Okinawa Marks 20 Years of Freedom From U.S. : Pacific: Few seem to regret ’72 return to Japanese rule, although many lament a loss of cultural identity.

As darkness fell over this grassy knoll on the northernmost tip of the Ryukyu Islands in southern Japan, several men in headbands touched lighted torches to a stack of wood. A burst of orange fire flared, giving off a billowing gray cloud of smoke.

Miles north, the people on the island of Yoron performed the same ritual, directing back to Okinawa a flickering flame, small but clearly visible. As the twin flames burned, the Okinawans cheered and broke into song.

The people of Okinawa and those on Yoron were exchanging fire, a sign of the heart, to symbolize their now-fulfilled desire to be one people. For 27 years, they were not. While the people of Yoron were Japanese subjects, Okinawa was under U.S. military occupation. But in 1972, Okinawa finally came home, and to celebrate the 20th year of its reversion to Japan, the two island peoples this week were doing what they had done every year of their separation, lighting torches of togetherness.

“How often we looked to the people of Yoron and saw their welcoming fire,” recalled Kyan Shinei, a longtime member of the Japanese Parliament from Okinawa, who was an early activist in the reversion movement. “ ‘Come back to Japan,’ it would say.”

Two decades after Okinawa again became Japanese, on May 15, 1972, few seem to regret it. Despite widespread opposition to the continued presence of U.S. military bases here, the reversion is regarded as a diplomatic triumph for Japan--and, for the Okinawan people, a change that brought them a full set of political and legal rights, as well as marked economic progress.

The United States announced today that it would return three military facilities on Okinawa, a move immediately welcomed by the government in Tokyo, Reuters news agency reported.

Vice President Dan Quayle, in Tokyo to mark the anniversary of Okinawa’s reversion, announced the return of the facilities at a news conference.

The three, covering a total of 590 acres, are only a fraction of the continuing huge U.S. military landholdings in the island prefecture.

Many Okinawans lament a loss of their cultural identity, as the monolith of centralized Japan has gradually weakened the local dialect, dance and mellow ways of what was until 1879 an independent Ryukyu Kingdom. Still, numerous newspaper and TV polls consistently show that more than 80% of Okinawans consider reversion a good thing.

“Before reversion, life was really harsh. There wasn’t much freedom. . . ,” recalled Akiko Yui, managing editor of the Okinawa Times, who was a high school student at the time. “But since reversion, there has been tremendous economic development and a growing sense of confidence among the people.”

The reversion--one of history’s few instances in which a war victor returned seized territory to the vanquished--marked the end of the last great unresolved postwar issue between the United States and Japan. Despite today’s climate of bilateral bickering, the event is regarded as a diplomatic success for both sides that helped ensure Tokyo’s cooperation on defense and security issues as America’s most important ally in Asia.

But for Okinawans such as Kenji Yamato, 53, the reversion meant something far more precious: a return of his humanity. For 27 years, Yamato, an electrician at a U.S. military base, lived a nether-world existence, neither American nor Japanese and unprotected by either constitution. He can recall the humiliations of separate toilets, of being refused service in the military base cafeteria. He still winces when he describes how he was made to test live wires by his American boss and kicked like a dog when he refused.

“I just wanted to be recognized as a human being,” recalled Yamato, who asked that his real name not be used. He isn’t totally satisfied with post-reversion life--his labor union can no longer bargain directly with the Americans, for instance, and he feels that the Japanese government is not properly representing worker interests on wages and working conditions. But, he says, at least he has his basic human rights.

Tatsuko Maekawa, 40, owner of a restaurant who has lived under the shadow of the U.S. Air Force’s Kadena base for the last 20 years, recalled how American soldiers would rarely get punished for what she says were near-daily offenses against Okinawans. Once, a soldier who ran a red light and killed a child at a crosswalk was found not guilty--a verdict that set off a riot, she and others recalled.

The granting to Okinawans of fundamental political and human rights still stands as reversion’s most important benefit, says Okinawa Gov. Masahide Ota. But the most widely noticed benefit is the sprawl of high-rise buildings and well-paved roads, the airports and port facilities, the libraries and schools--all symbols of the billions of dollars in public investment the Japanese government has poured into Okinawa in the past 20 years.

All told, Tokyo has spent more than $26 billion on Okinawa, giving the prefecture that has 1% of Japan’s population 2.3% of its national expenditures on public works. Although Naha, the main city, has a helter-skelter look to it, with its traffic-clogged roads and its multistory office buildings squeezed next to faded apartment complexes, the highways leading north to beach areas are well-paved and attractively landscaped with palm trees.

The large public subsidies were not merely the gift of a big-hearted government, but also a calculated way to soothe public resentment over having to bear most of the U.S. military presence in Japan, said Yui of the Okinawa Times.

And Shinichi Kyan, a researcher with the Okinawa Labor and Economic Research Institute, said the public works programs have not necessarily benefited Okinawans. Since most of the contractors who win the government bids are large firms based on the mainland, an estimated 70% of the money flows out of Okinawa in what Kyan called an “economic boomerang.”

Okinawan per-capita income is still the lowest in Japan, 70% of the national average, said Kyan. The savings rate is only 30% of the mainland’s, while Okinawan families must rely more heavily on the wife’s income. The unemployment rate is twice as high as the mainland’s, and underemployment is a serious problem, Kyan said.

Okinawan planners are trying to develop a more self-sufficient economy less dependent on the narcotics of Japanese public subsidies and U.S. base income. Tourism is their brightest hope, promoting the tropical climate, abundance of beaches and Ryukyu culture. Okinawa is also trying to develop industries based on its unique characteristics, including exporting orchids and other tropical flowers.

If dependence on mainland money has hampered Okinawa’s economic independence, the “cultural invasion” has weakened its identity and way of life, many say. From the time the Meiji government forced surrender of the Ryukyu Kingdom’s 450-year rule in 1879 until wartime defeat in 1945, Japan deliberately sought to wipe out the island culture.

Once the Americans took over, however, they encouraged the blossoming of indigenous culture, Ota and others said. They built a small cultural museum at Shuri and promoted local dances. Although the U.S. motive was basically political--to foster a separate identity from the Japanese--Ota said the Americans were also genuinely hoping to bolster the Okinawan spirit, battered by one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific war.

Since the reversion, however, Japan has reintroduced its policy of assimilation. Mitsuru Tamaki, a 32-year-old actress, still remembers students, shortly after reversion, being made to wear signs around their necks saying, “I Used Uchinaguchi,” the name of the local dialect. As a result of such standardization, few young people today can speak Uchinaguchi.

The Japanese bureaucracy and mainland firms have also imposed business practices and cultural mores on the Okinawans. Many islanders complain that their horizontal society, where company presidents freely mingle with workers as friends and colleagues, is being replaced by the rigid hierarchies of mainland Japan.

In recent years, however, boosted by an “ethnic boom” on the mainland, Okinawa has become trendy. Music and food, fashion and lingo are all in hot demand among Tokyoites, and that has promoted a resurgence of interest among Okinawans in their own culture.

Twenty years after reversion, Okinawans may be coming to terms with their motherland, but Uncle Sam is another matter. U.S. forces maintain 30,000 troops in Okinawa, and the military installations cover 20% of the main island.

In survey after survey, most Okinawans say they oppose the facilities.

“Our request to reduce the bases has nothing to do with anti-Americanism,” said Gov. Ota. “We are simply trying to live a peaceful life, develop our tourist industry and regain our image as the Land of Propriety.”