Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-sqlfs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-09T04:35:34.956Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Marines Go Home: Anti-Base Activism in Okinawa, Japan and Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Philip Seaton  and
Kageyama Asako
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The US military's Kooni Firing Range in the South Korean village of Maehyang-ri was closed in 2005, following a concerted effort by anti-base activists. Maehyang-ri was one of three anti-base struggles featured in the documentary film Marines Go Home: Henoko, Maehyang-ri, Yausubetsu (official website here, trailer here) directed by Hokkaido-based independent filmmaker Fujimoto Yukihisa. In this article, journalist and filmmaker Kageyama Asako (narrator and co-producer of Marines Go Home) discusses the lessons from Maehyang-ri in the context of the Futenma relocation debate that is at the heart of current US-Japan conflict.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 14 , April 2010 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2010

References

Notes

1 The article has been compiled through correspondence between Kageyama Asako and Philip Seaton. We are grateful to Mark Selden for his helpful comments.

2 See Tanaka Nobumasa, ‘Defending the Peace Constitution in the Midst of the SDF Training Area’.

3 “[Live-fire] training has been conducted on mainland Japan since the governments of Japan and the United States formally agreed to cease the firing of artillery on Okinawa in 1996. Fire maneuver areas were chosen on the mainland for artillery training exercises at Hijudai, East and North Fuji, Ojojihara and Yausubetsu. The signed agreement requires the Japanese government to fund all additional expenses not incurred when firing on Okinawa, such as transportation of personnel, equipment and barracks facilities.” Leatherneck, ‘3/12 Marines rain steel at Yausubetsu’.

4 For a detailed history see Gavan McCormack and Matsumoto Tsuyoshi, ‘Okinawa Says “No” To US-Japan Base Plan’ and Gavan McCormack, ‘The Travails of a Client State: An Okinawan Angle on the 50th Anniversary of the US-Japan Security Treaty’. For updates on the anti-base struggles and US-Japan negotiations over the closure of the Futenma Base and the construction of a new base see numerous entries at the Peace Philosophy Centre.

5 Gavan McCormack, ‘The Battle of Okinawa 2009: Obama vs Hatoyama’.

6 Allen Nelson's story is described in Philip Seaton, ‘Vietnam and Iraq in Japan: Japanese and American Grassroots Peace Activism’.

7 For more on the protests, see Kikuno Yumiko, ‘Henoko, Okinawa: Inside the Sit In’. See also the 2008 version of the documentary film Marines Go Home.

8 See Urashima Etsuko, ‘The Nago Mayoral Election and Okinawa's Search for a Way Beyond Bases and Dependence’; The Japan Times, ‘Base moderate elected Nago mayor’, 23 January 2006.

9 See Urashima Etsuko and Gavan McCormack, ‘Electing a Town Mayor in Okinawa: Report from the Nago Trenches’.

10 Gavan McCormack and Matsumoto Tsuyoshi, ‘Okinawa Says “No” To US-Japan Base Plan’.

11 The Japan Times, ‘No head-start base talks with U.S.‘, 25 February 2010.

12 This data accessed on 24 March 2010 from U.S. Forces Japan.

13 Philip Seaton, ‘Vietnam and Iraq in Japan’, The Asia-Pacific Journal.

14 Saito Mitsumasa, ‘Mission Impossible? Misawa as the Forward Staging Area for the Secret US-Japan Nuclear Deal and the Bombing of Iraq’. On secret pacts, see The Japan Times, ‘Secret Pacts Existed; denials “dishonest”‘, 10 March 2010.

15 South Korean Defense Analysis Official, interviewed by Andrew Yeo, ‘Local Dynamics and Framing in Korean Anti-Base Movements’, Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies 2006 21 (2): 34-60, page 54.

16 For more on the lawsuit see Miyume Tanji, ‘U.S. Court Rules in the “Okinawa Dugong” Case: Implications for U.S. Military Bases Overseas’, Critical Asian Studies 40:3 (2008), 475-487.

17 See Gavan McCormack, ‘The Battle of Okinawa 2009‘, The Asia-Pacific Journal.

18 For more on Pyeongtaek, see Andrew Yeo, ‘Local Dynamics’, Kasarinlan.