Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, May 15 (International Observation) Okinawa’s 50th year of return: discrimination and injustice still exist
Xinhua News Agency reporter Hua Yi
May 15 is the 50th anniversary of Okinawa’s return to Japan. The Japanese government and the Okinawa prefectural government jointly held the “50th anniversary of Okinawa’s return” in Tokyo and Okinawa on that day.
Half a century has passed, and Okinawans still face deep-rooted discrimination in Japan. The U.S. military base in Okinawa has become a nightmare for Okinawans. Compared with other parts of Japan, the burden it has caused on Okinawa is obviously “unfair”, and the local economic development is still restricted. .
Discriminated and humiliated as “natives”
Historically, Okinawa was an independent Ryukyu Kingdom. After Japan’s Meiji Restoration, Japan annexed Ryukyu and established Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. The Battle of Okinawa in 1945 was the deadliest battle on the Pacific battlefield of World War II, when about a quarter of Okinawa’s population died in the Battle of Okinawa. After the war, Okinawa was “trusted” by the United States. In 1971, the United States and Japan signed the “Okinawa Return Agreement” privately. In May of the following year, the Okinawa administration was handed over to Japan by the United States.
Today, Okinawans still face deep-rooted discrimination and injustice in Japan, and it is difficult to eliminate them.
Not long ago, a police officer in Okinawa used a baton to break a student’s eyeball. Hundreds of young Okinawans surrounded a local police station and threw rocks and bottles in protest. Many Japanese netizens called these Okinawans “natives”.
In October 2016, during a protest in Okinawa, the Osaka police who were transferred on duty had a verbal conflict with the Okinawan people. Some police officers even abused the protesters with “natives”. “Native people” is a derogatory term used by the Japanese for the aborigines such as the Ryukyu people. The Japanese writer Matosuke Megori, who was at the protest at the time, said with emotion afterwards that he felt this kind of discrimination even more when he made such insulting remarks in person.
The then-governor of Okinawa Prefecture, Ong Nagayoshi, protested angrily, saying that this was a word that was meant to insult the local people and was very shocking. The then-governor of Osaka Prefecture, Ichiro Matsui, later praised the police officer involved, saying, “Even if the expression is inappropriate, the Osaka police are working hard to perform their official duties.”
U.S. military base becomes a nightmare
The Ryukyu Islands have always been regarded as military “outposts” and “fortresses” in East Asia by the governments of Japan and the United States. After the United States handed over the Okinawa administration to Japan, it still retained a large number of US military bases. According to public information, Okinawa Prefecture accounts for only 0.6% of Japan’s area, but about 70% of the US military bases stationed in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa Prefecture. Because the U.S. military stationed in Japan has extraterritorial rights in Japan and is not under the jurisdiction of Japan, the U.S. military bases are concentrated in Okinawa, which has led to problems such as safety accidents, aircraft noise, and criminal incidents caused by the U.S. military, which have seriously affected the daily lives of Okinawans for a long time.
According to the statistics of Okinawa Prefecture, from 1972 to 2019, the US troops stationed in Japan and their dependents committed about 6,000 crimes in Okinawa, including robbery, rape, murder and other vicious crimes. In addition, U.S. military traffic accidents have caused more than 4,000 casualties, and U.S. military planes have crashed and made emergency landings in Okinawa many times. In the sixth wave of the new crown epidemic in Japan that began at the end of last year, a large number of US troops stationed in Japan were not restricted by epidemic prevention measures when entering Japan, resulting in loopholes in Japan’s epidemic prevention, and Okinawa Prefecture became the biggest victim.
In the face of the various misdeeds of the U.S. troops stationed in Japan in Okinawa, the Japanese government has long adopted a posture of “no help”. When faced with major incidents of U.S. troops stationed in Japan infringing upon the people of Okinawa, the Japanese government often only expresses its regret verbally, hoping that the U.S. military will “not be an example”.
Many Japanese people are very angry and dissatisfied with this attitude of the government. On the 14th, thousands of people from all over Japan participated in a large-scale rally and parade organized by the Okinawa civil society “Okinawa Peace Movement Center”. Etsuko Urashima, an activist in her 70s, said she thought Japan seemed to be a vassal of the United States and expected Okinawans to decide for themselves the future of Okinawa.
Economic development remains constrained
Over the past 50 years, the proportion of the area dedicated to the U.S. military in Okinawa has increased rather than decreased, from 58.8% at the time of the return to about 70%. This has made Okinawans feel that they have been treated unfairly. Okinawa Prefecture Governor Danny Tamaki recently presented a “New Proposal for Peace and Prosperity in Okinawa” to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The proposal pointed out that the current situation that the US military bases stationed in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa is a “structural and discriminatory” problem, and it is required to reduce the burden brought by the Okinawa bases to the local area, etc., and finally realize the “peace island without bases”.
According to the poll results released by Kyodo News on the 4th, 79% of the respondents believed that Okinawa Prefecture was overburdened by the presence of US military bases. The survey showed that 55% of the respondents expressed “dissatisfaction” with the development of Okinawa. The percentage of respondents who thought it was “unfair” and “unfair in general” when comparing the burden on Okinawa by U.S. military bases compared with the rest of Japan reached 83%.
Due to the Japanese government and the United States‘ implementation of military bases in Okinawa, the local economic development level in Okinawa has been relatively backward. The per capita income of Okinawa Prefecture is only about 70% of that of Japan, and it has been at the lowest level in Japan for a long time. According to a survey conducted by the Asahi Shimbun, about 90% of Okinawans believe that there are various gaps between Okinawa and mainland Japan.
The “Ryukyu Indigenous People’s Association for Recovering Souls”, a non-governmental organization whose members are mainly Okinawa indigenous women, held a press conference not long ago and issued a statement of opinion against commemorating the 50th anniversary of the so-called “return” of Okinawa to Japan. “Now that the lives, pride and dignity of the Ryukyu and Okinawans are still being ignored, and the military colony is still going on, Okinawa is not the time to celebrate ‘return’,” they pointed out.