Distant from Okinawa Heart

This is the day of prayer for the people in Okinawa. Organized exchange of fire in brutal battle in Okinawa ended this day in 1945. Offices and schools in Okinawa are now closed today for prayers. Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, will attend the Peace Memorial Ceremony at Mabuni Hill in the City of Itoman, where the last resistance was fought. Given political circumstances reaching war-fighting country, Abe might become the most unwelcomed prime minister in the ceremony.

While the Japanese in mainland recognize August 15th as the end of the World War II, the people in Okinawa put the period on June 23rd, when Mitsuru Ushijima, a Lieutenant General of Japanese Imperial Army and the commander of defense force in Okinawa, killed himself to end the battle. Over two hundred thousand people were killed in the Battle of Okinawa, the number which is paralleled with victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs. There are episodes that Japanese Army ousted the people from evacuation trenches, exposing them to merciless fires of American Forces. For the people in Okinawa, the battle was nothing for themselves but for the Japanese.

Abe made a speech at the ceremony on Monday, in which he expressed deep regret over tremendous number of victims of war. “I calmly hang my head down to the victims, whose blood and tear was shed to leave this land for us today,” he told. However, his basic principle in foreign policy had been making Japan-U.S. relationship “blood alliance,” indicating he would be willing to donate lives of the Japanese for U.S.

The people in Okinawa had reasons to be unhappy with his comments. Okinawa still owes the burden of alliance in a form of concentration of 74% of U.S. military base in Japan. Abe administration has been pressuring them to accept relocation plan of U.S. Futenma Marine Air Base to Henoko in northern area of Okinawa Island. Could not stand against the central government, Governor of Okinawa, Hirokazu Nakaima, approved starting construction for new facilities in Henoko, breaking up his campaign promise to remove the base from Okinawa. Since that policy change was nothing but a betrayal for most of his supporters, it would be unrealistic for him to be reelected in next election this November.

Abe’s insistence on reinterpretation of the Constitution for exercising collective self-defense right is highly unpopular in Okinawa. Because most causes for the reinterpretation is assuming contingency in Korean Peninsula, the people in Okinawa are seriously worried about possibility that their islands will become a battle field again, as polls had shown. Predicting unrealistic war and promoting conservative policies are all against Okinawa’s sentiment seeking peace.

If the administration wanted to reach the heart of Okinawa, it needs to elaborate how the government can prove escaping from devastation of war forever. Unrealistic assumption of “what if North Korea attacks U.S. vessel loading Japanese citizens” or stressing threat of China will not be accepted as any prayer for victims of the Battle of Okinawa and their families.