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Issue Number 25/26, December
2005
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 25/26, December 2005
OBITUARIES
OWEN WILKES
- Roland Simbulan
It is with a heavy heart
that I share this tribute for a friend, co-peacemaker and
an outstanding peace researcher and advocate, Owen
Wilkes, who passed away in May 2005. I first met and got
to know Owen in 1981 at an international peace conference
in Tokyo, Japan. We were both speakers in that large
conference of almost 800 participants, and Owen at that
time was a senior researcher at the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Owen
immediately impressed me as SIPRI's highly knowledgeable
technical expert on foreign military bases and
facilities, specifically as a specialist on
communications and signals intelligence (SIGINT). He
could look at photographs of any kind of
logistics/communications facilities and interpret what
they were used for. He knew by just looking at the set-up
of foreign military bases and facilities, or the
configuration of naval and air force vessels and
determine whether they were nuclear-armed and
nuclear-capable. I was glad he was on our side, a
veritable walking think tank for the international peace
movement.
He Helped To End 470 Years Of Foreign Military
Bases In The Philippines
And yet, he was so modest, was so full of humility and
had a good sense of humour. His sense of humour was in
itself so sharp, as one time when he remarked to me that
he was unsure of the shooting effectiveness of the elite
US Rapid Deployment Force because he was so sure that
they too, as human beings, would be suffering from jet
lag after an 8-10 hour trip with different time zones!
And when I once asked him why he always wore shorts and
sandals even in the very formal international peace
conferences in Japan, he just smiled and said: "this
is me".
Owen's research and work - both published and unpublished
- on foreign military bases and facilities especially
when he was with SIPRI, was of vital importance to the
peace advocates and organisers of the peace movement all
over the world and in that sense had an important role in
ending the Cold War. In the Philippines, Owen's work
inspired me and others to do more serious peace research
IN SUPPORT of peace advocacy and organising.
I saw Owen so vigorously full of zest and fulfilment
during the Beyond ANZUS Conference in New Zealand in
1984, on the eve of the Labour Party's election victory
that eventually made New Zealand nuclear-free. Owen had
just then come back from Europe to finally do full-time
peace work in his beloved country. It was during my
lecture tour in both Australia and New Zealand where
I likewise addressed the Beyond ANZUS Conference at
Wellington that I invited Owen to visit the Philippines.
It was in late 1980s that Owen finally did visit the
Philippines where he visited the vast and then still
active US military bases and facilities, especially at
Subic Naval Base and at Clark Air Base. Owen's technical
expertise helped us interpret the bases' role in the
context of the American global nuclear infrastructure. I
had my disagreements with him though, especially on the
particular nature and placement of the facilities, their
counter-insurgency role, but our discussions were very
productive, constructive as well as instructive. The
technical information about the US bases and facilities
that Owen shared with us especially in the light of the
nuclear weapons-free 1987 Philippine Constitution, helped
in no small way in the Philippine Senate's decision to
reject the proposed bases treaty of renewal, thus ending
470 years of foreign military bases in the Philippines.
Thank you Owen, as we join others in celebrating your
life, your outstanding intellectual advocacy, and what
you have given so much to the international peace
movement.
Roland Simbulan is Vice Chancellor of, and a
Professor at, the University of the Philippines in
Manila. He was the National Chairperson of the Nuclear
Free-Philippines Coalition. This online tribute was
published on the NoUSBases international e-mail list. The
October 2005 Special Issue of the Anti-Bases
Campaign’s journal, Peace Researcher, is devoted to
Owen Wilkes. It can be read online at
http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/prcont31.html. Ed.
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