webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2010
All rights reserved
From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Mon Apr 26 2010 - 03:21:50 EDT
Okinawa marine base protest attracts 90,000
By Lindsay Whipp and Mure Dickie in Tokyo
Published: April 25 2010 17:47 | Last updated: April 25 2010 17:47
An estimated 90,000 people rallied in Okinawa on Sunday piling fresh
pressure on Yukio Hatoyama, Japan’s prime minister, as they demanded the
removal from the island prefecture of a US Marine air base.
The demonstration, one of the largest ever held in Okinawa, follows weeks
of increasingly desperate efforts by Mr Hatoyama’s administration to come
up with a new relocation plan for the Futenma base ahead of a self-imposed
May deadline.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that US officials were
“pleased” by a Japanese proposal it said was made last week that
indicated Tokyo would “broadly accept” an existing agreement under
which Futenma was to be moved to a site largely reclaimed from Okinawa’s
scenic Henoko Bay.
Katsuya Okada, foreign minister, said the Washington Post report was “not
true” but gave no details of whether Tokyo had made any formal proposal
on Futenma or what such a proposal might involve. Mr Hatoyama said the
report was “not necessarily true” and that he could not accept the
existing relocation deal, adding that reclaiming land from Henoko Bay would
be a “desecration of nature”.
A narrowing of differences between Washington and Tokyo on what to do with
Futenma could go a long way to repairing relations that have frayed badly
since Mr Hatoyama decided to rethink the existing relocation deal.
However, Mr Hatoyama previously courted Okinawan voters by promising to try
to move the base out of the prefecture and the political cost of sticking
with Henoko Bay was underlined by the scale of Sunday’s rally and the
increasingly vocal opposition from local leaders.
“I strongly demand [the Futenma base] is moved out of the prefecture or
out of the country,” Hirokazu Na-kaima, Okinawa governor, told the crowd
which reportedly included about 40 mayors. “I’m confident that the
passion of the people gathered here today can move both the Japanese and US
governments to reach a satisfactory conclusion.” Members of Mr
Hatoyama’s cabinet have sought to balance Okinawan and US pressures by
floating compromise ideas, some of which involve moving functions of the
Futenma base to the island of Tokunoshima, about 200km from Okinawa.
US officials have described such a separation of part of the marine air
wing from its other forces on Okinawa as operationally unworkable. However,
the Washington Post appeared to suggest that such a change was part of the
Japanese proposal that was now being welcomed.
Even a compromise that moves Futenma from its site at the centre of a busy
city while reducing its impact on the Henoko Bay area would prompt a
political backlash against Mr Hatoyama in Okinawa.
The 90,000 people estimated by Japanese media to have gathered in Okinawan
town of Yomitan on Sunday held banners and disposable fans with slogans
such as: “Against the [base] move within the prefecture”.
Many wore yellow, the colour chosen to symbolise the protest. Officials in
Naha, the capital of Okinawa, also encouraged residents who could not make
it to the demonstration to dangle yellow cloth from car mirrors or wear a
yellow scarf in order to show the government a “yellow card”.
A local high-school student at the rally told a community radio station:
“We really don’t need the base in our lives, so at the very least we
want it out of the prefecture.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this
article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to
distribute to others.