Hatoyama Says Won’t Relocate U.S. Military Base From Okinawa
Bloomberg Business Week
By John Brinsley
May 4th, 2010
Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said he won’t relocate all of an American military base from Okinawa as demanded by local residents, signaling he will yield to U.S. pressure to adhere to a 2006 agreement.
“Moving all of the base from the prefecture will be very difficult,” Hatoyama told Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima today in remarks broadcast on NHK Television. “I’m afraid the people of Okinawa will have to maintain this burden.”
Nakaima told Hatoyama at their meeting in the Okinawan capital of Naha that his constituents were united in their opposition to relocating the Marine air base from Futenma to a less crowded part of the island. More than 90,000 Okinawans rallied on April 25, calling for it to be moved somewhere else entirely in response to concerns of pollution, crime and noise.
Public criticism of Hatoyama has increased since he took office in September, in part due to his delays in deciding whether to adhere to the U.S.-Japan agreement. He has said he will work to “ease the burden” of Okinawa, which hosts 75 percent of the U.S. bases and more than half of the 50,000 American military personnel in Japan. …
