Relocation of Okinawa air base faces fresh political hurdle

Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga said Tuesday the prefectural government has made a decision to cancel the approval for landfill work for the construction of a U.S. military base on the south-western Japanese island. Current plans call for moving it to a less developed area on the island.

“Voiding approval for the reclamation… ruled out the efforts made by Okinawa and government officials to remove the danger of Futenma”, Suga told a news conference in Tokyo. He called Onaga’s decision “very regrettable”. Suga, the chief Cabinet secretary, said the central government sees “no legal flaws” in the approval for landfill work given in 2013 by then Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima. “In intensive talks with the central government, Okinawa’s opinion was not understood”.

In March, Gov Onaga had also issued a stop-work order on the relocation, which the central government overruled.

“After examining the issue following a report from a third-party panel, we decided there was a legal flaw in the approval [process]”, Onaga said at a press conference.

Tokyo wants to move the US Marines’ Futenma base to another location on the southern island, but many Okinawa residents – whose home was the site of bloody battles near the end of World War Two – resent hosting the United States military at all.

The dispute over relocating Futenma symbolizes centuries-old tensions between Okinawa and the Japanese mainland, which annexed the islands, formerly the independent kingdom of the Ryukyus, in 1879.

The base is now located in the more densely populated city of Ginowan, but that has raised opposition from the public, with many arguing it places a large burden on their prefecture.

Onaga accepted the central government’s proposal for a one-month period of concentrated discussions on the relocation issue.

Okinawa prefectural government officials are also looking into further legal steps that can be taken to counter the central government’s attempts to continue the reclamation work.

Although Aketa was born in Naha, she had not become involved in the peace movement because having military bases around just seemed natural to her. “What the government is doing now is wrong”.