Choppers circumvent helipad protesters in Okinawa

By Todd Crowell

TOKYO (AA) – In a rare move, Japan’s ministry of defense has authorized the use of army helicopters to break a summer-long impasse and circumvent activists trying to shut down work on American helipads on Okinawa.

Large CH47 heavy lift helicopters were brought in from the mainland to airlift trucks and other heavy equipment this week, as most of the access roads into the construction site have been blocked by protesters.

The use of the heavy lift choppers was necessary “to carry out construction work safely and smoothly”, according to a statement from the ministry’s Okinawa bureau.

It is rare to use Japanese equipment to construct facilities for the United States forces.

The helipads are being built in what the Americans call the Northern Training Area, a remote and sparsely populated corner of the island’s north.

The more than 7,000 hectares of forest cover make it useful for Marine Corps jungle warfare training.

In July, the U.S. forces announced with great fanfare that they were returning more then half of the preserve to Japanese civilian use. It was said to be the largest such transfer on Okinawa since the Occupation.

However, the U.S. insisted that the Japanese build six helicopter landing pads on the part of the training grounds that the Americans continue to use. Two were built until construction stalled due to local opposition.

The opposition is built on local concerns about noise and reports that the Marines wanted to use the pads for Osprey vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. The Osprey has a bad reputation on Okinawa as it is thought to be prone to accidents.

A U.S. helicopter, in fact, did crash near an elementary school near the village of Takae in 1999, although there were no civilian injuries.

Nonetheless, it set loose a long-running series of anti-pad demonstrations.

In July, 500 riot policemen had to be imported from the mainland to face off with around 100 protesters.

Others have maintained barriers on some of the access roads, necessitating that construction supplies be brought in with helicopters.

It is thought that the new minister of defense, Tomomi Inada, may have ordered that work accelerate in order to demonstrate that Tokyo is fulfilling its obligations during her current visit to Washington.

The Northern Training Area demonstrations have been overshadowed by the much more intensive campaign to halt the building of a new Marine Corps air station at Henoko on the southern coast of Okinawa.

In 1995, Japan and the U.S. agreed on a formula to reduce the American presence on the island. A key element was to relocate the existing Marine air base at Futenma, now completely surrounded by civilians in the town of Ginowan.

The Henoko base has been the focus of intensive disputes between Okinawa and the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and among Okinawans themselves.

The previous governor had agreed to permit landfill to begin but was defeated for re-election by the present anti-base governor, Takeshi Onaga.

On Friday, a high court ruled that Onaga’s legal challenge to prevent construction operations to relocate the base was itself illegal.

The helipad demonstrations come at a time when tensions on the island are running high, stemming from the murder of a young woman in May, allegedly by an American civilian contractor and former Marine.

In June, some 65,000 people demonstrated against the bases in Naha, the Okinawan capital.

The island hosts around 30,000 U.S. military personnel, or more than half of the total number of American servicemen in Japan.

Successive Japanese governments have defended the large U.S. presence as necessary for the defense of Japan.