Governor of Okinawa at the UN: US military presence threatens peace

  At a session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Japanese governor of Okinawa, Denny Tamaki, ... brought directly to the United Nations the cry of protest and the clash with the Japanese government regarding the massive presence of military forces Americans on the territory since the end of the Second World War. “I am here today to ask the world to examine the situation in Okinawa,” Tamaki said in Geneva, arguing that the concentration of US military bases in Okinawa, linked among other things to problems of public order and crime, constitutes “a threat for peace".

In May, thousands of people took to the streets again demanding the closure of the military base in Okinawa. Tamaki is the first governor of Okinawa to address the Human Rights Council directly in eight years. He drew attention in particular to the reclamation works for the transfer of the US air base in Futenma to Henoko. The new site for the military base is located in Henoko, and in the coming years it should accommodate the infrastructure, vehicles and US soldiers currently stationed in the Futenma air base, located in turn in Okinawa in the densely populated area of Ginowan. The governments of Japan and the United States had already agreed in 1996 on the transfer of the base and the return to Japan of the land occupied by the Futenma air base.

Okinawa, which since the end of the Second World War has borne the burden of the permanence of US military forces in Japan disproportionately, however requested that the base be transferred to another prefecture of the country, and has denied the permits since 2015 for cleanup work for the new base, also citing damage to the environment and marine wildlife. The recent agreements between the United States and Japan have enormously intensified the militarization of the region in the Pacific area with an anti-Chinese function. In addition to Japan, the USA has military bases in South Korea and the Philippines and the entire system is undergoing overall strengthening.