Sakurai Kunitoshi with an introduction by Gavan McCormack: The Guam Treaty as a Modern "Disposal" of the Ryukyus
[Sakurai Kunitoshi is President of Okinawa University in Naha, a well-known scholar in the field of environmental studies, author, inter alia, of Chikyu bunmei no jouken (The Conditions for a Global Civilization), with Sawa Takamitsu, Iwanami Shoten, 1995.
This article is based on his testimony on 8 April 2009 as expert witness to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Japanese House of Representatives examining the Guam Treaty. It was published in Japanese as “Arata na Ryukyu shobun to shite no Nichi-Bei Guamu kyotei,” Sekai, July 2009, pp. 96-105. English translation by Takeda Kyousuke and Takeda Yuusuke.]
Translation by Takeda Kyousuke and Takeda Yuusuke
Little attention internationally was paid to the agreement signed in February, 2009 between the newly commissioned Obama government in the US and the declining and soon to be defeated Aso government in Japan – the Guam Treaty. Many commentators drew the bland conclusion that by choosing Tokyo as her first destination Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was merely showing how highly the Obama government intended to regard the Japan alliance. Another view, advanced in these pages, was less benign. (See “Hillary in Japan – The Enforcer,” 22 February 2009) It was that Clinton went quickly to Tokyo fearing the Aso government might collapse in order to tie it and any successor government to the extraordinary deals that had been done between the Pentagon and Japanese governments over the preceding years. The Guam Agreement was the culmination of those deals, Okinawa the sacrificial victim.
Clinton went, in other words, as “enforcer,” to lay down the law to Japan on the multi-billions of dollars that were required of it and to press the militarization of Northern Okinawa. Japan was to pay just over $6 billion to relocate 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam (of which $2.8 billion was to be in cash in the current financial year), about $11 billion to build a new base for the marines in Okinawa itself, continuing general subsidies of about $2.2 billion per year (“Sympathy” budget or “Host Nation Facilities Support”) towards the costs of US bases in Japan, and payments on Missile Defense systems, estimated by the government of Japan at somewhere between $7.4 and $8.9 billion to the year 2012. As the Japanese economy reeled under the shock of its greatest crisis in 60 years, these were staggering sums. It was once said, of George W. Bush, that he was inclined to think of Japan as “just some ATM machine” for which a pin number was not needed. Under Obama, too, that relationship seemed not to change.
The “Special Agreement” on the relocation of marines from Okinawa to Guam signed by Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Nakasone Hirofumi was necessary for two reasons. First, because Okinawan resistance had forestalled all plans for base construction in Northern Okinawa for more than a decade, ever since the deal concerning the Futenma base “return” was reached between the US and Japanese governments in 1996, and adopted in revised form in 2006. Since the target date of 2014 for the handover of Futenma seemed increasingly unrealistic, a formal diplomatic agreement was the device chosen to bring maximum pressure to bear on the Okinawan opposition. Second, because the Aso government’s days were clearly numbered, and Washington wanted to get a deal signed and ratified by the Diet that would be enforceable against any subsequent government, so as to obviate any possibility of legal challenge.
The immensely unpopular Aso government (support rate languishing around the 14 per cent mark when the US pressed home the Guam deal) subsequently rammed the Agreement through the Diet on 13 May 2009, overruling the Upper House (which it did not control) by exercising its extraordinary constitutional powers under Article 59. After that, Aso’s star kept falling till his government eventually collapsed after being ignominiously dismissed at the polls on 30 August 2009.
Obama came to office promising change, but at least so far as Okinawa was concerned, his government moved quickly to enforce a key policy of the Bush administration, pushing home its advantage against an enfeebled, extremely unpopular government while it still enjoyed the Diet Lower House majority won four years earlier by Koizumi on his “reform” policy (which meant postal privatization). Much of Aso’s legislative record – pleasing as it was to Washington - was of dubious constitutional propriety since he had recourse repeatedly to Article 59 (passage of a bill once rejected by the Upper House upon its adoption a second time by two-thirds majority in the lower house). In less than nine months, Aso exploited the Lower House majority he inherited to railroad ten major bills (including virtually all the legislation of importance to Washington) through the Diet. Adopting a device unused for 51 years, he was in effect sidelining, even in a sense abolishing, the Upper House.
During those last months, while Aso clung to power and took every possible step to please Washington and to tie down the Guam deal before democracy could intervene, support for the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) grew steadily. Knowing well the DPJ’s position on US-Japan relations, including opposition to the building of any new base in Okinawa, i.e. that the existing Futenma base should be returned, not replaced, the US viewed the DPJ with apprehension distrust.
Opposition Democratic Party leader Ozawa Ichiro spent a perfunctory 30 minutes with Clinton during her February tour, but found three times as much time a week later to meet and discuss the future of the region with the Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Section. He also made clear his dissent from the new president’s resolve to expand and intensify the Afghanistan war, and then went further, raising the possibility of reducing the US presence in Japan to the (Yokosuka-based) US 7th fleet. His message was clear. If the 7th Fleet was indeed sufficient to all necessary purposes for the defence of Japan, then the bases – all thirteen of them with their more than 30,000 officers and military personnel (other than Yokosuka) – were unnecessary. A chorus of anxious and alarmed voices rose from Washington, and pressure was applied in multiple fora. Prominent US scholar-bureaucrats issued veiled threats about the “damage” the DPJ leader Ozawa Ichiro was causing the alliance by his references to an autonomous foreign policy. In controversial circumstances, Ozawa was ousted from leadership of the DPJ and replaced by Hatoyama in May.
The drumbeats of “concern,” “warning,” “friendly advice” from Washington that Hatoyama and the DPJ had better not take seriously the party’s electoral pledges and commitments, much less actually think of trying to carry them out, rose steadily leading up to the election and its aftermath. How Hatoyama and his government will respond remains to be seen, but the exchange in late July between the DPJ’s Okada Katsuya (who in September was to become Foreign Minister) and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy was suggestive (Nikkei Net, 26 July 2009):
Fluornoy: The reorganization of US forces in Japan is in accord with agreement between the two countries.
Okada: There are 64 years of history dragging along behind the US-Japan relationship.
So, too, was Okada’s comment to British journalist Simon Tisdall, weeks after the election victory: “If Japan just follows what the US says, then I think as a sovereign nation that is very pathetic.” (The Guardian, 10 August)
After more than six decades, an alternative government inclining towards an independent view of Japan’s defence and security and towards a renegotiated US-Japan alliance now takes office. The pattern in Okinawa is especially clear. In Okinawa in August the DPJ swept the polls, the DPJ recording a higher vote (in the proportional section) than ever before, and all five newly elected representatives promptly declaring their opposition to the base construction project.
Even if it should choose to try to buckle under US pressure, the Hatoyama government will not easily be able to sweep away this deep Okinawan anger and disaffection. Nor does it seem that the Obama administration will henceforth be able to manage Japan - like its predecessors, Republican and Democrat - by simply dictating to a faithful and unquestioning “ally.” The world will be hearing much more about Henoko in coming months and years.
Here Professor Sakurai, president of Okinawa University in Naha and a distinguished scientist, argues that the Japanese government’s environmental impact survey, on which the project to construct the new base at Henoko rests, is fatally flawed. If he is right, the Hatoyama Government must cancel it and issue orders for an internationally credible, independent scientific survey in its stead.
For an alternative, civil society-rooted view of how the Hatoyama government might proceed towards a revised relationship with the United states, see Maeda Tetsuo, “Escape from Dependency: An Agenda for Transforming the Structure of Japanese Security and the US-Japan Relationship,” GMcC
...
The Modern “Disposal” of the Ryukyus
The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the Satsuma clan’s invasion of the Ryukyu Islands [today known as Okinawa], and the 130th anniversary of the “Disposal” of the Ryukyus by the Japanese Government in the Meiji Era. Both are pivotal incidents in the history of Ryukyu/Okinawa. Both are remembered as shobun or “disposal.” They were events of such moment as to change the fate of the islands forever, and both were the consequence of overwhelming external intervention. Today in Okinawa it is feared that the “Japan-U.S. Agreement on the Implementation of the Relocation of a Part of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force Personnel and Their Dependents from Okinawa to Guam” (hereafter abbreviated as “Guam Treaty”), which was concluded on 17 February 2009, may become a modern “Disposal of the Ryukyus”.
This is because of the possibility that, without asking for the opinions of the Okinawan people, the Japanese and U.S. governments might make Okinawa into a permanent military installation equipped with the latest military facilities. The Guam Treaty, which basically affects only Okinawa, is required to abide by article 95 of the Japanese Constitution, which states “Any special law that is effective only in a particular region must be approved by the majority of the residents in a referendum before it can be enacted” prior to its conclusion or ratification. However, this treaty is about to be pushed on to the people of Okinawa without their being consulted, much less giving their consent. The U.S. bases in Okinawa were built during and after the end of World War Two and through the post war era, irrespective of the will of the people of Okinawa. Now, after decades since Okinawa’s reversion to Japan, this history is about to be repeated.
Public Opinion Says No
The public opinion of the people of Okinawa on construction of new bases is simple: they don’t want any. For the Nago referendum of 21 December 1997, over 200 officials from Naha Defense Facilities Administration Bureau were mobilized into the area to support the “yes” case. The officials distributed to all houses colored brochures declaring “Sea bases are safe” “The base will lead to the promotion of development projects in northern Okinawa”, but citizens stubbornly chose to differ. In addition, various surveys by the local press have clarified that over 80 percent of citizens oppose relocation within the prefecture (for example, the morning edition of Okinawa Times 12 August 2005 showed that 82 percent of people are against relocation to Henoko). The most recent evidence of public opinion is the resolution against the construction of new bases adopted on 18 July 2008 by the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly.
Why are people so negative? It is because the people of Okinawa [in 1945] experienced catastrophic ground war. That experience has left the words “Life is a precious treasure” deeply engraved on their hearts. In 1972, when Okinawa achieved its reversion to Japan from American administration, the overwhelming majority of the people dreamed of an “Okinawa without bases” and of “rejoining the country with a Peace Constitution”. The people wanted the bases removed and everlasting peace. However, the mainland government turned a blind eye to these demands, and decided to leave the U.S. bases as they were, instead offering Okinawa subsidies for economic support. Okinawa was given three times as much funding for public works projects as similar prefectures. The Japanese Government wanted the U.S. bases to continue.
Today, Okinawa, which is only 0.6 percent of Japan’s area, contains 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan. After World War Two, for over 60 years Okinawa was made to take part in the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Afghanistan War, and Iraq War, all of which victimized the people of Asia. Now, the various violations of human rights and the environmental destruction caused by the bases have reached a limit. As Kurt Campbell has put it, “too many eggs are stacked on a small basket”.
Persistent Violations of Human Rights
One awful incident of human rights violation which we can never forget is the case in 1995 of three U.S. servicemen raping a 12-year-old Japanese girl. Such problems - including the violation of human rights of women - caused by the U.S. bases and U.S. soldiers (and their family members) are common, and virtually every day there are articles about them in the local press. Yet, incidents which come to light are only the tip of an iceberg. Countless violations go unreported.
Early in the morning of 4 April 2009, in a hit-and-run accident near the entertainment district of Naha City, three people crossing the crosswalk on a green light were run over by a Y-numbered vehicle and seriously injured. Y-numbered cars are registered as vehicles for US army/navy civilian employees. An hour later, the car stained with blood was found in a vacant lot in the bar quarter of Kin Town, near Camp Hansen, with two men who seemed to be U.S. soldiers standing beside it. On 10 December 2008, at Igei District of Kin Town, a stray bullet which probably came from Camp Hansen damaged the license plate of a car parked at the garage of a civilian. In the past, on at least two occasions people have been seriously injured by stray bullets in Igei District. Now the same kind of incident is repeated in the same place. To make matters worse, the U.S. army did not admit that the bullet came from their camp, and the Japanese Government could do nothing about it. The Okinawa freeway goes right by Camp Hansen. Near Igei District there is a sign saying “Beware of stray-bullets”. I duck my head every time I pass this area. Security is always threatened in Okinawa.
As a university professor, the helicopter crash incident at Okinawa International University on 13 August 2004 remains clear and vivid in my mind. It was unbelievable that there were no casualties. Moreover, I was very shocked to know that president Tomoaki Toguchi and all other people concerned were shut out from their university for 7 days. Okinawa International University is located adjacent to the Futenma base, and when the helicopter crashed into the campus, the marines rushed from the base to occupy the university. In order to secure the fuselage and to cover up all evidence of the incident, they cordoned off the area to prevent entry by university staff and mass media. On 11 August 2005, one year after that incident, I sent a statement of protest to the Japanese and the US Governments, to both President Bush and Prime Minister Koizumi. I said that if a US helicopter happened to crash into Okinawa University, I, as president of the university, would not permit U.S. soldiers to enter my campus without my permission. Okinawa’s present situation is such that a university president has to take such measures.
The U.S. Marine Futenma Air Station, surrounded by a thickly populated district, is located so close to the residential area that it would not clear US safety standards under Air Installation Compatible Land Use Zone (AICUZ). Donald Rumsfeld, when Secretary of Defense, visited this area and pointed out the danger. Therefore, taking the opportunity of the rape incident in 1995, the SACO (Special Action Committee on Okinawa) decided the base should be relocated to Henoko, reaching agreement in December 1995 supposedly to “reduce the burden of Okinawa”. The helicopter crash occurred in 2004 (one year after the deadline for relocation under the SACO final agreement) but before Futenma Air Station was relocated, proving that the location of the base was dangerous.
This SACO agreement, seen from the U.S. military point of view offered a new facility with the latest technology and a naval port in a thinly populated area with all expenses covered by the Japanese people’s hard-earned taxes, while requiring only the abandonment of an inconvenient, obsolete base in the middle of a thickly populated district. In other words, it was an “unexpected windfall”. However, even if a Futenma Air Station substitute facility is needed for national security, there is no necessity for the new relocation area to be in Okinawa. As for the people, who live in a place where “too many eggs are stacked on a small basket”, they have the right, from a human security perspective, to demand the base be relocated somewhere else, inside or outside Japan.
Why the Guam Treaty Now?
The Guam Treaty between the Japanese and the U.S. Governments was supposed to reduce Okinawa’s burden. However, considering what is taking place in areas such as Kadena Air Base, Camp Hansen, and White Beach Military Port, the treaty is only making matters worse for Okinawa. In Kadena Air Base, dawn takeoffs and landings of F-15 jet fighters leave residents of the area around the bases - such as Kadena Town, Chatan Town and Okinawa City - sleepless. However, the authorities do not listen to the protests of those citizens.
Even though there is a noise abatement regulation between the U.S. and Japanese Governments on Kadena Air Base, a clause annexed to it states that exceptions may be made when requested by the USAF. The USAF claims that dawn takeoff is necessary for safe return to mainland USA and never takes the suffering of local residents into consideration. Meanwhile, the Japanese Government just keeps repeating, “We will ask the U.S. forces to improve this situation.” In 2009, squadrons of F-22 stealth jet fighters (one of which recently crashed in mainland USA) flew to Okinawa, and they now conduct daily training.
In Camp Hansen (known for the number of accidents caused by stray-bullets), the Japanese Self Defense Force and U.S. forces have started joint training for urban-warfare. Also in the White Beach Military Port area, increasing numbers of nuclear submarines call at the port. This is due to their mission of collecting information in preparation for possible military action in the Taiwan Strait.
The burden of such intensification of base functions is always accompanied by some compensation. Since reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972, over a 30 year period three “Okinawan Promotion and Development” plans were carried out and in 2002, a further, 10 year promotion plan to 2012 was launched. These four government-led development plans, which have lasted for 40 years in total, will end in a few more years. They have provided Okinawa with nearly 10 trillion yen worth of public works (mainly construction related) as a form of compensation for Okinawa’s acceptance of the bases...
Read entire article at JapanFocus.org
This article is based on his testimony on 8 April 2009 as expert witness to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Japanese House of Representatives examining the Guam Treaty. It was published in Japanese as “Arata na Ryukyu shobun to shite no Nichi-Bei Guamu kyotei,” Sekai, July 2009, pp. 96-105. English translation by Takeda Kyousuke and Takeda Yuusuke.]
Translation by Takeda Kyousuke and Takeda Yuusuke
Little attention internationally was paid to the agreement signed in February, 2009 between the newly commissioned Obama government in the US and the declining and soon to be defeated Aso government in Japan – the Guam Treaty. Many commentators drew the bland conclusion that by choosing Tokyo as her first destination Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was merely showing how highly the Obama government intended to regard the Japan alliance. Another view, advanced in these pages, was less benign. (See “Hillary in Japan – The Enforcer,” 22 February 2009) It was that Clinton went quickly to Tokyo fearing the Aso government might collapse in order to tie it and any successor government to the extraordinary deals that had been done between the Pentagon and Japanese governments over the preceding years. The Guam Agreement was the culmination of those deals, Okinawa the sacrificial victim.
Clinton went, in other words, as “enforcer,” to lay down the law to Japan on the multi-billions of dollars that were required of it and to press the militarization of Northern Okinawa. Japan was to pay just over $6 billion to relocate 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam (of which $2.8 billion was to be in cash in the current financial year), about $11 billion to build a new base for the marines in Okinawa itself, continuing general subsidies of about $2.2 billion per year (“Sympathy” budget or “Host Nation Facilities Support”) towards the costs of US bases in Japan, and payments on Missile Defense systems, estimated by the government of Japan at somewhere between $7.4 and $8.9 billion to the year 2012. As the Japanese economy reeled under the shock of its greatest crisis in 60 years, these were staggering sums. It was once said, of George W. Bush, that he was inclined to think of Japan as “just some ATM machine” for which a pin number was not needed. Under Obama, too, that relationship seemed not to change.
The “Special Agreement” on the relocation of marines from Okinawa to Guam signed by Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Nakasone Hirofumi was necessary for two reasons. First, because Okinawan resistance had forestalled all plans for base construction in Northern Okinawa for more than a decade, ever since the deal concerning the Futenma base “return” was reached between the US and Japanese governments in 1996, and adopted in revised form in 2006. Since the target date of 2014 for the handover of Futenma seemed increasingly unrealistic, a formal diplomatic agreement was the device chosen to bring maximum pressure to bear on the Okinawan opposition. Second, because the Aso government’s days were clearly numbered, and Washington wanted to get a deal signed and ratified by the Diet that would be enforceable against any subsequent government, so as to obviate any possibility of legal challenge.
The immensely unpopular Aso government (support rate languishing around the 14 per cent mark when the US pressed home the Guam deal) subsequently rammed the Agreement through the Diet on 13 May 2009, overruling the Upper House (which it did not control) by exercising its extraordinary constitutional powers under Article 59. After that, Aso’s star kept falling till his government eventually collapsed after being ignominiously dismissed at the polls on 30 August 2009.
Obama came to office promising change, but at least so far as Okinawa was concerned, his government moved quickly to enforce a key policy of the Bush administration, pushing home its advantage against an enfeebled, extremely unpopular government while it still enjoyed the Diet Lower House majority won four years earlier by Koizumi on his “reform” policy (which meant postal privatization). Much of Aso’s legislative record – pleasing as it was to Washington - was of dubious constitutional propriety since he had recourse repeatedly to Article 59 (passage of a bill once rejected by the Upper House upon its adoption a second time by two-thirds majority in the lower house). In less than nine months, Aso exploited the Lower House majority he inherited to railroad ten major bills (including virtually all the legislation of importance to Washington) through the Diet. Adopting a device unused for 51 years, he was in effect sidelining, even in a sense abolishing, the Upper House.
During those last months, while Aso clung to power and took every possible step to please Washington and to tie down the Guam deal before democracy could intervene, support for the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) grew steadily. Knowing well the DPJ’s position on US-Japan relations, including opposition to the building of any new base in Okinawa, i.e. that the existing Futenma base should be returned, not replaced, the US viewed the DPJ with apprehension distrust.
Opposition Democratic Party leader Ozawa Ichiro spent a perfunctory 30 minutes with Clinton during her February tour, but found three times as much time a week later to meet and discuss the future of the region with the Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Section. He also made clear his dissent from the new president’s resolve to expand and intensify the Afghanistan war, and then went further, raising the possibility of reducing the US presence in Japan to the (Yokosuka-based) US 7th fleet. His message was clear. If the 7th Fleet was indeed sufficient to all necessary purposes for the defence of Japan, then the bases – all thirteen of them with their more than 30,000 officers and military personnel (other than Yokosuka) – were unnecessary. A chorus of anxious and alarmed voices rose from Washington, and pressure was applied in multiple fora. Prominent US scholar-bureaucrats issued veiled threats about the “damage” the DPJ leader Ozawa Ichiro was causing the alliance by his references to an autonomous foreign policy. In controversial circumstances, Ozawa was ousted from leadership of the DPJ and replaced by Hatoyama in May.
The drumbeats of “concern,” “warning,” “friendly advice” from Washington that Hatoyama and the DPJ had better not take seriously the party’s electoral pledges and commitments, much less actually think of trying to carry them out, rose steadily leading up to the election and its aftermath. How Hatoyama and his government will respond remains to be seen, but the exchange in late July between the DPJ’s Okada Katsuya (who in September was to become Foreign Minister) and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy was suggestive (Nikkei Net, 26 July 2009):
Fluornoy: The reorganization of US forces in Japan is in accord with agreement between the two countries.
Okada: There are 64 years of history dragging along behind the US-Japan relationship.
So, too, was Okada’s comment to British journalist Simon Tisdall, weeks after the election victory: “If Japan just follows what the US says, then I think as a sovereign nation that is very pathetic.” (The Guardian, 10 August)
After more than six decades, an alternative government inclining towards an independent view of Japan’s defence and security and towards a renegotiated US-Japan alliance now takes office. The pattern in Okinawa is especially clear. In Okinawa in August the DPJ swept the polls, the DPJ recording a higher vote (in the proportional section) than ever before, and all five newly elected representatives promptly declaring their opposition to the base construction project.
Even if it should choose to try to buckle under US pressure, the Hatoyama government will not easily be able to sweep away this deep Okinawan anger and disaffection. Nor does it seem that the Obama administration will henceforth be able to manage Japan - like its predecessors, Republican and Democrat - by simply dictating to a faithful and unquestioning “ally.” The world will be hearing much more about Henoko in coming months and years.
Here Professor Sakurai, president of Okinawa University in Naha and a distinguished scientist, argues that the Japanese government’s environmental impact survey, on which the project to construct the new base at Henoko rests, is fatally flawed. If he is right, the Hatoyama Government must cancel it and issue orders for an internationally credible, independent scientific survey in its stead.
For an alternative, civil society-rooted view of how the Hatoyama government might proceed towards a revised relationship with the United states, see Maeda Tetsuo, “Escape from Dependency: An Agenda for Transforming the Structure of Japanese Security and the US-Japan Relationship,” GMcC
...
The Modern “Disposal” of the Ryukyus
The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the Satsuma clan’s invasion of the Ryukyu Islands [today known as Okinawa], and the 130th anniversary of the “Disposal” of the Ryukyus by the Japanese Government in the Meiji Era. Both are pivotal incidents in the history of Ryukyu/Okinawa. Both are remembered as shobun or “disposal.” They were events of such moment as to change the fate of the islands forever, and both were the consequence of overwhelming external intervention. Today in Okinawa it is feared that the “Japan-U.S. Agreement on the Implementation of the Relocation of a Part of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force Personnel and Their Dependents from Okinawa to Guam” (hereafter abbreviated as “Guam Treaty”), which was concluded on 17 February 2009, may become a modern “Disposal of the Ryukyus”.
This is because of the possibility that, without asking for the opinions of the Okinawan people, the Japanese and U.S. governments might make Okinawa into a permanent military installation equipped with the latest military facilities. The Guam Treaty, which basically affects only Okinawa, is required to abide by article 95 of the Japanese Constitution, which states “Any special law that is effective only in a particular region must be approved by the majority of the residents in a referendum before it can be enacted” prior to its conclusion or ratification. However, this treaty is about to be pushed on to the people of Okinawa without their being consulted, much less giving their consent. The U.S. bases in Okinawa were built during and after the end of World War Two and through the post war era, irrespective of the will of the people of Okinawa. Now, after decades since Okinawa’s reversion to Japan, this history is about to be repeated.
Public Opinion Says No
The public opinion of the people of Okinawa on construction of new bases is simple: they don’t want any. For the Nago referendum of 21 December 1997, over 200 officials from Naha Defense Facilities Administration Bureau were mobilized into the area to support the “yes” case. The officials distributed to all houses colored brochures declaring “Sea bases are safe” “The base will lead to the promotion of development projects in northern Okinawa”, but citizens stubbornly chose to differ. In addition, various surveys by the local press have clarified that over 80 percent of citizens oppose relocation within the prefecture (for example, the morning edition of Okinawa Times 12 August 2005 showed that 82 percent of people are against relocation to Henoko). The most recent evidence of public opinion is the resolution against the construction of new bases adopted on 18 July 2008 by the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly.
Why are people so negative? It is because the people of Okinawa [in 1945] experienced catastrophic ground war. That experience has left the words “Life is a precious treasure” deeply engraved on their hearts. In 1972, when Okinawa achieved its reversion to Japan from American administration, the overwhelming majority of the people dreamed of an “Okinawa without bases” and of “rejoining the country with a Peace Constitution”. The people wanted the bases removed and everlasting peace. However, the mainland government turned a blind eye to these demands, and decided to leave the U.S. bases as they were, instead offering Okinawa subsidies for economic support. Okinawa was given three times as much funding for public works projects as similar prefectures. The Japanese Government wanted the U.S. bases to continue.
Today, Okinawa, which is only 0.6 percent of Japan’s area, contains 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan. After World War Two, for over 60 years Okinawa was made to take part in the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Afghanistan War, and Iraq War, all of which victimized the people of Asia. Now, the various violations of human rights and the environmental destruction caused by the bases have reached a limit. As Kurt Campbell has put it, “too many eggs are stacked on a small basket”.
Persistent Violations of Human Rights
One awful incident of human rights violation which we can never forget is the case in 1995 of three U.S. servicemen raping a 12-year-old Japanese girl. Such problems - including the violation of human rights of women - caused by the U.S. bases and U.S. soldiers (and their family members) are common, and virtually every day there are articles about them in the local press. Yet, incidents which come to light are only the tip of an iceberg. Countless violations go unreported.
Early in the morning of 4 April 2009, in a hit-and-run accident near the entertainment district of Naha City, three people crossing the crosswalk on a green light were run over by a Y-numbered vehicle and seriously injured. Y-numbered cars are registered as vehicles for US army/navy civilian employees. An hour later, the car stained with blood was found in a vacant lot in the bar quarter of Kin Town, near Camp Hansen, with two men who seemed to be U.S. soldiers standing beside it. On 10 December 2008, at Igei District of Kin Town, a stray bullet which probably came from Camp Hansen damaged the license plate of a car parked at the garage of a civilian. In the past, on at least two occasions people have been seriously injured by stray bullets in Igei District. Now the same kind of incident is repeated in the same place. To make matters worse, the U.S. army did not admit that the bullet came from their camp, and the Japanese Government could do nothing about it. The Okinawa freeway goes right by Camp Hansen. Near Igei District there is a sign saying “Beware of stray-bullets”. I duck my head every time I pass this area. Security is always threatened in Okinawa.
As a university professor, the helicopter crash incident at Okinawa International University on 13 August 2004 remains clear and vivid in my mind. It was unbelievable that there were no casualties. Moreover, I was very shocked to know that president Tomoaki Toguchi and all other people concerned were shut out from their university for 7 days. Okinawa International University is located adjacent to the Futenma base, and when the helicopter crashed into the campus, the marines rushed from the base to occupy the university. In order to secure the fuselage and to cover up all evidence of the incident, they cordoned off the area to prevent entry by university staff and mass media. On 11 August 2005, one year after that incident, I sent a statement of protest to the Japanese and the US Governments, to both President Bush and Prime Minister Koizumi. I said that if a US helicopter happened to crash into Okinawa University, I, as president of the university, would not permit U.S. soldiers to enter my campus without my permission. Okinawa’s present situation is such that a university president has to take such measures.
The U.S. Marine Futenma Air Station, surrounded by a thickly populated district, is located so close to the residential area that it would not clear US safety standards under Air Installation Compatible Land Use Zone (AICUZ). Donald Rumsfeld, when Secretary of Defense, visited this area and pointed out the danger. Therefore, taking the opportunity of the rape incident in 1995, the SACO (Special Action Committee on Okinawa) decided the base should be relocated to Henoko, reaching agreement in December 1995 supposedly to “reduce the burden of Okinawa”. The helicopter crash occurred in 2004 (one year after the deadline for relocation under the SACO final agreement) but before Futenma Air Station was relocated, proving that the location of the base was dangerous.
This SACO agreement, seen from the U.S. military point of view offered a new facility with the latest technology and a naval port in a thinly populated area with all expenses covered by the Japanese people’s hard-earned taxes, while requiring only the abandonment of an inconvenient, obsolete base in the middle of a thickly populated district. In other words, it was an “unexpected windfall”. However, even if a Futenma Air Station substitute facility is needed for national security, there is no necessity for the new relocation area to be in Okinawa. As for the people, who live in a place where “too many eggs are stacked on a small basket”, they have the right, from a human security perspective, to demand the base be relocated somewhere else, inside or outside Japan.
Why the Guam Treaty Now?
The Guam Treaty between the Japanese and the U.S. Governments was supposed to reduce Okinawa’s burden. However, considering what is taking place in areas such as Kadena Air Base, Camp Hansen, and White Beach Military Port, the treaty is only making matters worse for Okinawa. In Kadena Air Base, dawn takeoffs and landings of F-15 jet fighters leave residents of the area around the bases - such as Kadena Town, Chatan Town and Okinawa City - sleepless. However, the authorities do not listen to the protests of those citizens.
Even though there is a noise abatement regulation between the U.S. and Japanese Governments on Kadena Air Base, a clause annexed to it states that exceptions may be made when requested by the USAF. The USAF claims that dawn takeoff is necessary for safe return to mainland USA and never takes the suffering of local residents into consideration. Meanwhile, the Japanese Government just keeps repeating, “We will ask the U.S. forces to improve this situation.” In 2009, squadrons of F-22 stealth jet fighters (one of which recently crashed in mainland USA) flew to Okinawa, and they now conduct daily training.
In Camp Hansen (known for the number of accidents caused by stray-bullets), the Japanese Self Defense Force and U.S. forces have started joint training for urban-warfare. Also in the White Beach Military Port area, increasing numbers of nuclear submarines call at the port. This is due to their mission of collecting information in preparation for possible military action in the Taiwan Strait.
The burden of such intensification of base functions is always accompanied by some compensation. Since reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972, over a 30 year period three “Okinawan Promotion and Development” plans were carried out and in 2002, a further, 10 year promotion plan to 2012 was launched. These four government-led development plans, which have lasted for 40 years in total, will end in a few more years. They have provided Okinawa with nearly 10 trillion yen worth of public works (mainly construction related) as a form of compensation for Okinawa’s acceptance of the bases...