Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

CNN International
By Eve Bower
March 13, 2011

Every morning at 7:30, Hiroshi Ashitomi trudges up sand-dusted steps, pries open a metal folding chair and joins a handful of his fellow retirees under a plastic tent, facing seaward. They are staging a protest.

Their sit-ins are in opposition to a perceived threat that many of his neighbors also fear: the planned expansion of a U.S. military base on Okinawa’s east-facing Henoko Bay.

Last week, however, the routines of both Ashitomi and the U.S. military were upset. And even though the reason for that disruption — a devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami — demonstrated the advantage of having U.S. bases, Ashitomi and others say they will not alter their efforts to get the U.S. military off the island.

In the wake of the earthquake, the U.S. military is sending humanitarian aid and technical assistance to the hardest-hit areas of Japan. Many of these efforts are being launched from bases on Okinawa Island, where the United States maintains a permanent military presence under a treaty the two countries signed after World War II.

Staging areas in Okinawa allowed U.S. assistance to reach the affected areas faster than aid from many other countries. Perhaps more than at any time in recent memory, the U.S. military has made a compelling case for its presence on Okinawa.

But to Ashitomi, who said he views U.S. troops as de facto occupiers, the benefits are outweighed. …

Read on: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.us.okinawa/?hpt=T2

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New York Times
By Martin Fackler and Elisabeth Bumiller
January 13, 2011

TOKYO — Striking a conciliatory tone on an issue that has divided Japan and the United States, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that the Obama administration would follow Tokyo’s lead in working to relocate an American air base on Okinawa.

During talks with Japanese leaders in Tokyo, Mr. Gates said he also discussed a sophisticated new antimissile system that the United States is jointly developing with the Japanese, and the two nations’ response to North Korea’s recent military provocations against the South.

But a top item on the agenda was the relocation of the United States Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, an emotional issue here that drove an uncharacteristic wedge between the allies last year when the prime minister at the time, Yukio Hatoyama, wavered on whether to keep the base on Okinawa.

While the two nations finally agreed in May to relocate the noisy helicopter base to a less populated part of Okinawa by 2014, local resistance has made that time frame look increasingly unrealistic. …

On Thursday, Mr. Gates said the administration did not want the Futenma issue to overshadow the countries’ overall security alliance, which last year reached its 50th anniversary. He signaled that the United States was willing to be flexible in allowing Tokyo to resolve the domestic political resistance to the relocation plan. …

Read on: www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/world/asia/14military.html

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Christian Science Monitor
By Donald Kirk
January 5, 2011

US envoy Stephen Bosworth arrives in Tokyo Thursday after visiting Seoul and Beijing. Implicit in his talks is a push for Japan and South Korea to cooperate for mutual defense against North Korea.

US envoy Stephen Bosworth is carrying a message to Asian capitals this week that looks far beyond the obvious desire to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

Implicit in his talks in Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo is a push for Japan and South Korea to get over the legacy of 35 years of Japanese colonial rule and decades of animosity and suspicion – and cooperate for mutual defense against the North Korea threat and concerns about China as the rising regional power.

Japanese and Korean officials deny any consideration of an alliance, citing it as politically impossible. But Mr. Bosworth, who arrives in Tokyo from Beijing and Seoul on Thursday, faces mounting questions about cooperation engineered by the United States. Washington has longstanding but separate alliances with both countries, although US officials for years have stressed the need for “trilateral cooperation” that conjures the image of a three-sided alliance in case of hostilities.

Bosworth has been saying that North Korea to go beyond its stated desire to return to six-party talks and begin to live up to agreements reached in 2007 to forgo its nuclear weapons program in return for massive aid for its dilapidated economy. As a South Korean official put it Wednesday after Bosworth’s meetings in Seoul, “The South and the US shared an understanding that future six-party talks should not be talks for talks’ sake” – a view that Bosworth has frequently expressed.

While attempting to judge North Korea’s seriousness about wanting to return to the table and “end confrontation” with the South, as North Korea’s media stated in a New Year’s editorial, Japanese officials are spreading the word about Japan-Korea cooperation.

How could Japan and South Korea cooperate?

Japan will outline terms of an agreement with South Korea for exchanging equipment, information, fuel, medicine, even food and water, if a war were to break out, according to official briefings given to the Japanese media. Japan’s defense minister, Toshimi Kitazawa, will be discussing the deal with Korea’s defense minister, Kim Kwan-jin, next week.

Japan’s biggest selling newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, followed up that revelation with a report Wednesday that Japan and South Korea may sign an agreement in several months calling for military cooperation in peacetime despite “lingering disputes concerning Japan’s colonial rule.”

The newspaper cited “growing uncertainty in East Asia,” notably “increased aggression by China and North Korea,” as behind the view that “enhanced bilateral defense ties are indispensable.”

US officials, in view of the sensitivities, are reluctant to comment on the chances of greater Japan-Korea military cooperation, much less an alliance.

www.csmonitor.com/World/2011/0105/North-Korea-tests-limits-of-South-Korea-Japan-cooperation

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Asahi.com
By Kuniichi Tanida
January 3, 2011

A joint U.S.-Japan research program to develop software for a ship-borne ballistic missile defense system has collapsed after the two sides failed to agree on conditions for exporting the technology, sources said.

Tokyo’s insistence that the United States obtain prior consent from the Japanese government before selling the software to a third country caused the breakdown, the sources said. The United States has decided to continue with the project alone.

The software on which the two countries were working is meant to improve the ship-board Aegis guided missile system, which is supposed to intercept ballistic missiles, by improving onboard computer displays and providing a backup system in case of system failure.

It was being developed jointly by the governments and private sectors of the two countries under the Ballistic Missile Defense Open Architecture Research (BMDOAR) program.

While cooperation on the system was just the second in a series of planned joint ballistic missile defense projects between the two countries, its collapse could have implications for other programs. …

www.asahi.com/english/TKY201101020016.html

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The Washington Post
By Mari Yamaguchi
December 14, 2010

Japan’s government agreed Tuesday to continue contributing $2.2 billion a year toward the cost of stationing American troops in the country.

Under the agreement with the United States, Japan’s share will remain at the current 188 billion yen ($2.2 billion) through March 2016. The current pact expires next March. …

The flash point in the debate is the southern island of Okinawa, where most of the nearly 100 U.S. facilities in Japan are located. The pending relocation of an unpopular U.S. Marine base on the island has strained relations between the two countries.

Japanese living near U.S. military facilities have long complained about aircraft noise and crime. …

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121401711.html

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The Hankyoreh
By Kwon Tae-ho
December 8, 2010

During a tripartite meeting, S.Korea and Japan showed more support for a U.S. presence into Northeast Asia affairs

A key Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House) official reported Tuesday that South Korea and the United States have agreed to bomb North Korea using aircraft if North Korea launches additional provocations.

“The two countries agreed to the plan of action after the Yeonpyeong Island artillery attack by North Korea, and that the United States agreed that South Korea should strongly respond to additional provocations in self-defense,” said the official. “This means that when South Korea is attacked, it would actively respond relying not only on weapons in the area, but also mobilizing air power.”

During a meeting of the South Korean, U.S. and Japanese foreign ministers in Washington on Sunday, the U.S. and Japanese foreign ministers reportedly did not raise objections to South Korea’s plan to strongly respond militarily should North Korea commit additional provocations.

A high-ranking South Korean government official met with South Korean correspondents in Washington on Sunday and said, “South Korea has the right to respond in this manner, since it constitutes a response to a North Korean attack rather than a preemptive strike.”

During the tripartite meeting, there even appeared agenda items that seemed to resuscitate the so-called “three way southern alliance” of South Korea, the United States and Japan. In a joint statement, the three foreign ministers said Seoul, Washington and Tokyo had pledged to strengthen their efforts regarding the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the East Asia Summit (EAS), and in particular, South Korea and Japan welcomed formal U.S. participation in the ARF starting in 2011.

Requesting anonymity, one diplomatic source said, “The EAS has recently become the multilateral body shown the most concern by Washington, which seeks to intervene politically and militarily in Asia.” …

Read on: http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/452771.html

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Political Affairs Magazine
by: Akahata
November 14, 2009

About 21,000 Okinawans held a rally on November 8 in Ginowan City demanding the immediate closure of the dangerous U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station and opposing the plan to move it to Henoko to provide a state-of-the-art air base in Okinawa.”

Ginowan is the city that hosts the U.S. Futenma base, but an overwhelming majority of the residents are demanding that the base site be returned to the city so that they can live free of sonic booms from U.S. military aircraft and the danger of plane crashes.

Participants in the rally demonstrated their firm opposition to a new U.S. base being constructed anywhere in Okinawa.

Speaking on behalf of the organizers of the rally, Ginowan Mayor Iha Yoichi urged Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio to take a decisive step to free Okinawans from the unbearable burdens of U.S. bases, the source of their anguish and sufferings, which has continued to exist for more than sixty years.

Mayor Onaga Masatoshi of Naha City stated, “Although I am a conservative, I am sure the majority of Okinawans are united in calling for U.S. bases to be reduced.”

Mayor Noguni Masaharu of Chatan Town, north of Ginowan City, warned that residents nearby the Futenma base can no longer put up with the heavy burden of hosting the base. We also oppose the idea of moving the U.S. Marine Corps operations at Futenma to the U.S. Kadena Air Force Base.” …

www.politicalaffairs.net/japan-okinawans-protest-new-us-marine-base/

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Mainichi Daily News
April 2, 2010

The local community in the U.S. territory of Guam is leaning toward rejecting the planned relocation of about 8,000 U.S. Marines to the island from Okinawa Prefecture.

The local governor, who had initially expressed his willingness to host the troops, is now calling for a delay in the deadline for the relocation, set at 2014.

While Japanese legislators and government officials insisting that U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma be moved out of Japan hope Guam will host a substitute facility, growing anti-base sentiment in the island community has cast a shadow over even the already agreed-upon relocation of some 8,000 Marines.

The recent dispute in Guam over the relocation of Marines suggests that the situation on this resort island is similar to that of Okinawa, where residents are protesting the excessive burden of hosting U.S. bases in Japan and historically unequal relations between the island prefecture and the central government. …

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/column/news/20100403p2a00m0na001000c.html

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Mainichi Daily News
April 2, 2010

Japan is under mounting pressure to foot the expenses of building infrastructure necessary to expand U.S. bases on Guam to accommodate about 8,000 Marines to be relocated out of Okinawa Prefecture, as Washington has failed to shoulder the financial burden.

The Guam territorial government estimates that $3.9 billion, or approximately 370 billion yen, will be necessary to build an additional sewage treatment facility, power station and improve roads and bridges. The amount is eight times the annual budget of the island.

A high-ranking Guam government official expressed grave concern that the island could go broke, pointing out that the federal government has stopped short of pledging to foot the costs. He then asked if Tokyo will shoulder the financial burden.

Military bases cover 30 percent of the land area of Guam, with Andersen Air Force Base situated in its north and Apra Harbor Navy Base on its west coast.

Furthermore, a total of 17 servicemen from the island have died in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, and in a Feb. 15 address Guam Gov. Felix Perez Camacho emphasized that Guam dedicated more lives and land per resident to war than any other state or territory in the United States.

Angered by a federal government that is trying to force the islanders to make further sacrifices, the Guam legislature adopted a resolution on Feb. 11, demanding that the plan to expand bases in Guam be revised, and in his Feb. 15 address Gov. Camacho insisted that the expansion of U.S. bases in Guam be delayed beyond 2014. …

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/column/news/20100403p2a00m0na002000c.html

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Bloomberg.com
By John Brinsley and Sachiko Sakamaki
March 3, 2010

Japan’s government will keep a U.S. military base on Okinawa, meeting the demands of the Obama administration, even if that means alienating a coalition partner and local people, a vice defense minister said.

Okinawan residents, who want the Marine base moved off the island, will be offered “compensation” for accepting the government’s decision, Akihisa Nagashima said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday, without elaborating. His remarks are the most definitive by a government member indicating the base will stay on Okinawa.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has set a May deadline for settling a dispute that has overshadowed the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-Japan security treaty. Almost 50,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan, more than half on Okinawa, located 950 miles (1,530 kilometers) south of Tokyo. …

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aOPbacK4dqW8

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