Japan to present its views on U.S. military realignment

Japan Policy & Politics, August 30, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 Kyodo

Japan told the United States on Friday it will compile and present its views on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, a Japanese official said.

At talks between senior Japanese and U.S. officials, Japan also lodged a series of requests about the Aug. 13 crash of a U.S. military helicopter in Okinawa Prefecture, including the suspension of flights using the same model of chopper. But the United States replied that the requests will be handled by U.S. forces in Japan, the official told reporters.

The Japanese officials who visited Washington are Kazuki Iihara, director general of the Defense Agency's Defense Policy Bureau, and Shin Ebihara, director general of the Foreign Ministry's North American Affairs Bureau.

They held separate talks with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Deputy Defense Undersecretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Lawless and Michael Green, senior director for Asia at the White House's National Security Council.

At the talks, Japan told the United States it will convey its opinions on the realignment of U.S. troops in Japan, and the U.S. side expressed willingness to wait for Japan's views, including its responses to U.S. ideas, according to the Japanese official.

The official said Japan did not mention a deadline for Japan to present its views and declined to comment on the ideas put forward so far by the United States.

The senior Japanese and U.S. officials agreed that the two countries will continue talks on the realignment issue with an eye to the maintenance of the U.S. deterrent and a reduction in the burden shouldered by Japanese communities hosting U.S. military bases, he said.

The United States is promoting a global military posture review to transform U.S. troops geared for the Cold War era so it can better cope with new threats such as global terrorism.

As part of the review, the U.S. military is reportedly floating various ideas on a realignment of U.S. troops in Japan, including relocating some Marines in Okinawa to other parts of Japan and transferring the headquarters of the U.S. Army's I Corps from Fort Lewis in the state of Washington to Camp Zama in Kanagawa Prefecture.

Japan asked the United States to thoroughly investigate the cause of the helicopter crash and take measures to prevent a similar accident, the Japanese official said.

Japan also urged the United States to suspend flights of CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters until it fully explains what caused the chopper to crash, he said.

Lt. Gen. Thomas Waskow, the commander of U.S. forces in Japan, will deal with those requests, the senior U.S. officials were quoted as saying.

A U.S. Marine Corps CH-53D helicopter crashed on the campus of Okinawa International University adjacent to the Futemma Air Station in the city of Ginowan, injuring three crew members. No one on the ground was hurt.

The U.S. Marine Corps has said the accident was due to a missing part in the helicopter itself, rather than a problem related to the model. It resumed flights of the CH-53D helicopters last Sunday.

[ Futenma ]

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: In favour of Marine Corps moves on Okinawa

By Wallace C Gregson, Financial Times
Published: Aug 27, 2004

From Lt Gen Wallace C. Gregson.

Sir, Your report "20,000 troops to be moved out of Asia" (August 16) attributes statements to me indicating that I am opposed to any reduction in marine forces on Okinawa. Your source was wrong.

I favour any moves that fit US national policy and strategy and which strengthen the US-Japan alliance and relationship.

Our forces are forward deployed and forward based in Japan to operate on behalf of US security strategy and alliances in the Asia-Pacific region, and to promote peace, stability and security throughout the region. Even prior to the events of September 11, 2001, we deployed forces from Japan to various regions in accordance with these alliances.

For example, the Marine Corps fully understands the concerns of the Okinawan people, especially in regard to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which is situated in the middle of Ginowan City. When the Marine Corps took ownership of that air station, the surrounding area was relatively unpopulated. Today, it is in the midst of a densely populated area. We support the relocation of the air station to an appropriate alternate facility elsewhere on Okinawa, which was agreed upon by the respective governments of the US and Japan in 1996. This alternate facility would provide for over-water approach and departure routes which would significantly reduce the impact on the Okinawan community. We are on record supporting a significant acceleration of the construction schedule for the new facility.

The Marine Corps is actively exploring opportunities to move some training evolutions off Okinawa to reduce the burden on the population. We are actively pursing other training opportunities throughout the Pacific, to include venues in Australia and Guam, and with our other friends and allies in the region.

I have also gone on record as stating that one of many options the Marine Corps is exploring is the possibility of relocating some forces from Okinawa to mainland Japan. This option has the potential to enhance our training opportunities and our inter-operability with the Japanese Self Defense Forces. In short, I agree with the national security issues recently put forth by the president of the US, and am in favour of anything that would enhance US national security objectives and strengthen our alliance with Japan.

Wallace C. Gregson, Commander, US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, Camp H. M. Smith, HI 98861, US

Imperiled mammal threatened by plan for Okinawa base

Bob Egelko,
Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, August 5, 2004

Court in S.F. hears activists advocate applying U.S. law

The shy, grass-eating dugong is in peril in the waters off the Japanese island of Okinawa, where a planned U.S. Marine base threatens its habitat. Its only hope may be a U.S. law designed to preserve historic properties.

On Wednesday, environmentalists argued in a San Francisco courtroom that the federal law be applied to the dugong, a distant relative of the Florida manatee, revered by Okinawans and classified as a "natural monument'' under Japanese law.

Their suit, filed last fall against the Defense Department, seeks a court order shelving plans -- at least until measures are taken to preserve the dugong -- for the relocation of the Futenma air base from central Okinawa to an offshore site alongside and atop a coral reef that plaintiffs say is the creature's chief remaining habitat.

The plaintiffs, environmental advocates from both the United States and Japan, say the U.S. courts are their only option because the Pentagon and the Japanese government have been unresponsive. The Justice Department challenges their unprecedented attempt to use the historic preservation law to protect a foreign species.

Photo: Higashionna Takuma, an Okinawan fisherman and boat captain, prepares to enter U.S. District Court.

The 1966 National Historic Preservation Act requires the U.S. government to conduct an analysis, similar to an environmental impact report, before working on a project that would harm historically significant properties. The law defines those properties broadly to include subjects of cultural importance at home or abroad, the plaintiffs say.

The law "leaves it up to each nation to decide what's culturally significant,'' Marcello Mollo, a lawyer with Earthjustice in Oakland, told Chief U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in a courtroom filled with supporters from Okinawa.

Other opponents of the project have occupied a beach encampment at the proposed airfield site for the past 100 days to protest preliminary undersea drilling in preparation of construction. The plaintiffs say noise from the drilling could harm the dugongs.

The Okinawan dugong, a distinct subspecies, has dwindled to about 50 in number -- a casualty, in part, of fierce battles near the end of World War II -- and could be extinguished by the impact of the Marine air base on an adjacent coral reef, environmentalists contend. The creatures, which in adulthood grow up to 111/2 feet long and weigh 800 pounds, spend their entire lives in sheltered, shallow waters.

Justice Department lawyer Charles Shockey argued that the environmentalist groups' suit should be dismissed, for two reasons: Animals aren't historic properties, and the U.S. government isn't involved in the site selection, funding or construction of the base. That is all being handled by Japan, Shockey said, and "the Japanese are very sensitive to protecting the dugong.''

Patel suggested that Japan was acting on behalf of the United States, but she did not rule immediately on whether the suit could proceed. Lawyers said it was the first suit to test international application of the U.S. historic properties law.

Okinawa, 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo at the southern edge of Japan, has been the location of many U.S. military bases since World War II that have been the focus of long-standing resentment. Protests erupted after three U.S. servicemen abducted and raped a 12-year-old girl in 1995.

Outside the courtroom Wednesday, Takamichi Sekine, a professor of policy studies at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan who is a member of the Okinawan delegation, said the dugong has had a special meaning to Okinawa since the days of independence, when the creature's meat was ceremonially presented to the king.

Despite Shockey's assurances that Japan was sensitive to the dugong, Sekine said, "the ineffectiveness of Japanese environmental law'' makes U.S. court intervention essential.

Patel, during the hearing, also questioned the effectiveness of Japanese law, saying it required Japan's government to study the environmental impact of the base but did not require it to take steps to protect the dugong.

On the other hand, the judge asked Mollo, "isn't it a little bit chauvinistic or paternalistic to impose our laws on them?''

Not really, the Earthjustice lawyer replied, because Patel would actually be "imposing our law on a U.S. agency.''

Photo: A local fisherman watches a dugong at Yomitanson on the island of Okinawa on April 26, 2004. Japanese environmentalists urged a federal judge here Wednesday to block the U.S. military's proposed construction of a military base in Okinawa that they say could jeopardize the giant ocean creatures that eat sea grass in the ocean shallows.

Facts about dugongs / Dugong dugon (sea cows)

Adult

Maximum age: About 70 years

Length: 11 1/2 feet

Weight: 800 lbs.

-- Found in shallow, tropical waters throughout the Indo-Pacific region, the Okinawan animal is a distinct subspecies.

-- Diet consists of grazing on seagrasses in sheltered coastal waters.

-- Mothers produce one calf per litter with a gestation of 13-15 months.

Source: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Australia

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page B - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle