THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2010/04/26
The options available to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's government in transferring U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma were whittled down further over the weekend.
On Sunday, a massive rally was held on the main Okinawa island demanding that the Futenma base functions be moved out of the prefecture.
Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima called on the Hatoyama government to stick to its campaign manifesto of moving Futenma out of Okinawa.
He told the Hatoyama government to "never give up and handle the issue appropriately."
While never saying he was opposed to moving Futenma to another location in Okinawa, Nakaima said, "The dangers associated with Futenma have to be removed as soon as possible and the excessive base burden on the Okinawa people has to be reduced."
He pointed to the unfair burden placed on Okinawa and said it was almost "discriminatory."
Rally organizers estimated that 90,000 people gathered at a park in Yomitan to express their opposition to any plan that would keep Futenma's functions in some other part of the island prefecture.
Not only was it the largest turnout for a rally against Futenma, but was attended by Nakaima as well as the mayors or their representatives of all 41 municipalities in Okinawa Prefecture.
Meanwhile, Hatoyama on Saturday indicated that minor revisions to the 2006 agreement between Japan and the United States to move Futenma to an area off the coast of Henoko in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, was unacceptable.
Under the 2006 agreement, a new base runway would be constructed on landfill.
Hatoyama told reporters, "When I stood by the waters of Henoko, I felt very strongly that creating a landfill over those waters would defile nature. The current agreement should not be accepted."
Some officials within the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry had said that the United States would likely approve a minor change to the location of the runway under the 2006 agreement.
However, Hatoyama's comment means that the government would not settle for any plan that would involve a landfill off the Henoko coast.
Both Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada also denied over the weekend a report by the Washington Post that said Japan was prepared to accept in principle the 2006 agreement.
The report went on to say that Okada had passed along that intention to U.S. Ambassador John Roos.
Hatoyama said, "While it is true that the foreign minister met with the ambassador, the contents of the meeting according to the report are not totally true."
At Sunday's rally in Okinawa, Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine touched upon the report that the Hatoyama government was considering accepting the 2006 agreement.
"A haphazard and unprincipled approach such as arguing for a return to the Henoko option cannot be accepted because it ridicules the Okinawa people," Inamine said. "I will adhere to the promise I made to Nago citizens until the very end."
Inamine won election as Nago mayor in January mainly on a pledge to oppose any Futenma transfer to the city.
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa also said on Saturday that there was no way of reverting to the 2006 agreement.
The Hatoyama government had contemplated moving most of the helicopters at Futenma to Tokunoshima island in Kagoshima Prefecture, with the remainder moved to a heliport to be built inland in Camp Schwab located in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture.
However, not only have the three mayors on Tokunoshima come out in opposition to the proposal, but U.S. officials have also said it was not workable.
Those developments have made it increasingly unlikely that Hatoyama will be able to stick to his self-imposed deadline of the end of May to reach a decision on the Futenma transfer.
Posts
