Two Bare Facts
Two bare facts polarize the plight of Okinawans, especially the women, which did not end with the war, and both of which are directly interlinked.
1. The conduct of Japanese Govt. concerning the welfare of Ryukyuans (Okinawan: ウチナンチュ, Uchinanchu; Japanese: 琉球民族, Ryūkyū minzoku)
Tokyo’s “Grenade Policy” toward the Ryukyuans has remained the same since the Japanese Meiji Imperial government annexed Okinawa. Not only the US invasion in 1945 did nothing to ameliorate the fate of the Ryukyuans (Okinawans), the subsequent occupation has worsened their plight. Except for some minor changes in names and other details, the Ryukyuans remain an “underclass” [“subhuman,” thus expendable] even by the Japanese “slave” standards¹. They have always been expected to provide sexual service and sacrifice themselves for the Tokyo “elite,” the top four percent of the population who descend from ‘grandson of the god of heaven’ and his entourage, and who have been in the driving seat in Japan for the past 200 years or so [and the next six percent who act as gatekeepers.]
In The Peace Movement in Okinawa, Rick Mercier writes: “One of the first things the Meiji government did was pass a law allowing privileged classes to clear forests in Okinawa. Peasants, meanwhile, were prohibited from freely entering the forests as they had been used to doing in the past. This enclosure of the forests — a prelude to the more extensive enclosure perpetrated by the U.S. military after the war and supported by the Japanese government up to this day — resulted in great hardship for peasants. Many people left Okinawa in the following decades in search of a better life. For those who stayed, the prostitution of women and girls often became the only way to survive. A 1914 census revealed that 1,019 women lived and worked in the Tsuji licensed ‘entertainment’ district.”
In 1942 when the Japanese army arrived to fortify Okinawa, the military government “set up 130 military brothels in houses, public buildings, barracks, storehouses, and even caves to serve the 100,000 soldiers deployed throughout the Okinawan islands. Between 400 and 500 Okinawan women and an estimated 1,000 abducted Korean women were compelled to offer their services as ‘comfort women,’ or sexual slaves.” After the first wave of bombings in Okinawa in 1944, “the Tsuji district and many of the survivors also became “comfort women.” In addition to prostitution and sexual slavery, women faced an increased risk of rape. There are numerous accounts of women who, having been raped and impregnated by Japanese soldiers, smothered their babies and buried them in the woods.”
Many Okinawans, especially women, were ordered to commit suicide or were murdered by Japanese Imperial army to avoid their risk of being captured and reveal secrets to the “enemy,” during the Battle of Okinawa. “[M]others were often forced by Japanese soldiers to suffocate crying babies as U.S. troops approached hideouts. Large numbers of schoolgirls also died while nursing Japanese soldiers. The suffering of Okinawan women did not end after the war. According to the book Postwar Okinawa and Okinawa Women, U.S. servicemen routinely raped Okinawan women in the period following the battle. Moreover, since so many women were widowed and since there was yet another army occupying Okinawa, prostitution remained a common means of subsistence.”
The history of rape of Okinawan women by the US military personnel started in June 12, 1854, when a US sailor named William Board from Commodore Matthew Perry’s occupation forces broke into the home of a 50-year-old woman and raped her.
During the Korean and Vietnam wars, in addition to being a convenient place to stage bombing raids and deploy troops, Okinawa became a center for “R&R” (rest and relaxation) for US soldiers. “The U.S. military understood the important role Okinawan women played in reproducing GIs killing-power, and shortly after the Korean War broke out military authorities began implementing a system to regulate women’s bodies. In July 1950 — just one month after the U.S. got involved in hostilities in Korea — the military issued “Venereal Disease Control Policy Proclamation No. 39,” which made venereal disease the top medical priority in Okinawa even though Okinawans had more pressing health needs, such as the control and eradication of tuberculosis, parasites, and a variety of acute infectious diseases. The proclamation called for all Okinawan women of reproductive age to undergo a venereal disease test when checking in at Okinawa Central Hospital for any examination. When the director of the hospital refused to comply with this order, the military decided not to impose mandatory venereal disease testing; however, the military did proceed to employ public health nurses to conduct surveys to track the routes of venereal disease transmission. Women found to be carrying venereal disease were treated and put under close watch by military police.”
“Prostitution remained legal in Okinawa up until the prefecture’s reversion to Japan in 1972, and the Yaejima Approved Prostitution Zone, established three months after the outbreak of the Korean War, flourished, especially when the United States was at war in Asia. A survey conducted in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, revealed that 7,400 women were involved in prostitution around the bases. This meant that one in every 40 to 50 Okinawan females between the ages of 10 to 60 was selling her body to earn a living. Many women wound up as prostitutes as a result of debt-bondage. ‘Sometimes daughters were sold into prostitution. Almost all women had a big amount of debt,’ says Takazato. The economic power of GIs in relation to most Okinawans was enormous during the Vietnam War era. Teachers, for example, made about $80 a month, GIs earned $500.”
Tokyo has had ample time to deal with the Okinawan problem, but it has chosen not to do so despite the escalating crimes, noise pollution and irreversible ecological damage inflicted on the Okinawa’s crumbling ecosystems.
2. The US military “policy” of rape, torture and annihilation of Asians (see previous posts). It’s no great secret that the US elite consider the Asian races as subhuman and has perpetrated a policy of annihilation against them starting with the Philippines Wars.
- 1899-1902 Philippine-American War [hostilities continued until 1913]. ‘[In] the eight-year war to conquer the Philippines, a bloody affair that in many ways resembled the war in Vietnam. The United States killed [more than one million] Filipinos [mostly civilians] in the war.’ [Hoaward Zinn]
- 1917 Massacre of Chinese miners in Rock Spring, Wyoming.
- 1945 The massacres at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- 1950-1953 Korean War
- 1958 Operation Blue Bat, Lebanon
- 1962 Sino-Indian Border Conflict
- 1962-1973 Vietnam War
- 1968 “My Lai Massacre of 1968, in which a company of American soldiers poured automatic rifle fire into groups of unarmed villagers, killing perhaps 500 people, many of them women and children. […] My Lai was not a unique event. An Army colonel charged with covering up the My Lai incident told reporters: ‘Every unit of brigade size has its My Lai hidden someplace.’ […] And if the word ‘massacre’ means indiscriminate mass slaughter of innocent people, is it not reasonable to call the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ‘massacres,’ as well as the fire-bombing of Tokyo and the destruction of Dresden and other German cities?” [Hoaward Zinn]
- 1980 Operation Eagle Claw, Iran hostage crisis, 1980
- 1987-1989 Iran-Iraq War
- 1991 Persian Gulf War
- 2001-Present. In the terror created by “War on Terror” about 1.2 million Iraqis, more than 50,000 (?) Afghanis and at least 30,000 Americans and other Europeans soldiers, contractors and mercenaries have been killed and another 500,000 seriously injured.
Why does the United States keep 92,491 troops² in Japan? Whose interests are they protecting and against whom [In addition to protecting the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan’s “permanent” ruling party) against all other political parties?]
Cheek by Jowl: US Operates 37 Military Bases in Okinawa
Is Japan’s military alignment with the US meant to protect her from China, North or South Korea? Perhaps Malaysia or Singapore?
Is the US-Japan military folly serving the interest of Okinawans?
“Citizens living near Futenma Air Base also must live with the constant threat of a major aircraft accident. There have been 121 military-related accidents in Okinawa prefecture or in the surrounding sea since the prefecture was returned to Japan in 1972. Six aircraft have crashed in or around Okinawa since April 1994. In Futenma, people are well aware of the possibility of a catastrophe in their neighborhood. There have been three helicopter crashes on the grounds of Futenma Air Base since 1980. The last one, in 1992, occurred dangerously close to Dai-ni Elementary School, which is separated from the base by a chain-link fence.”
“All women in Okinawa live with the constant threat of violent crime. The September [1995] rape is only the latest crime in a long series of violent incidents involving Okinawan women and U.S. soldiers. In May, a 24-year-old woman died after being hit in the face with a hammer by a U.S. serviceman. In May 1993, a 19-year-old woman was raped by a soldier who escaped while in the custody of U.S. military police. (He was captured in Tennessee two months later and sent back to Okinawa, but, by that time, the survivor of the crime had decided not to pursue the case.) Women’s organizations in Okinawa argue that acts of violence by U.S. military personnel against Okinawan women should be put in the category of war crimes and should be investigated and punished as such. In April 1994, six Okinawan women’s groups presented the prefectural governor with a petition calling for an investigation into the history of violations of women’s human rights by military personnel.”
Rick Mercier concludes his article³, “There are some important lessons for us to learn from the experience of Okinawans. During World War II, Okinawans found out what can happen to those who are supposedly protected by the ‘security’ umbrella of a great imperial power. They also know that people lose their autonomy when an outside power gains control of their land and resources. And finally, Okinawans (especially Okinawan women) know that their bodies and lives might be sacrificed to perpetuate a system of domination that depends on guns, money and the subjugation of certain groups of people. These are lessons that the rest of East Asia would do well to keep in mind as it moves arm-in-arm with the transnationals and the U.S. military into the next millennium.”
Notes:
- The author Toshihiko Abe in his seminal book Japan’s Hidden Face reveals that 90 percent of Japanese population are direct descendants of slaves.
- The defense ministry said a total of 92,491 US troops, civilian military employees and their family members were living in Japan as of the end of March, with 24 percent living off bases among Japanese. Of the US military personnel and families, a total of 45,403 lived on the southern island of Okinawa, of whom 10,319 lived off the bases. Another 47,088 lived in other parts of the country, of whom 11,566 lived off the bases, the ministry said. (Source: AFP)
- The above excerpts are from The Peace Movement in Okinawa, written by Rick Mercier in 1996 when three U.S. servicemen were convicted of kidnapping and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawa girl.
References:
JapanifiK 