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

Tag Archives: Yanbaru Forest

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.

Okinawa Outreach: Citizens’ Network for Biodiversity in Okinawa demands the suspension of construction of U.S. military helipads in biodiverse Yanbaru Forest

August 26, 2011 by Editor
Okinawa Outreach, a new blog edited by Okinawan scholars and activists, offers news, photos, & analysis directly from Okinawa.Its July reports describe efforts by the Citizens’ Network for Biodiversity in Okinawa (Okinawa BD) to obtain answers from the Okinawan Defense Bureau (the Japan Defense Bureau's branch in Okinawa) regarding U.S. military plans for training accident-prone military Osprey aircraft in biodiverse Yanbaru Forest. The Citizens’ Network for Biodiversity in Okinawa demanded a halt to the construction of helipads which the U.S. wants to locate in one of the most well-preserved areas of the forest, a habitat for numerous endangered species unique to northern Okinawa.Okinawa Outreach also provided updates to the Okinawan Defense Bureau's November 2008 legal action against 15 residents of the Takae community (including a child), who, since July 2007, had been conducting a peaceful sit-in protest against the helipad construction on the prefectural road near the construction sites. Many consider this frivolous litigation, a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) action, intended to intimidate and silence critics). The next hearing is scheduled for the end of August.

Temporary Reprieve for Takae Village & Yanbaru Forest

March 10, 2011 by Editor
On a welcome note, the villagers of Takae, environmentalists, (and the workers caught in the middle of of the Japanese government's forced military construction in Yanbaru Forest) have an uneasy and much-needed reprieve for the next couple of months.Tokyo has stopped heavy equipment construction because the reproductive season of the critically endangered Okinawa Woodpecker has begun.The rare woodpecker, an ecological and cultural Okinawan icon, lives only in Yanbaru Forest. The few remaining pairs of Okinawa woodpeckers are on the brink of extinction from ongoing destruction of their rainforest habitat.

Okinawans Continue to Resist in Takae

February 26, 2011 by Editor
John Feffer reports on the disappointing survival of the costly, accident-prone V-22 Osprey in the latest round of Washington budget cuts. Lobbyists for the long-criticized aircraft (called a "turkey" by Dick Cheney) won their fight for profit against advocates of sound government spending.Feffer comments on the American subsidization of the forced construction of unwanted U.S. helipads in Okinawa, where environmentalists and local democratic activists are engaged in a daily nonviolent struggle with military construction workers: "It's bad enough that U.S. taxpayers have to continue to support the care and feeding of this particular Osprey. Worse, we're inflicting the bird on others."

Network for Okinawa Statement/Press Release on Forced Military Construction in Yanbaru Forest & Henoko, Okinawa

February 18, 2011 by Editor
The Network for Okinawa, following calls of protest from international peace, democracy, and environmental organizations, has issued a statement/press release on forced U.S. military construction in biologically rich and fragile Yanbaru Forest, Oura Bay, and Henoko, Okinawa.

Takae in Crisis

February 3, 2011 by Editor
Despite statements by the U.S. and Japanese governments that military construction would not proceed without local approval, the Japanese Defense Ministry's Okinawan Headquarters (the Okinawan Defense Ministry) forcibly started construction work on helipads in Okinawa at the end of last year.These new helipads, where the U.S. wants to train Marines in the use of heavier, noisier, and dangerous V-22 Osprey aircraft, would (if built) endanger the lives of local residents and irreparably destroy the pristine and biologically rich Yanbaru Forest in northern Okinawa.On Feb. 1, several dump trucks and 50-60 workers threw bags of gravel over the fence at multiple entry points of the U.S. Marine Northern Training Area (a jungle warfare training ground used to test napalm during the U.S. war in Vietnam).However, the Okinawan Citizens Defense Force (a pro-democracy and peace group) is engaging in nonviolent means to obstruct unapproved military construction. Multi-car Okinawan brigades are blocking entrances to construction sites.