Futenma: Tip of the Iceberg in Okinawa's Agony

Extract

For the last twenty years the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma—or more precisely, its relocation—has been at the epicenter of severely strained relations between local residents of Okinawa and both the national government of Japan and the government of the United States. As Shimoji Yoshio points out in the following article, like other U.S. bases located on the main island of Okinawa, Futenma was originally constructed on largely agricultural land that was seized by the U.S. military during the Battle of Okinawa and not returned to its owners. In the subsequent decades, the surrounding area urbanized to the point where the Futenma facility is now located in the center of a densely populated city. This has generated problems for residents of neighboring areas ranging from noise and environmental pollution to crimes committed by US personnel along with frustrating constraints on land use. Tensions were brought to a boil in 1995 when three servicemen from another U.S. Marine base abducted and raped a 12 year-old girl and in 2004 when a helicopter from Futenma crashed into neighboring Okinawa International University. Both incidents ignited massive protest demonstrations against the U.S. military presence. In 1996, an agreement was reached between the U.S. and Japanese governments to relocate the Futenma base to a proposed off-shore facility to be constructed off the coast of a less densely populated northeast area of the island. However, the relocation has been stalled ever since over concerns about the environmental damage that the proposed facility would do and resistance on the part of Okinawans, almost all of whom would prefer to see the facility moved out of the prefecture entirely.