Roundup: Okinawa governor takes U.S. base relocation dispute one step closer to High Court

The governor of Okinawa Takeshi Onaga will appeal to a third-party panel on Monday to mediate with the central government of Japan in an ongoing dispute regarding the relocation of a controversial U.S. airbase within the nation's southernmost prefecture.

Onaga, a staunch opponent of the central government's plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from the densely populated region of Ginowan, to the coastal region of Henoko, also on Okinawa island, told local media he will lodge a complaint with the Central and Local Government Dispute Management Council, which falls under the auspices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

The third-party panel, comprised of 5 administrative experts, exists to adjudicate in disputes between prefectural governments and the central government. They have up to 90 days after a complaint is filed to dismiss the case.

Onaga's latest move comes on the heels of the regional chapter of Japan's Defense Ministry resuming its work to reclaim land from the sea as part of construction work for the new base on Oct. 29, amid a sit-in from protestors also against the move who tried to prevent trucks from entering the relocation site in the early morning to resume construction work.

Onaga went on to blast Japan's Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Keiichi Ishii who decided to nullify Onaga's revoking of a permit granted by his predecessor to allow the land reclamation work to commence. He said Ishii's decision was biased as it was made based on a predetermined cabinet decision.

The likelihood now, according to local sources Monday, is that Onaga will now take the case to the High Court on the ground that he has found the panel's decision to be unacceptable.

At the High Court, the Okinawa prefectural government will seek to have the land minister's decision invalidated, in a further headache for Tokyo who has guaranteed Washington the relocation will go ahead as per a previous bilateral pact.

But the process has been continually disrupted by Onaga, his prefectural allies and the local people of Okinawa who wish to see the base relocated off the island all together and outside of Japan if possible. They feel that the tiny island of Okinawa has long since been over-burdened with hosting the bulk of U.S. military bases in Japan.

Onaga, who had previously rescinded a permit granted by his predecessor for the work to continue at the relocation site in the coastal Henoko region on the island, after an independent panel found there were defects in the initial approval process, told local media he was "outraged" at the government's decision to "forcefully" resume construction work before a conclusive resolution had been made regarding his rescinding of the permit.

He claimed that the central government, despite its pledges to Washington that it would do its utmost to gain the understanding of the people of Okinawa about its plans to relocate the base, had blatantly shown it had no such intentions.

"The government keeps saying they're dedicated to considering the feelings of the Okinawan people, but based on their actions, they clearly have no such intention," Onaga stated, going on to suggest that the central government was not only acting in its own interests, but on the fringes of the law.

"By first rendering my revocation of the permit invalid through a request for administrative review, and then having the presiding governmental minister demand that I revoke my revocation, the government is clearly trying to act in a variety of contradictory capacities to suit its own convenience. Can they really face the world claiming that Japan is a country of laws?" Onaga was quoted as saying.

The outspoken governor also slammed the government's recent decision to abandon its plans to transfer some of the training functions of the accident-prone MV-22 Osprey aircraft stationed at the U.S. Marine Corp Air Station Futenma to Saga Airport, saying that the government had flip-flopped over the idea, to ensure Saga Prefecture's agreement to accept more of the tilt-rotor aircraft in the future.

"During the lead-up to the national election last year, the relocation of Osprey training to Saga Airport was broadcast widely in the news. But now that they are at odds with Okinawa, they announce they are cancelling the plan. It's nothing but 'hanashikwachii' (meaning "smooth talk" in the colloquial Okinawan dialect) to get past a difficult situation," Onaga was quoted as saying.

On Oct. 29, the central government received provisional agreement from the governor of Saga Prefecture in southwestern Japan to conduct surveys ahead of the possible deployment of the Osprey aircraft the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) plans to acquire and use at the local airport there.

Saga Gov. Yoshinori Yamaguchi provisionally accepted the government's request to deploy the controversial Osprey V-22 aircraft in talks with Defense Minister Gen Nakatani.

Nakatani, for his part, told Yamaguchi he will drop a plan to deploy to Saga airport some of the U.S. Marine Corps' training programs that were originally earmarked to be transferred from Okinawa to lessen the base-hosting burdens of the locals on the tiny island.

The initial plan, reneged on by the central government as pointed out by Onaga, was to transfer the Marine's Osprey-related training exercises to Saga, but the move had drawn heavy opposition from both the residents of Saga Prefecture as well as the United States, who were also opposed to the move.

The government is now eyeing having 17 GSDF Ospreys based at Saga airport from 2019. Enditem