After Governor Ohta's Defeat
Women's Initiative for Base-free Okinawa
By Urashima Etsuko
The Okinawa gubernatorial election held on November 15th, 1998 received a great deal of attention not only from Okinawa residents, but from citizens all over Japan.
Urashima Etsuko is a member of the Antibase Yambaru Womwn's Network. She speaks about the real situation and their campaigns.
People wondered if Okinawa would re-elect Governor Ohta Masahide, whose stance against the transfer of U.S. military bases within Okinawa prefecture had incurred the wrath of the central government or if they would choose Inamine Keiichi, a candidate backed by Tokyo and local business groups. The election carried implications that went far beyond Japan's southernmost prefecture, which is home to 75 percent of all Japanese land allocated to the U.S. military.
Inamine emerged victorious in a close race, and was no doubt assisted by the central government's pledge of a generous economic stimulus package for Okinawa in return for accepting the transfer of U.S. bases within the prefecture - a condition Inamine said he would accept if elected.
The election had been billed as a battle between the central government and Okinawa. The central government found itself faced with a strong local antibase movement that ws demanding a more significant reduction in the U.S. military presence than the one Tokyo and Washington had agreed to three years ago following the September 1995 rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl by three U.S. soldiers. In its effort to break tha back of the antibase movement, Tokyo set out to replace the recalcitrant Ohta, who had refused to give his consent to relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Ginowan to another site in Okinawa. The central government threw its support behind Inamine, who, with the help of a slick advertising agency and buckets of cash, succeeded in pinning the blame on Ohta for Okinawa's moribund economy.
Officials in Tokyo also did their part to undermine Ohta's re-election bid by refusing to meet with the governor, who maintained that his opposition to the Futenma Air Station transfer reflected the will of the people in the area where the new base was to be built, as well as the opinions of other Okinawans who were upset by the U.S. and Japanese governments' "shell game" solution to the base problem. The stalemate between Ohta and the central government worked against the governor, and many Okinawans - especially younger voters, who experienced very high unemployment rated during Ohta's eight years in power - responded to Inamine's call to "turn the tide" in the prefecture.
Benefiting from the government's cold shoulder to Ohta, and from an impressive mobilization on his behalf by local entrepreneurs and businesses, Inamine seized the reins of the prefectural government. With Okinawan voters having generated the desired result, Tokyo responded with a generous disbursement of 9,090,000 yen in special aid for economic promotion. The Japanese government also cheerfully proposed various economic development plans. But, most important, the central government proceed with plans to transfer the Futenma Air Station to the northern part of Okinawa.
Nevertheless, it is not clear that most Okinawans suport the base transfer. About 334,000 people voted for Ohta in this election. As one of my friends sais to me, "I was encouraged, because I realized that there are many people who will reject the bases no matter what temptations or threats are made." And even some of those who cast votes for Inamine must have felt some pain in doing so.
Women's New Activism
In Nago, where a offshore heliport was to be built to be relocated from the Futenma Air Station, citizens held a referendum in December 1997 and rejected the construction of a new base in their town. Inamine could not ignore this sentiment, so he, too, came out in opposition to the heliport, and put forth a plan to build an airport in the northern part of Okinawa that would be shared by the U.S. military and civilians.
After Inamine assumed office, reports began surfacing about potential sites for the northern airport. In response, women from Nago who had sustained the Nago referendum movement and had supported Ohta in his re-election campaign formed a new group called "No Need for a New Base - Yambaru Women's Net."
The group opposes the construction of new bases and is expanding its network of women in Yambaru; it now has a presence in twelve cities, towns and villages in the north. On December 21, 1998, one year after the Nago referendum, our group declared: "We will never recognize new bases, whether they be on the sea, on land, in Yambaru or wherever in these lands which are linked to our lives." Furthermore, we stated, "We, Yambaru women, will make our future for our children and for ourselves."
We are sometimes asked why women are taking this sort of action. This question surprises us since the action of women seems quite natural. Behind our network, there are a number of movements by women who felt the pain of the rape case in 1995 as their own, and those women have been at the forefront of the struggle against bases in Okinawa. Years of work by women's activists have produced a network that now spans the prefecture.
The strength of the prefectural network was demonstrated during the Nago referendum movement, when women from Nago joined together with women from Ginowan (the location of the Futenma Air Station) , who lent their support to referendum organizers because they did not want women in Nago to suffer the pain they had suffered due to having a military base in their town. In addition, other women who regarded Nago's problem as their own spontaneously formed new groups and supported the Nago referendum.
Nago citizens were betrayed by the former mayor Higa, who went against the referendum results and declared that the city would accept the base. Women who sustained and supported the referendum drive immediately organized a group named "Reach to Hearts - Women's Voice Network," and in early 1998 more than 300 women filled the lobby of the prefectural office and appealed directly to Governor Ohta, persuading him to declare his opposition to the Nago heliport. In May 1998, 125 Okinwan women flew to Tokyo, where they demonstrated at the Prime Minister's residence and the U.S. Embassy, and marched on the streets at the center of Tokyo.
This activism has nurtured the Yambaru women's network. Women, who had always been excluded from all established organizations (including companies and labor unions), are now making the most of their autonomy, and are acting without the limitations of existing male-dominated movements.
Yambaru: Rich in Nature Culture
Some people have wondered why Yambaru has become the focus of the antibase movement. Yambaru has been called "a infertile land," and is dismissed as a poor and undeveloped region. Since the return of Okinawa to Japan, Yambaru has been excluded from various development projects and has experienced a population decline as people and enterprises have concentrated in the central and southern parts of the island. Now, the Japanese government and Governor Inamine intend to take advantage of Yambaru's poverty by imposing a base in exchange for economic aid.
Is Yambaru, however, really poor? Nowhere but in Yambaru does the true richness and future of Okinawa exist, because it has been kept away from development and therefore still possesses abundant natural beauty as well as traditional Okinawan culture. People became aware of this kind of wealth during the mobilization against the offshore heliport. As a result, many people are seeking ways to develop Yambaru without relying on bases or large outside businesses. The Yambaru women's network also wants to discover our own richness and to teach many people about our unique wealth.
Since the beginning of Inamine's term, plans have been drawn up for a new base to replace Futenma and for the transfer of the Naha military port (which the United States agreed to shut down 25 years ago). Meanwhile, towns are entering into competition for new U.S. installations, as if military bases are nothing more than money trees.
Watching all of this unfold, I feel much pain. The present situation looks gloomy, especially because of the new Guidelines of U.S. - Japan Security Treaty and related bills, which the Diet will pass in spite of the opposition of many people. If Okinawans allow the transfer of bases within the prefecture under these circumstances, it will be obvious that they will build more bases here, and that the function of the bases will be strengthened. Should this happen, we will be war accomplices and, needless to say, one day victims, too.
But I don't believe that this atmosphere toward accepting the bases will last very long. The competition for new bases will make U.S. military presence an issue for many people whom had never considered it as any of their business. When these newcomers join the antibase struggle, they will find a strong and diverse women's network waiting to embrace them. In preparation for the time when the nightmare of U.S. militalism has disappeared, we send out messages of true richness from Yambaru.
Translated by Sugiyama Yuko/AMPO: Japan Asia Quarterly Review Vol.29 No.1 1999
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