Category: Pacific

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Guam military families speak out against the buildup

Who Speaks for Local Soldiers?

Two powerful testimonies against the military expansion on Guam from women whose family members serve in the U.S. military.

One says: “If you don’t want to give them your land, they can take it.” She fears not being able to ever own land with the population and economic changes in Guam.

Another says that her father, cousin and uncle oppose the buildup but don’t want to come to testify because of fear.  To the discourse of ‘patriotism’ and ‘duty’ intended to suppress dissent, she says “You don’t speak for my dad, you don’t speak for my cousins or my uncles who live on that land and serve this country and have been deployed over and over and over again. This is their home.”

Here’s the description from YouTube:

Part 1 of footage taken featuring Guamanian and Chamorro residents who are part of military families or veterans who do not agree with their inability current position (despite having loved ones fight to protect the freedoms guaranteed in the states).

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Chamorro youth “give breath” to resistance on Guahan/Guam

http://mvguam.com/index.php?view=article&catid=1%3Aguam-local-news&id=10392%3Adeis-rouses-youth-activism&tmpl=component&print=1&page=&option=com_content&Itemid=2

DEIS rouses youth activism

Monday, 11 January 2010 05:02 by Zita Y. Taitano | Variety News Staff

DYNAMIC young community voices are starting to rise above the public complacency toward the military’s voluminous draft impact study to give new breath to vital concerns of family, community and employment.

More than 500 residents listen to testimonies on the impact of the military buildup during the open house/public hearing of the draft environmental impact statement at the UOG Fieldhouse Saturday. Photo by Zita Y. Taitano

More than 500 island residents turned out to the University of Guam Fieldhouse in Mangilao on Saturday for the second in a series of village presentations of the military draft impact statement.

“The military buildup will attract 30,000 more jobs, but what they don’t want us to know is our people will only fill less than 20 percent of those jobs,” Melvin Won Pat Borja, one of the organizers of the new group called We Are Guahan, founded by emergent young activists. “But this is not about jobs, or culture or money. This is about community. This is about our family.”

Scion of the of the storied Won Pat clan, the 28-year old further compelled the attention of the young adults in attendance by attesting to the rights of the future generations to be able to live free on their native island and without feeling oppressed.

“You are not alone. We must be united. We must never be silent!” he proclaimed. “I think in the past the larger community has been misrepresented as being in full support of this buildup. I think a lot of our people have been misled into believing the general population is in full support of this move.”

Won Pat Borja said it is clear the community is starting to coalesce and take note after observing the hearings this past Saturday and last Thursday.

“There’s been a lot of individuals from the community who have been coming out to speak out against this move and really voice their opinion,” he said.

Right before the hearing, members of the Taotaomona Native Rights group and We are Guahan walked in behind Danny “Pagat” Jackson and his wife Josephine Jackson as their grandson Cason Jackson sang Fanohge Chamorro.

Joint Guam Program Office is organizing the series of public hearings. They allowed others to provide their perspective on the military buildup as well, so long as they did not speak for more than three minutes.

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Japanese Bureaucrats Hide Decision to Move All US Marines out of Okinawa to Guam

This article discusses information that the Marine Corps relocation from Okinawa to Guam would negate the ‘need’ for a replacement facility in Henoko.  This news has been suppressed by the Japanese media.  But the article does not consider the destructive impact of the military invasion of Guam and CNMI.
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http://japanfocus.org/-Tanaka-Sakai/3274

Japanese Bureaucrats Hide Decision to Move All US Marines out of Okinawa to Guam

[Japanese original text at Tanaka News (tanakanews.com)]

Tanaka Sakai

Translation by William Steele

Introduction by Gavan McCormack

The Japanese government announced on 15 December 2009 that it was postponing indefinitely any decision on the contentious issue of a “Replacement Facility” for the Futenma Marine base in Okinawa. The decision to make no decision was low-key and at first glance may seem inconsequential. Its symbolic importance, however, is huge, signalling a possible changing of the tide of history in East Asia, above all in the US-Japan relationship.

It meant that the Hatoyama government had withstood the most sustained barrage of US pressure, intimidation, insult, ultimatum, and threat, and decided, at least for the present, to say: “No.” Hatoyama was telling the Obama government, in effect, that rather than rubber stamp an agreement made by the former ruling party, he would insist on renegotiating the 2005-6 “Reorganization of US Forces in Japan” and the “Guam Treaty” in which that agreement was incorporated. He was serving notice that the “Client State” relationship so carefully cultivated by the former (George W. Bush) administration and its successive LDP partners would be renegotiated and perhaps dismantled. How, was far from clear. But the US-Japan relationship can never be the same again.

The bottom line of the message was clear, even if it could only be read in the invisible ink of a bland announcement: if the Hayoyama administration prevails, no “Futenma Replacement Facility” will be built for the Marines in the waters off Cape Henoko in Northern Okinawa. A Pentagon dream since 1966, it had come close to realization under bilateral agreements in 1996, 2006, and 2009, only to be stalled each time by one of the most remarkable, non-violent political movements in modern Japanese history. Today this most unequal of struggles has reached a decisive moment.

Months of intense pressure (see “The Battle of Okinawa 2009”) had brought the Hatoyama government close to capitulation. The bureaucrats in both the Defense and Foreign Ministries insisted that the national interest was at stake and required submission. Moreover, the Futenma Base was a quid pro quo for US plans to withdraw—at Japanese expense—an estimated 8,000 Marines and their families to Guam. US Ambassador Roos (known to be a close personal friend of President Obama) expostulated, red-faced (according to observers) to the Japanese Defense and Foreign Ministers on 4 December that trust between Obama and Hatoyama might be grievously damaged if agreement to construct the Henoko base was not reached before the end of 2009. In Okinawa the following day, Foreign Minister Okada could only beg his audiences of Democratic Party faithful to understand how important this issue was for the US, and therefore for the alliance and for Japan. All previous LDP-led governments had submitted just as Okinawa had been forced to submit to American bases for more than six decades, unbroken by the 1972 “reversion” to Japan. The pressure applied to Hatoyama far exceeded that directed to any previous government of Japan, and many assumed that in due course he, too, would submit. He chose otherwise.

The mid-December decision was due to three factors, one long-term, one short-term, and one personal: the first and overwhelming one is the triumph of the non-violent resistance movement of the people of Okinawa itself, sustained since 1996; the second is the outcome of the 30 August Lower House national elections, which swept the Hatoyama DPJ to power nationally and especially in Okinawa gave them and other opponents of base construction a massive endorsement; the third is the strength of resolve by Prime Minister Hatoyama. He insisted throughout the crisis that he would personally make the key decision, and in the end that is what he has done, at least for the time being.

The decision was not solely shaped by US considerations. Japanese domestic politics played a critical role. Had Hatoyama submitted, however, and ordered work to commence on filling in the seas off Oura bay for the construction of a base, he would have faced the likely collapse of his coalition government (since both minor parties had said they would withdraw), the absolute alienation of the Okinawan people from him and his party (and in a sense from the Japanese national project itself), and the need to resort to martial law measures to enforce works whose legitimacy was accepted by virtually nobody in Okinawa. Submission, in other words, might over time not only have undermined the DPJ but might even have more seriously damaged the US-Japan relationship than resistance.

When Foreign Minister Okada visited Okinawa on 5 December, he was shocked to find nobody at all who would support the base construction project. His pleas to understand the American insistence that it proceed and his calls to recognize the importance of the US-Japan “alliance,” simply roused his DPJ audiences to anger. The Okinawan prefectural assembly is more than 90 percent opposed. Even the “conservative” Okinawan Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) League has said that it will switch from support to opposition to the base project if a decision is held off beyond the end of this year (as has now happened). Conservative mayors, including the Mayor of Naha, are increasingly lining up in support of the platform of anti-base meetings, while Futenma Mayor Iha, as Tanaka Sakai shows in the following report, has led the way in unmasking the machinations of Tokyo and Washington on the future of the base. The August election of the Hatoyama government has given Okinawan people the sense that at last they have a government that might listen to them.

Options for an alternative “Futenma Replacement Facility” to Henoko have been canvassed in recent months and they will now be submitted to a ruling coalition commission for further investigation. They include Guam (discussed below), Kadena, the US Air Force base close to Futenma, the island of Umage, just 8 square kilometres in area and 12 kilometres west of Tanegashima in Kagoshima prefecture, the island of Io (once known as Iwojima) south of Tokyo, and various unused or much underused airports in mainland Japan itself, from Osaka’s Kansai International (offered for consideration by Osaka’s Governor) to the recently built “white elephant” Shizuoka or Ibaraki airports.

Okinawan sentiments are especially aroused today as the lies and deception they have been fed by LDP governments over the past half-century gradually come to light. The Okinawan “return” to Japan in 1972 is now known to have been a purchase, in which Japan paid huge sums to subsidize the US war effort in Vietnam, opening the path to a system of Japanese war subsidies paid to the Pentagon ever since in the guise of “omoiyari” (consideration or sympathy) payments. The Japanese government, contrary to its proud “three non-nuclear policies”, has long given covert permission to US vessels carrying nuclear weapons to pass through Japanese ports and signalled its readiness to allow them into Okinawa in advance of any renewed war in Korea. The details of the “secret nuclear agreements” are now being exposed by former Japanese government officials who were party to the arrangements. Most explosive is the fact that Okinawans continue to learn more details of the readiness of their government over decades to pay almost any price to keep the US forces in Okinawa while sparing mainland Japanese the inconvenience of having numerous GIs in residence. That sense of grievance cannot easily be assuaged.

One major new factor in the Okinawan equation is the revelation, flowing principally from the office of the Okinawan town mayor of Ginowan City (reluctant host to the Futenma Marine Air station), that the Henoko project itself rests on a massive deception. That revelation is the subject of the Tanaka Sakai text that follows.

The Marine Corps documents that Mayor Iha Yōichi analyses call into question the official Japanese government claim that the construction of a Futenma Replacement Facility at Henoko is necessary to accommodate the Marine helicopter force by showing that the 2006 Guam Integrated Military Development Plan is a design to accommodate those helicopter forces plus battle force, artillery and supply units. If the Futenma Marines are designated under Pentagon plans for relocation to Guam anyway, the Henoko project loses its strategic purpose. And the foundations for Japanese government payments to maintain US forces in Okinawa, still less to pay for their transfer to Guam, are baseless. Even before the Iha revelations, military critics in Japan questioned the rationale behind the Agreement on Reorganization of US Forces in Japan and the Guam Treaty, many viewing them as new forms of coercion and of the secret diplomacy that has long characterized US-Japan dealings on Okinawa. If the Marines are going to Guam anyway, under Pentagon plans, the real design of the Guam Treaty agreements can only be to siphon off further substantial Japanese subsidies to the Pentagon, to provide a foothold for the Marines in an Okinawan resort location, or, perhaps, a fine new facility eventually for Japan’s own Self Defense Forces.

The Government of Japan’s initial response has been to deny Mayor Iha’s claims and the national media has yet to pursue them seriously. They are, however, based on persuasive US documentation and on the evidence of Iha’s investigations in Guam. Certainly, they sharply contradict the official rationale for the Henoko base construction and the official understanding of the Guam transfer. Now that the relocation issue has been returned to the drawing board, the newly established coalition body to study and report on the relocation issue has on the table many interesting and potentially explosive questions to examine.

GMcC

15 December 2009

Cape Henoko and Camp Schwab, 2009

After writing an article on Japan-China security arrangements that touched upon Okinawa and the Futenma debacle, I received feedback from readers and became aware that from the end of November 2009 the Mayor of Ginowan City, Iha Yōichi, has been pointing out something that will overturn the commonsense regarding American forces in Japan.

The Marines stationed on Okinawa are pushing forward a plan to move to Guam. In the Japanese mass media and in Diet deliberations it is usually stated that “the relocation from Okinawa to Guam will consist primarily of the Marine command unit,” but that “active duty forces including the helicopter unit and ground combat forces will remain.”

However, according to the investigations of Mayor Iha and members of the Ginowan City Assembly, American forces have already been implementing a plan to relocate to Guam not only the command unit but also, by 2014, the majority of combat forces and even logistic sections including supply units. Ginowan City Hall, having long dealt with the Futenma Air Station, has developed significant information-gathering skills and powers of analysis.

If the helicopter units and the ground combat units move almost all of their personnel to Guam, there is no longer any need to build a replacement site for Futenma in Okinawa, be it Henoko in Nago city or for that matter anywhere in Japan. This means that the great fuss over the removal to Henoko that has been festering over the past few years may have been completely unnecessary from the beginning. In 2006 the American military came up with a plan to begin the complete transfer of the Marines from Okinawa to Guam. The Japanese government promised to provide a large sum of money for the removal of American troops to Guam; it can only be assumed, therefore, that the Japanese Foreign Ministry and other Japanese government officials knew of these plans to move to Guam in detail. Nonetheless, they have continued to spout the mantra that “the new base at Henoko is necessary for the helicopter units that will remain on Okinawa after Marineheadquarters moves to Guam.” (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

On November 26 Mayor Iha traveled to Tokyo and explained this to members of the ruling party. On December 9 Iha visited the Foreign Ministry and voiced his contention that all the Marines based at Futenma can be expected to move to Guam. The Foreign Ministry, however, dissented, saying that such information “is counter to our understanding.” The meeting ended with the two sides talking past each other. (伊波市長が与党議員に説明した時に配布した資料) (伊波宜野湾市長 政府にグアム移転を要請)

Of the 8000 troops to be relocated, Marine Headquarters amount to only 3000

One of the grounds for Mayor Iha’s assertion that “the United States is sending the majority of Marines stationed on Okinawa to Guam” is derived from the draft of a report issued on November 20 by a U.S. environmental impact survey undertaken in conjunction with the expected relocation of Okinawa-based Marines to Guam (and to the nearby island of Tinian), which states that nearly all of the units of the Okinawa-based Marines will relocate to Guam. The environmental impact would be impossible to evaluate unless one knew which units will relocate. Thus the report gives details of the relocation, which the US military has been reluctant to publicize. (Guam and CNMI Military Relocation Draft EIS/OEIS)

The environmental impact report consists of 8,100 pages in 9 volumes. Volumes 2 and 3 of the report include details of the relocation of the Marine Corps from Okinawa. The Marine helicopter unit, for example, is (according to the draft report) scheduled for relocation, as are ground combat, assault, and supply forces. Listed for relocation from Okinawa to Guam are: 1) the Command Element, III Marine Expeditionary Force (CE, 3046 persons); 2) the Ground Combat Element, 3rd Marine Division Units (GCE, 1100); 3) Air Combat Element, First Marine Aircraft Wing and subsidiary units (ACE, 1856); 4) and the Logistics Combat Element, 3D Marine Logistics Group (LCE, 2550). The total number of troops in these four Marine Corps units slated to move is 8552, roughly the same as the 8000 number that had been officially announced as the size of the move from Okinawa to Guam. It is thus clearly wrong for the Foreign Ministry and others to maintain that “the 8000 Marines to be relocated to Guam consist primarily of the command unit.” The command unit itself consists of some 3046 persons; the remainder are combat and logistical forces. (VOLUME 2: MARINE CORPS – GUAM) (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

This is not the first time that the American side has reported that it plans to relocate the great majority of the Marines based on Okinawa to Guam. A September 2006 “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” noted that a hangar, parking space, and helipad will be constructed for a maximum of 67 helicopters that will relocate along with the Marine Aircraft Groups. Since there are 56 helicopters in service at Futenma, this would mean that a greater number are to be moved to Guam. There is a high possibility that all of the helicopters stationed at Futenma will be moved to Guam (the rest may well arrive from the US). (Guam Integrated Military Development Plan)

This “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” sought to develop Guam into one of the most modern integrated military facilities in the world. During the Cold War, when the United States created a “Eurasian network,” it wanted to station troops in countries including Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, but after the Cold War, there is no longer a need to station troops in each country, making Guam, located at nearly equal distances within 2000 nautical miles from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, and Indonesia, an ideal place to set up a new integrated facility that would allow troops to be withdrawn from bases in Japan and Korea. (グアムの戦略地図)

Map and location of Guam

In concrete terms, the plan not only sought to relocate all structural units of the Marine Corps, but to develop Guam into a major base of operations with joint use by the Navy and Air Force. As such, Guam would replace Okinawa as the true keystone of the Pacific, giving free rein to an integrated American global presence. It is natural to consider that the course this will take is that Okinawa-based Marines will be reduced to something like a remnant small branch, all the rest moving to Guam. (グアム統合軍事開発計画」より抜粋)

The Guam Plan that was Erased in One Week

The “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” was drawn up in July of 2006 and released in September. A few months earlier, in May, the U.S.-Japan “Roadmap” was agreed upon in order to realize the relocation of American military forces in Okinawa. On this occasion, for the first time, it was decided that the Japanese government would pay most of the moving expenses for the removal of Okinawa-based Marines to Guam (6.1 billion dollars of the total estimated cost of 10.3 billion dollars). The American military, knowing that Japan would pay the construction costs, can be thought to have decided on a plan to develop Guam as a unique global integrated military center. (再編実施のための日米のロードマップ) (Link)

However, one week after the “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” was posted on the Department of Defense website, it was deleted. The U.S.-Japan Roadmap had earlier called for the removal of Marines from Okinawa to Guam “in a manner that maintains unit integrity.” This also hinted that the transfer would not only involve Marine Corps headquarters but the relocation of combat units as well. At the same time it noted that “U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) forces remaining on Okinawa will consist of Marine Air-Ground Task Force elements, such as command, ground, aviation, and combat service support, as well as a base support capability.” “Marine Air-Ground Task Force,” however, is a term describing the principal organization for all missions across the range of military operations, and its meaning remains unclear. (Marine Air-Ground Task Force From Wikipedia)

It is suspected that the US and Japanese governments had agreed that, by deliberately keeping ambiguous which portions of the Okinawa-based Marines would relocate to Guam and which would remain, the Marines would continue to stay on Okinawa, the Japanese government would offer “sympathy monies” to the US military, the financially troubled US would divert these to the maintenance of the Guam base, and the Japanese government would maintain the blueprint of subordination to the US that it wished to continue as long as possible. Perhaps the “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” revealed too much, causing fear that people would wake up to the fact that the Okinawa-based Marines were planning a complete withdrawal. It may have been this fear that caused the site to disappear so quickly. (日本の官僚支配と沖縄米軍)

After the plan was released in 2006, persons associated with the city of Ginowan, referring to the Guam Integrated Military Development Plan, asked the Consul General in Okinawa, “Isn’t there a plan for the Marine helicopter unit based in Futenma to relocate to Guam?” The Consul General replied that the plan they referred to was “a mere scrap of paper” and that “no formal decisions have been made.” He went on to insist that only the command element of the Okinawa-based Marines would be moving to Guam. However, three years later, on November 20, 2009, the draft environmental impact survey described above followed along lines laid out in the integrated development plan, allowing one to conclude that the American military authorities have been silently proceeding to move most of the Okinawa-based Marines to Guam. (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

Ginowan joined neighboring cities and villages in August 2007 in an inspection tour of American bases on Guam, gathering information from American and Guam official sources. As a result, they came to know the following:

1) The Vice Commander of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam took them to see the site intended to house facilities for the Okinawa-based Marines Air unit and explained that “65 to 70 Marine aircraft would be coming.” At present there are 71 aircraft stationed at Futenma, allowing one to conclude that nearly all of them would be moving to Guam.

U.S. F-15E Strike Eagles and a B-2 Spirit bomber fly in formation over Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. MSNBC on October 7, 2009 reported that “With a planned transfer of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force from Japan, and expansion of military facilities, Guam is to be transformed into a key military hub in the Pacific.”

2) At Apra Harbor in Guam, a docking area will be newly constructed to allow for berthing facilities for the large amphibious assault ships that are now stationed at Sasebo: the USS Essex (LHD-2), the USS Juneau (LPD-10), the USS Germantown (LSD-42) and the USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43). Plans appear to be in the works to redeploy these ships from Sasebo to Guam. Moreover, it is likely that the 31st Expeditionary Force, consisting of the Marine combat and logistic units that, to prepare for emergencies, must stay near the landing craft, will also move to Guam from its base in Sasebo. (グァム米軍基地視察報告 2007年8月13日)

Apra Harbor on the West side of Guam

In September 2008 the Secretary of the U.S. Navy submitted a report to a House of Representatives Military Committee on plans to develop Guam entitled “The Current Situation of American Military planning in Guam.” In it, the names of the units that were to move from Okinawa to Guam were noted, making it further clear that the majority of the Futenma-based units including almost all combat and helicopter units would be moved to Guam. (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

A Force of 10,000 Fabricated by the Japanese Foreign Ministry

According to Foreign Ministry reports and major news sources, some 18,000 Marines are stationed on Okinawa and only about 8,000 will be moved to Guam. This would leave about 10,000 Marines remaining on Okinawa. I too have written articles following this line. However, according to the American Military’s Japan headquarters, while the number of troops is “fixed” (teisū) at 18,000, the actual number presently in Okinawa is 12,500. Moreover, according to a May 17, 2006 article in the Okinawa Times, “The move to Guam involves a mysterious number,” the number of family dependents of Marines stationed in Okinawa is 8000. If 9000 family dependents move to Guam as announced, a negative number would remain in Okinawa. (「在沖縄海兵隊のグアム移転に係る協定」の署名に抗議する)

The “actual numbers” of Okinawa-based Marines are: 12,500 on-duty personnel and 8,000 dependents, making a total of 20,500. Of these, the number going to Guam is approximately 8,000 on-duty personnel and 9000 dependents for a total of 17,000. Now, if we close our eyes to the negative number of family members, the total number of Marines (and their dependents) remaining on Okinawa should only be 3,500. As part of an overall American military re-alignment, including the desire for cutbacks, there should be many key personnel who return to the United States, in the end making the number of those who remain on Okinawa even smaller. According to the aforementioned Ginowan City source, “the fixed number” of those Marines who remain on Okinawa is at present an empty number with no troops assigned to actual duties.” “An empty number” perhaps refers to the number of people (ghost members) who are not there in fact but are assumed to be there. (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

The Japanese Foreign Ministry, for example, has fabricated the number of 10,000 phantom troops, and has succeeded in making Japanese citizens and politicians believe that 10,000 Marines will continue to remain on Okinawa after the transfer. U.S. Marines stationed on Okinawa serve as a symbol of the subordinate status of Japan to the United States. The Japanese Foreign Ministry has long exercised control of Japan’s power structure by threatening politicians and business circles with the message that “if we cross the United States there will be terrible consequences”, while at the same time, bribing the US military with the right of “continued stationing of 10,000 troops” so that the Japanese government will continue to support sympathy budgets. In this way, the Foreign Ministry maintains the “right to interpret what the US” thinks. (日本の官僚支配と沖縄米軍)

In this fabricated blueprint, the Futenma base will never be returned. At Henoko, within Camp Schwab’s Marine base, quite a number of clean barracks and entertainment facilities are already being built. Because the Marines are to relocate to Guam by 2014, these new facilities would only be used for a short time. Because of the fraudulent acts of the Foreign Ministry, an exorbitant amount of tax money has been wasted. This is criminal waste of public funds meant for enhancing their own power. In April 2009 Mayor Iha gave testimony at the Diet saying that, “if the ghost fixed number were to be emphasized, 6.09 billion dollars (contributed by Japan for the relocation of the Marines to Guam) can only be seen as wasted money.” (○伊波参考人 2009年4月8日)

(Ultimately, after the Marines leave Okinawa, Camp Schwab may well become a base for the SDF, with the barracks at Henoko used to house SDF forces.)

Unwelcome Remarks by Governor Hashimoto on his Willingness to Consider the Relocation of Futenma to Kansai Airport

The Okinawa-based Marines are steadily moving to Guam while leaving a phantom force of 10,000 and continuing to receive huge sums of money from Japan. However, on the premise that 10,000 Marines will remain, talk continues about the need to build a new base in Henoko and the voices of opposition of the Okinawa people grow louder.

Hearing these cries of opposition, the Governor of Osaka, Hashimoto Tōru, made a statement on November 30 in which he said “he would accept the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Kansai International Airport.” In fact, two weeks earlier he made the same remarks to a group of reporters. Although his remarks became a topic of discussion in the Diet, the mass media kept totally silent about these happenings. The November 30 press conference was made public by a free lance journalist who posted it on YouTube. Only after people began to talk about it did the mass media, it is said, have no choice but to report on it. (大手マスコミ黙殺した橋下発言 「普天間関西へ」浮上の舞台裏) (Link)

If we see the Japanese mass media as a sort of propaganda machine manipulated by the Foreign Ministry and other bureaucratic organizations, then the reasons for the silence on Governor Hashimoto’s remarks can be understood. Because American military authorities intend to move nearly all Marines from Okinawa to Guam, there will be no need for Japan to have a facility to replace Futenma. The argument that “we must find a place to relocate Futenma” must not, in their view, be made concrete. If Hashimoto uses unwarranted care so that the suggestion about moving the Marines to the Kansai Airport really becomes concrete, then you never know if the structure of fraudulence may be exposed. Maybe that is why Hashimoto’s speech was ignored as unwelcome.

Iwo Jima has been mentioned as a potential replacement site, and the plan of joining up with Kadena base has been proposed, but for the same reasons there has been little follow up.

(Governor Hashimoto called upon the citizens of Osaka to ”think about Okinawa together.” This seems to represent the trend of Japanese awakening that connects the Okinawan base problem and division of power, which I have written about in two blogs “Japan waking up to Okinawa” and “The Hidden Multipolarism of the DJP”)

Off to the Showdown that will Determine Japan’s future

The contention of the mayor of Ginowan City that “The Marines intend to pull out completely from Okinawa to go to Guam” also has been conspicuously absent from the mass media. However, since Mayor Iha discussed these issues with members of the ruling party in late November, Prime Minister Hatoyama has begun to say that “Japan must in the near future make a decision on the Futenma Problem,” or that “a complete removal to Guam is under consideration,” making the situation suddenly fluid. It is hard to tell whether Prime Minister Hatoyama’s mention of the possibility of a complete removal to Guam may have some relation to what Mayor Iha had been pointing out for some time. In the end, all will have to agree that what happens is “the complete relocation to Guam.” So the government is beginning to stifle opposing views. (普天間移設「新しい場所を」首相が指示)

The idea of “complete removal to Guam” was not initially advanced by Japan, but came from the United States. Yet people act upon the idea that mass media reports are “facts,” and the fabricated story that 10,000 Marines will remain in Okinawa is a “fact” in the head of citizens. As long as this function is sufficiently powerful that even the Prime Minister cannot alert citizens about the mass media playing a propaganda role, Hatoyama has no choice but to use the gesture of “suggesting to the US” the complete relocation to Guam.

Hatoyama has stated that “concerning the removal from Futenma, agreement within the government has to be the first priority, and if necessary and the opportunity arises, he wishes to discuss the issue with the President of the United States.” But what is really important is not to re-negotiate the issue with the United States, but rather to coordinate the thinking of the Japanese government and to stop padding the number of Marines involved. If the Foreign Ministry and other bureaucratic organizations were to agree, the Japanese government could set a course of action so that “Okinawa-based Marines would completely relocate to Guam by the year 2014.” This would allow Japan to finally be in line with plans the American forces have already been advancing. (日米首脳会談、要請もできず…米側も消極的)

If the complete relocation of Marines to Guam becomes official Japanese government policy, Japan’s subordination to the United States based on the fabricated number of 10,000 Marines remaining on Okinawa will evaporate; in turn this will cause the Foreign Ministry to lose power. Therefore, the Foreign Ministry and other organizations under its umbrella are resisting this with full force. What is in store is a major showdown that will determine the future of Japan. The LDP have taken this chance to criticize the Democrat administration. The LDP should adopt a new policy as a conservative party, ridding itself of the subordinate relationship with the United States and its dependence on the bureaucracy, but it is foolish for it to remain the servant of the bureaucrats. (自民が民主批判の大号令、問題指摘のメモ作成)

Within the government, Defense Minister Kitazawa Toshimi has visited Guam. He may well have gone there to see if it is possible for all of the Marines to move from Okinawa to Guam, but it would seem that he was pushed around by the American military authorities there, for while in Guam, he reported that “a complete relocation to Guam is impossible. This would mean a departure from the US-Japan agreement.” In response to this, lower house representatives from the Social Democratic Party criticized Kitazawa saying “how could he stay so briefly, see so little, and conclude that it was impossible?” Fighting has broken out within the ruling coalition as well. (社民・重野氏「ちょろっと見て結論出るのか」　グアム移設で防衛相に不快感)

If the Japanese government came together on a policy of “complete relocation to Guam” then whether Japan would continue to pay for the relocation expenses after 2014 would naturally emerge as a problem for Japan and the US. The American military at the outset announced plans to build a large military facility on Guam at a cost of 10.7 billion dollars (of which 6.1 billion would be paid by Japan). However this cost does not include the construction of new roads and water and sewage systems, electric power supply and other additional construction costs that will result from an increase of military-related personnel and vehicles on the island. In July 2008 the American GAO (Government Accountability Office) issued a report that criticized the military saying that the relocation to Guam would increase the island’s population by 14 percent. (GAO says cost of Guam move will exceed estimate)

The American military has a habit of operating beyond budget; from around thirty years ago its operations have greatly exceed its budget. The American military may have been looking to Japan to make up for the shortfall, but the Hatoyama government is seeking to withdraw from a position of subordination to the United States and to emphasize its autonomy or independence, so it will be reluctant to dole out funds, using the pretext of financial difficulties. During the recent visit to Guam by Defense Minister Kitazawa, the Governor of Guam for the first time announced his opposition to the relocation of Marines from Okinawa to Guam, but behind his opposition can be seen a request to Japan to help pay for the costs of infrastructure and new facilities.

The American government is also experiencing financial difficulties, and if Japan is unwilling to pay the costs of relocating the Marines to Guam, they may well not send them, remaining instead in Futenma. However, if they do this, popular opposition in Okinawa will grow louder and the Hatoyama administration may well demand, without giving money, that the Marines leave. This is a demand that the Philippines and other so-called “normal countries” have made. Ultimately, the US military had no choice but to leave without receiving additional funds from Japan. In this case, it is conceivable that it will be taken care of by reducing the number of Marines who relocate to Guam and increasing the number of people returning to the United States. The common sense of the world that “a one-time resolution by the government or the congress can make the US military leave”, which the Japanese have been made to consider impossible, will now be put into practice.

There will be an election for the governor of Okinawa in 2010. Many people support a movement to urge Ginowan City Mayor Iha to stand as a candidate. If Mayor Iha becomes governor, Okinawa Prefecture will undoubtedly urge an early removal of American forces from Okinawa that Tokyo cannot ignore. This may lead to Okinawa’s freeing itself from its status as an island of American military bases.

This article was originally published at Tanaka Sakai’s website on December 10, 2009.

Tanaka Sakai is the creator, researcher, writer and editor of Tanaka News (www.tanakanews.com), a Japanese-language news service on Japan and the world. This is the sequel to an earlier article called “China-Japan Defense Cooperation and the Okinawa-based US Military Base.” Both of the original Japanese texts of December 10 and December 15, 2009 are available at his site, 田中宇の国際ニュース解説

Tanaka Sakai’s new book is 『日本が「対米従属」を脱する日』—多極化する新世界秩序の中で—
The Day Japan Breaks with “Subordination to the US”: Amidst the Multipolarizing New World Order

Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor at Australian National University, coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, author, most recently, of Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

William Steele, professor of history, International Christian University, is author of Alternative Narratives in Modern Japanese History . His most recent book is Japan and Russia: Three Centuries of Mutual Images.

Recommended citation: Tanaka Sakai, “Japanese Bureaucrats Hide Decision to Move All US Marines out of Okinawa to Guam,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 51-4-09, December 21, 2009.

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Guam says “No Deal!” to the U.S. Military Buildup

The U.S. military currently is conducting public hearings on its draft environmental impact statement for its military buildup in Guam and the Northern Marianas islands.   At the first hearing, residents overwhelmingly opposed the plan.   Here is a powerful testimony by prophet-poet Melvin Won Pat-Borja, a former mentor with YouthSpeaks Hawai’i who now teaches in Guam.

Description from the YouTube page:

Melvin Won Pat-Borja, representing the community organization “We Are Guahan” presents his official testimony against the U.S. Military’s plans to transfer thousands of marines from Okinawa to Guam. The Department of Defense has published a draft of the Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) detailing their plans. The DEIS is about 11,000 pages long, and the public only has until February 17, 2010 to submit comments on the document.

“We Are Guahan” is a group of community members dedicated to reading and disseminating information in the DEIS to the public, including details of the devastating effects of the military buildup on the island’s culture, water sources, coral reefs and marine habitats, family lands, historical and archeological sites, and social environment. Furthermore, despite common belief that the buildup will benefit Guam’s economy, the DEIS reveals that majority of new jobs and contracts will be given to off-island workers and companies.

Most importantly, the U.S. military’s decision is a blatant violation of human rights for Guam’s residents, who have not been allowed to participate in any aspect of the buildup plans. “We Are Guahan” encourages everyone, in and outside of Guam, to stay informed about the military buildup! Read the EIS and make your voice heard! You can submit comments online, by mail, or in person at public hearings.

For more information, please visit www.WeAreGuahan.com.

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Biba Guahan! Residents oppose military expansion at Draft EIS hearing

http://www.pacificnewscenter.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2486%3Abuildup-hearing-filled-with-anti-buildup-sentiments&limitstart=1

Buildup Hearing Filled with Anti-Buildup Sentiments

Guam – The Southern High Cafeteria was filled with residents both curious and eager to speak publicly about the imminent military buildup.

This is where the Joint Guam Program office held the first of it’s series of public hearings on the the Draft Environmental Impact Statement or D.E.I.S. In essence the D.E.I.S outlines the military’s plans for Guam and the potential impacts to the island as a result of the buildup.

The D.E.I.S. Which is thousands of pages long covers everything from environmental impacts, to social and cultural impacts, to economic impacts. It was released in late November and tonight residents had a chance to provide public comments that will be recorded and factored into the Department of Defenses final Decisions.

The overwhelming majority of people present were either opposed to the military buildup as a whole or opposed to specific plans present in the DEIS. Speaker after speaker raised concerns about buildup ranging from the dredging of the Apra Harbor, to Land Acquisition. Senator BJ Cruz spoke about the need to test soil dredged from the Harbor for nuclear contaminants. According to the senator although extensive tests were done for the presence of metals none has been conducted for the presence of nuclear waste.

This despite the fact that a submarine leaked nuclear material into the harbor just a couple of years ago. Others like Chamorro Tribe Chairman Frank Schacher spoke about his prior service with the US military and how he now feels betrayed. Schacher spoke about the changes to the island and the negative impacts an influx of non-native people would have on the Chamorro language culture and customs. Other concerns brought up by various speakers included concerns about the limited water resources, contamination of the island and it’s aquifer, salinization of the aquifer, the acquisition of land, the access to hiking trails and traditional fishing and hunting grounds, and the overall environmental impacts to island.

Not all spoke against the military buildup however. Some like Chamber of Commerce President Dave Leddy spoke in favor of it. Leddy touted among other things the economic impacts and the improvements to infrastructure. Overall however most of the comments given were either against the buildup as a whole or against specific sections of the DEIS.

Written by :  Clynt Ridgell

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Briefing Paper: Military Buildup in the Mariana Islands

Koohan Paik created this briefing paper from the military’s Draft Envirionmental Impact Statement for the military expansion in Guam and the Northern Marianas:

THE MILITARY BUILDUP IN THE MARIANA ISLANDS

Guam, a possession of the United States, is one of 15 islands in the Marianas, an archipelago in the western Pacific so pristine and rich in biodiversity that it was recently designated a federally protected Marine National Monument. However, military activities are exempt from this so-called “protection” and the Department of Defense has plans to effectively destroy the natural habitats of these islands with the “Guam Military Buildup,”slated to take place over the next five years.  Guam, an island only half the size of Cape Cod with a current population of 178,000, will soon become home to 80,000 additional Marines, dependents and laborers. The military already owns a third of the island, and the Marines aren’t the only unit expanding. The Army, as well, is building a missile defense system; the Air Force is adding more drones; and the Navy is tearing out 2.3 million square feet of a healthy reef ecosystem to make way to house a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

Though the people of these islands are being told that the Buildup will improve their quality of life, the facts show otherwise. Below is a handout being distributed among the people of Guam and the Marianas to shed light on the reality of how the Buildup will impact their islands.

The REAL STORY behind the Guam Military Buildup

The Military Buildup being planned for Guam and the rest of the Mariana Islands chain is being sold to us as a once-in-a-lifetime economic opportunity. But if you read the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) put out by the Department of Defense, it quickly becomes clear that this is far from the truth. And if you know your Pacific history, it is a simple connection of dots to see that the Buildup will likely be as cataclysmic for our people and environment as the atomic testing at Bikini was for the Marshall Islands.

Below are a collection of facts taken from the Draft Environmental Statement released November 20, 2009:

I. ECONOMY

Myth: The military buildup will be great for Guam’s economy.

Fact: The military’s DEIS document states that very little money will go into Guam’s economy. According to the report, most contracts will go to large off-island companies, not to local contractors. Most money spent by the 80,000 newcomers will be spent on base, at companies also based on-island, not at local businesses. The 40,000 low-paid workers imported from the Philippines will not spend their money on Guam, but will send most of it back home.

And don’t think that Guam residents will benefit from an increase in construction jobs. According to the DEIS, at the projected 2014 peak in such jobs, only 2,566 will go to Guam residents, while 15,157 will be taken by off-island workers.

In addition, the military conducted a separate report which revealed that the cost of living will rise, but wages will remain low too low to keep up with skyrocketing costs. Guam Housing Urban Renewal Authority Executive Director, Benny Pinaula, does not feel the buildup will help keep housing affordable.

How will GovGuam fare during the buildup? The costs to the Government of Guam associated with the buildup will be $2.9 Billion dollars. But GovGuam officials are uncertain as to how those projects will be paid for.

Guam Senator and local industrialist Eddie Calvo explained that the buildup will cost millions of dollars to maintain roads, to upgrade wastewater treatment and by taking revenue from the port. Calvo recently wrote that the $50 million appropriated for roads within the 2010 Defense Budget is “a drop in the bucket to what is required to expand the roads and harden bridges to handle the thousands of containers and workers that will be arriving on island.”

Calvo also pointed out that EPA has ordered the local government to spend nearly $300 million dollars to develop secondary wastewater treatment facilities. Though the military will ultimately be end-users of the northern facilities, it appears that the local government will bear the brunt of the upfront costs, resulting from EPA’s edict.

According to Calvo, it has been discovered that commercial cargo has been shipping out of the Navy side of the harbor. If this trend is a prediction of things to come, this may cost the local government millions of dollars in lost revenue in the future.

To sum things up, the military build up will NOT help local Guam businesses, will NOT provide a boon in construction jobs, will NOT be an economic boost for local Guam residents, and will cost Guam’s government millions of dollars. The fact that the DEIS was written by big defense contractors in Hawaii, not Guam, indicates where the money will go, and it is not to you and me.

II. NOT A “DONE DEAL”

Myth: The Guam Military Buildup is a “done deal.”

Fact: The Military Buildup is NOT a “done deal,” as the Pacific Daily News would have us believe. There are many variables that need to take place in order for it to happen.

The buildup depends on what Japan decides to do. The U.S. is relying on Japan building an additional base on Okinawa in order for the troops to transfer from there to Guam. They are also depending on Japan to kick in $6 billion to help fund the buildup. However, Japan doesn’t want to build another base and it has been questioning the exorbitant expenses of the buildup, such as $775,000 per housing unit. Japan could make a decision that significantly delays the buildup, or even prevents it entirely.

Especially since the economic downturn, the Pentagon, too, has been uncertain about the expenses of the buildup (see this article from as recently as May 2009: “Pentagon Reconsiders Pricey Guam Move” at http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0509/050709cdam1.htm )

The powerful Heritage Foundation, an ultra-conservative, rightwing think tank, has been behind this buildup from the start, and has been steadily lobbying Congress to spend the billions of dollars it will take to make it happen. The Heritage Foundation takes the “Manifest Destiny” view of America, that it must rule the world, rather than share the world. And yet, in December 2009, a Pew Research Center study showed that almost half of Americans think that their country should “mind its own business internationally.” No doubt, these people would be opposed to the idea that $15 billion in their tax dollars is going to the Guam buildup, devoted to the military domination of another hemisphere. If these people were even aware of the buildup, let alone if they knew where Guam was, they would object to their Congressional representatives’ greenlighting the buildup. So far, less than $1 billion has been appropriated for the colossal project. There is no guarantee that the remaining $14 billion plus will come through.

So, it isn’t a “done deal” after all. It is a future that can be shaped by the strategy and foresight of the people, starting at the grassroots.

III. WATER

Myth: There will be no problem supplying water to 80,000 new people on Guam. All we need to do is drill 22 more wells.

Fact: False. Twenty-two new wells will deplete our freshwater source. If there were enough water for that many more people, the DEIS would not have listed a desalination plant as a long-term solution. Desalination plants have adverse effects on the environment; and building one would make the people of Guam dependent on the military for the most basic resource for life – water.

If there were enough water to go around, the military would not consider the development of Tolaeyuus River (“Lost River”) in Santa Rita, either, to augment the water supply during the dry season. This would entail dredging the reservoir area of the existing dam, and installing a pump station and pipeline.

Another scheme listed in the EIS is a comprehensive dredging of Fena Lake to increase capacity. Dredging equals more environmental devastation.

The DEIS makes no guarantee of water for the estimated 260,000-plus people to be on the island. So when you run short of water, as too many of us already do in Agat, Santa Rita, Piti and Asan, just remember the old Navy saying: “The needs of the Navy come first”.

IV. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONFLICTS

Myth: People living on the base and civilians will live together harmoniously, as “one.”

Fact: The buildup will create three distinct classes: 1) the military, who will be given expensive homes and good salaries; 2) the local people, who will be marginalized as second-class citizens and 3) 40,000 “temporary workers” who will be housed in barracks.

Billions of dollars are slated to be poured into construction inside the fence, while THERE ARE NO PLANS TO SPEND ANY MONEY OUTSIDE THE FENCE, except for road construction (not maintenance). There will be no money to help the current systems deal with infrastructure inadequacies or the expected rise in crime.

The difference between “inside the fence” and “outside the fence” will be more evident within our education system than it already is. There is already a big difference between the quality of education between the DODEA schools for the military kids and that of local public schools. Now, the DEIS tells us to expect a 20% increase in enrollment in the civilian public schools. With no supplemental funding to enable the public schools to absorb this huge influx of students brought by the military buildup, the disparity in education between civilian and DODEA schools will resemble the segregated schools of the Old South. The shameful separate-but-equal ethic is already alive and well on Guam, and will thrive further if the military buildup is allowed to take place.

Medical care and other social services will share similar problems. While military personnel on-island will receive better funded care, the thousands of additional people will overwhelm Guam’s already stressed medical and social services.

Meanwhile, who will monitor and enforce the labor laws governing the island’s temporary workers, most of whom will be from the Philippines and the Federated States of Micronesia? There is already a problem regarding huge human-rights and labor abuse on Guam. Human-rights violations will most likely get worse, without adequate monitoring or enforcement. In addition, the idea that these workers are really “temporary” is a myth. Studies show that the vast majority of workers who migrate to the states from the Philippines, even on temporary visas, stay, and create families. Do not expect a population reduction after the buildup.

V. CRIME INCREASE

The huge surge of young single males, both Marines and laborers, along with the disparity between haves and have-nots, will lead to an increase in crime, fights, alcoholism, rape and prostitution. According to the DEIS, the buildup will also cause an increase in drug smuggling, due to the increased flow of goods and legal and illegal immigrants into Guam. Currently, the drug methamphetamine is already readily available on Guam, due to a steady supply from the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and South Korea.

VI. STRESSED SOCIAL SERVICES

As pointed out by UOG Professor of Social Work ,Dr. Gerhard Schwab, social services cannot keep up with current demands. He says that currently, “children in private and public child welfare organizations experience neglect and abuse… hard-working families do not have the health care and family support they need to care for their elderly and sick family members … our best local social service professionals leave Guam because of poor working conditions and/or lack of support and resources for their work.” And that is the way things are now.

If the buildup is allowed to go forward, troubles will get worse.  The workload will double, while no money or resources are being appropriated to deal with these gigantic, foreseeable problem social problems.

Peter Sgro, president of the Guam Healthcare Development Foundation, says 500-600 additional doctors, nurses, technical, management and administration professionals will be needed on Guam, should the buildup take place. Where will they come from? Guam’s civilian hospital already has the lowest patient-to-bed ratio of anywhere in the U.S. and no funding in sight. Meanwhile, $259 million was appropriated in December 2009 to build a brand new Navy hospital – open only to military personnel and their dependents. The injustice of this neo-Apartheid system will be made all the more evident by the small size of the island, which will force the haves and have-nots to live uneasily side-by-side.

VII. CROWDING

Bottom line: More people, less land.

Get ready for a road system that will be a constant traffic jam of construction trucks.

The military is eyeing an additional 3,900 acres to take. That’s about one and a half times the size of Barrigada. This would include the FAA property, which was supposed to have been given back.

Regarding population increase: at first, the DOD told residents that the buildup would increase the population by 40,000, though they were always aware that the figure was really 80,000 — double that! Unfortunately, no one told the people of Guam until the last possible moment – the day the EIS was released (November 20, 2009). Why did they wait so long? Maybe because they knew how upsetting this information would be.

Currently, the cap on H-2B temporary workers allowed to enter the country is only 66,000 for the entire United States. But on tiny Guam, that cap for such workers has been lifted. Instead of protecting the island from a surge of migrants, the government is encouraging a dangerous population spike. Clearly, no consideration was given to living conditions, resources or infrastructure on Guam. All that is considered important to project planners is to get the military facilities up and running – no matter what are the human, social or environmental costs.

VIII. RACIST ATTITUDES

According to the Draft EIS, the transplanted Marines will not have an impact on Guam’s overall crime and social order. Instead the report blames migrants from the Federated States of Micronesia as the likely cause. This blatantly racist mindset behind the planning of Guam’s future is deplorable and goes against everything America stands for.

And racism will continue to flourish as the buildup’s planned social stratification takes hold, with predominantly Caucasian military personnel living in the most comfort inside the fence, while Pacific Islanders live outside the fence in lesser conditions, or outright squalor. It is tragically ironic that people native to the region are the ones to be relegated to the worst housing, the worst education system, the worst medical facilities, and the lowest wages. As 80,000 new people are dumped on Guam to fall into their preordained caste in this new “planned community” of Apartheid, the Buildup will exponentially accelerate the denigration of Pacific Islanders in their own land.

IX. NO MORE GREEN SPACE

Most of the four- and two- lane roads in the north will be widened to six- and seven-land highways.

The greenery in the north will be removed, not just for road work, but to house many of the 80,000 new people. One hundred acres of jungle will be replaced by a camp for tens of thousands of low-wage laborers. More jungle will be razed to make way for the luxury military homes. These homes will be soundproofed to protect those inside from the noise of the new landing pad. Local homes just outside the gate will not have such sound protection.

X. NOISE

Aside from the harrowing noise of helicopters coming and going, the racket of weapons firing from the firing range will plague much of the island. A 2000 study from Asahikawa Medical College shows that aircraft-noise exposure resulted in a range of physical and mental consequences including sleep disorders, hearing loss, higher rates of low birth weight infants, fatigue, neurosis, and negative effects on children.

XI. NO MORE ACCESS TO NATURE

According to the impact study, “There are several recreational resources that the public would lose the access to, and the use of the features if the proposed action were implemented: Guam International Raceway, Marbo Cave, Pagat Trail and associated trails near it, cultural gathering activities (suruhana), and off-shore fishing near Marbo Cave.”

The DEIS spends chapters detailing their plans for creating “recreation space” for their dependents. They go on about how important it is to make sure that there is lots of “wide, open, green space” within their neighborhoods. In the mean time, they are taking away OUR recreation space. They are lessening the wide, open, green space in OUR neighborhoods. And what does the DEIS say to try to make things better? It actually says we should replace our outdoor culture with indoor physical fitness centers, and indoor recreational resources such as bowling, skating rink, youth center, theater and recreational pavilion. Do they really think that bowling is an acceptable substitute for traditional fishing practices? Can they really be that culturally insensitive? And even if people wanted to go bowling instead of fishing, what makes them think local people would be able to afford such diversions, as the cost of living skyrockets against their low wages?

XII. STRESSED INFRASTRUCTURE

As 80,000 newcomers create waste and stress on our utilities and roads, the local people must cope with the burdened electrical system, continual road maintenance, limited water supply and thousands of tons of additional sewage. As mentioned earlier, funding for the Guam Buildup does not include any financial support for infrastructure outside the fence.

XIII. DESTRUCTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES

The DEIS states that cultural heritage sites to be destroyed or compromised include locations at Apra Harbor, Anderson AFB, Orote Field, Anderson South, and a sizable portion of land south of Route 15. As described in the report, a parcel of land at Anderson Air Force Base that is rich in archaelogical artifacts will be subject to “100-percent disturbance.” In addition, it warns of increased vandalism at the historical coastal site of Haputo, rich with latte stones.

XIV. THE DESTRUCTION OF PAGAT

The limestone forest that stretches from Marbo Caves to Pagat Caves is being considered for use as a firing range, where the military can practice shooting and bombing. The land belongs to several families who have been caring for it for decades, choosing to not develop because they prize the land for its inherent values. Their efforts to keep the land pristine have made it more desirable for the military. The site in Pagat is registered at the Department of Historic Preservation as an archaeological site.

XV. THE DESECRATION OF MOUNT JUMULLONG MANGLO

This holy mountain, where thousands of island residents pilgrimage every year on Good Friday, is also being considered for use as a firing range. This is disrespectful of local Chamorro traditions.

XVI. DESTRUCTION OF REEF AND FISHING IN APRA HARBOR

Amount of reef to be dredged: 2.3 MILLION SQUARE FEET. That’s the equivalent of 40 football fields!

That’s to make way for the berthing of a nuclear aircraft carrier, the largest ship in the Navy’s fleet, carrying 85 aircraft. It will bring 5600 additional people to Guam, ported 63 days a year. Having it will be terrific for local tattoo parlors; disastrous for nature.

The sediment churned up by the dredging will kill the coral that is not plowed up and the fish population. According to Manny Duenas, president of the Fisherman’s Co-op, the dredging will “affect Guam in itself because we know the fish don’t just live in one area.”

Brent Tibbatts, fisheries biologist at the Guam Department of Agriculture,  explains that “there have been things found in Apra Harbor that have been found growing nowhere else in Guam.”

One of those things are 6-foot brilliant blue elephant ear sponges that stand out among the common mounds of yellow, brown and green coral.

It is rare for a busy port to be teeming with marine life like Apra Harbor, Tibbatts said. Most of the ports of the Pacific have barren sea bottoms, not lively ecosystems.

Many of the organisms in Apra Harbor will be buried during the dredging, according to the Draft EIS. Some will survive and seek new homes elsewhere in weeks or months, the document states. Other colonies of fish that are attached to their territory — like damselfish, clownfish and butterfly fish — will die.

The draft EIS also states that ship traffic and dredging will create “short-term” disruption in the birthing area for scalloped hammerhead sharks. The sharks give birth directly in the carriers’ path into the wharf, the draft EIS states.

Although the adult hammerheads spread to waters around the island, Apra Harbor is the only place they consistently return to give birth.

If the dredging lasts more than a year, it could easily disturb two breeding cycles for the sharks, Tibbatts said. Since they only give birth to a few babies a year, local populations will be affected.

“It would not be easy for them to replenish the population if something impacts their ability to pup,” he said.

XVII. LARGEST MANGROVE FOREST ON U.S. SOIL DESTROYED

The dredging at Apra Harbor will destroy the mangrove forest there.

XVIII. SEA TURTLE AND SPINNER DOLPHIN HABITAT DESTROYED

The green sea turtle, the Hawksbill sea turtle and the Spinner dolphin, all protected by federal law, will be wiped out in Apra Harbor.

We are trading endangered species and their ecosystems for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

XIX. REMOVAL OF DUKDUK TREES; DECIMATION OF IFIT TREES

The ifit tree is the official tree of Guam, traditionally used as timber, for fuel wood and craftsman art. The termite-resistant hardwood has completely disappeared from some parts of southeast Asia already and is increasingly harder to find on Guam. Construction eyed for Finegayan at Andersen South, and a firing range would decimate the critically-endangered ifit trees, says the DEIS. The construction would also require the removal of dukduk trees, a traditional resource used by canoe builders.

XX. DESTRUCTION OF NATIVE MEDICINAL PLANTS

The hundreds of acres of jungle to be destroyed or contaminated contains native plants used in traditional medicine. To destroy these plants is to destroy Guam’s Chamorro heritage.

XXI. HAZARDOUS AND TOXIC WASTE

The total amount of hazardous waste produced by the increased military presence will equal 8 tons per year! (according to the DEIS)

The DEIS refuses to disclose all of the toxic and hazardous materials they will be storing; this is most likely because they are radioactive and banned from the shores of most countries.  Our island is still in the process of decontaminating land and removing toxic materials left behind by the military; and many older generations of Guamanians suffer from an abnormally high cancer rate resulting from previous exposure to radiation by the military.

XXII. DEPLETION OF REEF RESOURCES BY H-2 WORKERS

What little reef resources are left may be quickly depleted by the underpaid foreign workers who tend to comb the reefs for food.

XXIII. WILL AFFECT THE ENTIRE MARIANA ARCHIPELAGO

The Guam Buildup does not affect only Guam. It will have grave, irreversible consequences for the entire island chain. The military does not see the Mariana Islands as a biodiverse treasure of natural wonders that the U.S. has even designated a protected Marine National Monument (“protected” from everyone except the military). Rather, the military sees our islands as a gigantic shooting gallery, which they’ve aptly re-named the Mariana Islands Range Complex (MIRC). Don’t they know that regular people live here—people who have been caretakers of the culture and environment for millennia? But that is not their priority. As far as they’re concerned, Guam will be where the soldiers will live; the MIRC will be their enormous playground where they will learn how to destroy life.  The DEIS even describes the Mariana Islands as “deficient,” for lacking enough live-fire ranges. In other words, the military sees our archipelago home as useless unless it can be bombed.

The MIRC area will encompass about 501,873 square nautical miles to include open ocean, coastal areas, surface and underwater. The combined land area on Guam, Rota, Tinian, Saipan, and Farallon de Medinilla to be used for training areas and facilities will be about 64 nautical miles, and approximately 63,000 nautical miles of airspace will be designated as Special Use Airspace. Surface and underwater areas, according to the study, will “extend from the waters south of Guam to north of Pagan and from the Pacific Ocean east of the Marianas Islands to the middle of the Philippine Sea to the west.”

Already bombing practice occurs routinely on Farallon de Medinilla, an island not long ago prized by locals for its excellent fishing. Now it is off-limits and contaminated, worsening by the day.

Stopping the Guam Buildup will “cut off the head of the snake” that would otherwise kill or severely diminish the celebrated reef and land ecologies of the rest of the archipelago. According to the Population Reference Bureau, only 30% of Guam’s natural habitat remains. But that sad statistic is not shared by the rest of the islands in the chain, still plentiful in biological diversity.

Tinian

The spectacularly beautiful and ecologically rich island of Tinian would be hardest hit, if we let this happen. Tinian is home to many endemic species, including the Tinian Monarch, an endemic bird. The DEIS explains that the military intends to use two-thirds of the island to routinely conduct many hazardous activities, including live-fire training (which leaves behind depleted uranium and other highly toxic materials), various pyrotechnics and detonations both on land and underwater, and amphibious landings (heavy, lumbering tanks crushing the thriving reef as well as destroying the sea-turtle nesting areas on the beach). As the DEIS explains, Tinian is “capable of supporting Marine Expeditionary Unit aviation events such as ground element training and air element training, simulated evacuations of noncombatants, airfield seizure training, expeditionary airfield training, and special warfare activities.”

No species will be left undamaged. These activities will decimate one of the healthiest and most biologically diverse marine ecosystems on the planet, thus also destroying an important food source for its Pacific Island inhabitants.

Tinian groundwater endangered

The DEIS also warns that “groundwater aquifers on Tinian are also vulnerable to contamination by substances introduced onto the soil surface because the thin soils and underlying permeable limestone does not significantly impede the passage of contaminants to the shallow aquifer.” We can only imagine what heavy metals and other carcinogenic and hazardous materials will be seeping into the groundwater as military war games are routinely conducted all over the island.

In addition to the destruction caused by bombs, tanks, planes, ships and nuclear and hazardous wastes, the islands will also suffer from opportunists “cashing in” on the sudden inflow of a large demographic of single males looking for “rest and relaxation.” As on Guam, we can safely predict a rise in prostitution, illegal drugs, and crime. On Rota – pristine and undeveloped; an authentic “tropical paradise” — the construction of two hotel-casinos are in the works, in anticipation of the Guam Buildup becoming a reality.

As you can see from these facts presented in the military’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the Guam Buildup is a recipe for nothing short of social and ecological disaster. Please do what you can to stop it.

Here is an interesting observation from blogger Dave Owen (www.guamblog.com):

“The Draft Environment Impact Statement (DEIS) wasn’t written to protect Guam. It was written to protect the U.S. government from criticism once things go wrong on Guam. The U.S. will say that the 11,000 page DEIS is evidence of its great concern and care for Guam. It’s just the opposite. It’s a pile of data and observation dumped on the island far too late, and Guam has been given precious little time – just 90 days – to respond to it. The buildup, as the DEIS illustrates, impacts every aspect of the island; the environment, land use and development, schools, health care, crime, roads — the sum of Guam’s quality of life. With the DEIS in hand, Guam’s government must now prioritize the buildup’s impact and then prepare mitigation strategies. It’s a Manhattan Project-sized task and one that’s impossible to complete in the amount of time available. Guam can rest assured that the U.S. will use the DEIS as its defense when things go wrong: We prepared you, Guam.”

Posted on

Tensions between Japan and U.S. over Okinawa bases

The Honolulu Advertiser ran this story from the AP about the ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Japan over the fate of Futenma Marine Base.   The U.S. wants to proceed with plans agreed to by the previous Japanese conservative government to relocate the base in the pristine coral reef habitat of Henoko, destroying critical habitat of the endangered Dugong.  The Japanese want the U.S. base out of Okinawa.  This is long overdue.  However, a relocation of the base out of Japan would most likely impact Guam or Hawai’i, which are both already heavily militarized.   Real security for the peoples of the Pacific would require a reduction of the U.S. military footprint so that the people of these islands can develop freely without the oppressive weight of U.S. military interests.

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http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100103/NEWS08/1030353/Standoff+on+Okinawa+base

Posted on: Sunday, January 3, 2010

Standoff on Okinawa base

Washington, Japan agree U.S. facility must move, but can’t agree to where

By ERIC TALMADGE

Associated Press

GINOWAN, Japan — When the U.S. took over a Japanese airfield here in the closing days of World War II, it was surrounded by sugarcane fields and the smoldering battlegrounds of Okinawa. It is now the focus of a deepening dispute that is testing Japan’s security alliance with the United States and dividing its new government in Tokyo.

A large city has grown up around the base, and helicopters and cargo planes from the U.S. Marine Corps facility buzz so low over Futenma No. 2 Elementary School, whose playground fence borders the facility, that the windows rattle and teachers stop class until the aircraft are on the ground.

“It’s just too much,” said the school’s vice principal, Muneo Nakamura. “I understand the political role the U.S. bases in Japan play. But we have to live here.”

That Marine Corps Air Station Futenma must go is not the dispute. U.S. military officials agree the base must be moved. The problem is where.

The United States says that Futenma cannot be shut down until a replacement is elsewhere on Okinawa, an idea that most Okinawans oppose. They have the ear of a new left-leaning Japanese government that took office in September and is reassessing the U.S.-Japan alliance.

The standoff has clouded relations between Tokyo and Washington, delayed a plan to restructure America’s military presence in Asia and divided Japan’s political leadership. It comes as China’s rising military strength and North Korea’s nuclear program are changing the security landscape in Asia, underscoring the importance for the U.S. and Japan of keeping the issue from creating a major rift.

In Ginowan, the city of 92,000 where the base is located, patience is wearing thin.

The Futenma facility, home to about 2,000 Marines and one of the Marines’ largest facilities in the Pacific, is surrounded by urban sprawl.

The population density outside the base is roughly equivalent to downtown Tokyo. Intense training by helicopters and planes off a 9,186-foot runway has prompted residents to dub Futenma “the most dangerous base in the world.”

The base takes up roughly a quarter of the city’s land. Residents must drive around it, causing traffic jams, delays and frustration. Sewer and water lines have been detoured around its perimeter.

“This base violates so many regulations and safety rules that it would be illegal to operate it in the United States,” Yoichi Iha, the mayor of Ginowan, told The Associated Press. “The situation has just been left to fester for too long, and no one has been willing to accept responsibility to do anything.”

He also accused the Marines of regularly ignoring agreements on when and where they can fly. The city is installing a $20 million radar system next year to keep tabs on them. A Japanese court ruled last year the noise levels are unacceptable, and ordered the Japanese government to compensate residents. An appeal is ongoing.

Lt. Col. Douglas Powell, a spokesman for the Okinawa Marines, said no flights are conducted after 11 p.m. and the airstrip is closed on Sundays.

“Night training flights are limited to the minimum required to fulfill assigned missions and maintain aircrew proficiency,” he said. “Flight patterns can vary due to weather conditions such as wind velocity and wind direction. Marine Corps pilots make every effort to minimize overflight of civilian population centers, but, first and foremost, must ensure safe flight operations.”

Progress on the Futenma issue has generally only occurred after major incidents have sent Okinawans into the streets in protest.

Following a public uproar over the rape of a local schoolgirl by two Marines and a sailor, Tokyo and Washington agreed in 1996 to close the base. The deal bogged down in the details, including finding an alternative site both sides could agree on.

After a helicopter from Futenma crashed on the Okinawa International University campus near the base in August 2004, another agreement was announced in 2006. The university was closed at the time and no one was killed on the ground.

That “strategic roadmap” included moving the facility farther north to a less crowded area and reducing the U.S. presence in Okinawa by transfering 8,000 Marines from Futenma and other bases to Guam, a tiny U.S. territory in the Pacific.

It would be the most sweeping realignment of the 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan since the Vietnam War.

But the decision to replace the Futenma base with another on the outskirts of Nago, another Okinawan city, sparked intense protests.

The new base would likely require bulldozing beaches near an existing Marine facility, Camp Schwab.

“We are not going to let them destroy our ocean to build another military base,” said Hiroshi Aratomi, the co-leader of a group that has held a daily sit-in for the past five years. “We will be glad to see Futenma go, but not at the price of simply substituting it with another base in our backyard.”

The protests by Nago residents have effectively thwarted efforts to finally settle on a site and have the sympathy of Okinawans in general, who would prefer that no replacement facility be built on their island at all.

The United States insists the base must stay somewhere on Okinawa so that the Marine units remain cohesive.

Japan’s new government is listening to the protesters, at least for the moment .

In large part, that reflects domestic politics. Mizuho Fukushima, head of the Social Democratic Party, has threatened to pull her party out of the ruling coalition if the base remains on Okinawa.

Her threat is seen as a major factor behind Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s reluctance to make a decision on the issue.

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Japanese Bureaucrats Hide Decision to Move All US Marines out of Okinawa to Guam

Thanks to Japan Focus for translating and making available this excellent article about the military base relocation controversy in Japan.

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http://japanfocus.org/-Tanaka-Sakai/3274

Japanese Bureaucrats Hide Decision to Move All US Marines out of Okinawa to Guam [Japanese original text at Tanaka News (tanakanews.com)]

Tanaka Sakai

Translation by William Steele

Introduction by Gavan McCormack

The Japanese government announced on 15 December 2009 that it was postponing indefinitely any decision on the contentious issue of a “Replacement Facility” for the Futenma Marine base in Okinawa. The decision to make no decision was low-key and at first glance may seem inconsequential. Its symbolic importance, however, is huge, signalling a possible changing of the tide of history in East Asia, above all in the US-Japan relationship.

It meant that the Hatoyama government had withstood the most sustained barrage of US pressure, intimidation, insult, ultimatum, and threat, and decided, at least for the present, to say: “No.” Hatoyama was telling the Obama government, in effect, that rather than rubber stamp an agreement made by the former ruling party, he would insist on renegotiating the 2005-6 “Reorganization of US Forces in Japan” and the “Guam Treaty” in which that agreement was incorporated. He was serving notice that the “Client State” relationship so carefully cultivated by the former (George W. Bush) administration and its successive LDP partners would be renegotiated and perhaps dismantled. How, was far from clear. But the US-Japan relationship can never be the same again.

The bottom line of the message was clear, even if it could only be read in the invisible ink of a bland announcement: if the Hayoyama administration prevails, no “Futenma Replacement Facility” will be built for the Marines in the waters off Cape Henoko in Northern Okinawa. A Pentagon dream since 1966, it had come close to realization under bilateral agreements in 1996, 2006, and 2009, only to be stalled each time by one of the most remarkable, non-violent political movements in modern Japanese history. Today this most unequal of struggles has reached a decisive moment.

Months of intense pressure (see “The Battle of Okinawa 2009”) had brought the Hatoyama government close to capitulation. The bureaucrats in both the Defense and Foreign Ministries insisted that the national interest was at stake and required submission. Moreover, the Futenma Base was a quid pro quo for US plans to withdraw—at Japanese expense—an estimated 8,000 Marines and their families to Guam. US Ambassador Roos (known to be a close personal friend of President Obama) expostulated, red-faced (according to observers) to the Japanese Defense and Foreign Ministers on 4 December that trust between Obama and Hatoyama might be grievously damaged if agreement to construct the Henoko base was not reached before the end of 2009. In Okinawa the following day, Foreign Minister Okada could only beg his audiences of Democratic Party faithful to understand how important this issue was for the US, and therefore for the alliance and for Japan. All previous LDP-led governments had submitted just as Okinawa had been forced to submit to American bases for more than six decades, unbroken by the 1972 “reversion” to Japan. The pressure applied to Hatoyama far exceeded that directed to any previous government of Japan, and many assumed that in due course he, too, would submit. He chose otherwise.

The mid-December decision was due to three factors, one long-term, one short-term, and one personal: the first and overwhelming one is the triumph of the non-violent resistance movement of the people of Okinawa itself, sustained since 1996; the second is the outcome of the 30 August Lower House national elections, which swept the Hatoyama DPJ to power nationally and especially in Okinawa gave them and other opponents of base construction a massive endorsement; the third is the strength of resolve by Prime Minister Hatoyama. He insisted throughout the crisis that he would personally make the key decision, and in the end that is what he has done, at least for the time being.

The decision was not solely shaped by US considerations. Japanese domestic politics played a critical role. Had Hatoyama submitted, however, and ordered work to commence on filling in the seas off Oura bay for the construction of a base, he would have faced the likely collapse of his coalition government (since both minor parties had said they would withdraw), the absolute alienation of the Okinawan people from him and his party (and in a sense from the Japanese national project itself), and the need to resort to martial law measures to enforce works whose legitimacy was accepted by virtually nobody in Okinawa. Submission, in other words, might over time not only have undermined the DPJ but might even have more seriously damaged the US-Japan relationship than resistance.

When Foreign Minister Okada visited Okinawa on 5 December, he was shocked to find nobody at all who would support the base construction project. His pleas to understand the American insistence that it proceed and his calls to recognize the importance of the US-Japan “alliance,” simply roused his DPJ audiences to anger. The Okinawan prefectural assembly is more than 90 percent opposed. Even the “conservative” Okinawan Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) League has said that it will switch from support to opposition to the base project if a decision is held off beyond the end of this year (as has now happened). Conservative mayors, including the Mayor of Naha, are increasingly lining up in support of the platform of anti-base meetings, while Futenma Mayor Iha, as Tanaka Sakai shows in the following report, has led the way in unmasking the machinations of Tokyo and Washington on the future of the base. The August election of the Hatoyama government has given Okinawan people the sense that at last they have a government that might listen to them.

Options for an alternative “Futenma Replacement Facility” to Henoko have been canvassed in recent months and they will now be submitted to a ruling coalition commission for further investigation. They include Guam (discussed below), Kadena, the US Air Force base close to Futenma, the island of Umage, just 8 square kilometres in area and 12 kilometres west of Tanegashima in Kagoshima prefecture, the island of Io (once known as Iwojima) south of Tokyo, and various unused or much underused airports in mainland Japan itself, from Osaka’s Kansai International (offered for consideration by Osaka’s Governor) to the recently built “white elephant” Shizuoka or Ibaraki airports.

Okinawan sentiments are especially aroused today as the lies and deception they have been fed by LDP governments over the past half-century gradually come to light. The Okinawan “return” to Japan in 1972 is now known to have been a purchase, in which Japan paid huge sums to subsidize the US war effort in Vietnam, opening the path to a system of Japanese war subsidies paid to the Pentagon ever since in the guise of “omoiyari” (consideration or sympathy) payments. The Japanese government, contrary to its proud “three non-nuclear policies”, has long given covert permission to US vessels carrying nuclear weapons to pass through Japanese ports and signalled its readiness to allow them into Okinawa in advance of any renewed war in Korea. The details of the “secret nuclear agreements” are now being exposed by former Japanese government officials who were party to the arrangements. Most explosive is the fact that Okinawans continue to learn more details of the readiness of their government over decades to pay almost any price to keep the US forces in Okinawa while sparing mainland Japanese the inconvenience of having numerous GIs in residence. That sense of grievance cannot easily be assuaged.

One major new factor in the Okinawan equation is the revelation, flowing principally from the office of the Okinawan town mayor of Ginowan City (reluctant host to the Futenma Marine Air station), that the Henoko project itself rests on a massive deception. That revelation is the subject of the Tanaka Sakai text that follows.

The Marine Corps documents that Mayor Iha Yōichi analyses call into question the official Japanese government claim that the construction of a Futenma Replacement Facility at Henoko is necessary to accommodate the Marine helicopter force by showing that the 2006 Guam Integrated Military Development Plan is a design to accommodate those helicopter forces plus battle force, artillery and supply units. If the Futenma Marines are designated under Pentagon plans for relocation to Guam anyway, the Henoko project loses its strategic purpose. And the foundations for Japanese government payments to maintain US forces in Okinawa, still less to pay for their transfer to Guam, are baseless. Even before the Iha revelations, military critics in Japan questioned the rationale behind the Agreement on Reorganization of US Forces in Japan and the Guam Treaty, many viewing them as new forms of coercion and of the secret diplomacy that has long characterized US-Japan dealings on Okinawa. If the Marines are going to Guam anyway, under Pentagon plans, the real design of the Guam Treaty agreements can only be to siphon off further substantial Japanese subsidies to the Pentagon, to provide a foothold for the Marines in an Okinawan resort location, or, perhaps, a fine new facility eventually for Japan’s own Self Defense Forces.

The Government of Japan’s initial response has been to deny Mayor Iha’s claims and the national media has yet to pursue them seriously. They are, however, based on persuasive US documentation and on the evidence of Iha’s investigations in Guam. Certainly, they sharply contradict the official rationale for the Henoko base construction and the official understanding of the Guam transfer. Now that the relocation issue has been returned to the drawing board, the newly established coalition body to study and report on the relocation issue has on the table many interesting and potentially explosive questions to examine.

GMcC

15 December 2009

Cape Henoko and Camp Schwab, 2009

After writing an article on Japan-China security arrangements that touched upon Okinawa and the Futenma debacle, I received feedback from readers and became aware that from the end of November 2009 the Mayor of Ginowan City, Iha Yōichi, has been pointing out something that will overturn the commonsense regarding American forces in Japan.

The Marines stationed on Okinawa are pushing forward a plan to move to Guam. In the Japanese mass media and in Diet deliberations it is usually stated that “the relocation from Okinawa to Guam will consist primarily of the Marine command unit,” but that “active duty forces including the helicopter unit and ground combat forces will remain.”

However, according to the investigations of Mayor Iha and members of the Ginowan City Assembly, American forces have already been implementing a plan to relocate to Guam not only the command unit but also, by 2014, the majority of combat forces and even logistic sections including supply units. Ginowan City Hall, having long dealt with the Futenma Air Station, has developed significant information-gathering skills and powers of analysis.

If the helicopter units and the ground combat units move almost all of their personnel to Guam, there is no longer any need to build a replacement site for Futenma in Okinawa, be it Henoko in Nago city or for that matter anywhere in Japan. This means that the great fuss over the removal to Henoko that has been festering over the past few years may have been completely unnecessary from the beginning. In 2006 the American military came up with a plan to begin the complete transfer of the Marines from Okinawa to Guam. The Japanese government promised to provide a large sum of money for the removal of American troops to Guam; it can only be assumed, therefore, that the Japanese Foreign Ministry and other Japanese government officials knew of these plans to move to Guam in detail. Nonetheless, they have continued to spout the mantra that “the new base at Henoko is necessary for the helicopter units that will remain on Okinawa after Marineheadquarters moves to Guam.” (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

On November 26 Mayor Iha traveled to Tokyo and explained this to members of the ruling party. On December 9 Iha visited the Foreign Ministry and voiced his contention that all the Marines based at Futenma can be expected to move to Guam. The Foreign Ministry, however, dissented, saying that such information “is counter to our understanding.” The meeting ended with the two sides talking past each other. (伊波市長が与党議員に説明した時に配布した資料) (伊波宜野湾市長 政府にグアム移転を要請)

Of the 8000 troops to be relocated, Marine Headquarters amount to only 3000

One of the grounds for Mayor Iha’s assertion that “the United States is sending the majority of Marines stationed on Okinawa to Guam” is derived from the draft of a report issued on November 20 by a U.S. environmental impact survey undertaken in conjunction with the expected relocation of Okinawa-based Marines to Guam (and to the nearby island of Tinian), which states that nearly all of the units of the Okinawa-based Marines will relocate to Guam. The environmental impact would be impossible to evaluate unless one knew which units will relocate. Thus the report gives details of the relocation, which the US military has been reluctant to publicize. (Guam and CNMI Military Relocation Draft EIS/OEIS)

The environmental impact report consists of 8,100 pages in 9 volumes. Volumes 2 and 3 of the report include details of the relocation of the Marine Corps from Okinawa. The Marine helicopter unit, for example, is (according to the draft report) scheduled for relocation, as are ground combat, assault, and supply forces. Listed for relocation from Okinawa to Guam are: 1) the Command Element, III Marine Expeditionary Force (CE, 3046 persons); 2) the Ground Combat Element, 3rd Marine Division Units (GCE, 1100); 3) Air Combat Element, First Marine Aircraft Wing and subsidiary units (ACE, 1856); 4) and the Logistics Combat Element, 3D Marine Logistics Group (LCE, 2550). The total number of troops in these four Marine Corps units slated to move is 8552, roughly the same as the 8000 number that had been officially announced as the size of the move from Okinawa to Guam. It is thus clearly wrong for the Foreign Ministry and others to maintain that “the 8000 Marines to be relocated to Guam consist primarily of the command unit.” The command unit itself consists of some 3046 persons; the remainder are combat and logistical forces. (VOLUME 2: MARINE CORPS – GUAM) (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

This is not the first time that the American side has reported that it plans to relocate the great majority of the Marines based on Okinawa to Guam. A September 2006 “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” noted that a hangar, parking space, and helipad will be constructed for a maximum of 67 helicopters that will relocate along with the Marine Aircraft Groups. Since there are 56 helicopters in service at Futenma, this would mean that a greater number are to be moved to Guam. There is a high possibility that all of the helicopters stationed at Futenma will be moved to Guam (the rest may well arrive from the US). (Guam Integrated Military Development Plan)

This “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” sought to develop Guam into one of the most modern integrated military facilities in the world. During the Cold War, when the United States created a “Eurasian network,” it wanted to station troops in countries including Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, but after the Cold War, there is no longer a need to station troops in each country, making Guam, located at nearly equal distances within 2000 nautical miles from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, and Indonesia, an ideal place to set up a new integrated facility that would allow troops to be withdrawn from bases in Japan and Korea. (グアムの戦略地図)

Map and location of Guam

In concrete terms, the plan not only sought to relocate all structural units of the Marine Corps, but to develop Guam into a major base of operations with joint use by the Navy and Air Force. As such, Guam would replace Okinawa as the true keystone of the Pacific, giving free rein to an integrated American global presence. It is natural to consider that the course this will take is that Okinawa-based Marines will be reduced to something like a remnant small branch, all the rest moving to Guam. (グアム統合軍事開発計画」より抜粋)

The Guam Plan that was Erased in One Week

The “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” was drawn up in July of 2006 and released in September. A few months earlier, in May, the U.S.-Japan “Roadmap” was agreed upon in order to realize the relocation of American military forces in Okinawa. On this occasion, for the first time, it was decided that the Japanese government would pay most of the moving expenses for the removal of Okinawa-based Marines to Guam (6.1 billion dollars of the total estimated cost of 10.3 billion dollars). The American military, knowing that Japan would pay the construction costs, can be thought to have decided on a plan to develop Guam as a unique global integrated military center. (再編実施のための日米のロードマップ) (Link)

However, one week after the “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” was posted on the Department of Defense website, it was deleted. The U.S.-Japan Roadmap had earlier called for the removal of Marines from Okinawa to Guam “in a manner that maintains unit integrity.” This also hinted that the transfer would not only involve Marine Corps headquarters but the relocation of combat units as well. At the same time it noted that “U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) forces remaining on Okinawa will consist of Marine Air-Ground Task Force elements, such as command, ground, aviation, and combat service support, as well as a base support capability.” “Marine Air-Ground Task Force,” however, is a term describing the principal organization for all missions across the range of military operations, and its meaning remains unclear. (Marine Air-Ground Task Force From Wikipedia)

It is suspected that the US and Japanese governments had agreed that, by deliberately keeping ambiguous which portions of the Okinawa-based Marines would relocate to Guam and which would remain, the Marines would continue to stay on Okinawa, the Japanese government would offer “sympathy monies” to the US military, the financially troubled US would divert these to the maintenance of the Guam base, and the Japanese government would maintain the blueprint of subordination to the US that it wished to continue as long as possible. Perhaps the “Guam Integrated Military Development Plan” revealed too much, causing fear that people would wake up to the fact that the Okinawa-based Marines were planning a complete withdrawal. It may have been this fear that caused the site to disappear so quickly. (日本の官僚支配と沖縄米軍)

After the plan was released in 2006, persons associated with the city of Ginowan, referring to the Guam Integrated Military Development Plan, asked the Consul General in Okinawa, “Isn’t there a plan for the Marine helicopter unit based in Futenma to relocate to Guam?” The Consul General replied that the plan they referred to was “a mere scrap of paper” and that “no formal decisions have been made.” He went on to insist that only the command element of the Okinawa-based Marines would be moving to Guam. However, three years later, on November 20, 2009, the draft environmental impact survey described above followed along lines laid out in the integrated development plan, allowing one to conclude that the American military authorities have been silently proceeding to move most of the Okinawa-based Marines to Guam. (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

Ginowan joined neighboring cities and villages in August 2007 in an inspection tour of American bases on Guam, gathering information from American and Guam official sources. As a result, they came to know the following:

1) The Vice Commander of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam took them to see the site intended to house facilities for the Okinawa-based Marines Air unit and explained that “65 to 70 Marine aircraft would be coming.” At present there are 71 aircraft stationed at Futenma, allowing one to conclude that nearly all of them would be moving to Guam.

U.S. F-15E Strike Eagles and a B-2 Spirit bomber fly in formation over Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. MSNBC on October 7, 2009 reported that “With a planned transfer of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force from Japan, and expansion of military facilities, Guam is to be transformed into a key military hub in the Pacific.”

2) At Apra Harbor in Guam, a docking area will be newly constructed to allow for berthing facilities for the large amphibious assault ships that are now stationed at Sasebo: the USS Essex (LHD-2), the USS Juneau (LPD-10), the USS Germantown (LSD-42) and the USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43). Plans appear to be in the works to redeploy these ships from Sasebo to Guam. Moreover, it is likely that the 31st Expeditionary Force, consisting of the Marine combat and logistic units that, to prepare for emergencies, must stay near the landing craft, will also move to Guam from its base in Sasebo. (グァム米軍基地視察報告 2007年8月13日)

Apra Harbor on the West side of Guam

In September 2008 the Secretary of the U.S. Navy submitted a report to a House of Representatives Military Committee on plans to develop Guam entitled “The Current Situation of American Military planning in Guam.” In it, the names of the units that were to move from Okinawa to Guam were noted, making it further clear that the majority of the Futenma-based units including almost all combat and helicopter units would be moved to Guam. (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

A Force of 10,000 Fabricated by the Japanese Foreign Ministry

According to Foreign Ministry reports and major news sources, some 18,000 Marines are stationed on Okinawa and only about 8,000 will be moved to Guam. This would leave about 10,000 Marines remaining on Okinawa. I too have written articles following this line. However, according to the American Military’s Japan headquarters, while the number of troops is “fixed” (teisū) at 18,000, the actual number presently in Okinawa is 12,500. Moreover, according to a May 17, 2006 article in the Okinawa Times, “The move to Guam involves a mysterious number,” the number of family dependents of Marines stationed in Okinawa is 8000. If 9000 family dependents move to Guam as announced, a negative number would remain in Okinawa. (「在沖縄海兵隊のグアム移転に係る協定」の署名に抗議する)

The “actual numbers” of Okinawa-based Marines are: 12,500 on-duty personnel and 8,000 dependents, making a total of 20,500. Of these, the number going to Guam is approximately 8,000 on-duty personnel and 9000 dependents for a total of 17,000. Now, if we close our eyes to the negative number of family members, the total number of Marines (and their dependents) remaining on Okinawa should only be 3,500. As part of an overall American military re-alignment, including the desire for cutbacks, there should be many key personnel who return to the United States, in the end making the number of those who remain on Okinawa even smaller. According to the aforementioned Ginowan City source, “the fixed number” of those Marines who remain on Okinawa is at present an empty number with no troops assigned to actual duties.” “An empty number” perhaps refers to the number of people (ghost members) who are not there in fact but are assumed to be there. (宜野湾市「普天間基地のグァム移転の可能性について」)

The Japanese Foreign Ministry, for example, has fabricated the number of 10,000 phantom troops, and has succeeded in making Japanese citizens and politicians believe that 10,000 Marines will continue to remain on Okinawa after the transfer. U.S. Marines stationed on Okinawa serve as a symbol of the subordinate status of Japan to the United States. The Japanese Foreign Ministry has long exercised control of Japan’s power structure by threatening politicians and business circles with the message that “if we cross the United States there will be terrible consequences”, while at the same time, bribing the US military with the right of “continued stationing of 10,000 troops” so that the Japanese government will continue to support sympathy budgets. In this way, the Foreign Ministry maintains the “right to interpret what the US” thinks. (日本の官僚支配と沖縄米軍)

In this fabricated blueprint, the Futenma base will never be returned. At Henoko, within Camp Schwab’s Marine base, quite a number of clean barracks and entertainment facilities are already being built. Because the Marines are to relocate to Guam by 2014, these new facilities would only be used for a short time. Because of the fraudulent acts of the Foreign Ministry, an exorbitant amount of tax money has been wasted. This is criminal waste of public funds meant for enhancing their own power. In April 2009 Mayor Iha gave testimony at the Diet saying that, “if the ghost fixed number were to be emphasized, 6.09 billion dollars (contributed by Japan for the relocation of the Marines to Guam) can only be seen as wasted money.” (○伊波参考人 2009年4月8日)

(Ultimately, after the Marines leave Okinawa, Camp Schwab may well become a base for the SDF, with the barracks at Henoko used to house SDF forces.)

Unwelcome Remarks by Governor Hashimoto on his Willingness to Consider the Relocation of Futenma to Kansai Airport

The Okinawa-based Marines are steadily moving to Guam while leaving a phantom force of 10,000 and continuing to receive huge sums of money from Japan. However, on the premise that 10,000 Marines will remain, talk continues about the need to build a new base in Henoko and the voices of opposition of the Okinawa people grow louder.

Hearing these cries of opposition, the Governor of Osaka, Hashimoto Tōru, made a statement on November 30 in which he said “he would accept the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Kansai International Airport.” In fact, two weeks earlier he made the same remarks to a group of reporters. Although his remarks became a topic of discussion in the Diet, the mass media kept totally silent about these happenings. The November 30 press conference was made public by a free lance journalist who posted it on YouTube. Only after people began to talk about it did the mass media, it is said, have no choice but to report on it. (大手マスコミ黙殺した橋下発言 「普天間関西へ」浮上の舞台裏) (Link)

If we see the Japanese mass media as a sort of propaganda machine manipulated by the Foreign Ministry and other bureaucratic organizations, then the reasons for the silence on Governor Hashimoto’s remarks can be understood. Because American military authorities intend to move nearly all Marines from Okinawa to Guam, there will be no need for Japan to have a facility to replace Futenma. The argument that “we must find a place to relocate Futenma” must not, in their view, be made concrete. If Hashimoto uses unwarranted care so that the suggestion about moving the Marines to the Kansai Airport really becomes concrete, then you never know if the structure of fraudulence may be exposed. Maybe that is why Hashimoto’s speech was ignored as unwelcome.

Iwo Jima has been mentioned as a potential replacement site, and the plan of joining up with Kadena base has been proposed, but for the same reasons there has been little follow up.

(Governor Hashimoto called upon the citizens of Osaka to ”think about Okinawa together.” This seems to represent the trend of Japanese awakening that connects the Okinawan base problem and division of power, which I have written about in two blogs “Japan waking up to Okinawa” and “The Hidden Multipolarism of the DJP”)

Off to the Showdown that will Determine Japan’s future

The contention of the mayor of Ginowan City that “The Marines intend to pull out completely from Okinawa to go to Guam” also has been conspicuously absent from the mass media. However, since Mayor Iha discussed these issues with members of the ruling party in late November, Prime Minister Hatoyama has begun to say that “Japan must in the near future make a decision on the Futenma Problem,” or that “a complete removal to Guam is under consideration,” making the situation suddenly fluid. It is hard to tell whether Prime Minister Hatoyama’s mention of the possibility of a complete removal to Guam may have some relation to what Mayor Iha had been pointing out for some time. In the end, all will have to agree that what happens is “the complete relocation to Guam.” So the government is beginning to stifle opposing views. (普天間移設「新しい場所を」首相が指示)

The idea of “complete removal to Guam” was not initially advanced by Japan, but came from the United States. Yet people act upon the idea that mass media reports are “facts,” and the fabricated story that 10,000 Marines will remain in Okinawa is a “fact” in the head of citizens. As long as this function is sufficiently powerful that even the Prime Minister cannot alert citizens about the mass media playing a propaganda role, Hatoyama has no choice but to use the gesture of “suggesting to the US” the complete relocation to Guam.

Hatoyama has stated that “concerning the removal from Futenma, agreement within the government has to be the first priority, and if necessary and the opportunity arises, he wishes to discuss the issue with the President of the United States.” But what is really important is not to re-negotiate the issue with the United States, but rather to coordinate the thinking of the Japanese government and to stop padding the number of Marines involved. If the Foreign Ministry and other bureaucratic organizations were to agree, the Japanese government could set a course of action so that “Okinawa-based Marines would completely relocate to Guam by the year 2014.” This would allow Japan to finally be in line with plans the American forces have already been advancing. (日米首脳会談、要請もできず…米側も消極的)

If the complete relocation of Marines to Guam becomes official Japanese government policy, Japan’s subordination to the United States based on the fabricated number of 10,000 Marines remaining on Okinawa will evaporate; in turn this will cause the Foreign Ministry to lose power. Therefore, the Foreign Ministry and other organizations under its umbrella are resisting this with full force. What is in store is a major showdown that will determine the future of Japan. The LDP have taken this chance to criticize the Democrat administration. The LDP should adopt a new policy as a conservative party, ridding itself of the subordinate relationship with the United States and its dependence on the bureaucracy, but it is foolish for it to remain the servant of the bureaucrats. (自民が民主批判の大号令、問題指摘のメモ作成)

Within the government, Defense Minister Kitazawa Toshimi has visited Guam. He may well have gone there to see if it is possible for all of the Marines to move from Okinawa to Guam, but it would seem that he was pushed around by the American military authorities there, for while in Guam, he reported that “a complete relocation to Guam is impossible. This would mean a departure from the US-Japan agreement.” In response to this, lower house representatives from the Social Democratic Party criticized Kitazawa saying “how could he stay so briefly, see so little, and conclude that it was impossible?” Fighting has broken out within the ruling coalition as well. (社民・重野氏「ちょろっと見て結論出るのか」　グアム移設で防衛相に不快感)

If the Japanese government came together on a policy of “complete relocation to Guam” then whether Japan would continue to pay for the relocation expenses after 2014 would naturally emerge as a problem for Japan and the US. The American military at the outset announced plans to build a large military facility on Guam at a cost of 10.7 billion dollars (of which 6.1 billion would be paid by Japan). However this cost does not include the construction of new roads and water and sewage systems, electric power supply and other additional construction costs that will result from an increase of military-related personnel and vehicles on the island. In July 2008 the American GAO (Government Accountability Office) issued a report that criticized the military saying that the relocation to Guam would increase the island’s population by 14 percent. (GAO says cost of Guam move will exceed estimate)

The American military has a habit of operating beyond budget; from around thirty years ago its operations have greatly exceed its budget. The American military may have been looking to Japan to make up for the shortfall, but the Hatoyama government is seeking to withdraw from a position of subordination to the United States and to emphasize its autonomy or independence, so it will be reluctant to dole out funds, using the pretext of financial difficulties. During the recent visit to Guam by Defense Minister Kitazawa, the Governor of Guam for the first time announced his opposition to the relocation of Marines from Okinawa to Guam, but behind his opposition can be seen a request to Japan to help pay for the costs of infrastructure and new facilities.

The American government is also experiencing financial difficulties, and if Japan is unwilling to pay the costs of relocating the Marines to Guam, they may well not send them, remaining instead in Futenma. However, if they do this, popular opposition in Okinawa will grow louder and the Hatoyama administration may well demand, without giving money, that the Marines leave. This is a demand that the Philippines and other so-called “normal countries” have made. Ultimately, the US military had no choice but to leave without receiving additional funds from Japan. In this case, it is conceivable that it will be taken care of by reducing the number of Marines who relocate to Guam and increasing the number of people returning to the United States. The common sense of the world that “a one-time resolution by the government or the congress can make the US military leave”, which the Japanese have been made to consider impossible, will now be put into practice.

There will be an election for the governor of Okinawa in 2010. Many people support a movement to urge Ginowan City Mayor Iha to stand as a candidate. If Mayor Iha becomes governor, Okinawa Prefecture will undoubtedly urge an early removal of American forces from Okinawa that Tokyo cannot ignore. This may lead to Okinawa’s freeing itself from its status as an island of American military bases.

This article was originally published at Tanaka Sakai’s website on December 10, 2009.  官僚が隠す沖縄海兵隊グアム全移転

Tanaka Sakai is the creator, researcher, writer and editor of Tanaka News (www.tanakanews.com), a Japanese-language news service on Japan and the world. This is the sequel to an earlier article called “China-Japan Defense Cooperation and the Okinawa-based US Military Base.” Both of the original Japanese texts of December 10 and December 15, 2009 are available at his site, 田中宇の国際ニュース解説

Tanaka Sakai’s new book is 『日本が「対米従属」を脱する日』—多極化する新世界秩序の中で—
The Day Japan Breaks with “Subordination to the US”: Amidst the Multipolarizing New World Order

Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor at Australian National University, coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, author, most recently, of Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

William Steele, professor of history, International Christian University, is author of Alternative Narratives in Modern Japanese History . His most recent book is Japan and Russia: Three Centuries of Mutual Images.

Recommended citation: Tanaka Sakai, “Japanese Bureaucrats Hide Decision to Move All US Marines out of Okinawa to Guam,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 51-4-09, December 21, 2009.

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Lind: “1971: Hawaii People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice”

Ian Lind posted archival materials from the Hawaii People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice circa 1971.   It is both encouraging and depressing to see that the themes and struggles from forty years ago are still relevant to the movement today.    One of the archived documents that caught my eye, an open letter to Americans from Micronesians in Hawai’i condemning the U.S. military domination of their islands and calling for solidarity to gain true self-determination, justice and peace.  Here’s a short excerpt from the post:

1971: Hawaii People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice

“In March of 1971 over a score of community, peace, student, military, low-income and other groups and individuals formed the Hawaii People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice–reflecting the joining of concerns for an end to the war, racism, exploitation, repression and poverty, and for a society based on human equality and respect for the earth.”

[Source: June 12, 1971 leaflet describing the coalition. Photo: Professor Walter Johnson at the beginning of a coalition-sponsored peace march from Ala Moana Park to city hall, April 1971. Photo by Ian Lind.]

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