Apr 25 02:42 AM US/Eastern
(AP) - YOMITAN, Japan, April 25 (Kyodo) — Local politicians and residents in Okinawa will hold a mass rally Sunday to call for the removal of a U.S. Marine base located in a crowded residential area in the southernmost prefecture, venting their anger against the central government which is facing an uphill battle in resolving the matter.
It is anticipated that the rally in the village of Yomitan will draw 100,000 people. Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, who has conditionally accepted an existing Japan-U.S. plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station within the prefecture, will also take part in the event.
Under a 2006 bilateral accord, the heliport functions of the Futemma base would be transferred from the densely populated area of Ginowan to a coastal zone in the Marine's Camp Schwab in Nago, also in Okinawa, by 2014.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has pledged to aim for the relocation of the base outside of Okinawa to reduce the noise pollution, crime and accidents associated with the U.S. military presence there. He has vowed to settle the issue, which has strained Japan's ties with the United States, by the end of May.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada had indicated that Japan would broadly accept the current plan to transfer the Futemma facility to Nago, although both Hatoyama and Okada immediately issued denials.
Most of the mayors of the 41 municipal governments in the island prefecture, which has a population of around 1.4 million, are set to attend the rally. All major political parties, including the Liberal Democratic Party, will be represented for the first time at an anti- base convention in Okinawa.
The LDP, which was defeated by Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan in last August's general election, was in government when the current Futemma relocation plan was forged.
Nakaima, Ginowan Mayor Yoichi Iha, Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine and Uruma Mayor Toshio Shimabukuro are scheduled to speak at the rally. An artificial island to be constructed off the Katsuren Peninsula in Uruma is expected to be a candidate site for the Futemma relocation, according to government sources.
Participants will adopt a resolution seeking the early closure of the Futemma facility and the return of the land it occupies as well as a slogan calling for the revision of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement and measures to boost the local economy.
Tomoko Abe, the policy chief of the DPJ's coalition partner Social Democratic Party, and Kazuo Shii, chairman of the opposition Japanese Communist Party, will also take part in the event.
People in Okinawa have held mass protest rallies in the past following incidents such as the gang rape of a local schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen in 1995 and an education ministry instruction in 2007 to delete or rewrite references in history textbooks to the Imperial Japanese Army's role in coercing civilians to commit mass suicide during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa.
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