Thoughts from a man who once grasped a mike in Okinawa’s seemingly no longer burgeoning protest movement. (17my26)

Splendor of Okinawa：Madagascar Periwinkle, roadside Uruma,16my26


0n 15 May, Okinawa welcomed its 54th year since its reversion to Japan. Still, there has been no change in the fact that 70% of all Japan’s land allocated to military facilities is concentrated in Okinawa Prefecture.


The US-Japan bilateral agreement of 30 years ago to return the U.S. Military Futenma Airfield in Ginowan to Japan has yet to be implemented.


Protests against the US bases still continue. However, they do not seem to be widening with the unity of feeling that they once had.


Has the Peace Movement hit a crossroads?


Just past noon on 12 May, in front of the US Military Camp Schwab gate at Henoko in Nago, construction was proceeding for the relocation of Futenma Airfield. A few tens of people were there protesting it. 


The participants in the protest that day centered around protesters in their 60s and 70s. One male participant (73) noted, “If you look around, you’ll always see the same members in our protest. These past few years, young people just stopped coming.”


About ten years ago, the young people there would be expected to lead the next generation of protests. 


A businessman in his 30s, then a college student, was one of them. In 2015, he had grasped the mike to protest here. Before the huge assembled crowd, he had heatedly argued, “It’s not the base that is surrounded by this fence! It’s really us, who feel suffocated  that these bases seem to surround us!”


Back then, the protest against the Henoko relocation was once a huge swell. 


(Trans. Note: The Ugon of Oura Bay are either dead or gone and its coral reefs ravaged by bulldozers and dredges. Protests now there are a witness to the horror that has been done. 


The U.S. Marines, who had objected to the site from the outset, have stated that, since the Henoko runway will be too short, Futenma will continue in use even after Henoko is completed in 20 years or so, if ever. 


Watching this play out, one might surmise that perhaps the whole relocation scheme was just a ruse to accommodate the continued use of Futenma, which is exactly what the Marines have always wanted, agreement be damned.)


Original Japanese article: Asahi Shimbun, published 15 May 2026 at 05:00. Byline: Kazushi Kaneko

https://www.asahi.com/sp/articles/ASV5F35H9V5FUTIL009M.html


Denny in the News: Denny Tamaki is the governor of Okinawa Prefecture in Japan. Although 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. 


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. 


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


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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