Over the last five decades there have been various plans for the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma (海兵隊普天間航空基地, Kaiheitai Futenma Kōkū Kichi ), a United States Marine Corps base located within the urban area of Ginowan City (pop. 93,661) in Okinawa, Japan. The current proposal for a new site in Henoko Bay, Nago, has faced opposition from Okinawans and the local government who wish for the new base to be located off the island altogether. In October 2015, following a temporary halt after negotiations with the government of Okinawa Prefecture, the Japanese central government began work to build the base in Henoko Bay. The issue was taken to court by both parties in November and December. After a tentative court-mediated settlement in March 2016, the national government sued Okinawa governor Takeshi Onaga (翁長 雄志, Onaga Takeshi ) in July, and obtained a High Court ruling in September determining that it was illegal for Onaga to revoke his predecessor's permission for landfill work at the new site. The Supreme Court of Japan indicated in December 2016 that it would let this judgment stand, opening a door for the relocation work to proceed, and in September 2023, ordered the Okinawan government to approve the central government's plan for construction.
General controversy
Okinawa prefecture constitutes 0.6% of Japan's land surface, yet as of 2006, 75% of all USFJ bases were located on Okinawa, and U.S. military bases occupied 18% of the main island. There is local opposition in Okinawa to the construction of a new base; more than 76 percent of the population having expressed their opposition to a relocation in Henoko.
History
Henoko Bay plan
Plan secretly formulated in 1960s Declassified reports indicate the plan to build new runways at Henoko Bay was secretly formulated in the 1960s during the U.S. military occupation and administration of the islands. Building an expanded base at Henoko has been called the "only solution" to resolving the issues at Futenma. The U.S. military had originally proposed constructing "an offshore landfill facility with two 3,000-meter runways, a large military port and an integrated ammunition bunker capable of storing nuclear weapons."
"The newly obtained 40-page document contains a memorandum approving the plan sent by Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara on July 20, 1967, before the reversion of Okinawa to Japan from U.S. control. A separate 260-page report revealed the master plan for U.S. Navy facilities of the base expansion that was submitted by an American company under contract to the Navy in 1966. The report states that the U.S. government "should continue to emphasize to the government of Japan that Japan's security is in large part dependent on the maintenance of a substantial U.S. military posture." The base expansion plan was abandoned for a few reasons. One was local opposition and criticism over the seizure of civilian-owned land. Also, as the Vietnam War was ending, the US drawdown in forces reduced the need for the base and constrained budgetary resources.
1996–1997 In December 1996, as part of the Defense Policy Review Initiative (DPRI), the Japanese and U.S. governments decided that the Futenma base should be relocated to an off-shore location in the Oura Bay of Henoko (Ourawan in Japanese and ʻUdaang in Okinawan; often called Henoko Bay), in Nago, a relatively less populated area of the northern part of the island, 'in order to reduce military impact to the populated communities of southern Okinawa'. This was and remains a controversial decision, since the projected site involved construction on a coral reef and seagrass beds inhabited by the dugong, an endangered marine mammal protected under Japanese law and U.S. law. The environmental impact extends beyond the coral reef and seagrass beds, with there expected to be waste dumping, the disruption of fisheries, and an overall decrease in biological diversity. In October 2015, The Japan Times mentioned that 'two members of a governmental panel monitoring the environmental impact of the Futenma base relocation within Okinawa Prefecture (had) admitted to accepting donations from contractors involved.' In a non-binding referendum conducted in December 1997, the majority of Nago residents voted against the Henoko relocation plan. However, a few days later on 24 December, Nago Mayor Tetsuya Higa ignored the referendum results and accepted the relocation plan, resigned, and moved to Tokyo. The next year Tateo Kishimoto was elected mayor of Nago and tried to find compromises regarding the relocation. So did his successor Yoshikazu Shimabukuro, at a time when the Prefecture Governor, Masahide Ota, was opposed to the Henoko relocation. The next mayor too, Susumu Inamine, was opposed to it and he was elected twice with a high margin on an anti-base agenda.
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