Japan to build US military airport on coral reef
Date: 28-Dec-01
Country: JAPAN
The decision could spark a furious backlash by conservationists who say the project threatens the environment while also enraging local residents who want the U.S. military to leave the island.
The new airport off Nago City, where the 2001 Group of Eight summit was held, would contain a Marine helicopter base that Washington agreed in 1996 to move from its Futenma air station in central Okinawa to Nago because of complaints of noise pollution.
Nago residents, in a December 1997 referendum, opposed the relocation.
Okinawa's prefectural government and Nago City authorities had insisted U.S. military use of the new facility be limited to 15 years - a limit that Okinawans demanded during campaign to end more than five decades of U.S. military presence.
Washington has suggested 15 years is an unacceptably short period.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said yesterday's decision was a "best possible option at the moment".
The central Japanese government subsequently put pressure on the city mayor to allow its construction, including the promise of economic assistance to Okinawa, the poorest region in Japan.
Nago mayor Tateo Kishimoto urged the central government to accept the demand for a 15-year limit made by the local governments and citizens.
"We must not allow for the construction of the airport without resolving the issue," he told reporters. "We want the central government to consider seriously and make a final decision promptly."
Okinawa has less than one percent of Japan's total land mass but is home to 26,000 of the 48,000 U.S. military in the country, sparking local resentment that flared after the 1995 rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen.
In the latest high-profile incident, U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Timothy Woodland, 24, was charged with raping the woman in June.
But in a court hearing in September, Woodland pleaded not guilty, saying it was consensual.
