Japan Speaking Tour #5 - Henoko
By Pat Elder
August 15, 2024
We joined the daily protest over the desecration of Henoko, Oura Bay in Nago City, Okinawa.
On Tuesday, August 13th, Ken’ichi, Rachel, and I boarded a private shuttle bus from downtown Naha, Okinawa, close to where we were staying. The bus was chartered by the local Naha peace committee that organizes demonstrations at US Marine Corps Base Camp Schwab every Tuesday where the US is constructing a massive new facility. An Okinawan women’s group organizes the weekly Wednesday protest while the Uruma-based group meets every Thursday. This way, demonstrations are held every day of the week.
Anti-US military sentiments run deep here. According to official statistics, from 1972 to 2023, U.S. soldiers and their dependents stationed on Okinawa were involved in around 6,200 criminal cases, including murder, rape, robbery and other crimes. On March 27, 2024, prosecutors here charged a US airman with the kidnapping and rape of a girl said to be between 13 and 15 years of age. Investigators said a person known to the girl reported the incident on the day it occurred, in December 2023. The crime was covered up and the soldier was not charged for three months.
We rode for about two hours in air-conditioned comfort to the regular demonstration gathering location just opposite of one of the gates at Camp Schwab which is located on Henoko Bay in Nago City, Okinawa. This is the area where the US military is building a massive new base against the overwhelming desires of the Okinawan people. It is an abomination.
With American support, the Japanese government is methodically destroying a nearby mountain top to use the gravel to fill in Henoko Bay for a gigantic new runway at Camp Schwab. All of this is being done to allow for the closure and transfer to the Japanese government of the heavily contaminated Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. Plans call for the Americans to leave the poisoned earth, groundwater, and sea to the government of Japan that has been complacent about the environmental destruction. This abomination has been caused by the use of deadly contaminants like vinyl chloride, PFAS, trichloroethylene, benzene, toluene, and dioxin from the use of Agent Orange that will plague these people for generations to come.
Now, the US military is doing the same to the extraordinarily beautiful and environmentally fragile Oura Bay, home to the threatened Dugong, vulnerable coral, and many unique species of aquatic life.
We emerged from the shuttle bus and were greeted by a wall of hot. We took our seats at the peace camp across the road from the gate where hundreds of trucks carry gravel every day from the mountain to fill in the sea. It was 35 degrees C, or 95 degrees F, while the humidity was worse than that of my hometown of Washington, DC in August. After a brief rally during which impassioned speakers addressed the 40 or so gathered, Rachel interpreted my apology for the continued outrageous behavior of the US military since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After the rally we crossed the road and sat in small cloth folding chairs, shielded from the sweltering subtropical sun by our umbrellas. We set up directly in front of the open gate that was guarded by Okinawan military police, armed with batons. They greatly outnumbered us. Our intention was to block the trucks from entering, if only for an hour or so.
The police were incredibly polite. They knew the drill. They were a lot different than the cops in New York or Washington who sometimes can’t distinguish between the exercise of 1st Amendment rights and common thuggery. After 10 to 15 minutes of these shenanigans they began picking up people, sometimes lifting the individuals while they remained in their chairs.
They approached Rachel and me several times, but we said we would be the last to go. Finally, two officers approached both sides of my chair and gently poked their fingers into my ribs. They were joined by another officer, and they picked up my chair and began carrying me away. I could see that one of the older officers was grimacing a little and I felt badly, signaling that I would walk away. Rachel was the only one who remained, and they carried her away to an area patrolled by police beyond the gate.
We held up the construction of Henoko.
The organizers gave everyone laminated signs that we held up for the truck drivers to see that said things like, “Turn around” or “Stop this madness” s they slowly paraded by. We counted 139 massive vehicles, all driven by locals, happy to be employed.
We reconnoitered at the peace camp across the street. We reboarded the bus and headed to a different gate and we repeated the same exercise. This time we blocked 142 trucks before we were forced to retreat. I was the last to go. This is not a matter of bravado or braggadocio. They derive strength from us.
The Downs Law Group helps to make this work possible. Their support allows us to research and write about military contamination around the world. They’ve helped us buy hundreds of PFAS kits and they’ve helped pay for flights and hotels. The firm is working to provide legal representation to individuals in the U.S. and abroad with a high likelihood of exposure to a host of contaminants.
The Downs Law Group employs attorneys accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs to assist those who have served in obtaining VA Compensation and Pension Benefits they are rightly owed