The Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) is a military exercise led by the United States Navy every two years in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California, with up to 25 countries and over 25,000 military personnel participating in recent years. It is the largest maritime military exercise in the world and has been held since 1971.

Canada should not be participating in a military war exercise that heightens international military tensions, pollutes the environment with military waste, and is contrary to the spirit of the global ceasefire Canada has endorsed.

Why we oppose RIMPAC.

War Games

During RIMPAC the participating militaries engage in hypothetical sea battle scenarios which often include live-gunnery fire, missiles, sinking decommissioned naval ships, vessel boarding’s, undersea warfare, and air defense exercises. The exercises themselves are dangerous to the personnel participating in them and increase the likelihood of armed conflict in a period of increasing global tension and rearmament. To participate in such exercises undermines current global initiatives for a ceasefire and for progress toward disarmament.  

COVID-19

The world is in a health pandemic with a virus that spreads easily through close contact and requires active measures of physical distancing to reduce the spread of the deadly virus. Naval ships do not offer adequate space or conditions for proper physical distancing. The participation in war games risks the Canadian Armed Forces personnel’s health and safety and is contradictory to the restrictions and safeguards in place within Canada to combat COVID-19. Updated restrictions put in place for RIMPAC 2020 are not enough to guarantee the safety of Hawaiian civilians, and there is a risk of a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in Hawaii if RIMPAC 2020 goes forward.

Canada has stated its full support of the United Nations (UN) call for a global ceasefire in order to combat COVID-19, yet still plans to participate in RIMPAC 2020 in August. The global ceasefire was called by the UN to mobilize countries to focus on the current global pandemic which requires resources, money, and consistent monitoring in order to be managed to lessen mortality rates. The Canadian government should be redirecting time, resources, and money toward the care of people in Canada and around the world as we struggle with this pandemic--to restrict its scope, to heal and care for the ill, to support those whose livelihoods are threatened, and ultimately to find a cure for COVID-19.

With Canada’s sky-rocketing debt from supporting Canadians during the COVID-19 response that could total up to 1 trillion dollars, we must redirect funds from excessive military expenditures, like that of RIMPAC, to investing in caring, cleaning and protecting our oceans and endangered marine life.

Environment

Every two years RIMPAC has an incredibly detrimental effect on marine species and on the environment. Marine wildlife is directly affected during RIMPAC; sonar use, as well as gun and missile fire, have all been found to negatively affect marine wildlife in the area surrounding exercises. Decommissioned naval ships are towed out to sea to be shot at and sunk during exercises where they crush deep-sea corals. Strandings of whales have been reported during previous RIMPAC events and have been found to be caused by the United States Navy’s use of sonar. There is no way to know the true numbers of impacted marine wildlife, as sonar is proven to affect marine wildlife through thousands of square miles of ocean.  

The island and coastal environment is also harmed. Multiple exercises have resulted in damaging effects on the Hawaiian Islands, including a devastating bush fire during RIMPAC 2018 that was ignited by flares released during an exercise.  

Similar petitions have been created in the United States, New Zealand, and Hawaii; citizens across the globe are mobilizing against RIMPAC 2020. Join us in demanding Canada does not participate in RIMPAC 2020.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/12/cancel-rimpac-protect-hawaii      

https://www.change.org/p/for-people-land-air-sea-stop-rimpac-military-exercises

https://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/help-hawaii-stop-the-largest-naval-war-practice-in-the-world

Similar petitions have been sponsored by Hawaii organizations: Hawai'i Peace and Justice; Veterans for Peace-Chapter 113-Hawai'i; Malu Aina Center for Nonviolence Education & Action-Big Island; Maui Peace Action; Kauai Alliance for Peace & Social Justice; Catholic Worker Honolulu; Campaign Nonviolence-Hawaii; Democratic Socialists of Honolulu; Young Progressive Demanding Action (Hawaiʻi); Hawaiian Unity and Liberation Institute; Malama Makua;

U.S. National Organizations: Peace Action; United for Peace & Justice; United National Anti-War Coalition; Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; CODEPINK, San Francisco Bay Area chapter; Veterans For Peace chapter 69-San Francisco; Donald and Sally-Alice Thompson Veterans For Peace Chapter #63-Albuquerque, New Mexico; Shut Down Creech campaign;

International Organizations: Jeju Committee for the Inter-Island Solidarity for Peace of Sea (South Korea); Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND-UK); Vrede vzw (Belgium); International Coalition for a Ban on (depleted) Uranium Weapons (Berlin Germany); Activists for Peace- Sweden; VD AMOK (Netherlands); Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILFP)-Italy; Peace & Neutrality Alliance in Ireland; CNGNN Italy; "No to war - no to NATO"; Center for Encounter and Active Non-Violence, Bad Ischl, Austria; Swedish Peace Council; Roma Social Forum; Teatroinnatura-Italy; Frente Antiimperialista Internacionalista (Spain); Dutch section of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF NL); WILPF Germany; Mouvement de la Paix (France); Gangjeong Peace Network; Inter-Island Solidarity for Peace of the Sea; Jeju Comittee People Making Jeju a Demilitarized Peace Island; Association of Gangjeong Villagers Against the Jeju Navy Base; Seongsan Committee against the Jeju 2nd Airport Project; Jeju People Living in the Main Land of Korea; TID TIL FRED - aktiv mod krig, Danmark (TIME FOR PEACE - active against war, Denmark);