Okinawa governor departs for U.S.to demand unpopular base relocation plan be terminated

Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga on Wednesday departed for the United States to voice his opposition to plans to relocate a controversial airbase to a coastal region on the tiny island, which hosts the bulk of U.S. bases in Japan.

Onaga, who was joined by Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine, whose city will potentially host the new airbase and is also a staunch opponent to the relocation and planned construction of the new base on reclaimed land from the sea, told local media before his departure that he would absolutely not allow the new base to be built in the pristine coastal region.

On his visit to the U.S. Onaga is scheduled to meet with Hawaii Governor David Ige as the Pacific island will host U.S. Marines transferred from Japan under a planned realignment of forces here, before heading to Washington to take up his cause with officials from the U.S. administration.

Onaga said he plans to inform the U.S. officials that if the relocation of the Marine Corps Futenma air station from the densely populated Ginowan region of Japan's southernmost prefecture, to the coastal Henoko region goes ahead in spite of Okinawa's unwavering opposition to the move, the Japan-U.S. alliance could be severely compromised.

At the end of April Onaga slammed remarks made by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Barack Obama at a summit meeting in Washington, which reaffirmed both countries' commitment to move forward with the controversial relocation of the base within the prefecture.

At that time, Onaga, who came into office last December on a platform of opposition to the Henoko relocation, said he planned to visit the United States in person to convey his opposition to the move.

"We will use every means available to us to prevent a new base from being built in Henoko," the governor said, adding that he was also hugely disappointed at a recent joint statement issued by Japan and U.S. foreign and defense chiefs as it omitted to mention the central government's promise to Okinawa to halt operations at the Futnema base within five years.

Onaga, whose sentiments are reflected by the majority of Okinawa's citizens, has suggested that he now believes the written pledge made by the central government to halt operations was utterly insincere and merely a strategy by Abe to curry favor from Okinawa's then governor Hirokazu Nakaima to approve landfill work off Henoko as part of the new base's construction.

Onaga's condemnation and self-described "strong resentment" towards the prime minister's and Obama's renewed resolve to forge ahead with the unpopular base move has been reflected in the mood on the island, which has seen sizable protests erupt in Henoko, involving rallies comprised of both regular citizens and assembly members.

Tokyo itself has also seen a number of rallies and protests to the base move recently at the Diet building and other high-profile locations in the capital.

Demonstrators persistently claim that Okinawa and its people made disproportionate sacrifices during World War II compared to the mainland, and, as such, the added burden of relocating the base was hugely inappropriate and wholly unacceptable.

Onaga, since Dec., has shown his commitment to the local citizens and to preventing the construction of the new U.S. base on the small southern island, and in his first face-to-face meeting with Abe earlier this month he told the prime minister to convey the dissatisfaction and opposition of the Okinawan people over the base issue to Obama.

The people of Okinawa do not support the plan to relocate the air base, is the basic message that Onaga will pass on to Obama and highlight the potential for relations to be soured between the two countries, in a clear sign that Abe has failed to sufficiently explain and gain the support of Onaga and the people of Okinawa of the central government's stance on the base's relocation, which is part of a broader realignment of U.S. forces in Japan.

Abe has said that the building of a new base partly on reclaimed land from the waters of Oura Bay in the coastal Henoko region of Okinawa, remains the only solution for the relocation of the Futenma base, but Onaga has repeatedly said that the plans are unacceptable and that the government is "overly fixated" on the base's relocation to Henoko as being the only solution and should be "more empathetic" to the base hosting burdens of the Okinawa people.

Recent polls show that the majority of Japanese people, including those on the mainland and on Okinawa island, believe Abe and his administration are terribly mishandling the base relocation issue, with the generality in Japan's southernmost prefecture wanting the new base relocated off the island at a bare minimum, and out of Japan if possible.

Despite Abe and Obama's commitment to relocate the base within the island, the impasse remains between the central and prefectural government and will be a source of concern to Washington who has said that the base's relocation should ideally be predicated on the acceptance and understanding of the local people of Okinawa. Endi