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Okinawa’s “Darkest Year” :: JapanFocus
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 33, No. 4, August 18, 2014. Gavan McCormack and Urashima Etsuko “The scene is set for bloodshed and possibly the darkest year in Okinawa’s modern history,” Ota Masahide, Governor of Okinawa 1990-1998, Naha, 3 July 2014 As Japan burned in the mid-summer heat of 2014, the long-running
“Okinawa problem” entered a critical, perhaps decisive, phase. On the
question of whether to build or not to build a major new military base
for the US Marine Corps in the waters off Northern Okinawa, Tokyo
(backed by Washington) confronts Okinawa. The stakes and the level of
commitment are high and there is no sign to be seen of any readiness to
compromise or submit. Like former Governor Ota, it is impossible to contemplate events in Okinawa without deep foreboding.1
It is, however, also difficult not to feel inspired by the sense of
justice, truth, and determination conveyed by the Okinawan civil society
forces that now confront the mobilized resources of the Japanese
national state. What follows is, first, an analysis (by Gavan McCormack) of the
forces and issues and second, a translation of the most recent short
essay by the chronicler of the resistance, local writer, activist and
poet, Urashima Etsuko. The Battle of Okinawa, 2014 Gavan McCormack Both Okinawan daily newspapers produced special issues on 14 August
2014 with banner headlines declaring the commencement of work on the
construction of the long promised new Marine base at Henoko. The
national government launched a blitz-like campaign, proceeding with
maximum speed and by the mobilization of formidable resources. The fact
that it had taken one and a half years of the second Abe Shinzo
government to get to this start is testimony to how difficult it is. The
first great obstacle was securing the consent of Okinawan Governor,
Nakaima Hirokazu, to reclamation of the waters of Oura Bay. That took
one full year. “Works commence on new Henoko base,” Okinawa Times, Special, 14 August 2014 In 2010, fighting a candidate identified with the demand that Futenma
had to be closed and/or moved outside the prefecture, the conservative
candidate and sitting Governor, Nakaima Hirokazu declared that to be his
position, too. He repeated the call for relocation beyond Okinawa
during the subsequent years up until December 2013, saying it would be
“hard to implement the [Henoko] plan without the consent of the people,”
the ‘fastest way” to resolve the matter would be to transfer Futenma
out of Okinawa, and the Henoko project was “in effect impossible” (jijitsujo fukano).
It would, he remarked in his comment on the environmental impact study
of the site, be “impossible to protect the environment by measures
outlined in the assessment” (to which he raised 175 major problems).
After almost four years of consistently negative remarks on the Henoko
project, in December 2013 suddenly, and without consultation with his
Okinawan constituents, he reversed position, agreeing to grant the
necessary license.2 With the simple affirmation that “the
government is taking all the measures it can to protect the environment.
I have therefore judged that the application meets the standards set
out under the Public Water Body Reclamation Act,” he switched his stance
by 180 degrees.3 With the Nakaima “surrender” of December 2013 (as it was widely seen
in Okinawa) in hand, Abe and his government proceeded with maximum
haste, abandoning earlier promises to pursue earnestly the understanding
of the Okinawan people and instead calling for tenders and allocating
contracts for the initial phase of the works. 4 In April
2014, he assured President Obama that he was moving ahead “with firm
resolve, quickly and decisively” on the long promised but repeatedly
delayed project.5 He did not think to mention that it faced the overwhelming opposition of the Okinawan people. On 1 July 2014, the Abe government launched site works, beginning
clearance within the confines of the existing Camp Schwab base and
declaring an exclusion zone covering just over half of Oura Bay (561
hectares) preparatory to undertaking the reclamation. This maritime zone
stretched the existing 50 metres exclusion zone around Camp Schwab to
over two kilometres from the shoreline. Within that zone, 160 hectares
of sea fronting Henoko Bay to the East and Oura Bay to the West were to
be reclaimed and a mass of concrete to be imposed upon it, towering 10
metres above the surrounding sea and containing two 1,800 metre runways,
a deep-sea 272 metre long dock and a complex of other facilities to be
imposed upon it. Steamrollering the Okinawan people’s consistently
expressed opposition, and without consultation or even prior notice, the
Abe government appropriated half of one of Japan’s most precious nature
zones for the construction of an American super base. The Oura Bay Maritime Exclusion Zone (dotted red line) and
the planned construction site (dark coloured) extending into the sea
around the existing Camp Schwab Marine base. Henoko fishing port is
marked at bottom left, beneath the “329” sign (Ryukyu shimpo) The site is one of the most bio-diverse and spectacularly beautiful
coastal zones in Japan, hosting a cornucopia of life forms from coral
(including the exceedingly rare and important blue coral) through
crustaceans, sea cucumbers and sea weeds and hundreds of species of
shrimps, snails, fish, tortoise, snake, and mammal, many rare or
endangered and strictly protected, not least the dugong, the emblematic
(and strictly protected at both national and international levels)
resident of these seas.6 The environmental impact assessment
of the base site conducted by the non-governmental Japan Society for the
Protection of Nature in a two month survey in mid-2014 found “more than
110” dugong feeding trenches right in the middle of the planned
reclamation zone, none of them recorded in the official study conducted
by the Department of Defense for the government.7 The works
would be supervised and protected by an armada of 1,260 ships mobilized
from all over Japan (including many Okinawan fishing boats) under the
national Coastguard. Protesters attempting to enter the zone would be
liable to arrest and draconian (criminal) penalties. The confrontation and the skirmishes that
erupted around Henoko in the summer of 2014 constituted the second
“Battle of Oura Bay,” the first being ten years earlier, in 2004-2005,
when the Koizumi Junichiro government’s construction vessels daily
confronted anti-base civil activists in fishing boats, canoes and
kayaks, and were eventually forced to withdraw, abandoning that phase of
the project. In his 12 month first term, 2006-2007, Abe had made some
gestures towards revisiting the Henoko project, even in May 2007
deploying to Okinawan waters a warship, the 5,700 ton minesweeper Bungo,
equipped with rapid firing canon and heavy machine guns. On that
occasion, he despatched it semi-covertly, unseen, sending divers down
under cover of night to the sea floor for a pre-environmental survey
(ignoring the legal requirements for environmental assessment).8 In mid-2014, Abe let it be known that he was contemplating dispatch of the same warship to the same Northern Okinawan waters.9
This time it seemed the deployment would be overt. Determined not to
allow any ambiguous or humiliating (to the state) outcome, he would
mobilize all available forces. Oura Bay, July 2014, as seen by photographers from Okinawa taimusu Okinawan protest has always been resolutely non-violent, but the Abe
government of 2014 was intent upon intimidating, excluding, and, if
necessary, crushing civil protest by a devastating “shock and awe”
campaign. The state itself, with its monopoly of force and rude contempt
for Okinawan wishes, came to epitomize violence and lawlessness as it
sought by all means to defeat an enemy that was not China or North
Korea, but Okinawa. There is good reason for haste. The term of the present governor,
Nakaima Hirokazu, whose consent had taken the first full year of Abe’s
second government to secure, is about to expire. Fresh gubernatorial
elections, to be held on 16 November, offer the first electoral
opportunity for the people of Okinawa to pronounce on the Henoko issue
since Nakaima’s unilateral submission. Every survey (most recently in
December 2013 and April 2014) indicates that opposition to the Henoko
project remains above 70 per cent. The government, therefore, as of the
second half of 2014, had two objectives: to ensure the election in
November of a Governor who would be at least as malleable and
cooperative as Nakaima, and to move the construction project forward,
hopefully to the point when it would become irreversible whatever the
outcome of the election. Abe appears to have decided that, to defeat his
Okinawan opposition, he had to compel submission, and the way to do
that was by a show of overwhelming force designed to induce despair. Coastguard rubber speed boats protecting the laying of a
floating barricade by Okinawa Defense Bureau work teams, Henoko, 14
August 2014 (photo: Okinawa taimusu) But while the “full speed ahead” Abe message was clear, so was the
determination of the Okinawan opposition. The imperative for it was to
roll back the consent to reclamation that Nakaima had signed on 27
December 2013 and that had stirred widespread outrage. The Prefectural
Assembly and many city assemblies passed resolutions calling on Nakaima
to resign and opinion surveys registered massive dissent. Since Nakaima
refused to contemplate resignation, for a time Okinawans considered
taking formal steps to “recall” (i.e., sack) him. But the procedural
difficulties involved in that process led them to decide instead to
arraign the Governor before it for questioning but then to wait for the
November election, to unseat him rather than dismiss him now. It was a decision fraught with heavy consequences, since it allowed
Abe and his government an eleven-month window of opportunity to press
ahead before the people could have a say at the polls. Nevertheless, the
forthcoming 16 November gubernatorial election assumes great
significance. The November Electoral Prospect The prospect for that November election is opaque and the pattern
unprecedented. Three candidates have signified their intention to run.
Current governor Nakaima Hirokazu, (aged 74) seeks a third term; the
mayor of Naha City, Onaga Takeshi, (aged 63) is to stand on an
“all-Okinawa,” anti-base platform; and Shimoji Mikio (aged 52) a lower
house member of the national Diet from 1996, independent from 2005, till
July 2014 representative of the Okinawan “People’s New Party” (Sozo),
and since then again independent, has also signified his intention to
stand.10 Nakaima has the benefit of incumbency, the support of the national
government, the ruling national party (LDP)’s prefectural organization,
and base, construction, and Tokyo-dependent sectors of the economy.
However, his political and moral credibility have been undermined by his
drastic shift on the key issue. He defended his decision by protesting
that he had never explicitly said “No” to Henoko, that he still
preferred Futenma to be transferred outside Okinawa but now believed
that Henoko was “the fastest way,” and that the Abe government’s actions
were “extremely realistic.”11 Whatever credibility attaches to Nakaima’s candidacy in 2014 must
depend on his insistence on the promise he had extracted from Prime
Minister Abe that, in return for the Henoko base construction, Futenma
would be returned within five years. There has been no document to
establish any such commitment. US authorities immediately denied any
such arrangement was even possible,12 and ironically, just as
Nakaima repeated it in August 2014, a Pentagon submission to Congress
was reported according to which the Marine Corps would continue its use
of Futenma until “at least 2023” and perhaps till 2029 – in other words,
not for five but for 10 or even fifteen years.13 It seems
hard to imagine that Nakaima could overcome these blows to his
credibility, but what is clear is that the Abe government will offer
unstinting support, financial and organizational, supportOkinawa’s “Darkest Year”
In that united front, Onaga’s support ranged from the “New Wind”
elements of the old LDP across the spectrum to the Japan Communist
Party. It included significant Okinawan business interests. An early
“support group” meeting drew 1,450 from this sector, headed by the
chairman of the Kanehide Group Morimasa Goya and Kariyushi Group CEO
Chokei Taira. Goya spoke of the bases as “nothing but an obstacle to
development” and insisted that Okinawa needed a leader who transcended
left and right. He added that “the government is likely to wield money
and power in this election but it cannot extinguish the voices of the
people. This is an election that goes to the identity of Okinawa ….”15 Nevertheless, some doubted that Onaga, or any candidate with close
LDP connections, could be trusted. Noting the Onaga camp’s changing the
words of his campaign statement from “cancelling the license to reclaim
[Oura Bay]” to “respect the voices of the Okinawan people who call for
cancelation of the license and prevent the construction of any new base
at Henoko,” many wondered if Onaga might in the end turn out to be
simply another “Nakaima.”16 As for Shimoji, who had briefly been minister for postal
privatisation in the Democratic Party government of 2012, he had not
hitherto identified with the anti-base camp and his family is deeply
involved in the construction business that stands to benefit greatly
from base construction. He had earlier favoured a formula involving
transfer of Futenma functions to the existing US Air Force base at
Kadena.17 Now, however, he proposed a prefectural referendum on the issue, to occur within 6 months of his taking office.18
It was not clear, however, that he would be prepared to order a
cessation of ongoing site works during that six months, or that he had
the backbone that would be called for were he to choose in office to
confront the Abe government. That means three candidates, all “conservative” and with strong LDP
links: one committed to allowing base construction, one to opposing it,
and one to conduct of a prefectural referendum. All three candidates therefore stood to the right of Okinawan society
and for the first time in post-reversion Okinawa, there will be no
identifiably “progressive” candidate.19 All three stand for
“No More Bases,” not “No Bases.” That is to say, all support the
US-Japan security agreement and the base system in general, while saying
that its burdens should be more equally shared. Onaga’s “all Okinawa”
united front might appear the most “radical,” but it is still an
essentially minimalist agenda - closure and return of Futenma and
cancelation of the Henoko works. Were they to be offered a choice,
however, it seems clear that many Okinawans would want to go much
further, to demand immediate cessation and cancelation of the Takae
helipad construction works, home of the Osprey,20 and to insist in the longer term on demilitarization of Okinawa and closure and withdrawal of all the bases. One such civic group, many of its members women, adopted the name
“New Wave of Hope” and presented four demands of prospective candidates.21 1. On Futenma Airport Transfer and on the construction of the new base at Henoko and of the helipads at Takae: a. Unyielding opposition to be maintained to construction of any new
base at Henoko regardless of how the situation may develop from now on
(such as government resort to force). b. Commitment, once elected and assuming office as Governor, to
cancel the “approval of Henoko Bay reclamation” [issued in December 2013
by Governor Nakaima Hirokazu]. c. Immediate halt to works on the construction of helipads at Takae. 2. On Article 9 of the constitution and the right of collective self-defense: a. Clear opposition to any revision of Article 9, whether by change of wording or by change of interpretation b. Clear opposition to any emptying-out of Article 9 by the exercise of a right to collective self-defense 3. On the deployment and reinforcement of the Self-Defense Forces. Opposition to any deployment or reinforcement of the SDF to Okinawa, above all to the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands. 4. Reduction of US bases and review of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) a. To plan for the reduction in size and eventual abolition not just
of bases such as Futenma but of Kadena and all the front-line US
military forces stationed in Okinawa b. To review the SOFA, the root of structural discrimination and infringement of human rights against Okinawans. This might be described as Okinawa’s social agenda, expressing the
deep-seated aspiration for an Okinawa in which constitutional rights –
to peace, a secure livelihood, and human rights were guaranteed and the
69-year subjection to American (and American-Japanese) military purposes
ended. Conclusion Between 1996 and 2014, non-violent Okinawan resistance at Henoko
blocked all attempts at base construction. Through the democratic means
open to them – resolutions of village, town, and prefectural
representative bodies – Okinawans had made their opposition clear,
culminating in the January 2013 Kempakusho and in the Nago City
elections of January 2014 in which the anti-base Inamine Susumu was
re-elected by a substantial margin despite a massive Tokyo campaign to
unseat him. Governor Nakaima’s submission notwithstanding, therefore,
base construction could only proceed by overruling the opposition of the
Okinawan people, which meant in particular the opposition of Nago City
and its mayor. Anti-base canoeists vs the Japanese state’s Coastguard ship on Oura Bay Photo: Medoruma Shun, “Uminari no shima kara,” 15 August 2014 If the construction project proceeds, it will rival in scale Kansai
International Airport in Osaka Bay, take a decade or more to complete,
cost an astronomical sum (to be paid for by Japan), cause irretrievable
harm to a precious nature reserve (not least by driving away the
notoriously delicate dugong), and have the effect, in the name of
national defense, of exposing Okinawa to front-line target role in any
future military clash in the region. The complex situation surrounding the commencements of base
construction works on Oura Bay on 13 August 2014 may be resumed by the
following ten propositions: The complex situation surrounding the
commencements of base construction works on Oura Bay on 13 August 2014
may be resumed by the following ten propositions: 1) The Okinawan people today unite as never before in saying “No!” to
the Henoko project even as the Abe government unites more determinedly
than any previous government in insisting on it. By mobilizing the
Coastguard and planning the deployment of the Maritime Self Defense
Force, against Okinawan civil society, Abe treats Okinawa as an enemy
state to be subdued by force. 2) The project rests in environmental terms on an environmental
impact study that was not independent and that experts in that field
agreed was unscientific and probably in breach of the rules set out by
the relevant law. 22 3) Whether a Marine Corps presence in Okinawa is necessary for
Japan’s defence is disputed by many Japanese and Americanexperts. The
Marine Corps itself has chosen to disperse its forces across the region,
moving many from Okinawa to Guam, Hawaii, and Darwin. As the immediate
past Minister of Defense Morimoto Satoshi, put it, the imperative for
the Japanese presence to be in Okinawa, rather than anywhere else in
Japan, is political, not military or strategic.23 4) The rush to create an exclusion zone over half of the Bay and to
establish a martial law-like regime surrounding the works is driven by
fear that the forthcoming (16 November) gubernatorial election might
return a candidate who would withdraw the consent given by Nakaima in
December 2013. In other words, the Prime Minister is intent on thwarting
the Okinawan democratic will. 5) The Okinawan anti-base movement from 2010 entered a new, phase –
one of prefecture-wide resistance. The previously existing dividing
line between conservative and progressive was transcended by consensus across those lines on the basis of the Kenpakusho
principle: return the existing Futenma base and cease from construction
of any substitute within the prefecture. How politically viable that
could still be remains to be seen. 6) There is at least a strong possibility that Okinawa on 1
November 2014 will choose a new governor who is either clearly opposed
to construction or committed to conducting a plebiscite on the issue.
Either outcome would plunge the prefecture into fresh confrontation with
the national government in Tokyo. Increasingly, words such as
“colonial,” “autocratic,” “brutal,” and “barbarous” attach to reference
to the Abe government in the Okinawan media. Trust has never been at
such a low ebb. What previous governors have referred to as the “magma”
of Okinawan anger and resentment could erupt any time. 7) While the US government, and especially the Marine Corps,
declare strong support for the Abe government’s actions, the prospect in
future, if construction goes ahead, is for deepening confrontation
between the Marine Corps and the Okinawan civil society that surrounds
it. This confrontation has the potential of opening a new phase of
struggle in Okinawa to get rid of all the bases, i.e. of jeopardizing the very security relationship between the US and Japan it is supposed to be reinforcing. 8) Anger at perceived discrimination and deafness to Okinawan
protest prompts Okinawans to rethink their position in the Japanese
state. Independence is not an immediate option, but a consensus is
discernible in which the history of Okinawan incorporation within the
modern Japanese state, by violence (1879),24 followed by
discrimination and oppression culminating in the catastrophic wave of
death and destruction that swept over the island in 1945, abandonment
then for 27 years followed by (from 1972) subjection to a regime of
permanent US military privilege in defiance of Okinawan sentiment, stirs
a sense of grievance, discrimination and exploitation and leads to
discussions of all options. One of them is independence, a first step
towards which could be an appeal for relief to the United Nations in the
name of the Ryukyu people. 9) The dugong, and other creatures of Oura Bay, may yet have a say
in the outcome. A San Francisco court currently reconsiders whether the
Pentagon might not have breached its obligation under US law to protect
the endangered dugong by accepting unfounded Japanese assurances that
construction would have minimal impact on it.25 10) At issue is not simply the future of Oura Bay but Japanese
democracy (for democracy can be neither built nor defended by a system
that rides roughshod over its people, denying them rights including the
right of self-determination), the US-Japan relationship, and the peace
and security of East Asia. Author: Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor of Australian
National University, editor of The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus,
author of many books and articles, including at this site (see index).
His most recent books are: Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States
(with Satoko Oka Norimatsu), Rowman and Littlefield, 2012, Japanese and
Korean editions from Horitsu Bunkasha and Changbi in 2013 and 2014
respectively) and Tenkanki no Nihon e – ‘pakkusu amerikana’ ka ‘pakkusu ajia’ ka (with John W. Dower), NHK Bukkusu, 2014 (in Japanese). Urashima Etsuko A mass meeting was held In the Great Hall of Ginowan City Hall on July 27 to set up an “All-Okinawa Conference to Implement the Kempakusho
and to build a New Future.” Under a conference banner that read, “Stop
the Enforced Henoko Works - Okinawa United in Resolve,” people gathered
from all over Okinawa (including several busloads from Nago). They
shared a sense of crisis as the level of tension rises in the
confrontation between the government and the Okinawa Defense Bureau on
the one hand, striving to enforce a boring survey of the ocean floor as
first step in construction of the Henoko base, and local residents and
citizens trying to stop them on the other. 2,075 people filled the hall,
which had a capacity of only 1,200, and spilled out beyond the lobby
and into the surrounding streets, where they either stood in the
scorching sun or else went home. Sentiments ran high in the hall. Lined up along the platform were 10 of the 11 joint representatives26
and 5 representatives of various groups from within the Prefectural
Assembly and the LDP “New Wind” group from the Naha City Assembly. All
made statements of their resolve from their varying viewpoints Goya Morimasa of the Kanehide Group, which is heavily involved in
food, retail, construction, and resort hotel management, spoke of his
resolve “as someone from the business sector” to “involve his
organization in the effort to protect Uchinanchu [Okinawan] dignity and
the right to a peaceful life.” Taira Chokei of the Kariyushi hotel chain group declared “Tourism is a
peace industry. The Okinawan situation has been greatly changing but
the opinions of Okinawans have not been taken into consideration. Let us
change Japan from Okinawa.” Takazato Suzuyo, who has long been involved in the movement for human
rights and against base and military-related violence against women,
said “At this gathering of people from all over Okinawa let us affirm
our determination to really stop Henoko!” Tomoyori Shinsuke, who spoke of his past experience of setting up the
Union of Base workers and of having struggled under the slogan of “Try
sacking us, and we will demand return of the bases,” said “We must never
allow any new base to be constructed” and “Let us make every effort for
implementation of the Kempakusho!” Miyagi Tokujitsu, who served for 20 years (five terms) as mayor of
Kadena City, said, “The question is how to involve those people who have
not been able to participate today. So long as we explain earnestly the
import of the Kempakusho, there can be no doubt that Okinawan sentiment will unite.” Former Deputy Governor Yoshimoto Masanori said, “If the country wants
to discriminate against Okinawa, let us choose independence.” Representatives of the political parties and groups delivered messages such as “Let us take back Okinawan human rights, self-government, land, sea, and sky,” “Kempakusho is the concentrated expression of the sentiment of the Okinawa people. What the Government most fears is “All Okinawa’ unity.” “What the government is doing today is no different from the
confiscation of land [for US bases] by bayonet and bulldozer 60 years
ago.” “Stop the Henoko works at once.” “Let us win the November election and by doing so shake up Washington as well as Tokyo!” Kinjo Toru, member of the LDP’s New Wind group and of the Naha City
Assembly that had adopted unanimously a resolution of protest against
Governor Nakaima’s issuing the license for Oura Bay reclamation, pointed
to the contradiction involved in the LDP’s Prefectural chapter breaking
its pledge to see Futenma transferred only “outside Okinawa” and
expelling from the party the New Wind group members who stuck to that
pledge. He drew laughter by remarking that “the reasons for our expulsion were the request to Mayor Onaga to
stand as candidate for Governor and our participation in today’s
‘All-Okinawa’ conference. .. Let us all join in stopping Henoko
construction!” The Conference resolution adopted unanimously by the meeting ended with the words: “We reject any future for Okinawa that would continue to be dominated
by the bases. It is our duty to pass on to our children an Okinawan
future full of hope and we have every right to build freely and with our
own hands a truly Okinawan caring society. We call upon all the people
of Okinawa to unite again on an “all Okinawa” basis to demand
implementation of the 2013 Okinawan Kempakusho and cessation of the works being imposed by force upon Henoko.” Finally, Tamaki Yoshikazu, Naha City representative on the Prefectural Assembly and General Secretary of the meeting, said, “On so many occasions, ever since the rape of the Okinawan child by
US sailors in 1995, we have had mass meeting after mass meeting but we
have not accomplished even the slightest improvement in the situation.
The Osprey flies around in our skies as if there had been no protest at
all and at Henoko base construction moves ahead. So we have come to a
shared understanding that an ongoing prefectural movement based on
participation as individuals is needed to address the problems on a
permanent basis, instead of the ad hoc committee set up each time as has
been our custom to now. He referred to the course of events making it necessary to make known throughout Japan the Okinawan sentiment contained in the Kempakusho, amounting to a “Heisei Okinawa uprising.” What is called for from now on, he suggested, is “to stir national opinion to stop Henoko, to communicate properly the
Okinawan situation through mass communications and mass media, and to
appeal to international society including the United Nations Human
Rights Committee. To do that we must set up special committees and we
should aim initially at a membership of ten thousand.” Nago mayor Inamine Susumu also participated in the meeting and was
given a huge welcome when introduced by the chair. Naha City mayor,
Onaga Takeshi, who is thought certain to be a candidate for election to
Governor against Nakaima, was not present – presumably out of a concern
that the meeting might be misunderstood as an electoral meeting – but
when he was shown in a pre-conference video speaking to the All-Okinawa
meeting against the Osprey the loud applause showed that expectations of
him were high. It seems likely that in the week ahead the government intends to use
force to set up buoys at sea to demarcate the Bay so as to exclude the
activities by citizens protesting against the boring survey. The
situation is extremely urgent. Urashima Etsuko, 28 July 2014 Author: Urashima Etsuko is an independent journalist,
participant, historian and chronicler of the Okinawan (especially Henoko
and Oura Bay) citizen and resident social movements over the past
twenty years, and an acclaimed poet. She is author of a series of books
(in Japanese) on Okinawan matters, and contributor of a regular column
to the Japanese monthly journal Impaction. This essay appears in Japanese in the August issue. For earlier Urashima essays, translated at this site, consult the index. Translator: Gavan McCormack Notes 1 Ota remark in conversation with McCormack, Naha, 3 July
2014. For details, see essays at this site and, for the “story” up to
2012, Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands – Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States, Rowman and Littlefield, 2012. 2 An editorial in the Ryukyu shimpo wrote that
Nakaima’s decision essentially “approve[d] the US and Japanese
governments turning Okinawa into a military fortress. This is an act of
sacrilege not only towards the Okinawans alive now, but also to those
who died in the war, and to the generations yet to come. It is a crime
of historic proportions…. He must resign,” quoted in Gavan McCormack,
“Bitter soup for Okinawans – The Governor’s year-end betrayal,” The
Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 6 January 2014 3 “Bitter soup,” ibid. 4 Including those for works at sites such as Henoko
fishing port, administratively under the jurisdiction of Nago City,
which adamantly refuses to allow Henoko construction. “Henoko keiyaku
hikokai, sai-nyusatsu shi koji chudan seyo,” Ryukyu shimpo, 11 August 2014. 5 “Tsuyoi ishi o motte soki katsu chakujitsu ni”, (“Henoko keiyaku hikokai, sai-nyusatsu shi koji chudan seyo,” Ryukyu shimpo, 11 August 2014.) 6 On recent moves for the protection of the dugong, see:
Yoshikawa Hideki, “Urgent Situation at Okinawa's Henoko and Oura Bay:
Base Construction Started on Camp Schwab,” The Asia-Pacific Journal –
Japan Focus, 8 July 2014. See also Centre for Biological Diversity
(Tucson Az), “Lawyers seek to halt construction of US military airstrip
in Japan that would destroy habitat of endangered Okinawa dugongs,”
Press Release, 31 July 2014, and for a youtube report by this author from Oura Bay, dated 2 July 2014. 7 “Jugon shokuseki, asesu no chaban o shomei shita,” editorial, Ryukyu shimpo, 11 July 2014. 8 Sailing from Yokosuka for Okinawa on 11 May 2007,
conducting a sea-floor survey and quietly withdrawing. (Gavan McCormack,
“Fitting Okinawa into Japan, the beautiful country,” Japan Focus, 30
May 2007.) 9 “Henoko ni kaiji kan ‘Bungo’ seifu kussaku shien de kento,” Ryukyu shimpo, 7 August 2014. 10 “Three candidates to run in the gubernatorial election,” Ryukyu shimpo, 24 July 2014. 11 Gavan McCormack, “Chiji ‘Futenma wa kaiketsu hoko, Henoko isetsu, yonin no shisei kyocho” Ryukyu shimpo, edit., 2 August 2014. The Okinawa taimusu
conveniently lists Nakaima’s position over time, exposing its
inconsistencies: “‘Chiji hatsugen no hensen’, hiroku kensho shi senkyo
de toe,” editorial, Okinawa taimusu, 3 August 2014. 12 McCormack, “Bitter soup,” op..cit. 13 Heianna Sumiyo, “Futenma 23-nen made shiyo, Bei bunsho,” Okinawa taimusu, 2 August 2014. 14 See my “Bitter soup,” also, “Kuroshima Minako, no seiji jihyo – “Sei to kichi’ ni miru sabetsu to haijo no kozo,” Shukan kinyobi, 1 August 2014, p. 16. 15 From “umetate shonin o tekkai suru” to “shonin tekkai o
nozomu kenmin no koe o soncho shi, Henoko shin kichi wa tsukurasenai.”
(“Onaga-shi e asu shutsuba yosei ‘hokaku’ koeta rida’ keizai yushi,” Okinawa taimusu, 7 August 2014.) 16 “Yato, Onaga Takeshi ni ipponka, shin chijisen kohosha,” Ryukyu shimpo, 23 July 2014. 17 “Kenchijisen, kokuji made 3 ka getsu, 3 shi, taisei kochiku isogu,” Ryukyu shimpo, 30 July 2014. 18 “Shimoji shi ga kenchiji shutsuba hyomei, ‘Henoko de kenmin tohyo,” Ryukyu shimpo, 1 August 2014. 19 Takara Tetsumi, a constitutional law professor at
University of the Ryukyu’s, initially bruited as the progressive camp
candidate, withdrew in recognition that Onaga's support was
"overwhelmingly strong.” 20 On Takae, see McCormack and Norimatsu, Resistant Islands, passim. 21 “Okinawa kenchiji senkyo kohosha ni atatte no yobo,”
Article 9 Message Project Okinawa (representative: Shiroma Eriko), 11
July 2014. Further details in “Okinawan gubernatorial candidate must be someone who will cancel Henoko reclamation approval,” Peace Philosophy, 12 July 2014. 22 See the chapter on environment in Resistant Islands,
cited above, and the various articles posted at The Asia-Pacific
Journal – Japan Focus by Sakurai Kunitoshi, former president of Okinawa
University and a prominent specialist on environmental assessment law. 23 Sakurai Kunitoshi, “If the Law is Observed, There Can
be No Reclamation: A Mayoral Opinion Endorsed by Citizens of Nago and
Okinawans,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 25 November 2013. 24 The extinction of the Ryukyu Kingdom, then an
internationally recognized state that had negotiated treaties with
leading Western nations in the 1850s by unilateral and force-based
(“punishment”) Japanese act in 1879 was almost certainly a breach of
international law. (“Treaties show that Japan’s annexation of the Ryukyu
Kingdom was an unjustified act,” editorial, Ryukyu shimpo, 12 July, 2014). 25 Yoshikawa Hideki, “Urgent Situation at Okinawa's Henoko and Oura Bay: Base Construction Started on Camp Schwab,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 8 July 2014. 26 Oshiro Kiyoko, Oshiro Norio, Goya Morimasa, Taira
Chokei, Takazato Suzuyo, Tomoyori Shinsuke, Nakazato Torinobu, Miyagi
Tokujitsu, Yui Masako, Yoshimoto Masanori. Miyazato Seigen was absent.
“All-Okinawa Conference” Formed at Meeting of Over 2,000 People