The following is a speech given by a Japanese anti-war activist, Mika, at the March 19 anti-war protest in Los Angeles.
We extend our solidarity and sympathy to the people of Japan who have suffered a massive earthquake and tsunami, and now the nuclear crisis in Fukushima.
The media called this tragedy the greatest crisis for Japan since 1945. But this crisis started with a natural disaster, and the devastation unleashed on Japan in 1945 was entirely man made. The nuclear bombs that killed an estimated 300,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were made in the USA and dropped by the US military.
The U.S. military has maintained bases all across the island since then. There are 30 bases occupying 10 percent of the country. The people of Japan have long opposed the U.S. occupation of their land because they know the danger that US militarism represents to the people of the world.
Although it didn’t start that way, the nuclear crisis in Fukushima is also man-made.
In Japan, just like in the United States, private property is king. Private corporations that own nuclear power plants work hand-in-glove with the government to maximize profits for investors. Those investors put profits first and safety dead last. It’s the people whose lives are destroyed for corporate greed.
Here in the United States, many of the nuclear reactors in operation are exactly the same model that is melting down today in Japan. And yet politicians continue to push for expanding nuclear power, letting corporations put unstable reactors near cities and towns where our children grow up. There is one just 60 miles south of Los Angeles.
Let’s not forget that the U.S. government developed nuclear power for the purposes of war. The Manhattan Project, which built the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was created with public tax dollars.
Although the public paid the bill, the capitalist government turned this technology over to private corporations so they could profit.
In order to protect working people, our communities and the environment, the development of nuclear resources needs to be taken out of private hands for good.
On the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we offer our solidarity to the people of Japan by standing with them and against U.S. militarism all around the world.
We also demand no more nuclear development for profit! Put the safety of the people and the planet first!
