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HONOLULU (Apr. 11) - First it was okay, and then it wasn't. Last Friday, the city of Nago in Japan's Okinawa Prefecture and the Japanese central government reached agreement on plans to relocate the controversial U.S. Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma from its current site adjacent to Ginowan City to Nago in the northern part of the prefecture. One day later, Okinawa's Governor Keiichi Inamine said no. And, since his approval is necessary to effectuate the move the Marine air station remains grounded.
"Inamine's opposition is just the next phase in Okinawa's long battle to have the U.S. military drawdown the total number of personnel on the island and to relocate those remaining facilities out of heavily populated areas," according to Kosuke Yoshitsugu an assistant professor at Okinawa International University and currently a visiting fellow at the Honolulu-based East-West Center. "Inamine says he must listen to the voice of the people of Okinawa" in opposing the latest plan for the Marine air station's relocation.
"Numerous plans were floated before the agreement reached between Nago and Tokyo last Friday," Yoshitsugu points out. "The Okinawa Prefectural government had previously agreed to a plan that would put the new location for the Marine air station far out to sea on reclaimed land. There was another condition ... the airfield would have to be open to civilian use."
"The conservative (Okinawa) prefectural government has cooperated in the past with the U.S. and Japanese governments in maintaining the U.S. bases, recognizing that the U.S. troops in Okinawa were a major component of the two nations' security alliance," the visiting East-West fellow notes. "But, Inamine has said his prefecture is unfairly shouldering the security burden for all of Japan and that he could not understand the reason why Okinawa should continue to pay such a high cost."
Yoshitsugu points out that Inamine is voicing the concerns of a large number of his constituents. "Many of the residents of the island-prefecture have grown tired of playing the increasingly put upon host and want the U.S. military gone."
Okinawa is one of Japan's poorest prefectures and was the site of furious fighting during the Pacific War. It was occupied by the U.S. until its return to Japan in 1972. Okinawa still plays host to about 70 percent of the American forces stationed in Japan, while giving up 20 percent of its land to the U.S. military.
"Futenma has become a symbol of all that Okinawans see as wrong with the U.S. military presence" Yoshitsugu says, "and its relocation to Nago has become a pawn in the game being played by the local government in Okinawa and the two central governments in Tokyo and Washington."
Residents of Ginowan City have long complained of the noise of the flight operations and of the danger posed by the busy MCAS Futenma located in the midst of their city. As if to underscore the last point, in August 2004 a Marine helicopter went down on the campus of Okinawa International University. No one was injured but the incident touched off even more protests and is used as a rallying cry today.
Tokyo and Washington have listened. Shortly before U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Tokyo last October, the two governments agreed to move 8,000 U.S. troops from Okinawa to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam as part of a major realignment. In addition, the Japanese government reached an agreement with Nago City regarding the relocation of the MCAS Futenma. But as Yoshitsugu points out "that is not enough for some Okinawans. They want to have their role, and the price they have paid for so many years, recognized."
He adds, "Most observers believe the (central) government in Tokyo will try to defuse the ongoing issue in a familiar manner by offering Okinawa's prefectural government massive amounts of public works projects and other financial incentives to go along with the realignment plans."
Will that work?
"If it doesn't," Yoshitsugu says, "Tokyo may be forced to take a more difficult road ... the central government may have to move to change current national law to allow it to overrule prefectural governors." Yoshitsugu notes "The political ramifications of such a move could politically prove very costly to Tokyo."
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Kosuke Yoshitsugu is an assistant professor at Okinawa International University who is now doing research in Honolulu as a visiting fellow at the East-West Center. He can be contacted at 808-944-7547 or via email at yoshitsk@eastwestcenter.org.
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