Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2015 August 26 - September 1 [POLITICS]

Abe gov’t takes no action to protect people from US base dangers

Akahata ‘current’ column

Sagamihara City, located in the north of Kanagawa Prefecture, developed as a military town. During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), many military facilities were built in the farm village where the silk-raising industry prospered at that time. In accordance to authorities’ plans, the rural community was turned into a military city.

After the Second World War ended, the U.S. occupation forces requisitioned most of those facilities. An explosion occurred recently at U.S. Army Sagami General Depot, which was one of the seized installations. The supply depot, whose total area is 42 times the size of the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium, is in the middle of a densely populated area. Storing various military-related supplies on its premises, the facility functions as a logistics base in the U.S. global strategy of domination and containment.

At around midnight on August 24, the sound of explosions suddenly echoed through the residential streets. Seeing pillars of flame shooting up, some residents recalled the recent explosion which resulted in fatalities at a chemical plant in Tianjin in China, and others feared that this was a terrorist attack. In the first place, even the Japanese government has no information about what sort of materials are kept in U.S. facilities in Japan.

Not just Okinawans but many people on the Japanese mainland are forced to live in the vicinity of U.S. bases. And what is worse, the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement grants extraterritorial rights to the U.S. military. The bilateral agreement prevents the Japanese authorities from investigating accidents involving U.S. servicepersons even when they occur outside of U.S. facilities.

When a U.S. military helicopter crashed onto the campus of a university in Okinawa in 2004, the U.S. forces immediately sealed the site off after forcibly removing citizens and reporters from the site area. Video footage of that scene shows the reality of today’s Japan still looking like a U.S. colony.

At the Diet, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo repeatedly claims that the government-sponsored war legislation is necessary to protect people’s lives and livelihoods. On the other hand, the prime minister seems to have no intent to deal with the real dangers of U.S. bases threatening the daily lives of Japanese people. How long is he going to leave such a dangerous situation as it is?

Past related article:
> Rally marks 11th anniv. of helicopter crash at Okinawa Int’l. Univ. [August 14, 2015]