Okinawans feel helpless over U.S. base relocation to Henoko

People rally to protest for the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air station in Ginowan to the Henoko coastal district in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture last month. | JIJI

Wires
August 21, 2024

NAGO, OKINAWA PREF. – While protesters demand the cancellation of full-scale U.S. base relocation work on the Oura Bay side of the Henoko coastal district in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, some residents have expressed helplessness.

Students and citizens' groups staged their protests as the Japanese Defense Ministry's Okinawa Defense Bureau on Tuesday launched the work, which is part of the project to build a new facility in Henoko in the city of Nago to take over the functions of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air station in Ginowan, also in the southernmost Japan prefecture.

Meanwhile, Yoshikatsu Nakamura, a 72-year-old resident, said, "We cannot stop the work at sea, so it's regrettable." His wife, Toshiko, 72, said: "We've been protesting, to no avail. I hope the government will review the work."

"There's nothing we can do," Masayoshi Kyoda, 75, who had run a shop in Henoko, said. While showing expectations that the government will hold further discussions with local communities, Kyoda said, "The work will not stop whatever we say."

A Henoko resident in her 50s said: "It's difficult to persuade them to stop the work now. I want no base (here). But there is a gap between the ideal and the reality."

Noting that her mother-in-law, who has continued to express her opposition to the Futenma base relocation to Henoko, is now hospitalized, the woman said, "The number of locals protesting (against the project) has been declining with age."