ASIA LETTER: A hush descends over the small bar in Naha City as Japan's most celebrated folk singer begins his song of peace. Approximately 100 people, ranging from 17 to 70 years of age, are packed into the Chakra club on the idyllic Japanese island of Okinawa to hear their idol, the legendary Kina Shoukichi, perform.
Tonight, Kina is playing the sanshin, a local three-stringed banjo-like instrument covered with snakeskin. Sitting on stage, he closes his eyes and launches into Hana, the song which won him fame in Japan. In English, it means "A Flower for Everyone's Heart".
In the club tonight there is a group of journalists from Europe and Japan. They are attending an EU-organised conference on geopolitics in Asia post-September 11th. Leading the group is the EU ambassador to Japan, Mr Ove Juul Jorgensen.
Kina Shoukichi has been preaching peace for all his 30 years as a professional musician. He delivers the message he has been making to military leaders all over the world in recent years: "Lay down your weapons and take up musical instruments instead."
However, the notes struck by President Bush on his recent tour of Asia and his references to the "axis of evil" were not music to the ears of Kina Shoukichi and the people of this small sub-tropical island 1,600 km south-west of Tokyo. The anti-American feeling here is strong enough already without any war mongering from a visiting US president. Okinawa is home to the largest US military bases in the Far East. The bases occupy one in five of the best beaches on the island and are home to 26,000 American soldiers plus their families.
In Okinawa, anti American feelings have never been running higher. Mr Keizo Yasuda is mayor of the village of Yomitan about 45 minutes drive from the main US air base in Kadena. The 72-year-old mayor, recently re-elected for a three-year term, is proud of the island and its unique culture.
When I asked him his views on the US presence on the island he froze and cut the conversation dead. The question hit a raw nerve and it is not difficult to understand why. On March 28th Naha District Court in Okinawa will deliver its verdict in the case of a US airman charged with raping a Japanese woman last summer.
US Air Force Sergeant Timothy Woodland (25) is accused of raping the woman in a parking lot near Kadena airbase on June 29th. Sergeant Woodland has pleaded not guilty to the rape, and claims he had consensual sex with her.
The alleged assault happened just before the start of a festival at the airbase aimed at promoting goodwill and friendship between the local community and US forces. The case, and the US delay in handing over Sergeant Woodland to the Japanese authorities, have inflamed tensions between Okinawans and the US military, and set back already fragile relations between the communities.
If he is found guilty, this will be the latest in a long list of offences by US soldiers on local women. In the summer of 2000, a marine was arrested for allegedly breaking into a house and molesting a 14-year-old girl as she slept. In one of the worst cases, three US servicemen raped a 12-year-old girl on the island in 1995.
A group called the Okinawa Women Acting Against Military Violence claims that many women who work in bars, as well as sex workers servicing US soldiers, through fear have never reported cases of molestation or rape.
On the eve of the G8 summit in Okinawa in July of 2000, local people let their feelings about the US presence be known. Some 27,000 demonstrators linked hands to form a 17 km human chain around Kadena Air Base.
The US is involved in another row with local people over plans to build a military heliport on the island. The Okinawan authorities insist the heliport should have a limited 15-year life span, and that its development should be linked to a general phasing out of the US presence on the island. But their wishes are likely to fall on deaf ears as Tokyo and Washington have agreed on measures to tighten security and deal with the terrorist threat in the region. US troops, on Okinawa since 1953, are not going anywhere for now.
Meanwhile, Okinawa's favourite son, Kina Shoukichi, will continue to spread the word of peace though music. He has contributed to bringing East and West closer through performances with musicians from all over the World including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, INXS, Jon Bon Jovi and even the Chieftains. "What a better world we would live in if every gun was swapped for a musical instrument," he says wistfully.