US Consul General Should Face Popular Opinion with Humility

The U.S. Consul General in Okinawa, Joel Ehrendreich, made the following statement concerning local opposition to the construction of the new base at Henoko Nago during an interview with Kyodo News:

“[Local opinion] is a very important and serious issue, but it’s just one small part of the plan to reorganize the U.S. military presence in Japan, which aims at reducing the burden the base has on Okinawa and on strengthening the alliance between the two countries.”

“I don’t mean that the issue itself is small,” he explained, “but that it’s just one part of the much broader U.S.-Japan and U.S.-Okinawa relationships.”

The new base, which pushes new burdens upon Okinawa, is the most important issue for the management of the prefecture. It makes up a considerable portion of the governor’s duties.

Do the anti-base sentiments of the locals thus really only make up a “small part” of the issue?

In December 1997, a majority of 52.85 percent of Nago citizens voted against the construction of an offshore heliport. Okinawan residents have also held many large-scale gatherings to raise their voices in opposition to this. In January 2013, leaders from every municipality in Okinawa signed a petition appealing to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to remove the deployed Osprey and give up on relocating the Futenma Air Base within the prefecture.

Furthermore, in last year’s elections all winning candidates for Nago’s mayor, city council, as well as prefectural governor, prefectural assembly by-election, and the House of Representatives had anti-base platforms.

This is the underlying local sentiment in Okinawa.

In Okinawa, someone who makes light of such undeniable proof of local political desires and closes his eyes to an undesirable reality cannot be called a diplomat from a democratic nation that emphasizes the will of the people.

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Immediately after the Battle of Okinawa, Naval Lieutenant Commander Watkins of the military government likened the military government to a cat and Okinawa to a mouse, stating that the mouse was only able to go where the cat allowed it. In other words, Okinawa was practically a military colony under the U.S. military government’s rule.

The Futenma Air Base was constructed while Okinawa was under military occupation and did not have the power of government. Ignoring local sentiment and constructing the new base in effect indefinitely maintains those vested rights of the U.S.

For those opposed to the new base, the consul general’s recent statement brings to mind views expressed during Okinawa’s occupation and suggests an unconscious but underlying double standard.

After all, the U.S. military previously withdrew plans to station the Osprey in Hawaii after local opposition and the impact on historical sites were considered.

Listening to the voices of its own citizens while ignoring appeals from all of Okinawa to forcibly deploy the Osprey at the Futenma Air Base, which stands in the middle of a residential district, is an incredibly unreasonable policy.

It demonstrates the double standards of the U.S.

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There are changes that Consul General Ehrendreich is overlooking.

This month, members of Greenpeace, a nongovernmental organization that campaigns for environmental issues worldwide, visited Henoko. On Nov. 13 and 14, a university student group opposed to the security related laws in Okinawa, SEALDs, held a nationwide demonstration in opposition to the new base. A new movement that aims at mainland Japan taking the U.S. base and accepting its equal share of the burden is also growing among citizens.

Local anti-base sentiment spreading internationally is definitely not a “small part” of the problem.