guam

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Paying cost of relocation of USMC to Guam is absurd: JCP Ichida

Japan's Defense Agency Director General Nukaga Fukushiro held talks with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on April 23 at the U.S. Department of Defense and accepted the U.S. request that Japan pay 6.09 billion dollars, or 706.4 billion yen that accounts for 59 percent of 10.27 billion dollars, or 1.19 trillion yen, the cost that the U.S. claimed necessary for the relocation of some U.S. Marine Corps units from Okinawa to Guam.

Japan and the United States will hold a security consultative meeting (2+2) early in May when the foreign ministers and defense ministers will finalize the plan on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan.

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi at the press conference on April 24 criticized the Japan-U.S. agreement on the issue of funding the relocation of U.S. Marines to Guam as follows:

"At no time in history has Japan ever used tax money to help construct new foreign military bases on foreign territory. There's no such international precedent, either. The United States should pay all costs of relocation of U.S. troops."

Criticizing the Japanese government and the ruling parties for arguing that funding the relocation cost is necessary in order to reduce Okinawa's burdens from U.S. military bases, Ichida said:

"The aim of relocating U.S. Marine Corps units to Guam is not to reduce Okinawa's burdens. They are moving to Guam because the U.S. wants to effectively implement its world strategy in this region by linking up their units/facilities in Guam, Hawaii, and Okinawa.

They say that the Marine Corps will return to Okinawa whenever it is necessary to do so. The planned relocation has nothing to do with reducing Okinawa's burdens."
- Akahata, April 25, 2006