Antibase Okinawa Gov. Onaga Dies

August 9, 2018

Naha, Okinawa Pref.- Takeshi Onaga, governor of Okinawa Prefecture and an anti-U.S. base protest leader, died on Wednesday at the age of 67, after a battle with cancer.

Onaga continued performing official duties while receiving medical treatment after he underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in April.

He fell into a state of clouded consciousness on Tuesday, becoming unable to make decisions.

His successor is expected to be picked in September, as the public offices election law stipulates that if a prefectural governor dies, a gubernatorial election should take place within 50 days of the death notification to the prefecture's election board.

Campaigning against a U.S. Marine Corps base's relocation within the southern prefecture, Onaga was first elected Okinawa governor in 2014. Before the election, he had served as a member of the prefectural assembly and mayor of Naha, the prefecture's capital and his hometown.

He also had been secretary-general of the Okinawa chapter of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which he harshly confronted after becoming governor over the issue of relocating the functions of the Futenma air base in a densely populated residential area in Ginowan to the Henoko coastal district of Nago in the same prefecture.

Through his battle with the LDP-led central government, including in court, Onaga emerged as an iconic figure for people opposing U.S. bases in Okinawa. His death will certainly affect future developments related to the construction of a Futenma replacement facility in Henoko, many people say.

In October 2015, he decided to cancel the prefectural permission for landfill work off Henoko. Filing a series of lawsuits against the central government, which has been forcing ahead the relocation project under an accord with the United States, Onaga once succeeded in halting the construction work.

But after the Supreme Court ruled against the governor in a related suit, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe started seawall construction for the reclamation in April 2017.

On July 27, Onaga announced a fresh plan to revoke the landfill permission by his predecessor, seen as his "last resort" amid the pessimistic view spreading among protesters against the base relocation within Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan.

At a press conference that day, he expressed his disappointment at what he saw as Tokyo's failure to listen to voices of people in Okinawa, saying, "Japan cannot say anything to the United States." Jiji Press