It is all about barbed wire and warnings and checkpoints. And to make it worse, Futenma air force base is right in the middle of extremely densely populated urban area.

Several middle-aged Japanese citizens are besieging sedans and SUV’s driven by the US military personnel who are leaving their barracks for outing. As cars are waiting at the intersection to join the traffic flow on the main road, elderly men and women are clenching their fists, shouting slogans and waiving their posters. There is one lone Japanese cop making sure that nothing goes wrong. But everything is orderly, a routine.

“Close down the base!” Scream demonstrators. “US army – out of Okinawa!”

American GI’s and the military pilots are averting their eyes. It is all somehow embarrassing. It is not like these American bombers and top guns are facing some stone-throwing body builders or aces from local karate club. These ageing people, vocal adversaries of the Empire, could do no harm to the soldiers or to their vehicles; they could probably not even be able to kill a fly.

I approach one of the leaders of this small group of protesters. The lady puts down her placard and listens to my questions, attentively. It is all so Japanese! I hand her my name card, with both hands; she, with both hands, accepts it. We bow to each other.

“Miyoko-san”, I begin. “What is it exactly that irks you about this base?”

“It is so noisy and so dangerous”, she replies. “There are all sorts of terribly treacherous airplanes flying from Futenma. We are never consulted. We are not informed.”

I drive a bit further from Naha, to a tall Matsuki Building. It hosts several nightclubs on its premises; probably whore houses, too, that come to life at night. But during the day this entire structure is quite and empty. And, by Japanese standards, it is very dingy. I take elevator to the top floor, and climb to the roof, stopping next to an enormous Canon security camera. All of a sudden, Futenma base is in front of me.

This place feels insane: nobody really cares what I am doing. No guards, no deterrence. I just take out my video and still cameras and begin working.

It is all so easy, so uneventful, that one feels almost ‘disappointed’. There is no security drama, no charade.

I hear the engines, and look up towards the sky. A four-engine Hercules turns abruptly towards the runway, then literally drops from the sky, levels up at the last moment, then touches down, rolls for a few seconds down the runway, then takes off again: ‘touch and go’ maneuver. I film it. Then I film another airplane, and then another.

I call my film editor in Tokyo.

“It all looks and feels weird”, I tell him.

“Like some third world country?” he volunteers.

“Yes”, I confirm. “But that’s not all. It is all totally spooky. With this new administration and passionate love boleros it sings to US… All this can, of course, easily trigger the WWIII. These bases are actually here, most likely, to trigger the conflict… to provoke China or North Korea, or both. Yet it is all so quiet and serene.“

“That’s Okinawa”, my editor confirms.

*

In his recent article, which appeared in Australian magazine Arena, leading Australian historian and Professor Emeritus at ANU, Gavan McCormack, calls Japan “The Servile State” and The US Marine Corps based in Okinawa “a force designed for attack deep within enemy territory.” He mentions one of the best selling books in Japan – The Truth of Postwar History – written by Magosaki Ukeru, a former head of the Intelligence and Analysis Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

…Magosaki and I also agree in seeing Okinawa, the island prefecture off the China coast where US occupation has been unbroken for sixty-seven years and where three-quarters of US military installations in Japan are concentrated, as crucial. Nowhere else can be found such a concentrated expression of the US-Japan relationship. There, the fact that the Japanese national government is determinately servile, and that all Okinawa policy is predicated on priority to US military interests, is inescapable reality of everyday life. Required to serve as the arch upon which the Asia-Pacific security system as a whole can rest, Okinawa became something of an Achilles heel, because it is denied the very values the alliance is supposed to uphold. Its people feel threatened, not protected, by it, and discrimination against them (in the name of (‘East Asian security’) has reached the point of being no longer tolerable.

*

While filming Futenma Base from the roof of Matsuki Building is somehow tolerated, to film Kadena Base, a monster that brought so much grief to the rest of Northeast Asia during Korean War, is something that is considered as thoroughly ordinary, even expected. The area is equipped with open viewing terrace, which is facing the runway, and comes complete with powerful coin-consuming binoculars, coffee shop and public bathrooms.

After working in India where one could not even film military ships openly docked at Mumbai shore, Okinawa feels like other extreme: US military might here is converted to some violent tourist attraction. It draws entire groups of school children, as well as camera people and photographers, both amateur and those working for various Japanese media outlets.

Ms. Kato is selling coffee and refreshments on the terrace. I point at the impenetrable bunkers protecting US fighter jets of the latest generation from who knows whom, and ask her about what she thinks about all that horror show turned entertainment. She replies with pragmatic grin: “Business is great! But then, of course, as Okinawan, I despise the base.”

One has to wonder which is the leading part of the sentence.

As she speaks, deafening thunder erupts somewhere inside the base. In anticipation of some tremendous flying monster ready to take for the air, I intuitively grab my cameras, ready to run towards the railing. But Ms. Kato overpowers the roar by her well-trained voice, as she shouts at me: “Relax, nothing is moving! They are just testing the engine.”

Do they do this every day? They do, as everyone in Okinawa tells me. Airplane engines are tested almost every day, sometimes until ten at night, until eardrums of the people are ready to burst.

*

Driving through Okinawa, one has to be ready for truly Kafkaesque images. There are endless perimeters consisting of barbed wire and concrete pillars. Division lines are everywhere. Little wonder, as the US bases are covering some 18% of the territory of the main island.

There are literally hundreds of protected gates separating civilian world from the universe of militarized zones. There are playgrounds for American children only, right behind the gridirons, there are small arcades with Baskin Robins and Subway’s, as if those fast food joints could not be found on the Japanese territory.

There are Japanese public buses converted to vehicles designated for bussing American children to and back from their schools. And there are Japanese fire stations, as well as US fire stations built on Japanese territory, with North American trucks and emergency phone numbers.

And there are ‘American Villages’ – depressing theme parks with the lowest grade of architecture and yet more Red Lobster’s, KFC’s, seedy bars, and some of the tackiest souvenir shops on earth. These are actually not for GI’s, but for the Japanese tourists trying to catch the glimpse of enormous flesh-and-blood American soldiers.

Influenced by occupation forces, Okinawa has the worse food in Japan – the country famed for the finest gastronomy in the world.

Apart of one monorail line, Okinawa counts with no mass public transportation, yet another anomaly in the country that relies on the most intensive and efficient train network on earth. In and outside Naha, everything moves by roads, and overwhelmingly by private vehicles. As a result, roads in the cities are often congested, and the entire Main Island has a feel of an ethnic Asian suburb somewhere in the United States.

Countless advertisements of real estate agencies are seducing those who are ready to do business with the devil: “If you want to buy or sell land for the military purposes, please let us know.”

Sadly, all this bad taste and militarism can be found in the middle of what once was the great Ryukyu Kingdom, known for its glorious history of five hundred years, spanning between 12^th and 17th centuries. UNESCO designated several ruins of the castles and sites as world heritage. Okinawa was famed all over Asia for its advanced social structure, for its economic structure and culture.

David McNeill, professor at Sophia University in Tokyo and coordinator of academic Asia-Pacific Journal, explained for this report:

“Like many places that have become dependent on outside largess, Okinawa can seem schizophrenic. Polls consistently show most people on the island oppose the presence of US bases, but thousands of people, including civilian base workers, bar and shop owners depend on the bases for part or most of their income. US popular culture has filtered down over the last 60+ years giving the island a look, feel and even diet closer to contemporary America than the Japanese mainland.”

*

As the fate of Okinawa and Okinawans seems to be tight to US-Japan relations, I asked Ms Satoko Norimatsu, a Japan Focus Coordinator and Director of the Peace Philosophy Centre, what changes could be expected in Japan's foreign policy, particularly in its relations with the United States, as it is expected that Japan will now move even 'closer to US'?

“There won't be much change, as the previous DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) governments under Kan and Noda had already made concessions to the original DPJ agenda and the party and the government looked no different from the administrations led by LDP (Liberal Democratic Party). Those who attempted to initiate the change, namely Hatoyama and Ozawa, lost power and withdrew”.

Then Ms Satoko Norimatsu summarized:

“The new LDP government will be as much US-leaning and US-subservient as the last-stage DPJ government would be, if not more. One significant change will be their serious attempt to change Japan's post-war pacifist constitution, either nominally or virtually so that Japan could exercise its "right to collective self-defense," i.e. to engage in aggressive wars in conjunction with the US. That was Abe's unfinished business and long-sought goal from his previous term in 2006/2007.”

*

In modern history, Okinawans were made to suffer immensely.

In 1945 a quarter of the civilian population died during the Battle of Okinawa. 200.000 tons of bombs, according to NHK, were dropped on the island by the US army, in total disregard for lives of local people.

Then this stunning archipelago consisting of hundreds of Ryukyu Islands, fell under the US occupation. During the 27-year colonial reign, called ’the trusteeship rule’, the United States Air Force established numerous military bases all over the archipelago. From here, mainly using Kadena Base, during the Korean War, B-29 Super Fortresses flew bombing missions, ravishing both Korea and China.

Thousands of Okinawa women were brutally raped by the US army after the Battle of Okinawa, and sexual violence continues until now.

In 1972, the islands were returned to Japan under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, but the United States Forces Japan (USFJ) has maintained a large military presence.

According to John Chan, since 1960, Japan has been honoring an agreement that “allows the U.S. to secretly bring nuclear weapons into Japanese ports, and there is speculation that some nuclear weapons may be located in Okinawa. Both tactical and strategic weapons have been maintained in Okinawa.”

*

The Sakima Art Museum is sitting right on the perimeter of Futenma Base. It even offers a view of it, from the roof.

The Museum houses some of the most politically charged paintings found on the archipelago, most notably some 50 works by husband and wife, Iri and Toshi Maruki who are now both in their 90’s. On the walls hang their famous “The Battle of Okinawa”.

Here, through the art, the tragedy of the past is revealed in all its brutality and force. The bodies are shown floating on the ocean surface, there are terrified faces of women, and mass suicide.

Kiyoko Sakima, Director of Sakima Art Museum, may often sound bitter, but she is also very active, full of determination to resist and fight for injustice:

“We fought legal battle to get this place back from the base and we won, but only 3 years ago. 800 farms and homes were taken away from the local people; taken by force. There was no compensation, something like what goes on in Palestine, until now. Some people were forced to leave for Brazil, because they lost all that they had.”

Ms. Sakima continues: “They see us as ‘Evil Island’; all over Asia, because everything that is dangerous and flies is taking off from here. In Okinawa, only 1% of the population of Japan lives, but we have 75% of the US military bases on our territory.”

I recall words of veteran professor from Beijing, who educated hundreds of members of Chinese diplomatic corps. He explained to me several years ago:

“If China would be attacked by the United States from its bases on Japanese territory, China would not hit back at US, it will retaliate against Japan, as the attack would be coming from its soil.”

That would not very attractive perspective for Okinawa.  

*

Ms Satoko Norimatsu and other leading experts on Japan believe that new Japanese administration will now try to ‘maximize the perception of fear of China, while also maximizing the profits of the military-industrial complex’. The military ‘cooperation’ between the US and Japan will accelerate, including so called ‘co-basing’.

Bad news for Okinawa once again! In pre-election speeches, local politicians were making promises to scale down some military activities here, and move the bases, or at least part of their operations, to Guam, an ‘unincorporated territory of the United States’, located in the western Pacific Ocean, which is basically a colony.

But Ms. Sakima does not think that would be fair either: “These bases should be shut down, not to move anywhere. Poor Guam: Japan used to occupy it, now the US does. Why should they inherit what we want to get rid of.”

One of the plans both US and Japan are pushing for is eventual closure of Futenma Base and opening one new, and enormous one – Henoko.

Gavan McCormack argues in his Servile State Japan, “The designated area is one classified by Okinawa as requiring the highest level of protection because of its unique and precious marine and forest environment, and the idea that a large military base could be imposed on it was inherently as impossible as if someone had suggested the same for the United States’ Grand Canyon or Australia’s Kakadu.”

*

“Okinawans are united, from left to right, in opposing the construction of new base in Henoko, and the four newly elected LDP Lower House members of Okinawa clarified that point too after the recent elections”, said Ms Norimatsu. “Okinawan political climate remains the same: resisting construction of Henoko base, closure of the Futenma air base, as well as deployment of the Osprey aircraft.”

Even if they win, it has been made clear to the people of Okinawa that if any of the bases would be closing down, Japanese governments and US will pay absolutely nothing in compensations; locals will have to rely on their own resources.

It is paradoxical, but new Japanese ‘nationalist’ government is actually pro-American, as much as it is anti-Chinese. Is it contradiction in terms? Most definitely, but in Japan, anything goes – nobody seems to care about foreign policy.

Which may prove to be one tremendous blunder. Japan is betting on the most dangerous, aggressive and destabilizing force in the world. It is hosting the army and the air force of the country that is seen, all over the world, as the main threat.

As my plane is ready to depart for Nagoya, I observe Japanese military jets ready for takeoff, landing, all over the sky. US air force uses Funtenma and Kadena, Japan’s air force uses Naha International Airport.

Of course, Japan does not have its own army or air force. Those latest and fully armed jets are nothing, just an illusion. And the US does not have any aggressive imperialist plans in this part of the world.

Let’s keep pretending. Until it is too late!

*

Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific – Oceania – is published by Lulu. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and market-fundamentalist model is called “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear” (Pluto). After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website.

---