Okinawans protest US forces relocation

Mainichi Shimbun, Sunday 24 October 1999

NAHA—Citizens groups and labor unions held a rally in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, Saturday in protest at a plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps.' Futenma Air Station and a military port in Naha within the prefecture.

During the rally, about 12,000 participants pledged to urge the central and prefectural governments to scrap their plan to relocate these military facilities within the prefecture.

Representatives of citizens groups from Nago, which has been named as a possible site for relocation of the Futenma base, and from Ginowan, which currently hosts the base, urged the participants to unite to pressure the governments of Japan and the United States to remove the base from the prefecture altogether.

At the end of the rally, the participants adopted a resolution declaring that they will launch a campaign to achieve a military-free, peaceful Okinawa Prefecture.