Gov’t plan on Futenma relocation is worst option: JCP Shii

Japan Press Weekly

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

Gov’t plan on Futenma relocation is worst option: JCP Shii

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on April 1 criticized the government’s proposal on relocation of the U.S. Futenma base as “the worst plan.”

The reported government plan is to build two bases in Okinawa: one at U.S. Camp Schwab in Okinawa’s Nago City and the other in the sea off the U.S. Naval Facility White Beach in Uruma City with three 3,000-meter runways.

“Installing two new bases on their land is the worst case scenario for Okinawans,” said Shii at a press conference in the Diet building.

Pointing out that Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio in the House of Representatives general election last summer called for the relocation of the Futenma base to either outside Okinawa or outside Japan, Shii said, “The prime minister cannot escape the accusation of ‘election fraud’.”

On the same day, Okinawa Governor Nakaima Hirokazu met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano Hirofumi in Tokyo and called for relocation of the Futenma base to outside Okinawa.

- Akahata, April 2, 2010