Promise to reduce burden on Okinawans is still to be met

Five years ago, the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed to take measures
to minimize the burden on Okinawans of activities of U.S. forces stationed
there. Akahata of December 3 reported that little changes have taken place
in terms of reductions of U.S. bases.

The Japan-U.S. Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) published its
"Final Report" in December 1996 in response to the rapidly increasing call
of Okinawans for U.S. bases to be removed from Okinawa. Residents' anger at
the U.S. military presence in Okinawa continued to rise after U.S. Marines
gang raped an Okinawan schoolgirl in September 1995.

While promising to reduce burdens on Okinawans, however, the SACO Final
Report emphasized that the U.S. Forces in Japan will maintain their
capability and readiness by constructing a new air base and relocating U.S.
military facilities within Okinawa.

A think tank report points out that the burden on Okinawans has not been
reduced. It says that the SACO agreement to close the U.S. Marine Corps
Futenma Air Station and ten other U.S. bases on Okinawa's main island has
not been implemented.

The report was published in November by the Research Institute for Peace
and Security (RIPS), a government-affiliated think tank. It states that the
SACO Final Report is aimed at a further concentration of U.S. bases on
Okinawa. With U.S. troop deployment on Okinawa intact, nothing will help
reduce the burden on Okinawans, the report said.

On the construction of a state-of-the-art U.S. air base in Nago City, a
plan which needs 18.5 years and one trillion yen to complete, the report
cast doubts on the meaning of relocating U.S. bases within Okinawa without
being able to reduce residents' burdens.

A report of the U.S. Institute for National Strategic Studies published
in October 2000 by a group led by Richard Armitage (who is now U.S. deputy
secretary of state) proposed a redeployment of Okinawa's U.S. forces to the
whole Asia-Pacific region.

Although the common thread that runs through the two proposals is a call
for more effective military cooperation under the Japan-U.S. Security
Treaty, it must be noted that they frankly admit that the base relocation
plan for U.S. forces on Okinawa will not get rid of residents' heavy
burdens.

There has been little progress in the implementation of plans for
returning U.S. base sites.

Of the 11 facilities which the U.S. and Japanese governments promised to
return to Okinawa, only Aha Training Area (480 hectares) was returned to
Japan. As this training ground was also used by Japan's central and local
governments, the Okinawa Prefectural Government does not regard it as a U.S.
facility, and it therefore does not count as a returned site.

Delays in returning U.S. base sites can only be explained by the plan to
relocate U.S. bases, which actually means constructing a new
state-of-the-art base and perpetuates U.S. bases with up-to-date functions
on Okinawa.

Explaining the delay in returning the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air
Station site to Japan, the Defense Agency says that Futenma's relocation
cannot be completed until local governments accept relocations.

In December 1997, one year after the SACO Final Report, the majority of
Nago voters voted against the new base plan in a referendum, and later, the
Okinawa Prefectural government and Nago City accepted the central government
plan for constructing the new base, reneging on the referendum result.

The central government in June 2001 offered eight plans for the new base
construction with three engineering methods, but residents of Henoko, most
adjacent to Nago's new base site, are anxious about possible environmental
destruction by a huge base.

The only way to remove the residents' anxieties is to stop relocating
U.S. bases within Okinawa, and to take effective steps to reduce and
withdraw U.S. bases from Okinawa, Akahata said. (end)