JCP Dietmember speaks on behalf of Okinawans over the Guam agreement

Japan Press Weekly

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JCP Dietmember speaks on behalf of Okinawans over the Guam agreement

At a House of Representatives committee meeting held on April 10 to discuss the Japan-U.S. agreement on relocating a part of U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Okinawa to Guam, Japanese Communist Party representative Akamine Seiken stated how Okinawans feel about the "relocation" scheme in historical context.

Akamine's statement reads:

Okinawans are opposed to the Guam Agreement mainly because it states that the U.S. will return to Japan Okinawan land to the south of the U.S. Kadena Air Force Base only on condition that a new U.S. base would be constructed off the Henoko district of Nago and that Japan will pay the costs for relocating a part of the Okinawa-based U.S. Marine Corps to Guam.

The United States constructed its military bases in Okinawa by illegal land seizures.

Okinawa is the only Japanese prefecture that forced residents to participate in ground battles during WWII.

U.S. forces landed on Okinawa and confined local residents in concentration camps while they constructed military bases by seizing public and private lands, Later, many Okinawans returned from the detention camps to find that their land had been turned into military bases fenced with barbed wire.

After the signing of the San Francisco "Peace" Treaty in 1951, the U.S. forces ejected more residents from their own land by threatening them with guns, bayonets and bulldozers in order to expand the military bases.

The Oroku district of Naha City, my birthplace, is one of those districts where the land grab was carried out.

At the Gushi district, the U.S. forces seized about 6.5 acres of residents' land under the pretext of 'building a water supply system.' In reality, it was a gas storage tank for U.S. forces and not a water supply system.

I spent my childhood looking up at that gas tank, which looked like a tiny hill covered with grass. The tank was still there even after I got married.

After setting up the gas tank by cheating the residents of their land, the U.S. forces brought in a large number of soldiers, armored cars, and trucks to the village. The residents, who staged sit-in protests against the land grab, were hit with guns, kicked, and wrapped up in blankets. The U.S. forces did the same all over Okinawa, including Isahama in Ginowan City and Ie-jima island.

For 64 years after the war, the U.S. forces have occupied Okinawan land without compensating the residents. Moreover, since the Japan-U.S. Special Action Committee on Okinawa reached an agreement in 1996, the United States has said, "If Okinwans want a U.S. base site returned to them, they should offer an alternative site for maintaining a U.S. base."

Since the Final Agreement on Realignment of U.S. Forces in Japan (2006) was concluded, the U.S. government has said, "If Japan wants the U.S. Marine Corps to go, Japan must shoulder the cost for constructing a base in Guam. Unless Japan agrees to do so, the U.S. will not return the base site to Japan."

If the Japanese government requests the U.S. to return base sites, the U.S. government should restore all military sites to their original condition by cleaning up contaminated soil at their expense.

It is unacceptable that the U.S. government makes the return of the U.S. base sites conditional on Japan's acceptance of certain conditionalities.

U.S. military bases in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa. It is natural for Okinawans, who have been forced to endure the burden of military bases for so long, to oppose the Guam Agreement which forces Japan to accept the package plan that links the return of U.S. base sites to the construction of a new base that will reak havoc on the local environment and to share the cost of constructing a new U.S. base in Guam.

- Akahata, April 16, 2009