American Documents Discussing Futenma Base Reveal an Unforgivable Degree of Negligence

The U.S. military has acknowledged that it recognized dangers inherent in Marine Corps Air Station Futenma not long after its construction. Ignoring those dangers and forcing local residents to suffer aircraft noise pollution — among a host of other grievances — together constitute a clear violation of human rights.

Recently declassified American documents show that, before handing it over to the Marines in 1947, the United States Army Ryūkyū Islands headquarters requested that the air division (today’s Air Force) show restraint in its use of the Futenma airfield. At the time, the airfield was not in use, and headquarters cautioned that putting it into operation would result in “dangerous and discomforting levels of noise.”*

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld visited in 2003 and declared Futenma “the world’s most dangerous base.” The fact that the U.S. military had already recognized the danger and noise pollution issues at Futenma 56 years ago is no laughing matter. The inaction on the part of both the U.S. and Japanese governments to rectify this 70-year-long exposure of citizens to needless risks must be thoroughly investigated.

The documents reveal a double standard in the U.S. military, showing the prioritization of base activities and soldier safety while disregarding the livelihood of locals. They describe the high aircraft accident risk in the area below the northern approach flight path, and forbid the construction of army-related facilities there.

In spite of this, the U.S. military returned a part of that same land to citizens by designating a portion of it and its adjacent areas a residential zone. As a result, it is now a housing district, home to the Second Futenma Elementary School. Returning land as residential zoning with no consideration for the safety of the people who reside there in this fashion has resulted in the development of a harsh urban environment, in which inhabitants must live side-by-side with the threat of aircraft crashes and the pain of the ever-present roar of jet engines.

In the debate surrounding Futenma, a common argument claims, “the U.S. military built a runway in the middle of nowhere, and people simply came and settled nearby seeking to profit off the base.” These recent documents make it clear that nothing could be further from the truth.

Fumihiko Shimizu — a local historian working in the town of Onna in Okinawa, who studied the archives along with Dr. Hirofumi Hayashi of Kantō Gakuin University — pointed out, “it’s an important discovery that the inhabitants didn’t move into the banned zone by their own free will, but rather it was a situation where they had no choice but to live there based on the U.S. army’s instructions.” This revelation gets to the heart of the issues at Futenma.

The risks of the airfield at Futenma were recognized within two short years of our defeat in WWII. Any further neglect of the situation is intolerable. It is the moral obligation of the governments of both the U.S. and Japan to shut down the airfield immediately.

* Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.