A conservative who defied Japan’s ruling party, he opposed not just the relocation of a Marine base on the island but the entire American military presence there.
TOKYO — Takeshi Onaga, the governor of Okinawa and an outspoken critic of United States military bases in Japan’s southern archipelago, died on Wednesday in Urasoe, on the main island. He was 67.
Kiichiro Jahana, Okinawa’s vice governor, said the cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, which Mr. Onaga discovered he had in April. He had undergone surgery for the cancer four months ago and was readmitted to the hospital on July 30.
Just before then, he vowed to renew a legal fight to stop the relocation of a Marine air base from central Okinawa to a less-populated coastal area. Echoing public protests in the region, he said the base, currently in Futenma, should be moved out of Okinawa Prefecture altogether.
Mr. Onaga was a rare conservative politician willing to stand up to leaders of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. In opposing the relocation of the base, he put himself at odds with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who supports keeping the bases in Okinawa, more than 650 miles from the Japanese mainland.
“Many conservatives had been reluctant to oppose central government,” said Toru Kinjo, a conservative leader on Okinawa and a friend of Mr. Onaga’s. “But Onaga thought that speaking out about what is necessary would lead to the protection of our next generations and the pride of people in Okinawa.”
In Japan, where local lawmakers tend to follow the dictates of the central government, Mr. Onaga stood out as a singularly independent politician.
Born into a conservative political family and previously a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, he became a fierce critic of the base relocation and of the American military presence on Okinawa generally. He traveled to Washington several times to speak with members of Congress about the island prefecture’s tangled relationship with the United States and the Japanese government.
In remarks on Wednesday after Mr. Onaga’s death, Yoshihide Suga, Mr. Abe’s chief cabinet secretary, acknowledged that Mr. Onaga’s views on the American bases “often conflicted with that of the government.”
“We will accept Mr. Onaga’s passion for Okinawa,” Mr. Suga said, “and we will try to do in a palpable manner everything possible” for it.
For years, residents had protested the noise, accidents and sometimes brutal violence, including murder and rape, associated with the American military presence on the island. Nearly half of the roughly 50,000 American troops in Japan are stationed on Okinawa.
Mr. Onaga had said that he understood the anger of Okinawans, many of whom also resented what they believed was Japan’s original betrayal of the island in 1879, when the country annexed the archipelago.
