Around 70,000 people protested the Japanese government’s plan to relocate a US air base within Okinawa island. Locals say the base will hurt the environment and claim they have sacrificed enough for Japan’s security alliance.
The demonstrators gathered at a park in the prefectural capital of Naha on Saturday, in an attempt to urge the central government to abandon their plan to transfer the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from the crowded town of Ginowan to the less populated coastal region of Nago.
Okinawans want to block the government’s plan to start dumping soil into Henoko Bay within days to make a landfill for the new site. Environmental groups say construction at the bay risks corals and dugongs, the endangered marine mammals.
The prefecture is already home to the majority of US military facilities and about half of the 50,000 American troops in Japan. But the Japanese government think the base is necessary for Japan to maintain the perceived deterrent a US base provides, while citizens on Okinawa see it as an unfair burden.
