OT: The 'Rape' of Okinawa
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http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/2686
The 'Rape' of Okinawa
Chalmers Johnson
It all seemed deadly familiar: an adult, 38-year-old US Marine sergeant,
Tyrone Hadnott, accused by the Okinawan police of sexually violating a
14-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl. He claims he did not actually rape her but
only forcibly kissed her, as if knocking down an innocent child and slobbering
all over her face is OK if you're a representative of the American military
forces. The accused marine has now been released because the girl has refused
to press charges - perhaps because he is innocent as he claimed or perhaps
because she can't face the ignominy of appearing in court.
Let us briefly recall some of the other incidents since the notorious 1995
kidnapping, beating and gang rape of a 12-year-old girl by two marines and a
sailor in Kin village, Okinawa. The convicted assailants in that outrage were
Marine Private First Class Roderico Harp, Marine Private First Class Kendrick
Ledet and Seaman Marcus Gill. Other incidents of bodily harm, intimidation and
death continue in Okinawa on an almost daily basis, including hit-and-run
collisions between American troops and Okinawans on foot or on auto bikes,
robberies and assaults, bar brawls and drunken and disorderly conduct.
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US bases on Okinawa’s main island
On June 29, 2001, a 24-year-old air force staff sergeant, Timothy Woodland,
was arrested for publicly raping a 20-year-old Okinawan woman on the hood of a
car.
On November 2, 2002, Okinawan authorities took into custody Marine Major
Michael J Brown, 41 years old, for sexually assaulting a Filipina barmaid
outside the Camp Courtney officer's club.
On May 25, 2003, Marine Military Police turned over to Japanese police a
21-year-old lance corporal, Jose Torres, for breaking a 19-year-old woman's
nose and raping her, once again in Kin village.
In early July 2005, a drunken air force staff sergeant molested a 10-year-old
Okinawan girl on her way to Sunday school. He at first claimed to be innocent,
but then police found a photo of the girl's nude torso on his cell phone.
After each of these incidents and innumerable others that make up the daily
police blotter of Japan's most southerly prefecture, the commander of US
forces in Okinawa, a Marine Corps lieutenant general, and the American
ambassador in Tokyo, make public and abject apologies for the behavior of US
troops.
Occasionally the remorse goes up to the Pacific commander-in-chief or, in the
most recent case, to the secretary of state. On February 27, Condoleezza Rice
said, "Our concern is for the girl and her family. We really, really deeply
regret it." The various officers responsible for the discipline of US troops
in Japan invariably promise to tighten supervision over them, who currently
number 92,491, including civilian employees and dependents. But nothing ever
changes. Why?
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Secretary of State Rice expressed “regret” in meeting
with Prime Minister Fukuda
Because the Japanese government speaks with a forked tongue. For the sake of
the Okinawans forced to live cheek-by-jowl with 37 US military bases on their
small island, Tokyo condemns the behavior of the Americans. Prime Minister
Fukuda Yasuo called the recent assault "unforgivable" and demanded tighter
military discipline. But that is as far as it goes.
The Japanese government has never even discussed why a large standing army of
Americans is garrisoned on Japanese territory, some 63 years after the end of
World War II. There is never any analysis in the Japanese press or by the
government of whether the Japanese-American Security Treaty actually requires
such American troops.
Couldn't the terms of the treaty be met just as effectively if the marines
were sent back to their own country and called on only in an emergency? The
American military has never agreed to rewrite the Status of Forces Agreement,
as demanded by every local community in Japan that plays host to American
military facilities, and the Japanese government meekly goes along with this
stonewalling.
Once an incident "blows over", as this latest one now has, the pundits and
diplomats go back to their boiler-plate pronouncements about the
"long-standing and strong alliance" (Rice in Tokyo), about how Japan is an
advanced democracy (although it has been ruled by the same political party
since 1949 except for a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union), and
about how indispensable America's empire of over 800 military bases in other
people's countries is to the maintenance of peace and security.
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Okinawan protest at Marine Headquarters in Kita Nakagusuku
village following news of the rape
As long as Japan remains a satellite of the United States, women and girls in
Okinawa will continue to be slugged, beaten and raped by heavily armed young
Americans who have no other reason for being there than the pretensions of
American imperialism. As long as the Japanese government refuses to stand up
and demand that the American troops based on its territory simply go home,
nothing will change.
Chalmers Johnson in the author of the Blowback Trilogy - Blowback (2000), The
Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
(2007).
This article appeared at Asia Times on March 5, 2008 and at Japan Focus on
March 5, 2008.
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