JAPAN:THOUSANDS OF Okinawans attended a rally yesterday to protest at crimes by US troops and to demand a smaller US military presence on the southern Japanese island after last month's arrest of a marine on suspicion of raping a schoolgirl.
"Crimes and accidents due to the bases have happened over and over, and Okinawa has protested with intense anger to both the US and Japanese governments," Okinawa mayor Mitsuko Tomon told a crowd gathered in heavy rain in the town of Chatan, where the February incident occurred.
"But each time, our voices have been trampled and there has been no end to the heinous crimes,"the mayor added.
Organisers estimated about 6,000 people took part in the rally, Kyodo news agency said.
The arrest of US marine Tyrone Hadnott (38) on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl sparked outrage on Okinawa, host to a large number of the nearly 50,000 US troops in Japan, and stirred memories of the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl that prompted huge anti-base protests and jolted the US-Japan alliance.
The girl, who came under heavy criticism on the internet, later dropped charges, and Hadnott was released to the custody of US military authorities, who have been investigating the case.
Participants in yesterday's rally adopted a resolution demanding consolidation of the US bases and revisions to a pact on the status of US military personnel in Japan to give Japanese authorities greater legal jurisdiction.
Both Tokyo and Washington have so far rejected demands to revise the Status of Forces Agreement.
"The rights of the people of Okinawa continue to be violated by the base-related damage, and we call on both the US and Japanese governments to fundamentally revise the Status of Forces Agreement," Kyodo quoted the resolution as saying.
The pact was not an issue in the Hadnott case, since the marine was arrested off-base by Japanese police. Organisers, including women's groups, had hoped for a turnout of around 10,000 people but squabbling between conservative politicians and leftist opposition groups undercut their efforts.
The rally comes as Tokyo is trying to persuade local residents to accept a plan to shift key functions of the US marines' Futenma air station from the crowded central city of Ginowan to the lightly- populated coastal town of Nago.
Relocating Futenma is key to a broader plan to shift some 8,000 of the 13,000 marines now on Okinawa to the US territory of Guam to lighten the US military presence on the Japanese island. Nago authorities have agreed to the move, but details remain to be worked out.