Photo/Illutration Participants in a peace march in Okinawa on May 13 carry a sign that says the southernmost prefecture does not need military bases. (Minako Yoshimoto)

Okinawa Prefecture on May 15 marked the 51st anniversary of its return to Japanese sovereignty, fearful it could again become the frontline in a war.

Half a century on, Okinawa is still forced to shoulder an excessively heavy burden for the nation’s security under a structure that has remained unchanged for decades. Residents of the southernmost prefecture harbor anxieties about new threats to their security. We need to confront this grim reality.

Last year, the Kishida administration revised three key security policy documents, including the National Security Strategy (NSS), in line with its plans to beef up the nation’s military muscle. This involved gaining possession of the ability to strike enemy bases overseas.

The administration has set up new Ground Self-Defense Force posts in southwestern islands of Okinawa Prefecture close to Taiwan and China and deployed another missile unit in the area. The U.S. military has decided to reorganize its Marine force stationed in Okinawa into a quick-reaction entity called a littoral regiment.

The trend toward enhancing military bases in Okinawa has become firmly established and the central government is moving in a direction that will widen its rift with Okinawa instead of reducing the burden borne by the prefecture.

During the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, a quarter of the civilian population perished, along with tens of thousands of soldiers. Military facilities become principal targets in wartime. We urge the administration to stop racing to expand its facilities and listen to the concerns of residents. It needs to start rethinking the strategic assumptions from a broad perspective that incorporates the implications of cooperation with neighboring countries as well as diplomatic efforts.

One historical document offers a valuable insight for such a strategy reappraisal.

In 1971, the year before Okinawa’s reversion to Japan, the Ryukyu government, the local self-governing body under U.S. rule there, drafted a proposal concerning the handover of Okinawa to Japan. The 132-page document described how various rights of local residents were violated by the U.S. military and called for steps to ensure “human rights under the pacifist Constitution” and “a return to a peaceful Okinawa without bases.” The document, which lists issues concerning the reversion, is known as the original vision for Okinawa’s return to Japanese sovereignty.

But in November that year, on the day Chobyo Yara, who headed the Ryukyu government, traveled to Tokyo to hand the proposal to the Diet, a special Lower House committee forcibly passed the Okinawa Reversion Agreement, which had been signed by the Japanese and U.S. governments in June, effectively ignoring Yara’s mission.

Kamenosuke Taira, 86, who was involved in the drafting of the proposal as an employee of the Ryukyu government, continues to argue that Okinawa’s demands are still valid. A special task force involving Taira spent roughly 10 days on the proposal to call for the elimination of bases from the islands.

“Okinawa’s calls were disregarded without even discussion (in the Diet). We have to continue insisting that the central government makes sincere efforts to satisfy our demands at that time,” Taira says.

The grim reality is that Okinawa is still home to around 70 percent of facilities exclusively for the U.S. military in Japan. It is crucial for the government to clearly recognize the danger posed by military bases located close to residential areas and tackle this problem as a policy challenge for the entire nation.

Here’s one passage in the document, stored in the Okinawa Prefectural Archives.

“Historically, Okinawa has been used too much as a sacrifice and means to serve state power and base authority. Okinawa should take the opportunity offered by its reversion to Japan, a historical turning point, to break free from this status.”

It is time to reflect on this original vision to recognize afresh the serious effects of the heavy military presence on the people in Okinawa.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 16

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