GINOWAN, Japan (Kyodo) — Around 2,700 demonstrators marched Sunday around the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station in the city of Ginowan, Okinawa, demanding the immediate closure and transfer of the airfield outside of the prefecture ahead of the 40^th anniversary on Tuesday of Okinawa’s reversion to Japan.

The protest was part of a peace march during which demonstrators walked around U.S. bases in Okinawa, calling for the removal of bases from the island. The southern prefecture accommodates about 75 percent of all U.S. military facilities in Japan in terms of land area.

“Residents around the airfield have been plagued by noise and the danger of plane crashes. Let us create an Okinawa without bases by urging people nationwide,” Shiko Sakiyama, head of the Okinawa Peace Movement Center, told the participants at the Ginowan city hall before the march.

The center led by labor union officials and lawmakers opposed to the bases organized the campaign.

The demonstrators surrounded the airfield and marched in front of Okinawa International University, where a U.S. helicopter crashed into a building in August 2004, while chanting, “We do not need a base in Okinawa.”

The peace march commenced last Sunday on Yonaguni Island, where the government is planning to deploy Ground Self-Defense Force troops, and on Friday on three routes on the main island of Okinawa.

To wrap up the event, a total of about 3,000 peace march participants staged a rally in a Ginowan park later in the day, joined by anti-base and anti-nuclear demonstrators from Fukushima Prefecture and other parts of Japan as well as South Korea.

At the meeting, demonstrators protested at the deployment to the Futenma base of MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft, possibly in July, that can take off and land vertically. There is growing concern among local residents regarding the aircraft’s noise and safety, given the Osprey’s history of fatal crashes during test flights.

The deployment of the aircraft at the Futenma facility “represents serious discrimination” against people in Okinawa, said Keiko Itokazu, an independent House of Councillors member. “Okinawa did not revert to Japan just to be discriminated against.”

Hiroshi Ashitomi, a civic group member engaged in a sit-in protest against the planned relocation of the Futenma base to Nago, also in Okinawa, being pushed by the Japanese and U.S. governments, called the Osprey “a producer of coffins” and urged demonstrators to unite to fight against its deployment in the prefecture.

Kantoku Teruya, a House of Representatives member of the opposition Social Democratic Party, said the continued presence of U.S. bases in Okinawa and the Fukushima nuclear crisis triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami symbolize the “treachery” of the central government.

“We should join forces and promote the anti-base and anti-nuclear movements,” he said.

Teruaki Yamaguchi, a 24-year-old participant of the peace march from the city of Fukushima, said he felt the Futenma base, which sits in the center of a residential area, “deprives people of living space.”

“The same thing can be said for nuclear power plants, which are imposed on local residents,” he said.

Kyodo Press, May 14, 2012
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120514p2g00m0dm025000c.html

Okinawa: Planned deployment of Osprey aircraft to Okinawa set to spark fresh controversy

The planned deployment as early as in late July of MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft to U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture is emerging as a fresh flashpoint over the contentious presence of the U.S. military on Japan’s southernmost subtropical island prefecture.

The Japanese and U.S. governments have been stressing the safety of the advanced transport aircraft that can take off and land vertically, but an Osprey crashed in Morocco in April, resulting in the deaths of two U.S. soldiers and leaving two others wounded. The Okinawa Prefectural Government and Okinawa residents are vehemently opposed to the deployment of the aircraft, creating further friction over the heavy concentration of U.S. military facilities in the prefecture.

“This is an issue that should be dealt with before talking about defense. Take Tokyo, for example, this would be something like conducting flight training of an aircraft (that frequently crash) in Hibiya Park. That would be absolutely unacceptable,” Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima told reporters after attending a commemorative ceremony marking the 40^th anniversary of the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty on May 15.

The Japanese and U.S. governments are planning to transport knock-down kits for 12 MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft by ship and bring them into U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma as early as late July. The aircraft are scheduled to be fully operational in October. About 5,000 people plan to hold a rally in Ginowan, where the Futenma airfield is located, on June 17 to protest the planned deployment.

The Ministry of Defense is expected to complete its procedures this coming autumn for environment assessments that are supposed to pave the way for the relocation of Air Station Futenma to the Henoko district in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture. But in view of the fact that Gov. Nakaima strongly demands the Futenma facility be relocated outside of the prefecture, it is not clear when and whether the central government can apply for permission to fill the publicly-owned sea off Henoko.

If the central government were to defy local voices and moved ahead to deploy the transport aircraft, Okinawa Prefecture could harden its stance even further. But the Ministry of Defense plans to move ahead with the original deployment plan, with a senior ministry official saying, “The accident in Morocco occurred at the worst possible time. But even if we delay the deployment, Okinawa’s stance will not change.”

In their interim report on bilateral consultations on the realignment of U.S. military in Japan compiled in April, the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed to share the costs of repair work at Futenma until the relocation of the facility. Such being the case, the people of Okinawa are becoming all the more concerned that the Futenma facility will remain there as it is forever.

There are no signs at all of politics in Okinawa Prefecture turning in favor of relocating the Futenma facility to the Henoko district. In the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly election set for June 10, major political parties and prefectural chapters in Okinawa are expected to campaign for the relocation of the Futenma facility outside of the prefecture. Even a former senior official of the Nago Municipal Government and a candidate for the assembly election, who used to take the stance of accepting the relocation of the Futenma facility to the Henoko district, has yet to make his position clear on the issue.

Mainichi Shimbun, May 16, 2012
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120516p2a00m0na013000c.html