By Todd Crowell
TOKYO
The long-running feud between Okinawa and the central government over plans to build a new United States Marine Corps air base on reclaimed land near the prefecture's town of Henoko headed to court this week.
At the same time, Tokyo and Washington agreed to return to Japan about 4 hectares of land near the Futenma Marine Corps airbase in the Okinawan city of Ginowan. Friday's move is seen as an effort to placate Okinawans who are upset at the slow pace of lowering the American military presence on the small island.
The lawsuit over Henoko was filed in Fukuoka High Court. If successful, it would, in effect, repeal Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga’s decision to nullify his predecessor’s decision to permit the land reclamation to proceed.
Onaga soundly defeated incumbent Hirokazu Nakaima a year ago, running on a uncompromising platform of opposing the building of any new U.S. military base on an island that already hosts about 75 percent of the U.S. military forces stationed in Japan since the end of World War II.
The governor has kept his campaign promises with a vengeance as demonstrated by his late May trip to Washington to lobby influential American legislators on his views about Okinawa. In September he took his case to United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
And the governor made good on his campaign promise to rescind the work permit his predecessor had granted in 2013, effectively halting construction of the new Marine air base.
This long-standing and intractable issue goes back to 1995, when, in the wake of a sordid rape case, Tokyo and the U.S. agreed to try to lower the huge American military "footprint" on the crowded island.
This included closing the Futenma Marine Corps air base, now located in the middle of the city of Ginowan. The air base, entirely surrounded by civilian buildings, is considered a potential crash site that might kill civilian residents. Henoko was conceived as its replacement.
In recent years the central government has been chipping away at Futenma, returning small portions of the military base, such as housing areas, to Japan. However, the air base fully functions.
The specific complaints that Okinawans have against the base mostly concern, such matters as the environment, saving coral reefs in the area, and the potential for noise.
The over-arching issue is the American presence in large numbers on Okinawa.
Onaga certainly sees the issue in sweeping terms.
"The freedom, equality, human rights and the right to self determination of Okinawan citizens has been neglected," Onaga told the court Wednesday.
The governor makes no secret that he thinks that the existing U.S. bases are on land that had been confiscated from Okinawan people during the 20 years after World War II that the Americans administered Okinawa.
In the more than 30 years since Okinawa reverted to Japan, says the governor, "nothing has changed."
For its part, the central government argues that U.S. bases, including the new one at Henoko, are necessary for maintaining the Japan-U.S. alliance. It also says the new base is necessary for the safety of the people of Ginowan.
The court issue is not likely to turn on such sweeping issues as freedom and democracy. It will likely be a very technical ruling concerning what happens when the central and local government have important disagreements.
If the court rules in favor the central government, it could order Onaga to retract his own retraction of the landfill work approval. If Onaga refuses, then the minister of lands, Keiichi Ishii could do it for him.