BY JESSE JOHNSON
The United States will return 4,000 hectares (9,900
acres) of land in Okinawa Prefecture to Japan — its largest handover since the
island’s reversion to Japanese control in 1972 — in the wake of a local woman’s
murder by a civilian contractor that has stoked widespread protests there.
U.S. officials confirmed Friday that
preparations are underway to return part of the Northern Training Area,
America’s largest military facility on Okinawa, to the government. The move
will “reduce the amount of U.S.-administered land on Okinawa by 17 percent,”
U.S. Forces Japan said in a statement.
The U.S. military said the return
will go ahead once construction of several replacement helipads within other existing
areas is completed.
In terms of acreage, the reversion
will reduce Okinawa’s share of all U.S. military facilities in Japan to 70
percent, from 74 percent now, excluding that jointly used with the Self-Defense
Forces.
Located just 370 km from the Japanese-controlled
Senkaku Islands, which are also claimed by China, where they are known as the
Diaoyu, Okinawa is the U.S. military’s key site in Asia as it faces down an
increasingly bellicose Beijing.
The prefecture hosts 30,000 U.S.
military personnel living and working on bases that cover nearly one-fifth of
the island.
But resentment over the military’s
presence took on new life after the murder of 20-year-old Rina Shimabukuro in
April, allegedly by U.S. civilian contractor and former marine Kenneth Franklin
Shinzato, 32.
The incident has proven to be
galvanizing force for the anti-base movement, prompting massive protests in
Okinawa as well in other cities outside the prefecture last month.
“We are respectful of the feelings
of Okinawans that our footprint must be reduced,” said Lt. Gen. Lawrence
Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Okinawa, adding that the decreased
training area will not diminish U.S. capabilities or its commitment to Japan.
The area to be returned is currently
used for jungle warfare training by U.S. forces. The return is contingent upon
the bilaterally agreed relocation of six landing zones and access roads to the
remaining portion of the Northern Training Area.
In 1996, following the rape of a
Japanese schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen the previous year, Washington and
Tokyo agreed on the return of the land on condition that six helicopter pads be
built within the remaining area to replace those lost in the areas to be
returned.
Under the U.S.-Japan defense treaty,
“the U.S. is granted the right to certain exclusive-use facilities for the
purpose of the defense of Japan and maintenance of peace and security in the
Far East,” U.S. Forces Japan Deputy Commander Maj. Gen. Charles Chiarotti said.
“Under the treaty, once facilities or areas are no longer necessary to meet
those ends, they will be returned to Japanese government.”
Last Friday, hundreds of riot police
faced off against protesters after construction on the helipads was restarted.
So far, only two of the helipads have been completed.
The move came on the same day that
the central government filed a fresh lawsuit against Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga
over the long-delayed relocation plan for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station
Futenma.
The return of the 4,000 hectares at
the Northern Training Area is part of other initiatives and agreements with the
government to consolidate U.S. facilities on Okinawa, with the eventual goal of
returning most facilities south of Kadena Air Base, according to the U.S.
military.
The return of Futenma, it said, has
been a major goal of both the U.S. and Japan for several years.
But this plan, too, has stoked
controversy.
Onaga — who was elected on an
anti-base platform — has opposed the planned relocation of Futenma from the
densely populated city of Ginowan to the Henoko district of Nago, further north
in the prefecture.
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