A U.S. military air base? Not in my backyard.
A short FTV report about Takehiyo Toguchi, a man in Okinawa who is fighting to prevent the construction of a U.S. military base in Henoko Bay[this aired a few days before Obama's visit]:
In 2006, the Japanese and U.S. governments signed an agreement that would relocate USMC Air Station Futenma from the middle of a city to a less populated area of Okinawa. That less populated area happened to be in the bay next to Toguchi’s home town. For years, Toguchi and his family have participated in protests and held candlelight vigils and protests against the construction of an offshore airfield. Now that the DPJ is in office and wants to make a new base relocation plan, Toguchi and his cause have gotten a lot of media attention.
In this video you can see the Toguchi family holding candlelight vigils outside of Camp Schwab, appearing on radio shows to talk about the evils of the base relocation plan, and giving a speech before a crowd of anti-base protesters. He also takes the FTV reporter to the campus of Ryukyu International University, where a American helicopter crashed in 2004. No Japanese were killed or injured in the accident, but that didn’t stop locals from erecting a monument on the spot of the crash [the burnt remains of a tree that lost its life that day are at the center of the monument]. Noguchi talks at how heart-wrenching and terrible it is to think of the loss of life that might have happened if the timing of the crash had been a little different.
Noguchi wants President Obama and Prime Minister Hatoyama to not build a new airfield that would destroy the environment of his beloved hometown. He doesn’t want his children’s future marred by the presence of such a base.
During Obama’s visit to Tokyo on Friday/Saturday, talk of the Futenma relocation was avoided in favor of discussion on easier issues that both countries could readily agree upon.
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