Japan Aff Michigan



Download 1.23 Mb.
Page40/78
Date20.10.2016
Size1.23 Mb.
#5382
1   ...   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   ...   78

Relocation Kill Fishing


The re-alocation of the Fuetenma base to Henoko will crush their local community and their fishing lands they thrive on. The base will cause noise and kill off the endangered dugong.

Taylor 00-- (Jonathan, lecturer in geography at California State University, “Okinawa on the Eve of the G-8 Summit [*]”, The geographical review, http://www.questia.com/read/5001806107?title=Okinawa%20on%20the%20Eve%20of%20the%20G-8%20Summit%20%5b*%5d)

On 21 December 1997, voters in Nago City cast their ballots in a referendum concerning the relocation of the Futenma base to an offshore facility to be constructed by the village of Henoko, adjacent to the U.S. Marine Corps's Camp Schwab. Voters rejected the proposal, though by less than an overwhelming margin. This was despite heavy levels of funding by the prorelocation movement and the promise of extravagant spending for the northern, less populated, less developed, and less prosperous area of Okinawa (Inoue, Purves, and Selden 1997). In spite of this referendum vote, Governor Kenichi Inamine announced at a news conference on 19 November 1999 that a replacement site for Futenma had finally been decided on and that it was to be a part of or adjacent to Camp Schwab, on the edge of Henoko. The vice-governor reported this as an "excruciating decision" (Asahi Evening News 1999). The national government of Japan then announced the allocation of an amount equivalent to U.S.$95 million in the next fiscal year's budget for related expenses. Inamine's decision was not a complete surprise. During the gubernatorial campaign in which he defeated then governor and staunch base opponent Masahide Ota the previous fall, Inamine had proposed that a heliport be constructed in northern Okinawa to replace Futenma. However, Inamine's proposal diverged from the initial proposal stemming from the SACO in suggesting that a joint-use facility--commercial and military, Okinawan and American--be constructed. Inamine hoped to reanimate the economy of the north, to achieve a good working relationship with the central government, and, in particular, to accomplish the goal of removing Futenma from its current location, square in the middle of Ginowan and close to the most densely populated area of Okinawa. Furthermore, Inamine's plan called for a fifteen-year maximum period for U.S. use of the facility. Thereafter, it would revert to civilian control. The Okinawan prefectural government envisioned paying for a high-tech airport that would be dual use until it returne d to Okinawa. This plan was not without merit. Futenma's present location poses a great possible danger to the surrounding community, creates excessive levels of noise pollution, retards the economic development of Ginowan, and adds density to the population concentration. The majority of voters from Ginowan cast their votes for Inamine, and some with whom I talked had little concern about where the heliport went, as long as it was relocated. Building a civilian-use airport somewhere in northern Okinawa could help ease congestion on the few arterial roads that connect the northern and southern portions of the island. Economic development in the north, depending on the projects proposed, could conceivably alter the pattern of continued depopulation of that region as young people head to the crowded south. In the south, where the unemployment rate is the highest of any prefecture in Japan, some jobs, at least, exist. During Inamine's first year as governor, a number of possible sites for Futenma's relocation were proposed. But Henoko remained the most salient possibility by virtue of proximity to the Marine Corps personnel already stationed at Camp Schwab. In fact, the Marine Corps had considered building a heliport at Schwab as early as the 1980S. Henoko's small population--1,400--leads some Okinawans to conclude that, whatever effects the base will have, fewer people will feel them then do now in Ginowan. In addition, Henoko's economy is stagnant. A trip through its former bar district shows only a few establishments still in business, with dozens of boarded-up nightclubs and restaurants (Figure 2). The influx of Marines from Futenma, many of whom are not enlisted men but officers, air-traffic controllers, engineers, or technicians, some with families, may regenerate business in the area without necessarily re-creating the thriving milieu of prostitution and seedy nightlife that scarred and scared Henoko residents during the Vietnam War era. Nonetheless, these positives are outweighed by a number of uncertainties and negative factors. The U.S. government has never outlined a definite position on a joint-use facility, but high-ranking Marine Corps officers have told me, not for attribution, that "it will never happen." Neither Japan nor the United States is at all certain to agree to a fifteen-year limit on the facility. More likely is an agreement to "review" the situation in fifteen years. The Japanese government has certainly attempted to offer incentives to Okinawa. The choice of Nago as the host of the 2000 G--8 Summit and the relocation of Futenma to the administrative unit of Nago City are not coincidences. However, because the United States and Japan have not discussed the details of the relocation and because of Okinawan opposition to the plan, it has not yet occurred. Too many questions remain for the people of Henoko, Nago, and the north to know whether incentives outweigh disincentives--or whether local populations even have a choice in the matter. For instance, is the heliport to be a floating, sea-based platform, constructed on reclaimed offshore land, or is it to be land based? If the former, how far offshore will it be? How will the base affect Henoko's fishing industry and the coral-reef habitat for the dugong--a rare, sea-based mammal--and other marine animals in the area? In terms of the quality of life for residents of the region, the primary and most loudly discussed concern is noise. But little attention has been paid to another important aspect of the base: the flight patterns of the helicopters and occasional airplanes that will use the facility. Were the United States to pledge that all aircraft would land from the Pacific Ocean side, with approaches and takeoffs solely over water, then noise from the base, though annoying to the local residents, would intrude on a smaller total number of people. Should the helicopters approach and depart over land, however, noise pollution--already an extremely serious problem over much of Okinawa--would be redistributed over a wider area, to the towns of Ginoza, Kin, and even Nago City itself. For Henoko village, the concerns are more pressing. The harbor at Henoko supports a small fishing industry, which would be severely affected by the construction of a heliport. In contrast to many of the coral reefs found around Okinawa, those that ring Henoko are thriving, but the construction of a heliport directly on top of the coral would obviously damage it greatly. Thus the citizens of Henoko have concluded--correctly--that the entire ecology of the area is at risk. In addition, the dugong have breeding grounds directly on the proposed offshore site. Although only a few dugong are reported to breed and feed here, this area is thought to be in the northernmost range of the endangered creatures' global habitat. Finally, the village of Henoko is a peaceful place of carefully tended houses and gardens that ring the quiet shore. A military base would devastate its residents' quality of life and property values. Instead of gazing out their windows at a pristine and remarkably beautiful blue ocean, they would see an enormous mass of concrete and steel, replete with American flags and accompanied by the constant din of approaching and departing aircraft. Recollecting a legacy of occasional rapes and murders committed by U.S. servicemen in the vicinity, many residents of Henoko are vocally, even vehemently, opposed to any added military presence in their neighborhood. The colonialism and domination of Okinawa is a complete destruction of their way of life-- land and sea are replaced with seaports and bases. In this case, the local industries are destroyed and citizens are forced to work for the bases.
The United States Colonial presence enslaves Okinawans and prevents true economic development

Selden 71-- (Mark, Coordinator of the open access journal the Asia Pacific Journal ,and a Senior Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University, and Bartle Professor of History and Sociology at Binghamton University, “Okinawa and American Colonialism”, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, http://www.questia.com/read/97732205?title=Okinawa%20and%20American%20Colonialism)
The Okinawan economy is not merely tied to the American dollar which is the official currency ("liberty" and "In God We Trust" go to market with every peasant villager). Virtually the entire economy exists to service the U.S. military. The battle for Okinawa marked the critical first step in a forced march which led to the degradation and subordination of Okinawan society to American military colonizers. In the battle for Okinawa and its aftermath hundreds of thousands of peasants were driven from their land. A decade later a U.S. Congressional Investigating Committee reported that over 250,000 Okinawan peasants had been displaced by the U.S. military. More than 20 per cent of the arable land (the percentage was much higher in populous central Okinawa) was turned into a sea of cement airstrips, training grounds and missile installations. 13 In one swift blow the livelihood and way of life of rural Okinawa was destroyed and agriculture crippled. The result was not only heavy dependence on American food imports. More significant, for hundreds of thousands of Okinawans the single option for survival was to work for the military. The humiliation and dependency characteristic of colonial status take on a singular brutality in Okinawa. Colonialism everywhere creates a brutal hierarchy of alien rulers over native inhabitants. But nowhere, outside of the combat zones where Third World peoples have risen in armed struggle, is the foreign military presence so overwhelming as in Okinawa. Nowhere is the landscape so dominated by barbedwire military bases, guarded airstrips, and barracks alternating with the garish symbols of the American military lifestyle abroad — golf courses, swimming pools, servicemen's clubs and dependant housing. A parody of Los Angeles suburbia, on the one hand, and on the other, its Watts counterpart, the Bush, the all-Black ghetto steaming under the racism for which the military on Okinawa is notorious. Nowhere. Yet Okinawa is of course no aberration. It is rather the very quintessence of a brutalizing American presence which in varying forms is found wherever American forces are stationed throughout Asia — from Taiwan and South Korea to the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Micronesia — and the world. On Okinawa the silken glove of a "superior" colonial culture carried by administrators, businessmen, missionaries and teachers scarcely conceals the mailed fist of the military.
U.S. millitary bases kill fish-- The uproar about the endangered Dugong proves. 

Yoshikawa 09-- (Hideki, anthropologist who teaches at Meio University and the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, "Dugong Swimming in Uncharted Waters: US Judicial Intervention to Protect Okinawa's "Natural Monuments” and Halt Base Construction," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 6-4 http://japanfocus.org/-Hideki_YOSHIKAWA/3044)
In December 1996, SACO submitted its final report, proposing a plan to construct a sea based facility off the east coast of Okinawa Island, where the Futenma Marine Air Station would be relocated from the heavily populated area of Ginowan City.[4]  The governments swiftly decided on the sparsely populated area of Henoko, Nago city, as the construction site.  Henoko has been the home to the US Marine base Camp Schwab for more than 50 years.The plan, then known as the “heliport plan,” immediately encountered strong local opposition. Elders of the Henoko community led the formation of an anti-construction group, the Inochi o mamoru kai (Save Life Society) and began sit-in protests. The citizens of Nago held a city referendum in which they voted down the construction plan. Through these actions, local opposition began to transform into a larger social movement while the Japanese government sought to generate local support for the construction plan.[5] The anti-base construction movement then took an environmental turn in an unexpected way: a document presented in 1997 to Ginowan City by the Naha Defense Facilities Administration Agency (DFAA) revealed that the Naha DFAA had spotted a dugong in Henoko and Oura Bays during its preliminary survey for the construction plan earlier that year. Local and national media began publicizing the presence of dugongs in the proposed construction site. The dugong, which many people in Okinawa had thought were extinct, was on its way to become a symbol of the still pristine environment of Henoko and Oura Bays.[6] Local environmental groups such as the Love Dugong Network (later Dugong Network Okinawa) and the jyugon hogo kikin (Dugong Protection Fund) were formed. Some of them had exclusively environmental agendas while others were more politically oriented. These groups began to conduct research, called for the protection of the surviving dugongs, and were vocal against the construction plan.  National environmental organizations such as WWF-Japan and the Natural Conservation Society-Japan (NACS-J) also came to support the local environmental groups.


Download 1.23 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   ...   78



The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message
    Main page
Guide
Instructions
Report
Request
Review