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Japanese island bristles with unwanted US military bases

OKINAWA ISLAND: Bristling with the US military bases, attack helicopters, warplanes and 24,847 American troops, there is nothing the Japanese island of Okinawa wants more than peace.

And when US President Bill Clinton arrives here with other world leaders for Group of Eight (G8) summit from July 21-23, the idyllic East China Sea view from his hotel in the northern town of Nago will be misleading.

Bulldozers are at work on the golden sands and huge dredgers sit in the crystal waters to mould the beach outside his Busena Terrace Beach Resort, but Okinawa has no wish to hide its bloody history.

One third of Okinawa's population died fighting the Americans in World War II, and most of the 38 US military facilities constructed since then are reluctantly hosted here.

Anti-US passions ignited in 1995 when three US servicemen raped a 12-year-old girl, leading to a US-Japan agreement to return 20 percent of the base land.

But few Okinawans are satisfied.

The bases occupy 23,759 hectares (58,684 acres), or 11 percent of the island chain's land.

And even after the return of the agreed 11 facilities, Okinawa will be hosting 70 percent of the US bases in Japan and two-thirds of the 47,000 US troops.

The stamp of the US military is most stark at Ginowan, next door to the Okinawan capital Naha, where the enormous 480 hectare (1,186 acre) US Marines Futenma Base, mostly used by helicopters, is smack in the middle of the town of 25,000 people.

Tourists can climb a concrete lookout post constructed especially to look over the base, where a placard describes the "Ginowan Dream" of replacing the base with leisure facilities.

Ginowan Mayor Seikoh Higa looked over the 2.7-kilometre runway and 74 aircraft, and complained to a group of visiting journalists of the noise, danger of accidents and lack of space to develop the town.

The G8 meeting, gathering leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, along with thousands of journalists, will provide a great platform, he added. "Being able to show this Futenma Air Station to leaders and people from all around the world including President Clinton, we hope we can achieve the early return of the air station," he said.

Washington and Tokyo have agreed to return the Futenma base, transferring the helicopters to a new base in the G8 host town of Nago.

But even those plans are now stuck in limbo because of Okinawan demands for its life to be limited to 15 years. "I expect, yes, there will be demonstrations held by the Okinawan people who oppose the existence of the military bases here," said Nago Mayor Tateo Kishimoto. "I am of the position that the bases are necessary for the security of Japan and also of the Asian region".

From the American side, the presence in Okinawa Ñ in striking distance of China and the Korean peninsula Ñ is a critical ingredient in the alliance, in return for which Japan gets US military protection. "The bottom line is the American military is stationed in Japan for the defence of Japan," said Col David Rann at a briefing in the nearby US Marines' Camp Butler. "Although we are sized right for the region, further reductions could be viewed as a sign of the US regional abandonment".

Moving the US military out of Okinawa, along with the land rents paid, the Japanese government subsidies, local jobs and the shopping by the US troops and their families, would cost Okinawa 1.2 billion dollars a year, he said.

It's a powerful argument in an island where the bases provided an estimated 5.2 percent of the nominal 1997 gross domestic product of 3,547 billion yen $34.8 billion in this island of 1.3 million people.

But despite Okinawa's relative poverty compared to other parts of Japan, the lure of cash palls against its desire to be seen as an island of peace after the bloodshed of World War II.

At the Cornerstone of Peace memorial on the southern tip of the main island, 48 black granite monuments list a total of 237,318 killed in the Battle of Okinawa, including 148,136 from Okinawa, 74,796 from Japan and 14,005 from the United States.

Nearby, a freshly-opened 7.4-billion-yen (73-million-dollar) Okinawa Prefectural Peace memorial Museum reveals the complexities of this island's war-time horrors.

One exhibition depicts a mock-up of a mainland Japanese soldier standing with rifle over a cowering local Okinawan family, hiding in a cave from the invading the US forces.

The Japanese Imperial Army soldier is pointing his gun at the wall, however, and it is unclear if he is threatening or protecting the family. "You can draw your own conclusions," said a museum official, explaining however that some Japanese soldiers had used their guns to silence locals while in hiding.

In fact, the effect is deliberate.

Peace museum organisers had discussed the possibility of removing the Japanese soldier's rifle altogether, the official said, but after an outcry in the local media his weapon was simply pointed slightly away.

Many Okinawans are bitter about how mainlanders filled them with fear of invading Americans, leading some people to kill themselves, said University of the Ryukyus political science professor Takayoshi Egami. "Okinawans still feel they were betrayed by the Japanese military," he said.ÑAFP