Japan churches appeal to U.S. on Okinawa base relocation

    “The beautiful coral reef, which had provided a livelihood for the villages and which was the seabed home of the endangered dugong, would now be destroyed with landfill for the purpose of constructing a military base for waging war,” said the moderator of the National Christian Council in Japan, the Rev. Isamu Koshiishi.
    In an open letter sent to churches and ecumenical institutions on May 26, Koshiishi was referring to the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station, currently based at Futenma on the main Okinawa island. The facility was to be relocated after complaints by residents.
    Some Okinawans have expressed anger about Japan’s prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, who apologized to leaders when he visited the islands on May 23 for failing to fulfill an election promise to move the Futenma base out of Okinawa. Instead, it is planned for the base to be relocated to an off-shore area near the fishing village of Henoko in Nago, northern Okinawa.
    The letter is co-signed by the Rev. Aika Taira from Okinawa, who chairs the church council’s peace and nuclear issues committee.
    In it, the clerics noted that in 1996 Japan-U.S. bilateral talks spoke of the need for relocation of bases. It “resulted in sit-ins by the elder men and women of the village who took action to prevent the construction of the base” at Henoko. They noted, “This sit-in protest, which was joined by a large number of citizens including many Christians, continues now on a daily basis.”
    Prime Minister Hatoyama said on his visit to Okinawa that he chose to relocate the base to the off-shore area for reasons of U.S.-Japan bilateral security amid rising tension in the Korean Peninsula and the news that the sinking of a South Korean warship in March was the result of an attack by North Korea.
    U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Japan’s Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada along with the defense ministers of the two countries on May 28 issued a joint statement saying: “The ministers reaffirmed the commitment to reduce the impact on local communities, including in Okinawa, thereby preserving a sustainable U.S. military presence in Japan.”
    About 75 percent of U.S. military bases stationed in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa.
    “The National Christian Council in Japan is opposed to the construction of any new bases in Okinawa for the purpose of war,” the letter said. “Become informed, pray and make appeals to the US government. This is the life and death appeal of the people of Okinawa who have the experience of suffering in wartime.”