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About 15,000 U.S. base opponents rally in Tokyo against new base in Okinawa

Xinhua, May 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

About 15,000 Japanese protesters on Sunday rallied near the Diet building in Tokyo in a move to oppose a Japan-U.S. agreement to build a new military base as the replacement for the U.S. Futenma air station located in Japan's Okinawa Prefecture.

The controversial U.S. Futenma airbase relocation issue has not been settled for a long time and has been frequently spotlighted since the incumbent Okinawa Governor Takashi Onaga said he will make all-out efforts to block the Japan-U.S. governmental plan to transfer the airbase within the prefecture.

A total of 24 pro-accident U.S. Marine MV-22 Ospreys are deployed in the Futenma airbase and more would be deployed in a new base which is under construction in the Nago city's Henoko area in Okinawa. The Japanese island prefecture only accounts for 0.6 percent of Japanese territory, but hosts 74 percent of U.S. bases in Japan.

Protestors held banners that read "No new base in Henoko" and occupied main streets surrounding the Diet building in downtown Tokyo.

Mayor of Nago city said during the rally that the central government turns a blind eye to the public wills of the Okinawa people and questioned whether Japan is a democratic country.

The demonstration came after Onaga's press conferences on Wednesday in Tokyo and the governor criticized that U.S. bases in Okinawa has been damaging local economic growth and Japan is only a follower of U.S. policy.

Onaga said that U.S. base-related revenue only takes about 4.9 percent of the prefecture's gross domestic product, an about 45- percent tumble since the 1945, adding that local economy witnessed momentum after exploiting and developing the land returned from the U.S. bases.

Onaga will leave for Hawaii and Washington later this month to directly convey Okinawa's position to the United States.

About 35,000 people rallied in Okinawa on May 17 demanding the shutdown of the Futenma airbase. An Osprey crashed in Hawaii, killing two, on May 18. Endi