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08108
February 12, 2008
Philippine, Japan church councils call for end to ‘militarism’ in Asia
by Maurice Malanes
Ecumenical News International
MANILA – Protestant church councils from the Philippines and Japan have made a joint appeal for a halt to the expansion of the U.S. military presence in Asia saying it is a threat to regional and global peace.
“We stand against the forces of war and militarism,” the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and the National Christian Council in Japan said in their statement. “We do not want our countries as launching pads for America’s wars of aggression against the peoples of the world for its sole economic and political interests.”
The councils issued the statement after a Jan. 21-25 bilateral conference on challenges to just and lasting peace that was held in Davao City in the southern Philippines.
As both councils met, the churches said the U.S. armed forces were preparing for military exercises in southern Philippines. U.S. officials said that in early February about 6,000 U.S. soldiers and 2,000 Filipino troops were to engage in joint maneuvers and humanitarian assistance exercises in the Philippines.
The churches lamented these exercises while also denouncing what they said was a continued expansion of U.S. military bases in Japan’s southern islands of Okinawa. They also warned about efforts in Japan’s parliament to amend the Japanese constitution, whose ninth article provides that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.”
Addressing the conference, the Rev. Hidetoshi Watanabe from the NCCJ said that ultra-conservatives in the Japanese parliament, with support from their counterparts in the United States, had tried and were still trying to amend the pacifist clause of the Japanese constitution.
The provision “guarantees to recover the trust of Asian peoples who suffered so much under the Japanese military during World War II,” said Watanabe. “This is a promise to Asian peoples that Japan will never again fall into the same error. It is a betrayal to international society and particularly to Asian peoples to try to eliminate this article.”
For his part, the NCCP’s general secretary, the Rev. Rex Reyes, accused the United States of having a hand in repressing activism and dissent and also of involvement in the extra-judicial killings of activists, including church workers, in the Philippines. This had come about by the United States being the supplier of armaments in the Philippines, he said.
Both councils called for discussions with the National Council of Churches in Korea to promote lasting peace in Asia and they called for support from the Christian Conference of Asia. |
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