Abstract
The “Okinawa problem” to which the APJ has paid so much attention over recent years continues to evolve, and the contradiction between the national governments of Japan and the United States on the one hand and the prefectural government and people of Okinawa on the other to intensify. The following paper was drafted by Hideki Yoshikawa and issued on May 19 in the name of the US Working Group section of the “All Okinawa Council.” The “All-Okinawa Council” is an Okinawan mass organization set up in July 2014 representing local communities, civil society groups, local assemblies, and business establishments, to press for reduction of the burden of the US military presence. It has constituted a major plank in support of Governor Onaga’s insistence that no new base be built in Okinawa for the Marine Corps.
The attached document is intended as an “Update” in the sense of being a supplement to the “Position Statement” issued in the name of the Council on the occasion of its November 2015 delegation to the US. That delegation visited US Congress and other institutions and called on the US government to cancel the Henoko base construction plan (in the north of Okinawa) and to close the US Marine Air Station Futenma in the middle of Ginowan City.
That “Position Statement” presented the case of the overwhelming majority of the Okinawan people who have shown in every conceivable way that they oppose the Henoko plan and demand the return of Futenma. It argued that the Henoko plan constituted not merely an Okinawan problem but that it involved the United States, and that US laws had been and were being infringed.
PDF available here