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Japan's Okinawans Rally Against US Military Crimes
By Linda Sieg
Reuters
Sunday 23 March 2008
Tokyo - Thousands of Okinawans rallied on Sunday to protest crimes by U.S.
troops and demand a smaller U.S. military presence on the southern Japanese
island after last month's arrest of a Marine on suspicion of raping a schoolgirl.
"Crimes and accidents due to the bases have happened over and over and
Okinawa has protested with intense anger to both the U.S. and Japanese governments,"
Kyodo quoted Okinawa City Mayor Mitsuko Tomon as telling a crowd gathered in
heavy rain in the town of Chatan, where the February incident occurred.
"But each time, our voices have been trampled and there has been no end
to the heinous crimes," the mayor added.
Organizers estimated about 6,000 people took part in the rally, Kyodo news
agency said. Police declined to give an estimate.
The arrest of U.S. Marine Tyrone Hadnott, 38, on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old
girl sparked outrage on Okinawa, host to a big chunk of the nearly 50,000 U.S.
troops in Japan, and stirred memories of the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl
that prompted huge anti-base protests and jolted the U.S.-Japan alliance.
The girl, who came under heavy criticism on the Internet, later dropped charges,
and Hadnott was released to the custody of U.S. military authorities, who have
been investigating the case.
Participants in Sunday's rally adopted a resolution demanding consolidation
of the U.S. bases and revisions to a pact governing the status of U.S. military
personnel in Japan to give Japanese authorities greater legal jurisdiction.
Both Tokyo and Washington have so far rejected demands to revise the Status
of Forces Agreement.
Broader Plans
"The rights of the people of Okinawa continue to be violated by the base-related
damage, and we call on both the U.S. and Japanese governments to fundamentally
revise the Status of Forces Agreement," Kyodo quoted the resolution as
saying.
The pact was not an issue in the Hadnott case since the Marine was arrested
off-base by Japanese police.
Organizers, including women's groups, had hoped for a turnout of around 10,000
people but squabbling between conservative politicians and leftist opposition
groups undercut their efforts.
The rally comes as Tokyo is trying to persuade local residents to accept a
plan to shift key functions of the U.S. Marine's Futenma air station from the
crowded central city of Ginowan to the lightly populated coastal town of Nago.
Relocating Futenma is key to a broader plan to shift some 8,000 of the 13,000
Marines now on Okinawa to the U.S. territory of Guam to lighten the presence
of the U.S. military on the Japanese island. Nago authorities have agreed to
the move but sticky details remain to be worked out.
Anti-base critics argue the consolidation plans will only slightly reduce Okinawa's
burden for the U.S.-Japan security alliance, a pillar of Japan's post-World
War Two diplomacy.
Friction with local communities near U.S. bases often occurs because of concern
about crime, accidents and noise, although sensitivities are greater in Okinawa
because of the heavy U.S. presence and the island's long tense relations with
the mainland.
On Sunday, the U.S. military said it would cooperate with Japanese police in
their investigation of the killing of a taxi driver found stabbed in his cab
in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo.
A U.S. credit card apparently belonging to a U.S. sailor who has been charged
with desertion was found in the cab.
The sailor, who has been taken into U.S. military custody, has not been named
as a suspect but may have information regarding the murder case, the U.S. Navy
said in a statement on Saturday. Japanese media said the sailor had denied involvement.
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(Editing by Bill Tarrant)
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