The Bus to Henoko: Riot Police and Okinawan Citizens Face-off over New Marine Base

Extract

Naha, Okinawa, 17 January. Yesterday I took a bus up to Henoko from Naha, where I live. There is a new organisation called Shimagurumi Kaigi, formed to support the newly elected Governor in his “all Okinawa anti-base” campaign. Since “all-Okinawa” includes progressives, pacifists, business people, and politicians who recently broke away from the pro-base Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), they will, I hear, need to do a whole lot of talking among themselves before they agree on much more than a few simple issues. But they have agreed on at least one project: to set up a daily bus service to carry people to the main gate of the US Marine Corps' Camp Schwab, at Henoko, where construction of the new Marine Corps Air Facility has resumed after a break of a month or so. At the main gate a 24-hour sit-in is aiming to block the big trucks that are bringing in equipment and building materials. The buses leave at 10:00AM, one from Naha, one from Okinawa City and one from Uruma City.