July 28, 2018

Okinawa Governor Onaga Takeshi on July 27 held a press conference in the prefectural office building and announced the launch of the process to retract a former governor’s approval for the Henoko reclamation scheme to construct a new U.S. base. The approval will lose its validity and the ongoing reclamation work will be stopped. The Abe government intends to enter a legal battle with the prefectural government to suspend and annul the cancellation of approval.

At the press conference, Onaga referred to the U.S.-North Korea and inter-Korean summit meetings and said, “It is totally unacceptable that the Abe government doggedly hangs on to the Henoko base project which was decided on more than 20 years ago and is trying to carry the project through to completion.” He expressed his concern that Tokyo may be left behind in the global moves for peace.

In Tokyo, in response to Onaga’s announcement, Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide said that the Abe administration will move forward with the construction of a state-of-the-art U.S. base in Henoko.

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira held a press conference in the Diet building and said, “The JCP stands firmly with Governor Onaga’s decision.”

Citing the recent moves toward a peaceful Korean Peninsula, Koike said, “The term ‘deterrent’ has been used as the pretext to justify the construction of a new U.S. base in Okinawa. However, this pretext is no longer applicable. Nevertheless, the Abe administration continues to insist that building the new base at Henoko is the only option to resolve Okinawa’s base issues. It has been caught with its pants down.”

Past related article:
> Okinawa will begin procedure to revoke landfill approval to stop Henoko project from proceeding [July 20, 2018]