Airfield issue still on Inamine's list

Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2002

Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine, fresh from a re-election victory, has renewed his call for a time limit on U.S. forces' use of a planned local airfield, but the national government only responded by repeating its earlier position Monday.

Following his win at the polls Sunday, Inamine said construction on the new airfield will not begin until the time-limit issue is resolved. Inamine is demanding that U.S. use of the airport be limited to 15 years.

"We will negotiate with the United States," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters at his office, avoiding direct comment on the issue.

The military-civilian airport is to be built off the coast of Nago, in northern Okinawa Island, to accommodate the U.S. Marine Corps heliport being relocated from Futenma Air Station in Ginowan.

The ruling bloc, led by Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party, supported Inamine's election campaign. The governor basically agreed on the relocation plan itself.

International Marriages in Japan: Part Three - Amerasian Children in Okinawa

Social Trends #15: November 8, 2002

International Marriages in Japan: Part Three - Amerasian Children in Okinawa J. Sean Curtin (Professor, Japanese Red Cross University) A full list of articles in this series can be found here. This is the third in a series of articles on various aspects of "international marriage" (a union in which initially one of the spouses is a non-Japanese citizen). In Part One (International Marriages in Japan: Part One - Visa status of non-Japanese spouses in 2002) and Part Two (International Marriages in Japan: Part Two – Impact of 17 October 2002 Supreme Court decision on International Marriages) of this series, the inadequacies of the current legal framework for international marriages were analyzed and in this article some of the social problems relating to international marriage in Okinawa are examined. In Okinawa, a Japanese-American union is the most common type of international marriage. These kinds of marriages have a major impact on the social fabric of the island prefecture. In 1998, Okinawa was slightly above the national average for international marriages with 4.6% of all unions there involving a non-Japanese spouse. What distinguished these matches from the rest of Japan was that the vast majorities were between a Japanese bride and an American groom. Nationally, in about 80% of international marriages, the husband is Japanese and wife is from a neighboring Asian country. When one considers that in 2001 Americans only made up 0.026% of the total population of Japan, the number of Japanese-American marriages in Okinawa is quite astounding. Many of these unions produce offspring. According to Okinawan government estimates, each year about two hundred Amerasian children are born in the prefecture. Okinawa enjoys a strong overall marriage rate, but it also suffers from an equally high divorce rate. For example, in 1999, the Okinawan divorce rate was 2.78 per thousand people. This was well above the national average of 2.00 and was higher than the divorce rates of many European countries. The high divorce rate also partially explains why the prefecture has the highest ratio of mother-headed households in the country. While quite a number of international marriages in Okinawa are very successful, these unions are not immune from the strong regional divorce trend. Unlike the marriage statistics, published divorce figures do not record the nationality of the divorcees, but research shows that separation rates for couples of mixed nationality in the prefecture are extremely high. This has led to one of Okinawa's the most disturbing and normally concealed social problems. Over the past decade, American servicemen have deserted thousands of children and returned to their home country. Local authorities and researchers have compiled figures for the number of abandoned Amerasian children. It is estimated that there are between 3,900 to 4,000 such children in Okinawa. The figure probably underestimates the true scale of the problem. Calculations are mainly based on children abandoned by American fathers in Okinawa and not in the United States. Okinawan women returning with children after a divorce in America are sometimes missed by the statisticians and researchers. Another problem with compiling data is that some women are abandoned by their American partners before giving birth. These mothers are often reluctant to name the father in official documents. The breathtaking tropical beauty of the islands that make up the Okinawa territory are deceptive, concealing a host of deep-seated socio-economic woes. Social scientists believe that the weak and undeveloped regional economy is a major contributing factor behind the high rate of marital breakdown in the prefecture. Okinawa has one of the weakest regional economies in Japan, which creates a unique set of social problems. The prefecture's economic disparity can be clearly seen in its high unemployment rate, which stood at a record 9.4% in September 2002. This was the highest in the country and nearly double the national average of 5.4% for the same month. Okinawa also has the highest rate of unemployment for high school and university graduates. Furthermore, those in employment have the lowest wage levels in the country. Many of Okinawa's complex social problems stem from the overwhelming presence of American forces based on the islands, which dominate and distort the economy of the prefecture.* While Okinawa accounts for just 0.7% of Japan's total land mass, Okinawa provides about 75% of the land used exclusively by the United States military forces based in Japan. There are about 20,000 to 22,000 United States military personnel stationed in Okinawa. To put this figure in perspective, there were 46,244 Americans living in Japan in 2001. Thus, tiny Okinawa accounted for just under half of all American citizens living in the country. This massive concentration of Americans in such a tiny corner of the country has inevitably created some unique social situations, such as the high ratio of Japanese-American marriages. Children from lone-mother households in Okinawa are among the most economically deprived in the country. Besides the obvious disadvantages of poverty, abandoned Amerasian children often have to face various forms of discrimination. One of the major problems confronting these children is school bullying, which many encounter in Japan's conformist education system. Amerasian children born in the United States and unable to fluently speak Japanese usually face even greater difficulties.** Sending such children to international schools is seen as a solution. However, for the vast majority of cash-strapped lone-mothers, this is not a viable option. The fees of such schools are normally beyond their budgetary means. As a result, many underprivileged Amerasian children end up in regular schools where they have high dropout rates. This compounds their economic woes, making the lives of already disadvantage children even worse. Since Okinawa already has the highest rates of lone-mother poverty in the country, it should come as no surprise to learn that the abandoned offspring of U.S. servicemen account for some of the poorest children in the whole of Japan. Nearly all Japanese lone-mother households struggle to make ends meet. However, the poverty levels of Okinawan mothers represent some of the most severe in the country. According to a 1999 study, more than seventy percent of Okinawan lone-mother households had an income of less than 150,000 yen per month, equivalent to an annual income of 1.8 million yen. To put this into perspective, the income of the average Japanese household for 2000 was about 6.17 million yen. The national average annual income of a lone-mother household was just 2.52 million yen, which was not even a third of the average household income. Most Okinawan lone-mothers have incomes that fall well below even this meagre figure, trapping them in severe poverty. Poverty is often defined at the individual level by calculating if the person lives in a household with a size-adjusted disposable income that is less than half the median for the average household in the nation.*** One of the primary reasons for lone-mother poverty in Japan is that fathers do not financially support their children. This is largely due to Japan lacking a system for the collection of child support payments from non-compliant fathers. According to a 1999 Okinawan study, ninety percent of mothers did not receive any child support payments.**** If a Japanese father refuses to pay child support, no real action is taken against him. This is even more of a problem when the father is a U.S. serviceman. This is because once he returns home, the family usually lose all contact with him. Case studies show that some military personnel especially arrange to be transferred before their children are born, making it easier to abandon them. Until the late nineties, such behavior by deadbeat American fathers would lead to no reprisal in the United States. In recent years, a few American military fathers have actually had to face up to their responsibilities. This is thanks to the work of some crusading lawyers in Okinawa. At present, if a serviceman moves back to the United States, it is now possible to take action against him for child maintenance in Okinawa. By contacting child support centres in the United States, court orders demanding DNA-paternity tests can be issued and child support payments deducted from delinquent fathers. Some Amerasian children have also used the internet to try to track down their fathers.***** Even though delinquent American fathers now face the prospect of being prosecuted in family courts, the process takes a lot of time. This is because there is no treaty between Japan and America on the issue. Germany, Sweden and Britain all have individual agreements with America to cooperate in matters of child support involving the servicemen of their respective countries. However, despite talk of inserting a clause in the Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. military and Japan, nothing has been done to date. The blame for this lies squarely with Japan, which lacks a system for tracking down non-compliant fathers, conducting DNA-paternity tests and deducing money from the delinquent father's salary. At the moment a bilateral treaty would not be viable, as Japan could not reciprocate for claims made in the United States. Japan needs to establish an effective system for making its own non-compliant fathers pay child support. The current tragedy of thousands of abandoned Amerasian children living in abject poverty is not something that is going to be addressed without some serious political effort from both countries. Proper safeguards are needed to ensure these children do not end up in legal limbo between the two states. A bilateral treaty would certainly help alleviate some of the unfortunate social problems. If the United States military genuinely wants to improve relations with the people of Okinawa, then it needs to ensure its servicemen take responsibility for their offspring. The fact that children born in Okinawa of parents from the world's two richest nations are some of the poorest in Japan is a shameful matter for both countries. References * Handover of Okinawa to Japan was prickly issue Sayuri Daimon, Japan Times, 14 May 2002 Postwar legacy holds key to identity of Okinawans Mayumi Negishi, Japan Times, 15 August 2002 Okinawa election again boils down to two themes Yosuke Naito, Japan Times, 31 October 2002 U.S. wants no reductions in Okinawa Japan Times, 28 April 2002 ** Amerasians of Japan, South Korea to meet in Okinawa Japan Times, 15 August 2002 Amerasian pupil gets diploma Japan Times, 25 March 2000 *** Poorest Japanese Families Getting Poorer Social Trends: Series #4, GLOCOM Platform, 28 August 2002 **** Child Support Payments in 2002 Social Trends: Series #6, GLOCOM Platform, 9 September 2002 ***** Amerasian kids get short shrift in divorce capital of Japan Mayumi Negishi, Japan Times, 20 July 2000 Amerasians get on Net to find GI dads Japan Times, 22 June 2000

Okinawa election again boils down to two themes

Thursday, Oct. 31, 2002
By YOSUKE NAITO

Last in an occasional series

THE OKINAWA FACTOR

Governor, challengers face off over U.S. military bases and ways to boost economy

Staff writer With Okinawa's Nov. 17 gubernatorial election looming, voters are gauging the progress made during the first term of Gov. Keiichi Inamine in addressing local concerns over the concentration of U.S. military bases and efforts to boost the prefecture's economy.

Photo: Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine speaks to reporters in Tokyo on July 25 as Nago Mayor Tateo Kishimoto looks on.

The campaign, which officially kicks off Thursday, is seen as a vote of confidence in the 69-year-old Inamine.

In light of the 30th anniversary this year of Okinawa's reversion from U.S. rule, it is also a vote on three decades of national government policy on Okinawa, which still suffers from a variety of problems despite its increasing strategic importance within the bilateral security arrangement.

The prefecture is flush with U.S. bases. While it accounts for only 0.7 percent of Japan's total land area, Okinawa provides some 75 percent of the land used exclusively by the U.S. military stationed in Japan.

Okinawa also suffers from an economic disparity with the rest of Japan; its unemployment rate, which stood at a record high 9.4 percent in September, is the highest of any prefecture and its wage level is the nation's lowest.

"Okinawa in the final months of World War II was the only part of Japanese soil to become a battlefield. It has a special meaning for the entire nation," said Masahiko Otsubo, a top Cabinet Office bureaucrat in charge of Okinawa issues.

"Since Okinawa's reversion to Japan in 1972, our policy has focused on narrowing its economic disparities with the mainland and responding to its concerns over the U.S. bases."

Inamine is focusing his re-election campaign on the progress he says he has made toward consolidating and scaling down the U.S. military presence.

In July, the prefecture and national government agreed on a basic plan to build an airport for joint military and civilian use in Nago, northern Okinawa Island, as a relocation site for the helicopter operations now based at the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station in Ginowan.

Time limit proves elusive

As a condition to this agreement, Inamine advocates limiting the new airport's use by the U.S. military to 15 years.

The U.S. has refused to accept this proposal and the government in Tokyo won't commit either way.

"Progress will be made (toward achieving the 15-year limit) before work begins (on the new site)," Inamine said Sept. 10 when he formally announced he was seeking re-election.

The relocation plan was compiled in accordance with a 1996 Japan-U.S. agreement to return the Futenma base in five to seven years on condition that its helicopter operations remain somewhere in Okinawa.

Inamine has described his decision to accommodate the new airport as a "better choice, if not the best."

Washington has rejected the time limit, saying it is difficult to predict the international situation 15 years down the road.

Tokyo has meanwhile kept to the sidelines, despite its pledge to address Okinawa's concerns.

This is where rival candidates will try to distance themselves from Inamine, a conservative independent supported by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner New Komeito.

Masanori Yoshimoto, 65, a former Okinawa vice governor running as an independent with support from the Social Democratic Party, has demanded that the helicopter base be relocated outside Okinawa.

Naming an alternative

"If the government needs to build a relocation facility, other prefectures must accept it," Yoshimoto said earlier this month, naming Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, as a candidate site.

Yoshimoto served as vice governor under Masahide Ota, who Inamine knocked out of office in 1998 with LDP support.

Another independent, 60-year-old Shigenobu Arakaki, is supported by the Japanese Communist Party. He is demanding the unconditional return of the Futenma base.

Inamine, on measures to stimulate the local economy, has emphasized his close ties with the national government and the resulting benefits to the local business community, including Okinawa's hosting of the Group of Eight summit in July 2000.

He has also underscored the significance of legislation enacted in March by the national government that replaced an Okinawa promotion and development law adopted when the United States returned the prefecture to Japan in 1972.

The new legislation is aimed at boosting Okinawa's economy via the creation of a special deregulation zone for financial businesses -- the first of its kind in Japan. It is also designed to lure intellectuals to engage in scientific and technological research.

The prefectural government is apparently betting everything on these projects.

"We hope the science and technology research project will make Okinawa one of the world's top research centers, so we can take advantage of it to promote local industries," an Inamine aide said.

Rivals in disarray

Inamine may also benefit from divisions among his rivals.

The SDP, JCP and marginal local parties, long united in previous gubernatorial elections, are now divided for the first time since the late 1960s -- a development evidenced by the separate candidacies of Yoshimoto and Arakaki.

"Given the division in the opposition camp, the upcoming election will probably prove favorable for Inamine," said Ryukyu University professor Masaaki Gabe. "The gauge of Inamine's success is not whether he can win but how many votes he can acquire from other candidates."

Regardless of the election's outcome, however, Okinawa's importance to the national government has been waning recently, with political initiatives to deal with its problems being increasingly displaced by bureaucratic policy steps, Gabe said.

"Although Inamine has underlined progress in the base relocation, the basic plan agreed to in July contains various problems," said Gabe, an expert on Okinawa's U.S. base issues. "The plan illuminates the national government's lack of political initiative in responding to Okinawa's sentiment toward the U.S. bases."

Gabe said the decision to build the offshore airport by creating a man-made island was chosen because it was cheaper than building a floating airport, as was once considered.

"If there had been strong political leadership in Tokyo in negotiating budget outlays, reclamation, which could damage the local environment, would not have been the choice," he said.

Every assurance given

Otsubo of the Cabinet Office stressed, however, that the national government will take every step to ease Okinawa's environmental concerns over the project. "We plan to conduct environmental assessments and hold dialogues with local residents when carrying out the plan."

Gabe is also pessimistic regarding the new legislation aimed at shoring up Okinawa's economy, stating it is "full of bureaucratic ideas that sound all right on paper but are unlikely to prove feasible in terms of real business."

The project to create a financial tax heaven in Nago, for example, would mean little to locals unless manufacturers -- rather than financial firms -- move into the prefecture, enabling more local residents to land jobs, Gabe said.

But Otsubo insists the new legislation is significant.

"We examined our policy of the past 30 years, and believe we have achieved the original aim of narrowing Okinawa's economic disparities with the rest of Japan to a certain extent," he said. "The latest steps are designed to help Okinawa stand on its feet by promoting new industries."

Gabe argued that Okinawa's gradual retreat from the national government's policy agenda is reflected by the choice of Cabinet minister overseeing issues pertaining to the prefecture.

In the Sept. 30 Cabinet shuffle, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appointed Hiroyuki Hosoda, an LDP member in the House of Representatives, to the post, the first ministerial position Hosoda has held.
On the back burner?

Compared with his predecessors, including former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and senior LDP figure Koji Omi, Hosoda's appointment indicates that "the national government thinks Okinawa's imminent problems -- Futenma and economic issues -- have been settled for the time being," Gabe said.

Under these circumstances, setting a 15-year time limit on the relocation base may be moot, although Inamine has vowed to keep up the pressure.

Whatever happens, the national government will move ahead with the airport's construction.

"This is an agreement reached after consultations involving the national government, Okinawa Prefecture and local municipalities," Otsubo said, noting that the plan will proceed as scheduled regardless of who wins the election.

Recent international tensions in the wake of last year's terrorist attacks on the U.S. have also boosted the strategic importance of Okinawa's bases, making it difficult for Tokyo to prod Washington over the time limit.

With the U.S. threatening to wage a military offensive against Iraq over its alleged attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. forces in Okinawa could play a pivotal role, according to military analyst Kazuhisa Ogawa.
Bastion against 'evil'

President George W. Bush has branded the Iraqi regime led by Saddam Hussein part of an "axis of evil" also comprising Iran and North Korea. Pyongyang recently stunned the international community by revealing it has been developing a nuclear weapons program.

Citing the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, Ogawa likened the forces in Okinawa to the U.S. military's "arm and leg muscles."

If hostilities erupt, Okinawan calls for a scaling down of U.S. bases, a movement that once gained momentum after the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three U.S. servicemen, would suffer a serious setback, Gabe said.

The Okinawan dollar-yen juggling act

Friday, Aug. 16, 2002

Seventh in an occasional series

THE OKINAWA FACTOR

Unique Moment in Monetary History

By MAYUMI NEGISHI Staff writer NAHA, Okinawa Pref. -- On Aug. 15, 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard and introduced floating exchange rates, sending the greenback plummeting.

Photo: Matsusho Miyazato, former deputy chief of the Ryukyu Government under U.S. rule, displays marked dollars Okinawans could exchange at the time of the 1972 reversion.

By the end of August, the U.S. currency fell more than 15 percent, to 305 yen from its 360 yen peg.

In Okinawa, residents panicked at news of the "Nixon shock." Less than a year later, the islands were to be returned to Japan following 27 years of de facto U.S. military rule.

At the time of the reversion, dollars in Okinawa had to be exchanged into yen, putting at risk $ 562 million in cash and assets residents held.

Despite being under U.S. rule, more than 80 percent of Okinawa's household goods were imported from the main Japanese archipelago, and the dollar's plunge threw cold water on Okinawa's celebration of its looming reversion, forcing it to face the risk of galloping inflation.

"Those Americans, they did it again. How much more do the Okinawan people have to suffer?" asked Matsusho Miyazato, then lieutenant chief of the Ryukyu Government.

Thus began a little-known episode in monetary history, in which Okinawa succeeded in securing financial aid amounting to 260.4 billion yen from the Japanese government for losses incurred when residents exchanged their dollars for yen on May 15, 1972.

Effectively, Japanese and Okinawan policymakers temporarily created a market protected from global monetary markets for the first -- and probably only -- time in international monetary history, pegging the dollar at 360 yen.

Recalling the unprecedented incident during a recent interview, Miyazato said he found an eager ally in Sadanori Yamanaka, then director general of the Prime Minister's Office, the predecessor to the current Cabinet Office.

Yamanaka was a Lower House member from Kagoshima Prefecture, where the Satsuma clan had its power base during the Edo Period. The awareness of how Satsuma had invaded and exploited the Ryukyu Kingdom in the feudal period haunted Yamanaka, Miyazato said.

"I have to atone for what Satsuma did to Okinawa. That thought is what drove me throughout the negotiations," Miyazato quoted Yamanaka as saying.

The guilt may have been potent, but it took sleepless nights and planning to come up with a scheme that would be effective in maintaining a fixed dollar rate in Okinawa.

Behind closed doors, Miyazato, Yamanaka and Michihiro Tanabe, an official at the Prime Minister's Office who was originally from the Finance Ministry, decided to first find a way to count dollars held by Okinawans and to somehow mark the bills.

Second, they decided to close the doors of all Okinawan financial institutions and copy records of deposit and loan accounts to confirm individual assets.

To prevent dollars from flooding into Okinawa from around the world, passengers on all incoming planes and ships carrying $ 500 or more were requested to temporarily leave their money with police while the money was counted.

Deciding what needed to be done was easy, but the question of how to mark the dollars was not fully resolved until almost the last minute.

"There was no room for failure; there would be no second chance," Miyazato said. "We had to mark the money somehow -- we thought about gluing all kinds of paper onto the dollars at first. Then we thought about sticking mint, celebratory stamps of Okinawa's reversion issued by the Ryukyu Government, on the dollars. We even thought about stamping the currency."

But what would the U.S. say about foreign-looking characters on their dollars? What if Americans refused to accept the notes? Would Okinawa be charged for destruction of currency and be made to pay damages?

With time running out, and despite having printed 50 million stamps for that purpose, Miyazato agreed to Yamanaka's suggestion that they use the eraser end of a pencil, dip it in red ink, and mark the counted dollars with little red dots. In this way, they could escape possible U.S. wrath by claiming the dollars were simply stained.

The stamps were eventually used on the certificates of confirmation given to Okinawans when their dollars were counted.

On Oct. 8, 1971, Ryukyu Government employees were each handed an envelope containing confirmation certificates, stamps for the certificates and red ink to mark $ 61.8 million worth of notes citizens had in their pockets, and another $ 500.1 million in assets at the bank.

In areas other than the main Okinawa island, employees waited to open their envelopes at 8 a.m., where they found instructions.

At the same time the soon-to-be-prefecture closed its banks' doors, the Japanese government plan to subsidize losses on dollars held by individuals in Okinawa was announced to the media.

The government provided financial support amounting to 968 billion yen for Okinawan importers of 330 daily household goods, on the promise that none of the losses incurred from a fallen dollar would be reflected on prices of their products.

The Bank of Japan, guardian of the currency, did not move a finger to stop the government.

Protests from the U.S. Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands that marking the currency "sullied the face of the United States of America" were silenced by a couple of phone calls.

"We threatened to tell the media of the failure of the U.S. to follow through on its responsibilities to its territory, and take adequate measures to insure Okinawa's smooth reversion," Miyazato said. "I don't know if it worked, but the complaints died."

Miyazato, who lost more than 5 kg during the ordeal, looked back on the months leading to reversion.

"It may have been bending the rules of monetary policy a little," he said. "But it was to protect the lives of Okinawans.

"In those days, it was considered a politician's job to employ problem-solving skills to protect the interests of the people," Miyazato said, criticizing politicians today as relying too much on precedents and foreign models.

"Japanese politicians today are too eager to please America and avoid doing anything that America might not like."

Finalization of Basic Plan [Futenma]

Taken Questions
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
July 30, 2002
Question Taken at Daily Press Briefing of July 29, 2002

Finalization of Basic Plan Concerning the Replacement Facility for Marine Corps Air Station Futenma

Question: What is your reaction to the approval by the Japanese of the Basic Plan for the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma?

Answer: The United States warmly welcomes the July 29 agreement by the Japanese Government, Okinawa Prefectural Government, and Nago City on a Basic Plan for replacing Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma, a United States military base in Okinawa, Japan, with a new facility near Nago City, Okinawa. Conclusion of this Basic Plan allows both sides to continue progress on planning for and constructing the new facility. Relocating MCAS Futenma is one of the prime elements of the 1996 Final Report of the Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO), which contained recommendations for reducing the impact of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. Under the SACO plan, the Japanese Government undertook to provide a replacement facility for the MCAS Futenma that meets our operation requirements. Over half of the Report’s recommendations have been implemented and we look forward to implementing the remainder.

With the finalization of the Basic Plan, our Japanese allies have taken an important step in making the relocation of MCAS Futenma a reality. The United States looks forward to continued close cooperation with the Japanese Government and Okinawan and local authorities as the relocation process continues.

Released on July 30, 2002

Okinawa drops bid to catch up, pitches own pace

Tuesday, July 2, 2002
By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer

THE OKINAWA FACTOR

Blue skies, blue seas and pure white sandy beaches -- a subtropical paradise and coral delight for divers.

Okinawa's exotic isles draw millions of tourists every year.

Tourism has long been a key industry since the prefecture's reversion from U.S. rule in 1972. But it was not necessarily the Okinawa government's priority as it pursued economic development over the past three decades.

Okinawa is now putting more emphasis on tourism, making promotion of the industry a top economic policy goal.

Although last year's terrorist attacks in the United States temporarily pushed down the number of visitors to Okinawa, the rate is now recovering, local officials and people in tourism say.

The prefecture is now preparing a new economic development plan for the next 10 years, shifting its focus from promotion of primary and manufacturing industries to tourism.

Some people say the shift reflects a recent rise in Okinawan pride in and awareness of its cultural identity, as well as rapid growth in revenues from tourists flocking from the mainland to the prefecture's resort islands.

Okinawa previously emphasized development of the manufacturing industry because it generates more added value than tourism, said Norikazu Higa of the prefecture's industry coordination section.

"The manufacturing industry has made a lot of efforts, but it has not grown as expected," Higa said. "Now we've decided to further build up the growing (tourism) industry."

According to the prefecture, sales of oil products, Okinawa's major industrial items shipped outside the prefecture, dropped from 121 billion yen in fiscal 1985 to 90.1 billion yen in fiscal 1999.

The share of oil products in Okinawa's ordinary revenues from outside the prefecture fell from 10 percent to 4.6 percent over that period.

During the same period, on the other hand, money from the tourism industry more than doubled, from 227.1 billion yen to 474.7 billion yen, accounting for 24.4 percent of the prefecture's total revenue from outside.

The latest 10-year program, unveiled in May and awaiting approval this month by a national government council, no longer advocates Okinawa "catching up" with the mainland. It instead calls for utilization of "comparative advantages" unique to Okinawa, such as its rich nature and proximity to other parts of Asia.

"Once we tried to catch up with the mainland, and we always looked in Tokyo's direction," said Yoshiro Shimoji, an official at the prefecture's tourism promotion bureau.

"But now we are very confident in things Okinawan. The situation is probably greatly different from seven or eight years ago," he said.

Since the reversion 30 years ago, one major item on Okinawan's agenda was to close the gap with mainland Japan. The prefecture has suffered high unemployment and an income level much lower than the national average.

But many Okinawans say their confidence in their home has greatly improved over the past decade, as their culture -- distinctly different from the rest of Japan -- became popular on the mainland as well as with local youths.

Several pop singers and groups from Okinawa, including Namie Amuro and SPEED, became top national stars in the 1990s. Many young musicians also started finding success playing songs combining traditional Okinawan music and rock.

The recent popular NHK TV drama "Chura-san," featuring life in Okinawa, also boosted tourism from the mainland.

Kimio Chinen, chief executive and president of local venture Lequios Airline Co., said the mind-set of many Okinawan people has changed from "how to catch up with the mainland" to "how to take advantage of our own characteristics."

Bolstering the growing confidence in Okinawa's culture and the tourism industry are the increasing revenues from mainland tourists despite intensifying competition with overseas destinations.

In the mid-1980s, the local tour industry seriously worried about competition with Hawaii and Guam, as the yen's value sharply rose, making overseas tours cheaper for Japanese.

But despite the explosion of overseas tourism, Okinawa has continued to be a popular destination for mainlanders. The number of visitors consistently increased throughout the 1990s, hitting a peak of 4.56 million in 1999.

Hiroshi Shimose, manager of domestic sales planning and marketing at Japan Airlines Co.'s passenger sales arm JAL Sales Network Co., said Okinawa-bound travelers are different from those going to Guam or Hawaii, who, especially young women, are mainly interested in duty-free shopping.

Travelers going to Okinawa seek to stay at a resort beach, he said.

Recently, package tours to Hawaii and Guam have drastically fallen in price as competition intensified among the travel and airline industries. But with its high-quality accommodations facilities, Okinawa has been sufficiently competitive and largely unaffected, Shimose said.

To further promote tourism, the latest development plan by the prefecture calls for the creation of facilities that can meet the more diversified needs of visitors.

Currently, about 200,000 foreigners visit Okinawa a year, accounting for about 4.4 percent of all arrivals.

To capitalize on Okinawa's proximity to other parts of Asia -- 30 minutes by plane to Taiwan, for example -- the prefecture is planning ad campaigns to lure visitors from Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea, and upgrading port facilities to accommodate more cruise liners.

Okinawa is also preparing a model course of eco-tourism to encourage visitors to stay longer and take in the islands' rich nature.

Okinawa's longevity rate, the highest in the nation, is another drawing card. The prefecture has launched a study into how the local diet and other conditions benefit people suffering from illnesses in an attempt to promote the area as a health resort for the elderly.

But the tourism industry is not immune from emergencies overseas, as highlighted by the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The U.S. forces in Okinawa went on high alert and security around the bases was tightened, a development widely reported by the nation's TV news programs.

Organizers of package tours to Okinawa, fearing the terrorist threat to airplanes as well as to the U.S. bases in Okinawa, rushed to cancel reservations.

According to the prefecture, at least 249,662 people in 2,130 groups canceled tours to Okinawa from October to mid-March.

In 2001, the total number of visitors dropped by 1.9 percent from the previous year to 4.43 million. Most of the decline was attributable to the cancellation of group tours, said Shimoji of the tourism promotion bureau.

It was the first significant fall in visitors in recent years, except a year earlier, when the 2000 Group of Eight summit was held in Nago. Tightened security and full booking of hotel rooms by summit participants discouraged mainlanders from coming.

Of the 249,662 people who canceled group tours, 198,306 were students planning to visit Okinawa on school-organized trips.

Fumihiko Kenmochi, research director at the Japan School Tours Bureau, a government-affiliated body specializing in research and coordination of school trips, said Japanese school principals have a group mentality, leaving the possibility always open of mass cancellations in the future.

"We received numerous phone inquiries from schools asking what other schools were doing (in reaction to the terrorist attacks). They always watch for the reaction of others," he said.

But he also said that over the long term, Okinawa will become increasingly popular for school trips because more schools are now trying to let students study a single theme during a tour, rather than simply visiting old temples in cities like Kyoto and Nara.

In that sense, Okinawa, the site of a fierce ground battle in early 1945, is a perfect place for groups to think about the issue of war and peace, he said.

According to the Japan School Tours Bureau, Okinawa was not even among the top 12 destinations in 1991 for high school trips.

But in 1999, Okinawa was ranked No. 3, trailing only Hokkaido and Kyoto, as more and more schools have chosen the prefecture despite the high travel costs.

The Japan School Tours Bureau coordinates airline reservations for high schools in Saitama and Tokyo. Both areas have already seen an increase in school trips to Okinawa so far this year compared with the same period of 2001, Kenmochi said.

According to the Okinawa Prefectural Government, total arrivals have also fully recovered, numbering 1.57 million from January to April, up 2.5 percent from the same period a year earlier.

School taps into popularity of jobs at U.S. facilities

Friday, May 17, 2002
By TAKUYA ASAKURA

Seventh in an occasional series

THE OKINAWA FACTOR

Employment vs. Base Opposition

Staff writer NAHA, Okinawa Pref. -- Growing up near Kadena Air Base and witnessing the rough antics of American soldiers, Yasuhiko Toyozato could be forgiven if he harbored negative feelings toward U.S. forces here.

But like many unemployed Okinawans, he now sees the bases as a kind of oasis.

In October, a school opened here to help the growing number of Japanese seeking civilian jobs at U.S. military facilities.

"I understood the feeling of being jobless for the first time," said Toyozato, 43, who has been out of work since quitting in October for personal reasons. "You keep worrying about what you will be doing in the future and cannot sleep at night."

Students at the school are taught English conversation, military jargon, base etiquette and any other skills that improve their chances of landing a job.

Toyozato, a student at the school, is preparing to apply for work in May.

The private school is believed to be the first vocational school in Okinawa specially designed for people seeking jobs at military bases.

"Working at U.S. bases is a great opportunity for people in Okinawa," said Mitsuru Akamine, representative of Kokusai Kyoiku Gakuin, or the U.S. Military Employment School.

"Whether it is right or wrong, we have military bases here, and there is no reason for not taking advantage of them," he said, referring to the vast area occupied by the U.S. military -- nearly 20 percent of the main island of Okinawa.

Amid the protracted economic slump, Okinawa has the nation's highest unemployment rate, up to 8.4 percent in 2001. Despite widely perceived antibase sentiment, the U.S. military is the second-largest employer after the prefectural government, hiring around 8,500 Japanese civilian workers.

Thanks to relatively good working conditions and high salaries, the competition for base jobs is fierce. Last year, 27,961 people applied for 746 positions, according to the Japanese government. Opportunities exist for doctors, secretaries, cooks, bartenders, drivers, engineers and carpenters.

Salaries are set at the same level as national government employees. Although salaries are covered by Japanese taxpayer money, the right to manage base workers belongs to the military.

The U.S. military does not discriminate by age and gender for employment and promotion, which is another reason the bases attract Japanese workers, Akamine, 42, said.

"There are people who even study at graduate school in the United States to be employed at bases here," he said.

Despite the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks putting U.S. bases on high alert soon after it started to accept applications, the U.S. Military Employment School is apparently doing well.

Courses started as scheduled in October with 150 students, according to school officials. Enrollment has since soared to 270.

But some still hold mixed feelings about being employed by the U.S. military.

Born and raised near an entertainment district catering mostly to black American soldiers in downtown Koza, today's Okinawa City, Toyozato recalled that American soldiers were very wild during the Vietnam War.

He said they often broke into his grandfather's grocery store to steal, or sometimes to hide from pursuing mobs.

Toyozato also witnessed white soldiers beaten by a group of black soldiers, saying he recognized the racial problems that plagued the U.S. military.

"I was too young to understand the controversy over the U.S. bases," he said. "I was just scared of Americans."

His views changed when his older sister married an American service member. While the brother-in-law was stationed here, he spent time with Toyozato's family on weekends.

"I felt like I saw an American soldier in person for the first time," he said.

But Toyozato still has "mixed feelings" over the fact that many people depend on military bases for job opportunities in Okinawa, where the scars of war are still fresh for many older people.

Such emotional dilemmas, however, appear to be fading for younger people.

"Perceptions toward U.S. bases among younger generations has changed, and bases are simply places for employment for many of them," said Kiyoshi Tamaki, chairman at Okinawa District Headquarters of All Japan Garrison Forces Labor Union, or Zenchuro.

Zenchuro's Okinawa headquarters, which has around 6,500 Japanese base employee members, began calling for the withdrawal of the U.S. military from the prefecture in 1971, shortly before Okinawa's reversion to Japan.

The move illustrated the plight of Okinawans torn between a wish for an island without a military and the lure of base jobs.

In 1997, the Okinawa union decided to drop the slogan of "withdrawal of bases" from its campaign policy. Frustration then increased among younger union members, who favored the withdrawal issue over job security, said Tamaki, who has led the union for several decades.

Despite the complaints, Tamaki, who worked at Kadena Air Base during the 1960s and has seen how Japanese workers were treated under U.S. rule, boasts that the current "good labor conditions at bases" are the fruits of a long struggle.

As a result of U.S. occupation of the island prefecture, some residents were driven out of their houses and farms, which were replaced by bases. Many Okinawans then had no choice but to work at the military facilities.

During the occupation period to 1972, Okinawan base employees were at the bottom of the social hierarchy -- American service personnel at the top, followed by American civilians, and employees from other countries such as the Philippines, Tamaki said.

They were often fired without rational reasons if they confronted their American bosses, prompting the union to campaign for Okinawa's reversion to Japanese governance so the rights of base workers would be protected under Japan's Constitution, Tamaki said.

A series of massive dismissals of Japanese workers around 1972 also fueled the union's campaign.

The number of base employees decreased from around 20,000 to 8,500 during the five years after reversion -- although the total area of U.S. facilities in the prefecture was barely reduced during that period, according to statistics provided by the prefectural government.

Because he sees reduction and realignment of U.S. military facilities in Okinawa as a matter of course, Tamaki said it's important that the union gain public understanding in demanding government job-security measures.

"Whether we are for or against U.S. bases, base workers will be fired at the convenience of the U.S. military," he warned.

Though the union no longer officially demands the withdrawal of U.S. bases, it still plans to actively participate in various campaigns to fight against crime and accidents involving the U.S. military and its personnel.

"Our rights were won hand in hand with the citizens of Okinawa as we walked the same path of history," Tamaki said. "Though our situation may seem contradictory, I believe encouraging (base employees) to fight alongside people in Okinawa will eventually force the government to hammer out more effective employment measures."

Three-day Okinawa peace march expected to draw 10,000

Friday, May 17, 2002

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. (Kyodo) A three-day peace march started in Okinawa on Thursday, a day after the 30th anniversary of the prefecture's 1972 reversion to Japan, organizers said.

About 1,500 people from across the country took to the streets on the first day of the May 15 Peace March.

The march started from three places -- the Nago and Naha city government offices and the Henoko district in Nago, where an airport will be built to replace Futenma Marine Corps Air Station.

About 10,000 people from citizens' groups and labor organizations nationwide are expected to join the march during its three days.

"I want to keep walking in this march as long as I am alive," Osaka resident Kenichi Nakamoto, 90, said at the opening ceremony in front of the Naha Municipal Government office. "Let's walk to call for the elimination of war."

The marchers later headed for the site in the southern part of Okinawa Island where the fiercest battle in the World War II campaign was fought, calling for the removal of U.S. bases in the prefecture.

Kadena Air Base, the largest U.S. Air Force base in East Asia, and a peace park in the prefecture are also on the march's 50-km itinerary.

After finishing at the Ginowan Park on Sunday afternoon, marchers will hold a protest rally against a package of three bills for emergency legislation governing Japan's response to a military attack, the organizers said.

Love-hate ties bind Okinawans, U.S. military

Thursday, May 16, 2002
By TAKUYA ASAKURA

Sixth in an occasional series

THE OKINAWA FACTOR

Islanders forge enduring relationships with American personnel but are angered by crimes

Staff writer OKINAWA CITY, Okinawa Pref. -- Many former American soldiers who once stayed at the Diego Hotel near the U.S. Kadena Air Base here regard the hotel's manager with a reverence usually reserved for their own mothers.

Yet they are probably unaware of some of the bitter memories harbored by the 71-year-old Takako Miyagi.

Miyagi said she just received another call from a former American guest who stayed at the hotel about 25 years ago and still refers to her as "Mama-san."

She said she remembers the homesick soldier sobbing on the stairs of the hotel after the Vietnam War.

He has called her almost every year since he returned to the U.S., although Miyagi said she does not understand his English very well.

Despite the bloody confrontation with U.S. forces, Okinawa's postwar occupation and problems involving U.S. military personnel even after its reversion to Japan, many residents of Okinawa have built warm friendships with U.S. soldiers over the past half century.

Some outsiders are puzzled therefore when this apparent affability is offset by the islanders' explicit anger toward members of the U.S. military over various crimes and misdemeanors.

Okinawans say, however, that these two faces constitute no contradiction given the history of the prefecture, which has always been forced to pander to the whims of Tokyo and Washington.

Miyagi has never forgotten April 2, 1945 -- the day after the U.S. forces landed on the main island.

Before dawn, Miyagi, then 14 and staying in an underground shelter, was told a shocking piece of news by her aunt.

While trying to lay their hands on some food, her mother and grandfather had been shot by American soldiers who had occupied their home.

Miyagi immediately set out from the shelter with her grandmother on a rescue mission.

"I was too young to be scared," she said. "And I was taught that the Japanese army was strong and Japan always wins."

She later learned that the Imperial Japanese Army had already retreated in the face of the U.S. landing.

As the pair approached the house, Miyagi's grandmother was shot dead.

Fortunately, Miyagi managed to hide under a bush and was not spotted by U.S. troops. She spent the whole day under the bush, holding her breath.

After darkness fell, Miyagi ran back to the shelter, bullets whizzing past her head.

When she finally reached the dugout where her young brother and relatives were waiting, she burst into tears.

Miyagi could not recover the bodies of her mother and grandparents. She instead retrieved pebbles from the ground where they were killed and placed them in their graves instead of ashes.

During the final throes of World War II, Okinawans were forced to sacrifice themselves to defend the Japanese mainland. Okinawa eventually lost about a quarter of its population in the ensuing battles.

"That is how the citizens of Okinawa fought," wrote Rear Adm. Minoru Ota of the Imperial Japanese Navy in his final telegram to Tokyo before his suicide. "(I hope they) are granted special consideration in the future."

During the postwar U.S. rule of Okinawa, Miyagi, like many Okinawans in the central part of the island, initially had no choice but to work on a U.S. base.

That was until she opened the Diego Hotel in 1958 with her late husband.

And yet, she said, she did not mind serving members of the U.S. military.

"Individual soldiers were not responsible (for the death of my family)," she said, adding that she does not know why she feels this way.

"We were tamed by them as they gave us food when we had nothing."

During the Vietnam War, she shined U.S. soldiers' muddy shoes when they returned from the battlefields on leave.

The young soldiers looked sad when they were sent back to Vietnam.

"I was sad because they looked so sad," she said.

"I like them personally" was a common answer uttered by many Okinawans when asked for their views on U.S. soldiers.

Many Okinawans viewed the American soldiers as being frank, easygoing and family-loving -- traits generally shared by Okinawans themselves.

Discontent over human rights infringements suffered under U.S. military rule was smoldering, however, among the local populace.

Instead of the "special consideration" specified by Adm. Ota, Tokyo approved U.S. rule of Okinawa under the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty.

A 1947 letter sent by Emperor Showa to the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces also shows that he hoped the United States would continue its military occupation of Okinawa to defend both Japan and the U.S. from the threat posed by the Soviet Union.

During 27 years of U.S. military rule, private property was confiscated and used for military facilities, while residents suffered violence and fatal accidents at the hands of U.S. service personnel.

Local police officers were powerless to counter the latter.

In December 1970, a minor car accident involving members of the U.S. military and a local man in Koza -- known today as Okinawa City -- led to an unprecedented riot.

Photo: People stand by the burned vehicles of U.S. service personnel the morning after the Koza riot of Dec. 20, 1970.

A throng of local people surrounded the American driver, his passengers and military police who tried to clear the scene, accusing them of trying to evade charges.

This flash point came a week after a military court had acquitted an American service member of fatally running over a local woman in his car while drinking and breaking the speed limit.

Incidents of vandalism were triggered by warning shots fired by the MPs, with locals burning some 80 vehicles owned by Americans throughout the night.

Photo: Locals turn over the car of an American soldier before torching it during the riot.

The victim had eight children and had long looked after her sick husband.

In addition to the thousands of traffic accidents caused by U.S. service personnel, local police in 1970 were thwarted by the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement when they tried to arrest a U.S. soldier who brutally raped and stabbed a local high school girl.

Ko Yoshioka, a photographer who witnessed the vandalism in Koza, said it was "a struggle for Okinawans to retrieve their pride as humans."

Many people here still talk about the riot with pride.

This is partly because the frenzied rioters somehow retained some semblance of discipline, only burning vehicles carrying yellow license plates that identified them as being owned by U.S. service personnel.

Author Chihiro Isa, who depicted the riot scenes in his award-winning book "Enjo" ("Burning,") described the riot as a "one-night feast."

This was because the rioters vanished before dawn and returned to the world of U.S. rule the next day.

Okinawa's reversion to Japanese rule came about shortly after the riot. In contrast to the expectations of Okinawans, however, most of the U.S. bases remained and their green lawns still stretch through the central part of the prefecture even today.

The number of brutal crimes and tragic accidents involving military personnel gradually decreased after the 1972 reversion, but Japanese authorities are still bound by the SOFA treaty.

About a decade after the reversion, Isa remembers that an editor employed by a major Tokyo publisher asked him why Okinawans could not understand that Japan's prosperity -- including that of Okinawa -- is founded on the Japan-U.S. security alliance.

"Why don't you say it at a bar in Naha?" he responded.

"Whom do you think you owe for what you call economic prosperity? Isn't it the people on the mainland who rest on the sacrifice of Okinawa citizens?"

The anger and frustrations of Okinawans exploded again in 1995, when a 12-year-old girl was kidnapped and raped by three American soldiers.

The U.S. military refused at that time to hand over suspects to Japanese authorities before indictment under SOFA.

Tokyo has repeatedly shrugged off pleas by Okinawa for revisions to the bilateral agreement.

"Please give us back the quiet Okinawa, the island without military, and without tragedy," said Sugako Nakamura, then a senior at Ginowan High School near Futenma Air Station, to nearly 80,000 residents who gathered at the city's beach park in 1995 to protest the rape.

Nakamura said that she was chosen to represent Okinawa high school students at the rally accidentally.

She also appears in the documentary "Guntai no Nai Kuni" ("A Country Without Military,"), centering on Costa Rica, which has abandoned its own military since 1949. The film is now touring independent cinemas across the nation.

"I was just curious if the 'country without military' is really possible," she said, citing the reason behind her decision to accept the offer to appear in the film.

Nakamura used to live near the air station.

"Your television cannot be heard on full volume" while helicopters fly in formation, she said.

People on the mainland say the U.S. bases are there to bolster the "bilateral alliance" and "peace in the region," but Nakamura feels such views are phony.

"There are all kinds of opinions among the people of Okinawa, too," she said. "But at least there is no one who feels that they are protected by U.S. bases."

In fact, she added, many people on the mainland have canceled their trips to Okinawa, fearing terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Though Nakamura personally feels a distance between herself and activists who shake their fists and shout loud antimilitary slogans, she understands why people must adopt such confrontational positions to get their voices heard.

"We have no choice but to obey what the Japanese government and people on the mainland decide," she said.

"There are a lot of grandpas and grandmas in Okinawa still suffering pain from their experiences in the war. I wish we could bring back the islands of peace while they are alive."

Inamine again calls on state to address Okinawa burden

Thursday, May 16, 2002

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. (Kyodo) Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the island prefecture's reversion to Japan, Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine on Wednesday urged the national government to reduce the heavy concentration of U.S. military bases there.

Okinawa was returned to Japan on May 15, 1972, after 27 years under U.S. military rule.

Inamine used the anniversary to renew the prefecture's call for solutions to its problems, including the U.S. military bases, the slow progress of industrial development and an unemployment rate of nearly 9 percent, Japan's highest.

"I am filled with deep emotion as I look back at the prefecture's path, which has not been smooth in any way," he said in a prepared statement.

Inamine vowed to urge the national government to make its utmost effort to solve the bases problem.

"I will seize every opportunity to call for a solution to the issue and say the burden of such U.S. military bases should be equally shouldered by all Japanese people," the statement said.

Okinawa accounts for only 0.6 percent of Japan's total land mass but hosts about 75 percent of the land used by U.S. military facilities in the country.

To mark the 30th anniversary, the prefectural and national governments will hold a joint ceremony Sunday at the Okinawa Convention Center in Ginowan. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. Ambassador Howard Baker are expected to be there.

Inamine said at a news conference in Naha that he hopes the ceremony will be a "cause for celebration" as well as an opportunity for people to reflect and "re-examine the various issues concerning Okinawa."

Okinawa, the scene of a fierce ground battle in World War II before Japan surrendered in 1945, was under U.S. military control from the end of the war until 1972.

Nuclear pact ensured smooth Okinawa reversion

Wednesday, May 15, 2002
By ERIC JOHNSTON

Fifth in an occasional series

THE OKINAWA FACTOR

Secret agreement on transport and storage of weapons exacted high toll in terms of public trust

Staff writer On Nov. 21, 1969, President Richard Nixon met with Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in Washington to discuss an extremely delicate issue.

Photo: The cave on Chichijima Island was used to store U.S. nuclear weapons in the 1950s and '60s, while nuclear arms were also kept at U.S. bases in Okinawa until its reversion in 1972.

With the reversion of Okinawa looming, the United States was anxious to secure secret permission from Tokyo to continue to have the option of bringing nuclear weapons into Okinawa, even after the islands had been returned to Japan.

But Sato, who had publicly declared that Japan would adhere to the principles of not possessing, manufacturing or introducing such weapons in Japan, was in a bind. Japanese public opposition to nuclear weapons was strong and the last thing he wanted was to inflame domestic opinion.

The result of the Nixon-Sato meeting was a secret agreement that would allow the U.S. to bring in and transit nuclear weapons through Okinawa after the islands were handed over.

If it were not for this secret agreement, political scientists believe, the reversion could not have been achieved as smoothly as it was.

The agreement was not made public until Kei Wakaizumi, a professor of international relations at Kyoto Sangyo University, published his memoirs in 1994, elaborating on his experiences as a special emissary for Sato.

"It is the intention of the United States government to remove all nuclear weapons from Okinawa by the time of actual reversion. However, the United States government also requires the standby retention and activation in time of great emergencies of existing nuclear storage locations in Okinawa," Wakaizumi's memoirs revealed. His book was titled "Tasaku nakarishi-o shinzemu-to hossu" ("I wish I could believe there were no other options.")

Sato and Nixon agreed that the secret paper be kept only in the offices of the U.S. president and Japan's prime minister and be treated in the strictest confidence between only the very top leaders of the two governments, according to the memoirs.

The agreement confirmed what many Japanese had long suspected, but the government, particularly the Foreign Ministry, had always denied -- that the U.S. stored nuclear weapons in and transported them through Okinawa in direct violation of Japan's nonnuclear principles.

By the time Wakaizumi, who died in 1996, had revealed the existence of the secret Nixon-Sato agreement, many classified documents pertaining to U.S. nuclear weapons in Okinawa during the Cold War were coming to light.

As Robert Eldridge, a specialist in postwar Okinawan-U.S. relations at Osaka University, points out, recently declassified diplomatic cables and top secret memos between U.S. and Japanese officials clearly show that American nuclear weapons were present in and around Okinawa long before the Sato-Nixon summit.

"U.S. aircraft carriers were bringing nuclear weapons into Japanese ports in the 1950s with the tacit approval of the Japanese government and bases on Okinawa were storing nuclear weapons," the American academic said. "When the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty discussions were taking place in the late 1950s, the continued ability of the U.S. to deploy nuclear weapons was a major point of contention."

The result of negotiations over the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1959 and early 1960 was an agreement that allowed the U.S. to bring nuclear weapons into Japan without having to first spend time discussing the issue with the Japanese government.

The secret held for two decades until May 1981, when former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer admitted that a verbal agreement had been made in the 1960 talks that Japan would allow U.S. warships with nuclear weapons access to Japanese ports and territorial waters.

Despite Reischauer's comments, and those of other U.S. officials who backed him, the Japanese government strongly denied that such an agreement existed.

Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki specifically said there was no such agreement. Foreign Minister Sunao Sonoda, during questioning in the Diet on the issue, blew up, saying that "Reischauer is an uncalled-for meddler who pokes his nose into matters that are none of his business."

The Japanese government continued to deny Reischauer's claim, citing a lack of written evidence for a verbal agreement.

Finally, in the late 1990s, the U.S. government declassified material that was touted by scholars and opposition party leaders as the "smoking gun."

In a document titled "Record of Discussion," dated June 20, 1959, U.S. and Japanese officials agreed that the section of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty that reads "major changes in the deployment into Japan of United States forces and major changes in their equipment . . . shall be the subjects of prior consultation," means "the introduction into Japan of nuclear weapons, including intermediate and long-range missiles, as well as the construction of bases for such weapons."

The treaty itself, with this provision understood by both sides, was signed on Jan. 6, 1960.

"Here, though, we come to another important point," Eldridge said. "The word used by the Japanese side for 'introduce' was not 'dounyu' but 'mochikomu,' which is usually translated into English as 'to bring in.' This allowed the U.S. to store weapons on Okinawa, then under U.S. control, and have nuclear weapons on ships in transit or docked in Japanese ports, as it was understood by both sides that such actions did not violate the meaning of 'mochikomu.'

"The end result was that both sides could say they were adhering to the letter of the treaty, while continuing to use Okinawa as a nuclear weapons base."

And Okinawa, with it's geographically strategic location, was especially convenient for storing nuclear weapons.

"Okinawa's value is enhanced by the absence of any legal restrictions on American free access to or use of the bases, which permits storage of nuclear weapons," says a National Security Council report from 1969.

Declassified documents from National Security Archives in 1999 show hydrogen bombs, short and intermediate-range nuclear missiles, and smaller bombs were regularly brought in and out of Okinawa between the early 1950s and 1972.

Which raises the question of where U.S. nuclear weapons were actually stored.

Kadena, in central Okinawa, was a major storage facility for air-based nuclear warheads in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as nuclear missiles. Iwo Jima was used for storing nuclear weapons used by naval ships; the U.S. Navy wanted a secret base where such weapons could be loaded in a hurry, according to various declassified reports from the U.S. military and the State Department.

In addition to the Okinawan islands, it was learned only in 1999 that Chichijima, one of the Ogasawara Islands, briefly played host to various kinds of nuclear devices, including nuclear-tipped warheads, in the mid-1950s and mid-1960s. Like the Iwo Jima base, the Chichijima facility was designed as an emergency nuclear weapons storehouse that could be accessed quickly by the U.S. Navy.

The secrecy surrounding the U.S. nuclear presence on Okinawa and Japan was encouraged all the more by U.S. policy regarding public questions on the issue, which was to "neither confirm nor deny" -- a policy that continues to this day.

U.S. officials say that all nuclear weapons were removed from Okinawa when it returned to Japan in 1972. In addition, while official U.S. general policy since 1993 has been not to carry nuclear weapons aboard surface ships, attack submarines and naval aircraft, the U.S. will not confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard a specific ship, submarine or aircraft.

Although many in the U.S. and Japan saw this policy as necessary in the midst of the Cold War, the secrecy of both governments has exacted a high toll in terms of public trust in Japan.

During the mid-1960s, as the Vietnam War escalated and Okinawa became more important, concerns were particularly strong that a nuclear weapons-laden ship would either trigger a nuclear war or be involved in an accident.

In 1989, fears about an accident appeared to have been justified when a declassified U.S. Navy report revealed that an accident involving nuclear weapons had taken place on a warship about 130 km off the coast of Okinawa.

On Dec. 1, 1965, the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga, heading toward Yokosuka after operations in Vietnam, conducted an exercise in which an aircraft was loaded with a hydrogen bomb.

While the plane was being transferred to the flight deck, however, its brakes failed and the plane, with the bomb still attached, rolled overboard and sank to a depth of about 5,000 meters. U.S. media reports indicate that the bomb was later recovered.

The revelation that both an accident had occurred so close to the coast and that the ship continued to Yokosuka with weapons aboard shocked and outraged many Japanese.

In the 1990s, as more documents related to secret U.S. negotiations over the reversion of Okinawa became available, the extent of the U.S. nuclear presence in both Okinawa and Japan, and the extent to which both countries sought to mislead the public, became much clearer, fueling even more anger and distrust.

"The legacy of the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons on Okinawa until reversion in 1972, and the revelations of secret agreements concerning those weapons, have left a deep reservoir of doubt among many ordinary Okinawans of current U.S. military intentions on Okinawa and of the future status of the bases," Eldridge said.

"While it may seem to be an historical issue, it is directly related to the political challenges facing a host of U.S.-Japan bilateral security issues."

Handover of Okinawa to Japan was prickly issue

Tuesday, May 14, 2002
By SAYURI DAIMON

Fourth in an occasional series

THE OKINAWA FACTOR

U.S. military, political interests 30 years ago affected assistance, control of former Ryukyu

Staff writer Tsuyoshi Sakurai remembers when Japan allocated 1 billion yen to Okinawa in its first financial assistance package in fiscal 1962, when the islands of the Ryukyus were still under U.S. rule.

"Until 1961, the U.S. never allowed us to provide money to Okinawa. They feared that the Okinawans would look toward Tokyo, instead of the U.S., if we provided money," said Sakurai, 67, who worked on Okinawan issues from 1965 through the early 1980s as an official of the Prime Minister's Office and the Okinawa Development Agency.

Photo: Signs celebrating Okinawa's reversion to Japan hang over the main street in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, in this photo dated May 15, 1972.

President John F. Kennedy greenlighted the initiation of financial assistance in 1961, and by 1972, when Okinawa reverted back to Japanese rule, the budget allocation had snowballed to 45 billion yen.

In 1969, Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and President Richard Nixon agreed to the reversion, and on May 15, 1972, Okinawa was returned to Japan after 27 years under U.S. administrative control.

"By 1968, the amount that we allocated to Okinawa exceeded that of the budget provided by the U.S., and the U.S. must have lost legitimacy to keep the islands under their rule as Okinawa received more money from the Japanese government," Sakurai said.

'Abandoned children'

In the 1960s, sentiment in Okinawa was already moving toward reverting to Japanese rule.

The growing antibase movement spurred the two governments to negotiate on the issue, according to experts and various declassified documents. The fluid international political situation in the midst of the Cold War also played a pivotal role in pushing the U.S. to accept Japan's longtime plea.

Okinawa, then called Ryukyu, was handed to the U.S. under the memorandum announced by the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in 1946. It was officially separated from Japanese rule by the San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed by Japan and 48 other nations on Sept. 8, 1951.

"Okinawans must have felt like abandoned children," Sakurai said. "Okinawa was virtually under U.S. military control as its high commissioner, the top administrative authority of Ryukyu, had to be a U.S. military officer on the active list."

The plight of Okinawans is reflected in remarks made in 1963 by Paul Caraway, then U.S. High Commissioner for Ryukyu, who criticized the Ryukyu government for wanting to expand its autonomy.

Okinawa's autonomy should be no stronger than that of a state in the U.S., he reportedly said.

As Japan moved toward economic expansion in the 1960s, the economic disparity between Okinawa and the mainland grew, fueling resentment among Okinawans.

"The pressures have built up in both Japan and Okinawa to the point where I can see virtually no hope of stalling off beyond the end of next year a decision on the timing of reversion, although the actual return would take place later," wrote Richard L. Sneider, then minister in charge of Okinawa issues at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, in a report to William Bundy, assistant secretary of state, on Dec. 24, 1968.

The victory of leftist opposition candidate Chobyo Yara in the election for chief executive of the Ryukyu government earlier that year appears to have added to the concerns of the U.S.

"The potential for an incident involving an open clash between demonstrators and American military forces protecting our bases is much higher today than ever before," Sneider warned in the report.

Shunji Yanai, a former ambassador to the U.S. who was directly involved in negotiations on the reversion of Okinawa, said Japanese officials also told the U.S. that it would be in the U.S. interest to return Okinawa to Japan.

"We told the U.S. that if the U.S. occupation of Okinawa continues, it would fuel anti-American feeling among Japanese people, seriously impacting on the overall Japan-U.S. relationship," said Yanai, who was an official of the Foreign Ministry's Treaties Bureau at the time.

A thorn in the U.S. side

According to Masaaki Gabe, a professor at Ryukyu University, the U.S. was also concerned about the possible termination of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, which would become possible after 1970 -- 10 years after the treaty went into force.

Under the terms of the treaty, either party may give notice a year in advance of its intention to terminate.

"The U.S. State Department feared it may endanger the security treaty with Japan if it insisted too much on maintaining the free use of U.S. bases in Okinawa," Gabe said. "In the eyes of Tokyo and Washington, the Okinawa issue became too much of a thorn in the side of the Japan-U.S. relationship."

The changing face of international politics in Asia at that time also appears to have reduced the strategic importance of Okinawa to the U.S. military.

The U.S. began moving toward returning Okinawa after the election in 1968 of Nixon, who called for a reduction of U.S. forces in Vietnam, according to Gabe.

Between around 1968 and early 1969, U.S. bombers frequently departed for Vietnam from Okinawa, but as aerial bombing proved to be ineffective, the U.S. military began to ease its stance on Okinawa, he said. In early 1972, Nixon declared that the U.S. military would pull out of Vietnam.

Documents dated prior to 1968 confirm Gabe's account.

In 1967, then Prime Minister Sato and President Lyndon Johnson agreed to keep the problem under joint review.

Johnson said he understood Sato's interest in agreeing on a reversion date within a few years.

However, at that meeting, according to a document later declassified by the U.S. State Department, "the Japanese were advised, more confidentially, that due to the U.S. 1968 election and Vietnam, the U.S. government was unable to give an answer on Okinawa before 1969 at the earliest and that there were both problems of military (e.g. nuclear) requirements and congressional opposition to deal with."

The U.S. finds a new friend

Yanai, now a professor of law at Chuo University, pointed out that the U.S. rapprochement with China in the early 1970s may also have influenced the U.S. decision at that time.

Henry Kissinger made a surprise visit to China in 1971 as a special envoy of Nixon, paving the way for Nixon's visit there the following year.

At the time, Japan was unaware of the U.S. policy shift, Yanai said, adding that it is possible that the U.S. was already moving to improve relations with China simultaneously with talks on the Okinawa reversion to Japan.

"In retrospect, the U.S. must have already been aiming to improve ties with China, and it is also related to the end of the Vietnam War," he said.

"Though the Cold War was still continuing at that time, the underlying international situation surrounding Okinawa was moving in such a direction (of detente)."

As a result, Nixon and Sato reached an agreement in November 1969 to work toward the reversion of Okinawa to Japan by as early as 1972.

Conditional return

According to Yanai, Japan's policy throughout the negotiations was to win back Okinawa without nuclear weapons and at the so-called homeland level, meaning the U.S. bases on Okinawa would be restricted to the same level as those on the mainland, as outlined in the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.

The U.S. agreed to reduce the number of bases within about 1 1/2 years of the 1969 agreement. All nuclear weapons were removed from Okinawa when it was returned to Japan in 1972.

In return, the Japanese government shouldered the $ 320 million in reversion costs, including the transferal of U.S. assets in Okinawa to Japan and the removal of nuclear weapons.

"Considering the removal of nuclear weapons from Okinawa, we made a highly political decision of paying $ 320 million to the U.S.," Yanai said.

Sakurai, who was transferred to the Naha office of the Okinawa Development Agency immediately after the reversion, said various opinion polls at the time showed that the jubilant locals were most happy about the fact that they no longer needed a passport to visit the mainland.

"Many people don't realize it, but Japan was also a nation divided into two by the tragedy of history," Sakurai said.

Japan plans 'world's best scientific university'

By CLIVE COOKSON
Published: May 13, 2002

OKINAWA TO BE SITE OF Dollars 600m PROJECT:

Japan is planning to set up "the world's best scientific university" from scratch on the subtropical island of Okinawa, in the most ambitious proposal to build a new university that the world of higher education has seen for many years.

The Japanese government estimates that the Okinawa graduate university will cost Dollars 600m (Pounds 409m) to build and Dollars 160m a year to run. It will focus on "integrated biology" - bringing different scientific disciplines together to study complex biological systems.

The language of the new institution will be English and more than half the researchers will come from outside Japan. It will be "at the centre of a global network of outstanding institutions around the world", says Koji Omi, the Japanese science minister, "and it will collaborate closely with industry."

Mr Omi, who is the university's principal proponent, has toured research institutes in the US, the UK and Singapore and consulted widely with western scientists in drawing up the plans for the project. Those who have heard about it are enthusiastic.

"This is a really audacious enterprise," says Gregory Verdine, chemistry professor at Harvard University in the US. "We have not seen a university project in the life sciences on this scale in our lifetimes."

David Secher, director of research services at Cambridge University, says: "It is an imaginative and visionary plan. If they invest on the intended scale, they will create something entirely new - with global significance."

Legislation to set up the university passed the Japanese parliament last month, though the funding is not yet secure.

"Prime minister (Junichiro) Koizumi strongly supports the institute," says Mr Omi. "I am confident that it will be ready to begin research in September 2005 and accept graduate students in 2006."

Mr Omi has several reasons for promoting the project. One is that his ministerial portfolio includes Okinawa in addition to science. He believes the project will do wonders for the development of the island, which was handed back to Japan in 1972 after 27 years of US military administration.

It will make Okinawa "the highest-level intellectual cluster in the Asia-Pacific region", he says.

Another objective is to shake up Japan's academic sector, where bright younger researchers are held back by a rigid seniority system. The new institution will be set up outside the existing university system and "will be completely free of bureaucratic interference" from the Japanese government, Mr Omi says.

An important factor in the university's success will be the choice of president. "They must hire a recognised international leader in the world of science," Prof Verdine says.

He believes bright researchers from leading US and European institutions will be happy to move to Okinawa, either on short-term visiting fellowships or long-term contracts.

"No one will lack for funds," Prof Verdine says. "Don't underestimate the appeal of not having to fill in those odious grant renewals."