Okinawa urizun noame (2015) - full transcript



In May 1853,

a United States Navy fleet led by Commodore Matthew Perry

entered the Port of Naha in the Kingdom of Ryukyu.

Perry was en route to Japan

where his famous black ships would force the country

to open up to the West.

Overriding the protests of the Ryukyu government,

he came ashore and demanded the right

to establish an American outpost.

Already at this early date



Perry had conceived a plan to occupy the Ryukyu Kingdom,

now known as Okinawa, as a toehold

for American maritime operations in East Asia.

Ninety-two years later in 1945,

after the longest and bloodiest battle

of the Pacific War,

the American military claimed Okinawa.

Perry's vision of occupying the island

had finally become a reality.



And now, a further 70 years later...

Okinawa today.

American bases still occupy 18 percent of Okinawa,

including much of the flat land



of this rugged coral island

where 1.4 million people live.

Okinawa exists as an island of bases

treated with discrimination by both the Japanese

and American governments.

The most contentious of the 32 American bases

is the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station,

located here in a densely populated city,

and known as the most dangerous base in the world.

In 2004, August 13th,

a CH-53D Marine Corps helicopter

crashed into this building, the administration building,

fell to the ground and burned.

No one was surprised by that.

People were, of course, shocked and terrified

but everybody knew that with a base like that

in a crowded city like this,

there would be an accident.

What was extremely remarkable about it

was what happened after that.

Uh, Marines came streaming over the fence

as if they were prepared to do so.

Uh, then they occupied this campus.

No, no, no.

Out, out.

- Out, no. -Bye.

And here are these kids, 18, 19 years old

in Marine uniforms shouting orders

at their elders, the newsmen,

as if they had the authority

to come into this foreign country

and order the people

to do this, that, or the other thing.

I'm not sure if they would do the same kind of thing

in mainland Japan, or in Germany,

or in Italy, or in Great Britain.

I rather doubt it.

Maybe in Korea.

But certainly in Okinawa.

In 1997, the U.S. and Japan

agreed to close the dangerous Futenma base

and build a replacement base in a less populated area

here in the north.

After a delay of nearly 20 years

due to strong local opposition to the new base,

preparations for construction began in earnest in 2014.

Meanwhile, the existing base in Futenma remains open,

and local residents engage in a symbolic protest,

attaching ribbons and tape to the fence around the base.





The Battle of Okinawa Memorial

at the southern end of the island

stands in witness to the ferocity of the combat

that took place over heavily populated terrain.

Some 240,000 of those who died during the battle

have their names inscribed at the Cornerstone of Peace.

150,000 Okinawans,

one-quarter of the island's population were killed

along with 77,000 Japanese

and 14,000 American soldiers.

The legacy of this tragic warfare

is ever-present in the collective memory of Okinawa.



Headquarters of United States Admiral of the Fleet

Chester Nimitz on the island of Guam.



Under his five-star flag,

Admiral Nimitz orders the opening

of another smashing Pacific offensive,

this time against the Ryukyu Islands

stretching in a long chain directly southwest of Japan.

First, combined forces attack the Kerama Retto Group

off the Ryukyus.

Then the large island of Okinawa,

great Japanese sea and air base.

The mighty Fifth Fleet puts to sea.



I never knew where Okinawa was,

just like when World War II broke out,

I didn't know where Pearl Harbor was either.

So it was a learning experience.

We--on board the ship, they told us about the island.

They told us there would be

about 100,000 Japanese troops there.

They told us there would be

a very poisonous snake, the habu.

All we were really told

was to expect heavy opposition

and more artillery and mortars,

and a stronger Japanese force.

They told us our landing would be

April 1st on Okinawa.

We had no idea where Okinawa was

but they brought out some maps.

Our mindset was, basically, this was our job,

the Japanese had to be defeated.

We knew there'd be a lot of casualties,

and we were kind of conditioned to 'em.



On April 1st, 1945, the American invasion

of the main island of Okinawa began.

550,000 U.S. troops were to wage a battle

that lasted for 12 weeks.



Coming ashore on the beaches of Yomitan,

the main American force headed south

toward the Japanese headquarters bastion in Shuri.

After two months of bitter fighting, Shuri was occupied.



The battlefront moved south

in pursuit of the retreating Japanese

until organized resistance

came to an end at Mabuni on June 23rd.

I landed on April 1st as--in reserve.

We had to transfer, there was a natural coral reef

that ran across the beach area,

so we transferred from landing craft

to the Ducks, which are tracked vehicles,

and that took us ashore.

And we actually dug in

about 500 yards off the beach.

We were digging in...

...in this area and there was a hill

maybe that went up behind us,

50 yards behind us,

and I noticed some Okinawans.

There was a cave up near the top.

Came out...

...and looked at us...

...and said something among themselves

and then disappeared back in the cave,

and then they did that about three times in total.

So maybe rather foolishly, I thought afterwards,

I took my .45-caliber pistol

and went up there.

And they were in the cave, I couldn't see 'em.

And I yelled, I think it was...

You know what that means?

"Come out."

And about the fourth time,

some older lady sticks her head out.

I kind of do like this.

She goes back in, brings out seven civilians.

Fortunately, there were no Japanese soldiers there.

And there was, oh,

three, four old men,

couple older ladies,

and maybe three children.

What the man did, he must have did it 20 times.

He pointed at my pistol

then he pointed to his head.

And I said, "I'm not gonna shoot you,"

and he kept doing that,

he wanted me to shoot him in the head.

Well, I didn't shoot him in the head.

But that really stuck in me.

He was so indoctrinated

that I'm convinced he wanted to be shot in the head.

Kondo Hajime is a former Japanese soldier

who has testified for many years

on the sexual violence and atrocities

committed by the Japanese Army in China.

His unit was transferred from Shaanxi Province

in Central China to Okinawa in August 1944.

Kondo visits Okinawa every year

to commemorate his fellow soldiers and civilians

who died during the Battle of Okinawa.



96th Division had about 1,200 battle casualties

fighting for Kakazu Ridge and Kakazu West.

And...

And it was...

And we still couldn't, and the Japanese

must have had 2,000 casualties.

We got some replacements.

One day, I think we got 20 in the morning

and 20 in the afternoon

went right in the front line and...

I guess they were needed.

They were good replacements.

But most of them became casualties.



We went back into combat.

We relieved the 7th Infantry Division

that was on the eastern side of the island.

I guess they had been in combat since April 1st

and it was their turn to get a rest.

Well, we went through there and you could see

some of the fellas, looking into their eyes,

they had that, I recall, that 1,000-mile look.

But some of 'em said, "Good luck, good luck."

I know, they knew what we were up against

because on the next day, on May the 11th,

when we were asked to attack we lost half our platoon...

...within minutes.

We crossed over a hill

and there was a Japanese machine gun on the other side

that opened up and just wiped us out.





Tenaciously defended, the Japanese

headquarters bastion at Shuri Castle was destroyed,

and the capital city of Naha reduced to rubble

before they fell at the end of May.



26,000 American troops suffered a trauma

that was referred to as "battle fatigue"

during the intense combat.

Men who'd been in combat for months,

finally, it became too much.

And had I stayed longer,

it may have happened to me

because I had received wounds on April 21st

and I was wounded again May the 12th,

and that was my last day of combat, May 12th.

And that battle went on until late June of 1945.

So I wasn't a good soldier but I was a darn lucky one.

Really.

So the battle is still going, and it...

The noise of it had moved south

when the Japanese retreated

to the southern end of the island.

I went up back on Dick Hill one day.

I went to where our mortar was set up and there's the...

...the cases for 'em still laying there

soaking wet and mud,

and dead Japanese bodies decaying, flies.

I ended up...

...stepping...

...on a Japanese soldier

that had been kind of buried,

and his chest caved in and I got the muck on my boot.

And it stunk.

And I went over to a shell hall

and washed my boot off,

and called it quits to snooping around.

And...

I saw the post-battle immediate battlefield

and it was a total mess.





Over the years you must have thought a lot about Okinawa.

- Did you... -Yes.

Did you tell stories about Okinawa after you got back?

Not at first, not at first, no.

Not at first, not at all.

Had nobody to talk to.

And some of the things that I would talk about

were somewhat unbelievable.

Who would believe that we did

some of the things that we did?

Who would believe, for instance,

I don't know if it was the third night

we were in on the front lines

where we actually killed

a man and a woman,

elderly person, a younger woman with a baby.

They were traveling around at night.

Even though flyers had been sent out to the--

leaflets were dropped on the island,

"Don't move around at night."

Our own soldiers were told, "Don't move around at night."

Nobody ever talked about this episode with the baby.

How did I know about it?

Okay, old Laz always being the perfect soldier

was assigned the burial detail.

And I helped bury that baby.

By the time we got to them,

the rigor mortis had already began to set in.

It's a sickening sight.

And it never leaves you, believe me, John,

it never leaves you.

Yeah, I bet.

After the fall of Shuri,

30,000 Japanese soldiers and 100,000 Okinawan civilians

fled to the southern end of the island.

Some 60,000 Okinawans lost their lives

in the last month of the conflict,

after the outcome of the battle was already decided.

Ota Masahide, assigned to support the top officers

of the Japanese Army,

barely survived the battle here in Mabuni.





As early as 1942,

the U.S. made plans to establish a military government

on Okinawa.

During the very first days of the battle,

American forces began to detain civilians.

By the end of the fighting in June 1945,

more than 300,000 civilians

were moved to 12 detention camps on the island.



This was the beginning of the U.S. military occupation

that would last 27 years

until Okinawa was returned to Japan in 1972.



From the collection centers,

the civil population was evacuated to villages

where they would not hinder our military movement.

Here at morning muster,

all able-bodied men reported

to the Civil Affairs officer in charge

for daily instructions and assignments.



They were organized into groups

with leaders appointed from among themselves,

and under our supervision, they help to govern themselves.

They were not being pampered,

but in return for a little dignity,

they relieved us of many of the minor problems

of nursemaiding over 300,000 civilians.

Anyway, it was the children of Okinawa that mattered most,

and our Civil Affairs sections realized

that candy and kind words, medicine and education

and recreation would make them more helpful

and useful neighbors to a naval base

than their broken-spirited parents.

These children were an investment

in the future security of an American outpost.



A few weeks after these scenes were shot,

the village portrayed as a model of democratic government

was uprooted.



On Okinawa, the village of Shimobaru

gives way to United States Army airfield,

which must be built in its place.

Soldiers escort native citizens of the village

to their new homes.

These enemy nationals on the conquered island

are fairly treated by American Army authority.



Immediately after landing on Okinawa,

the American military began constructing airfields.

By the end of 1945,

ten air bases had been completed throughout Okinawa.

After the war, Okinawa and its land were treated

as the spoils of war

and transformed into an American bastion in East Asia.

The island was used as a primary staging ground

for U.S. wars fought in Korea and Vietnam.

Still today, U.S. military bases occupy 18 percent

of the main island of Okinawa.

It is one of the largest concentrations of bases

within the vast network of 1,000 American bases

that straddles the globe.

The consciousness of the U.S. military

as a conquering army is reflected in the fact

that bases such as Camps Kinzer,

Foster, Hansen, and Schwab

carry the names of soldiers who died

during the Battle of Okinawa

and were awarded the Medal of Honor

for their valor.

Day after day, plane after plane,

the B-29s roared up from their Okinawan bases.

Out over the Yellow Sea,

a thousand miles to missions over North Korea

to blast strongholds held by the communist enemy.

The bombers fought their war

from that important little island, Okinawa.

For in this area of the world,

where totalitarian aggression is a constant threat,

islands of freedom, like Okinawa,

must be kept inviolate,

or as President Eisenhower has stated,

"Okinawa island is now regarded

as a major defense bastion in the Far East,

officially known to the public

as America's Keystone of the Pacific."



There was a main bulletin board,

and towards the end of the school time,

you started going up there

and looking for your next duty station.

And all you'd do is you'd look down for your name,

and then you'd look across to see the "V" for "Vietnam,"

and you just didn't wanna see the "V" for "Vietnam."

I went up there and I went down, I saw "Okinawa,"

and this is the truth.

I walked away from there, and there was a--

and this jingle came into my head.

I can't remember what the-- it was from a commercial,

a TV commercial, but I was going:

♪ Okinawa's really great ♪

♪ Okinawa, just can't wait ♪

♪ Hooray for Okinawa! ♪

So there we were, so we're happy to be on Okinawa,

and there was a lot of great stuff.

I mean, I was a drinking man at the time.

I drank beer and lots of different mixed drinks and all,

and you had the bar districts.

You could buy beer at the PX cheap,

and then alcohol-- I mean, hard liquor--

you had to be 21 for the hard liquor.

And you'd just--you'd get drunk with your friends

and swap a lot of stories.

A lot of guys, once they got over there, you know,

it's like they can get as drunk as they want,

they can go as crazy as they want.

They walk out of the bar, you know,

their aunt, their uncle,

their grandmother is not gonna drive by

and see them drunk out of their mind over there,

so they just--some guys just--

they just got crazy.

Uh, in our unit, the Armed Forces police unit,

was to patrol--town patrol in both Naminoue and Koza.

There was some just off base--

Kitamae, I think, was just off base by Zukeran

off of Futenma.

Just to patrol the streets, the bar areas,

the hotel areas sort of to keep order.

There was a lot of drinking, it was a bar town.

I honestly looked at it similar to the Wild West saloons

with the bar girls and, you know,

I learned what bar girls were, you know,

they were also prostitutes.

There were definitely two different universes.

I paid no attention to the other universe

when I was in the military over there.

I wasn't quite sure even about the fact

that Okinawa was still occupied.

I didn't really come to that realization

until several months after being there

that this is sort of a U.S. property.

I honestly don't recall it being mentioned at all

during any orientation or--

it was just something I picked up on,

this term, "occupation," I--

When President Dwight Eisenhower

visited U.S.-occupied Okinawa in 1960,

he was met with concerted popular protests.

Since the mid-1950s, a movement demanding

that the U.S. return control of the island to Japan

had gained wide-spread support

among the Okinawan people.



In December 1970,

in the base town of Koza

outside of Kadena Air Force Base,

Okinawan discontent over the continuing American occupation

exploded in what is known as the Koza Riot.

There was a minor traffic accident one night.

We were on patrol.

An MP--a military tow truck had come

to take the car, and the locals didn't want it taken away,

and they were getting a little hostile about that,

and the CPs intervened and said

that they would take care of it, but at this point,

the crowd had really surged around our car,

then they started to rock the car back and forth.

You know, I'm trying to edge it forward.

I'm not gonna, you know,

I wasn't gonna plow through anybody.

So I just started kinda inching it forward

to try to get outta there.

They start rocking the car,

so I called in an emergency,

what we referred to as a 10-2.

A 10-2 in MP vernacular means there's an MP in trouble,

we need help.

And everything sort of hit the fan at that point.

They just--the MPs all coming down Maromi Street,

coming up from Koza, coming up from Naminoue.

Just--and this was late at night already.

This was like 1:00 at night.

From my understanding, people had--

locals had been out drinking.

They were already pissed off at the Gl's.

And here's the MPs, and they were just--

But at that time, it had gotten pretty out of hand.

Any yellow-plated USARIS vehicle,

United States Army of Ryukyu Islands vehicle,

was open for attack

and nobody had blocked the streets off,

cars--traffic was still coming down.

So at that point, they were grabbing USARIS vehicles,

turning them over and started to set them on fire.



The traditional eisa dance,

performed by the Sonda neighborhood youth group.

Before the Battle of Okinawa, the residents of Sonda

lived in the village of Nishizato,

but their land was seized for base construction.



Nishizato disappeared

within the confines of Kadena Air Base.



Near the beach at Yomitan,

just 600 meters from where

the U.S. invasion forces first landed,

in a natural cavern called Chibichiri-Gama,

a large group of Okinawan civilians

committed group suicide in April 1945.

However, no one talked about this incident

for 38 years after the war ended.

Group suicides famously took place

in numerous places during the Battle of Okinawa,

but when the incident came to light in 1983,

Chibana Shoichi was stunned to learn

that this tragedy had been endured

by his close neighbors.

An exhibition was held in Tokyo detailing the history

of the Japanese army comfort stations in wartime Okinawa

and the postwar sexual violence committed

by U.S. military personnel on the island.



On September 3rd, 1955,

six-year-old Nagayama Yumiko was abducted

by an American solider in the city of Ishikawa,

then raped and murdered.

Her corpse was found the next day

at a garbage dump on Kadena Air Base.

When the Yumiko-Chan incident took place,

Tamaki Yoko was an elementary school student

in the same city of Ishikawa.

The Foreigners Cemetery near the harbor in Naha.

This film was shot in 1945 after the American military

seized Naha during the Battle of Okinawa.

Among the graves are those of men who were stationed here

while the Perry Expedition was based in Ryukyu.

This is the grave of William Board,

a sailor who died in 1854.

One day, Board got drunk in Naha and entered a private home

where he attempted to rape a woman.

When the woman screamed, Board ran away,

and chased by a mob, fell into the harbor and drowned.

Board was part of the garrison that remained behind

while Perry was away from Ryukyu.

The behavior of some American troops

has not changed in 160 years.

A lot of young people, when they are sent abroad

by the U.S. military, may not have been much

out of their hometowns, and the question is,

what are they told, and retold,

and retold about what

their relationship is to the local people?

Are they told, for instance, that,

"All the local people welcome you.

You are their protectors.

They are so happy and grateful,

so appreciative for you coming to protect them."

And if that's the message,

you can misread a smile,

and you can certainly misread a smile from a woman

who's been hired to serve drinks in a bar,

or a woman who is working in a massage parlor.

The base commander explained things

about Okinawa that we ought to know.

"There are a lot of communists here, beware,"

and this, that, and the other thing.

"Try not to upset the people," and then he said,

"On Okinawa, the number

of prostitutes is approximately the same

as the number of U.S. military.

There's just about one for each of you."

And no law had been passed against prostitution,

so it was legal.

So it was just something that one could do.

And virtually everybody.

Uh, with some exceptions,

virtually everybody

availed themselves of that service,

and that's part of what made Okinawa exotic

in the Marine Corps imagination.

But you've just learned that quote, "Asian women

are compliant," that they are very, um,

if not passive, at least very friendly,

and maybe you've even heard the word obedient.

But you combine homegrown American racism

about Asian women

with liquor, with being on leave,

with being guys altogether, with not having commanders

who push really hard on what you do off base,

and you put a lot of young women at risk.

It seemed to always be,

it seemed to always be a rape.

It just didn't seem to--they just didn't seem to matter.

Whether--there was a 12-year-old girl

I believe killed when I was there

just outside the MCAS Futenma Air Base.

And, uh, I remember the GI being put on trial,

but I don't think he served any time in a local pri--

you know, in a local prison.

Another MP I know investigated

a hotel girl that had been raped

and violently murdered actually.

On September 4th, 1995,

in the town of Kin, three American servicemen

attached to the Camp Hansen Marine Base

abducted and raped a 12-year-old girl.

The incident sparked massive demonstrations

of anti-base sentiment aimed at both the American bases

and the Japanese government.

The three men who perpetrated the rape

were aged 20 to 22,

and all had grown up in the Deep South

in Georgia and Texas.

All three enlisted soon after graduating high school,

and were sent to Okinawa.

The ringleader, Seaman Marcus Gill,

returned to the United States after serving seven years

in Japanese prison.

He refused our requests for an interview.

Marine Kendrick Ledet served six and a half years,

then settled outside of Atlanta where he found work

at this pizza parlor and tried to make a new start.

But in 2006, he raped and murdered a college coed

who also worked at the pizza parlor.

He then committed suicide in her apartment in this townhouse.

The third man, Marine Rodrico Harp,

agreed to be interviewed in December 2012.

In the nine years since he returned to the U.S.,

Harp had struggled to find steady work and a stable life.

He was unemployed and living in Griffin, Georgia,

the town he grew up in.

My training was--my MO

was Motor T transportation.

Driving, driving heavy-duty trucks,

and I got the hang of that, you know,

I loved driving the trucks and everything.

I worked three days out of the week,

then mostly on the weekend, Saturday, Sunday.

Driving, that's about it.

But mostly, we had free time over there more.

Gill were renting a car, you know,

for them to travel around base in.

So I said, "All right, I'll ride with y'all."

So we went, you know, went back to,

or went clubbing, we just rolled around the barracks

and everything, and that's, that's when Gill,

you know, started talking about, you know, doing something,

you know, committing a crime or whatever, whatnot.

All that came about after that,

that was the end of--

That night, that was the worst night of my,

you know, of my memory.

You know, me being there.

So he didn't say, "Let's go find a girl,

and, you know, have some fun."

He said, "Let's go rape one."

Yes, "Let's go rape a girl."

Did he say why?

He said this was the last,

it was his last tour overseas,

and he was going back to the United States.

Yeah, it was like he do it all the time or something.

That's what he was saying.

I figured this wasn't Gill's first time doing that.

Yeah.

It was still daylight, so it had to be about four,

and that's when all this came up.

And that's when we was at the,

he was like picking out girls.

"How about that one right there?"

And, "How about that one?"

So me and Ledet went on in the place, and he stayed out,

you know, just sweating girls, or whatever, whatnot.

He said, "Put something over her mouth."

So I put tape on her mouth, and then,

at the time where I went, you know, Gill said

he knew a place or somewhere he can go,

so he took her to a place, and then he--

He said, "She keep looking at me."

So that's when Ledet, you know, tore a piece

of tape off and covered her eyes up with the tape.

'Cause he said she just kept looking at him.

And so...

You know, I, I still think about it, and...

You know, I was in my room in my cell,

I wish I could just tell her I was sorry, you know?

You know...

It changed my life the same it changed hers,

I know hers even worse, you know,

'cause she gotta go through this.

You know, thinking about it, and I think about it every day.

None of this was my intention of--I mean, committing a crime,

you know, thinking about doing something like that,

because, like, I don't have to do nothin' like that.

And I don't know what came over me that possessed me

to still go through with this, you know?

I have it in me where I did something that...

I know I shouldn't have done, you know?

I go to church,

and I ask for forgiveness, but really,

why should I ask for forgiveness?

'Cause I'm still going to hell, that's the way I feel.

I just think about it, I don't know.

At the Okinawan bases, in recent years,

the military has discouraged soldiers

from drinking off base,

and the incidents of rape in base towns has fallen.

However, as is true throughout the U.S. military,

it has come to light that sexual violence between service people

inside the bases is widespread.

The Associated Press obtained military records

of 270 sexual assault complaints

filed at bases in Okinawa

over a period of eight years.

When unreported cases are included, it is estimated

that more than 200 cases of sexual violence

actually occurred during each of those years.

The danger, pollution, and crime associated with the bases

has generated strong opposition, but there is a vocal minority

in Okinawa that supports the U.S. presence.

We just like to make the same statement they make.

So they're gonna stay and they're gonna spend the time

putting it on to make a statement, and we're gonna show

'em that we're gonna come out and make the same statement

-by taking it right back down. -What statement is that?

You know, I'm not sure that there's really a good statement.

You know, just showing that they're there,

kinda marking the territory.

I drive by this back gate all the time, and you see

all these protestors out there telling you to go home,

you're not needed; you feel unappreciated.

But when I came out here today and like, to see

so many Okinawans come out to help clean our gate,

it means a lot, and I would've loved to see more Marines

come out here to see this, to show that Okinawa

really does care and want us here.

We man a lot of it, we're one of the busiest airports

out here for military, and I think that it's important

that we're here, and we're doing the work that we're doing.

You know, not only to support the humanitarian work,

but training for, you know, to protect our country,

which is what we're here for anyway, so--

Who are you protecting the country from?

Um, you know, out here we are a force in readiness.

So if something was to happen out here, within 24 hours

we could be there taking care of our country, making sure

that it's not gonna get all the way back to our homeland.

So, you know, it's good to be

stationed all over the world like we are.

That force in readiness, there ready to fight

when it's gonna happen, so--

- Thank you very much. -Absolutely.

- Have a good day. -You too.

Here at Henoko at the site of the planned

Futenma replacement base in the waters off Camp Schwab,

the standoff continues after nearly two decades.

At stake is whether the U.S. military will reduce

its presence in Okinawa or remain entrenched there

for many years to come.

Opponents of the new base include

the current governor of Okinawa,

the mayor of the city that includes Henoko,

and virtually all elected officials.

A full 80 percent of the Okinawan population

wants the Marine base removed from the island entirely,

but the U.S. and Japanese governments have insisted

on the plan to build the new base.

While the sit-in continues on land,

others take to the sea to defend this pristine bay,

which is a treasure house of natural life and beauty.

Four hundred types of coral form the healthiest

coral reef ecosystem in the Pacific,

and the bay is home to 1,000 species of fish,

as well as the feeding ground for the endangered dugong,

a relative of the manatee.

Viewing the construction site from the sea,

it is immediately apparent

how massive a base is contemplated.

Some 35 million tons of earth are to be dumped in the bay

to construct two runways, each over a mile in length,

and a naval port rising ten meters above the sea.

One of the many international observers to raise objections

to the base construction plan is Morton Halperin,

the American diplomat who negotiated Okinawa's return

to Japan in the late 1960s.

After visiting the proposed base site, Halperin joined

former governor Ota at a symposium in Naha

to discuss Okinawa's future.

When I first started working on Okinawa,

Okinawa was run by the American military

as if the whole island

was an American military base.

And the million or so Okinawans who lived

on the island were treated

as foreigners who happened to live

on an American military base.

So from my perspective,

the change is extraordinary.

Okinawa is no longer

an American military base.

For the American military,

they still don't believe that reversion took place.

The literal terms of the agreement were carried out.

That had extraordinary importance, uh,

for life on Okinawa,

and the freedom of Okinawan people,

and their ability to be part of Japan.

But it left in place a base structure

which no sovereign government would have ever permitted

any other country to build on their territory.

Why the hell man can't get smart enough

to give up war and warfare

as a solution to his problems,

it just boggles my mind.

And I asked that question of, uh...

...down in Washington, D.C., at the Veterans Conference.

Why can't man--but it was explained to me

that it is inherent

in the human nature

to go to war.

Isn't that a shame?

And if you're a pacifist,

some people think you're a kook.

Isn't that true?