Soil Placement Starts for U.S. Base Relocation in Okinawa

December 14, 2018

Naha, Okinawa Pref.--The Japanese government started the placement of soil in landfill work off the Henoko coastal district in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, on Friday morning in a controversial U.S. military base relocation project.

It would be difficult to restore the original state of the site once the soil placement work gets into full swing as the central government presses ahead with the plan to move the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air base, currently in a densely populated district in Ginowan, Okinawa, to a replacement facility to be built off Henoko.

With Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki having made clear the prefecture's opposition to the project, the placement of soil is widely expected to escalate the Tokyo-Okinawa conflict over the base relocation plan, 22 years after the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed on the return of the Futenma base site to Japan.

"I can't help but feel strong resentment as the central government started the work while ignoring the will of people in Okinawa," Tamaki told reporters at the Okinawa government's office in Naha, the prefecture's capital.

The Okinawa government is demanding that the base be moved out of the southernmost Japan prefecture.

The first round of the soil placement work took place at a sea area of some 63,000 square meters surrounded by embankments off the southern side of a cape in Henoko on the east coast of Okinawa's main island.

Soil carried by ship from a pier on the west coast of the city of Nago was first poured onto the embankments and then placed in the sea area.

"Forcibly carrying out the construction work will inflame the burning rage of people in Okinawa," Tamaki said.

He also said that Okinawa can never accept "the illegal and forcible approach" taken by the central government and that the prefecture will take all possible measures.

The Okinawa government is set to make every effort to overturn land minister Keiichi Ishii's decision to suspend Okinawa's revocation of its approval for landfill work at Henoko, including through a complaint it filed with a third-party dispute settlement committee affiliated with the internal affairs ministry.

Meanwhile, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference in Tokyo, "Moving the (Futenma) base to Henoko is the only solution, in light of the need to maintain the deterrence of the Japan-U.S. security alliance and remove the dangers of the air base."

The top spokesman of the central government said Tokyo will work on reducing the base-hosting burden on Okinawa. "We'll tenaciously strive to win understanding and cooperation from local people," he added.

In October 2015, then Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga decided to cancel the landfill approval given by his predecessor, Hirokazu Nakaima, in December 2013. The Supreme Court, however, ruled the cancellation illegal in December 2016.

In August this year, the prefecture withdrew the landfill approval, in line with the wishes of Onaga, who passed away the same month.

The landfill work resumed in November, however, after Ishii suspended Okinawa's revocation of the approval.

On Wednesday, the prefecture instructed the Defense Ministry's Okinawa Defense Bureau to stop the landfill work, claiming that it is illegal.

As the instruction was not legally binding, the government went ahead with the soil placement work.

The agreement to return the Futenma base site to Japan was announced in April 1996 by then Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and then U.S. Ambassador to Japan Walter Mondale. The deal was prompted by the rape of a girl in Okinawa by U.S. servicemen that occurred in the previous year.

People in Okinawa have had deep-rooted resentment at the accord that called for the construction of a replacement facility within the prefecture as a condition for the return of the Futenma base site.

In 2013, Tokyo and Washington agreed to aim for the site's return in fiscal 2022 at the earliest.

But Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya told a press conference in Tokyo on Friday that it may be difficult to achieve this goal due to delays in the construction of the replacement facility. Jiji Press