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Reclaimed land resumed by the Japanese government in Nago city, Okinawa prefecture for a US air base. On December 17, US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy defended a controversial proposal to relocate the Marine Corps base. Photo: Kyodo

US envoy to Japan slammed over Okinawa base remarks

A group of 70 American people including noted filmmaker Oliver Stone criticised Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy on Tuesday for her backing of a contentious US-Japan plan to relocate a Marine Corps base within Okinawa.

The Marines’ Air Station Futenma “must be closed, but moving it to Henoko isn’t the solution,” the group said in a statement referring to the bilaterally agreed but locally opposed relocation site, adding, “It merely shifts the problem to a less conspicuous location.”

Kennedy told the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo last week that the plan to move the main function of the Futenma airfield from a densely populated urban area in Ginowan to a new facility in the Henoko coastal area of Nago, both in Okinawa, is “the best of any other plans that were considered.”

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Her statement is “a threat, an insult and a challenge for the vast majority of Okinawans who are vehemently opposed to the (relocation) plan,” the group said.

US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy speaking at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on December 17, 2015. Photo: Kyodo

The group urged Kennedy to reread a speech her father John F. Kennedy delivered in 1963 at American University in which he rejected a “Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war”.

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The 70 signers of the latest statement include scholars, peace advocates, journalists and a former senator.

Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga, elected to oppose the plan to relocate the Futenma base within his southern island prefecture, has lately been involved in a court battle with the Japanese government over his attempt to block the ongoing preparatory work to construct a replacement airfield in the sea.

The Japanese and US governments agreed to the relocation plan as a way to reduce the burden on Okinawa, which already hosts the bulk of US military facilities in Japan, while maintaining security deterrence in the region.

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