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."