SPEAKING FREELY The 'rape'
of Okinawa By Chalmers Johnson
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It all seemed
deadly familiar: an adult, 38-year-old US Marine
sergeant accused by the Okinawan police of
sexually violating a 14-year-old Okinawan
schoolgirl. He claims he did not actually rape her
but only forcibly kissed her, as if knocking down
an innocent child and slobbering all over her face
is OK if you're a representative of the American
military forces. The accused marine has now been
released because the girl has refused to press
charges - perhaps because he is innocent as he
claimed or perhaps because she can't face the
ignominy of appearing in court.
Let us
briefly recall some of the other incidents since
the
notorious 1995 kidnapping, beating
and gang rape of a 12-year-old girl by two marines
and a sailor in Kin village, Okinawa. The
convicted assailants in that outrage were Marine
Private First Class Roderico Harp, Marine Private
First Class Kendrick Ledet and Seaman Marcus Gill.
Other incidents of bodily harm, intimidation and
death continue in Okinawa on an almost daily
basis, including hit-and-run collisions between
American troops and Okinawans on foot or on auto
bikes, robberies and assaults, bar brawls and
drunken and disorderly conduct.
On June
29, 2001, a 24-year-old air force staff sergeant,
Timothy Woodland, was arrested for publicly raping
a 20-year-old Okinawan woman on the hood of a car.
On November 2, 2002, Okinawan authorities
took into custody Marine Major Michael J Brown, 41
years old, for sexually assaulting a Filipina
barmaid outside the Camp Courtney officer's club.
On May 25, 2003, Marine Military Police
turned over to Japanese police a 21-year-old lance
corporal, Jose Torres, for breaking a 19-year-old
woman's nose and raping her, once again in Kin
village.
In early July 2005, a drunken air
force staff sergeant molested a 10-year-old
Okinawan girl on her way to Sunday school. He at
first claimed to be innocent, but then police
found a photo of the girl's nude torso on his cell
phone.
After each of these incidents and
innumerable others that make up the daily police
blotter of Japan's most southerly prefecture, the
commander of US forces in Okinawa, a Marine Corps
lieutenant general, and the American ambassador in
Tokyo, make public and abject apologies for the
behavior of US troops.
Occasionally the
remorse goes up to the Pacific commander-in-chief
or, in the most recent case, to the secretary of
state. On February 27, Condoleezza Rice said, "Our
concern is for the girl and her family. We really,
really deeply regret it." The various officers
responsible for the discipline of US troops in
Japan invariably promise to tighten supervision
over them, who currently number 92,491, including
civilian employees and dependents. But nothing
ever changes. Why?
Because the Japanese
government speaks with a forked tongue. For the
sake of the Okinawans forced to live cheek-by-jowl
with 37 US military bases on their small island,
Tokyo condemns the behavior of the Americans.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda called the recent
assault "unforgivable" and demanded tighter
military discipline. But that is as far as it
goes.
The Japanese government has never
even discussed why a large standing army of
Americans is garrisoned on Japanese territory,
some 63 years after the end of World War II. There
is never any analysis in the Japanese press or by
the government of whether the Japanese-American
Security Treaty actually requires such American
troops.
Couldn't the terms of the treaty
be met just as effectively if the marines were
sent back to their own country and called on only
in an emergency? The American military has never
agreed to rewrite the Status of Forces Agreement,
as demanded by every local community in Japan that
plays host to American military facilities, and
the Japanese government meekly goes along with
this stonewalling.
Once an incident "blows
over", as this latest one now has, the pundits and
diplomats go back to their boiler-plate
pronouncements about the "long-standing and strong
alliance" (Rice in Tokyo), about how Japan is an
advanced democracy (although it has been ruled by
the same political party since 1949 except for a
few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union),
and about how indispensable America's empire of
over 800 military bases in other people's
countries is to the maintenance of peace and
security.
As long as Japan remains a
satellite of the United States, women and girls in
Okinawa will continue to be slugged, beaten and
raped by heavily armed young Americans who have no
other reason for being there than the pretensions
of American imperialism. As long as the Japanese
government refuses to stand up and demand that the
American troops based on its territory simply go
home, nothing will change.
Chalmers Johnson
in the author of the Blowback Trilogy -
Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire
(2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the
American Republic (2007).
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Speaking
Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows
guest writers to have their say.
Please click
hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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