Okinawa's Beautiful Resistance To Rape Of Women And Environment

Okinawa resistance movement messages. Photo credit: Satoko Kojo

Okinawa is generally considered to be part of Japan, but it really isn't. Okinawa is an island in the Pacific Ocean that is as close to China's coast as it is to Japan's. And, until the end of WWII and the Allied invasion, Okinawans successfully resisted the domination of Imperial Japan by an alliance with China.  Following its defeat of Japan in 1945, the U.S. occupied Okinawa until 1972. The Pentagon's biggest military presence in "Japan" is actually in Okinawa.

Massive resistance to the U.S. military presence in Okinawa has heated up recently. The increased resistance is partly due to yet another rape committed by personnel coming from the military bases. 

From an editorial last week in the English-language version of the online Ryukyu Shimbo:

As long as the U.S.-Japan security treaty allows some 20,000 and several thousand US military personnel to be stationed in Okinawa, soldiers who cannot control themselves, and attack women in a vulnerable position, will continue to be among the stationed troops.

Nicholson apologizing to Okinawa's Governor Takeshi Onaga, who ran on a platform opposing the expansion of U.S. military bases and swept to power over the candidate backed by Japan's ruling party. Photo credit: Stripes.com

Lt. General Lawrence Nicholson was reported in StarsandStripes.Okinawa to have apologized to Okinawa's governor for the rape of a Japanese tourist by a sailor stationed there, and his apology described the U.S. presence in Okinawa as even larger:

Today, I came here to represent 27,000 uniformed members, 17,000 families, 4,000 civilians, 50,000 Americans. The allegation against the specific individual is a great shame and dishonor of us all.

Resistance to the U.S. presence in Okinawa has also increased in response to plans to expand the Henoko base into an offshore presence controlling the waters of Henoko Bay. 

Photo credit: AP

Anthropologist Hideki Yoshikawa reported extensively in Counterpunch on the difficult process of ramming through official approvals in the face of massive opposition by the actual people who live there.  Bases are heavily polluted sites, and the Pentagon recently blocked release of its own environmental study of a different base it is returning to Okinawans. As reported by Jon Mitchell in the Japan Times:

The U.S. military is refusing to release a report detailing environmental contamination at Camp Kinser, a 2.7-sq.-km U.S. Marine Corps supply base near Okinawa’s capital, Naha, that is scheduled for return to civilian use. Since April 2014, U.S. Pacific Command has repeatedly stonewalled a Freedom of Information Act request for the 1993 report, titled “USFJ Talking Paper on Possible Toxic Contamination at Camp Kinser, Okinawa.”

Indigenous people everywhere love their land and waterways, and revere their traditional ways of life. When they win territory back from U.S. control, it is often too polluted to support those ways. 

Okinawa's indigenous resistance is inspiring -- and that is why the corporate media in the U.S. make sure that most people never hear about it.

June 28, 2014 Boat Rally at Henoko. Via Masami Mel Kawamura/Okinawa Outreach.
Photo: Toyozato Tomoyuki

For news of their beautiful resistance, you can follow the Facebook community page I Expose the Expansion of US Bases in Okinawa.