TOKYO — A Japanese courtroom on Wednesday ordered the governor of Okinawa to approve the central authorities’s modified plan for landfill work on the deliberate relocation website of a key U.S. navy base on the southern island regardless of persistent opposition and protests by residents.
The choice will transfer ahead the suspended building at a time Okinawa’s strategic significance is seen more and more necessary for the Japan-U.S. navy alliance within the face of rising tensions with China as Japan quickly seeks to buildup its navy within the southwestern area.
The ruling by the Fukuoka Excessive Court docket Naha department permits the Land and Transport Ministry to order the modification work designed to bolster extraordinarily smooth floor on the designated relocation website for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, overriding Gov. Denny Tamaki’s disapproval. The ruling ordered Tamaki to situation the approval inside three working days.
If accomplished, the brand new website will serve a key Marine Corps facility for the area and will likely be additionally dwelling to MV-22 Ospreys which can be presently deployed at Futenma.
Tamaki can nonetheless attraction to the Supreme Court docket, however the native authorities at this level has no energy to cease the work except the highest courtroom overturns the choice.
Okinawa and the central authorities have lengthy tussled over the relocation of the Futenma base.
The Japanese and U.S. governments initially agreed in 1996 to shut the Futenma air station a yr after the rape of a schoolgirl by three U.S. navy personnel led to an enormous anti-base motion. However persistent protests and lawsuits between Okinawa and Tokyo have held up the plan for almost 30 years.
Japan’s central authorities started the reclamation work off Henoko Bay on the japanese coast of Okinawa in 2018 to pave the best way for the relocation of the Futenma base from its crowded neighborhood on the island.
The central authorities later came upon that enormous areas of the designated reclamation website are on smooth floor, which some specialists described “as smooth as mayonnaise,” and submitted a revision to the unique plan with further land enchancment. However Okinawa’s prefectural authorities rejected the revision plan and suspended the reclamation work.
The bottom enchancment plan requires tens of 1000’s of pillars and big quantities of soil, which opponents say would harm the atmosphere.
The Supreme Court docket in September turned down Okinawa’s attraction in one other lawsuit that ordered the prefecture to withdraw its rejection of the modified landfill plan.
Tamaki has stated it was unjust that the need of the residents is crushed by the central authorities.
Tamaki has known as for a major discount of the U.S. militar y on the island, which is dwelling to greater than half of fifty,000 American troops based mostly in Japan underneath the bilateral safety pact. Tamaki additionally has demanded the instant closure of Futenma base and the scrapping of the bottom building at Henoko. Okinawa accounts for simply 0.6% of Japanese land.
Tokyo and Washington say the relocation inside Okinawa, as a substitute of transferring it elsewhere as demanded by many Okinawans, is the one answer.
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