Most Japanese want US bases to go – but the economic impact of their presence is critical
THERE CAN be few prettier prime ministerial graveyards: waves from a coral-rich, emerald-green sea lick the sandy shore of a pristine white beach.
A sleepy fishing village pokes through the humming tropical green in the background. Local fishermen say dolphins and the endangered dugong sea cow can sometimes be spotted swimming in the local waters. Only a razor-wire fence and signs warning of the threat of arrest by US troops hint at the smell of political cordite.
For over a decade, Henoko beach on Japan’s southernmost prefecture of Okinawa has been the site of a battle that has pitted pensioners against government surveyors, corroded relations between Tokyo and Washington, and arguably claimed the scalp of Japan’s last prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama.
Locals warn that his successor, Naoto Kan, will follow him to the political gallows if he follows through on a promise to build a US marine heliport, with a huge runway, off this beach.
“I think 100,000 people or more will come to stop it,” predicts Michio Sakima, who curates a local museum dedicated to remembering the 1945 Battle of Okinawa. “He’ll have to send in the army and the riot police and there would be war. There’s no way that’s going to happen.”
Okinawa Prefecture is home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of US military bases. The Americans invaded in 1945, mounting an attack that left 223,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians dead – roughly a quarter of the local population – and 50,000 US troops killed or injured. In 1972 the islands reverted to Japanese rule, but most of the bases remained.
Today they occupy nearly a fifth of the main island and include Kadena, the biggest and most active US Air Force facility in East Asia, and Futenma, which occupies the centre of Ginowan city. Local people like Sakima call these bases war spoils, and want them returned to Japanese control. “It makes me very angry when I think what we could do with all that land,” he says from the roof of the museum, which overlooks Futenma. His voice is occasionally drowned out by the drone of giant transport aircraft that fly in and out of the base.
As he admits, however, while “most” Okinawans are against the US presence, many are financially tied to it. The bases reportedly employ more than 8,000 local people, and the Tokyo government has pumped billions of yen into the island in an attempt to smooth the friction that comes with living beside more than 20,000 often battle-scarred young soldiers. In 1995 that friction climaxed after the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl which sparked the largest protests in the prefecture’s history.
After years of promises to scale down the military presence, protesters finally extracted a promise from Tokyo and Washington to close Futenma. But the plan eventually hatched by the two sides – largely shutting out Okinawa – simply shifted the functions of the ageing facility to the coast off Camp Schwab base near Henoko, in the sleepier northern half of the main island.
In 2006 the deal was inked: a giant seaport, including an 1,800-metre runway, would be built off Okinawa’s pristine coastline – all paid for with Japanese taxes.
For many Okinawans, the deal compounded an epic feeling of unfairness. The prefecture hosts 75 per cent of all US military facilities in the country. That arrangement on an island hundreds of miles from the mainland means about 99 per cent of Japanese never need to face the consequences of the country’s military alliance with Washington, or its central conundrum: a war-renouncing nation sheltering under the world’s largest nuclear umbrella.
Tackling that contradiction would mean dismantling much of Japan’s postwar defence architecture, including its 1947 “pacifist” constitution, a huge can of worms that few politicians have ever shown the stomach for. It would mean confronting the US over its claims that the bases are needed to defend Japan, claims which many on Okinawa reject.
“We were told that the bases were protecting us, but few here believe that now,” says Mao Ishikawa, an Okinawa-based photographer. “Soviet Russia is gone, we’re friendlier with China, and North Korea is a powerless country that would be destroyed if it ever considered attacking us. Everybody knows the bases are for America’s convenience.” Last September, the islanders thought they finally had a leader in Tokyo who might recalibrate the military scales when Yukio Hatoyama was elected prime minister, ending more than a half a century of rule by Washington’s staunch Cold War allies, the Liberal Democrats. Before taking office, Hatoyama had openly called for the US bases to be ejected from Japan. He promised to reject the 2006 deal and shift Futenma out of the prefecture.
Instead, under pressure from President Barack Obama, he embarked on a long, torturous journey back to square one. When he finally told Okinawa in May that the 2006 deal would stand after all, the islanders were furious, recalls Doug Lummis, a former US marine and now political scientist who lives on the island. “He had got their hopes up,” he says, pointing out that last April the islanders staged their biggest anti-base protest since the 1995 gang rape. “Hatoyama should have learned from Machiavelli: If you’re going to do something very unpopular, you ought to do it straight away.”
Hatoyama’s bungling on Futenma lost him his government’s coalition partner and much political credibility. He resigned this month, leaving Futenma in the hands of his wilier successor, Naoto Kan.
“This is only the second time in post-war Japan that a popular grassroots movement has brought down a government,” says Lummis, alluding to the fierce protests over the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty that precipitated the resignation of prime minister Nobusuke Kishi. “Something has changed here.”
Kan, who as a citizen’s activist once protested against the US bases himself, has been careful so far not to stir up this hornets’ nest. This week he visited the island to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa, apologising “as a representative of all Japanese people” and promising to “ease the burden” of hosting the bases. Okinawa’s contribution has helped secure the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region, he added.
Nobody can see how his dilemma can be resolved. Voters in Nago, the nearest administrative city to Henoko, this year elected anti-base politician Susumu Inamine as mayor. Newspaper polls put opposition to the base as high as 80-90 per cent. But in a Henoko grocery store where young Jarheads from Camp Schwab shop for cigarettes and beer, owner Masayoshi Kyoda says the town needs the money the base brings. “Without it, we would go bankrupt.”
“Emotionally everyone is against the bases, but the reality is a bit different.” In local bars selling Miller beer and tacos, young soldiers on leave drink and play pool. A young marine from Kansas is happy to talk anonymously. “People here have been real nice – I don’t want to go home,” he laughs. “I’ve heard the protesters are here not because they don’t want the Henoko base but because they don’t want us here at all,” he says. “But if the North Koreans were to come here they’d destroy this place. That’s why we’re needed.”
On the nearby beach, a small group of activists and students stand guard over a permanent protest outpost, marking the time since their watch began: 2,253 days. “People here are furious that the Hatoyama government let them down,” says Tomohiro Inafuku. “It seems whoever is in government the result is the same.” In the past, these pensioners have gone toe-to-toe with engineers trying to survey the sea for the offshore runway. If the prime minister brings more engineers or – heaven forbid – riot police, they say their children and grandchildren will join them. “I think the Kan government has made a terrible mistake,” says Lummis. “It’s going to be impossible to build this base, and it’s very poor politics to promise something you can’t do.”