Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

102 Myth, protest and struggle in Okinawa
in 1972. But the demonstrations against the meeting had very little impact – it
caused Yara a headache and barely even background noise for Satō.
The Koza riot: outside the progressive coalition
Following Satō and Nixon’s announcement of Okinawa’s immanent reversion in
their joint statement issued on 21 November 1969, 47 the US announced the dismissal
of 2,400 local military base workers. From 8 January 1970, Zengunrō engaged in
another series of strikes against the military’s redundancy policy. 48 This time,
however, Zengunrō’s collective action was not a demand for the US bases to provide
stable employment. It was a protest against the US military presence in Okinawa
after reversion, under new, streamlined management (Nakano and Arasaki 1976:
202). With a slogan of ‘no jobs, no base’ (kubi o kirunara kichi mo kaese), the
desperate struggle of the base workers was solid, well-organized, and full of energy,
despite the workers’ lack of economic resources. Some schoolteachers, public
servants, anti-war university students, and mainland Japanese supporters joined
the picket lines at the military gates (Ishida 1993: 70–84). 49 However, the Yara
administration, though sympathetic, did not express support for fear of delaying
the intended 1972 reversion.
The US military responded to the Zengunrō strikes by declaring that the local
business districts, including ‘special catering districts’, were ‘off limits’ to the US
military personnel and their families. On 20 January 1970, the ‘A’ sign business
owners who feared bankruptcy surrounded the Zengunrō headquarters’ office,
protesting against the base workers’ strikes (Okinawa Daihyakka Jiten Kanko
Jimukyoku 1983: 186). A mainland Japanese supporter witnessed a debt-stricken
female bar owner verbally abusing the picketers in Koza, and in return being
sexually harassed by the base workers ‘for interrupting the picket line’ (Ishida 1993:
85–7). Local gangsters, hired by the entertainment industry, also attacked the picket
line (Nakano and Arasaki 1976: 201).
Unlike base workers who had the power to jeopardize US military operations
by strikes and boycotts, bar workers and prostitutes remained politically unorganized
and vulnerable. The ‘A’ sign businesses were particularly reluctant to support
the campaign for reversion, or any political movements that offended the US
authorities. Because of this vulnerability to the arbitrary ‘off limits’ sanctions of
the US, uncertainty was rife about what would happen to the local economy if
reversion was achieved and the military bases disappeared. A Koza restaurant owner
also admitted that the people engaged in base-related industries shared with other
islanders a basic wish to ‘return to the home country’. However, he confessed that
with so many people relying for their livelihood on the bases, ‘I cannot agree with
the view that reversion should be achieved immediately, at any cost’ (Ryūkyū
Shimpōsha 1968: 127).
In the late 1960s, US soldiers in Okinawa were exhausted by the prolonged
Vietnam War, and behaved much more violently off base: their crime rate increased
dramatically in the local community (Takazato 1998). 50 In some cases, soldiers
assaulted Okinawan residents to invite arrest and to avoid being returned to the