Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2011 April 13 - 19 [US FORCES]

USS George Washington enters Sasebo Port

Local chapters of the Japan Council against A and H Bombs and the Japan Peace Committee in Sasebo City in Nagasaki Prefecture on April 12 held a protest rally against the arrival of the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington to Sasebo Port. The ship will stay at the U.S. Sasebo Navy Base until April 14.

Protesters shouted, “Don’t use our port as a temporary homeport for nuclear vessels!”

The USS GW is based at the U.S. Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture. It made a port call at Sasebo also April 5 and 6 due to a fear of radiation contamination although Yokosuka is about 250km away from the Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant. Sasebo residents are also worried that the USS Ronald Reagan might make a port call at Sasebo within this month after undertaking disaster relief operations named “Operation Tomodachi” (friend) in the Tohoku region.

On the previous day, Japanese Communist Party member of the Sasebo City Assembly Yamashita Chiaki and JCP local district committee members made representations to Sasebo City Mayor Tomonaga Norio to demand that the city government oppose the attempt to make Sasebo a temporary homeport for U.S. nuclear ships and request the central government to ask the U.S. to not unload radioactive waste, which regular maintenance work produces, out of its vessels.