Japan’s prime minister, under fire over a row about an unpopular US airbase, suffered another setback yesterday when three mayors from a remote southern island told him they do not want to host any US forces.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama pleaded with the visiting mayors from remote Tokunoshima to allow in US Marines and asked if he could visit the island for further talks, only to be told: “We cannot meet you.”
Hatoyama has faced heavy criticism since he backtracked on Tuesday on an election pledge made last year to move the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma entirely off the larger far-southern island of Okinawa.
Instead, the center-left leader conceded this week that most of the US base’s operations would have be moved within Okinawa, as originally agreed by previous conservative governments in Washington and Tokyo in 2006.
With a self-imposed May 31 deadline to resolve the damaging row, Hatoyama’s government had for months sought alternative locations for the US forces, only to trigger protest rallies at all of the reported relocation sites.
One of the options under consideration involved moving 1,000 Marines and their aircraft from Futenma to the small island of Tokunoshima, 200km northeast of Okinawa.
When the plan was reported in local media last month, however, more than half of the 27,000 people who live on the remote subtropical island staged a mass rally, led by the three local mayors.
The mayors at first refused to meet central government officials, but later agreed to visit Hatoyama in Tokyo yesterday, when they submitted a petition with 26,000 signatures opposing the plan.
In the meeting, part of which was open to Japanese media, Hatoyama told them: “I would be grateful if you could accept some of the functions” of Futenma.
Hatoyama said he had told US President Barack Obama last month that “it will be important to share the excessive burden borne by Okinawa on a nationwide basis in an effort to contribute to the Japan-US alliance.”
One of the mayors, Kosuke Ohisa, replied on behalf of the trio.
“The consensus of Tokunoshima is categorically opposed to the relocation,” he said.
Hatoyama then said: “I want to negotiate with you, for example by visiting the island a number of times.”
The mayors replied: “We cannot meet you.”
The US after its World War II victory set up scores of bases in Japan and, under a post-war security pact, is committed to defending the country, which has renounced offensive military action.
Many of the bases have triggered strong opposition from nearby residents, however, who complain of aircraft noise, pollution and crime, especially on Okinawa, which hosts more than half of the 47,000 US troops.
Hatoyama and his left-leaning allies have long pledged to “ease the burden” on Okinawa, but their plans to relocate the Futenma base elsewhere have failed to produce viable alternatives, while badly straining ties with Washington.
The US has urged Japan to stick with the original pact and, according to reports, has strongly rejected the idea of moving any of Futenma’s Marines to Tokunoshima as operationally unworkable.
The chief government spokesman, Hirofumi Hirano, said yesterday that Hatoyama was planning to visit Okinawa again next Saturday, following his first trip there as prime minister on Tuesday, to explain his relocation plan in detail.
Media reports said the government wanted to move the base from Okinawa’s Ginowan City to coastal Henoko, as agreed in 2006.
The plan is reported to include the construction of a runway on stilts, rather than landfill, in a bid to protect corals and a marine habitat that is home to the rare dugong sea mammal.
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