Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2015 April 22 - 28 [POLITICS]

Gov’t workers in Okinawa call for a stop to excessive countermeasures against local anti-base protests

About 120 central government workers working in Okinawa held a rally in Naha City on April 23, calling for a stop to the mobilization of public workers for surveillance duty against local residents’ anti-base actions in Henoko.

Outside the gates of U.S. Camp Schwab in the Henoko district of Nago City, rallies and sit-in protests have been continuing against the construction of a new U.S. base. In response to these actions, a local bureau of the Cabinet Office has been assigning public employees to around-the-clock surveillance duty.

Several local unions of central government employees organized the rally in the Okinawa administrative city of Naha and adopted a resolution calling for an immediate halt to the ongoing 24-hour surveillance duty against the anti-base action in Henoko.

The resolution states that the assignment to oppose civil movements runs counter to the role of administrative organs which are supposed to provide reassurance to citizens. It requests that the Cabinet Office Okinawa General Bureau stop assigning its employees to duty related to the Henoko base construction.

Nakahara Satoru, working in the bureau’s national highways office, is one of the civil servants who were sent to the scene. He said, “We have been forced to perform tasks that increase the confrontation between Okinawans and government workers.”

Nakahara said that it is emotionally stressful for many of the public employees to feel that they are playing a part supporting the base construction as promoted by the central government. He expressed his hope that the present excess of countermeasures against the protest action will end soon.

Past related article:
> Gov’t workers on duty at Henoko don’t want to be in conflict with Okinawan people [March 15, 2015]