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Troops Cause Rape


Crimes and rape are prevalent in Okinawa because of US troops

Motoyama, 08-Executive Director of the Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center in Japan

(Hisako, Off Our Backs, Volume 38, Issue 1, “Not a ‘yankees-go-home’ Solution to the Sexual Violence of the U.S. Military”, 2008, accessed via questia.com, Questia Media America, Inc.) Massive

IN RECENT MONTHS, THE U.S. military commander in Japan has been busy making apologies over the series of sexual violence cases involving American soldiers. On October 9, 2007, the son of a U.S. military captain in Okinawa was arrested for raping a woman on the Kadena base on Okinawa. On October 14, four Marines from the Iwakuni Base gang raped a 19-year-old woman in Hiroshima. On February 11, a marine in Okinawa sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl, and another U.S. military serviceman was arrested for raping a Filipino woman in Okinawa on February 20. These shocking events were further followed by the arrest of a 22-year-old soldier who killed a taxi driver in Yokosuka, Kanagawa, on April 3. Crimes and accidents by American soldiers are hardly new in communities hosting the bases, particularly in Okinawa, which hosts nearly threequarters of the U.S. military bases in Japan. Okinawa is a southern group of small islands that was forcibly annexed to Japan in the 19th century, badly damaged in the Pacific War, and kept under the U.S. military occupation until 1970. Even after its return to Japan, the government has allowed the U.S. military to continue to use the lands, which were forcibly taken from the people, for military purposes. Perpetrators have rarely been indicted because they are protected by the Status of Forces Agreement, and most victims are left without justice or compensation. However, when a 12-year-old girl was gang raped by three soldiers in 1995 (which was also the year of the World Conference of Women, for which Okinawan women were organizing), the local communities' rage over continued human rights violations and the inaction of the Japanese government led to mass protests. The Japanese government and the U.S. military authority promised to take measures to lessen the burden of communities hosting the bases and to provide "favorable consideration" to the Japanese police in cases of serious crimes involving murder and rape.
Rape will continue unless the US military is removed

Schrimer, 96-history professor at Boston University

(Daniel B., Monthly Review, Volume 47, Issue 9, Monthly Review Foundation, Inc., “Japan and the Global Policeman”, February 1996, accessed via questia.com, Questia Media America, Inc.) Massive

As a democratic-minded U.S. citizen I condemn the rape of the Okinawa schoolgirl, for which three U.S. servicemen have been arrested. I believe militarism with its teaching and practice of violence and domination inflames male supremacist attitudes and leads to such brutalities against women. I agree, therefore, with those Japanese who say that the U.S. military presence in their country lies at the root of this sexist crime. I applaud the Japanese peace movement both for demanding that bases be removed and for supporting the popular protests that have expressed this demand. Above all, I must pay tribute to the people of Okinawa who lead this campaign for democratic rights and peace, with their magnificent demonstration of 85,000 on October 21. Military records show U.S. servicemen in Japan have been tried for sexual crimes more than anywhere else.(1) This history suggests that as long as the U.S. military remains in Japan, there will be more such crimes.
Okinawa is the most violent US base in the entire world—this prompts mass outrage from Okinawan citizens

Shorrock, 00-Labor activist and investigative journalist with focus in US foreign policy, US national security and intelligence and East Asian Politics

(Tim, Foreign Policy in Focus, Volume 5, Issue 22, “Okinawa and the U.S. Military in Northeast Asia”, July 12, 2000, accessed via quesia.com, Questia Media America, Inc.) Massive



In 1994 the brutal rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. Marines sparked massive protests from Okinawans demanding the removal of the U.S. bases. Many Okinawans believe the 1994 rape was just the tip of the iceberg. Since 1988, Navy and Marine Corps bases in Japan (almost all of them in Okinawa) have registered the highest number--169--of court-martial cases for sexual assault of all U.S. military bases worldwide. And despite attempts by the Pentagon to control its soldiers, the violence against women continues. In early July 2000, the island was again in an uproar after a U.S. Marine was accused of molesting a 14-year-old schoolgirl after having snuck into her unlocked apartment in Okinawa City.
Women are the targets of more sexual violence in Okinawa then in any other base in the world—it’s time to remove the troops, they have suffered for 53 years

IPS, 98 (Danielle Knight, “Women Demand End to Military Violence”, 10-9-98, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/50/102.html) Massive
A delegation of women from the Japense island of Okinawa - scene of ones of the bloodiest battles of World War II - is calling for more than just policy changes. Charging that military bases have disturbed life on their island for more than half a century, the Okinawa Women's Peace Caravan is calling for the dismantling of 42 U.S. military bases. "Fifty-three years is long enough. We have really suffered," says Suzuyo Takazato, director of the Japan-based Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence. "'Prostitution and rape are the military system's outlets for pent up aggression and methods of maintaining control and discipline - the target being local community women." The rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three U.S. servicemen in 1995 sparked the women and uncover a wider trend of sexual violence by the military on the island. "More marines and navy sailors were tried for rapes, child molestation's and other sexual assaults at bases in Japan than at at any other military site in the world," she says. Computer records of Navy and Marine Corps cases since 1988 show bases in Japan with a total of 41,008 personnel, held 169 courts martial for sexual assaults, she says. This was 66 percent more than the second location, San Diego, California, which had 102 cases out of 93,792 personnel.
Military and crimes have a direct correlation-there will still be rape unless the troops are removed

OTI Online, 97 (Rick Mercier, On The Issues: The Progressive Woman’s Magazine, “Way Off Base: The Shameful History of Military Rape in Okinawa”, Winter 1997, http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/1997winter/w97_Mercier.php) Massive
A glance at the litany of crimes reveals a correlation between U.S. military action in Asia and violence directed against women in Okinawa. During the Vietnam War era, 17 women were murdered by military personnel who were on R and R leave, were training for combat, or were somehow already involved in the war effort, which in Okinawa included daily B-52 sorties originating from Kadena Air Force Base. Eleven of the victims worked serving soldiers as bar hostesses or sauna attendants - occupations that helped keep the GIs happy and thus maintained their willingness to kill in other Asian countries. It was in this way that the military's violence in Southeast Asia - often initiated in Okinawa - boomeranged back to Japan's remote island prefecture, where Okinawan women became the victims of deadly attack.



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