Abstract

Since the end of the Second World War, Okinawa, the southernmost region of the Japanese archipelago, has hosted the majority of U.S. servicemen stationed in Japan. An unfortunate incident involving three U.S. servicemen and a Japa-nese schoolgirl thrust the Okinawan effort to reduce the U.S. military presence into the international spotlight. A special action committee, convened by the Japanese and U.S. governments to address the U.S. presence on Okinawa, decided to relocate the heliport capacity of Marine Air Station Futenma to a floating airbase in a lagoon off the east coast of Okinawa. The construction of this facility will have disastrous effects on the island’s delicate natural envi-ronment and will further subject the rights of the Okinawan people. Bullets, bombs, grenades, and fire blasts introduced Okinawa to the military power of the United States and Japan in the disastrous battles that occurred in the waning moments of the Second World War. The majority of the Okinawan islanders were caught in the cross-fire during the battle for the island—the most devastating conflict in the Pacific Theater—emerging to find their once-tranquil island decimated and an estimated one third of the local population dead (Ota, 1996-1997). Indeed, this was not the first time the Okinawan people suffered at the hands of powerful external forces and it certainly would not be the last. Okinawa, formerly the independent Kingdom of the Ryukyus, his-torically served as a vital hub between centers of trade in Southeast Asia, China, and Japan, developing its own culture, language, and tradition completely distinct from its Japanese neighbors in the north. The Ryukyu Kingdom lost independence when Japan forcefully expropri-ated the island in the late nineteenth century. From the beginning of their colonization, the Japanese interjected their way of life on the local populace, discouraging the unique cultural traditions embodied by the