{EDITOR’S NOTE: The original cross-post incorrectly quoted this Japanese editorial as saying that two U.S. Marines had been arrested, when it should have said two U.S. sailors. It also stated that Okinawa had been returned to Japanese control last year. In fact, it was returned in 1974. This post on TMV has now been corrected. It’s the policy of TMV to correct errors. We regret the error.}
If Okinawans were angry about the huge presence of U.S. military personnel before, they are enraged now, after two American sailors have been accused of raping a young woman from the prefecture on her way home from work. This editorial from Japan’s Okinawa Times gives a sense of the atmosphere on the island that has housed 75 percent of all U.S. forces in Japan since the end of World War II.
The Okinawa Times editorial says in part:
According to police, the two [U.S. sailors] called over to the woman in broken Japanese. When she ignored them and continued on her way, they came up from behind and held her in a full nelson, then dragging her into a secluded spot for the rape. Why haven’t “prevention of future incidents” and “enforcement of strict discipline” already been put in place, and why do these incidents continue to occur?
Sixty seven years have passed since the end of the war. Is there any other region in which women’s human rights have been threatened for such a period? At a meeting of the Prefectural Assembly Special Committee on U.S. Military Affairs, Okinawa police revealed that even in the relatively limited period since Okinawa was officially returned [in 1974], there have been 127 cases of rape and attempted rape by members of U.S. Forces. And these are only the recorded incidents.
“B52s in the sky, submarines in the sea, toxic gases on the ground, and nowhere to hide,” is how Okinawa was described before it was returned to Japan [in 1974], and when it comes to the excessive burden of the bases, nothing has fundamentally changed since then. “Ospreys in the sky, and crimes by U.S. servicemen on the ground” – that is the current situation 40 years on. Military considerations still remain the priority, while the safety and wellbeing of residents are casually dismissed.
READ ON IN ENGLISH OR JAPANESE AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
[Of related interest: Here’s the Google News link to more on this story.]
