  Don't use Yokosuka as homeport of U.S. nuclear carrier -- Akahata editorial, November 30 (abridged)Abe Shinzo, Liberal Democratic Party acting secretary general, in his lecture in Tokyo has advocated that only a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier will take the place of the conventional carrier Kitty Hawk, using the U.S. Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa as its homeport. This is a major statement that confirms the U.S. policy of homeporting Yokosuka with a nuclear carrier from 2008. Thomas B. Fargo, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, demanded at the U.S. Congress in March that a U.S. carrier with the highest capability be deployed at Yokosuka. Abe's statement was in response to the demands of the U.S. government and military forces. If the U.S. deploys a nuclear carrier to Yokosuka and uses it as its homeport, it will eventually impose further serious hardships on the Japanese people. Yokosuka is situated at the gateway to Tokyo Bay. Therefore, the new homeport plan will be tantamount to forcing residents of the Metropolitan Area to "co-exist" with the dangerous nuclear power stations with 600,000 kw/h power generation capability. Radioactive waste accidents from U.S. nuclear carriers took place in 1968 at the U.S. Navy Sasebo Base in Nagasaki, and in 1980 at the U.S. Naval Facility White Beach on Okinawa. The new plan, if implemented, will allow U.S. carrier aircraft to continue low-flying and night landing practices around the U.S. Naval Atsugi Air Station in Kanagawa as well as in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions. Demanding at the 1961 Japan-U.S. summit talks that the Japanese Government make efforts to remove "the Japanese people's allergy to nuclear," the U.S. attempted to realize U.S. nuclear carriers' routine calls at ports in Japan. But it failed in 1968 when the Japanese people rose in actions against the U.S. nuclear carrier Enterprise's Sasebo visit. However, under a direct linkage with the U.S. preemptive strike strategy that allots a pivotal role to Japan, the U.S. Bush administration resumed its plan to get a homeport for a U.S. nuclear carrier in Japan. To begin with, the U.S. is wrong if it assumes that it can perpetually use Yokosuka as its carrier's homeport. In 1973, when the U.S. arbitrarily began deploying its carrier at Yokosuka, the Japanese government promised that its use will last only a few years, but it has already been over 30 years. How dare the government break its promise! Even talking about a nuclear carrier should be out of the question. Let us act to foil the U.S. plan to use Yokosuka as its nuclear carrier's homeport. (end) |