Network to Close U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa, Japan

How did the U.S. acquire 30 military facilities encompassing 20% of Okinawa?

American military bases were institutionalized in Japan in 1951 by the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security treaty (ANPO in Japanese). To regain sovereignty after Japan’s defeat and occupation, the Japanese government agreed to give the U.S. the right to maintain armed forces on Japanese soil. The rationale: Japan’s postwar Constitution renounced war, so the Japanese needed U.S. military protection. But, in fact, the treaty allowed the U.S. to use Japanese bases to fight America’s Cold War enemies and to suppress dissent in Japan.

The CIA backed Nobusuke Kishi, an unindicted Class-A war criminal in his ascendance to prime minister in 1957. From 1959 to 1960, millions of protestors took to the streets to protest the violent and undemocratic methods PM Kishi used to force through a 10-year extension of the treaty. Kishi’s actions undermined parliamentary democratic process in Japan and ended his tenure. However the year of demonstrations catalyzed Japanese civil society, including NGOs supporting resistance to U.S. military expansion in Okinawa today.

Network for Okinawa member Linda Hoaglund, a filmmaker, explores this period of postwar Japanese history through the eyes of Japanese artists in her 2010 documentary, ANPO: Art X War, which opens its Spring College Tour at Cornell today. The tour schedule: Harvard (April 11), Williams (April 13), Amherst (April 14), Columbia (May 4). ANPO will also screen at the Hong Kong Int. Film Fest (March 24-27) and at the Association of Asian Studies annual conference in Honolulu (April 3).

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