Kajiwara continued. "The UN is a complex organization. The US and its allies still maintain significant influence and control over the UN, and this can be seen both politically, as well as practically. (The escalators at the UN headquarters in Geneva were turned off for the entire Human Rights Council due to lack of funding from certain countries, primarily the United States.) However, there are some actors at the UN who are interested in multipolarity, human rights, environmental issues, and socio-economics. We are working with them to advance our causes."
Kajiwara, who promotes the demilitarization of Okinawa – a Japanese prefecture overcrowded with US military bases – recently visited the UN headquarters to find out that the organization's press corps is largely focused on the US-peddled agenda.
"ACANU, the UN press club, rejected our request for a press conference to talk about these issues, claiming that they had 'no time in their agenda.' However, ACANU's members regularly publish articles about the Taiwan and South China Seas issues, which are directly linked to Okinawa's military burden. So it appears that they certainly have time in their agenda, but are uninterested in hearing from [Okinawans]."
Whereas the US-led drills are declared to promote "a free and open Indo-Pacific", Indigenous nations of the Pacific region "don’t see it that way at all," according to Asia Times. Last month Protecting Oceania, a group of Indigenous Pacific, environmental and social justice organizations, issued a statement condemning the drills and opposing the militarization of Pacific islands and waters.
"These exercises threaten our sovereignties and our communities, human and other-than-human alike, here in Hawaii, across Moananuiakea, and throughout the world," the group stated in June.
For its part, the Hawaii-based international Cancel RIMPAC campaign stressed that drills don't provide security but rather contribute to a neo-colonial push, environmental damage and further violence in the region.
"In Hawaii, Guam, Alaska, and the Northern Mariana Islands, the anti-military and pro-self-determination voices are the minority since the Native peoples of these places are also now minorities. This is a direct result of US colonization," Kajiwara emphasized.
14 December 2023, 18:12 GMT
