Okinawa is the largest of the islands of the former Ryukyu Kingdom, annexed by the Japanese in 1879. Reeling from a devastating WW2 battle that saw huge loss of life from both Japanese and American forces, the island remained under formal U.S. Control until 1972. Today, as we in Darwin brace ourselves for the anticipated impacts of a new pre-positioning warbase for the US Marines, plans for a relocation of forces within Okinawa only highlight the untennable situation that has, in part, driven the move to Darwin.

A controversial plan to relocate the Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station from central Okinawa to Camp Schwab in the Henoko district have led oponents of the bases from acrossOkinawa to raise the stakes, sending a strong delegation to Washington with demands that include out-right closure of the air station.

This particular demand reflects the election platform of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Japanese Democratic Party, who swept to power in September 2009 on a promise to close the base. Nine months later, Mr Hatoyama resigned, citing his failure to deliver on that promise. After encountering opposition from his own Defence Bureau and the American Ambassador, Mr Hatoyama eventually capitulated to pressure from US president Barrack Obama in the context of increased Korean tensions. 

Mr Hatoyama's replacement, Naoto Kan, acknowledged what he called “the burden” Okinawa carries. At only 1% of Japan's land mass, Okinawa hosts almost 75% of Japan's considerable US military presence, with between 40 – 50,000 American personelle and their families in Okinawa. Kan pledged to “reduce Okinawa's burden ... and eliminate the associated dangers” by relocating bases, but angry locals declared that “relocation is expansion”. Japan's current PM, Yoshihiko Noda, seems even less wedded to his party's election platform. However with local polls showing 85% of Okinawans in opposition to the US bases, local governments, the Governor and some members of the Diet (Japan's legislature) stand with the community movement against the growing pressures of the US military presence.

The 24 member delegation, including a diverse range of activists, community representatives and politicians from three spheres of government, represent the culmination of 66 years of popular dissent against the US military presence in Japan. Among a rolling litany of thousands of criminal offences by US servicemen recorded over the past forty years, large protests have been triggered by incidences involving exceptionally shocking sexual assaults; evasion of local legal process; and dangerous aircraft accidents. The delegation's demands extend beyond Futenma to address the Status of Forces Agreement between the USA and Japan, which grants US troops an unacceptable level of immunity from Japanese law. The delegation claim that crimes including robbery, assault and road fatalities are committed by U.S. personelle on a weekly basis, and the SOFA favours the American perpetrators.

 

Darwin's fate

When Obama came to town last November, and announced the long standing plans to base marines at Robertson Barracks on the edge of Darwin, members of DRAW (Darwin Residents Against War, a local peace group, dormant since the large popular mobilisations against the invasion of Iraq) scrambled to give voice to local aspirations for Peace. The president's announcement had little more detail than we'd been able to scrounge: 500 marines in 2012, growing to 2500 over three years. The spin doctors assured the public that it's not a U.S. base because it's colocated wth the existing Aussie barracks. Our small town, ever hamstrung by an overwhelming identity crisis and fear of inadequacy, shrugged off politics to glorify in the glow of a rare celebrity visit. We painted peace signs.

 

Yet even as we held up our banners to the presidential cavalcade, our discussions were about the sense of responsibility we felt to prioritise the anticipated social impacts. Darwinites already understand the stresses placed on local infrastructure by our rapidly growing population. We also know of the kind of incidents (from violent brawls to sexual assault) that seem to occur every couple of years when American forces, come to the top end for the Talisman Sabre war games, are let loose on our streets for R&R. We wondered what we, as locals who can see these problems taking shape around us, can do to lessen the impact.

 

So when a couple of us had to go to japan on other business we felt compelled to take a few extra days to visit Okinawa and learn from the locals.

 

Cat and I read up on Okinawa's history of protest against US bases while we flew. They've got a big presence on their hands, and have been working on it for over 60 years. On a number of occassions, tens of thousands of Okinawans have created a human chain encircling the periphery of controversial bases. In April 2010, 90,000 Okinawans protested the Japanese government's backflip over Futenma.

 

But when we arrived at Kadena, we found not a human chain, but an impressive strip of organic farming right there in the middle of the city, actually within the bounds of the base.

The juxtaposition of a booming organic farm right on the doorstep of the home of the Air Force's largest combat wing was stark, particularly given the constant stream of noisy bombers, chinooks and jets that seemed to take off every couple of minutes. Our guide assured us that the farms were primarily intended as a political statement, and that there peaceful presence within the outer perimeter of the base (inside a wire fence, but outside a second cement wall) has been tolerated by the Americans for years. This unstated agreement sounded hard to swallow at first, but as we moved around the island, it became clear that this style of static tension is typical of the stand offs that have developed between the largest military power on the planet, and the vast majority of the population of this determinedly independent island, that maintains an identity distinct from mainland Japan.

 

In similar fashion, when we visited the area slated for the relocation of Futenma, we found a protest camp that had been in place for over 8 years. “We celebrated the first few birthdays,” said one fellow, introduced as the mayor of the tent city. “But then we stopped. We just want to reach the end.” I diplomatically observed that the protesters were almost all older women. My sensitive comment got a broad smile: “We weren't all so old when we started!” I strolled from the protest tents to the barbed wire wall on the beach, extending to the high tide to cuts off the american land from the rest of the bay. The barbed wire was strewn with colourful ribbons, many arranged in the shape of sea creatures.

Back at the tents, I thumbed through the protest materials. Obviously a few decades of resistance gives a campaign time to polish these products. The literature, while clearly defining the U.S. expansion plans for the area, focuses on the natural values at risk, with particular reference to dugong and turtle. The protest T-shirts and books are a celebration of these local natural values. In fact, I recognised the dugong mascot : I'd seen it in the midst of a colourful protest march against nuclear power back in Yokohama. The locals explained that, over the years, the Dugong, whose sea grass meadows are threatened by coastal reclamation for an airstrip at the proposed base, has become a mascot for peace.

 

These were the themes we encountered all around Okinawa. A long struggle, maintained by experienced activists; sustained stand-offs that seem bizarre out of context; and an expression of the resistance of a foreign military occuption through celebration of local natural and cultural values. We went on to a protest camp on the edge of a road through beautiful forest at Takea, a small village at the northern end of the island, where the US want to build a number of helipads. For six years, locals and supporters have blockaded entrances to the helipd construction sites. The focus of their campaigning is the environmental destruction of the local forest, and their campaign materials celebrate the natural values, including a rare and threatened local butterfly.

 

We arrived to a situation even more bizarre than the organic farms inside the Kadena base. Protesters were sitting in a narrow strip between the fenced off military land, and their cars which seemed to be permanently parked to block access. While police looked on, Japanese Defence Bureau workers, most of them holding megaphones, stood above on the back of a long truck, shouting at the protesters to “please move your cars!”. Loudly. Repeatedly. For hours.

 

The constant drone of their messages, at once obnoxious and polite, became stressful much faster than I would have imagined. I realised that the protesters calmly sitting in the narrow strip between the road and the fence were not just obstructing the heavy machinery that was waiting nearby; they were also demonstrating the peace they wish for our world. Focussing on their reading, gesturing to one another because talking was too difficult in the midst of so much shouting, these protesters – most of them older than us, many of them women – emanated a collective inner peace unlike anything I've seen at any forest blockade before. Our hosts explained that in the current political climate, with so much opposition to the bases, and uncertainty about future policy, the police were not only individually on side, but officially disinclined to intervene, so long as the protest kept its cool. This left the Japanese workers with the unenviable task of spending each working day yelling for the blockaders to “please move!”

 

When the Defence Bureau workers and police finally clocked off, we checked out the camp, and once again found campaign materials that focussed on the natural values at risk. One blockader enthusiastically inquired after a Queensland professor who had written on the local endangered butterfly. Still a bit unclear, I asked specifically whether the majority of locals were motivated by environmentalism, or because they oppose their land being used as a training ground for war. I was rewarded with puzzled looks: our host assured me that, while the average Okinawan just wants rid of the troublesome U.S. Military presence, most of those compelled to protest see peace and environmental protection as being intrinsically entwined.

 

Our later conversations explored more familiar territory. Back home, we've had incidents of sexual assault by U.S. forces on R&R, and they've been occassions where the Australia-U.S. SOFA has enabled perpetrators to be disciplined back home, or evade prosecution altogether. We'll be keen to see how the delegation progresses their demands regarding the Japan-U.S. SOFA, while we try to pin down the details of processes that can be relied upon for the marines coming to Darwin. Our Okinawan friends describe a significant incident in 2004, when a helicopter malfunctioned and crash landed on a university building. They describe that national emergency services were disallowed by the Americans from accessing the scene : we'll be keen to understand just how this would go down in Darwin.

Our brief visit to Okinawa gave us a snapshot of some of the worst impacts of American military bases, which we hope to head off at home. But more significantly, it inspired us to carry on the strength and positive vision with which Okinawans continue to pursue a future free of militarism and the U.S. global war machine. As the ground shifts between the various arms of military, the Japanese government and the people of Okinawa, the USMC seem poised to expand in not only Darwin but also Guam and Hawaii. Our response to the emerging U.S. military presence at home must maintain this perspective, and coordinate with peoples' movements for peace that are meeting the marines wherever they turn.