Japan Press Weekly

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2014 February 12 - 18 [OKINAWA]

Nago City Assembly lodges protest against Okinawa governor

“Does the prefecture have to obey everything the national government it tells to do?” - the voices of Nago City assembly members resounded through a visiting room in the Okinawa prefectural government office.

More than half the total number of assembly members, including Japanese Communist Party Gushiken Toru, on February 10 visited Okinawa’s capital of Naha to lodge a protest over the governor’s approval of landfill work to construct a new U.S. base in their city of Nago.

Assembly Chairman Higa Yuichi demanded that Governor Nakaima Hirokazu, unless he withdraws the reclamation approval, should resign from office for breaking his election promise to work to have the controversial base removed from the prefecture.

The assembly head argued, “The governor is in office with a mandate from Okinawa citizens to protect their lives and properties. Besides, his landfill endorsement is unacceptable because it fails to meet the criteria set in the Public Water Body Reclamation Act.”

Other assembly members said: Nago residents have already shown our demand by electing anti-base Inamine Susumu as our city mayor last month; how could the governor say that something dangerous in one city will be safe in another city?; and is it okay for us to leave a 200-year-lifespan military facility to be dealt with by our offspring?

The person in charge of the base issue in the prefectural administration responded by saying, “We have no intention to retract the reclamation approval.”

Related past article:
> City assembly expresses disappointment over state inviting bids for Henoko landfill work [February 4, 2014]