Japan Press Weekly

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2012 November 14 - 20 [US FORCES]

Okinawa prefectural assembly protests ‘endless’ US crimes

Members of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly on November 19 visited the U.S. Consulate General and the Okinawa Defense Bureau, lodging a strong protest against a series of U.S. servicemen’s crimes.

They handed over a protest resolution which was unanimously adopted at the assembly meeting three days ago and protested another incident in which a drunken U.S. marine trespassed onto a private home in Naha City the previous day.

Japanese Communist Party assemblyman Kayo Sogi said, “For the last 40 years since Okinawa was returned to Japan, the U.S. and Japanese governments have repeated the promise of ‘tightening discipline’ or ‘recurrence prevention’ every time U.S. soldiers caused an incident. Okinawan people are fed up with such empty words and are about to fly into a rage.”

Higa Kyoko, an assemblywoman of the Political Local Party of Okinawa, said, “The number of offenses committed by U.S. servicemen has reached 5,792 in Okinawa after the reversion to Japan in 1972. What on earth are the ‘effective measures to prevent recurrence’ the two governments are calling for?”

On the same day, JCP Okinawa Prefectural Committee members visited the prefectural office, demanding that the authorities request the U.S. to withdraw all the bases from Okinawa.

JCP Okinawa Prefectural Assembly member Maeda Masaaki said, “The U.S. Congress had warned of the possible increase of crimes by American soldiers returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. The prefecture should request the U.S. to totally remove the bases from Okinawa.”