By Reihana Mohideen
OSAKA — At midnight on March 31, the lease on a piece of land inside a US base in Okinawa expired, making the Japanese government an illegal occupant of the plot on the Sobe Communication Site (a radar installation commonly known as the "elephant cage"). The government continued to occupy the land despite the opposition of the owner, Chibana Shoichi. The governor of Okinawa, Ota Masahide, refused to sign the lease in proxy, under the provisions of a law enacted when Okinawa was handed back to Japan by the US in 1972.
Chibana Shoichi is one of the landowners who, since the Vietnam War, have refused to agree to the use of their land by the US military. They are referred to as the antiwar landowners. Shoichi demanded the right to enter his land after the expiry date to hold a memorial service for his grandfather, who was killed by a US soldier on April 1, 1944, the day that 55,000 US troops landed in Okinawa.
The recent events were triggered by the rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by US soldiers in September. Okinawa rose up in what has come to be known as the "whole island's struggle", which culminated in a demonstration of around 80,000 people calling for the removal of US bases. Governor Ota, who had previously renewed the lease in proxy, this time refused to do so. He was taken to court by the then Social Democratic Party government, which rapidly dumped its policy of opposition to the US military presence, though the lease expired before the government could go through the procedures of renewing it.
These events brought the issue of the US military presence and the US-Japan Security Treaty (AMPO) into the limelight, touching the deep antiwar sentiment in the population and leading to a revival of the peace movement.
The opposition is being spearheaded by the people of Okinawa.
Japan's smallest and poorest region, with just 2% of Japan's total land mass, Okinawa hosts around 75% of the US bases. Many kilometres of beaches are off limits to the local population, and huge tracts of land are used for air strips.
The rape of the schoolgirl is only the latest in a series of violent crimes against Okinawan women as a result of the US military presence. In May last year, a 24-year-old woman died after being hit in the face with a hammer by a US soldier. In May 1993 a young woman was raped by a soldier who escaped while in the custody of US military police.
Women's organisations point out that the military presence means that all women in Okinawa live with the constant threat of violent crime. The Okinawan women's organisations have been an important part of the peace movement, winning strong local and international support for their struggle.
On April 15, the day that Bill Clinton arrived in Japan to "patch up the relationship" between the two governments, they agreed on the "return" of Futenma Air Station and 10 other US installations.
Residents living near Futenma air base suffer high levels of noise pollution and live with the constant threat of a major aircraft accident. There have been 121 military-related accidents in Okinawa prefecture and the surrounding seas since 1972, and six aircraft have crashed since 1984. There have been three helicopter crashes on the grounds of Futenma since 1980, the most recent one close to an elementary school separated from the base by a fence.
The "return", however, means relocating these facilities to other bases in Okinawa and on the mainland. On April 16, 100 antiwar landowners attended a 10,000 strong rally in Tokyo. They marked the "return" of Futenma as a positive outcome of their struggle but demanded a complete shutdown of the military facilities.
Ryutaro Nakakita is the Osaka chairperson of the Common Action Network, which campaigns around peace and social justice issues and is active in prefectures (or provinces) which cover around 25% of the total population of Japan.
Nakakita told Green Left Weekly that the US-Japan summit in April redefined the treaty and made a joint declaration expanding "the military alliance between the two countries. They have expanded its coverage to the Asian and Pacific region, and the aim is to expand it onto the global level.
"The US military presence here is the largest outside of the US. Even the Pentagon claims that the US bases in Japan are the largest in the world.
"In addition to strengthening Japanese assistance to the US military the US also asked the Japanese government to consolidate and strengthen its military operations with the US. That is, Japan should contribute to the military operations of the US by despatching Japanese civil defence forces. This was also included in the joint declaration."
Nakakita said the focus of the alliance has shifted from the defence of Japan to "military tensions in the region, such as the Korean peninsula, China and Taiwan, and the Spratly Islands.
"Under this treaty Japan has expanded the military capacity of its civil defence force. Now it's the third largest in the world in terms of its military capacity. After the destruction of the Cold War structures it was supposed to be reduced and eventually disbanded. But in reality the opposite policy is being pursued."
Both Japan and the US are defending their economic interests, Nakakita said. "But Japan cannot intervene militarily on its own. One of the factors that prevents Japan from being involved in such a way is the distrust of the other countries due to Japan's invasion of these countries during World War II. The Japanese military killed more than 20 million people in the region. So Japan needs the military alliance and cooperation of the US.
"Since the Gulf War, Japan has despatched civil defence forces overseas in the guise of UN peacekeeping operations. However, now under the new declaration, this role has expanded. They can now directly send the civil defence forces under the Japanese-US military collaboration."
AMPO was enacted in 1951 in conjunction with the San Francisco peace treaty that formally ended the war between the US and Japan. "However, Okinawa was not included in the pact. So Okinawa became a part of the territorial occupation of the US. The US government considers Okinawa to be a keystone for its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region. The people of Okinawa then initiated the anti-US bases campaign as well as the campaign to return the land that belongs to Japan. So in 1972 Okinawa was returned to Japan. However, the US military bases remained.
"Public opinion now in Okinawa is that they want the island without any US military presence. In 1960, when AMPO, was amended for the first time, around 1 million people protested against it. The challenge is ahead of us to cancel AMPO in order to respond to the voices of the people in Okinawa who want peace in the area in order to prevent military aggression against other countries.
"Today the people in mainland Japan are increasingly voicing their opposition. But we have to make this opposition grow like the movement of the 1960s."