Okinawa Has a Love-Hate Relationship With the U.S.

Like the other fiercely independent residents of the island of Okinawa, Aiko Tsujino took to the streets with her volunteer group to help gussy up downtown for the G-8 summit that begins this week.

But when President Clinton arrives for the meeting of the world’s leading industrialized nations, she’ll have mixed feelings at best.

“Of course we want to welcome Clinton warmly,” said Tsujino, who opened her popular Yunangi tavern 30 years ago, when Okinawa was still a U.S. territory. “But on the other hand, these incidents make us feel kind of un-American,” she said, waving a local newspaper with headlines blaring the latest uproar, a hit-and-run accident involving a U.S. serviceman.

Although the pedestrian wasn’t seriously injured and the serviceman later returned to the scene, the accident caused a stir, coming just before the summit and on the heels of another incident that garnered big headlines here: A Marine, reportedly drunk, allegedly entering an unlocked house and crawling into bed with a 14-year-old girl.

Locals say thousands of crimes, including killings, rapes, assaults and thefts, have occurred on Okinawa at the hands of U.S. servicemen since World War II.

Despite the latest incidents, however, the mood here remains relatively calm. A protest drew about 7,000 people Saturday, and demonstrators plan to form a human chain around an Air Force base Thursday, but it’s nothing compared with the tens of thousands of Okinawans who took to the streets in 1995 after the rape of a 12-year-old girl involving three U.S. servicemen.

“The G-8 summit and the bases are two different things,” Tsujino said.

Even without protesters, however, leaders from the Group of 8 will find it nearly impossible to miss the huge American presence on Okinawa--the main island in the Okinawa island group--which hosts about three dozen U.S. bases.

Nearly everywhere, it seems, are the 8-foot-high fences topped with barbed wire that ring the bases’ manicured lawns. The bases occupy about 20% of the land on Okinawa island, and the noise generated by constant landings and takeoffs of military aircraft, in particular, has been a major source of friction.

But Tsujino’s ambivalence mirrors many islanders’ feelings toward the bases that are home to more than half of the 47,000 U.S. troops posted in Japan. Of course she’d prefer it if the U.S. bases were elsewhere, she said, but then many civilians would lose their jobs and rental income.

Expenditures by members of the military, local rents and salaries paid to civilian employees account for about 6.5% of Okinawa’s revenues. “I have no strong objections because so many people make money from them,” Tsujino said. “It’s really contradictory.”

The paradox was apparent at a small demonstration just down the street from her restaurant on a recent afternoon. Employees of a local bus company, which had just lost a contract for transporting servicemen’s children to private schools, were protesting the choice of a company from the “mainland,” as Japan’s major islands are known here. About 70 jobs will be lost.

Protester Toyozato Tomotoshi, 48, an accountant at the local bus company, wants his job back. But he also said that he would like the bases to leave altogether, which would assuredly mean he’d be out of a job.

“American soldiers get priority here,” he complained. “If the bases were closed, we could use the land for other purposes, such as department stores or universities.”

Okinawa’s relationship with the U.S. has always been tense: It was the site of the largest World War II battle between the U.S. and Japan, and more than 150,000 Okinawans, many of them civilians, were killed.

Many committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner by Americans.

“Since the war, we remember what American soldiers did here, and when we see them, it’s hard to get the image out of our minds,” said Suguru Tsujino, Aiko’s husband, who helps his wife run the restaurant.

When the war ended, the U.S. established its massive bases, which were also used for bombing missions during the Korean and Vietnam wars. From World War II until 1972, when the island reverted to Japanese dominion, it was considered U.S. territory.

But the 27-year occupation brought good things to the island as well, said Suguru Tsujino, who was born soon after the war ended. There was cheap imported food and instant coffee. The local Ryukyu glassware now popular with tourists was created when Okinawans recycled Coke bottles discarded by servicemen, who in turn bought the thick, colorful glasses and vases.

During much of the occupation, the currency was the U.S. dollar, and cars drove on the same side of the road as they do in the U.S. Passports were needed to visit the rest of Japan.

American servicemen also taught Okinawans about leisure by example, Suguru Tsujino said.

“We had no concept of playing around on the beach--and our mothers warned about sunburn--but under the American occupation, we imported the beach party,” he said.

Many Okinawans believe that their island was a “sacrificial fortress” in the war, during which some Okinawans were killed by Japanese soldiers looking for food or shelter. “We have a strong allergy to the Japanese national anthem and the Japanese flag,” Tsujino said. “Old people can’t forget what Japanese soldiers did here.”

Today, Okinawa still has a different feel and pace from Japan’s main islands, combining the history and culture of China, Southeast Asia and Japan. Life is slow, in keeping with the self-described Okinawan trait of tege, or “half-done.” It means not taking things too seriously.

“It’s too hot here,” Tsujino said one languid afternoon, with the temperature climbing into the 90s. “We can’t be very strict here. Our flexibility is what makes us different.”