Open Letter to UN Secretary General: Ms. Hillary Clinton’s book on Rape has Blank pages on Okinawa

This is an open letter to UN Secretary Genera lMr.Ban-ki-Moon, by the former Sri Lanka's Ambassador Bandu de Silva. The full text of the letter is given below:

His Excellency Mr.Ban-ki-Moon,
Secretary-General,
United Nations

Ms. Hillary Clinton’s book on Rape has Blank pages on Okinaw

The debate Your Excellency organized last month and the Resolution adopted by the UNSC unanimously, or rather anonymously, if I may use the malapropism used quite rightly by Hillary Clinton’s media team to describe the adoption of the Resolution, was confined to sexual violence against women in armed conflict. If Your Excellency mean to fine-tune and say “Oh! No! The book is only for ‘war situations’ I have no argument and my case fails.

But the Russian representative quite rightly warned about the prospects of violence on women in general being side-traced by the UNSC taking such exclusive positions of confining the debate and the Resolution to war situations only. Even about the war situations, reading the information put out by Your Excellency’s Information Department on statements made, I find the Secretary of States of US has slipped up by making unverified statements on a country like Sri Lanka to say that rape had been used as a war strategy. My small country may not be a star-class democracy but I hasten to say that under our legal system which is essentially British, an accused is not pronounced guilty until the accusations are proved. The same applies to states I suppose, when they are accused of crimes against humanity, crimes against women-hood in this case. But we did not find that in the US Secretary of State’s statement.

Much has been said here on the subject, that includes my own writing as a former senior diplomat of this country with four decades of background. Some were angry responses which may not have been diplomatic. I shall not repeat them here. However, while reading on the subject of rape and the present General Assembly call for “empowerment of women”, in which larger context the UNSC Resolution was adopted, let us say, anonymously with the State Department’s Information Unit, - yes there is some sense in that too - I myself though not a great feminist, thought of the poor Okinawan young women who are being raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence, not excluding the oral-stuff, (read verbal assault) by the US troops of whom there are 92,491 in the 37 military bases plus civilian employees and dependents in Okinawa.

Why am I raising this issue when it is up to the Japanese government to do so. That is precisely the point. The Japanese representative at the UNSC, as I read your Information Department release said nothing on that subject. The complaints over incidents which have drawn wide public attention and innumerable others that make up the daily police blotter of Japan’s most southerly prefecture, as Emrt. Prof. Charmers Johnson reports, may be either false or the Japanese government is unable to do anything about it, not even raise it at the UN in view of close friendly relations with the U.S. Besides, the American Servicemen’s Protection Act of 2002, has what is called the “Hague invasion clause!,” a section that authorizes the US military to use “every possible means” to free any US citizen jailed on the orders of the ICC, which is based in The Hague. So even though Japan acceded to the Rome Statute recently, it may still be bound by obligations to the U.S. that Japanese courts cannot try any of these cases.

The Japanese representative at the UNSC may be right. There is also no war situation in Japan though there are nearly 150,000 U.S. troops stationed there as I am told. (Please correct me if the figures are inflated like some of the senior members of Your Excellency’s staff have been telling the world about Sri Lanka. It was nearly forty years ago that I served in that country as a senior Sri Lankan diplomat). But the number of 92,491 U.S. troops in Okinawa should be correct because I got it from the writing of Emrt. Prof. Charmers Johnson who is the co-founder of the Japan Research Institute and its current President at San Diego University and another friend, a former senior Sri Lankan academic who was in Japan for long years confirmed it. So the presence of the U.S. army in such large numbers –more than U.S./ Nato forces in Afghanistan – could be considered one of an occupation force in Okinawa and Japan though for ostensible purpose there may be covered a bi-lateral agreement (or enforced?). The Japanese people have not asked the U.S troops to come; nor have they asked them to stay. They want them to go. The situation is not negotiable as far as the U.S. is concerned. The new Prime Minister was one who was reported wanting to take up the issue. Whether or not he would succeed only time will tell.

The issue I am raising is not over the rights or wrongs of the US army presence. It is a matter for the Japanese government and the Japanese people. But I am concerned over the principle that Your Excellency and members of the Security Council raised in New York last month under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Presidency. The lady made a great speech on behalf of women if what her media team said is correct. So did others. If I read your Information Department’s record correct, I saw that the British representative, speaking in general on rape, expressing shame that rape was taking place in the east of his country. I hope the statement was correctly reported. That should be the spirit.

This is a very old problem. Abuse of women has been used from the dawn of history. One reads about it in the Persian wars; in the Greek wars. In all wars women have suffered. One reads a lot about the Red Army in Prussia after WW II. I heard personal tales from Russian women about the invading German troops. People keep on advising countries like ours that it is useless to quote history and we should march forward. It is not only in Africa and Asia, Latin America that rape has been practiced by armed forces in modern times. It happened in Europe too in the recent Balkan flare up.

One may not be able to accuse the U.S. troops today as practicing rape systematically as policy, not even in Okinawa I have taken up in this paper, but it did happen in Vietnam in Mai Lai. Here is what Nick Terse wrote on 31 August 2009 (not long ago) in American Empire Project.(http://usmacmillan.com/HenryHolt.aspx.

“If you recall what actually happened at My Lai, Calley's more-than-40-years-late apology cannot help but ring hollow. Not only were more than 500 defenseless civilians slaughtered by Calley and some of the 100 troops who stormed the village on March 16, 1968, but women and girls were brutally raped, bodies were horrifically mutilated, homes set aflame, animals tortured and killed, the local water supply fouled, and the village razed to the ground. Some of the civilians were killed in their bomb shelters, others when they tried to leave them. Women holding infants were gunned down. Others, gathered together, threw themselves on top of their children as they were sprayed with automatic rifle fire. Children, even babies, were executed at close range. Many were slaughtered in an irrigation ditch.

“Because the United States failed to take responsibility for the massive scale of civilian slaughter and suffering inflicted in Southeast Asia in the war years, and because McNamara's contrition arrived decades late, he never became the public face of slaughter in Vietnam, even though he, like other top U.S. civilian officials and military commanders of that time, bore an exponentially greater responsibility for the bloodshed in that country than the low-ranking Calley……”

“Marching forward” is the name of the game that critics against those who quote WW II atrocities and impingement on freedom of its own citizens like Japanese Americans recommend. But there was no “marching forward” by America even two to three decades later if one looks at the horrendous crimes committed by American troops in Vietnam; and more recently in Iraq and now in Afghanistan. It is much worse. This is not long past. It is in our memory. The crimes by Pol Pot regime are now under investigation. What is America’s response to the situation in Vietnam? The American Servicemen’s Protection Act of 2002 I suppose! How could Ms. Hillary Clinton as her country’s representative at the UNSC express no word of repentance or even express shame as the British representative did, during the UNSC debate on September 30th, 2009. Or, at least say U.S. has ‘marched forward’ since then. How high the bona fides of UNSC itself would have risen if such a response was forthcoming from her, rather than trying to pick up holes in a small country like Sri Lanka and find herself in the embarrassing situation of allowing her administration to swallow her words later almost admitting that she said an untruth. What a shame!

Now the situation of rape and violence against Okinawan women by U.S. soldiers is a serious one. Your Excellency, it is happening very close to the doorstep of your home country! Many cases have been reported, some investigated and perpetrators penalized. There are horrendous cases like the rape of a 10 year old girl; and the abduction, gang rape and murder of by marines of a 12 year old girl from the Kin village which received wide publicity. These cases were brought out not by me but by Emrt. Prof. Charmers Johnson, one of the leading intellectuals of the world (some may disagree) who was the co-founder of the Japan Research Institute and its current President at San Diego University, a former consultant of CIA, and the author of a number of studies on Japan, China and Japan-US relations; and more importantly, the author of best selling books” Blowback Trilogy-Blowback” (2000), “The Sorrows of Empire” (2004), and “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic” and numerous other works and interviews. He raised the plight of Okinawan women in an article he published in ‘Asia Times’ of 7, March, 2008.

What prompted the writing in The Asia Times was a long series of sexual violation of young Okinawan girls I referred to. “Other incidents of bodily harm, intimidation and death continue in Okinawa on an almost daily basis, including hit- and- run collisions between American troops and Okinawans on foot or on auto-bikes, robberies, bar brawls and drunken and disorderly conduct” wrote Prof. Johnson.

As he says, after each of these incidents and innumerable others that make up the daily police blotter of Japan’s most southerly prefecture, the Commander of the U.S. forces in Okinawa and the US Ambassador in Tokyo made public apologies for the behaviour of US troops. ….Occasionally the remorse goes up to the Pacific Commander-in –chief, or in a recent case to the [former] Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice and still end up in an apology. The officers responsible for discipline of US troops in Japan invariably promise to tighten supervision of the 92,491 troops, civilian employees and dependents. “That is as far as things go. Nothing ever changes.“ Always the usual apology; and at best an invocation of the “friendly relations which exist between the two countries” diplomacy.

While Your Excellency and other representatives of member countries of the UNSC last month elaborated the high principle that expressed about women victims of the war, in these pious declarations and the Resolution adopted the case of these Okinawian women has gone by default. The Russian representative was the only one who said that over emphasis on war situations might tend overlook the general problem of rape in the society and suggested a comprehensive approach. The Japanese representative at the UNSC remained lock-jawed over the situation in Okinawa. What does that indicate? On the one hand, it is a case where pathetically, one is unable to raise the issue of one’s own country. On the other hand, aren’t these Okinawan women caught up in a situation where they are being raped and even murdered occasionally, over which the UN SC or the General Assembly have expressed no interest as no war situation exists there. This proves the point how this excess emphasis on rape in war situation has come to overlook other rape situations.

As some of the bloggers claimed in respect of Sri Lanka, there could be other cases un- reported in Okinawa because of the social stigma attached to rape. On the other side the poor victims receive no solace from the Japanese government as it looks the other way when diplomatic niceties like “friendly relations” are invoked by the country of the offenders; and the American Servicemen’s Protection Act of 2002 hangs over them like the Sword of Damocles. The author of the Asia Times article attributed it to the Japanese government speaking with a fork-tongue. It is because Okinawans are made to live with 37 US military bases around them. Tokyo condemns the assaults but that is as far as it goes on the Japanese side too, he wrote.

Where does the Okinwan case fit in in the UN system?

It is hoped that under the current presidency of UNSC under Vietnam, the issue of rape and murder of women during America’s war in Vietnam would be placed in proper perspective and the issue of Okinawan women will be correctly focused. Please do not allow new empire builders to sweep these situations under the carpet by using weapons like cutting military and economic aid as was done in the case of the Rome Statute.

Bandu de Silva,
Former Sri Lankan Ambassador to France, and the Vatican
Colombo, 17/10/2009