Crowds line the red carpet to greet film stars at the Okinawa film festival. Credit: Courtesy Suvendrini Kakuchi

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
GINOWAN, Japan, Apr 10 2013 (IPS)

The island of Okinawa has long been known as the base camp for a majority of the United States’ 50,000 troops in Japan. But now, against the backdrop of escalating nuclear threats from North Korea, local leaders are pushing hard to promote this island – the largest of 60 that comprise Japan’s southern prefecture – and its surrounding islets as a lucrative site for commercial enterprises.

“Okinawa, with its unique culture and natural surroundings, wants to expand its tourism industry and become an Asian hub for education and entertainment,” Shigenobu Asato, chairman of the Convention and Tourism Bureau, said in his keynote address at the Okinawa Film Festival that ended Mar. 30.

“The Okinawan slogan now is ‘Be Innovative’,” he added, referring to official efforts to push investment in entertainment and entrepreneurial activity on this island.

Under the terms of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Cooperation and Security Treaty Okinawa is home to two-thirds of U.S. military and naval bases in Japan and has long played a critical role in East Asian security. For the U.S., the archipelago fanning out into the Pacific Ocean towards Taiwan is the perfect spot from which to observe – and contain – China’s naval presence in the region.

The island witnessed the only land battle fought between Japan and the U.S. in World War II that ended with Japan’s defeat in 1945. Though the U.S. handed control over the island back to Japan in 1972, it retained bases on 18 percent of the territory, a situation that over 90 percent of Okinawans continue to protest today.

Striking an upbeat note about an incendiary topic, Asato outlined a host of new strategies developed by local governments in the prefecture—such as plans to establish university campuses and transform the island into an Asian entertainment centre — as priority goals in a bid to replace Okinawa’s dependence on military bases.

Currently, U.S. military and naval bases lease large swaths of land, mostly in central and southern Okinawa where 80 percent of its 1.5 million residents live. The rent, which amounts to a little less than six percent of the prefecture’s gross income, supports local landowners and allows those areas hosting camps to receive large government subsidies: In 2012, central government subsidies for Okinawa amounted to over two billion dollars; in 2013, the number was estimated at 3.1 billion dollars.

The U.S.’ military presence has shored up the island’s struggling economy: Okinawa’s per capita income is roughly 20,000 dollars, the lowest in Japan. The bases have not only provided rent and subsidies but have created a market for entertainment venues, bars, restaurants and taxi services for military personnel.

But the resulting social and political costs have been high.

The security cooperation treaty brought with it impunity for U.S. servicemen based here. A wave of violent crimes – including several rapes of local women — by U.S. personnel, combined with environmental damage and pollution, pushed many more Okinawans into the ranks of the anti-military base protest movement.

With opposition heating up since last November, local officials have been working hard to “wean” Okinawa’s economy off the military bases.

The city of Ginowan, home to military stations like the controversial Futenma Air Base, is one of the locations in urgent need of alternative forms of development and income.

Ginowan Mayor Atsushi Sakima used the recent film festival as a platform to present plans for the establishment of the Ginowan City Entertainment Village, an ambitious project being done in partnership with Yoshimoto Kogyo Company, a major mainland-based player in the entertainment industry. The project aims to establish art schools and creative spaces as alternatives to military sites.

Enter geopolitics

But Okinawans’ aspirations for a military-free island must contend with a hostile political climate. On top of North Korean threats, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative administration faces difficult territorial and fishing disputes with China and South Korea.

“Making peace with the Okinawans has become a crucial domestic challenge for Abe. Okinawa (has been) a vexing issue for Japanese prime ministers, (none of whom) have made much breakthrough,” Tetsuo Kawakami, professor of international relations at Takushoku University, told IPS.

He believes the hawkish prime minister is especially keen to win Okinawa’s support for his attempts to change Japan’s “peace” constitution that “renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes” under Article 9.

Abe argues that constitutional revision regarding this article is crucial to guarantee Japan some protection and make provisions for self-defense as tensions rise in the Asia Pacific region.

The latest annual Diplomatic Blue book report unveiled last week by Japan’s Foreign Ministry stressed the need for strengthening the Japan-U.S. Security Alliance to contain “threats” to Japan’s land, sea and airspace and the lives of its people.

The report cites territorial clashes with China over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, claimed by both sides. Known in China as Diayou, the chain of uninhabited islets is rumoured to shelter large deposits of natural gas. Though the territory has long fallen under Japanese jurisdiction, South Korea, which refers to the islands as Dokdo, and Taiwan, calling them the Tiaoyutai Islands, have also laid claim to the archipelago.

Set against this tense background, the Japanese government made the landmark decision last week to publicise its timeline to return land leased to the United States military near the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa to the municipal government.

The deal was reached last year, based on the condition that U.S. troops would be transferred overseas. Abe has attempted to accelerate the process with Washington with the intention of nudging Okinawa to agree to the relocation of the Futenma Air Base in the densely populated city of Ginowa to Nago, a picturesque seaside resort.

Miko Higa, who heads the Okinawa-based Research Institute for Peace and Security, told IPS the government’s proposal to return the land at the Kadena base is welcome, but will face opposition if linked to the concept of relocation.

“The core issue facing Japan’s security is building trust with Okinawa. That process will take long and should not be linked to Abe’s defence plans that aim to strengthen military relations with the United States, which will be a heavy burden on Okinawa,” he said.

A Mar. 23 editorial in Okinawa’s leading newspaper ‘Ryukyu Shinpo’ expressed similar sentiments, describing Abe’s proposed plan as “nothing less than a denial of democracy in Japan”.

Now, according to Higa, “Abe faces an excruciating gamble” – and so do the people of Okinawa, who may only experience peace at the expense of economic security.

(END)

The bulk of the U.S.’ 47,000 troops in Japan are based in Okinawa. Credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery/CC-BY-2.0

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Nov 25 2012 (IPS)

Okinawa, the largest of a group of 60 sub-tropical islands forming Japan’s southernmost prefecture, has an equable climate and preferential treatment for United States servicemen under the Mutual Cooperation Security Treaty between the U.S. and Japan.

According to Chobin Zukeran, a member of the House of Representatives from Okinawa, the archipelago is the perfect U.S. base because it fans out into the Pacific Ocean towards Taiwan, making it a vital bulwark for U.S. military strategists concerned with containing China.

Here is where the bulk of the U.S.’ 47,000 troops in Japan are based.

But Okinawans, who number roughly 1.4 million, have long opposed U.S. military presence on their homeland, which experienced the only bloody ground battle between Japan and the invading U.S. military at the end of World War II in 1945.

Since the return of the islands to Japan in 1972, over 90 percent of Okinawans – concerned about their personal safety and noise and environmental pollution – have supported the demand for a complete removal of the bases, which occupy 18 percent of their land.

Now, a string of recent incidents involving military personnel has pushed opposition to the bases into outright protest and threatens to foil the U.S.’ plans to beef up its military in the Asia-Pacific region.

On Nov. 7, Christopher Browning and Skyler Dozierwalker were charged with raping and injuring a local woman on Oct. 16, in a case that sparked widespread protest across Okinawa.

“Okinawa’s struggle against the U.S. military bases is reaching a turning point. We are prepared to take our demands all the way to Washington to end the deadlock,” Zukeran said at a press meeting in Tokyo earlier this month.

Frustration with impunity for U.S. troops on the island is nothing new. In 1995, the gang rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three U.S. servicemen resulted in a U.S.-Japan agreement to reduce U.S. military presence on the Okinawan chain of islands, but this did little to appease the local population.

“The rapes and a skewed sense of justice when these crimes involve U.S. servicemen is the worst form of violence against women,” said Ryuichi Hattori, a member of the Social Democratic Party that has traditionally led political demands to have the bases removed from Okinawa.

Statistics compiled by the police indicate no fewer than 6,000 cases of crime – including violence and rape – since 1972.

Catherine Fisher, an Australian national who was raped in 2002 by a sailor stationed on a ship on the U.S. naval base of Yokosuka, 64 miles south of Tokyo, was among the first women to speak publicly about the latest crime.

Fisher took her own case to the U.S. in September in pursuit of her attacker who had been honourably discharged by the U.S. military, although he was found guilty by the Tokyo district court in 2004 and ordered to pay damages.

“I was determined to receive justice and challenge a system that is totally unfair. Perpetrators, when they are U.S. soldiers, have legal protection and this must be changed,” she told IPS.

Fisher is currently touring Japan to gather support for her demand that perpetrators of crimes remain in Japan to face trial. She is also trying to set up a 24-hour rape crisis centre that can deal specifically with crimes committed by U.S. military servicemen.

Yet another wave of protest is growing over regular crimes committed by U.S. marines who frequent the bustling bars of Okinawa and participate in its vibrant nightlife.

Masayo Hirata, a former counselor for women seeking advice on their problems with U.S. troops – including offspring abandoned by fathers returning to the U.S. – says romantic liaisons with locals are common.

“Marrying or having relationships with American servicemen has become common these days among younger generation females who meet them in bars,” she said.

These interactions are a big part of the problem, according to protest groups, which include academics, lawyers and local politicians.

Sexual exploitation of local women has also sparked protests in other Asia-Pacific countries hosting U.S. forces, such as in the Philippines, which has a ship repair and recreational facility.

Public protests compelled the Philippine Senate to vote against the renewal of the lease on Clark Base in Angeles City in 1991 – a decision that many Okinawans found encouraging.

South Korea, officially at war with North Korea, hosts 37,000 marines located around the country, but the brutal killing in 1992 of a local woman working in an entertainment area close to the bases triggered demands for an end to the arrangement.

A 2010 survey conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun and Ryukyu Shimpo newspapers found that 71 percent of the Okinawans polled felt that the presence of U.S. troops was not necessary and 41 percent wanted the bases removed.

Campaigns have also focused on environmental degradation caused by the construction of military bases.

Human sit-ins against the construction of a heliport off the northeast coastline of Henoko, a quiet village, were forcibly disbanded. Locals, along with environmentalists on the mainland, claimed the heliport construction endangered coral and the native dugong population.

Okinawans say their daily lives are consumed with gnawing fear of accidents from U.S. fighter airplanes that also create deafening noise as they fly into U.S. bases located in densely crowded areas.

Animosity has recently been aggravated by the deployment on the island of Osprey aircraft, with locals voicing concerns over the poor safety record of the plane, which is capable of taking off and landing vertically.

Prof. Tsuneo Namihara, sociologist at the Okinawa University, explained to IPS that the recent territorial clashes between Japan and China over the Senkaku islands, claimed by both countries, have made it more difficult to get rid of U.S. bases.

“As a result, I fear the anti-base movement will veer away from the traditional pacifism (associated) with the local protests. The younger generation is getting impatient with the heavy hand of the Japanese government that is ignoring the wishes of the local population,” he warned.

(END)