Final Statement of the International Women’s Summit to
Redefine Security

Okinawa, Japan, June 22-25, 2000

This statement was produced by the International Women’s Summit to Redefine
Security on the occasion of the G-8 Summit in Okinawa, Japan, June 22-25, 2000.
The ratification of the International Criminal Court is included as one of its demands.

On the eve of the annual meeting of the G-8 leaders, held in Okinawa, July 21-23,
2000, ninety-one members of the East Asia-US Women’s Network Against Militarism,
coming from the Philippines, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Japan, U.S., mainland
Japan, and Okinawa, convened the International Women’s Summit to Redefine
Security. We are activists, teachers, students, researchers, elected officials, survivors
of physical, sexual, and emotional violence; we are daughters, mothers, and wives.

The purpose of this meeting was to challenge the principle of “national security” on
which the economic policies of the G-8 are based. These economic policies can
never achieve genuine security. Rather, they generate gross insecurity for most
peoples of the world and devastate the natural environment. These economic
policies are inextricably linked to increasing militarization throughout the world.
Militaries reap enormous profits for multinational corporations and stockholders
through the development, production, and sale of weapons of destruction. Moreover,
militaries maintain control of local populations and repress those who oppose the
fundamental principles on which the world economic system is based. The current
economic system depends on deep-seated attitudes and relationships characterized
by greed, fear, domination and the objectification of “others” expressed through
racism, sexism, imperialism, and the desire to control the physical environment.
Vested interests, routine ways of thinking, prejudice, ignorance, and inertia also play
their part in maintaining entrenched systems of economic, social, and political
inequality.

This Women’s Summit buildt on the earlier meetings of the East Asia-US
Women’s Network in Naha, Okinawa (1997) and Washington, DC (1998) which
sought to build a strong international network of women who oppose militarism and
are working to define an agenda for true global security and peace. Throughout our
four-day gathering, we affirmed that genuine security is based on the following four
key tenets:

• the environment in which we live must be able to sustain human and natural
life;

• people’s basic survival needs for food, clothing, shelter, health care, and
education must be met;

• people’s fundamental human dignity and respect for cultural identities must
be honored;

• people and the natural environment must be protected from avoidable harm.

By these standards, there are no truly secure societies in the world and none that
are fully committed to achieving genuine security. Yet many detailed alternative
proposals to creating and maintaining true security have been developed by
international peace and human rights organizations. These include specific proposals
for non-violent conflict resolution, early-warning procedures, mediation services, and
the restoration and re-building of devastated lands and communities. Development
for genuine security must be economically and environmentally sustainable.
Participants in the International Women’s Summit shared experiences of the
impact of this militarized economy on lives. We see demilitarization as a process of
incremental steps by which governments must reduce military operations,
expenditures, and cultures while simultaneously expanding non-military alternatives.

Toward our goal of achieving true security, we issue the following demands to the
leaders of G-8 nations and to the leaders of nations that we represent:

• Stop the bombing on Vieques, Puerto Rico; cease the war in Mindanao,
Philippines; end the Korean War and support efforts to reunify Korea; stop
plans for new or replacement bases in Okinawa, e.g. the proposed heliport
at Henoko. These immediate steps would be the basis for ultimate removal
of military presence from these communities and return the land to local
control.

• Revise the unequal Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA) and Visiting
Forces Agreement (VFA), a first step toward the total removal of US bases
from Okinawa, mainland Japan, Korea, and the Philippines.

• Oppose the new US-Japan Defense Guidelines that require Japan to
provide facilities and personnel to support US military activities in the region.
The Guidelines constitute a violation of Article 9 of the Japanese
constitution.

• Ratify the International Criminal Court, which will provide a mechanism for
ordinary people to take action against military crimes.

• Compensate host countries and individual victims and survivors of military
toxic waste and of violent acts against women and children that are results
of the US military presence specifically:

1 adopt the Host Country Bill of Rights as ratified in the International Grassroots
Summit for Military Toxics (October 1999, Washington, DC);

2 provide full accountability and compensation for violence against women that
includes violence against women in host communities, sexual harassment of
women in the military and domestic violence in military families.

• Take responsibility for social, economic and political development of
Amerasian children by the US and governments of host countries.

• Immediately decrease military spending by developing specific plans and
timelines for overall demilitarization, specifically:

1 eliminate Japan’s “Sympathy Budget” that supports US presence in Japan;

2 commit to ongoing cumulative reduction of military spending for example, 5% per
year) and reallocate these resources toward compensation and redress for
victims and survivors of military operations;

3 develop alternatives to military conflict resolution;

4 provide housing, food, shelter, health care and education, which are basic survival
needs;

• Stop new weapons design development, and testing; end sales of weapons.

• The perspectives, leadership and issues of women be central to all matters
of peace and security, including planning and decision-making of base
closures and conversion.

• Women’s organizations must be included at all levels of peace negotiations
and national reconstruction. A pressing case is the dialogues beginning
between North and South Korea.

• Conversion of military systems and military land must promote and reflect
programs and projects that meet local community needs and are culturally
relevant.