The protest at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa over a proposed Navy research center evokes a fervor rarely seen on campus since the Vietnam War.

It may lack the drama of the 1960s protests, when an ROTC building was burned and conscientious objectors received refuge at the Church of the Crossroads, where students protected servicemen who were absent without leave.

But today, as then, much of the issue revolves around life and death.

The dozens of students and faculty, now in their fourth day of occupying the Bachman Hall administration building, fear that some of the research planned by the Navy is for weapons.
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But protesters also decry the further "militarization" of Hawai'i through this proposal, and the assaults they say it would make on academic freedom, with classified research not allowed the same public scrutiny as other academic research.

COALITION OF STUDENTS, FACULTY, COMMUNITY, NATIVE GROUPS RESIST US MILITARY HEGEMONY IN THE PACIFIC HEMISPHERE

Oahu, Hawaii--Hawaii has been forced to play an unfortunate role in US imperialist ambitions since the US military invasion of Honolulu in 1893. In 1898, Hawaii was dubiously annexed to secure a staging ground for the Spanish-American war in the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. The eight islands of this Pacific archipelago have been systematically Americanized and militarized, and is now the seat of the US Pacific Command, which maintains US 'sphere of influence' over more than half the globe, from the west coast of North America to the East Coast of Africa, and from Alaska to Antarctica. In the last Persian Gulf war, American warplanes were launched from our homeland to export their destructive capacities to the people of Iraq. Hawaii is currently [ab]used as a major training and staging ground for US aggressions in Iraq.

Today, Hawaii is the most militarized state of the union, with more than one-quarter of the urban island of Oahu controlled by the US military, and approximately 20% of all the islands. There is also a tradition of native resistance to American hegemony over Hawaii, including a longstanding independence and demilitarization movement.

Since September 11, 2001, the US military has embarked on its largest expansion in Hawaii since World War II. The Army plans to take 28,000 acres of precious land to station a Stryker Brigade on Oahu and Hawaii islands, as part of Donald Rumsfeld's 'transformation' of US forces. There are plans afoot to station an aircraft carrier in an Oahu harbor. And Hawaii is one of the sites of George W Bush's 'ballistic missile defense system,' which threatens to destabilize global nuclear politics. Many of Hawaii's most powerful business and political forces are promoters of militarism, including US senator Daniel Inouye, the local corporate media, and the missionary/colonial establishment.

In the last six months, a new wave of demilitarization activism has emerged to resist US military hegemony over these islands and the Pacific Rim. The Navy and the University of Hawaii have worked stealthily to marry militarism and academia together, to yield a naval weapons research center at the university (a University Affiliated Research Center [UARC]). The UARC would conduct research related to astronomy and oceanography, including space-based laser systems, surveillance technolgies, and sea-based mines. A coalition of Native Hawaiian groups, students,faculty, anti-war activists, environmentalists, and religious organizations have joined forces to resist this latest manifestation of militarization in Hawai'i.

Since 10 a.m. on Thursday, April 28, members of this coalition (the 'Save UH/Stop UARC Coalition') have maintained a nonviolent civil occupation of the University of Hawaii administration building, with the demand that the university leadership must immediately cease all further negotiations and progress towards establishing the UARC military research center. The occupation is moving into its fourth day, and the 'demilitarizing' forces have received substantial support from individuals and groups throughout Hawaii, the US, and the global community. The group is prepared to sustain arrests.

Information about the occupation and UARC is available at a website maintained by the Save UH/Stop UARC coalition: www.stopuarc.info.