November 6, 2012

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi on November 5 had talks with Okinawa’s Ginowan City Mayor Sakima Atsushi about the military aircraft Osprey deployment to the U.S. Futenma base which the city hosts.

Due to the presence of the Marine Corps’ air station, Ginowan residents are forced to endure various hardships in their everyday lives, the mayor stressed.

The mayor stated that the U.S. forces have all of a sudden closed a part of the U.S. Futenma base which has been open to residents to use since 1976. The 8,200 square-meter area was used as a parking lot for about 300 cars and a baseball field for children.

Ichida also visited Iejima Island, about 9 km west off Okinawa’s main island, where Osprey operations are intensifying.

In talks with Ichida, Ie Village Mayor Oshiro Katsumasa said that the village assembly has adopted two resolutions calling on the Japanese and U.S. governments to retract the Osprey deployment.

The U.S. forces’ environmental review, compiled prior to the Osprey deployment in Okinawa, requires the controversial aircraft to fly over the sea to reach and leave the U.S. auxiliary airfield in the western part of Iejima Island. According to the mayor, however, the aircraft have been flying over residential areas since their deployment last month.

Ichida went to districts adjacent to the U.S. airfield and talked with residents who are suffering from aircraft noise even at night and the sandstorms they cause when they take off from the limestone-covered runway.

“Sandstorms are so intense that we cannot see anything and our laundry gets dirty,” one of the residents said.

A local tobacco leaf farmer told Ichida that if tobacco leaves become covered with sand they cannot be shipped. No matter how many times farmers report the damage, the U.S. forces never stop the flights, he complained.