Japan Press Weekly

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2011 May 18 - 24 [US FORCES]

No to US military beef-up in post-disaster mess

Iwakuni in Yamaguchi
A network of citizens in Yamaguchi and Hiroshima prefectures on May 16 made representations to Iwakuni City Mayor Fukuda Yoshihiko, calling on him to request that the national government cancel the transfer plan of a U.S. military unit to Iwakuni.

Based on the U.S. military realignment program, 59 carrier-borne aircraft now stationed at the U.S. Navy Atsugi base (Kanagawa) will be moved to the U.S. Marines Iwakuni base (Yamaguchi). Of the 59, 48 fighters are state-of-the- art FA18 Super Hornets.

The citizens said, “If the unit comes here, it will cause more noise pollution and will strengthen the functioning of the Iwakuni base. Iwakuni should oppose the U.S. aircraft relocation.”

Kadena in Okinawa
The Kadena Town Assembly on May 17 unanimously passed a resolution of protest against the idea proposed by U.S. influential senators to integrate functions of the U.S. Futenma base with the U.S. Kadena air base.

The resolution calls for a retraction of the statement made by U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin who called for the integration.

The idea has come up as an alternative to the existing plan to transfer the Futenma base to Henoko. Local people are angry about the intent to maintain the U.S. base at any cost within Okinawa.

Mage Island in Kagoshima
The Japanese Communist Party Kagoshima Prefectural Committee and a JCP member of the Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly on May 17 made representations to Governor Ito Yuichiro to have him express to the central government Kagoshima’s unwillingness to accept U.S. aircraft training exercises on the island within the prefecture.

Associated with the U.S. military realignment program, a plan is being raised to conduct field carrier landing practice (FCLP) by the U.S. carrier-based aircraft unit on the island of Mage in Kagoshima’s Nishinoomote City.

Matsuzaki Makoto, JCP member of the prefectural assembly, pointed out that flight exercises by military aircraft will deal a heavy blow to the island’s tourism industry and to the fishing and farming industry, and that the mayors of Nishinoomote City and three towns nearby on May 16 decided to unite in opposition to the FCLP plan.