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Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Stop U.S. live-fire drills: protest rally held in Okinawa

Chanting, "Immediately stop shooting us," about 400 residents of Kin Town, Okinawa, on July 14 held an emergency rally in protest against the urban warfare training the U.S. forces had begun on the previous day at the U.S. Camp Hansen Range 4 complex.

The rally took place in front of the No.1 Gate of U.S. Camp Hansen, where the U.S. Green Berets began live-fire exercises to improve their anti-guerrilla and anti-terror units in urban warfare tactics.

Gibu Takeshi (Kin Town mayor) and Matsuda Masataka (Kin Town Assembly president) as well as other participants expressed their concern that stray bullets could wound or kill residents.

Japanese Communist Party Okinawa Prefectural Committee representatives, including prefectural assembly members on July 13 visited Naha Regional Defense Facilities Administrative Bureau and the Foreign Ministry Okinawa Office to request that the Japanese government make efforts to immediately stop the training and get the U.S. bases closed. "U.S. bases in times of war are incompatible with townspeople's peaceful lives," they argued.

At the July 13 House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, JCP House of Representatives member Akamine Seiken stated that "the training that can cause accidents that will affect residential areas must be stopped."

Akamine stated, "It's obvious that terrorism cannot be overcome through a military approach. The government must stop supporting the U.S. unilateral retaliatory wars or so-called anti-terrorist wars.

"In similar training since 1972 when Okinawa's administrative rights were returned to Japan, stray bullets hit Kin's residential area ten times, of which seven reached the Igei district. And the U.S. completed investigation of only one case." -- Akahata, July 14, 2005