By Yoshio Shimoji

Commentary Oct. 03, 2011 - 06:35AM JST ( 61 )

NAHA —

Albeit knowing there was strong local opposition, Washington cunningly cajoled Tokyo into agreeing to relocate the U.S. Marine air base at Futenma to Henoko, Nago, in northern Okinawa. It was a government-to-government agreement and so Tokyo has an international obligation to carry out the agreed-upon relocation plan as soon as possible, insists Washington.

Less than two months ago, former Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa and newly appointed U.S. Defense Minister Leon Panetta reaffirmed that “Tokyo and Washington will move forward with the plan to relocate the controversial Futenma base within Okinawa.”

On Sept 7, the Noda cabinet’s newly-installed Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba made an inaugural telephone call to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in which he assured her that Japan would “stick to the accord reached last year to relocate” Futenma to Henoko.

Gemba also said at his inaugural news conference that he would do his best to persuade Okinawa residents to accept the bilateral accord.

How is he going to do this? By lavishly bribing Nago residents into consenting? Or else, Tokyo would probably have to resort to police force, invoking state power and thus causing bloodshed and social turmoil. By coercing Tokyo this way, Washington is actually instigating these dirty tactics, and would repeat its stock phrase: “It’s Japan’s domestic problem that has nothing to do with the U.S.” A great democracy, indeed.

The meeting in New York on Sept 21 between Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session was the culmination of an array of such reassurance and confirmations. Noda assured Obama that he would do his utmost to implement the 2006 accord between Tokyo and Washington.

Futenma was constructed toward the end of World War II with an aim of attacking mainland Japan with B-29s in order to end the war quickly. But the war ended before that plan could be carried out. Futenma should have been returned at that point; instead, it has continued to be in the firm grip of the U.S. military all these years to this day.

The U.S. military seized the land in clear violation of Article 46 of The Hague Convention, which states: “Family honor and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practice, must be respected. Private property cannot be confiscated.”

There are more than 3,000 so-called “military-land owners” for the Futenma air base. This figure tells everything about its history, that is, how it came into being. Futenma was constructed, while area residents were herded into concentration camps during the Battle of Okinawa and afterwards, in the freely encroached-upon area where there were five idyllic villages with a joint population of more than 12,000.

Other U.S. bases in Okinawa, 33 in all, have more or less a similar history. In the 1950s, additional land was requisitioned at bayonet point and by bulldozer to expand already existing bases. Take Iejima, for instance. Jon Mitchell writes in his recent article in the Japan Times: “With all of Okinawa under U.S. administration, the authorities started by tricking the landowners (in Iejima) into signing voluntary evacuation papers… But then, when some families refused to leave, 300 U.S. soldiers with rifles and bulldozers dragged women and children from their beds, tore down their homes and slaughtered their goats.”  (“Iejima: an island of resistance,” May 22, 2011 Japan Times)

The illegality and immorality of Futenma would not disappear even if it were to be moved to Henoko or anywhere else in Okinawa just like dirty money would not become clean how many times it might undergo laundering.

Both governments, especially Washington, must realize this and search for an alternative solution, that is, to move it outside of Okinawa, most preferably, to the U.S. mainland. The Marines themselves may have known the criminality of their base, for they already had a blueprint for constructing a new facility in Henoko in the 1960s which is strikingly similar to today’s relocation plan.

I repeat: Close the Futenma air base immediately with no strings attached. There’s no obligation for the Japanese taxpayers, Okinawa residents in particular, to foot all the bills for reclaiming the pristine coastal waters off Henoko and constructing an advanced base complex including military port facilities for the U.S. Marines.