On Okinawa, trouble at home
base By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO
- The recent crash of a US military transport helicopter
in a densely populated residential area near the United
States Marine Corps Futenma Air Station on Okinawa in
southernmost Japan is again arousing latent
anti-American sentiment there. This presents more than
public relations problems, since the strategic value of
Okinawa cannot be overemphasized. The revived resentment
comes as the US military strives to expand the global
scope of its operations from Japan, South Korea and
elsewhere in East Asia to the Middle East and the Indian
Ocean in "war against terrorism".
Okinawa is
home to 25,000 of the almost 40,000 US troops in Japan,
excluding the Navy Seventh Fleet's 12,000 personnel,
with their home port at Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture.
It is considered part of a global forward base in the
new US basing strategy. Reconciling the local demand to
move the base with US strategic interests appears
impossible at this time.
The mounting anti-base
movement in Okinawa could eventually hurt Japan-US
security arrangements, the centerpiece of the two
countries' solid strategic relations, unless the two
nations swiftly ease the burden of US military bases,
long carried by the Okinawans alone. The return to
Okinawa of the contentious Futenma Air Station could be
one political feasible way for both governments to avoid
aggravating the situation.
On September 8, 1951,
Tokyo and Washington signed the Japan-US Security Treaty
that has served as the cornerstone for peace and
stability in the Asia-Pacific region, and on which both
nations have built a close security relationship.
"Okinawa has been the cornerstone for Japan's
own safety and prosperity for years, firmly supporting
the US-Japan security alliance," professor Haruo Shimada
at Keio University in Tokyo and a special adviser to the
Cabinet Office under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi,
told Asia Times Online. "Thus, to realize a society
where the Okinawans can live feeling reassured, without
any anxiety about their safety, itself contributes to
the security partnership of Japan and the US." Shimada
served from 1996 to 2000 as chairman of two committees
created to study the domestic complexities and problems
involving US bases on Okinawa, advisory groups to
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary.
Marines go
to university A large US Marines CH-53 military
helicopter crashed and burst into flames on a sunny
Friday afternoon, August 13. It struck a school building
on the Okinawa International University campus in
Ginowan, a southern city in the main island of Okinawa.
Three US Marines on board were injured, but there were
no civilian casualties, though some vehicles and homes
were damaged by crash debris. One piece smashed a window
in a house 50 meters from the crash site and bits of
glass sprayed a baby's cradle. On a wing and a prayer
just a minute earlier, the baby was grabbed from his
cradle and rushed outside by his mother who had been
surprised by the roar of the falling helicopter. She
escaped from the house while hugging her baby close,
news reports said.
The university is located in
a populated residential area bordering the south side of
US Marine Corps Futenma Air Station, from where the
chopper took off. For the university, it was not the
first such accident. In 1972, a fuel cell dropped from a
US surveillance plane hit the campus, but caused no
injuries. But in 1959, a US fighter jet crashed into an
elementary school in central Okinawa island, leaving 17
people dead, including 11 children. Okinawans remember
these accidents and the recent crash revives bitter
memories.
This time, even more than the accident
itself, what infuriated the Okinawan people is that the
US military apparently made the campus its virtual
extraterritorial sanctuary. US Marines sealed off the
crash site and barred Japanese police from joining the
on-site investigation conducted by the US Marines.
Japanese media were also kept away from the site, but
Japanese TV stations still managed frequently to
broadcast some disturbing and offensive scenes,
including one in which several young Marines on the
Japanese camps repeatedly yelled at the media, "Get out!
Get out!" All of those rebroadcast scenes have
aroused in the Japanese public some suspicions that the
US military still retains an occupation force mentality
and that Okinawa remains under American occupation,
drawing protests from residents of the prefecture.
Citizens, sponsored by the Ginowan city government, plan
to hold a protest rally against the US forces in Okinawa
this Sunday, September 12. So far they have collected
more than 100,000 signatures from Okinawa and elsewhere,
according to local newspapers.
The business and
economic picture in Okinawa, vis-a-vis the US bases, is
complicated. Some residents are heavily dependent on the
US bases and Okinawa's conservatives, including those in
the construction industry who support the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party, are in favor of the bases. For
example, a plan to relocate Futenma Air Station to Nago,
a northern, less populated city in Okinawa, chosen for
its relatively low impact on the environment, was
abandoned, largely because of business pressure.
To be fair, the US military just may have
invoked a provision of the Status of Forces Agreement
(SOFA), which has governed the management and operations
of the US military in Japan. The SOFA was signed by both
governments in 1960 when the two countries revised the
Japan-US Security Treaty. But unlike this recent Okinawa
case, in the previous aircraft crashes, as the ones in
Yokohama City in 1977 and in Ehime Prefecture in 1988,
US forces allowed the local police to carry out joint
Japan-US inspections.
The incident intensified
public calls in Okinawa to revise the SOFA to prevent
any US discretion concerning applications of SOFA rules,
but the Japanese government has said it will study the
handling of the incident in light of the accord and will
ask for improved enforcement of the accord, rather than
revising it - to the dismay of Okinawans. The Tokyo
government appears to have concluded there is little
possibility that the US will agree to revise SOFA, since
the US has similar treaties with other nations, such as
South Korea and Germany. The Japanese government,
therefore, focuses on the application of SOFA rules,
which tend to give the US military sole discretion, and
on procedures and standards for deciding which roles
local police and US military authorities play, which are
not spelled out under the SOFA.
Okinawa a
special place in Japan To understand Okinawa's
decades of agony and humiliation, one has to know the
history of modern Okinawa. Japanese, especially older
generations, feel compassion and experience a keen sense
of sympathy on thinking about Okinawa. It once
flourished as an independent trading nation, the Kingdom
of Ryukyu, over several centuries, until the early 16th
century. Japan conquered the kingdom in 1609. At the end
of World War II, Okinawa became the biggest and most
crucial battlefield between the US and Japan. American
scholar Herbert Bix says in his Pulitzer-prize-winning
book Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan that
the Okinawa battle "cost an estimated 94,000 to 120,000
Japanese combatants and 150,000 to 170,000
noncombatants, including more than seven hundred
Okinawans whom the Japanese army forced to commit
collective suicide. American combat losses were
approximately 12,500 killed and more than 33,000
wounded; among these casualties were more than 7,000
sailors, reflecting the toll taken by kamikaze attacks."
Soon after the war, Tokyo deserted Okinawa, and
the US claimed the Okinawa islands clearly due to its
huge casualties and loss of population in the battles.
Many experts such as Bix have pointed out that after the
war, in September 1947, the last Showa Emperor Hirohito
sent an official on a secret mission to US General
Douglas MacArthur, then the post-surrender potentate in
Tokyo and protector of the Japanese monarchy, to request
the American occupation of Okinawa and other islands in
the Ryukyu chain continue for 99 years. Around that
time, MacArthur said there was no Japanese opposition to
the US retaining Okinawa, for "the Okinawans are not
Japanese". Hirohito's Okinawa message and MacArthur's
willingness to retain Okinawa show that Okinawa was
sacrificed for the convenience of the new monarchy and
postwar Japan. As a result, the last emperor, who died
in 1989, could not have visited Okinawa at all during
his lifetime.
Not until 1972 did the US return
Okinawa to Japan. Since then, Okinawa has accepted
massive US troop presence. Though the area of Okinawa
Prefecture is only 0.6% of the total national land, 75%
of all the US bases in Japan are concentrated in
Okinawa. Indeed, 18.8% of the total area of Okinawa's
mainland is used as US bases. This number may not ring a
bell for non-Okinawans, but it is indeed huge. Take
Central Park in Manhattan, New York City. The total area
of Central Park is 3.4 square kilometers, while
Manhattan Island is 58 square kilometers. Although
Central Park seems very large to New Yorkers, it only
accounts 5.9% of the total area of Manhattan. Compare
18.8% and 5.9%. You need more than two more Central
Parks in New York City, if you take into consideration
the huge presence of US bases in Okinawa. Still, two
more Central Parks are not harmful, because unlike US
military bases in Okinawa, they do not bring
earsplitting roars of planes and helicopters every day
and night, and sometimes crime.
Thirty-eight US
facilities are located in Okinawa Prefecture. Among them
is the famous Kadena Air Base, the largest and strongest
US military base in the Far East. The base occupies 83%
of Kadena Town. Although the base itself belongs to the
US Air Force, basically most of about 25,000 US military
personnel in Okinawa are Marines. This is because one of
the US's three Marine Expeditionary Forces in the world,
or the III Marine Expeditionary Force, is stationed in
Okinawa. Marines in Okinawa are generally young, as they
are almost everywhere. About 60% of the Marines in
Okinawa are said to be 19-25 years old.
The
contentious Futenma Air Station In September
1995, a serious political and social problem arose not
only in Okinawa, but also in the whole of Japan. Three
Marines raped a 12-year-old schoolgirl. Faced with the
subsequent surge of the anti-base campaign, the US and
Japanese governments for the first time took US base
matters into their own hands. The two governments
organized the Special Action Committee on Okinawa
(SACO). In April 1996, Japan and the US agreed to
relocate the disputed Futenma Air Station, located in
the midst of residential and school areas. Prime
minister Ryutaro Hashimoto demanded the return of the
space to Japan because the danger caused by the base was
evident, as was also shown this time around. After more
than eight years, however, the future of the base
remains unclear.
In November 2003, US Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Okinawa and looked
over Futenma from the air. At that time, he said he
could not believe there were not more accidents in such
a place.
But there has been little prospect of
an early relocation of the facility and return of the
site to Japan until the recent helicopter incident. For
one thing, although a civilian-military airport off the
coast of Nago, a northern, less populated city in
Okinawa, was proposed as a new site for the facility,
some local residents and environmental groups have
strongly opposed the alternative. Okinawa governor
Keiichi Inamine promised to impose a 15-year limit on
the military use of the new facility, but the US
military flatly rejected the plan.
Political
observers and Japanese media are criticizing Koizumi's
leadership. On the date when the US helicopter crashed,
he continued to see the film Deep Blue during his
summer vacation. Critics said he was just thinking about
the beautiful sea on the cinema screen, not about
Okinawa surrounded by beautiful sea, and soaked in
Okinawans' growing ire. It was indeed 12 days after the
accident before Koizumi finally met Okinawa's governor
Inamine, but did not make any commitment to satisfy
Inamine's requests, including a review of SOFA and an
early reversion of the Futenma airfield to Japan.
Meantime, Koizumi was busy calling Japanese gold
medalists in the Athens Olympics. He appears to have
concluded that Okinawa affairs are not among his
vote-getting policies, and now looks very busy thinking
about his cabinet shuffle expected later this month, and
his No 1 priority, reform of the postal system.
Time to return Okinawa US Air Station
The accident in Okinawa occurred at a time when
the US is transforming its forces overseas. According to
President George W Bush's speech last month, the
redeployment would bring up to 70,000 troops, and
100,000 family members and civilian workers back to the
US within a decade. Among them, it is estimated US
troops in Europe will be reduced by more than 40,000,
mostly in Germany, from the current 117,000. In Asia,
the US and South Korea already have agreed to reduce
12,500 out of about 40,000 troops now on the Korean
Peninsula. But the transformation in Japan is still
unclear. It remains to be seen how many US troops in
Japan, totaling some 40,000, excluding the Navy's
Seventh Fleet's 12,000 personnel, will be reduced.
The Japanese media have reported that Japan's
role in the US reorganization would be enhanced as a
forward deployment strategy. Among them are the transfer
of US Army I Corps in Washington State to Camp Zama in
Kanagawa and consolidation of the 13th Air Force in Guam
with the 5th Air Force Yokota in Tokyo. Experts view
this US move as the intention to make Japan the forward
command headquarters to cover the Middle East and the
Indian Ocean on a global scale to fight terrorism. This
is apparently beyond the purpose of the US troops'
presence as defined in the current Japan-US security
treaty. The treaty limits the scope of their operations
just to the Far East. Some experts express concern that
if Japan accepts these reported plans, the nation could
well be another terrorist target.
In Japan,
excluding the Communist Party, almost nobody denies that
the US is Japan's most important ally. The two
countries' ties have been consolidated more than ever
before, especially after the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks on the US. Yet, combined with the
recent Okinawa helicopter crash, as well as the whopping
244.1 billion yen (US$2.2 billion) - this fiscal year's
Japanese budgets that support US troops in Japan - well
beyond the essential minimum, there is a strong
possibility that anti-American sentiment will run high
in Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan in the near term. To
avoid that, the return of the Futenma Air Base to
Okinawa, or the consolidation of Futenma and Kadena
bases, would be a politically feasible solution, even
though the US Marines and US Air Force are sometimes at
odds.
Kosuke Takahashi is a former
staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is currently a
freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be
contacted at kosuke_everonward@ybb.ne.jp.
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