U.$. troops gang-rape a Japanese womyn again Hours before Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi departed from Japan to visit George W. Bush, U.$. troops gang-raped a Japanese womyn in Okinawa, according to an eye-witness. Details concerning the appearance and identity of the attackers were initially withheld -- now one of the assailants has been identified as U.$. air force Sergeant Timothy Woodland. Japan had to ask the united $tates permission to arrest Woodland. Under agreements between the united $tates and Japan, the united $tates need not hand over suspects until they are charged by Japanese prosecutors. Only one other Amerikan has ever been handed over to the Japanese before indictment. According to CNN, "Okinawa is home to about 26,000 U.S. troops, or more than half the entire amount stationed in Japan, which accounts for slightly more than a quarter of the total U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region."(1) After the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old by U.$. soldiers -- their commander infamously commented that for the price they paid to rent their car they could have had a woman -- Okinawans voted in a plebiscite to remove U.$. bases. But the U.$. military remains to this day, and occupies 20% of Okinawa's territory, including over 40% of its arable farmland.(2) The recent incident is nothing new. U.$. militarism has a long history in Japan, and such attacks are almost banal -- one of the factors driving resistance to u.$. presence there. Maoists have a long history of supporting this resistance. In 1969, the Black Panther newspaper had the following to say in an article supporting Japanese students: "Furious over the incident [a B-52 blew up on take off, injuring numerous civilians], about three hundred students of Ryukyu University held a rally in front of the U.S. Civil Administration in Naha City to express their determination to struggle resolutely for the withdrawal of B-52 bombers from Okinawa and the dismantling of U.S. military bases in the island."(3) Sargeant Woodland is Black, as were some of the men who raped the 12-year-old. Unfortunately, in 1995, MIM made a neo-colonialist error and did not publish a story on the Okinawa rape right away. Some in the party incorrectly thought that Black and Latino soldiers were not carrying out national oppression in Japan and so they never wrote a story -- or that because the soldiers came from oppressed internal semi-colonies we should ignore their participation in the crimes of Amerikan imperialism. Actually, we have a duty to support all resistance to U.$. militarism. If it turns out -- as in the most recent incident and the 1995 incident -- that the rapists were Black and/or Latino and/or First Nation and/or Asian etc., then reporting it should do all the more to turn oppressed semi-colony consciousness against the U.$. state. That's what integration with u.$. imperialism means: Sharing it's blood debt, doing its dirty work. Oppressed peoples who don't want to do to other oppressed peoples what was done and is being done to them should break with the militaristic Amerikan state. As one comrade argued in 1995, "To say that only Blacks get picked on is [wrong] considering that we just ran a story on how there were riots [in Korea] over the slightest U.S. [military] indiscretions, including one husband-wife spat. We could as easily say that the media has given Blacks huge positive military publicity for war hero Collin Powell. So if we are afraid of anti-military stuff that is anti-Black, then we should be saying how great it is for Collin Powell to be making headway on the principal contradiction, blah, blah, blah. That would be a crock. Collin Powell is dogshit, even though he is Black. U.S. troop abuses are still dogshit when done by Blacks. "The principal task is closely related to creating public opinion to seize power, which means discrediting the state. Blacks are not a nation in Japan, so there is no issue of nationhood there. There would only become an issue if we saw demagogues HERE say that only Black troops rape. Then we would have to do something about that." It has been the history of the communists since Lenin and Stalin to oppose imperialist occupation of other imperialist countries, such as France by Germany in World War II. Today, we at MIM also oppose U.$. occupation of Japan. MIM in no way backs any militarist line that says U.$. occupations are OK if the troops are from the oppressed internal semi-colonies. Blacks have a nation, but it is not in Japan. Puerto Ricans (Boricuans) have a nation, but it is not in Korea. Any other understanding of this question opens the door to a pc perfuming of imperialism. At this time, we would like to apologize on behalf of all proletarian-minded people within U.$. borders for the now reactionary occupation of Japan, the recent rapes and the killing of 9 Japanese people on a fishing boat rammed by a U.$. submarine earlier this year (4) in one of those inevitable accidents that happen when a military is so bloated and determined to hold a global empire. These sorts of accidents, along with the sinking of the Kursk, the killing of Italian skiers by an errant U.$. military plane and countless other "accidents" are not really accidents. They are inevitable when there is a military, especially of U.$. size. Each of these accidents should be a clue to the whole world that we must bring humynity to a higher level of cooperation so that we can do without militaries, and potential hydrogen bomb "accidents." There'd be no gang rapes by U.$. troops going on in Japan if it were not for militarism and national oppression. Those troops have historically been there to censor the effects of the atomic bomb droppings, to launch into Vietnam and now to help Filipino reactionaries. We celebrate all Japanese resistance to these troops. We hope that the Japanese people follow the Vieques example and kick Yankee ass back to where it came from. Notes: 1. http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/29/japan.rape /index.html 2. MIM Notes 172, http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/mn.php?issue=172 3. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bpp/bpp040169_8c.htm 4. MIM Notes 229, http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/mn229 /Ehime.txt.