Once again parading through Ginza, 10 years since their March on Tokyo surmounted right-left divisions, they protest Okinawa’s overwhelming base burden. (31ja23)


Splendor of Okinawa: Mikania, roadside Uruma, 26de22


(TOKYO) 27 January marked 10 years since the mass rally at the Hibiya Open Air Concert Hall at Hibiya Park in Tokyo demanded the withdrawal of the Osprey deployment and the abandonment of the relocation of the US Military Futenma Airfield inside Okinawa Prefecture.


At the same place and date this year, the Encircle the Diet Executive Committee again held its mass rally with shouts of “Stop the Henoko landfill!” The committee affirmed that it was united with Okinawa on the abandonment of the new base construction at Henoko in Nago.


After the mass rally, while raising cries of “No new bases!”, the group paraded along the streets of Ginza. According to the announcement of the mass rally organizers, about 400 protesters braved the light rain under the cold sky.


Executive Committee member Shinsaku Nohira alluded to Denny Tamaki’s victory in last year’s gubernatorial election. He claimed, “The will of the people is obviously in opposition. So, we’re standing up here today, because we must show that it’s also the will of the people of the whole Japanese Nation.”


General Secretary of the All Okinawa Conference to Halt New Base Construction at Henoko came up to Tokyo from Okinawa. He stressed, “A great many Okinawan people have requested a structural reduction of the bases. We just can’t bear the burden of any more bases.”


Henoko Prefectural People’s Election Committee former representative Jinshiro Yamamoto exhorted the crowd, “In order to halt the Henoko new base construction, to refuse to allow wars to happen, let’s one by one do what we can!”


Journalist Shigenori Kanehira, reportage writer Saotoshi Kamata, and Tokyo Foreign Language University Professor Emeritus Osamu Nishitani took turns speaking. They cried out the alarm over the expansion of armed forces in Okinawa.


In the mass rally parade 10 years ago, 38 mayors, 41 chairs of municipal assemblies, and 29 prefectural assembly members, including their representatives, participated. It had become a march on Tokyo that surmounted right-left divisions.


However, on this day, Governor Denny Tamaki offered no more than a video message, with nary a public official on hand. In Ginza, the parade was a line of about 100 meters, with wide banners at the fore proclaiming, “The Japanese People’s will with the Okinawan People’s will!” The same time and the same course, they paraded the streets. Along the route, shoppers and passersby gave them a bewildered stare.


Original Japanese article: Okinawa Times, published Saturday 28 January 2023 at 11:53.

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/08368bd47ea5b228c65c72e09e8bc5e80d9a02ab


Denny in the News: news about Governor Denny Tamaki.

Denny Tamaki is the governor of Okinawa Prefecture in Japan. Although Okinawa is important as an international tourist destination and a key element in strategic US Military Forces, its governor receives very little coverage in the Japanese press and almost none in the English language media. 

  1. This blog hopes to  translate one news article a day on the governor.  It is unsponsored and unauthorized. The translator simply hopes to improve his skills and perhaps give the governor an English speaking audience. 

  2. Any suggestion on improving the translation will be gratefully accepted. However, please leave political comments for another forum.

  3. Where they occur, words and phrases in Ryukyuan (the Okinawan language) are rendered in italics and translated in parentheses. Names  whose readings are uncertain are rendered as Name (=Kanji?) as in Nagayuki (=長行?). Any corrections in such instances would be gratefully appreciated.

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