The U.S. Army’s Lack of Responsibility

Here’s another incident that shows the U.S. military’s utter lack of common sense. Early on March 11, a large Marine tractor and jeep crossed onto Okinawa Chubu Hospital’s emergency medical transport road without permission. After the vehicles drove through, guardrails and curbs on the hospital grounds were confirmed to be damaged.

Had there been an ambulance arriving at the time, these vehicles would have obstructed the patient’s passage and would certainly have put human lives at risk.

According to Article 5, Clause 2 of the Japan Status of Forces Agreement, U.S. military vehicles are permitted to move between base facilities. Entering hospital grounds does not constitute “movement between facilities,” and is clearly at odds with the agreement.

These problems have continued: An armored U.S. military vehicle entered the grounds of Okinawa Prefectural High School for the Mentally Disabled in July 2007; A U.S. military truck entered the grounds of Maehara Prefectural High School in August 2007 and a U.S. military truck again entered the grounds of Okinawa Prefectural High School for the Mentally Disabled in March 2008.

Faced with robust local protest after each incident, U.S. military authorities have insisted it wouldn’t happen again and that they would be on guard against entering the grounds of public facilities.

Yet, we have yet to see the end of U.S. military vehicles trespassing onto the grounds of public facilities. Is the military’s being “on guard” merely lip service? Even if we allow that the soldiers were disciplined, it sure didn’t last very long.

Perhaps rather, there were few U.S. military personnel who understood that entering the grounds of civilian facilities without permission is unacceptable behavior. We must conclude that arrogance and a lack of a sense of responsibility were the root causes of this.

The U.S. military must apologize and give Okinawans a proper explanation for their vehicles’ trespassing. Moreover, we’d like all military personnel, from the officers down to the enlisted soldiers, to be instructed that they need to follow the rules.

In particular, we cannot overlook the fact that the most recent incursion involved a prefectural hospital that provided 24-hour emergency medical care. If the vehicles entered in the full knowledge that the road was for medical emergencies, the problem is that much larger.

We cannot overlook the repeated outrages committed by the U.S. military. Okinawa’s governor and related leaders ought to spearhead the protest movement so that this state of affairs never happens again.

Trilateral talks on the local level between the Okinawan Prefecture, Japan (the Okinawa Defense Bureau and the Foreign Ministry’s Okinawa office) and the American military stationed in Okinawa ought to be held in order to nip the problem in the bud.

We’d also like to see the Okinawa prefectural assembly promptly establish a special committee regarding U.S. military bases and to work to pass a resolution of protest.