Did you see the photo of the primeminister of Japan and the U.S.president shaking hands
on papers? Primeminister Kan promised Obama to build the new U.S. army base in Okinawa without delay. What a shame!!!One of the grass-roots movement organization put an opinion
ad on the Washington Post in April. They raised a fund for it, and I was one of the contributor. The ad said, "Would you want 30 military bases in your backyard? / Last Sunday, tens of thousands of Okinawans gathered to protest plans to build a new U.S. military base on their island. This island in Japan already devotes 20% of its land to U.S. bases. The governor, the mayors, and the voters of Okinawa all oppose another base. / The new base would damage the health and safty of people and threaten a unique ecosystem that contains many rare species. This includes the Okinawan dugong, an endangered cousin of the manatee. / Washington is pressuring Tokyo to ignore the voices of its citizens, despite a U.S. federal court decision that the new facility would violate U.S. law. All for a military base of no strategic value. / Stand up for democracy. Tell the Obama Administration: We don't need this base in Okinawa. "How many Amerians read this ad and thought of the suffering of Okinawa? Most of them have never heard of it, and never thought of it. I suppose it has not been even a news on the papers or TV in America. But I want the people of the U.S. realize that your country sometimes treat its dependencies very badly. It's far from democracy and justice.
Once Okinawa was an independent kingdom called Ryukyu, but one of Japanese lords in Edo era attacked and occupied it. Meiji government made it one of the prefectures of Japan. During the World War II, the headquarter of Japan wanted Okinawa to fight against and detain the U.S. army to protect Tokyo and the Emperor. More than 100,000 Okinawan citizens were killed. When the war ended, the U.S. army occupied Okinawa and it wasn't given back to Japan untill 1972. The land was taken by guns and tanks of U.S. army and made its military bases. The islands came back to Japan with 30 U.S.military bases in that small island. It's been 65 years since the war, and the condition of the world has changed a lot, but even now the U.S.is using the land as their military bases. They say it's the most dangerous base in the world, and the people living next to the bases are suffering noises, danger, and the soldiers' crimes. Even now the U.S. has a kind of extraterritoriality in Okinawa.
But we can't blame the U.S. only. WE are the ones to be blamed. We used Okinawa as a shield in the war. We sold it to America And we are choosing the governent that can't say "No" to America, that ignores the voices of Okinawa. The primeminiser changed, then the problem of Okinawa seems to be vanished. I feel so guilty. I want to apologize to Okinawans. What can we do about this problem? I think this is not only the problem for Okinawans, but also all of us. It's a problem of democracy, a problem of peace and war, and a problem of natural environment. I would like to hear your opinions.
