‘Pull the US troops out of Okinawa!’

Kyodo/Reuters

More than 50,000 people carrying signs saying “Our anger is over the limit” and “Pull out the U.S. Marines” demonstrate June 19 in Naha, capital of Okinawa, Japan. The protest followed the arrest of a former U.S. Marine employed as a civilian contractor who was arrested in connection with the rape and killing of a local woman in April.

U.S. military forces are dispersed among 85 bases and smaller facilities in Japan, 75 percent of them on Okinawa, home to some 30,000 U.S. military personnel and civilian employees. The bases date back to the end of World War II when U.S. forces occupied Japan. The occupation of Okinawa lasted until 1972 and one-fifth of it is still under U.S. military control.

In 1995 two U.S. Marines and a Navy sailor were arrested over the rape of a 12-year-old girl, which led to protests numbering tens of thousands.

Washington and Tokyo agreed in 1996 to close the Futenma Marine Corps air station near Ginowan City and replace it with a base off the island’s northern coast. Twenty years later Futenma is still in operation and construction of the new base has gone nowhere in face of sustained local resistance.

— EMMA JOHNSON