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

Tag Archives: human rights

Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States by Gavan McCormack & Satoko Oka Norimatsu

May 17, 2012 by Editor
Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States by Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu will be released by Rowman & Littlefield in July 2012.Resistant Islands offers a comprehensive overview of Okinawan history over half a millennium from the Ryukyu Kingdom to the present, focusing especially on the colonization by Japan, the islands' disastrous fate during World War II, and their subsequent and continuing subordination to US military purpose.Adopting an “Okinawa-centered,” or a people-centered view of Japan’s post Cold War history and the US-Japan relationship, the authors focus on the fifteen-year Okinawan struggle to secure the return of Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, situated in the middle of a bustling residential area, and the Okinawan resistance to the US and Japanese governments’ plan to build a substitute new base at Henoko, on the environmentally sensitive northeastern shore of Okinawa. 40 years after Okinawa's belated "return" to Japan from direct US military rule, its people reject the role assigned their islands by the US and Japanese governments under which they are required to continue to attach priority to US military strategy, with the islands serving as a kind of stationary aircraft carrier offshore from East Asia.Without precedent in Japan's modern history, a peripheral and oppressed region stands up against the central government and its global superpower ally. The resistance persists and deepens. One recent prime minister who tried to meet key Okinawan demands was brought down by bureaucratic and political pressure from Tokyo and Washington. His successors struggle in vain to find a formula that will allow them to meet US demands but also assuage Okinawan anger. Okinawa becomes a beacon of citizen democracy. Its struggles raise key issues about popular sovereignty, democracy and human rights, and the future of Japan and the Asia-Pacific.

Dialogue Under Occupation conference in Okinawa, Aug 4-8, 2011

August 2, 2011 by Editor
Even if you can't attend, please check out the program, website, and blog for the Dialogue Under Occupation conference in Okinawa, Aug 4-8, 2011.

Iejima: an island of resistance: Jon Mitchell traces the roots of Okinawa’s civil rights movement (伊江島：アイランド・オブ・レジスタンス)

June 19, 2011 by Editor
As the governor and citizens of Okinawa address the latest U.S. Marine threat to their quality of lives and safety (planned deployment of dangerous V-22 Osprey aircraft in Futenma), Jon Mitchell's look back at the origins of Okinawan resistance to ruthless U.S. military seizure of their property brings home how long Okinawans have struggled for freedom from the violence, injustice, noise, and environmental degradation the U.S. military forces upon their islands.In 1955, 300 U.S. Marines with rifles and bulldozers dragged women and children from their beds, destroyed their homes and slaughtered their goats after they refused to voluntarily leave their farms in Iejima, one of Okinawa prefecture's small islands, to make way for a U.S. bombing range. When the forcibly removed farmers were allowed to return, the Marines forced them to live in tents on barren land. With no crops, they foraged on the margins of the bombing range for shrapnel to sell for scrap, where the Marines shot them. Despite these atrocities, Iejima's farmers refused to succumb to demoralization and defeat.Leader Shoko Ahagon drew up policies inspired by Gandhi to guide their political action: nonviolent resistance and mass demonstrations. This resulted in some concessions and the prevention of U.S. deployment of nuclear missiles on the island in 1966. Ahagon is now known as the founder of the Okinawan civil rights movement.

Citizens’ Network for Biological Diversity in Okinawa: United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Collective Statement

June 9, 2011 by Editor
The Citizens' Network for Biological Diversity has posted a Collective Statement delivered in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, in United Nations Headquarters, New York, 16-27 May, 2011:It was delivered by Asia Indigenous People’s Pact (AIPP) . They joined our efforts and endorsed the statement and also uploaded it on their website.We worked with Shimin Gaikou Centre to create the statement in bringing up Okinawa Issues (US base construction plan in Henoko/Oura bay and six US helipads in Takae) along with Ainu people's issue. We are very happy to have No Helipad Takae Resident Society in our statement.

Ryukyu Shimpo: “Open Letter to Mr. Carl Levin”

April 28, 2011 by Editor
In an open letter to Senators Carl Levin and Jim Webb, the Ryukyu Shimpo asks them "to show the true worth of American democracy" and "to respect the will of the people of Okinawa and informs them: "April 28 is the date when the United States and Japan concluded both the San Francisco Peace Treaty and the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty in 1952. With this, Allied Occupation forces withdrew from Japan and Japan attained independence. The San Francisco Peace Treaty determined that Okinawa and Amami Oshima would be separated from the mainland islands of Japan and put under the control of the U.S. military."