“We express our objection to the further enhancement of the Japan-U.S. military alliance in the stationing of a nuclear powered carrier in Yokosuka,” said Aika Taira, chairperson of the National Christian Council in Japan’s committee on peace and nuclear issues.
“The treaty is unequal, and we strongly demand that the carrier USS George
Washington return immediately to a U.S. port,” said Taira, whose concerns include safety around the nuclear carrier.
In May 2008 there was a fire on board a nuclear submarine, the USS Houston that visited Yokosuka, and a leakage of radioactive water that some reports said was blamed on crew negligence.
On September 25, the carrier entered the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka to replace the U.S. conventional oil powered aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. The George Washington visited Busan in South Korea on October 6, and then conducted naval drills off Japan’s coast to prepare for a joint exercise in Southeast Asia in November with other nations allied to the United States.
“I just want it to get out, as I am concerned about the risk,” Naomi Tomita, a Baptist and a member of the peace committee’s staff, who lives in Yokosuka, told Ecumenical News International.
She made her comment during a rally by thousands of protesters against the carrier, held near the U.S. naval base on the day of the vessel’s arrival in Japan was greeted by a navy band.
Tomita said she and Taira had only returned the day before from Chernobyl in
Ukraine, where they had seen the destruction caused by the 1986 nuclear disaster from a power plant in the town, and which still impacts on the lives of the people there.
The U.S. ambassador to Japan, J. Thomas Schieffer, said, “We will do everything within our power to ensure that the U.S.S. George Washington operates safely and securely in the waters of Japan and the world. The safety record of the American nuclear powered fleet is unblemished, and we mean to keep it that way.”
