Resolution opposing UARC - hearing tomorrow

From: Ikaika
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 17:56:12 -1000
Subject: Please forward: Hearing tomorrow against UARC @ State Capitol Room
309, 2:30 pm

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY: HEARING ON RESOLUTION OPPOSING U.A.R.C. AND CLASSIFIED MILITARY RESEARCH -- TOMORROW 2:30 PM @ CAPITOL ROOM 309

Aloha Kakou:

We have an important opportunity to speak out against UARC! The House of Rep. Higher Education Committee, chaired by Rep. Tommy Waters and vice-chair Maile Shimabukuro, has scheduled a hearing on a resolution to stop UARC on Tuesday, March 29 at 2:30 pm in Capitol conference room #309. The hearing will be on several pieces of legislation, including HCR 238, "URGING THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII TO ABANDON THE UNIVERSITY AFFILIATED RESEARCH CENTER." This resolution, HCR 238 and its identical twin, HR 173, lay out the community's concerns with UARC, classified military research, and military expansion at the university. This is a good opportunity for us to bring many voices together to speak in a chorus against UARC.

DATE: Tuesday March 29, 2005
TIME: 2:30 p.m.
PLACE: Conference Room 309
RESOLUTION: HCR 238/HR 173 (they are both the same thing)

Read the extended post for info on testifying, and the full text of the resolution.

HOW TO TESTIFY:
Because we're now past the 24-hour deadline for early testimony, you can bring your own copies of your testimony to the hearing. It's ok to submit written testimony when you walk-in; it is also ok to only give verbal testimony, without written testimony.

NOTE: The first line of your testimony should say "PLEASE PASS HCR 238 and HR 173". The Resolution explains why UARC is bad for the community and the university, and then says that UARC should be stopped. So, it matches what we have been saying, and so the resolution should be passed.

If you have any questions, please call Ikaika 221-2843.

Again, thank you for testifying, and lending your voice to stopping UARC!

Aloha,
Ikaika

HERE IS THE RESOLUTION TEXT:

UARC RESO

Whereas the UARC is intended to improve “systems performance of Department of Defense weapons” according to Ronald M. Sega, Director of Defense Research and Engineering in a July 8, 2004 memo; and

Whereas the UARC is very bad business for the UH, requiring 6 to 8 million dollars in start-up funds from the UH with no guarantee that the UARC will last beyond the initial 5 years, a period during which UH researchers and students working at the UARC are prohibited from applying for certain other kinds of grants, thereby further limiting access to both public and private; and

Whereas clandestine negotiations to develop the UARC have been going on for over a year with no opportunity for faculty, student and community input; and

Whereas a certain portion of the research at the UARC is classified meaning that researchers cannot discuss it or disseminate their findings in papers and publications; and

Whereas all universities maintain that the highest priority for their faculty is the right to publish their work as they see fit; and

Whereas the Board of Regents gave provisional approval to the UARC with the stipulation that “Full consultation is to take place: and

Whereas those consultations have not occurred; and

Wheras the UH plans to sign a contract with the US Navy to create the UARC in the second quarter of 2005 without appropriate and full consultations; and

Whereas a proposed site for UARC activities is adjacent to Noelani Elementary School, a location that is totally inappropriate for conducting military research; and

Whereas Native Hawaiian groups deeply resent the increasing militarization and desecration of their lands; and

Whereas no Kanaka Ma-‘oli were consulted on the development of the UARC and the placing of the UARC in the community; and

Whereas residents of the area where the UH hopes to place the UARC have never even been informed let alone consulted; and

Whereas there has been no apparent thought put into the ethical and moral of institutionalizing classified military research and weapons development at the UH; and

Whereas, the UH considers the UARC to be so unethical that it will not permit the UARC on UH lands; and

Whereas the UH plans to foist off the UARC onto the community, thereby ignoring the rights of the community to make such decisions for itself; and

Whereas the UH was complicit in developing Agent Orange for use in the Vietnam war resulting in massive permanent damage to the environment, human beings in Viet Nam, the researchers who worked on it, leaving several sites in Hawai’i still contaminated and confirmed as the cause of death to at least three University of Hawai’i workers; and

Whereas Hawai’i has a long history of militarism and secret research, including the testing of sarin gas in the rainforests of Puna, unleashing untold contaminants on the people and environment of Hawai’i island; and

Whereas work on the UARC will severely decrease faculty rights to academic freedom and autonomy and limit the ability of faculty and students who work in the UARC to share innovations with colleagues and the world; and

Whereas even apparently innocuous military research such as research on sonar has had devastating effects on the environment including the beaching and death of numerous marine mammals; and

Whereas, especially in the Pacific region, where tests of nuclear weapons of unparalleled yield have created enormous long term human and environmental problems, unwarranted secrecy has frequently been used by the U.S. government to avoid negative publicity and to reduce risks of legal liability rather than for genuine national security reasons; and

Whereas under the Navy UARC contract only seven University of Hawai’i administrators will decide about what secret research projects can be conducted both on and off campus; and

Whereas these seven administrators are not researchers and are all men thereby removing faculty, women, Native Hawaiians, and all community members of all ethnic, religious and cultural persuasions from oversight of secret military research; and

Whereas, according to University of Hawai’i policies that would govern the UARC, even the University of Hawai’i Board of Regents members, “shall not require, nor shall have and can be effectively denied, access to classified information in possession of the University. They do not occupy positions that would enable them to affect adversely the University’s policies or practices in the performance of classified contracts from the Department of Defense.” Since representative oversight and accountability would not be allowed, local control will be eliminated over secret military activities occurring in secret enclaves in our islands; and

Whereas over 55% of the land now occupied by the military in Hawai’i is ceded land, land that rightfully belongs to the Hawaiian people; and

Whereas the University of Hawai’i is located on the Crown and Government lands of the formerly independent nation of Hawai’i; and

Whereas the use of these lands shall be for the public benefit and the welfare of Native Hawaiians, in accordance with Section 5 of the Constitution of the State of Hawai’i; and

Whereas classified military research contradicts the official values of the University of Hawai’ as a “Hawaiian place of learning”; and

Whereas the University of Hawai’i Manoa Faculty Senate, citing “insuperable obstacles” has passed a resolution opposing the development of more classified research that does not allow faculty to publish the results in a timely fashion;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the House and Senate of the State of Hawai’i urges the University of Hawai’i to completely abandon plans for all UARC activities completely and develop a policy for the state’s public university that completely prohibits any classified or other forms of military research that will involve weapons or other systems that will be harmful to humans, the environment or any other living creatures.

Posted: Mon - March 28, 2005 at 06:36 PM

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Resolution opposing UARC - hearing tomorrow

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