Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

90 Myth, protest and struggle in Okinawa
on the streets, holding the hinomaru flags to express their commitment to ‘reversion
nationalism’. Many locals welcomed Satō for promoting reversion and increasing
governmental economic subsidies to Okinawa. Satō was only the third Japanese
Prime Minister ever to visit Okinawa (after Itō Hirobumi and Tōjō Hideki). It
was at this visit that he uttered the famous line at Naha Airport: ‘Japan’s postwar
period never ends, unless Okinawa’s reversion is achieved’ (Nakano and Arasaki
1970: 18).
But not all welcomed him and there was also considerable hostility against Satō’s
policy of supporting America’s war in Vietnam – heightened no doubt by the use
of Okinawa as a launching pad for the war effort. As a consequence, the OTA
and other Council members were able to organize a protest rally against the
Prime Minister at Naha High School, which attracted 150,000 participants. They
demanded the immediate cessation of raids against Vietnam from Okinawa, and
reversion (Nakano and Arasaki 1970: 22). The Council also staged a large-scale
sit-in along Route 1, between kokusai dōri (a main street in Naha City) and the
Tōkyū hotel, where the Prime Minister was staying. 30 The Council’s plan for a
controlled collective action turned into a zig-zag demonstration of twenty thousand
people, which stopped traffic completely. The local police force clashed with the
demonstrators, resulting in unprecedented violence, and five demonstrators were
arrested.
The demonstrators failed to communicate directly with Satō, who escaped to
another hotel arranged by the US military. At a result they were unable to directly
convey a number of crucial petitions to him: petitions focusing on the abolition of
Article 3 of the peace treaty, the removal of nuclear weapons from Okinawa, and
warrant of Okinawans’ basic human rights and autonomy including a public election
of the Chief Executive (Sokoku Fukki Tōsōshi Hensan Iinkai 1982: 236–7).
Nevertheless, the executive committee of the Council for Reversion considered the
mass demonstration a ‘success’. Even if unintentionally, they had disrupted the
whole city, and they had conveyed to the Prime Minister the Okinawans’ ‘greatest
wish’ for reversion (Sokoku Fukki Tōsōshi Hensan Iinkai 1982: 265).
Growing US incentives for reversion
Eventually, in 1968, US President Johnson approved the public election of GRI
Chief Executives. Tōyama writes that the direct petition to the USCAR by a group
of five influential local figures in September 1965 was particularly effective: the
USCAR public relations chief officer commented, ‘Receiving request from the
influential local figures, the US would have to take some action’ (Tōyama 1987:
451–3). 31 The appeal made a significant difference to the extent that it formalized
the locals’ collective will for the Chief Executive election. Yet, in retrospect, it
has become clear that this concession was most affected by the development of
US–Japan diplomatic talks on security alliance. As a result of these developments,
prospects for the reversion movement were significantly changing.
By the mid-1960s, the US and Japanese governments had started negotiations
for extending Ampo – the US Japan Security Treaty – which was expiring in 1970.