The Rape of Okinawa

A 12-year-old Japanese girl is walking down the street near her home in Okinawa. A car pulls up and three men from the nearby U.S. military base grab her, tape her mouth and eyes shut, take her to an isolated beach and, allegedly, rape her. President Clinton apologizes on behalf of the U.S. military and the United States and Japanese governments write the incident off as unfortunate, saying it should never happen again.

But an apology is not enough for the people of Okinawa who, for fifty years have put up with U.S. Military personnel, and the problems that come with them, on their island.

The rape that occurred in early September did not surprise Dr. Ronald Nakasone, a Professor of Buddhist Studies at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. "It happens all the time," says Nakasone, a Hawaiian of Okinawan ancestry.

The small island of Okinawa holds 75 percent of all U.S. military bases in Japan. Approximately 30,000 Americans are stationed there, occupying 20 percent of the island's land. Okinawans want the bases on the island reduced, or better yet, removed altogether.

The United States began forcing Okinawans out of their homes in order to build bases immediately after the war with Japan ended, according to the Okinawa Voice, a newsletter published by the Okinawa Christian Peace Center.

When the United States moved in, the island was already in ruins from the battle of Okinawa, the last land battle fought in World War II. The three-month-long battle destroyed sacred sites on the island and caused environmental damage that has yet to be repaired.

One site that was wrecked by war was Seefa Utaki, the most sacred site of the Okinawan nation. The sheltering caves and fresh-water springs of Seefa Utaki are where the first ancestors are said to have landed. The site is as sacred to Okinawans as Mecca is for Muslims, says Nakasone. Today, there is only an incense holder to mark the spot.

After the war, in 1945, Japan signed the Japanese-U.S. Security Treaty, which allowed the United States to maintain air, land and sea forces in Japan. The United States was given control of Okinawa and, because of its strategic location to Eastern countries, opted to build the majority of the military bases on the island.

Control of Okinawa was given back to Japan in 1972, but the U.S. military remains obtrusively on the island. Since the United States has given up official control of Okinawa, U.S. military personnel have committed 22 murders, 354 robberies and 110 rapes on the island, accorded to Agence France Presse. Fire drills are conducted on the dams which are the source of Okinawan citizen's drinking water, reports The Okinawa Voice. Mt. Onna, the mountain sacred to Okinawans, is used for live-ammunition firing exercises which frequently cause forest fires. Soil, loosened by the artillery shelling, slides down the mountain, coloring the ocean around Okinawa red, says Nakasone.

"It is arrogance, if you ask me," says Nakasone, who still has many relatives living on the island. "My niece told me a few years ago when there was a drought there, 'we don't have any water but they're watering the lawns on the bases.'"

Nakasone's grandparents were born in Okinawa and practiced traditional Okinawan religion, which has elements of Confucianism and Taoism, he says. A custom of Okinawans is to inform the ancestors of day-to-day events in the lives of the descendents. Family crypts are an important place of worship for the ancestors, says Nakasone. Some Okinawan families' crypts are on U.S. Military bases, he says, and the families are not allowed to visit them.

Despite all the harm the U.S. Military has caused Okinawa, the people there do not blame America entirely.

"All Okinawans would agree that the Americans saved Okinawa after the war- with relief, shelter, food," says Nakasone. "Okinawans hate the Japanese more than the Americans."

Never do you hear the Japanese national anthem played at a school, says Nakasone. Nor do you see a Japanese flag waving on a flagpole. "It would be burned," he says.

Okinawa was an independent country until 1897, when it was officially annexed by Japan. Since then, says Nakasone, Okinawans have been viewed as a second class race by the Japanese. They were not permitted to speak the native Okinawan language or practice their traditional religion, he says.

Okinawan hostility toward Japan is so old, Nakasone says he is "surprised there is still so much resentment."

The Japanese government has always been supportive of U.S. military bases on Okinawa, even now, after the rape of a young girl. But Okinawans are asking why Japan still needs protection now that the cold war is over and why the bases need to be concentrated on their island.

The Governor of the island, Masahide Ota, has defied the Japanese government by refusing to sign papers which force private land owners in Okinawa to lease land to the military, according to Time Magazine. Some land owners in Okinawa have said they will not renew leases with the military, some of which expire within two years. Japanese officials from Tokyo have flown to Okinawa to reason with Ota. The governor refused to meet with them.

Neither Japan nor the United States are very worried about any bases in Okinawa closing. The Prime Minister of Japan may override Ota if necessary.

Until now troops accused of a crime overseas, including the three suspects in the Okinawa rape case, have been allowed to stay on U.S. bases until indictment. However, in late October the United States handed over the three servicemen accused of raping an Okinawan girl to Japanese authorities. The United States also agreed to consider releasing future rape or murder suspects to Japanese authorities if Japan requests custody prior to indictment, says a New York Times report.

The U.S. is hoping that handing over the suspects to the Japanese government will calm Okinawans. Last month 85,000 people rallied on Okinawa in protest of the recent events on the island, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

A summit meeting between President Clinton and Prime Minister Murayama is scheduled for mid-November and the Prime Minister has vowed to have the issue settled by then.

The rape of a young girl by U.S. servicemen does not shock Nakasone. "I'm not blaming them. Crimes on bases are a natural, social ill," he says. "But it's time for them to leave."

[ Prism Online November 1995 Homepage ]

[ Top of document ]