The United States military presence in Japan has stoked fresh anger and resentment after a recent series of attacks on women.
Protesters shout slogans in front of |
The population’s justified rage has forced the U.S. military to take face-saving measures restraining its occupying forces. The U.S. military limited some 45,000 troops, civilian employees and their families to bases, workplaces or off-base homes indefinitely on Feb. 20, going beyond a midnight curfew already in place.
On Feb. 29, prosecutors released Hadnott and dropped charges against him, reportedly because the victim chose not to pursue the case.
By March 3, the military had already announced an end to the curfew for civilians and a relaxation of the curfew for military personnel to only cover late night and early morning hours. The announcement came despite violations of the curfew, including one where an intoxicated soldier smashed an office window with a steel pipe.
More often than not, U.S. soldiers are permitted to do as they please and criminal actions are hushed up or the offender is given a slap on the wrist. These heinous criminal acts only add to the grievances behind decades of opposition to U.S. presence on the island chain.
It is a typical trend for U.S. military personnel camped out on foreign lands to abuse the local population. Such incidents rarely surface.
Violence against women is a common offense committed by imperialist soldiers. Such recurring criminal acts are not merely coincidental nor do they spring from a handful of “bad apples” such as Hadnott. Violence against the local population near U.S. military bases abroad is the direct result of the racism each soldier is indoctrinated with, and women are particularly vulnerable.
The Army does its fair share to create the conditions for such crimes. The U.S. military uses 7,000 Filipinas to serve its soldiers in Okinawa. During the first Gulf War, rest-and-recreation ships were reportedly floated for the U.S. servicemen with 50 Filipino women each. As of one year ago, 900 Filipinas worked for $200 a month at “massage parlors” inside U.S. camps and bases in Iraq.
In that context, the November 2005 rape of a 22-year-old Filipino woman by U.S. soldiers in Olongapo City, Philippines may have been shocking, but was hardly surprising. When Lance Corporal Daniel Smith was found guilty, the U.S. government quickly negotiated his release into U.S. custody by threatening to suspend joint military exercises in the Philippines.
U.S. military presence in Japan
It is not commonly highlighted that the United States has several major bases in Japan. Following its defeat in World War II, Japan was reduced to the status of a regional junior partner to the United States, who has established a number of military bases in Japanese territory. The bases are a springboard for projecting of U.S. power into the Korean peninsula and the rest of East Asia.
Okinawa was the site of significant battle in World War II. The United States has kept bases in Japan despite returning formal control of the islands to Japan by 1972.
The U.S. base in Okinawa is highly valuable for its hegemony in the region. Okinawans, an oppressed nation within Japanese territory, have long fought back against U.S. occupation.
For decades, Okinawans have voiced their opposition to the crime, crowding and noise brought by U.S. troops. Protests in the 1990s forced the closing of a Marine air station, and now a plan to build a new airstrip on the island has stirred persistent opposition.
The United States does not want any element of a popular threat to its presence in Okinawa. U.S. military officials have apologized profusely and Ambassador Thomas Schieffer traveled to Okinawa in order to avert a larger crisis.
The week following Hadnott’s arrest, Okinawan lawmakers passed resolutions demanding tighter discipline among U.S. troops. Demonstrations of hundreds have been organized to voice outrage at the ghastly crime and to demand an end to the occupational U.S. base on their island.
It would not be the first time that outcry to a crime committed by U.S. personnel in Okinawa resulted in popular pressure to end the U.S. occupation. Hadnott’s crime is being compared to the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three U.S. servicemen. That incident triggered massive protests against the U.S. military, including a march of 85,000 people. The three men were convicted and sentenced to prison.
The U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, signed in 1960, has also been a focus of protest. The agreement restricts the jurisdiction of the Japanese government and allows the U.S. military to maintain custody of someone accused of a crime until a formal indictment is filed in a Japanese court. These types of legal agreements that provide protection or full exemption from local law have always been an integral element of colonial relations, and the U.S. government demands nothing less for its soldiers.
U.S. troops out of Japan and all of Asia!
The recent cases of sexual assault are only the most well known. Unknown numbers of women have been the victims of sexual and other violence for the entirety of the U.S. presence in Japan. There are also many other incidents, such as murder, harassment, drunk driving and property destruction that are regularly carried out by U.S. military personnel around bases.
The crimes committed by U.S. troops are a product of the colonial mentality instilled by the military to serve the needs of imperialism. They take place in the context of the current plans of the U.S. government to expand its military presence Okinawa, Iwakuni and Kanagawa, Japan.
Only the removal of U.S. bases abroad can bring such atrocities to an end. A growing movement in Okinawa, the Japanese mainland and throughout Asia is voicing this demand.
