PNPO

A Report from the Japanese New Left

8 to's return: u day of mourning AMPO 70, part 2: The Deal 2 From the Sato-Nixon Joint Massive Armed Uprisings Mark Communique 8 Sato's Departure for U.S 3 14,202 Students Arrested 9 AMPO Interviews Yoshikawa 4 Self-Defense Forces 10 Crisis in the Courts 5 Deportation of Political Student Murdered by Riot Police...6 "Undesirables" 10 AMPO 70 Part 2 : THE DEAL The signing of the Nixon-Sato joint statement in pointed out that Japan lacked its own foreign ministry. Washington on November 21 puts the finishing touches Yet the Yoshida strategy was not to rely on American on the imperialist camp's strategic reorganization of military power indefinitely. Despite* the constitu­ the Pacific by restoring Japan to the status of a full- tional prohibition against rearming, using the pretext fledged imperialist power. The mass media and of the Korean War, the Japanese government began to government propaganda in Washington and Tokyo, insist­ train its own military force. Until recently, the ing that the basic issue is the "return of Okinawa to Japanese Self-Defense Forces were.considered supple­ Japan," have hailed Washington's vague, condition- mentary to American military forces in Japan and ridden promise to return Okinawa to Japanese sovereign­ neighboring Asia. The latter was the mainstay of the ty in 1972 as a triumph of Japanese statesmanship and imperialist police force responsible for preserving the American largesse. Yet analysis of the joint state­ economic and political framework of capitalism and ment confirms that its major preoccupation is not the repressing revolution throughout Asia. The postwar return of Okinawa but creation of the political and Japanese people, rightwing critics frequently observed, military context for joint Japanese-American domination lacking any higher national objective, concentrated on of Asia. The joint statement, while affirming the becoming "rich and comfortable." This view, exagge­ automatic extension of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty rated to be sure, nevertheless is suggestive of an (Ampo) beyond June 1970, actually is tantamount to the important facet of postwar Japan. In Asian eyes, a signing of a new treaty. Pakistani leader remarked, Japan is an "economic The return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty with its animal" whose leader (former Premier Ikeda) was a • counterrevolutionary strategic position preserved and salesman of transistor radios and who had no politics. indeed strengthened is the touchstone for the new Nixon- From the point of view of American congressmen, Japan Sato strategy spearheaded against Asian revolution. has been a "free rider," reaping the rewards of America's Unfortunately, that mode of "returning Okinawa to Japan Asian wars while raking in the profits from lucrative directly violates the wishes of the Okinawan people who military contracts. In the words of a prominent have suffered for twenty-four years under American Japanese business leader, Japan remains a "semi-state," military rule. Significantly, on November 13, four economically powerful yet dependent on the United States days before Sato's departure for Washington, the for its police, military forces and diplomacy. Okinawan people, whom Sato intended to ingratiate, rose (Kiyoshi Sakurada, director of the Employers' Associa­ in powerful, determined protest against the Prime tion) Each of these observers, in his own way, points Minister's deal over Okinawa. They saw through Sato's to a basic element of postwar Japanese capitalism. design to turn Okinawa from a U.S. strategic base Japan's postwar development has occurred within a into a U.S.-Japan joint military base, thereby binding framework of American military domination of Japan and the Okinawan people even more tightly to the chariot Asia predicated above all on the full military control of militarism. of Okinawa as the "keystone of the Pacific." To understand the full significance of the strategic turn taken with Okinawa as the fulcrum, we must examine, if briefly, the meaning of Sato's statement on the AMPO I960 occasion of the Prime Minister's first visit to Okinawa in 1965. He said then that "Japan's postwar period The Sato-Nixon accord providing for the return of will not end until Okinawa is returned." On the one Okinawa and joint Japanese-American military activity hand, Sato sought to appease the Okinawan people who throughout Asia marks the end of Japan's postwar era had chafed under American colonial rule while demanding of dependence on the United States. It was the post­ their rights as Japanese citizens. On the other hand, war mode of existence that Sato determined to end when Sato was driven by a personal sense of mission to he took the initiative of "solving" the issue of inaugurate a new stage in the postwar development of Okinawa. To understand the Sato policy it is reveal­ imperialist Japan. ing to consider the Japanese government's approach to the Okinawa problem 10 years ago before the i960 Ampo was signed. In the course of negotiating the i960 Ampo Treaty, then Foreign Minister Fujiyama suggested THE "ECONOMIC ANIMAL" JAPAN that Okinawa's return to Japan would be accelerated by treaty provisions Including Okinawa within the Japan- For Japan's ruling elite, the term "postwar period" U.S. defense perimeter. But suddenly, as the signing Implies a specific stage of development in which a of the I960 treaty approached, all reference to weak Japan was forced to depend on American military Okinawa disappeared. It was later reported that the and political power. Shlgeru Yoshida, who has been United States had posed three conditions for the return called the Adenauer of Japan as Prime Minister during of Okinawa: and after the American Occupation, was the principal Japanese architect of the course of development for 1. That Japan assume primary responsibility for her the defeated and devastated Japanese Empire. The own defense; diplomatic expression of this policy of reliance on 2. That Japan assume primary responsibility for the and subordination to American power was the San security of the Far East north of the Philippines; Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951 which surrendered 3. That Japan drastically increase its economic aid Okinawa indefinitely for exclusive use by U.S. military to Asian countries. forces. The first Security Treaty with the United In the explosive political context of I960, to have States, signed simultaneously, provided for extensive accepted such conditions would have brought an uncon­ U.S. bases and the stationing of troops throughout trollable upsurge of public opposition. Aware of this, mainland Japan. While accepting the framework of the Klshi Cabinet, after trying to broach the issue of American military power, the emphasis of the Yoshida Okinawa, suddenly dropped it like a hot potato. strategy was on economic development. In the mean­ The significance of this episode lies in the fact while, Japanese diplomacy followed the lead of the that ten years later, the Sato government, determined America State Department so blindly that observers often to secure Okinawa and to expand Japan's military role (Continued on page 7) PNPO MASSIVE ARMED UPRISINGS MARK SATO'S DEPARTURE FOR U.S. throughout Japan — 25,000 of them in Tokyo alone. The airport itself was literally taken over by an occupying army of 3,000 riot police. All entrances were sealed off, and all individuals except pass- carrying airline employees were prevented from even approaching the airport. At first, the police had stated that they wished to avoid invoking the Crime of Riot {aoranzai), but their attitude stiffened as the days went by. On October 28, the Metropolitan Police Department announced that this law would be applied without hesitation if the situation called for It, and that the police would use their pistols if explosives were used against them. As it turned out, the Riot Law was not Invoked, and pistols were not used. Nevertheless, these extra-strict security measures netted immense numbers of victims. The massive police dragnets resulted In 1,689 arrests (229 of them women) in Tokyo alone on November 16. The nation-wide total of arrests made on this day alone was 1,857 persons (237 women). This total exceeded the previous all- time high for arrests made on a single day; the previous record was reached on October 21, 1969> when 1,505 persons were arrested throughout the country. On November 17 also, 288 arrests were made through­ out the nation (including 17 women). 252 of these arrests were made in Tokyo. The "weapons" confiscated on these two days reached Immense proportions. This was particularly true in Tokyo, where literally thousands of Molotov cocktails were seized. The Japanese police once again displayed the.awesome efficiency of their security system, based on a well organized information gathering system and the quick- moving mobilized riot police. The clashes in Tokyo on November 16 and 17 resulted in 82 injured, four seriously. They included 28 policemen, 19 students, three firemen and 32 others, mostly bystanders, two of whom were seriously injured. These figures include only the casualties officially reported as having been hospitalized. The actual number of injuries must have been much greater. ***** In calling for a determined effort to prevent Prime Minister Sato's departure, the Japanese New Left groups were unanimous In their belief that the key to victory in the struggle would be to create a state of violent Kamata on the morning of November 17. insurrection in the Kamata area, a region in Tokyo near the Haneda Airport. They hoped to be able to engulf the general populace of the area and to create a state of siege surpassing that produced during the As we described in our last issue, October 21, 1969 Shlnjuku struggle on October 21, 1968. This would, marked the beginning of the Japanese New Left's month- they believed, plunge the nation into a crisis, bring long campaign against the visit of Prime Minister Sato about a fluid political state, and make It Impossible to the United States. This struggle reached its climax for the Prime Minister to leave the country as planned. on November 16, the date before Sato's departure from However, they were not successful In attaining this Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The fierce street fighting goal. The stiff security measures prevented many resulted in more than 2,000 arrests. After the tear from getting to Kamata. Other groups arrived there gas had cleared up, it became evident to most observers too late. In other cases, groups of militants were that the New Left had been unable to win a victory in intercepted by riot police on the platforms of Kamata the face of the unprecedented police-state tactics used station and arrested before they could go into action. by the authorities. What, then, had been accomplished by the radicals in this massive confrontation? When the Kamata struggle was at its height — from 4r00 to 7:00 PM on November 16 — there was a throng AMPO gives here a factual run-down in this exclusive of thousands in the plazas near the east and west exits article based on Japanese newspaper reports and eye­ of Kamata station. However, there was a clear-cut witness accounts. distinction between the militant demonstrators and the ***** crowds of onlookers. After nightfall, the riot At 10:0*) AM, November 17, 1969, Prime Minister Sato's police at two places used water cannons to spray blue- special airplane, the DC8 "Seto," left Haneda Airport tinted water onto the demonstrators who had been amid a heavy rain, carrying the Prime Minister and his surrounded. The order was then given to arrest all wife to the United States. That same morning, 80 those with garments stained by the tell-tale bluish domestic and 60 international flights at the airport water. The demonstrators were then trapped by squads had been either cancelled or rescheduled, so that the of riot police who had been lying In wait in the side airport's functions had come to a complete standstill. streets around the station. Militant students and The severity of the security precautions taken by workers belonging to the Anti-War Youth Committees the riot police completely broke all precedents, even (Hansen Seinen Iinkai) were pursued by the riot police for riot-torn Japan. During the five days from (Continued on page 11) November 13 to 17, 75,000 riot police were mobilized AVFO fiNPO interviews PNPO»° * YoshikawaYuichi A Report from the Japanese New Left AMPO is produced by Behelren (The Japan "Peace for Vietnam!" Committee) and Galkokujin Behelren, Its affiliate organization on GI Resistance. for foreign residents In Japan. AMPO Is a movement publication designed to overcome the fact that the Japanese Left, one of the Editor's note: The unprecedented upsurge of resistance most articulate and active movements In the world, is covered by within the U.S. military all over the world has been a blanket of silence in all languages but Japanese. particularly important in Japan, and has had signifi­ cant effects on the Japanese movement. To obtain an Send correspondence to: Hake checks payable to: account of the present state of affairs we Interviewed AMPO, Ishii Building AMPO, Account No. OO61656 Yoshikawa Yulchl, the General Secretary of Behelren. 6 - M Kagurazaka Kagurazaka Branch, Yoshikawa has the memory of an elephant, and so inter­ Shlnjuku, Tokyo, Japan Mitsubishi Bank viewing him is roughly equivalent to doing empirical A six-months subscription costs: research, only a lot easier.. Excerpts from that Overseas (by airmail) $6 interview follow. Japan for ordinary readers ¥1,500 " for activists ¥600 Change in the G.I. Resistance Movement AMPO is not copyrighted, and Movement publications are welcome — indeed urged — to reprint any articles or pictures without restrictions. Non-Movement publications should contact us first. AMPO: Behelren has been known as an organization that We trust you to know who you are. helps American deserters, but it seems to me that now­ It is our specific hope that this magazine will contribute to adays the scope of the activities of Behelren has unified action In 1970 against the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, expanded to include cooperation and united action with which is an enemy of the people of both countries, ana of the people of all Asia. those GIs who are opposing the war within their bases. Any suggestions — either Tor this magazine or for unified Is this correct? action — will be greatly appreciated. Yoshikawa: Yes, exactly. Since the Intrepid Four case, Editorial Committee: Makoto Oda, Yulchl Yoshikawa, Yoshiyukl which gave such a shock to the Japanese public, the Tsuruml, Ichiyo Muto, Lafcadio Black, Gerry Winstanley number of deserters seeking Behelren's assistance has greatly increased. This increase reflects the wide­ spread sentiment among the G.I.s against the war and, the Japan-U.S. Joint Statement (the Nixon-Sato state­ more than that, their determination to fight against ment), and to the American Military occupation of Oki­ the war. And so in accordance with that change JATEC nawa, and demanded the dissolution of the Self-Defense (Japan Technical Committee to Aid Anti-War Deserters) Forces. While this Is an Individual case, it is not an and Behelren have come to have two functions....two Isolated one, In the sense that It symbolizes a new parallel functions. The second and new function is tendency wltnln the Japanese military. We have been cooperation and assistance to the resistance movement fighting for a long time nnd in various ways against the within the American military. In accordance with that, existence of Japanese military forces, but these the domestic style, or mode of activities, of JATEC his struggles have teen all based on the premise of the un­ changed. Previously JATEC was concentrating on secret constitutionality of those forces. Or else they have activities... locating people who can conceal G.I. demanded the basic human rights of soldiers be respected, deserters. Now JATEC has realized clearly that it must referring to the frequent censorship by the authorities conduct its activities on a mass basis. For that pur­ of publications which can be read by soldiers. However pose a new publication, called the Deserters Eulletln this new case is quite different...What this soldier has '(Dassohei Tsushin) was inaugurated this spring. said amounts to the argument that the very existence of the Self-Defense Forces is a reflection of Japanese imperialism, that the SDF are Imperialist forces whose Recent Activities aim is to suppress the Japanese people and to Invade and suppress other countries of Asia, such as Korea and Yoshikawa: To give some of the outstanding examples... China....there has never been a single case in which an at Klsawa Alrbase in Aomori Prefecture...a very Import­ SDF soldier Bald such a thing. And this event corres­ ant strategic base in relation to the Soviet Union and ponded exactly with the appearance of the new stage of the northern regions... fifteen G.I.s gathered around the Japanese Imperialism...the stage which has Just been flagpole (on October 15 Moratorium Day) to hold an over­ entered with Sato's trip to Washington, the Joint State­ night meeting. Eventually they were discovered and dis­ ment, and the decision to preserve the Security Treaty persed by the MPs. That group is a highly conscious System through the '70s. In that sense this event is group of resisting G.I.S; they are putting out an under­ highly significant... ground, newspaper called Hair, of which three issues have already been published. Hair Is not the only G.I. paper This soldier s fight is closely connected with... in Japan...for example at one of the bases in Tokyo area is influenced by ...the activities of JATEC and Behelren there is a paper called Kill for Peace, written and edit­ and the Intrepid Four Association directed toward Ameri­ ed by the G.I.s there. And there is another paper called can G.I.s We Got the Brass, which is the Asia edition of the Second Front International, and which has been distributed at dozens of bases from Hokkaido to Okinawa. Along with Balloon Attack these activities by G.I.s in their camps, there are parallel movements of anti-war Japanese going on outside As an example of a different style of movement, when the bases. A typical example is the Oizumi Citizen's American bases are opened to the public on some...memo­ Group, which is located near Camp Asaka. They have rial day or something...some Behelren enter the bases established a "radio station" there called "Radio Camp- and put flowers on the weapons and airplanes, with the Must-Go," which broadcasts regularly into the base inscription "flower power", or distribute papers like through loudspeakers. Their broadcasts include anti-war "We Got the Erass." songs (folk and rock), comments on topical issues, mess­ Here Is an example from the Japanese base, Nlho; ages from deserters. There has been a very favorable when the base was opened to the public, several Eehelren response from inside the camp: many soldiers respond members prepared many balloons and stood by the entrance. with the "V" sign, while others have approached the On the balloons they painted slogans such as "Ampo Fun- group after the broadcasts offering to cooperate. Now sai", "Dissolve the Self-Defense Forces", and so on. joint meetings are held between these soldiers and the These balloons were given to children entering the base Citizen's Group. to see the airplanes, and so the base was soon filled with children holding slogan balloons. So the SDF people noticed this and tried to take away the balloons Resistance in the Self-Defense Forces at the entrance. But the children cried and wouldn't give up the balloons. The officers bought candy, and ...This incident is not about American G.I.s, but it offered it in exchange for the balloons, but the child­ is related. Several days ago a Japanese soldier public­ ren liked the balloons better than the candy, and so ly announced his opposition to the Security Treaty, to they failed. This is a tactic that could be used any- (Continued on page 11) ANPO

However, in grouping the defendants for separate CRISIS IN THE COURTS trials, the court made extensive investigations of their personal backgrounds. For instance, the court inquired into the universities they attended, the political — Hundreds of Rebel Students to be groups to which they were affiliated, their status of leadership within the group, whether they had signed a Sentenced in Absentia — confession or not, their previous record of arrests, and the role they played In the activities under indict­ The Tokyo University Struggle ment. The defense lawyers argued that this preliminary January 18 and 19, 1969 are dates which will never investigation and the grouping of the defendants in this be forgotten in the history of Japan's stormy anti- biased manner clearly indicated that the court had establishment movement. On these two days, after many abandoned all pretense at impartiality in the case. hours of fierce fighting, some 8,500 riot police Such a system of classifying the defendants was clearly succeeded in expelling hundreds of militant students prejudicial to their interests and deprived them of all who had been occupying a number of buildings on the possibility of a fair trial. Tokyo University campus. Some 10,000 cannisters of In the meantime, the courts were proceeding with the tear gas were fired, and immense quantities of liquid hearings of the 175 "repentant" defendants who had hired and powdered tear gas were used. 369 students were separate lawyers and had accepted separate trials. The injured, 76 of them seriously. One student was sentences for all of these "penitent" students were permanently blinded, and the burns from the liquid tear handed down in March, 1969, and all of the defendants gas were found to be especially serious. were given suspended sentences. Altogether some 786 arrests were made in the various incidents occurring both on and off the campus on these Separate Hearings Begin two days. More than 540 students were later indicted The Tokyo District Court, overruling the objections on a variety of counts such as "breaking Into a of the defense, began its hearings of the separate building," "refusal to obey orders to evacuate public groups on May 27. At that time, more than 300 of the premises," "obstruction of the performance of public defendants were still being held in detention. The duties," and "illegal assembly with dangerous weapons." courtroom atmosphere was entirely abnormal from the very These are all comparatively light criminal offenses, outset. The few defendants who had been released on bearing maximum penalties of two or three years. It ball were, of course, obliged to attend the hearings, would be natural to expect suspended sentences to be but they and the defense lawyers voiced loud protests meted out In nearly all of these cases, especially for against the unfairness of the separate trials and first offenses. repeated their demands for a unified trial. All the defendants in detention boycotted the trials completely, Demand for Unified Trial refusing to leave their prison cells when summoned by On February 13, a group of lawyers formed a defense the guards. Frequently the Imprisoned students would panel for the students. A majority of the defendants remove all their garments and soak them In water in — 469 of the 540 indicted — demanded a unified trial their cells so that the guards could not carry them out of their cells forcibly. Invoking Article 286 of the 'toitsu saiban), arguing that they had acted together for a common goal, shared a common Ideology, and Criminal Procedure Code, the courts ruled that the wished to make clear in public hearings the basic Issues defendants were absenting themselves from the courtroom which motivated them in their struggle. However, the without due cause and that the hearings would be held Tokyo District Court turned down their demand for a in the absence of the defendants. This led to the very unified trial and divided the 469 defendants up into rare phenomenon of "trial in absentia" (keeseki saiban). 37 groups'of 10 to 13 each. The defense lawyers continued to use every possible opportunity to remonstrate with the Judges, but they In demanding a unified trial, the defendants and were repeatedly silenced, ordered out of the courtroom, their lawyers acted upon well established precedents in and even fined and Imprisoned for obstructing courtroom Japanese legal history. They argued that the Tokyo procedures. University struggle {Todai toso) was an Ideologically motivated movement. It would be senseless for the Spectators in the court galleries — relatives and court to consider only the isolated actions of the friends of the defendants as well as concerned citizens separate defendants (such as: who threw a rock at a — were naturally appalled by the abnormal atmosphere policeman, or who was holding a pipe or pole In his reigning in these courtrooms. Many spectators would hands at the moment of arrest), distorting them out of rise to their feet and attempt to protest, but the their entire ideological context. Separate trials Judges would order them removed or would even call in (bunkatsu saiban), they pointed out, would make It the riot police (who, It appeared, were waiting in an Impossible to evaluate the actions of the defendants In adjoining room) to evict spectators or arrest them. On relation to the whole picture. The District Court, it July 2, a 53-year old mathematician and writer, Mr. seemed to them, was attempting to treat the Tokyo Nagaoki Mononobe, was sentenced to seven days' imprison­ University struggle as a bunch of minor legal technica­ ment by a judge for making a disturbance in a courtroom. lities, as a series of incidents of gang violence, rather His crime? He asked the judge a question: "Are you than as an immense mass movement aiming at revolutionary familiar with the Constitution?" Jiro Yamane, a 32- change in society. The court showed no Interest at all year old defense attorney, was twice fined ¥30,000 In considering the background and the causes of the (about $83) and was on two occasions sentenced to campus disturbances which had been rocking Tokyo Univer­ imprisonment (for terms of five days and three days, sity for many months. respectively) for failing to obey the orders of the In refusing the request for a mass trial, the District judges. Court argued that it would be difficult to find a court­ The hearings continued to be boycotted by the room large enough to accommodate such a large number of defendants and the lawyers. Even If the lawyers had defendants. There would be difficulties in keeping wished to appear at all the hearings, it would have been order in the courtroom, and a mass trial might continue physically impossible for them to do so, since four or for years. (Japanese court cases have, in fact, been five hearings were held simultaneously in as many known to drag on for 17 years before the first verdict!) different courtrooms. The group of 14 or 15 defense The purpose of the court, it was explained, was to lawyers could do little more than make the rounds of determine the extent of the Individual guilt of each the courtrooms and voice their protests in turn to each defendant, weighing the evidence in each separate case.

SUBSCRIBE TO SHUKAN AMPO Behelren's dynamic new activist fortnightly (in Japanese). Sea Mall 50* per copy ($6.00 for 13 issues)

A|ttJ?)}tt&£ / Air Mall $1.00 per copy ($12.00 for 13 Issues!• Address: Ampo-Sha 6-44 Kagurazaka p.v,„ ., ,. , , , -.,„.„., u„ Payment: Make check pay- ® flj 7>* Shinjuku-ku able tQ Ampo.sha Tokyo, Japan /WPO

of the judges until they were ousted, amid loud cries of angry protest from the spectators. In the absence of defendants and defense attorneys, STUDENT MURDERED BY RIOT POEIGE IN OSAKA the hearings proceeded extremely smoothly. The only persons present were the prosecutors, the Judges, the Three Osaka riot policemen have been accused of court clerks, and the prosecution witnesses — usually killing Takayuki Kasuya, a 21-year old student of the riot policemen who made the arrests. The Judges Okayama University, who succumbed on November 14 after showed little interest in safeguarding the rights of having been arrested in a clash with riot police in the defendants. In some cases, they called In the Osaka on the previous day. parents of the students or attempted to display their Kasuya was arrested around 6:30 PM on November 13 impartiality by saying that they would consult several near the Oglmachi Park in Osaka. The police who books about the Tokyo University struggle. arrested him are accused of beating him repeatedly on the head, face, arms, and legs with night sticks, Lengthy Detention Protested giving him a skull fracture and severe bruises. As The defendants, arrested in January, remained in a result, Kasuya died at 9:00 PM the following day. detention for extremeiy long periods of time in view of Kasuya had attended a rally at Oglmachi Park to the relative lightness of the offenses with which they protest Prime Minister Sato's visit to Washington. were charged. It has been pointed out that there is Some 30,000 labor unionists and students attended the a tendency for the courts to hold student defendants rally In the park, and there were clashes with the for disproportionately lengthy periods of confinement. riot police afterwards. 58 persons were arrested, As of July, 323 of the defendants still remained in and almost all of them were Injured. Eye-witnesses detention, and over 260 were still detained as of said that the police action was especially brutal. August 20. A large percentage of the defendants Many demonstrators were beaten repeatedly with night refused to accept release on ball even when this was sticks and Duralumin shields, and some were dragged offered by the Judges (who Intended in this way to by their feet across the pavement. force them to attend the separate hearings), and as of December 6 there were still some 120 in detention The Kansai Legal Aid Center and the defense lawyers refusing bail. They argued that to accept ball under on December 13 lodged a complaint with the local these conditions would oblige them to appear in court prosecutors' office against three riot police members: and would constitute recognition of the separate trials. Yukio Araki, Akio Akamatsu, and Tokihlto Sugiyama, In July, 173 members of the Tokyo University faculty charging them with brutality and manslaughter. Their signed a petition protesting against the lengthy complaint charges that -the three policemen forced the detention of most of the defendants in the Tokyo critically injureu student to walk handcuffed about University case. They argued that lengthy detention one kilometer to the Sonezaki Police Station, where he of more than six months constituted in fact a prison was photographed and questioned. At the police term in anticipation of the verdict. They noted that station, he complained of being unwell and collapsed'. considerations unrelated with the trial were involved; Even after he haa lost consciousness, he was given no the authorities were obviously Interested in keeping first aid, but was left lying on the floor In a the defendants in custody as a kind of "preventive corridor. He was taken to the Yukloka Hospital two arrest," so that they could not resume their political and a half hours after his arrest. activities. Another consideration was that The hospital to which Kasuya was taken by the police practically all of the defendants had availed themselves had no facilities for brain surgery, and the doctor of their constitutional right (Article 38 of the who operated on him there was a plastic surgeon, not 6 Constitution) to maintain silence under questioning to a specialist In brain surgery. In fact, Kasuya was avoid self-incrimination. To subject them to lengthy left for six hours without being given any medical detention simply because they exercised their right to treatment. The doctor who conducted the autopsy silence (mokuhi-ken), It was argued, constituted a reported that death resulted from brain damage caused virtual denial of their constitutional rights. One by blows on the head. The lethal instrument was said female defendant, famous as "Klkuyabashi No. 101" (the to be a hard, blunt Instrument applied with great number of her cell at the Klkuyabashi Police Station), force once or twice. has steadfastly refused to reveal even her name to the authorities, and on June 13 the Supreme Court officially ruled that she was not entitled to appoint a lawyer Kasuya was the fifth per­ unless she disclosed her name. son to lose his life in stu­ dent demonstrations since i960. He was affiliated Verdicts in Absentia with the Proletarian Student These extraordinary court cases are now coming to an League (Purogakudo), the end one after another. Judge Isao Okagaki completed student organization of the all of his hearings on November 5 and sentenced seven Communist Workers Party defendants on November 28, more than 10 months after (Kyosanshugl Rodosha To), they were arrested. The Judge sentenced them to and was a leader of the periods of 18 to 20 months at hard labor. Only two of Zenkyoto struggle committee the defendants had their sentences suspended, and the In his class at Okayama Uni­ other five will have to spend nearly a year In prison. versity. A mass meeting (In some cases, some of the time spent in detention was held to protest his during the trial was deducted from the total term to murder at Tokyo's Hlbiya be spent at hard labor.) In three of the cases, the Park on December 14. penalties assigned by Judge Okagaki were even harsher than those demanded by the prosecution. Of the spectators who protested the sentencing on November 28, five (including one woman) were arrested in the court­ Takayuki Kasuya room and sentenced to seven days in detention by Judge Okagaki for making a disturbance in his courtroom. A Selected Bibliography ol Japanese Books about tne Tokyo University Struggle: It was noted that Judge Okagaki had relied heavily on Inoue Kiyoshl, Todai toso, sono Jijitsu to ronri [The circumstantial evidence In reaching his decision, as Tokyo University struggle, its facts and logic] only one defendant had confessed to having thrown - jcks Tokyo, Gendal Hyoron Sha, 1969. at the police. There was no clear evidence about the Todai T6s5 Bengodan, comp., Todai iban [The Tokyo others, but the prosecutors had claimed that the University trial] Tokyo, Tabat Shoten, I969. presence of piles of rocks in the vicinity proved that TSdai Zengaku KySto Kalgl, comp., Toride no ue ni the other defendants had either thrown them or had at warera no sekai wo [Our world on the barricades] least transported them. The defense attorneys pointed Tokyo, Aki Shobo, 1969. out th .; these stiff sentences were obviously intended Todai Zenkyoto Keizal Daigakuin Toso Iinkai, comp., as a deterrent. Even if the defense had presented its Hono de egaku henkaku no ronri [The logic of own evidence and arguments, they said, it was quite revolutionary change drawn in flaming letters] probable that the same penalties would have been forth­ Tokyo, Jiyu Kokumin Sha, 1969- coming as long as the defendants had not expressed Yamamoto Yoshitaka, Chisei no hanran [The rebellion "repentance. " (Continued on page 7) of the Intellect] Tokyo, Zen'el Sha Kanna Shobo, 1969. The Japanese Government through its spokesmen repeated­ ly insists that "anti-nuclear weapons" is a policy and AMPO 70 not a principle. Sato himself, when he Invited the U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise to visit Japan (Continued from page 2) in 1966, declared that the "nuclear allergy" of the in Asia, was able and willing to accept all of the Japanese people should be eliminated. There is in conditions posed earlier. It is true that Japan-U.S. fact a concerted government effort to overcome the negotiations for the "return of Okinawa" began in 1965. anti-nuclear "sentiment" of the Japanese as a prelude However, those negotiations centered not on the three to new Japanese policy departures. Once this has been basic conditions publicly proclaimed by Sato, but accomplished, the U.S. government will be quick to rather on creating an official facade for the Okinawa deploy nuclear weapons throughout Japan. deal to minimize popular and legislative opposition in Yet even this Is an innocent interpretation of the both countries. Sato's pledge to stand by his three text. For no one in Japan knows or is in a position slogans of "return In 197*," "return without nuclear to know what kind of American weapons are deployed In weapons," and "the same status for Okinawa as for Okinawa now. The U.S. government has never officially mainland Japan" was designed to appease the peace and. acknowledged the presence of nuclear weapons there. anti-nuclear sentiment of the Japanese people as well Even In the case of mainland Japan, we do not know as the nationalistic feeling of the Okinawan people. whether there are nuclear weapons or not. We are The American government, facing a different kind of simply asked to believe that the Japanese Government Congressional pressures, had to emphasize virtually the -is "convinced that there are no weapons of the kind." opposite aspects of the Okinawa deal. The United The meaning of Sato's bombastic statements about States thus had to secure the Japanese promise to allow preserving Japan's non-nuclear posture is clear. The free use of Okinawa for American military operations U.S. Government's recent announcement that MACE-B against the Vietnamese people as well as to permit the missiles, believed to have nuclear warheads, will be American nuclear presence to continue after 1972. The removed from Okinawa by the end of 1969, Is all that is immediate political propaganda lines in the two count­ meant by a "nuclearless" Okinawa. It is well known ries were so different that their close coordination in that MACE-B is an outmoded winged missile flying slower wording the accord was essential. But whatever the than sound. For several years the Pentagon has stated name they might give to the future status of Okinawa, that these obsolete missiles should be scrapped. The the future reality of Okinawa as desired by the leaders announcement of the removal, however, made at the height of the two countries was one and the same — the of Sato's election campaign, has been widely publicized strengthening of Okinawa as the strategic counter­ to prove that the United States has accepted the revolutionary military base in Asia on the basis of a "denuclearization" of Okinawa. new policy of Japan-U.S. joint control and management. while Sato was busily creating a facade to hide the real meaning of the Okinawa deal and the new Japanese- American military alliance, very significant political developments were occurring within Japan. The essence NUCLEAh ARMAMENT IN JAPAN of the Okinawa question lies not in the rhetoric of the That the facade given to this reality was insignifi­ Washington declaration but in these concrete political cant is clear from the wording of the statement itself. The statement contains no assurance that nuclear wea­ pons will be eliminated at the time of Okinawa's rever­ processes. The major developments are the following: sion. Indeed, It does not even acknowledge the 1. The hasty formulation of the Fourth Defense Build­ existence of nuclear weapons on the Islands. The up Program to start in 1972, coupled with an Okinawa president took note of the Japanese people's strong defense program. sentiment against nuclear weapons (point 8), but his 2. Bold statements by Sato and other government and avowed Intention to follow a nuclear policy consistent business leaders openly inspiring nationalism connect­ with that of the Japanese government provides no ed with the military buildup. assurance that nuclear weapons will be eliminated. 3. Increased overseas economic "assistance" pledged on several occasions, most notably during the June meeting in Japan of the Asian Pacific Ministerial Conference (ASPAC). (Continued from page 6) 4. Rampant and indiscriminate use of police repres­ In the meantime, the courts and the bar associations sion to crush the university struggle and a virtual were applying pressure on the defense lawyers. On reign of terror, culminating in the "emergency situ­ November 5, a Kobe lawyer, Kazuo Nakal, lodged a ation" declared In October and November to deter complaint with the prosecutor general against defense ordinary citizens from taking part in the anti-Ampo lawyer Jiro Yamane, charging the latter with having struggle. repeatedly obstructed court procedures. Nakal also 5. The practical revision of the existing Security complained to the Bar Association, seeking Yamane's Treaty so as to facilitate freer use of American expulsion. The disciplinary committee of the Tokyo military bases in Japan and to allow Japanese military Bar Association is now investigating seven defense attorneys, who may possibly be punished by suspension, troops' intervention in Korean affairs. reprimands, or even expulsion from the Association. At any rate, Japanese courts have now, for the first time in their entire history, handed down -kesseki THE RESURGENCE OF JAPANESE MILITARISM hanketsu, or "verdicts in absentia." This judgment by default is quite unprecedented and has called forth a wave of protest. The judges In these cases claim adamantly that their trials are perfectly legal. These actions, taken hastily and with a sense of However, many legal authorities have pointed out that urgency in a short period, were coupled with a powerful trials held In the absence of the defendants and of propaganda campaign centering on the drive to secure defense counsel are a travesty of justice. Such the reversion of Okinawa. These were not mere trials may be "legal" according to the letter of the coincidences, but part and parcel of the Sato plan to law, but few would call them "fair" in the accepted resolve simultaneously the problems of Okinawa and sense of the word. The militant student defendants, Japan's resurgence as a military power. The Fourth carrying on the Tokyo University struggle in the Defense Plan coupled with the return of Okinawa, solitude of their prison cells, have clearly won an charts Japan's changing role from that of a semi-state Important victory. They have plunged the Japanese dependent on America's military and political initia­ court system Into a serious crisis. What is more, tive, to a full-fledged and aggressive member of the they have completely erased the illusions still linger­ ing in some minds about the "Independence" and "neutrality" of the Japanese courts and about the "impartiality" of bourgeois justice. /WPO

imperialist camp. rity of South Korea Is "essential to the security of The first draft of the Fourth Defense Buildup Program Japan," it clearly augurs the deployment of Japan's own •was brought to Washington in Foreign Minister Aichi's troops to the area. This danger was recently pointed portfolio In June this year at the time of preliminary out by Shulchl Matsumoto, a leading diplomatic trouble- negotiations. Its size in terms of budgetary outlay shooter who was dispatched as the government's envoy is in fact double the Third Defense Buildup Program. to South Korea in 1965. By changing the exclusive Yet even this fourth program in its present form is focus of the Ampo treaty from Japan's internal security regarded as insufficient by important Liberal Democratic to her overseas military expansion, the basic provisions leaders who Insist that the "defense expenditures" of the peace constitution have been discarded and the should be raised to four per cent of the national Income way opened to an aggressive Japanese military role in from the present one per cent. The plan explicitly Asia. A strong parallel can be drawn to the Bay of departs from the previous posture of subordination to Tonklng Resolution, regarded as Innocuous at the time American military might by charting a new forward but later used to legalize the subsequent military posture for Japanese forces. The plan's major operation of U.S. troops in Vietnam. features, announced in May by Defense Agency Director Japanese troops assuming primary responsibility for Arita, are as follows: the situation in South Korea means 'nothing less than (1) Henceforth defense efforts should be promoted the emergence of Japan again as a full Imperialist more positively in view of Japan's changing internal power in this area. This is the direct consequence of and external situation, expanding national strength, the agreement for the reversion of Okinawa as the and heightened world status, so that Japan can cope, bastion of oppression in Asia. As Sato frankly said effectively and flexibly, with intermediate and in his Washington Press Club speech (regarded by immediate aggression. Washington as part of the Sato-Nixon accord), Japan (not Okinawa alone) Is going to be the "keystone of the (2) With the return of Okinawa, Japan will assume the Pacific." "From now on, our defense forces are the prime responsibility for the defense of Okinawa.... masters, with Ampo (meaning U.S. troops) playing an Japan should build up as quickly as possible the auxiliary role." necessary defense forces for this area of the country. This is in fact an application of Nixon's Guam (3) Japan is surrounded by the sea and depends on doctrine. The war In Vietnam is to be "Vietnamized." International trade. Consequently, it is vital to The direct role of American forces is to be minimized. maintain the safety of our country's maritime transport. For us Japanese, Vietnamlzation in a way means Efforts should be stepped up to strengthen the maritime Japanization of colonial wars in Asia, particularly defense force so that the Japanese fleet can serve as Japanlzation of South Korea. Most significantly, the convoy for the merchant fleet. Japan is no longer passively following U.S. policy but (4) In order to defeat enemy invasions in their is determined to enter the "Pacific era" (Nixon and initial stage, land, sea and air defense capabilities Sato) of its own accord and to fulfill its own imperi­ should be combined so that the Invasion can be defeated. alist interests. With its fast growing economy For this purpose, a striking force against ships and (Japan's GNP doubles every five years), there Is tasks forces on land should be strengthened. irresistible indigenous pressure for full expansion overseas. So far, this pressure has been expressed through economic channels (the stage of the "economic THE NEW JAPANESE IMPERIALISM animal"), but it has by now become so colossal that the Japanese state feels an active urge to equip Itself with the full apparatus of an Imperialist state. This is no longer a military program advanced to satisfy American demands that Japan shoulder a larger defense burden. It is a program to prepare Japan for direct confrontation with Asian people's revolution, though still in co-operation with the United States. More dangerous is the fact that the defense program as well as the economic and political strategy of the new Japanese state is explicitly spearheaded against South Korea. In the last Issue, we explained the "Three Arrows" operation, based on the supposition that disturbance in South Korea develops into an interna­ tional conflict involving Japan. It is precisely for such an eventuality that all "security" measures and V From the Sato-Nixon Joint training of the self-defense forces are being prepared under the Sato Cabinet. Communique (November 21, 1969) This special Japanese interest in South Korea (coin­ ciding of course with Washington's interest in the area) has prompted a major revision of the Security 3. The President and the Prime Minister exchanged Treaty through agreement reached in Tokyo this summer. frank views on the current international situation, The negotiations, conducted by Assistant Foreign Minist­ with particular attention to developments In the Far er Togo and U.S. envoy Schneider, resulted In complete East. The President, while emphasizing that the accord about changing the interpretation of the "prior countries in the area were expected to make their own consultation" clause In the Security Treaty to facili­ efforts for the stability of the area, gave assurance tate Japan-U.S. joint military operations for suppress­ that the United States would continue to contribute to ing future disturbances in South Korea. The Japanese the maintenance of international peace and security in side promised to say "yes" in any prior consultation the Far East by honoring its defense treaty obligations concerning the deployment of U.S. troops from mainland In the area. The Prime Minister, appreciating the Japan to South Korea. The Japanese government agreed determination of the United States, stressed that it to regard the security of South Korea "as Japan's own was important for the peace and security of the Far security," and consequently to guarantee full support East that the United States should be In a position to for U.S. operations In the area. This has a special carry out fully its obligations referred to by the meaning against the background of the long practice of President. He further expressed his recognition that, the treaty. Previously, prior consultation was in the light of the present situation, the presence of required before U.S. forces in Japan could be deployed United States forces in the Far East constituted a anywhere in the Far East. The new interpretation of mainstay for the stability of the area. the Sato government is that the security of South 4. The President and the Prime Minister specifically Korea should no longer be regarded as that of the "Far noted the continuing tension over the Korean Peninsula. East," but as an Integral part of Japan's own security. The Prime Minister deeply appreciated the peace-keeping This is tantamount to regarding Japan's former colony efforts of the United Nations in the area and stated as part of the Japanese territory. that the security of the Republic of Korea was essential The Sato-Nixon declaration, however, goes beyond to Japan's own security. The President and the Prime Japan's agreement to drop the prior consultation clause Minister shared the hope that Communist China would In tr.e case of Korea. By proclaiming that the secu­ adopt a more cooperative and constructive attitude In fiNPO its external relations. The President referred to the treaty obligations of his country to the Republic of China which the United States would uphold. The Prime Minister said that the maintenance of peace and security in the Taiwan area was also a most Important factor for the security of Japan. The President described the earnest efforts made by the United States for a peaceful and Just settlement of the Vietnam problem. The President and the Prime Minister expressed the strong hope that the war in Vietnam would be concluded before return of the administrative rights over Okinawa to Japan. In this connection, they agreed that, should 14,202 STUDENTS ARRESTED IN I969 — peace In Vietnam not have been realized by the time reversion of Okinawa is scheduled to take place, the REPORT UNDERSCORES SOCIAL TURMOIL two Governments would fully consult with each other in the light of the situation at that time so that For most of us, the year's end is a time to take reversion would be accomplished without affecting the stock of our accomplishments and to try to foresee United States efforts to assure the South Vietnamese what may be coming in the new year. This is what people the opportunity to determine their own political Japan's National Police Agency (Keisatsu-cho) did in future without outside interference. The Prime its 1969 White Paper on Security, which was released minister stated that Japan was exploring what role she on December 12. Police statistics must, of course, could play In bringing about stability in the Indochina be approached with a certain amount of caution, since area. they are slanted so as to minimize the strength of the anti-Establishment forces. however, they QO make 6. The Prime Minister emphasized his view that the interesting reading, and AMPO gives here a brief time had come to respond to the strong desire of the resume of the NPA report. (All figures quoted for people of Japan, of both the mainland and Okinawa, to I969 are those applying as of November 30, 1969.) have the administrative rights over Okinawa returned to First of all, the White Paper provides convincing Japan on the basis of the friendly relations between the confirmation of a fact which AMPO readers already knew United States and Japan and thereby to restore Okinawa — the fact that 1969 surpassed all previous years In to its normal status. The President expressed Japan's history for the number of campus disputes, the appreciation of the Prime Minister's view. The number of police intrusions on campuses, the number of President and the Prime Minister also recognized the people participating in demonstrations, the number of vital role played by United States forces in Okinawa in riot police mobilized, and the number of students the present situation in the Far East. As a result of arrested. In other words, 1969 was a year of their discussion It was agreed that the mutual security unprecedented social turmoil, and the police are interests of the United States and Japan could be prepared for even more unrest in 1970. accommodated within arrangements for the return of the There is at least one figure In the White Paper administrative rights over Okinawa to Japan. They which even AMPO is willing to accept trustfully. This therefore agreed that the two Governments would Is the number of students arrested. The police are immediately enter into consultations regarding specific the only ones who know this number, and it is 14,202 — arrangements for accomplishing the early reversion of more than twice the number of students arrested during Okinawa without detriment to the security of the Far 1968. Campus disputes also spread during 1969. East including Japan. They further agreed to expedite According to the police report, student strikes were the consultations with a view to accomplishing the held, buildings were occupied, or barricades were 9 reversion during 1972 subject to the conclusion of erected at 152 universities. these specific arrangements with the necessary legisla­ There was also a big increase in the number of tive support. In this connection, the Prime Minister street demonstrations organized by radical student made clear the Intention of his Government, following groups. The biggest ones were Okinawa Day on April reversion, to assume gradually the responsibility for 28, the anti-ASPAC demonstrations in June, Anti-War the immediate defense of Okinawa as part of Japan's Day on October 21, ana the November demonstrations defense efforts for her own territories. The against Sato's visit to the U.S. According to the President and the Prime Minister agreed also that the police estimates, 440,000 students marched in 2,363 United States would retain under the terms of the demonstrations during I969. This far exceeded the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security such military 1968 totals of 240,000 stucents who participated In facilities and areas in Okinawa as required in the 1,504 demonstrations. If one adds to the 10b9 total mutual security of both countries. the members of the Anti-War Youth Committees (Hansen 7. The President and the Prime Minister agreed that, Seinen Iinkai) and the Behelren, the total number of upon return of the administrative rights, the Treaty of participants in New Left street demonstrations Mutual Cooperation and Security and its related increases to 070,000 persons. arrangements would apply to Okinawa without modification The police estimates of the present strength of the thereof. In this connection, the Prime Minister radical student movement are also interesting. The affirmed the recognition of his Government that the White Paper says that the number of student self- security of Japan could not be adequately maintained government associations controlled by New Left student without International peace and security in the Far groups has increased from 1B0 in i960 to 209 (an East and, therefore the security of countries in the increase of lb%) , The number of New Left student Far East was a matter of serious concern for Japan. activists has increased from 8,300 to 14,200 (if true, this is a phenomenal increase of 71?), and the number The Prime Minister was of the view that, in the light of students whom New Left groups can mobilize in of such recognition on the part of the Japanese Govern­ demonstrations has grown from 33,700 to 44,000 (a 31% ment, the return of the administrative rights over Increase). Interestingly, tne number of students Okinawa in the manner agreed above should not hinder arrested (14,202) parallels the estimatea number of the effective discharge of the international obliga­ activists. tions assumed by the United States for the defense of countries In the Far East including Japan. The The student groups affiliated with the Japanese President replied that he shared the Prime Minister's Communist Party, the police report says, control 355 view. student self-government associations, have 14,200 8. The Prime Minister described in detail the activists, and can mobilize 47,600 students in their particular sentiment of the Japanese people against demonstrations. Thus, it would seem that the New Left nuclear weapons and the policy of the Japanese Govern­ student groups are approximately equal in strength to ment reflecting such sentiment. The President the pro-JCP groups. expressed his deep understanding and assured the Prime An upsurge of student activism was noted also at the Minister that, without prejudice to the position of the high school level. According to the report, campus United States Government with respect to the prior disputes broke out in 163 high schools, and in 62 of consultation system under the Treaty of Mutual these cases school buildings were occupied and Cooperation and Security, the reversion of Okinawa barricaded by the students. 30,000 high school would be carried out in a manner consistent with the students participated in demonstrations in the streets, policy of the Japanese Government as described by the and 602 of them were arrested by the police. Prime Minister. /WPO

The White Paper reports an escalation in the This infringes upon the Just rights of the people to "weapons" used by militant radicals. The report states that 136 bombs and other explosives, 16,777 advocate their own opinions." Molotpv cocktails, 17,825 wooden staves, 6,165 steel Konishl reportedly produced three editions of his pipes, 8H5 bottles of acid, and 207 tons of rocks leaflet. The first he placed on bulletin boards In were either confiscated by the police or used against three places Inside the base. The second he them. In spite of all of this, only one policeman distributed outside the base and also tacked on the died from injuries sustained in a clash with students. walls of hallways inside the base. The third he The White Paper notes that young workers belonging to the Anti-War Youth Committees (Hansen Selnen Iinkai) pasted by the entrance to the mess hall and placed are playing an increasingly active role in militant on the seats of parked army buses. struggles. It estimates their strength at about Konishi explained his motives to his lawyers as 17,000 and says that they are strengthening their follows: "While living the life of a Self-Defense ties with radical student groups. Force soldier, I noticed that there were a number of The General Council of Trade Unions (Sohyo) has been stepping up its strike activities, which reached their contradictions inside the SDF. Around the beginning high point during 1969 in the United Action on of September, it was announced that riot-control November 13, in which 58 local Industrial unions practice, under the* name of 'Special Police Training, participated, mobilizing about 890,000 unionists. would be carried out, even here at the Sado base. This number exceeded even the number mobilized in Ideological Indoctrination also began, dealing with the massive General Strike held on June 4, I960 to oppose the ratification of the Security Treaty. such questions as: 'What is a demonstration?' and The police agency's White Paper concludes with the 'What sort of group is the New Left?' As the prediction that the movement of the Japanese Left training proceeded, I began to realize that If we will continue to pick up momentum in 1970 and will were called out for anti-riot duty, we would have to probably reach a new height in June, 1970, when there confront the general populace. If worst came to will be a General Strike to protest the extension of the Security Treaty. worst, we would even have, to kill our fellow citizens. When I realized this, I simply couldn't stand It any longer, and on October 18 I refused to participate in SELF-DEFENSE FORCE MEMBER the training. I printed up the leaflets myself, hoping that there might be others who would agree ARRESTED FOR ANTI-WAR ACTIONS with my ideas."

SELF-DEFENSE FORCE UNITS WILL BEEF UP RIOT POLICE

Early In November, the Japanese Defense Agency and the National Police Agency agreed that the Self- Defense Porces can transport riot police and lend them tear gas and other riot control equipment even In situations where the Prime Minister has not issued an order for the SDF to go into action to maintain law and order. The agreement Is sure to rouse heated debate, since it means that the stage has been set for full-scale SDF aid to the police In maintaining law and order even though the Prime Minister has not issued a mobilization order. According to Article 78 of the Self-Defense Force Law, the Prime Minister can order action by part or all of the Self-Defense Forces when he believes that police power cannot cope with "Indirect aggression" or other emergencies. In the meantime, the Self-Defense Forces have been pushing ahead with their program to build up their preparedness against expected civil disorders. ¥75 million worth of weapons and protective gadgets such as shields, tear gas cannlsters, and wooden sticks have been purchased and distributed among the SDF bases. The same amount of money is expected to be appropriated for the same purpose in the next fiscal year. The SDF authorities are also stepping up their programs for practice in riot control. The divisions in charge of guarding the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya metropolitan areas now spend one-third of their total training time in preparing for mobilization in riot control. DEPORTATION OF Makoto Konishi POLITICAL "UNDESIRABLES" A sergeant In the Japanese Air Self-Defense Forces, Makoto Konishi (20), was arrested in Sado, Nllgata On December 7, 1969, Roger Scott, an American English Prefecture, for distributing leaflets inside his base. teacher from Lubbock, Texas, was deported from Japan He was charged with violating a prohibition against for his political activities. Scott was accompanied political activity by members of the Self-Defense by his bride, Yuko, whom he married during a brief two- Force, and also with "instigating others to neglect day release from the Immigration Department's Detention their duties." Center (read: prison) at Yokohama, where he hadbeen The former noncommissioned officer at the 46th Incarcerated for over a month. Aircraft Control and Warning Group on Sado Island in Scott has engaged in no violent activities nor broken the Sea of Japan was arrested October 18 for posting any Japanese laws, other than overstaying his visa... leaflets denouncing Prime Minister Sato's visit to a tautology since his visa was refused for his political the U.S. and calling for abrogation of the Security activities. He has marched in peace demonstrations Treaty. This is the first time a member of the SDF and spoken at rallies, but his principal "offense" was has ever been arrested and prosecuted for security his joining Dr. Earle Reynolds and other Americans in reasons. an attempted goodwill mission to China on the peace According to the indictment, Konishi's leaflet read yacht "Phoenix" last summer. The government, despite in part: "Is it not true that the SDF forces are its claim to wish improved relations with China, took robots, servants, and slaves of the bourgeoisie? such a dim view of this journey that It refused reentry Refuse training for the repression of demonstrations! visa to three of the crew members (the only three who intended to remain in Japan): Scott, Zen Buddhist priest Brian Victoria, and Dr. Reynolds himself. Since their return, the three have been waging a court battle to stay in Japan. Handling their cases (Continued from page 3) with magnificent bureaucratic confusion, the Justice and by vigilante committees of local residents wielding Ministry has Jailed them, released them, rejailed them, wooden swords. offered deals, reversed decisions, made vague promises, Vigilante committees of this type made their first and maintained throughout an attitude of prim self- appearance in Shinjuku on October 21, 1969. Local righteousness. The American Embassy, though bond by "self-defense" organizations were organized in several law to make efforts to protect the rights of its districts around Kamata and Haneda after powerful police urging. Wearing yellow caps and arm-bands, citizens, has been only insulting. The Ambassador's the vigilantes went about patrolling In groups, carrying first words to Scott, telephoning from prison: "I paper lanterns and holding brand-new wooden swords and understand you hate not only America but Japan too." baseball bats. Brawny young vigilantes kept a watchful Scott: "Now Mr. Ambassador, that's a pretty childish eye on the movements of the students and workers, thing to say." The Embassy representative's first supplying Information to the riot police. When the words to Victoria, who had demanded that he be released students and workers were fleeing from the riot police, from solitary confinement at Yokohama (where he had the vigilantes would overpower them and hand them over been placed for organizing a demonstration inside the to be arrested. prison): "Well Mr. Victoria, you say this is solitary, » * * * « but we take the view that it is only isolation. After 3:00 PM on November 16, militant students and Solitary is a.. ..black hole." (Perhaps he was workers began to engage In simultaneous guerrilla referring to the fact that in Victoria's cell the light actions at many places, such as the two Kamata stations was kept burning 24 hours a day.) (of the Japanese National Railways and of the Kelhln Though Scott and Victoria were not treated particu­ Kyjiko Line), near the Shinagawa station, at Tokyo larly well In prison, they found that, according to the station, and elsewhere. Numerous railway lines were Justice Ministry's systematic discrimination, prisoners thus brought to a stop. from Asian countries were treated even worse...for About 4:20 PM, some 400 students of the Chukaku example by receiving a far smaller food allotment per faction stopped an electric train bound for Kamata on day. Many, whom the authorities can decide neither the Keihin TShoku Line. Alighting from it, they ran to release nor to deport, have been rotting in prison along the tracks to Kamata station. Breaking out of for years....never, of course, having been charged, the station, they emerged Into the plaza in front of indicted, or tried for any violation of law. the station, where they Joined the students and workers While Scott lost his appeal and was deported, who were already there. Large numbers of Molotov Victoria has been released in what will hopefully be an cocktails were thrown at the Intersection in front of Important precedent-setting decision...that a foreign the station, and the area was transformed into a sea resident cannot be imprisoned merely on suspicion of of flames. having violated immigration laws. Thus he is free at About the same time, the Kamata station of the Kelhln least while his court case is pending...which may take Kyuko Line also was attacked with Molotov cocktails, years. Reynolds, who lives in Hiroshima, is also and the trains were brought to a stop. In the vicinity awaiting the results of his appeal. of both these Kamata stations, exchanges of Molotov AMPO is planning to run a series of articles on the cocktails and tear gas volleys continued until late at Japanese Immigration laws, including reports on the night. Also near the Kamata and Ikegaml stations of pending deportation cases, on the shocking and the TSkya Ikegaml Line, hundreds of students attacked discriminatory treatment of Asian residents.... police boxes and built barricades of buses. 11 especially Chinese and Koreans....and an analysis of At Tokyo station, some 500 students jumped off the the new and even tougher Immigration Bill which has platform onto the tracks at 3:53 PM. Some of them been drawn up by the Government. broke into the central signaling center, and the Yamate Loop Line and other lines were brought to a stop temporarily. After 5:00 PM, about 500 students belonging to the ML faction got off trains at Shinagawa station and threw Molotov cocktails into the Shinagawa police station. Part of the entrance to the police station Yoshikawa Interview was destroyed by fire. Subsequently, they seized a (Continued from,page 4) bus near the police station and rammed it into a police water-cannon truck. wnere tnert is a base. Another example...on the last Memorial Day of the Japanese Navy, Yokosuka Behelren... * » * * * gathered at the station and, together with a Folk Gue­ Japanese Socialist Party rilla group, began a march toward the base. The base The Japanese Socialist Party had planned to hold, on authorities were shocked, and closed down the base to the morning of November 17, an on-the-spot meeting of all visitors long before the scheduled closing time, protest near Haneda, to be followed by a march towards claiming "bad weather". the airport. However, on the day before this scheduled meeting, the Party decided at the last minute to On Future Strategy cancel the meeting and demonstration. It based its decision on "high-level political judgment" that if it First of all we have to distribute sucn papers as were involved in "extremist action," this would be We Got the Brass as widely as possible, and urge sold­ disadvantageous for the Party in the forthcoming iers to edit and publish their own papers. Through these general elections. This decision came in spite of the papers they should try to organize a unified national fact that, on November 15, 80 percent of the delegates network of resisting soldiers. Then, taking some oppor­ to a national conference had voted In favor of holding tunity... say for example Feb. 7 of next year, the the on-the-spot meeting. The executive1committee in anniversary of the date when the bombing of the North charge of organizing the November 17 rally refused to began...express their opposition to the war by taking accept this decision and went ahead with the meeting unified action inside their camps in cooperation with and demonstration as planned. The demonstration on the Japanese movement, which will stage demonstrations the morning of the 17th was attended by some 1,500, on the seme day. ...And in particular, as the Japan-U.S. and there were clashes with the riot police. Joint Statement made clear, the leaders of the two countries consider the Korean situation to be "very The Japanese Socialist Party views its protest dangerous", which means that fighting in Korea may erupt actions through November 17 as having been successful. after the Vietnam War has ended, or even before it has It laid particular emphasis on its Central Rally of ended. In that case Japanese Self-Defense Forces will November 16, which was attended by about 50,000 persons. probably be sent to Korea. Thus the activities of GIs The Socialist Party's demonstrations all ended In South Korea are becoming more and more important. peacefully. And Just as it le becoming more important strategically The General Council of Labor Unions (Sohyo) had no It is becoming more active in fact; there is a growing particular plans for taking any action on November 17. resistance movement among the GIs there, which we expect However, about 800 members of the National Railway soon to make contact with resisting GIs here, and event­ Locomotive Engineers' Union (DSryokusha R5dS Kumial) ually with the movement Inside the Japanese military. held an Independent meeting and demonstration on the /wro morning of November 17 to protest the brutal suppression If we Include unions which took protest actions such as by the riot police of their demonstration on the night shop meetings, the total number of participating unions of November 16. At that time, they had suffered one would be about 67 unions. The central Issues were arrest and more than 100 Injuries. political ones, such as protests against Sato's visit General Council of Labor Unions (SShyS) to the United States, demands for the return of A3 its first effort in the 1970 struggles, Sohyo Okinawa, and demands that the Security Treaty be carried out a United Action on November 13. The abrogated. The November 13 United Action had the transport unions carried out an early-morning strike, largest number of participating unions in any political and strikes were held also by the Teachers' Union and strike since the Security Treaty struggles of i960. other government employees, by employees of public However, most of the strikes ended within one or two enterprises such as the Postal Workers' Union and the hours, and they were not very broadly based. As a Telegraph Workers' Union, as well as unions of workers result, the strikes had almost no effect on the general In private industries. Altogether 51* local Industrial situation. unions Joined the strike, which began in the morning Okinawa vand continued until the afternoon all over the nation. A protest strike was held all over the Islands by the By the east exit of the Shinjuku 'station, some 1,500 Okinawa Reversion Council (Sokoku Fukkikyo). According Behelren demonstrators joined bystanders to form a crowd to figures tabulated by the sponsors, altogether 64 of about 5,000. About 7:30 in the evening, persons unions with 57,000 members participated in strikes on in this crowd threw Molotov cocktails at the police. November 13. In addition, 40 organizations belonging * * * * to the Reversion Council, with about 40,000 members, Behelren also participated in some form of protest activities In the afternoon of November 16, the Tokyo Behelren on November 13. A big rally of some 100,000 people sponsored a mass rally at Hlblya Amphitheater to was held on November 13 at a public park in Naha. oppose Sato's visit to Washington. The Metropolitan After the meeting protesters marched to the Naha Naval Police Board earlier had prohibited a Behelren demon­ Base, where clashes occurred between demonstrators and stration that day, but Behelren immediately filed a riot police. 86 persons were reported Injured, three lawsuit against this action. On the morning of of them seriously. 47 of the injured persons were November 16, the district court ruled that the police policemen. prohibition ought to be canceled and tihe demonstration On the evening of November 17, a rally was held by permitted. However, 30 minutes after the Court ruling the Reversion Council near the U.S. Kadena Air Base to was handed down, the authorities resorted to a notorious protest Sato's Washington visit. It was attended by emergency measure: the Prime Minister's right of an estimated 55,000 people. Students belonging to the "objection," from which there is no recourse. Chukaku and Kakumaru factions attacked the Kadena Air Consequently, it was Impossible for Behelren to Base and nearby police boxes with Molotov cocktails carry out the day's demonstration legally, even though and battled with the police. Ten students were more than 15,000 people packed the Hlblya Park. reported arrested, and several were bitten by dogs A characteristic feature of the day's action was the released by the U.S. security forces at Kadena. fact that vast numbers of "non-sect" radicals (meaning The slogans adopted by the Reversion Council for Its people who are radical but have no affiliation with rallies indicated that the Okinawa Reversion movement political groups) were unable to participate in the is moving away from emotional demands for Okinawa's "armed struggle" because combat groups were organized return to Japan; attention is now being focused on strictly along the line of the political groups. opposition to the Ampo system itself and on demands These multitudes of students, workers and citizens for the removal of military bases. flowed into Behelren's rally, and then organizing them­ Rallies on November 15 and 16 selves into several major groups started their own On the afternoon and evening of November 15, altogether spontaneous actions for the rest of the day, and some 21 citizens' demonstrations took place in Tokyo and of them until the morning of November 17. other cities in response to an appeal from the June There were about 5,000 Behelren students who formed Action Committee Opposing the Vietnam War and the a unified contingent. After the rally they boarded Security Treaty. On the same day, workers belonging railways and appearing here and there all through the to the Anti-War Youth Committees (Hansen Seinen Iinkai) night engaged In street guerrilla fighting in Shinjuku, held their own rally at the Amphitheater in Hlblya Shinagawa, Yokohama and elsewhere. Early In the Park to protest Sato's visit to America. More than morning of November 17, they joined workers and citizens 10,000 militant workers and students attended. who held the last demonstration for the whole campaign On November 16, meetings and demonstrations opposing near Haneda. Sato's visit were held all over Japan. They Included Citizens' contingents and local groups, despite the rallies sponsored by the Socialist Party and Sohyo, police ban, staged demonstrations in the city center, the Communist Party, and Behelren. creating several street rallies In front of the Asahi • • » • • Shimbun building and in the Ginza areas. What was the over-all meaning of the events of November 13 - 17? First of all, both In Okinawa and in the main islands of Japan proper, there was an unprecedented upsurge of popular militancy. All observers agreea tnat tactics of revolutionary SUBSCRIBE TO AMPO! violence — Including the use of explosives and Molotov cocktails — are becoming more and more widely accepted among militant students and workers. At the same time, the oppressive actions of the riot police are also being escalated. Police techniques now Our financial position is very simple. We raised the include lock-outs of entire portions of Tokyo, money to put out the first two Issues. That money is increased use of checkpoints to keep unauthorized now gone,-and from this time forward we must support persons out of sensitive areas, random searching of ourselves by subscriptions. We sent out many free personal baggage carried by pedestrians, cancellation copies of issues one and two in order to gain readers. of airline flights, the organization of vigilante bands AFTER THIS ISSUE NO MORE FREE. ISSUES OF AMPO WILL BE to help the police hunt down demonstrators, as well as SENT OUT. Sorry, but we just don't have the money. the usual tactics of mass arrests and indictments of If you want to continue receiving AMPO, please send demonstrators, followed by protracted terms of deten­ money, or, if you are a publication, write us about tion and court battles for most of them. an exchange subscription. Thus, the Japanese New Left has demonstrated again $6 for six monthly issues airmail outside Japan. that it is capable of mobilizing thousands of young ¥1,500 for six monthly issues in Japan. workers and students for fighting pitched battles against the authoritarian power structure. However, Address: AMPO, Ishii Building this alone is not enough. Such tactics of mass 6-44 Kagurazaka violence can succeed only If they sweep up large Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan segments of the general public and create a political crisis so serious that the reactionary government is forced to back down. This point was not reached by the struggles culminating in November 17. a report from the Japanese new left No. 7-8

CONTENTS:

Koza uprising .. o o...... o.1 Iejima interview...... o<>25 Kunigami incident..0 o.. o... .6 Film review »43 Okinawa: The Keystone.•» ...e7 Zengunro poster o. Center Pre-war history. .„..<>. . «7 Plus: maps Post-war history.. 0 0. o 14 photos Okinawa in the '70s.... 30 etc. On Dec. 20, 1970, while this special issue of Ampo was under preparation there occurred on Okinawa the most powerful mass uprising against the ILSo military in the island's post-war history.

In Koza city, which lies just outside the highly strategic Kadena Airbase, 10,Q00 citizens took control of the streets, held back the police with rocks and coke-bottle molotov cocktails, and overturned and burned over 80 American owned cars, six of them Military Police cars, the others carefully selected by their yellow license plates which bear the slogan, 'Okinawa — Keystone of the Pacific1. Occupants of cars who had locked themselves inside were :STH3THO0 dragged out after the people broke the windows and opened doors from inside. Five hundred people succeeded in smashing through the gate of Kadena and burning several buildings before they were driven out by soldiers . throwing tear gas and firing rifles into the air. Thousands of Okinawan police were called to the scene to aid U.S. military in defending their base, but observers said that they did little, leaving the U.S. soldiers to take the brunt of the attack. 1

"You have a duty to humanity as well a9 to your/own people not to be used as murderous tools by racist pigs to oppress the people. Think about it, Brother, and act on it, because you don't have much time."

Eldridge Cleaver Minister of Information Black Panther Party Newspaper accounts of the number of injuries are contradicto­ ry, but the figure runs into the scores, including at least thirty military police. There were no deaths.

The event that triggered the uprising bore a striking re­ semblance to the kind of incident that characteristically sets off uprisings in Black Ghettos in the United States: the action of police who come into the community from the outside. At 1:00 A.M. an American ran down an Okinawan with his car. The victim was not seriously injured, but the M.P.s who come to investigate the case released the driver without even checking to see if the victim was all right. The event perfectly symbolized the helpless ness of the Okinawans in such cases. The legal system of Okinawa is still that of the grossest colonialism: crimes committed by Americans, even against Okinawans, are entirely under U.S. military jurisdiction, and are tried in U.S. military courts. All Okinawan demands for jurisdiction over Americans who commit crimes against them have been denied, and they have been forced to rely on the doubtful operation of military justice. Moreover this accident came at a time when the people were still bitterly angered over the most recent in a long series of miscarriages of justice, the Itoman Incident, in which an American driving while drunk was seen to hit and kill a woman with his car, and was acquitted by a closed military court despite the testimonies of the Okinawan eye­ witnesses. When asked by the press the reason for the acquittal, the military had refused comments. Mass meetings had been held to protest the finding, and to demand the transfer of jurisdiction to the Okinawan government. On Dec. 17 one such meeting drew 5,000 people. Thus when the M.P.s began to release another man before the eyes of those who had seen him cause an accident, an angry crowd to gather. M.P.s made the mistake of trying to disperse it by firing shots into the air, which brought out the whole town. The uprising, which went on all night, was entirely spontaneous, planned or expected by no one. The highly political nature of the action was emphasized by the way in which the attack was focused on the U.S. automobiles that had been killing people wiih impunity and on the base which is the concrete symbol of oppression. There was no looting. # - M mm

!__ ^ I T -^ttafjallg^

a

- * MF*&&

Participants included officeworkers, people from the bar world, base workers and students ... practically all of the Okinawans who happened to be in the area at the time. Moreover, the uprising received overwhelming support throughout the islands, as well as on the Japanese mainland, to the extent that even establishment politicians were forced to give expressions of "sympathy." More enthusiastic support came from a different source. Thirty Black GIs stationed inside Kadena announced that the Okinawan people were receiving the same kind of treatment that they themselves received as Blacks, that the action of the people of Koza was perfectly justifiable, that it was "beauti­ ful". Since the uprising there have been several more cases of American drivers hitting Okinawans: in each case MPs who have come to investigate have been driven away by angry crowds, and the newspapers have talked about "near riots". .High Commissioner Lampert, apparently with some twisted idea of "punishment", announced immediately after the uprising that the planned removal of poison gases from Okinawa (only one per cant of the total anyway) would not take place on schedule .. a statement which caused a great outcry of protest, and which the U.S. Ambassador to Japan was forced to deny with embarassinent. Prime Minister Sato, on the other hand, heard tne news while he was On th» crnl P nnnrfl. >J. Artn^n W\,l^*3 V. < « «..,—... A .# ifs**1 ,C^'

t; ,1%,i > >V- *-. ^@t : it» ?,vf. * e ^ *£>:>• J?.

^

B& •NfJPTA ft- irv' ,.J »-.:.; Vn

iPL 3i4QT2Y3>i 1HT AWAWKO

*t»W-S**<\ KUNIGAMI FARMERS SEIZE BASE

Dec. 31. Just 10 days after the Koza uprising, farmers in northern Okinawa invaded a U.S. Marine artillery range, drove away the troops who were guarding it, and succeeded in preventing the firing practice that had bean scheduled for that day.

The training area has long been used for guerilla warfare training, but the marines recently decided to use it for artillery practice as well. However the normally conservative farmers from the local Kuni- gaoi village rose in determined opposition as soon as they heard of the change. For one thing, parts of their village lie within the firing range of the howitzers. Nevertheless, the marines went ahead with their plans, and on Dec. 30 notified the villagers of their intention to begin firing practice the next day.

The farmers immediately met and laid plans. They agreed to divide into thres groups: one to hold a mass meeting, one to enter the target area, and one to enter and occupy the firing line itself.

At 5:00 AM on the 31st some 700 people...virtually the entire population of the village, plus members of such groups as Fukkikyo, Gensuikyo, the Okinawa Teachers' Association, and labor unions...gathered on the hill neit to the firing range and announced their determination to fight until the training area is entirely removed. In the meantime another group, carrying saws, hoes, and shov-ls as weapons, invaded the range itself, first moving to the target area, where they lit a signal fire. From there they crossed a valley, climbed a waterfall, and approached the firing line where the howitzers were set up. There they were ambushed by armed marines, and several v-re b-aten with rifle butts and carried off. One nationalist student climbed a tree and tried to fly the Japanese flag, but marines out iObii the tree while he wag in it, and he was seriously injured.

At 10:00 AH the villagers who had finished their meeting left their hill and crossed over into the training area. The village chief and three others entered the area and demanded to the colonel in charge that the firing practice be stopped inimcdiately, saying that the villagers would fight until the training area was completsly evacuated, even if it took years.

In the meantime the villagers stood facing the soldiers across a barrier of coiled barbed wire, waiting for the return of the village chief, ''•'hey began cutting the wire strand by strand, malting use of moments when the soldiers were off their guard. Finally they euoceedsd in making an opening, and 300 villagars poured through into the site, forcing the marines to retreat. A total of some ten people were slightly injured in the confrontation.

When the village chief announced that the commander had cancelled the practice, the villagers responded by shouting, "America go home!" and Evacuate the base!" Helicopters began removing the artillery P"f»s and the marines beg«i moving out of the area, but the farmers refused to move until the retreat was absolutely completed.

At the time of this writing th« marines have not announced when or whether they will attempt to use the training area again. OKINAWA: THE KEYSTONE

In the beginning of the 15th century a powerful young pre-war history lord named Hashi became king of Chnzan, and by 1429 had succeeded in defeating his northern and southern rivals In 1817 Captain Basil Hall of England was returning and uniting the country. The emperor of China gave:him from a journey through Asia on the ship "Lyra." On the the family name Sho Hashi and the title of King of Ryu- way he put into St. Helena, where the defeated Napoleon kyu. This began the country's golden age, in which was living in exile. Hall described his travel to Okinawan ships were engaged in a profitable trade not Napoleon, who was particularly interested in Okinawa, only with Japan and China, but also with the countries where H*-ll had spent some months. When Ha.ll informed of Southeast Asia: Java, Siam, Sumatra, the Philippines, Napoleon that the Okinawans lived peaceably without Borneo, Kalacca. Accounts written by Portuguese traders, weapons, the Frenchmen cried out in ar.iMzment: "No who were also visitingSoutheast Asian ports at that time, describe the Okinawans as a proud and energetic people: weapons! But without weapons, how do they fight?" ...the men are fair; their dress, is like a cloak I could only reply (wrote Hall), that as far as we without a hood; they carry long swords after the had been able to discover, they had never had any fashion of Turkish cimetars, but somewhat more war, but remained in a state of internal and ex­ narrow; they also carry daggers of two palms ternal peace. "No wars!" cried he, with a scorn­ ful and incredulous expression, as if the existance length; they are daring men and feared in this land of any people under the sun without wars was a (Malacca). When they arrive at any port, they do monsterous anomaly. not bring out their merchandise all at once, but little by little; they speak truthfullly, and will Captain Hall's description of Okinawa was of course and will have the truth spoken to them. If any exaggerated. There had been both weapons and wars in merchant in Malacca broke his word, they would Okinawan history. However he was absolutely correct that the history of Okinawa is the history of a people who hate immediately take him prisoner. They strive to dis­ patch their business and get away quickly, for they war, who have struggled both to avoid and abolish it, and are not the men to like going away from their own who actually succeeded in abolishing war from their own land. society back as the 15th century. However inmodern times it has been the bitter fate of the Okinawans that they live in a territory which is of vital strategic import­ The LeqJos (Ryukyuans) are men who sell their ance 4n the war plans of other less peaceful powers. It merchandise freely for credit, and if they are lied was on Okinawa that Japan and America fought out the to when they collect payment, they collect it sword fiercest battle of the Pacific War. The chief victims of in hand... that battle were the people who had the least responsibil­ ity for the making »f the war, the Okinawan civilians. They are very truthful men. They do not buy Prom that day to this the war machine which seized Okina­ slaves, nor would they sell one of their own men for wa has not eased its grip. The two powers which battled the whole world, and they would .lie over this... on Okinawa in 1945 now maintain it under their joint control as the "Keystone of the Pacific", a vital military and economic base in their cooperative strategy for the control of Asia. The ancient Okinawan quest for peace still goes on, but now at the very center of the war machine. The Okinawans know now that they cannot achieve peace and liberation until peace and liberation are achieved for all of Asia.

Early Society and Culture

Okinawa is the name for a long chain of islands which Chinese ships stretches from the southern tip of Kyushu all the way to Taiwan, and marks the boundary between the Pacific Ocean arriving at Naha and the China Sea. The history of Okinawa has been great- affected by its strategic geographic position. In ancient times the Okinawans were able to achieve a mode­ rate i r sperity through foreigh trade. Inmodern times it has caused their land to be turned into a battle ground and a base. It was during this period that the Okinawans carried Although little is known about Okinawa's prehistoric out their first and last invasion of a foreign land. In period, there is evidence that the early people who 1465 the young king Sho Toku led an expedition to conquor innabited the islands were a blend of racial elements similar to the Japanese. The native Okinawan language, Kikai Island, which lies to the north of the Okinawan which is in the same language family as Japanese, main island. The invasion was a success, since practical­ bears many similarities to the classical Japanese spoken ly no one lived there, but the island turned out to be of over a thousand years ago. no particular value. The Okinawans decided that the whole thing was stupid and a waste of money, and over­ threw the king. Agressive war has never been tried Okinawa appears in written history for the first time in a Chinese chronicle in 60f;AD. About a century later a again by Okinawa. Japanese Buddhist priest wrote about his discovery of Okinawa. But little is know in detail before the 14th Shortly after this, in 1477, the throne was taken by century, when powerful families appeared and fought for one of Okinawa's greatest kings, Sho Shin, who reigned the control of the country. The main island became for fifty years. Sho Shin carried out many reforms, divided between three powers, Nanzan, Chuzan, «nd Hokuzan including the disarming of the country. All weapons (literally Southern Mountain, Central Mountain, and North­ were brought to the capital at Shuri, where they were put ern Mountain). In 1372 Chuzan, the most powerful of the in a warehouse. The king announced, "We can obtain three, entered into tributary relations with China. At everything we need through trade. There is no reason to this time China was by far the most powerful country in fight and shed blood." For a century after Sho Shin Asia...probably in the world...and was the center of became king, a century in which most of Asia was torn by Asian culture. In form, the tribute system meant that warfare and piracy, Okinawa lived in unbroken peace. rulers of outlaying countries brought tribute to the Chinese emperor, and in return were officially "appointed" by the emperor to rule their land. In fact, however, it With its contacts with many lands, Okinawa absorbed was also an early form of foreign trade. The Okinawans many cultural influences, which the islanders assimilated aaaafittad greatly from this trade, and sent tributary into the development of their own unique culture and tra­ -.tf.r-i to Peking as often as they could. ditions. Perhaps the most important of their arts is music: Okinawa is sometimes called "the islands of song and dance." In the 14th century the samisen was imported from China. Music and dancing were true folk arts on Okinawa, and even the music and dance performed in the * •••tern writings, the word "Okinawa" usually King's court were from the same folk tradition as those • **in island, while the entire chain is performed by the people. Fishermen and farmers used to «" Loo Choo, (which are the Japanese and be seen carrying their musical instruments off to work if the same Chinese characters). How- with them, and villagers would gather to sing and dance M "3tisawa refers to the entire chain. together on every possible occasion.

J. MAWIAT

^. ^

8 Saishuto • i> C^ A Q CHINA

Kagoshiiu, (former Satsuma-han) V/ 'U ,\V J

# N V* ^"loahlma J*? <7

ft'? OKINAWA MAIN IStlmft

Kerama-Ialands » C

Senkaku-islands &

Kiyako-Ji

Ishigaki-jimLisaa * *

Irionote-jima

9 .-chnique of waving, dying, and pottery were introduced For three hundred years after that Okinawa was con­ *nd refined into special Okinawan crafts that are still trolled and cruelly exploited by Satsuma han. For prized today by lovers of folk art. It is said that there years Okinawa had been Satsuma'.s main channel for trade were once over 100 stone castles in the islands...not with China. Now China had prohibited trade with Japan in reprisal for Hideyoshi's invasion. In addition the fortresses for war, but palaces, temples for the gods new Tokugawa regime had closed the country, monopolized called ibe, and storehouses. In 1531 a collection of all trade to itself, and forbidden the han to have sea­ songs and poems was completed under the title Omoro going ships. Satsuma*s answer was to use the tradition­ Soshi. and became a literary classic of the kingdom, al Okinawan tributary relationship with China as a way of compared to the ancient Japanese Manyoshu. getting around these restrictions. To do this it was necessary to conceal from China the fact that Okinawa had come under Japanese control. The kingdom was maintained, The End of Independence and the Okinawans were .forbidden from adopting Japanese culture. A 1756 directive from Shimazu said, "Sverything Since at least 1206 the lord of the Shimazu family of that the Chinese can recognize as Japanese, such as era the Satsuma Han (the feudal domain of southern Kyushu) names, family names, books or instruments, must be com­ had held the honorary title of "Lord of the 12 Southern pletely hidden." Again in 1835 a notice commanded: Islands." The title was an empty one, since Shimizu did "Japanese language or songs must not be used. If the not exercise any actual control over Okinawa. However in Chinese ask any questions in Japanese, you must pretend the beginning of the 17th century the Satsuma Han acted not to understand. Everyone must be carefulto display no to make that title a reality. customs or manners of Japan." Behind this false front, At this time Japan, which had for hundreds of years Shimazu kept Okinawa under tight colonial rule, control­ ling the selection of the kings and of high officials. been torn by clan war, was being united through the The purpose of the whole grotesque game was clear: for successful conquest of three gre.t warriors. The last of three hundred years Satsuma took the profit from the these, Tokugawa Ieyasu, founded a system of military ad­ China trade and whatever other surplus Okinawan labor was ministration that has been called the closest approxi­ able to produce. The independent prosperity of the 15th mation to totalitarianism what has ever appeared in a and 16th centuries has never returned to Okinawa. preindustrial society, and which lasted from 1600 to 1363. One Okinawan historian has compared this system of dual subordination to cormorant fishing, in which the fisherman ties a cord around the bird's neck and sends it off to catch fish which it is not permitted to swallow. Another has compared Okinawa's position to that of a Japanese prostitute with both a patron and a lover: "...all the money she was given by her patron (China) was taken away by her lover (Japan), and she had to make a desperate effort not to reveal to the patron that she had a lover. And she behaved in this way not by her own will, but under Sateuma's coercion."

Entrapped in this ambiguous situation, under military and economic oppression, Okinawa made great efforts to maintain the traditional culture. In a sense Okinawa re­ sponded to her military defeat by attempting a cultural conquest of Japan. In this cultural war the Okinawan people came out the victor: song and dance flourished in the islands, and became prized accomplishments of aristocrats and officials alike; moreover Okinawan cul­ ture exercised a powerful influence on Japanese culture in these years.

King Sho Tetsu, with his sons, 1756 This remarkable capacity to maintain a humane and cul­ tured existence in an economy kept at the edge of famine was described by a Western observer (Bishop George Smith) who visited in 1850: "The people are sunk in the great­ est poverty, and appear to have nothing beyond the simplest necessities of life. If to have few wants, and Ieyasu's predecessor, Hideyoshi, carried away by the those easily satisfied, constitute riches, the Loochooans success of his conquests in Japan, decided to attempt an may be considered a contented, cheerful people." invasion of China through Korea. Shimazu saw this as a chance to assert his dominance over Okinawa, and demanded Perry's Visit that the Okinawan kingdom contribute supplies to the invasion effort. The Okinawans at first refused, both From the beginning of the 19th century the Western because of their traditional loyalty to China, which imperialist countries, in their search for new markets they took very seriously, and because of their poverty. and natural resources, had become more and more forceful Finally, after repeated demands, the Okinawans reluctant­ in their demands that Japan open diplomatic and trade ly Bent off some supplies. In 1409, using this "disloyal" relations with them. In 1853 the United States sent a delay as an excuse, Shimazu sent off a fleet of over 100 fleet of five warships, under the vain and ambitious ships, carrying 5000 warriors to invade and "chastize" Commodore Matthew Perry, on a mission to "open" Japan. Okinawa. Before proceeding to Tokyo, Perry's fleet stopped at There had been no major military action on Okinawa Naha. The Commodore's arrogant behavior there shocked and for two hundred years, and more than a century had pass­ embarassed even the other Americans on the ships. He ed since all armed forces had been abolished and all ignored local customs, confiscated buildings, demanded the weapons had been collected. The Okinawans made desparate use of a temple as an enclosure for sheep and cattle, had efforts to defend themselves, but there was no hope. A himself carried around in a sedan chair by Chinese Buddhist priest from Osaka named Kian, who was staying coolies, staged parades to display his weaponry to the in Okinawa at the time, made the following entry in his islanders, and...though the Okinawans had pleaded with diary. "March 16. Hardly has the report come in that him not to do so...burst into the king's palace unin­ the troops have landed in the port that the whole count­ vited. ry has been thrown into a state of confusion such as has never seen before.... For a long time this country has Perry wrote letters to Washington saying that he never even heard the words bow and arrow, nor even planned to seize the islands: dreamed of them....All the diaries of every house, all official documents, all treasures have been destroyed..." ...this royal dependency of Japan...is in such a On April 5 Shuri Castle was occupied and looted. The state of political vassalage and thralldom, that King Sho Nel was kidnapped and taken back to Kyushu as a it would be a merit to extend over it the vivifying hostage. After three years Sho Nei signed an oath that influence and protection of a government like our Okinawa had "from ancient times" been a feudal depend­ own. ency of Satsuma, and pledged future loyalty to Shimazu. It is self evident that the course of coming events will ere long make it necessary for the United States to extend its territorial jurisdic­ tion beyond the limits of the western continent, The broken king was sent back to Okinawa, where he and I assume the responsibility of urging the decreed that on his death he should not be placed in the expediency of establishing a foothold in this royal tomb with his ancestors, whom he had failed, but in quarter of the globe, as a measure or positive an isolated grave far off in the hills. necessity to the sustainment of our maritime 10 rights in the East. formed from a kingdom to a han (feudal domain) and that the king was appointed as the lord of the new han. The U.S. government rejected Perry's proposal...or, more Nevertheless two years later the Tokyo government was accurately, postponed it. angered to discover that tribute ships had arrived in On his second visit to Naha, after having once entered China from Naha, just as they had for centuries past. Tokyo Bay and made his demands on the Tokugawa government, In 1875 Michiyuki Matsuda led a special mission to Perry forced the Okinawans, under direct threat of vio­ Okinawa with a series of demands: Okinawa must break lence, to sign a treaty with the U.S. One of the the tribute relationship with China; the king must American officers, who bitterly objected to Parry's come to Tokyo to express his loyalty to the Meiji methods, called the treaty the "Compact of the Chicken Emperor; law, era names, and ceremonies must be with the Horse in the Stable...I won't tread on your toss changed to fit Japanese practices; a Japanese military if you won't tread on mine." garrison would be set up in Okinawa "in order to pro­ tect the people." In addition to the treaty, Perry demanded that he be presented with gifts, including a great temple bell. The There was great resistance to these humiliating Okinawans had na Choice but to comply, and the bell was demands both by officials and by common people. Par­ presented to the U.S. Naval academy, where today it rings ticularly hateful were the breaking off of the ancient out the score at Army-Navy football games. The ball was relationship with China and the establishment of the cast in 1456 during the reign of Sho Taikyu, and bears the base. The Okinawans argued that they did not need any following inscription: protection, and that on the contrary the stationing of troops reduced their security rather than increased it: May the sound of this bell shatter illusory dreams, the garrison itself would become the only plausible perfect the souls of mankind, and enable the king reason for anyone attacking the islands* Appeals for and his subjects to live so virtuously that barbar­ aid were made to China, the U.S., England, and Holland, ians will find no occasion to invade the kingdom. but to no avail. In 1879 Matsuda made a second journey to Okinawa, this time bringing with him 400 soldiers On the Sunday before he left Naha, Perry revealed his and 160 policemen. The kingdom was finally abolished, own notion of virtue. A missionary who lived on the the king deposed, and Okinawa became a prefecture. island boarded the ship and preached a sermon "in which Tnis action, known in Japanese history as the "Pyukyu the American commander was likened to another Jesus Disposal" (Ryukyu Shobun). decisively deetroyed the Christ, and a parallel deliberately instituted between last traces of Okinawan independence and began an era our Saviour's mission on earth and Commodore Perry's of assimilation into Japan. mission to Japan. That functionary /Perry/ sat on the quarterdeck, meanwhile, listening to all this without Some Japanese historians have described the Ryukyu evincing, so far as anyone could perceive, the slightest Shobun as the emancipation of the people of Okinawa displeasure." from their suffering under the feudal regimes of Shimazu and of the Okinawan kings. However this view ignores the widespread popular opposition and resistance The Establishment of Okinawa Prefecture to this forced emancipation. A group called the "Ganko- To"(the Stubborn Party) openly began an anti-Japanese The tottering and obsolete Tokugawa regime could not movement. They distributed proclamations to each village withstand the shock of Perry's arrival, and began to eaying "We reject the Japanese commands and await re­ collapse. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 restored the inforcements from China. Those who obey Japan and become Emperor as head of state, ended the feudal era, establish­ its subjects will be immediately beheaded." Some ed a new, modernized system of authoritarian rule, and Okinawans had actually gone secretly to China to ask began the drive to industrialize the nation. Japan be­ for help...which of course never came. In 1879. on came a unified, centralized, and expansionist capitalist Miyako Island, there occured what became known as the nation. What modernization meant to the Meiji government "San-Shii Incident": a Japanese police agent was captured was expressed in the slogan, "Rich Country, Strong Army," by hundreds of island people and beaten. Their rebellion and all national efforts were turned to the development was crushed by an invasion of a large force of Japanese of the military and industrial capacity to compete with police. The important thing is that the Okinawan people the Western imperialists, in particular in Korea and were never asked whether or not they wanted to become a China. prefecture of Japan. The decision was made in Tokyo, and With this policy the Meiji government viewed Okinawa the purpose was not the liberation of the Okinawans but with renewed interest. Control over Okinawa was the strategic advantage of the expanding Japanese Empire. tightened in a series of steps. In 1871 the Japanese As far as the Meiji government was concerned, the Okinawans government announced that it intended to retaliate were simply people who happened to be living on a peice against Taiwan for the deaths of some Okinawan fisher­ of land it wanted for its own purposes. Whatever"libera­ men, who had drifted ashore there and been killed by tion" the Okinawans may have achieved from the shobun was tribesmen. This implied that Okinawa was considered purely •• accidental. part of Japan. This was followed quickly in 1872 by an announcement from Tokyo that Okinawa had been trans­

111•111 IMItniMtlMIIIMIIIIMIIIJinilMlltlltllMltlMtMlfllllMMIIIItltfMltltltlltlMlltlllltlMlttHMtltH S resisting the draft In 1898, when the Japanese conscription law was extended to include Okinawa, the old ruling class of the Ryukyu kingdom staged big ceremonies to send off the new soldiers, saying, "Before, we people of this prefecture had no right or obligation to enter this glorious military service. This was a most shamsful thing, showing that we were not qualified to be a part of the nation. So this year, for the first time, we have come under the conscription law, and have been given the right and public duty to enter military service. This is to be welcomed by everyone in the prefecture."

But there were many men who disagreed, and in order to escape conscription, resorted to such things as cutting their fingers or drinking too much soy sauce.

On May 18, 1910, a conscription examination was held at a school in Motobu village, Kunigami district. The examining team wae made up of two conscription officers—one of them from the army and the other one the district chief—a military doctor, clerks, and policemen as guards—all of them from Japan.

V/hen a man named Teruya-Zeneei was examined, the doctor found that his elbow was rigid, bent at about 70 degrees. This was the beginning of the "Motobu Conscription Evasion Incident." Teruya insisted that his arm had been bent in this position ever since he fell from his horse when he was young. The doctor, suspecting that he was faking his deformity, suddenly jerked Teruya's left arm. Teruya cried out exaggeratedly, but his elbow extended to about 130 or 140 degrees. Teruya was ordered to stay until all the examinations were completed. Then he was ordered to lie back on a seat and breathe in an anesthetic. Soon he lost conscious­ ness, and his elbow relaxed to 160-170 degrees. As far as the doctor and the officers were concerned, the question was answered. But an uproar arose among the crowd who had been watching the whole scene through the windows. Having seen the cold-hearted examination of Teruya by the doctor, a lamatonchu (the Okinawan's expression for Mainland Japanese), they could finally stand it no longer, and buret into the room. There was a violent incident, and 23 villagers were indicted and sentenced to terms up to 5 years' imprisonment at hard labor. IIIIMIiKX'IIKtMllltllllMtNlltKlllillllMilllllltdlllllllllllllllllHIIIIIIlllllllMIIUIItlNlllllMlllllp

II After 1868 the Meiji government pursued vigorous policies of eliminating the feudal structure, reforming the legal and political system, carrying out land reform, and in general building a strong capitalist state...on the main­ land. Okinawa, however, was throughly excluded from this reform and development program. An example is the case of Miyako Island. Under the old P.yukyu kingdom the people of Miyako had been severely taxed. Every inhabitant from 15 to 50 years old was forced to pay tax, and in addition peasants were forced to offer free labor to landowners. The people of the island who hoped that the new government might bring relief were bitterly disappointed: the system continued unchanged. The islanders demanded abolition of their taxes and staged an uprising, but soon realised Assimilation that it was useless to expect help from the prefectural government. They sent representatives to Tokyo to make an The establishment of Okinawa as a prefecture marked the appeal for relief. They were lucky: the Meiji government beginning of a period of assimilation which lasted until was preparing for war with China and realized that some­ 1945, when Japan was defeated in the Second World War. thing had to be done to ensure the loyalty of the people The policy of the Japanese government toward Okinawa during of Miyako, because of the island's border position. Thus this period was aimed at absorbing the pepple as loyal the Miyako movement became the basis for the general subjects of the Emperor, and at the same time subjecting reform of feudalism which was finally carried out on Okinawa. them to systematic discrimination. Both sides of this policy can be seen clearly in the education program. The school system established in Japan after the Meiji Restoration was built to teach "morality" as well as to train and Perhaps the greatest fighter for justice in Okinawa in educate. This meant an increasing emphasis on indoctri­ those years was Noboru Jahana. Jahana was the son of an nation in the spirit of nationalism, loyalty to ths emperor, Okinawan peasant, who first won distinction by being among and respect for authority. Thus the Meiji government, the first group of students chosen to be sent to Tokyo for while it ignored Okinawa's economic andpolitical develop­ study. He returned to work for the government in its land ment for decades, built an elementary school system almost reform program, but soon found himself at odds with the immediately. By the fourth year after the Ryukgu Shobun. governor, Narahara Kogoro. He became the leader of a "> 53 elementary schools had been established, and 90J( of movement of farmers who opposed the government's land reform the eligible children were in school. In order to achieve program, which had been designed to benefit rich land this the government used unprecedented methods, eliminating speculators rather than the farmer's school fees and publishing attendance records in order to shame parents into sending their children into school. In themselves. These activities led these schools every effort was made to destroy Okinawan to his firing and the severe sup. language and culture, and to Japanise the children pression of his followers. Jahana as quickly as possible. But while primary education was and his comrades continued their rushed through and made compulsory, the Tokyo government movement, demanding universal suf­ showed no interest at all in high school education , .and frage for Okinawa Prefecture. In) high schools were built only after the people fought for 1899 parliament passed a bill pro­ them. Even then most of the teachers and all of the school mising suffrage to the Okinawan people, and then let the matter principals cams from the mainland. In 1895 and again in drop. Continued oppression event­ 1918 there were major school strikes over educational ually crushed the movement, and in discrimination. 1908 Jahana died, penniless and insane• The nature of the educational policy carried out in Okinawa was the same as that used in Japanese colonies, such as Korea and Taiwan, though its expression was dif­ The discriminatory policy ferent. In those countries too every effort was made to toward Okinawa can be seen in deny and suppress traditional culture. By 1940 Japanese the way that reform was systemati ultranationalism had reached the point that the use of the =allv. delayed. That is, while Okinawan dialect was prohibited altogether, and students taxes, compulsory education, and were punished for using it even accidentally. Governor Fuchigami announced that all traces of Okinawa's provin­ military conscripion (enforced cial culture had to be destroyed. from 1898), were established early, civil rights Noboru Jahana

OOOOXJOCOOOCICCCIOOOCIOCOCKXXX)^^

attacking the culture

Ryukyu Shlnpo, the first newspaper published in Okinawa, had the slogan of 'national assimilation' (of Okinawans into Japan) as ite m»ln editorial policy, stating that; 'if our people are to be assimilated, everything ~ visible or invisible, good or bad — must be the same as in the other prefectures of Japan. To put it as clearly as possible, our way of sneezing should be the same as that of the other people of Japan.' (1900) In 1903 there was the 'Jlnrulkan Incident'. At the 5th Industrial Exhibition in Osaka, there was an Academic Pavilion or Anthropology. In one exhibit, Korean, Ainu, and Taiwanese women, and with them two Okinawan women in a hut, were being pointed out by a guide. The response of the Okinawan newspaper was; "... the fact that they showed our people with the native Taiwanese and the Ainu of Hokkaido means that they identify us with the native Taiwanese and the Ainu. What could be more Insulting to us than this. The assimilation policy took its craziest form around 1940, when the "Movement for Destroying the Dialect" appeared. The use of Okinawan dialect, along with the singing of folk songs, was made a crime. At schools, small plates called 'Dialect Plates' were made, and children who were caught using the local dialect had to wear them around their necks. Until the child could find a new criminal, he could not take the plate off, and received some kind of punishment. The children looked for new victims among their fellow students, and if they could not catch anyone, they would sometimes step on a friend's foot, expecting to hear the local expression of pain, 'Agaaa.' to spring out.

Even in a home with only an old husband and his wife, a poster with a slogan like 'Use the standard language with your whole family.' would be put up. Some courageous people did not submit to this movement. For example, there was a boy named Klnjo who openly spoke in the local dialect, received the plates willingly, and never handed them to his friends. So all the plates came to him. Since the punlahment was to have points subtracted from their dally grade, Klnjo's grade was eventually many points below zero. Finally he was expelled from the school.

12 from Photographic Masterpieces of Ihei Kimura , 1954

13 * * * * ****** *****

heros and victims • *

* m S ^ troops landed in the Kerama Islands, SW of Okinawa, on March 26, 1945. One of those islands is Tokashiki. The ielanders involved say that it was Lieutenant Akamatsu, the commander of a suicide corps of lUndin rP" "" 8tatl0ned on the i«l«na. who forced 329 islanders to commit mass suicide at the time of the

Lieutenant Akamatsu, instead of using his boatload of bombs against American ships (and killirg himself in the process) blew up his boats near the island and declared he would destroy the US forces on the landing zone. He gathered the people of the island, who came expecting protection from the Japanese troops. Then <* told them: MJ tT00^B are e°in8 t0 °PP°" the American forces. It will be a long war. In order to stay out of the way of my troops, and in order to offer your food to the troops, you must be brave and put an end to your own lives!

One of the strangest things that happened in 1970 was that former Lieutenant Akamatsu, who had forced Okinawans to commit mass suicide on Tokashiki Island, visited Okinawa to take part in the 25th Memorial Service held on Tokishiki Island for all those who died there during the war. In the end, though, he could not participate in the ceremony because of the etrong protests of the Okinawan people. The forced mass-suicide on Tokashiki Island symbolizes all the crimes of the Japanese Army against the Okinawan people; it was their 'allies', not their enemies, who killed the people. Many can still remember loved ones who died because of the Japanese military. The father of one family was never heard from again after being commanded to leave his trench by a Japanese soldier trying to hide from one enemy. Another lamily was in their trench when some Japanese soldiers came by. The soldiere ordered the family to kill ^/ ^r8 It "° !hf Child'8 Crying "0uld not ***• their Portion away. The mother drowned him in a pond. Sh. must have held him under water with a bamboo pole so he would not float to the eurface until the enemy troops had passed. ******** ****** were delayed. The system of municipal government which spoke to the people in tragic tones: "All subjects should was established on the mainland in 1879 was not set up in die in an honorable defeat." In July, 1944, the govern* Okinawa until 1908. Okinawa Prefecture did not have equal ment ordered old people, women, and children to leave. representation in the Diet until 1920, 41 years after the On August 22 the ship Tsushimamaru, bearing children prefecture had been established. The first election of to the mainland, was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine and which was held in 1890 on the mainland, did not take place in Okinawa until 1928. The police department had a private telephone system as far back as 1894, but there were no 1700 children were drowned. On October 10, Naha City telephones for the public until 1910. The prefectural was completely destroyed in an air raid. By March, 1945 governor was appointed from Tokyo, and always came from the some 80,000 people ahd fled either to the mainland or to mainland, as did most other public officials, policemen, Taiwan. and schoolteachers. Taxation was also discriminatory: in 1912 the people of Okinawa Prefecture were taxed an average All Okinawa was transformed into a fortress. Mountains of 42.4$ of their income, while the average from other and hills were destroyed for underground fortifications. prefectures was 10.94$. And of course commerce and industry Bases for suicide pilots were built. The U.S. was prepared were under the complete control of capital from the main­ for a massive offense; the Japanese army was prepared for land. Okinawa was treated more like a colony than a defense to the death. Neither side gave a thought to the prefecture. fate of the inhabitants of the islands.

By the 1920's the economy of Okinawa prefecture was in On March 26, 1945 the U.S. landed on Kerama island, and a state of complete breakdown. The Great Depression was on April 1 they landed on the main island. For two months the final blow to the already impoverished people, throwing the steel typhoon inched its way south. The Americans were them into what was called "sotetsu hell." The practically greatly aided by a newly invented weapon, the flame tank-, inedible sotetsu palm (cycad), which had always been the which enabled them to burn alive, from a safe distance, last resort of the Okinawans in time of famine, again became soldiers and civilians who were hiding in caves and bunkers. a common food. Okinawans left the islands by the tens of On June 23, the ugliest battle of the Pacific War ended thousands to work in the fields in Hawaii or South America, with the suicides of Commanding General Ujishima and his or to hire themselves out as indentured labor on sugar plantations in Japan's new Pacific colonies. Some families avoided starvation by selling their daughters as prostitutes or as deep sea diving fishermen. The government finally decided on a fifteen year reconstruction plan, but this was abandoned when the Pacific War began. The war brought Okinawa the worst disaster in her over 1000 years of recorded history.

The Second World War and the Battle of Okinawa In 1931 Japan seizied the Manchurian Province of China and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo. When the League of Nations criticized that act, Japan left the organization. Five years later Japan came into a frontal clash with China, and war spread over a vast area. At home the militarists built a totalitarian regime, abolished all political parties, crushed all opposition, and paralyzed the will of the people. In 1941 Japan, as an ally of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, declared war on the United States and Great Britan. On Okinawa too, the government worked to mobilize every citizen into the totalitarian system and instill the people with the spirit of militarism. At school hiking became marching, and military training was required. Thousands were conscripted as laborers or as soldiers. However of all prefectures, Okinawa was the least susceptible to the fascist spirit. Quite unlike mainland Japan, the'islands simply had no military tradition, and had little interest in the glory of "self-sacrifice for the nation. But as the war progressed it became clear that the Okinawans would be forced to sacrifice whether they chose to or not. The tide of battle had turned, and Okinawa The flame tank, which could throw a high-pressure began preparing for invasion. From March of 1944 over stream of burning napalm up to 125 yards, was first 100,000 troops were stationed in Okinawa. The commander used in the battle of Okinawa.

14 Chief of Staff, General Cho. However living in Okinawa, the present situation does not permit us to forget the war. In the enormous U.S. military These massive forces from the dying Japanese Empire and bases which nave all sorts of weapons from nuclear warheads the expanding American Empire had met on Okinawa to act to prison gas, there is Okinawa. And these bases are out grand strategies which the Okinawan people had had no also deeply connected with the war in Vietnam. W» cannot part in making. Yet it was those people who were the live without facing the war every day. Therefore for chief victims. Reluctant Okinawan consripts, including us Okinawan people the battle of Okinawa is not a story schoolboys and schoolgirls, were forced into the battle. that closed its pages 25 years ago as the last battle of The casualty statistics tell the story clearly. Killed the Pacific War. That war is still continuing until in the battle of Okinawa were 12,520'Americans soldiers, today in a different way. We will never be able to 110,000 Japanese soldiers (of whom many were Okinawan experience the end of the war until the present sit­ conscripts), and some 160,000 non-combatant Okinawans. uation is changed..." (Masahide ftta, Asahi Shimbun. Perhaps the attitude of both armies toward the people Aug. 31) of Okinawa is best summarized in the words of the official U.S. Army history of the battle: "Civilians became a nui-n sance to combat units..."

Finally, the dropping of two atom bombs and the Soviet Union's entry into the war brought the Japanese to surrender. For most Japanese on the mainland, the Pacific War ended on August 15 when the Japanese government accepted the Potsdam Declaration in the name of the Emperor. But it did not end for the Okinawan people. One Okinawan intellectual writes the following in his article about the experience of the war; "... Through the battle of Okinawa I learned the reality of war. When the Pacific War ended I said to myself that I should never forget the experience I had

V«»1»

post-war history

nornm* ui ffitofl! m

In the 25 years since the war the people of Okinawa Okinawa, in other words, has served as the anchor have been under direct military rule, managed as a in the center of that great network of bases that branch of the U.S. Department of Defense. The Official encircles the revolution in Asia, the one place where Facts Book put out by the U.S. High Commissioner in the U.S. has ruled rather than operating through the noo-a 1968 puts it clearly: "The mission of the United States insecurities of puppet governments. It is for this auodt Civil Administration of Ryukyu Islands is to assure reason that the America has labeled the island the JoaXq that this strategic area will contribute most ef­ "Keystone of the Pacific." And it is this special fectively to the peace and security of the free world. place that Okinawa has taken in U.S. containment policy that has created the special nature of the suffering The key word here is strategic; the post war fate of the people of Okinawa since the war. of the people of Okinawa has been determined entirely W »iW nedw fc.acbn.ds eew by the way that their land has figured in the strategy If for the American rulers of Okinawa the islands of imperialism in Asia. The strategic importance of are first and foremost a piece of strategic terrain, Okinawa for America has had two aspects. First there the fact that there is a million of what in mili­ is the fact of its key location: it is well within tary language is called "indigenous personnel" bombing range of targets in China, the Soviet Union, living on the island is seen as a matter of second­ North Korea, and Indochina. But of course the same ary importance. To the extent that the Okinawans is true of other U.S. bases in Asia. What is truly are willing to keep their mouths shut and work for special about postwar Okinawa is that it is the only the military as servants and laborers, their presence base in the Far East which the U.S. has kept under is seen as a good thing; to the extent that they » .-J total control. Congressman Melvin Price of the House 9T Armed Services Committee put it this way (in June behave like human beings having wills of their own 1956): their presence is seen as a source of inconvenience, inefficiency, and even danger.

In Japan or in the Philippines, the fate of our Of course for obvious reasons of policy the U.S. bases depends on whether a friendly government military has taken steps to conceal the fact that its continues or not. But in the Ryukyus, by virtue rule has been absolute, and to dress it up in the of our political rule there and the lack of any costume of democracy. Until 1950 Okinawa was simply hostile nationalist movement, we can make long ruled directly as enemy territory by the commanding range plans for the use of advanced military general of the U.S. forces stationed there. In WM. 1950 the official name of the government was changed Tnar., no foreign governments restrict our right from "Military Administration of the Ryukyu Islands" concerning the stockpiling or use of atomic bombs. to "U.S. Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands" In ta* .vent of war, the strategic value of (USCAR). Moreover a "Government of the Ryukyu will grow even larger than at present. Islands" (ORl) was formed, complete with an Okinawan la located in an ideal position to con­ Diet and Chief Executive. However the real ruler trol t*. .ntraace to the Yellow Sea and the Japan of Okinawa has been the U.S. High Commissioner, a high Sea, asm if war breaks out between the Nationalist ranking general appointed by the Secretary of Defense. Chin... tiiwn—nt and Red China, it will serve The Secretary of Defense has almost always selected as an ece.ll.at rear base. Furthermore, Okinawa the Commanding General of the U.S. forces stationed is the «prlS4»nsTd for American strategic air there as High Commissioner, which means that the power afmlast a^mreeelon by the Communist camp. same system has continued under a different name. 'retranslated from Japanese) 15 , The High Commissioner's powers in Okinawa are set The Beginning of Post War Rule out in U.S. Executive Order 10713, Section 11 (a): At the end of the war Okinawa was in a desperate The High Commissioner may, if such action is condition. At least 20$ of the population was dead. deemed necessary for the fulfillment of his 90% of all dwellings and almost all factories and in­ mission under this order, promulgate laws, orders, dustries had been destroyed. The island's vegetation or regulations. The High Commissioner may, if had been trampled, bombed, and burned. The farm­ such action is deemed by him to be important in land was ruined. In 1946, 160,000 cases of malaria its effect, direct or indirect, on the security of were reported. The population was gripped by famine the Ryukyu Islands, or or. relations with foreign and disease. countries and international organizations with respect to the Ryukyu Islands, or on the foreign In these early years the U.S. Military did little relations of the United States, or on the security, beyond providing basic relief... food, medicine, and property or interests of the United States or shelter.... and the restoration of order, which .-.-•- nationals thereof, may, in respect of Ryukyuan meant mainly protecting military supplies from theft. bills, laws, or officials, as the case may be, In mainland Japan the U.S. Occupation, carried away (l) veto any bill or any part or portion there­ by wartime propaganda about America's democratic of, (2) annul any law or any part or portion virtue, was busily bringing about basic reforms. thereof within 45 days after its enactment, and Okinawa was isolated from these reforms, and in -. (3) remove any public official from office . . . those days was simply ignored. In a 1949 expose in The High Commissioner may assume in whole or in Time Magazine, journalist Frank Gibney wrote that part, the exercise of full authority in the islands, Okinawa had become little more than a convenient if such assumption of authority appears mandatory "dumping ground" for incompetents and misfits in the U.S. army. He reported that in the six months prior for security reasons. to September 1949 there had been an astonishing In short, all Okinawa is under his command, and the number of crimes by GIs against Okinawan civilians, seemingly democratic Government of the P.yukyu Islands including 29 murders, 18 rapes, 16 burgleries, and 33 exists only on the condition that it obeys that command. assaults resulting in injury.

The history of the last 25 years on Okinawa has been the history of growing resistance to the great mili­ However as U.S. relations with the Soviet Union tary machine that is crushing that land. The Okinawan began to get worse, and as the Chinese revolution people have not simply by subjected to an "injustice," moved toward victory, U.S. policy in the Far East but have been almost totally expropriated, made out­ began to undergo rapid changes. On the mainland, the Occupation quickly changed its policies on siders in their own land,reduced to zero. They have reform , and began What ie known as the "reverse found that they must fight for every aspect of their course." existence; political existence, and even for the right to life itself. The past 25 years has seen the trans­ formation of Okinawan society into an organization for struggle.

In the beginning this struggle, while it took many forms, had as its ultimate goal the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese administration. This might seem strange considering the kind of treatment the Okinawans received from the mainland government before the war, but it can be understood by comparing their situation to that of the Black people in the United States. Both people had been forced to adopt their present nationality, and then been treated as second-class citizens. Nevertheless for both people that national­ ity has become genuine. And of course in the case of the Okinawans the ancient cultural and linguistic con­ nections with Japan are real. Thus just as American Blacks seek their liberation as Afro-Americans, so the Okinawans seek their liberation as Okinawan Japanese.

However a cultural connection does not neces­ sarily constitute a political solution. At first reversion seemed an obvious alternative to the hated U.S. rule. Japan had "renounced war," and had entered a postwar era of "peace and democracy." As Akira Arakawa, an Okinawan thinker, has put it, "The basic idea underlying the reversion movement was that of returning to the Japan that ought to be. The Japan that ought to be, needless to say, was the Japan of the Peace Constitution." On Okinawa, the U.S. military began to realize that As time passed, however, it became clear that the it was in possession of a territory far more valuable Peace Constitution had been an illusion. Now the than a mere dumping ground, a terrotory of key im­ Okinawans have gained a promise for reversion in 1972, portance in Far Eastern Military strategy. On Oct. 1, not to the "Japan that ought to be," but to the Japan 1949, the very day that the People's Republic of China that is. And it has become obvious that this is going was founded, Major General Sheets bacame U.S. High Com- to mean absolutely no concrete improvement in their missionor, and began construction of permanent military condition. Rather than an end to rule of their island installations on Okinawa, for the financing of which, by the military machine, reversion in 1972 only means $50,000,000 had been appropriated in the 1950 U.S. budget. Then in June, 1950 the Korean War began, and the the beginning of an era of joint Japanese-American military importance of Okinawa was decisively established. collaboration in the operation of that machine. The alleged liberator has joined forces with the op­ pressor, and Okinawa has discovered that the weight The San Francisco "Feace" Treaty on its back is not to be lifted, but doubled. The Okinawan people have learnea much from this bitter In September 1951 a conference was called in San turn of history. 1972 will mark the deepening and Francisco, at which 49 contries signed a treaty which intensification of their struggle for liberation. brought peace to Japan and which tightened the grip of the U.S. war machine on Okinawa. Clause 3 of the treaty, the special brainchild of John Dulles, hinted that the L'.S. might someday apply to the U.K. to make Okinawa into a trusteeship, and that until 9uch time the U.S. would continue to have full power over the islands. As if this were not confusing enough, Dulles went on to an­ nounce that Japan would retain "residual sovereignty" * Of course there is a sector of Okinawan society that over Okinawa. Of course in all diplomatic history has taken a different path to survival, a camp- there has never been such a concept as "residual sover­ follower subculture... pimps, whores, dealers, and also eignty"; it is Dulles' invention, and no one has ever upper-class hustlers who go to school in America and been able to figure out what it means. But all these return to dine in the Officers' Club. Most Americans maneuvering achieved their purpose: the U.S. gained com­ on Okinawa come only into contact with these people plete power over Okinawa without actually annexing it. and convince themselves that these are the "real Okinawans." None of the parties to the treaty, including Japan, 16 took any measures to seek the approval of the people to stay longer than 30 days, and while they are there are living On 0kinawao Of course they could not have under the jurisdiction of MPs. Okinawans can be arrested gotten it had they tried. A petition campaign was both by MPs and Okinawan police; perhaps that fact best carried out in which 199,000 Okinawans, or 72^ of the symbolizes their condition. eligible voters, signed a protest against the treatyc In the Miyako Islands 53,000 people, or 88% of the April 28, the day that the treaty came into effect electorate, signed the same petition in five days. The in 1952, is remembered in Okinawa as a day of humiliation Okinawan Legislative Assembly and the governors of the and betrayal. Japan had purchased her brief period of various islands sent telegrams of protest to Dulles, to "peace and democracy** by selling an entire prefecture of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida, and to the chairman of her people into bondage to the war machine. April 28 has the Peace Conference. Their wiohes were ignored. Only become "Okinawa Day," a day of major demonstrations both India refused to sign the treaty because of Article 3, in Okinawa and on the mainland. arguing that it was a concealed form of colonialism.

The treaty arrangement placed the Okinawans in a bizarre and contradictory position. Prom the stand­ point of USCAR, Japanese mainlanders are "foreigners,** WARNING and require U.S. permission to visit the islands,, From the standpoint of Japan, Okinawans are considered DANGER AREA - nationals, and can travel freely to Japan, take up residence, and obtain a passport. American civilians can Visit the islands freely, but require permission fc Sfr ». ML

the land robbers

+ On the morning of December 5, 1963, the farmers of Gushikawa hamlet found their sweet potatos and full heads I + of cabbage, ripe and almost ready to be harvested, plowed under, and about 300 meters of a new road carved out. t + At the end of the road, a bulldozer was still plowing through their fields. The shocked farmers rushed to the % + bulldozer and called to the operator to stop his work, but ths operator paid no attention to them and continued % + working. The farmers hurried back to their hamlet and beat the bell of the hamlet office to gather the villagers \ + and report what they had seen. Soon all the villagers—women, children, young and old—ran to the field. + + Surprised to see so many people, the bulldozer operator stopped work. The MPs and CIDs at the scene retreat- + ed into their tent, telling the farmers they were only there to prevent them from being injured in the const- + ruction. "We can't say anything about the construction unless we ask our superior officers. Please wait + until our commanding officer, Ogden, comes," the U.S. military men requested. + t I The villagers, sat down in front of the bulldozer, and waited for Ogden. + + t After more than an hour, they heard the sound of engines, but what appeared was not Ogden's car, but J + several trucks full of American soldiers. The soldiers, armed with about 300 carbines, surrounded the villagers. • + Behind the trucks was an armored car, and a machine gun was set up on a nearby hill. f + + The commander of the military unit read a message from Ogden, ordering the villagers to leave immediately. + The villagers sat listening in amazement. Finally one villager stood up and demanded, "What did you come here + + for?" The commander responded saying he had not come to listen to their opinions, and signaled his men. At + + the signal, the soldiers attacked the sitting villagers, kicking them, shoving them with bayonetts, and striking + + them with their gun butts. The villagers remained seated in front of the soldiers, trying to resist their + -f violent attack. But finally they were driven away. + + In this case of land confiscation in Gushikawa, the official letter of notification arrived at the village office on November 26, 9 days before the construction began. But the chief of the Administrative section of the + + civil government added his own official letter, saying that since the land was needed at once, the farmers + would have to remove their crops as quickly as possible, and that because the land was included in the plan for + Naha airport, there would be no compensation for the crops. The order was absolute and arbitrary, leaving no % opportunity for the villagers to express their opposition. + In addition to this, there were cases in which fields were destroyed by U.S. forces before the official + announcement had arrived.An example is the case involving the construction of a radio station at Okuma. + •+++++++++++++-'-+-'-+-'^+++-M-+++++^ +

The Land Struggle directly for the U.S. government, o.r under contract, or as maids for GIs. 186,000, or 45$ of the labor force, As of 1969, the 117 bases on Okinawa occupied 120 was in the service industry, which is of course centered square miles, or 44$ of the arable land on the island. on the bases. In the same year, 29$ of the entire Gross Some 40,000 landowners have been dispossessed. Inside National Product of Okinawa was revenue from the bases. these base areas there have been built not only airstrips To the American rulers, of course, this is irrefutable and military facilities, but also golf courses, swimming proof of the benevolanoe of their regime. To the pools, football fields, wide, unused lawn areas, and A Okinawans, it is the measure of their bondage. rambling, ticky-tacky housing areas: in short, a huge, drab, middle class American suburbia. On the outside of How was this seizure of land, which was the concrete the cyclone fences, the Okinawans live pressed into the basis of the system of dominance, carried out? . Up narrow strip of land that remains between the bases and until 1952 land was simply taken by force and without the sea. payment. In November 1952 the Civil Administration res­ ponded to farmers' protests by issuing an ordinance which provided for "contracts" between the government By seizing all the best land in the center of the and landowners, and for payment of rent. Of course island, the U.S. military did not simply use up a lot of there was nothing contractual about these "contracts:" space, and force a fundamental alteration in the ecology the land had already been taken, and the rent was of Okinawa. To seize the land of a farming people is to decided unilaterally by the military: for the period destroy the absolute basis of their society, economically up to 1952 the farmers were offered 90c7 per square Km. and socially. Land once sealed under concrete or asphalt That is, not 90/^ per month or per year, but 9oV for the can never be farmed again. What has been offered as a entire period. For the period after 1952 the farmers were new basis is the bases themselves. It is common of to sign a 20 year rental contract and accept a lump sum course for colonies to develop a one-crop economy, as for payment. No other terms were negotiable. 98$ of the example sugar was for Cuba. As High Commissioner Watson landowners refused to sign. put it in 1964, and High Commissioner Unger repeated in 1967, the economy of Okinawa too is dominated by a single In April, 1953 the Civil Administration responded to main crop, and that crop is bases. There is no doubt the farmers stubbornness by issuing an ordinance en­ that this is true. The farmers who were forced off their titled "Land Acquisition Procedure." According to land are now reemployed o n that s,ame land as cheap base labor. Or else they are forced into the grotesquely overgrown service industry. In 1969, 21$ of Okinawa's * There is an overlap of course between these two labor force of 226,000, was working on bases either percentages. 17 this ordinance, if » farmer did not sign a rental con­ movement on Okinawa has been reversion to Japan.. tract within 30 days of being shown the Acquisition Every political party on Okinawa included reversion in Notice, his land could be seized. The period of 1953 its platform, differing only on the questions of timing to 1955 was one of continuous base expansion in which the and urgency. The Okinawan Diet has passed a resolution embattled farmers were systematically driven off their demanding reversion at practically every one of its land by armed troops. One group of farmers from the sessions since the war. island of Iejima, whose land had been entirely ex­ propriated, rather than seek positions in the new base In the beginning the demand for reversion was a economy took up a new life as beggers, and walked the radical demand. This can' be seen from the lengths to length of Okinawa to raise support for their struggle. which the U.S. Civil Administration went to repress it. For example as far back as April, 1953, the Civil Admin­ In 1955, in response to the appeal of a delegation istration interfered in the results of an election. A that had been sent to Washington, a congressional in­ candidate who had been elected to the diet by the voters vestigating team, headed by Congressman Melvin Price of in the fourth election district in Central Okinawa...a the House Armed Services Committee, came to Okinawa. ^ nVf,the Socialist M^ses Party...was forbidden by The Okinawans, believing that the gross injustices to the U.S. from taking office. Once again the Okinawans which they had been subjected would be overwhelmingly responded to oppression by escalating their resistance: obvious to any observer, held out great hopes for the The oocialist Masses Party and the People's Party report which Frice's committee would make to Congress. immediately formed a joint struggle committee However they soon found that they had put their trust in and passed the following resolutions: immediate re­ the wrong place. The Price report first of all went out version to Japan; opposition to colonization; expansion of its way;to argue that the U.S. rule on Okinawa was of the right of self-government; direct election of right and proper, based on the right of conquest ("America won the war") and on the San Francisco Peace Treaty. the Okinawan Chief Executive; an end to interference In effect it told the farmers that they should take in elections. The USCAR issued an order to the joint the money offered them and go somewhere else. struggle committee to dissolve, and called new .i elections. However not a single candidate came for­ ward. Finally in July, after the third election an­ The insulting Price report, made public on June 9, nouncement^ lone candidate from the conservative 1956, sent a shock wave through the island. Perhaps Democratic Party decided to run. Since he was unopposed, this was the first time that Okinawans came to realize no election was held, and he became a diet member auto­ that the injustices they were suffering were not simply matically. mistakes made by the military but were the policy of the U.S. government. On June 20 public meetings were held in 59 of the total of 64 towns and villages in Okinawa. The fifties was of course the McCarthy era in Five days later, growing out of these meetings, two the U.S., the age in which every idea that devi­ massive rallies were held, one in Naha and one in Koza. ated from American policy was attacked as "commu­ A total of 150,000 people gathered on that day. The nist." Some of the antics of the USCAR during effect of the Price report had been to expand the land that period would have been comic, if they had not been backed up by so much power. For example stuggle from a fight of just the dispossessed farmers in February, 1954, they sent a letter to Chobyo to an island-wide mass movement. Yara, head of the Okinawa Teachers Association, which had been carrying much of the burden of By 1958 the land struggle won two concessions from the reversion movement. The letter said that since the military, and temporarily subsided. The first was the reversion movement opposed U.S. military policy that the land rent was raised to 6 times that offered it was therefore to the advantage of "communism," by the Price Report. The second was that farmers were and it ordered the OTA to stop giving this aid to able to receive yarly rent instead of lump sum payments, "communism" and to concentrate its efforts on edu­ and that the value of their land was reappraised each cating children. A few months later, USCAR five years. decided to come out in opposition to Mayday; it announced that since Mayday is Marx' birthday, no However a bigger payoff does not alter the fact that one who is not a communist should participate. the farmers were forced from their homes and their land Since this immediately made the Civil Adminis­ seized. Nor was a bigger payoff what the farmers them­ trator the laughing stock of the island, he tried selves really wanted. This was illustrated when in 1966 to extricate himself with a new statement two the U.S. presented landowners in Cushikawa Village with days later: that while Mayday is a classic festival new land requisition notices, having the intention of dating back to ancient Greece, at the present time expanding supply bases in the area. In the four years it has been taken over by Communists and so non- since then the farmers have been able to prevent the communists should not participate. This was of military from obtaining a single piece of land in the course no better; the Mayday workers celebrations area. went ahead as scheduled.

THE REVERSION MOVEMENT: the early years It was also in 1954 that the USCAR ordered the Until recently the central aim of the resistance Diet to pass a law outlawing communism. The con­ servative members of the Diet began to write the

.

18 law, but opposition was so strong that they gave city council, rather than two-thirds as it had it op. Failing to convince Okinawans to repress previously. A secound non-confid»nee vote was Okinawans, the USCAR proceeded to do it directly, passed, and again new elections were called. and opened an attack on the Okinawan People's However this time the Civil Administrator introduced Party (OPP). In April of that year the USCAR a new ploy: he announced that since Senaga had made its intentions clear by issuing an announcement been convicted of a felony he would be barred that the People's Party was the same as the Commun­ from running in the election. With this USCAR's ist Party. In July, it issued an order that two frantic efforts to destroy the Senaga government members of the People's Party from Amami Oshima finally succeeded. (an island that lies between Okinawa and Kyushu} must leave Okinawa within 4S hours as "undesirable aliens." Consider: Americans from the other aide of the Pacific ordering Japanese to move from one 1960: the Eisenhower visit part of Japan to another as "aliens." The two refused to leave, and went into hiding. In August 1960 was the year when the Japan-U.S. Mutual one of them was discovered* Using this as an Security Treaty (Ampo), originally signed at the San excuse, the USCAR began the systematic arrest of Francisco Conference, was first revised and extended. over half of the OPP leadership. On October 6 the In Japan millions signed petitions, and hundreds of arrested a People's Party Diet member, Kamejiro thousands went on strike or took to the streets. Senaga, and 40 others, for crimes ranging from Prime Minister Kishi was forced to resign, and "harboring a criminal" to passing out leaflets about Eisenhower was asked to cancel his scheduled visit the event. They were tried in military court without to Japan. In order to minimize the humiliation, lawyers. Senaga was sentenced to two years in prison. Eisenhower decided to visit Okinawa instead. He He had been elected to the Diet in 1952 with the arrived on July 20, the very day that the Security highest number of votes, being the politician with Treaty was officially approved by the Diet in Japan. the greatest mass support on Okinawa, and at the (The vote in the Lower House was taken after all same time had offered the most powerful resistance the opposing Diet members were dragged out of the to the U.S, military. Perhaps the USCAR had thought room by police). A protest against his visit was that they had got rid of him by locking him up for organized by a new organization called Fukkikyo? two years; if so they were wrong. In 1956, as soon The Fukkikyo leaders had planned to do no more than as he was released from prison, Senaga ran for mayor have a demonstration and present Eisenhower with Naha, an won. USCAR acted immediately. Three days a petition, but as so often happens on Okinawa, after the election it stopped its subsidy to the city the movement itself was far ahead of its leaders. of Naha. It followed this with an order to the banks A huge guard of US Marines with fixed bayonets to freeze the city's deposits. Businessmen announced had been called out to supplement the police force, their non-cooperation with the new government. but the demonstration surged through the police However the City Employees Union announced its co­ lines and rushed the entrance of the Ryukyu operation. Tne Senaga government had to spend ail government buildings while Eisenhower was inside. its energies in a battle to simply survive. The American president was forced to cut short his visit time and sneak out the back door to a car, Pressure was put on the city council to pass which took him via an unpaved road to the plane a non-confidence motion, which would force Senaga to call new elections. At first the council was reluctant, even though it had only three PP members out of thirty. Finally, however, a non-confidence * Okinawa ken sokoku fukki kyogikai (Okinawa motion was passed in June , 1957. In the new Prefecture Reversion Council) Fukkikyo was electionb Senaga's support expanded from three to founded on April 28, 1960, and joined together for twelve, still short of a majority. At this time the first time all the separate movements that USCAR decided it was time to change the law, and had been active on Okinawa: the reversion movement, announced that henceforth a non-confidence vote the land struggle, the anti nuclear weapons would require only a simple majority vote of the movement, the anti-Kike missile movement, and the movement against the oppressive New Combined Criminal Law. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ t*tift¥«vtv*YtyS¥t¥»*¥S¥tT»tV*YtItVl¥$¥3¥*YSYS¥t¥SYS¥STS¥t1ftT.¥$V*¥S¥$¥S¥t¥t¥t¥SV$¥t¥f¥IVS.¥S¥S¥S¥t¥tVST«¥S¥fVtYSV

¥ taking car e of troops ¥ S ¥ In 1949, when General Sheets became High Commissioner he announced what became known as the Sheets Policy. I Though this was not stated directly, the effect was to authorize the building of a large scale Red Light ¥ District at American expense, and to gather these prostitutes from all over Okinawa. The policy of prostitu­ f tion was justified as necessary for the maintenance of peace in the islands. One writer summed it up this way: ¥ "It is natural to sacrifice women of poor families to protect the innocence of the daughters of the rich from S the violence to be expected from the American soldiers." ¥ I At a place formerly called Yaejimahara, rocky and weedy and unlivable, there were built as many as two ¥ hundred houses of prostitution, western style concrete buildings such as could not be found anywhere else on S Okinawa. ¥ t ¥ I one dollar with soba ¥ i ¥ The newspapers in Okinawa call both the legal or tacitly admitted Red Light Districts and the overtly 5 illegal ones "Tokuingai", including those on the outer islands. ¥ t In 1963 the army authorities instituted the prohibition of prostitution as a condition for the granting of ¥ an A-sign ("approved"), saying that an A-sign bar would be a place only for drinking and dancing. But the I bar owners simply put up new signs saying "Hotel" or made the girls live in ordinary houses. ¥ In the prostitution districts in Okinawa American-style discrimination has been imported, and separated ¥ districts for blacks and whites, have naturally evolved. Among the prostitutes there exists discrimination 3 between those for blacks and those for white. ¥ I There has recently been a remarkable development of prostitution for mainland Japanese. The darkest ¥ corner of the Red Light District for Japanese is called Jitsukanshe. Here it is said that the price is S "one dollar with soba (noodles)"... The aged prostitutes who can not sell their body even for a dollar ¥ throw a bowl of soba into the deal.

¥ i ¥t¥*¥*¥S¥S¥S¥t¥S¥S¥*¥fI<¥*¥S¥$¥f¥*¥S¥S¥t¥t¥t¥t¥S¥t¥i¥J¥»¥$¥f¥S¥S¥S¥S¥S¥«¥f¥S¥t¥S¥S¥t¥S¥.¥S¥f¥I¥t¥.¥S¥S¥t¥S¥t¥S¥*¥t¥S¥t¥*¥S¥ 19 which was waiting to take him to Korea. It was not one of the General's greater truimphs. It was also in 1960 that the U.S. decided to Okinawa and the Vietnam War from 1?65 put Hawk"and Mace B missiles on Okinawa, making clear its intention to make the island into a <* Feb- 7> ^6^' the u-s- **&>* the bombing of fortified nuclear base. iiorth Vietnam. Once again Okinawa proved its essential value to the war machine. On that very day the 3rd Marine Division, for whom Okinawa has been the home base, received movement orders to Vietnam. On the following day an entire Hawk wing was transported from Kadena to Da Hang by C130S. Shortly after that the 173rd Airborne Brigade was moved from Okinawa to Vietnam, followed by First Special Forces, which had been trainingfor guerilla warfare on the northern part of the island. The U.S. had been somewhat hesitant to move B52s into either Japan or Okinawa because of their nuclear capacity. Finally in 1965 it resorted to the follow­ ing cheap trick. On July 28 the military informed the Japanese government that it was moving its B52s from Guam to Itazuke (on Kyushu) "in order to protect them from a typhoon." In fact the B52s landed instead at Okinawa's Kadena Airbase, and on the following day began continuous bombing runs to Vietnam.

In the same year, as the U.S. stepped up the war, the Sato government in Japan stepped up its efforts to become an "equal partner" with the U.S. in the policies that had led to the war. On Jan. 13, less than a month before the bombing of the North, Sato issued a joint statement with Lyndon Johnson in which he agreed that the U.S. military presense in Okinawa was necessary tothe security of the Far East. And it was also in 1965 that Sato pushed through the "normalization" treaty with South Korea (thus solidifying hostility between Japan and North Korea). The completion of this treaty was a major step in Sato's policy of reasserting Japan as international power, the dominant member of that string of dictatorships an phoney democracies that makes up the anti-communist alliance system in the Far East. The treaty was finally ratified in December, with the police again occupying the Diet before the "vote" was taken.

In the Fall of 1965 Sato made a trip to Okinawa, to A hunger strike demanding reversion before show his "sincerity" and to make promises. If he the Okinawan Diet, 1964 expected to get a triumphal welcome he was sadly dis­ appointed: demonstrations against him were so powerful that he had to escape into the safety of a U.S. base, and spent the night in a military "guest house." The *W*¥»¥i*3¥m¥$¥;¥r¥r¥*¥*¥S¥»¥J¥3¥S¥*¥i¥*¥3¥*¥mmm¥$¥$¥m¥S¥i¥i¥i¥*¥3¥$¥$¥{¥S¥S¥i¥ f¥S¥t¥t¥S¥S¥J¥t¥t¥S¥*¥3¥SIt(*¥<*ii PROSTITUTION (continued) • no down payment, a lifetime to pay •• Of course prostitution was not first introduced to Okinawa by America. In 1903 there were 2,000 prostitu- ffe.i in Okinawa Prefecture. However the number has swelled grotesquely. The police estimate the figure at 10,000, but there are probably at least twice that number.

In the dialect cf one district of Okinawa prostitution is called "motoshin-kakarannu", which means the labor that needs no capital. These people who have been disinherited, forced from their homes and their land, are forced to make a bare living depending on American "wealth." In towns or villages without even a chimney, what can a girl do who wants to live by herself, especially if she happens to be born in a family that has neither a shop to work in nor land to cultivate? To pay back the debts of her family she often cannot help but choose prostitution, the "easiest" job. Another peculiarity of prostitution in Okinawa is that more than 40$ of the prostitutes are women with children. Usually young prostitutes come to the profession because of the burden of debt. She often may have debts from one thousand to more than five thousand dollars. There are various reasons for falling into debt, but the young prostitute sells her body in exchange for a great deal of cash which is' forwarded by the madam of the bar who mediates with a gangster who probably makes prostitution his business.

Half of the prostitutes takings, earned through bitter work, does not go to the repayment of her debt, but is taken as profit by the madam. Nor is the remainder given to her either—it is held by the madam as repay­ ment of the debt, because there is the danger that the young prostitute might run away if she had a good sum of cash in hand. From her takings, she borrows money once more for her living expenses and to supply her family. At last she must live in an endless financial relation in which she herself borrows money from her own takings. the pimp establishment The prostitute needs a pimp to receive money regularly and also to avoid unjust violence, In Okinawa, they call gangsters or strong-arm squads "Ashiba" (playboy).

Now the most powerful group is "Toseikai", which wields secret power in the middle and southern parts of Okinawa. In the three big Okinawan elections in autumn of 1968, the Liberal Democratic Party of Okinawa made many young members of "Toseikai" join the young men's association of the Liberal Democratic Party, to threaten canvassers of Yara candidates and engage in other shady maneuverings. They are also organizers of th self-defense organization or "Band of vigilantes" which protects the profits of managers of movie theaters, bars, hotels and other such establishments, and are bound up with "Protection of" living associations" which have deeply common interests with the United States Army. It is also they that attacked a picket line in the Zengunro strike.

The prostitute can not easily escape from Ashiba At last there only exists the relationship between the Ashiba who deceives and exploits and the prostitute who is deceived and exploited.

20 incident symbolized perfectly the position of the reversed the process, and began to drag away the police. Japanese government. Finally they managed to occupy the entrance to the Diet building. The chairman adjourned the session, but the people still refused to move, saying they would not leave until the Education bills were positively rejected by the Diet. Finally at 7pm a conference was held between the government party and the opposition parties, and an agreement was reached to abandon the bills.

Of course when Okinawa reverts to Japan in 1972, essentially the same laws, which are already in force on the mainland, will be extended to Okinawa automati­ cally. A growing recognition of such realities of present day Japan began to bring about a reavaluation of the reversion movement.

1966: Election of the Chief Executive

Until 1968 the Okinawan Chief Executive, who acts as the head of the Ryukyuan Government, w§s appointed personally by the Civil Administrator. However in January of that year Lyndon Johnson announced that the Chief Executive would henceforth be chosen by general election. The reason for conceding this long standing demand was obvious enough. The Vietnam War,..and the inability of the U.S. to win it...had demonstrated that the U.S. would need its bases on Okinawa for a long time to come, and it was important to placate local opposition* (Only five days after Johnson's announcement the military announced that the Guam B52s which had been operating out of Kadena for 2^- years ... presumably still escaping that old 1965 typhoon... would be permanently based on Okinawa.)

The election was set for Nov. 10. The progressive forces put up Chobyo Yara, chairman of the Okinawa Teachers' Association and long a fighter for reversion. The conservative forces ran Junji Nishime, mayor of Naha. !i*rlij| The Sato government made almost ludicrous efforts to .1*1 get Kishime elected, sending major politicians, cabinet members, and movie stars down to join in the campaign. During his 1965 visit to Okinawa, Prime Minister The Nishime forces took a line of crude economic Sato wept for the cameras before a shrine to utilitarianism, based on the axiom that men should not Okinawa*s war dead. mind bondage so much if they get paid enough for it. They tried to terrorize the Okinawan people with visions of poverty and destitution that would follow if the bases were removed. The U.S. and Ryukyu governments coveniently issued an economic report The Sato "Reunification" Policy and the Education Bills which claimed that if the bases were taken away, 100,000 people would lose their jobs. "If you elect From 1965 the Sato government began to take up the Yara," they argued, uyou will eat potatoes and walk Okinawa issue. It did this not in response to the barefoot." This line of argument came to be known as movement on Okinawa, but rather in order to coopt the "potatoes-barefoot theory" (imo-hadashl ron). and that movement to its own purposes. Sato began to served only to symbolyze the contempt with which the develop a program that looked externally like what conservatives were dealing with the people. the Okinawans were demanding, but in its real content was different. He proposed a program of gradual re­ Yara thus won a fierce election battle, basing unification with the mainland government, the build­ campaign on the line long stuck to by the Okinawan ing of administrative connections and the standard­ people: immediate, unconditional, and absolute return ization of law. One of the first concrete examples of Okinawa to Japan. However at the same time Sato was of Sato-style reunification was the unification of preparing a new deal that would annul all reversional police forces, which meant that Okinawa formed a slogans. Yara was victorious, but events following branch of the notorious Japanese riot police, a special­ his victory made it clear that winning the election ly trained and equipped para-military unit whose only was much more of a cooptation than a victory for the purpose is to deal with demonstrations. movement.

An example of standardization of law was the in­ The B52 explosion and the General Strike of Feb. 4 troduction in 1967 of two education bills, which had already been made into law on the mainland. The At dawn on Nov. 19, nine days after Yara was elected, first of these prohibited any political activity by a B52 which was taking off on a bombing run to Vietnam teachers, and the second prohibited teachers from crashed and exploded inside Kadena airbase. Then an participating in any labor activity, including strikes. In addition a system which provided for higher officials interesting thing happened: emergency crews responding checking up on teachers' performances and submitting to the crash call ran not toward the burning wreckage efficiency reports was to be established. These bills but in a different direction, to an area near the had the clear ana open political purpose of breaking crash. Everyone knew the reason: the B52 had exploded the Okinawan Teachers Association, which as mentioned right next to one of the most highly guarded places on above had been the backbone of the resistance move­ Okinawa, the Chibana ammunition depot, where it is ment. Moreover the bills were presented just before common knowledge that nuclear weapons are stored. the first general election of the Okinawan Chief Executive, and the conservatives hoped outlaw political This accident sent a shock through the islands, and activity by teachers before that campaign began. marked a turning point in the movement. Until then the movement had still been more nationalistic than anti­ war. The B29 explosion brought into focus the fact On the day before the general session of the Diet, that the bases, far from being an economic windfall which was scheduled for February 1. 1967, both of with a few disadvantages, are an immediate and concrete these bills were pushed through committee... the threat to life. If that bomber had exploded in a committee meeting being held under police guard. slightly different place, the main island of Okinawa However mass demonstrations forced the cancellation and its nearly one million inhabitants might have been of the Diet session scheduled for the next day. On blasted into the sea. And as Japan had increasingly February 24 the conservatives again tried to open a grown into an active and willing partner in the Diet session, calling in police to break up the sit- Security Treaty System with the U.S., return to in that had been going on all night in front of the Japanese administration had become an empty, aymbolic Diet building, to lead in the members of the con­ matter, with no relation to this direct and concrete servative Democratic Party, and then block off the danger. entrances. However the demonstration continued to grow, finally reaching 25,000. At this point the people 21 Beginning on the very day of the explosion, a wave of meetings and rallies was held. Out of this a new organization was born, the Prefectural People's Joint Struggle Committee for the Protection of Human Life (Kenmin kyoto)) While the name sounds awkward, in English, it emphasizes the absolutely basic level to which the movement was forced to go by the B52 ex­ plosion: they were not fighting for wage increases or shorter hours, but to free their land of a force which threatens to burn them to ashes. The reversion movement had decisively transformed into an anti- military, anti-war movement.

The Kenmin Kyoto decided to schedule a general strike for Feb. 4, 1969, with the demand that all B52s be removed from the island. Most of the major labor unions...the Teachers Union, the Okinawan Prefectural Labor Union, the Public Officials Union (Kankoro), and the Base Workers Union (Zengunro)...were scheduled to participate. It looked as if the power had been organized to bring things to a halt.

Both the US and Japanese governments were panicked by the possibility of the General Strike* On January 11 the Civil Administrator issued a "Oeneral Labor Directive," which was to come into effect on Jan. 25, or just ten days before the strike. The 10«h clause of this directive stated that all persons were pro~2. hibited from engaging in any picketing, rallies, or demonstrations intended to disrupt, or actually 3 o disrupting (i.e. whether intended or not) the activi­ ties of the U.S. millitary or of important idndustries. This was a crude move even for USCAR, and was subjected to widespread criticism all over Japan, including in the press. The Japanese government made a request to the U.S. to delay the directive, which the Civil Administrator complied with (in fact the directive was never put into effect at all).

Now however, the Japanese government had inherited the responsibility for dealing with the strike. It began to exert pressure on the Yara government, using a combination of promise and threat. The threat: a General Strike is certain to delay Okinawa's return to Japan. The promise: the Japanese government will enter into negotiations with the U.S. for the removal of the B52s. The Yara government found itself en* trapped in the reversion ideology: for years they had been arguing in effect that Okinawa should be governed from Tokyo, and now they found it impossible to refuse Tokyo's very first advice and offer of aid. Yara himself, though he had been a noble old fighter as leader of the Teachers' Union, completely bungled his first encounter with the professional politicians. He came back from a talk with Sato in Tokyo recommend­ ing that the strike be cancelled, saying that as a result of the talks, "I have been given the impression that the B52s may be removed sometime around June or July."

Yara, the head of the Okinawan Labor council, and the head of the Japanese General Council of Trade Unions (Sohyo) net and decided to recommend against the stride for the following three reasons: l)the Japanese government had promised to enter into diplomatic negotiations; 2) a strike would put the new Yara administration into a difficult position;

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&.

attacking the culture (continued)

Language education seems to be designed to make people feel that their native dialect is inferior to standard Japanese. This kind of education goes on all the time. For example, in Okinawa there is a children's radio program. The teacher may ask the pupil, 'What do you call this?* The pupil answers, 'I call this so and so (in Okinawan dialect).' Then the teacher warns, 'If you use a word like that, everybody will laugh at you.' The teacher, of course, speaks very clearly, and the show is like a fast-paced comedy. It is effective in teaching standard Japanese, but it is also effective in planting feelings of inferiority in the children and making them feel that it is bad to speak in their own dialect.

rvufvvvwwwwwwt wwww v HWWWHWWH 22

OF BASE « REMOVE ALL MILITARY § • OKINAWAMUST BUILD AM p ECONOMY BASED

r • ALL POWER TO THE PE * Mfflm IN SUPPORT OF 2EN6UNR5 tfr- 3) a strike would bring about great "organizational damage" to the labor unions. The general strike was killed, but the "radical" leaders were just barely able to countrol the uprising At 4 AM on Feb. 2 the executive committee of against them. There were a number of wildcat strikes Kenmin Kyoto also decided to call off the strike, and by unions who refused to go along with the decision. instead just to have a big rally and demonstration. And of course the Sato government never opened any The decision was made in their fifth meeting place negotiations at all with the U.S. about the removal of the evening; every place they had gone they had been of B52s. Nor did the B52s leave "around June or surrounded by angry workers demanding that the strike July." go on. Finally they had found a place which the workers could be kept out of, and they made their There was much gained from this incident, however. decision in closed session. According to a newspaper The people of Okinawa learned something about their account of the event, when the chairman of Kenmin own strength, and something about the danger of Kyoto came down stairs to announce the decision, the giving away their power to representatives. There workers would not let him speak, shouting "traitor! is now a trend not only away from expecting help froa Labor aristocrat! Corrupt Labor Boss! Kill him!" Tokyo, but also away from expecting help from the He withdrew, and the vice chairman announced the de­ Yara government itself, and in the direction of local cision in his place, though his voice could not be actions such as wildcat strikes. heard over the angry shouting and hissing. And when the political chairman of the mainland union, Sohyo, came downstairs to go to the toilet, they shouted at him, "What did you come to Okinawa for?! Go home! Professional strike avoider! Hit him and show him how Okinawa hurts!"

WvWvWvWvrWHvvttvvWvWv^^ WHEN THE iatatif CAME TO IEJIMA • • • a document Shortly after the beginning of the Korean War the U.S. military began a far reaching program of enlarging and further strengthening their bases in the Okinawan islands due to their having become of new strategic importance in the quickly changing Far East scene. In order to accomplish enlargement of the bases the military realized that that would require more land than they were presently occupying. To get more land they turned to the Okinawan farmers who badly needed whai ^hey had for the cultivation of crops. Naturally, any farmer whose past generations had been attached to the lands for centuries would not be easily persuaded to give up his land so that it could be used as a bombing site. However the military tried at first to lease the lands with long term contracts, but failing to interest the farmers they took a more drastic action by forcibly evicting the farmers under the cover of the "Land Evacuation Law" enacted in April of 1953. But let there be no mistake, the farmers did not "evacuate" their land, they were forced off their family acres and sometimes beaten off if they did not comply with the so-called "law". The most shocking example of this land eviction was against the farmers of Iejima Island. Here the military took the land without the benefit of any compensation and bulldozed or burned the islanders homes so that the site could be used as a bombing practice area. Since that time the Iejima farmers have taken up a resolute and righteous struggle against the arrogant powers that generated this act. Despite the odds against them the farmers never surrendered in the face of these oppressive circumstances, instead they entered the grounds of the bases to cultivate their lands and were met with beatings, arrests and attacks from vicious, trained dogs. By July of 1956 the crops on 990 h. of their former lands had been either burned or destroyed in other ways by the military and many of the farmers and their families had grown weary or ill because of lack of food and the necessity of living in tents. At that time the inhabitants of this small hamlet decided to take their humane cause to the attention of the other people living on Okinawa. So all those who could still walk; men, women and children of all ages took a ship to the main island of Okinawa and there began a "beggar's march" as it was called because of their destitute appearance. With woman carrying babies in their arms and old people trying their best to keep up they wandered through the islands behind their two wheeled cart to which they had attached a microphone and appealed to the people, allowing everyone to know how unjustly they had been treated at the hands of the military. ^+++++„++^++++++++++++++T++^++4, 4+++++++++++-* For two months this pilgrimage took their case to the hearts of the t people and because of their pitiful J plight they helped set the stage for £ the public outrage which swept Okinawa J in regard to the land struggles throughout the islands:in 1956. 4 + Fifteen years later the farmers of £ Iejima have not forgotten nor have + they stopped their struggle for jus- + tice. They have met defeat in the J U.S. Military courts because of the J power politics involved; there have + been further violent incidents and * worst of all there have been deaths. £ One young boy was shot and killed after he had entered a part of a base + which was not being used Cor any real £ purpose at all, and another man was 4 killed by a faulty bomb which explode * ed when he was walking in what had once belonged to his community's farm 4 islands. On July 11, 1965 this parachute-dropped trailer landed in Yomitan village, crushing to death a 10 year old girl.

25 •M7»»mHMMMMM7»»(MMMMMMy«MM(>MM»MHH»M)»»(MMMMMMM»t7tMMM»<7(MMMMMMMvM

The following article is based upon an interview held with some of the members of the Iejima islanders. The comments made are both of young and old joined together in the realization that they have been wronged as a group of human beings. This is their story:

« At first we trusted the Americans when they came to our island. At that time 16 years ago they said that they would like to "inspect" Iejima, so like innocent children we guided them around showing them everything in which they expressed an interest. After their "inspection" they.taen asked us to sign in a book which they explained was a receipt for the money that they would pay us for showing them around the island. They urged us to sign because otherwise we couldn't be paid for the work we had done for them. So finally we complied not knowing that in reality we had just signed away our rights for the ownership of our lands. However we didn't find out the truth until the next year when four families were told by the authorities to evacuate their homes and land. .They moved as they had been ordered not wanting to bring any trouble to the village, but there was an even more sinister reason for ordering these families off their lands; for the Americans this was test case to see how the villagers would react, whether we meant to resist or not. After the four families had obedient­ ly moved, the greatest shock of our lives struck us, now came an order for all of the 152 families living on the island to evacuate their ancestral homes and lands. Too late we realized that we had been betrayed, and deceived. There was only one course open to us, we would not move but unite together and make the Americans listen to reason.

We didn't have the same trust anymore but rather we felt that we were dealing with a kind of savage, so when we had to talk with the Americans who came to our island after that we would all sit down to show that we were offering no violent resistance to them and in addition we felt that this attitude on our part would not provoke them to bring violence to bear on ourselves. That was a firm rule that we carried out with each meetings we had. Eventually some American soldiers came to make measurements of our lands, and we responded in the only way we knew by giving them our most prized possessions-eggs. We had no money or anything of value so we attempted to befriend these soldiers and gain their sympathy by collecting all the eggs we could from the families on the island. Upon giving them the eggs we pleaded with them not to take our land and urged them to bring their leader to us to talk. "You won the war, and you are a great people too, so will you try to speak to ua as human beings and your equals?" We asked. Finally they said that they would, so we all sat together with their officer and we rightfully asked why they wanted to take our lands. The officer replied that it was in accordance with the law that they were doing so. We asked him then who had made such a law, because this law certainly affected us in a very real way but we had never been consulted about this "law". We are civiliz­ ed people we said, therefore any laws made without first consulting us cannot truely be called a law. "If you believe that this is a just law, and is fair then why don't you go to an American farmer and try to do the same as you are Going to us. If they accept your law and leave their lands then we will do the same also." They could only reply that they were not lawyers and didn't have enough knowledge to reply to our questions. To this we said, "If you were starving, and even though we have only precious little of our own land we would still give you half of it. But in your country you have vast areas of ua-used land which you took from the Indians, why can't you use some of that instead of the little that we need to survive?" With that they began to find another excuse, "We are building bases in Okinawa to protect you," they said, "so you must cooperate and turn your lands over to us."

Then we turned to the Bible for something that we had learned, "as Christians, you are taught that when one of the flock goes astray then you must not rest until you have brought it back to the fold again. In our own way we practice the same morality of that story. When four families are healthy and well fed and a fifth one becomes ill and cannot help itself then the other four will do their best to take care of the fifth. This is our philosophy too." They listening nervously to this and then we said, "if you are protecting Okinawa, then protect us first because we are part of Okinawa, we are a part of the fold; where are our proteeters now?"

With that they said, "are you going to leave your land or not?" For us there was only one reply possible, we said that we could never leave our land voluntarily. Then with a finality to their voices, they said that they had nothing more to say to us. Thus the meeting was over.

On March 11th 1955 more than 300 fully armed American soldiers, accompanied by a doctor landed on our island from three LSTs. The commanding officer, a LT. Col Kaidier, came and read out an ultimatum to us. Basically it is said that if we moved out peacefully then we would gain great "benefit," but if we didn't leave peacefully then there would be no "benefit" and only great suffering. That last statement was more than real to us already. The officer then handed this notice to the chief of our village and told us that since Iejima was an island that the Americans took during the war at the price of shedding a great deal of blood, then the island should be given to them without our approving of it or not. One of our old men, Seiri Namizato, put his hands up in a sign of prayer and begged the officer not to take the land for the sake of the women and children, if it were taken away, then perhaps some mothers and their babies would die, he pleaded. With these words hardly out of his mouth the commanding officer himself jumped on the old man and beat him to the ground. We thought that he had been killed. Some of the other Americans bound him with a rope and covered his still body with a blanket. To us the covering of a body with a blanket meant only one thing since we had seen so many of our dead treated so during the war. The old man was then dragged along the ground into a barbed wire compound that the soldiers had built. Thinking him dead we screamed in anguish and ran towards him, but the Americans arrested me and two others. Following that they immediately began burning our houses or razing them with bulldozers. As the grim- r.ess of the shock overtook our minds we realized that we no longer had our lands and homes.

From that time we thought of the Americans as savages not civilized human beings. So we agreed among our­ selves that we must strive to behave in all ways as human beings. Human beings are supposed to win over devils, and so we will be the human beings with the capacity for reason and thought with human hearts. This is the principle that we followed over the last 15 years. When the Americans came to take our lands they grabbed 63$ of it but after continuing our persistent struggle we finally got back 40$ of it.

* On our island all of the inhabitants are farmers and unlike in Japan we have no industry but we are com­ pletely dependent upon our agriculture. Of course we have some shops and there is a barber, but the only reason that these minor businesses survive is because they are dependent upon agriculture too. We have schools but there is no large middle class or bourgeois, nor do we have any rich or poor. In effect we are all equal because we are all farmers and we all depend upon the land for our life.

Another important aspect of our island is that we have no ruling power. You may call the head of the village a "ruler" in a way but actually he has no real power to dominate us. If we are united, we can get him to do as we like. In Lincoln's words everything on the island is "of the people by the people for the people"

26 U.S. soldiers and Iejima islanders after surrender, 1945. TMTV«vWMvTVTWvVVTVT«TTTtMvTW

* '•'hen the struggle against the bases was begun, 1 was not even a primary school student yet. Five years ago I joined the Association to protect land and began working for that just cause. Reason and theory have been the guiding principles for us on Iejima lor tne past 15 years. We have avoided provoking the military but we have continued to tight and struggle in our own way. In May of this year we began building the Unity School where among other things we will learn the theories to keep our consciousness sharp and alert.

The Unity School was planned three years ago and by the time this article is printed it will have been finished we hope. For this project we appealed to the main island of Okinawa for support and also to the main­ land of Japan. Eventually we even asked for help from other foreign countries. We have received a letter from Bolivia supporting our ideals, and we are assured of the support of peace fighters in many other countries who agree with our situation. The main problem with building the school was that we started it on one of the bases which used to be our land, but was confiscated by the military. Naturally some of us were arrested, or else trained dogs were set against us. The military even erected a small hut where we had intended to build the school and threw up a 24 hour watch of MPs to keep us from approaching the site. For a long time we had to abandon our plans under these harsh circumstances, but recently we thought of a new approach and have been working secretly on our construction work.

in a very real sense. In Japan there are many diverse occupations such as workers, farmers, intellectuals, and there are many jobs available for them there, but it is also very difficult for them to unite because of their different backgrounds. For the people of our island this is not true, for we are all for one and one for all.

Under the Japanese school system of education farmers are only asked to farm, barbers are asked to cut hair, and teachers are to teach. But that is not good enough for us. We have decided that everyone on our island must learn. What do we learn, you ask?

Ve learn about the structure of our society, how the taxes we pay are used, who gets the profits, who is killed in a war and who is left alive. Barbers, merchants, farmers, fishermen and young people too, learn these basic facts of life which are the necessary ingredients to make a man trualy free. We have learned that war continues as long as there is imperialism, so the natural reaction is to flight against imperialism. We don't live just for our jobs but we live for something higher than that we live for peace. This is how we have begun to think in the last 10 years. To create this peace then we must not work for the profit of capitalists. Capitalists are glad if we are divided and fight each other. They are not concerned if we continue to be poor and exploited. They are rich so at any time they can scatter money here and there to get our silence and win us over. But we do not waste anything, we value what little we have. For example, we treasure matches, and we devote all our time, money and material wealth to peace-making.

When we heard about the joint communique between Sato and Nixon in regard to handing the Okinawan Islands back to the administration of Japan we were not very happy about it. We are more concerned with the real issue of the military bases that litter the islands like blight and weeds. We have been ruled by the Americans for 25 years, and we better than anyone else know that the real issue has to do with military bases and not the mere handing of administrative rights back to the Japanese government. We listened to our radios until well after midnight hoping to hear something about the removal of bases but we listened in vain; therefore the joint statement between Nixon and Sato was something far removed from our own desires as people and inhabitants of the Okinawan Islands.

Although the joint statement said certain things about policy toward Okinawa there were some things that we realized for ourselves that were left unsaid by the two ruling governments Involved. What is coming is that when the Americans withdraw from their positions in A3ia they will be letting the forces of Japanese imperial­ ism step into their shoes. This is quite obvious by the fact that we already hear that the Japanese will take over the protection of the Korean peninsula and Taiwan. So what we will actually have will be the revival of Japanese imperialism and militarism. This is the future prospect of the people of Okinawa. Some laws will change for us, the people holding the power will be rotated, and we will be put under the joint rule of both Japan and Okinawa. But as far as the bases are concerned they will remain, and the only real change will amount to being placed under the administrations of imperialists with Japanese faces. So far we have been fighting against the American rule of our island but now we see the dangers of the Japanese capitalists impos­ ing themselves upon us.

In addition to the American troops on the Okinawan Islands we shall now have Japanese armed forces too. Will they too require new land for bases? We must find new ways of facing this increasing assault of our home The struggle cannot be carried out on Iejima alone, we trust that it will spread throughout the Okinawa Islands, then to Japan and eventually to the world. Without this international solidarity we shall not be able to stand against these forces.

What can we do? For one thing, we are aware that the American and Japanese troops as well as the majority of people on the outside have been told that there is a small handful of "reds" on Iejima Island who are fight­ ing against the bases. This couldn't be further from the real truth. We appeal to those of you who know about us on Iejima to carry our plea for help to the rest of the world. We must expose the Japanese militarists and their American imperialists friends for all their evil ways, and the wrongs that they have committed against us.

The joint statement points out that the Japanese and American militarists have been working steadily to bring about their domination of this part of the world. For example a nuclear submarine first entered Sasebo harb secretly and then the visits became more public and finally there is no longer any attempt to conceal their •or coming and going. The result is that they now use Japanese ports freely without any fears of outraging the public. In a similar way, nuclear arms are being stored in Okinawa,.but in Tokyo the government claims that there are no such arms here. However, we believe that the next step will be to set the stage for introducing them publicly, followed by an open declaration of their presence.

Americans want to get the Asians to kill each other to save themselves the effort. They set Vietnamese on Vietnamese. This is quite clear in the Sato-Nixon communique. In exchange for a Japanese promise to kill Asians the Americans will recede to the shadows off-stage and allow the Japanese to step forward to play their role. Utilizing economic imperialiom Japan will first invade Asia financially and then become the master of this part of the world.

4»*»*»**#»**•»#***#»*•*+**»*****#*«****»»*»*»**••**•**#*****#**#**»***»******#»»******************

28 James B. Lanpert. High Conmiissioner for Ryukyu Islands OKINAWA in the strategy of the seventies On Nov. 21, 1969 Sato and Nixon issued a joint reversion is carried out in 1972, will be the station­ communique from Washington in which they announced ing of thousands of Japanese Self Defense Force troops their agreement on two main points, the renewal of on Okinawa, and the building of new bases to accommo­ the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, and the reversion of date them. Another effect, which has already begun, Okinawa to Japanese control on 1972. To the super­ is a sudden invasion of money from giant industries, ficial observer, it might seem that the Prime Minis­ who want to turn what is left of the islands into ter had achieved the highest desire of the Okinawan saoke-epewing factory complexes. And as for govern­ people. However if Sato expected to be hailed as a ment, no matter who the people elect to the Diet or hero on Okinawa, he was sorely disappointed. Angry any other office, Okinawa will be ruled from Tokyo by demonstrations opposed his visit to Washington. Sato'3 Liberal Democratic Party. Even the Okinawa Teachers' Association (OTA), never one of the most radical groups on Okinawa, but for years stubbornly devoted to reversion, announced: In short, the reversion deal has absolutely no­ "It is useless to expect Sato to do anything for us. thing to do with the reduction of the military func­ There is nothing for us to do but smash the planned tion of Okinawa, but is rather an attempt to strength­ Japan-U.S. summit meeting and carry on our movement;" en that function. Everything that was hated about Akira Arakawa, an Okinawa writer, described the U.S. military rule, far from being removed by Japan, response to the Sato-Nixon communique as follows: is to be taken over and partly operated by Japan. Instead of losing its one oppressor, Okinawa now has The agreement on reversion was to be the reha­ two. bilitation of the residents of Okinawa as full members of the Japanese nation. It was supposed to be a glorious occasion; the moment for which the people of Okinawa had longed for 24 years. However when the joint communique was issued, •Pak at first strongly opposed the return of there was no exultation to be seen anywhere on Okinawa to Japan, because he feared any re­ Okinawa. A few businessmen paraded down Kokuaai duction in the island's military function, Street in Naha, waving the Japanese flag. But especially a reduction in its nuclear capa­ this was a local and uninspired scene, and served bility. He is, of course, perfectly aware only to bring into relief the meaning of the stiff that his regime could never stand without and inexpressive faces of the silent Okinawan outside military aid. When he realized that masses. the reversion deal would lead to no such re­ duction, he removed his opposition. What was the reason for this cold reaction? To understand this it is necessary to understand that the deepest motivation underlying the reversion movement had never been mindless patriotism, but rather the desirs for liberation from a system of military op­ pression. What Nixon and Sato had done is worked out Prime Minister Eisaku Sate a way of seeming to give the Okinawan people what they had demanded without in any way changing the conditions which were the real reasons for the demand. While their plan provides for the formal, administrative reversion of Okinawa to Japan, it is in reality a betrayal of everthing the reversion movement ever stood for.

What Sato and Nixon really concluded at Washington was a deal which amounts to a reorganization of the entire structure and strategy of economic and military imperialism in Asia. This reorganization is a re­ flection of two main developments. The first of these is the fact that the present structure has been thrown into a state of crisis, principally as a result of the revolutionary breakthrough made by the people of Indochina. The second is the resurgence of the power and imperial ambitions of the rulers of Japan. Thus the essense of the deal was that Japan should shift from a limited and generally passive role to a greatly expanded and very active role in the Joint task of defending and strengthening the structure of counterrevolution in Asia. Within this context the return of Okinawa symbolized America's trust in Japan's commitment to that task, and at the same tiae is the concrete, geographical measure of Japan's expanded role.

This deal marks the triumph of Sato's policy, pursued since 1965, of turning Japan toward an active and expansionist foreign policy. In the context of his ambitions, the return of Okinawa is not the return of a prefecture of one million citizens to the nation, but the repossessing of a vital strategic base and a major thrust by Japan toward the south. Juet as it has been for the U.S., Okinawa is for him the Key-stone of the Pacific. Militarily it ie to be used both for propping up the Pak Chung Hee dictator­ ship in South Korea and for moving within range of Southeast Asia. Economically it is seen as a po­ tential link in a vast international structure of oil and other industies. Once again the islands are trapped in the grand strategies of great powers.

What this means concretely for Okinawa ie that the Japanese come not as liberators, but in their old role as rulers and exploiters. The main physical, as opposed to symbolic, change that will take place if 30 . U.S. MILITARY BASES IN OKINAWA

Land for military use Ammunition depot A Bombing practice ground

Anti-guerrilla training ground Q Paratr00p training area

Airfield "ifcj Helicopter base

I — I Nike base Erg Naval base \J Radar base Hawk base /A Air defenee control station ^V^^ Mace B base

CO

0 &

Dft _ > f 9 & Toklshlki-j^ •ucZ.ar boab depot

267th Radiological Coapan, (CBR)

' 4* *«

"* A*. ** *« So ^ .. "f^DK £ kL O . O « ^eia, Miyako-Jima

CO ro *"«»e Air

Q ^ Toyo Sekiyu Refinery

"akaguauku• '/ Are. to be fiued for lndUBtry Nuclear Submarine base Nakagusuku Bay Yaeyama islands <7

3 The "Equal Partnership" Breaking down the .T»p»n»se "Mental Block*

On the same day that the Sato-Nixon Joint Com­ One of the greatest obstacles to rebuilding Japan munique was issued, Sato made a major policy speech as a full-fledged military power is the stubborn and at the National Press Club in Washington. He con­ naive belief of a great part of the Japanese public cluded this speech by saying that the U.S. and Japan: that the Peace Constitution means what it says. And at the center of this is the bitter hatred of nuclear are on the verge of starting a great historical weapons, something Sato always apologizes for as a experiment in working together for a new order "peculiar" Japanese attitude. For years the conser­ In the world, on a dimension that transcends a vative government has sought for ways to break down bilateral alliance....! am especially pleased this popular attitude, gradually building up the that it was President Nixon and I who set this "Self-Defense Forces" and permitting visits of U.S. experiment in motion by bringing about the re­ nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. Part of turn of Okinawa. Sato's sudden interest in returning Okinawa is his realization that it could be used as a powerful de­ This makes clear that, for Sato, the importance vice for further changing the public mind. Okinawa of the return of Okinawa is not the effect that it is a nuclear base, with both B-52s and Polaris bases. may or may not have on the welfare of the Okinawans, Thus the national determination never to have nuclear but rather the effect it may have of furthering hio JR>A weapons on Japanese soil will suddenly become a dead ambitions for Japan. He has long been saying that issue in 1972 when Okinawa officially becomes Japan's "post-war era" will not end until Okinawa is Japanese soil. Sato's vague reassurances that nu­ returned. What he means by the "post-war era" ie the clear weapons will be removed by 1972 are believed era in which Japan was only a junior partner of the by no one - certainly not by the U.S. Air Force. U.S. in Asia, concentrating on rebuilding her econo­ mic empire and leaving military matters up to the There is another way in which Sato hopes that the Pentagon. This division of labor created the illu­ return of Okinawa will change public opinion. In his sion that Japan, unlike the U.S., had taken the path Press Club speech, he referred to the Okinawa issue of "peaceful"economic development. But of course as a "mental block" for the Japanese people, and as there was never any real conflict between the two a "symbol of defeat". Of course what Sato hopes to efforts; it was just that the U.S. had responsibi­ unblock is Japanese militarism. By calling Okinawa lity for the outer, or military, structures of im­ a "symbol of defeat" (rather than a symbol of imper­ perialism, while Japan was concentrating on the ialism and war) what he is saying is that war is not inner, or economic, structure. so bad in itself; what is bad is losing. By getting Okinawa back he hopes to give the Japanese people a small taste of what it would be like to win. The Nevertheless, the Japanese conservatives have not first seizure of Okinawa in 1879 can be seen as the been satisfied with this subordinate role, and for first step in Japanese imperial expansion, which lead years have been working to break down the resistance into Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, and finally the rest which the Japanese people still have to openly buil­ of China. It is quit, clear that Sato wants to inter­ ding an army and taking up an active military role pret the present return of Okinawa in a similar way, in Asia. In 1965 Sato realized that the return of as a symbol of national strength, and as something to Okinawa could be used to this end, and suddenly took whet the nationalist appetite. It is no accident up the issue, which the conservatives had been ignor­ that immediately following the agreement to return ing until then. The fact that the issue was taken up Okinawa he has started making renewed demands on the in 1965 is significant: besides being the year that Soviet Union to return the Kuriles. the U.S. began bombing North Vietnam (from Okinawa), 1965 was the year that Japan signed the "normaliza­ The New Japanese Commitment to "Security" of the Far Bast tion" treaty with South Korea (under which *500,000,000 in grants and loans were handed over to prop up the But aside from these symbolic uses, Sato has used Pak dictatorship), and the year that Japan loaned the return of Okinawa to concretely set Japanese for­ (150,000,000 to Chiang Kai-shek. It was in 1965, in eign policy on a very new course. First of all, it other words, that the Sato government actively took is important that the return of Okinawa was announ­ up the policy of rebuilding Japan into a full-fledged ced simultaneously with the renewal of the Security imperial power, an "equal partner" with the U.S. in Treaty in order to divide and weaken the opposition the domination of the Far East. to the Treaty. However, Sato's statements at the time indicated that the Treaty was not only renewed, It is important to understand that this does not but was given an entirely new meaning. Until 1970 represent something entirely new in post-war Asia, the Treaty had been understood as a bilateral deal but rather amounts to a reordering and rearrangement in which the U.S. agreed to "protect" Japan proper of responsibilities within an Imperialistic structure in retrun for the right to keep bases here. In his which already exists, and in which Japan has already Press Club speech, Sato radically expanded the mean­ been a partner. It will, however - if Sato is suc­ ing of the Treaty by making the following statement: cessful - mean a great strengthening of that struc­ ture and an intensification of its operation. And ...in the real international world it is impos­ of course it will mean a profound change in the in­ sible to adequately maintain the security of ternal character of Japan. Japan without international peace and security in the Far Bast.

¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥ ¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥ ¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥[¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥ ¥¥¥¥¥¥¥

the burning wells

People in a section of Kadena were understandably upset when they found their well water contaminated by air­ craft fuel and cleaning agents. Some of the wells actually burst into flames when matches «£•,*£"»>",£ test the water. In November. 1967, not long after the well contamination was ^covered, » *"£*£ £*£ Kad«na base burst releasing large quantities of fuel into the residential area of Kadena and into the water

shed of the Hishagawa River. The smell of gasoline hung in the air and people "«fJ2'^"feia"6a"£^mrk.t fires. An investigation revealed that large amounts of ABS cleanser and a type of fuel not sold «*"»"»•* were present in the water; but because samples of the military fuel were "not available , it was impossioie « confirm whether th. fuel was from the base or not.

The base claimed that the tests it had conducted indicated the water was all right and told the villagers that anyway, they shouldn't overlook the possibility that the fuel had come from stores of the defunct Japa­ nese army. US Forces simply refused the villagers demands that they be provided with a safe water source.

But the villagers pressed their claim, demanding 1126,774 to pay for construction of a temporary water supply system and the payment of their water taxes for the next 30 years. In March the following year the US authorities agreed to pay exactly *5,692.74. (How this figure was arrived at remains a mystery as US Forces made no investigation of actual damages nor did they over discuss the villagers' assessment.J ihey later reacted to the villagers' indignation at this meagre amount by upping the figure to Jl6,000 and payment 01 water. The Okinawans, who ha»e no legal rights to fight the military's rules, felt they had no choice but to * accept. nmmmmmMmmmmimttmmmmtmmmmmmmmmmti 33 To further clarify what this means in tho immediate If this sentence does not sound like much to you, future, Sato made a point of saying (in the Joint Com­ you are not alone. The leading members of the U.S. munique) that the security of the Pak dictatorship in Senate Foreign Relations Committee had to have it South Korea is "essential" to the security of Japan, explained to them by U. Alexis Johnson, U.S. Under­ and that the security of the Chiang Kai-shek dicta­ secretary of State and former ambassador to Japan: torship in Taiwan is "very important" to the sscurity of Japan. This is equivalent to announcing that from now on South Korea and Taiwan are to be considered Senator Fulbright. I am a little puzzled about as Japan's special "sphere of interest." (while con­ the significance of that sentence. You emphasized stitutionally the "Self-Defense Forces" are not sup- it so. What is the real meaning of the sentence? possed to be able to go outside Japan, it- is public It does not seem so startling to me. knowledge that the operation plans exist for their Senator Symington. I agree. I do not quite entry into Korea. It is also known that they are understand. studying the Korean language.) Mr. Johnson. Referring to the last sentence? Senator Fulbright. What does it mean to you, For Okinawa: Double Occupation the last sentence you pick out? Does it have a very significant importance? Thus Sato's reversion plan has absolutely nothing Mr. Johnson. It does in Japan, Senator. Hither­ to do with removal of bases from Okinawa, or libera­ to, the Japanese Government, the Japanese people ting the Okinawans from their bondage to the war ma­ in general, have tended to take the attitude that chine. On the contrary, bases there are being steadi­ their security arrangements with the United States ly expanded. After the beginning of the informal re­ had significance only insofar as the security of version talks in 1965, the U.S. budget allocated the Japan itself was concerned. That Japan was not following amounts for base construction on Okinawa: interested in nor concerned with the security of 1966, 130,000,000; 1967, $66,500,000; 1968, $45,800,000; other areas nor should it in any way get involved with security of other areas. 1969, $29,000,000. During that period two new runways were built at Kadena, concrete slabs 4,000 meters long And the opponents of the treaty tended to take (13,120 ft.) and 98 cm (38 inches) deep. At the same the position that the Security Treaty with the time expansion was begun on several naval ports, in­ United States could only drag Japan into wars else­ cluding the fitting out of the base at Ohura bay to where in East Asia, especially Korea or Taiwan. accommodate Polaris submarines. And so on. U. Alexis What they are saying here for the first time Johnson reassured the Senate Foreign Relations Commit­ is that they recognize that the security of Japan tee as follows: cannot be separated from that of Korea, Taiwan, and our obligations elsewhere in the area and, thus, in looking at the question of our bases and Certainly, I think you understand that the our facilities in Japan, they will look at it in question of reversion of administrative rights terms of the security of the whole area rather of Okinawa has nothing to do with our getting than in the security just of Japan itself. out of our bases there. We maintain our base structure on Okinawa. Now, this may seem entirely unremarkable to you or to any of us Americans, but it represented a quite new stage of thinking in Japan, and it It is obvious that the U.S. would never have considered certainly represented a new stage of public state­ agreeing to reversion if there had been any doubt on ment by any authoritative Japanese spokesman. this point.

Diplomatic language is,of course,always difficult But this is not all. One of the very first concrete to understand concretely. For example, it is impos­ results of reversion will be that U.S. forces will be sible to understand what "security" means unless you joined on Okinawa by Japanese "Self Defense" troops. realize what the speaker sees as the threat to "se­ Defense director Nakasone has already visited Okinawa, curity". For the U.S. and Japan, the threat to and SDF troops have several times been sent to Okinawa "security* in the Far East is revolution. Thus Sato's for joint training exercises with the U.S. military. statement amounts to a commitment that Japan shall Immediately after reversion takes place in 1972 the SDF become an active counter-revolutionary force in Asia. plans to send 3,300 troops, along with anti-submarine reconnaissance planes, F104s, mine sweepers, and other

Zengunro baseworkers watch their enemy pasB

•••••••nBHa

34 warships, to be permanently stationed on Okinawa. Six months later it plans to send 3000 more troops to man radar sites, ground-to-air missiles (Nike and Hawk) and other equipment.

The announced purpose of sending there troops to Okinawa is to take over the task of the direct defense of the islands. It is important to be clear about what this means. It does not have anything to do with the defense Of the Okinawan people, whose lives are only put in greater jeopardy the more troops gather on their island. In the strategy of Far Eastern politics, the only thing on Okinawa likely to be attacked is the U.S. bases. It is to defend these bases that the SDF forces are being sent to Okinawa.

Not only are the SDF forces going to Okinawa to defend the bases rather than the Okinawan people, but it has even been revealed that one of their main functions will be to defend the bases against the Okinawan peopls. In the Mainichi Shimbun of May 1, 1970, an article ap­ peared with the following headline: "EMPHASIS ON COUNTER-' INSURGENCY: Defense Agency Plans Okinawa Defense Program after Reversion." In the article a Defense Agency source as summed up the SDF mission on Okinawa as follows: "The Self Defense Forces will perform mainly counterinsurgoncy functions." This policy amounts to a parallel to Nixon's "Vietnamization" policy: it is preferable to the rulers of both Japan and America if the Okinawan people's struggle against the bases is put down by Japanese rather than American troops.

But of course the real interest which Japanese military men have in Okinawa is precisely the same as the interest which American military men have: Okinawa as the strategic keystone of the Pacific, a stepping stone for the military domination of both Northeast and Southeast Asia. The Japanese militarists hope to eventually take over most of the bases on Okinawa, just as they hope to take over the activities in Asia which those bases were built to do. But of course it will take a great deal of adjustment between the two powers before that stage will be reached. This the Defense Agency learned to its chagrin when its first "Okinawa Defense Program," formulated before the joint communique, was rejected by the Pentagon because of its too-eager plans for taking over U.S. instal­ lations.

It is also important to understand that all of this is accompanied by a sharp increase in Japanese military spending. It is no coincidence that the 4th Defense Buildup Program is scheduled to be initiated in 1972, the year of reversion. It is also no coincidence that the budget for the 4th program is a vast increase over that for the third: ¥5,800,000 million ($16.2 billion) Okinawa in the Strategy of U.S. "Withdrawal" from Asia as opposed to ¥2,400,000 million ($8 billion). Under this new program emphasis is on navy and air force, the Shortly after his election, Richard Nixon met on Guam navy being given small task forces centering on heli­ with a group of political leaders from the U.S. alliance copter carriers, and the air force getting Phantom jets system in Asia and announced what cam. to be known as to replace its F104s. It must be remembered that the the "Nixon Doctrine:" the claim that the U.S. intends Self Defense Forces are supposed to be constitutional­ to reduce its military presence in Asia, and the demand ly limited to defending only the Japanese islands that (reactionary) Asian contries taks over a greater against direct attack. In order to explain this new responsibility for their defense. offensive weaponry, Sato has said that the SDF has akopted a new policy of "preemptive defense," "From now There are some good reasons ... the American failure on," he explained, "it would be too late to attack the in Vietnam, the dollar drain, the domestic crisis ... enemy after the enemy attacks us. We must take the for believing that the U.S. might really want to with­ initiative in destroying our enemy before they reach draw troops from Asia. Does this mean that there is our territory, and particularly on the high seas and some prospect that the U.S. might be ready to reduce its outside the territorial sky." But of course once this position on Okinawa, especially since the Japanese mili­ notion is introduced there are no longer any limits, tary is so eager to take its place there? and "defense" can mean anything... especially in the light of Sato's statement that the security of Japan The answer is, absolutely not. It is essential to requires the security of the entire Far East. Thus understand that what "reduction" really means is a while Sato talked about preemptive attacks in the open change of strategy. And in the new strategy Okinawa is seas and sky, the 4th Defense Program will equip the in­ to play perhaps a more important role than ever. fantry for jungle warfare and warfare in wide frozen areas, where for example fast, long distance tanks would The basic idea of the new strategy is the movement be effective. There are no jungles nor wide frozen of massive amounts of troops and equipment in the areas in the Japanese islands. gigantic transport planes that have been recently de­ veloped. The new C5A Galaxy can lift 120 tons, four times the capacity of the C141 Starlifter With this Tsunao Okumura, a top business leader, summed up the new equipment it becomes strategically feasible to keep real intentions of the power structure of Japan by say­ soldiers and equipment within the continental U.S. ing (in the Yomiuri Shimbun, Oct. 18, 1970) that Japan (where they will spend their dollars in the U.S. economy, can no longer leave to the U.S. alone the role of police­ not antagonize foreign populations, and can be called man of the world. out to suppress uprisings of students and Blacks) and 35 still send them out with lightening speed to "trouble sion drama are throwing many workers out into the spots" anywhere in the world. street. In addition there is a growing appreciation of Okinawa as a "safe" place for investment. As the An example of this type of operation was a training Indochina war drags on and revolution sprsads in Asia, exercise which was carried out in March 1969, called investment becomes increasingly risky: the tottering "Focus Retina." The entire 82nd Airborne Division, with dictatorship that let you build your factory may suddenly some seven thousand troops, was airlifted from the U.S. collapse, and your factory might be taken over by the to South Korea, over half coming from as far away as people. Okinawa, crowded with soldiers and police, North Carolina. The planes took two routes across the looks pretty secure by comparison: all the anti-insurgency Pacific: Fairbanks, Kadena, South Korea; and Hickham forces which are there to protect the bases will of (Hawaii), Wake, Kadena, So. Korea. Immediately after course protect industry too.

landing in South Korea, the troops engaged in war games For American investors there is also another special jointly with ROK troops, practicing river crossings on reason for putting money into Okinawa. Japanese law the River Han. (The Asahi Shimbun reporter present wrote prohibits the establishment of businesses wholly financed that it was obvious to any observer that what was being by foreign capital, and foreigners can only invest simulated in the operation was an attack north across their capital in Japan through joint ventures, that is, the 38th parallel. Asahi Shimbun, Mar. 19, 1969) enterprises partly financed by Japanese capital. How­ ever on Okinawa it is still possible to build 10O& To carry out this massive airlift, which one U.S. American-owned companies. Thus the American capitalists military leader called the "longest airborne attack are rushing to make their investments before 1972. operation in history," Kadena Airbase on Okinawa was Then when Okinawa reverts to Japanese administration, absolutely essential as a stopover for fuel, equipment American capital will have automatically breached the checks, and rest. It is of course impossible to say wall into Japan, and will be in a fine'position to whether the U.S. really will make significant troop re­ advance to the mainland. Neat trick. duction in Asia in the near future, in accordance with the Guam Doctrine. The point is that even if it does, For Japan there are also special reasons for step­ this neither means that those troops will have moved ping up investment into Okinawa. First of all there has toe far out of range to attack any country in Asia, nor been a kind of panic at the magnitude of U.S. investment, and an urgent drive to catch up before Japan loses does it mean that the strategic importance of Okinawa control of the Okinawan economy altogether. Another will be reduced. reason is that on mainland Japan there has arisen in the last couple of years a powerful anti-pollution To prepare Okinawa for this new strategy, new con­ campaign, which is destined to grow even larger. struction is planned for Kadena to extend to 1976, and It is therefore convenient to export especially pol­ costing $60,000,000. In particular, in 1972 $13 million luting factories (oil refineries and aluminum plants, will be put into new facilities for the C5A Galaxy. In for example) which will soon no longer be tolerated addition, on March 16, 1970 (after the joint communique) on the mainland, to Okinawa, where presumably people the army revealed to the U.S. Congress that the logisti­ are expected to take whatever they can get. cal center for wll U.S. troops in the entire Pacific, Southeastern, and Northeastern Asian areas is to be moved to Okinawa. But there is still a bigger reason for investing in Okinawa. There is an increasing realization that Okinawa can be used as the "keystone of the Pacific" Thus Okinawa still occupies a vitalplaoe in the in economic strategy just as well as in military grand strategies of the two imperialist powers of Asia.. Japan and the U.S. While these strategies may ultimate­ ly run in different directions, at this point they operate in cooperation. The result is that Okinawa is still entrapped in the center of the war machine. liVHira, BIIIIIIIIIMIIIIfllftflffl The Big Money Moves In

As mentioned above, Okinawa, at least in the opinion of several U.S. High Commissioners, has since the war had essentially a one-crop economy, and that crop has been bases and the product of bases: war. The U.S. military and its camp-followers in Okinawa have used this fact to make the argument that the Okinawans should there­ fore be grateful for the bases and not try to get rid of them. The logic of this argument is that people should be pleased to sell their liberty, their culture, and their dignity for money. The Okinawans naturally take a different view, and one of the long range aims of the movement has been to restructure the Okinawan economy so that it will be based on peace rather than on war.

In the last few years there has been a sudden leap in foreign investment in Okinawa. Whereas in 1966 total foreign capital investment had stood at about $16 million, the biggest single investment being in the sugar cane and pineapple industries, at the end of 1969 this figure had jumped to $248 million, boosted mainly by huge invest­ ments projected by four great oil companies, Gulf, Esso, Caltex, and Kaiser. In 1970 Alcoa received permission to build $60 million plant, which was followed rapidly by the establishment of the Okinawa Aluminum company backed by five major Japanese zaibatsu combines. Many other companies from the U.S. and Japan are rushing plans to set up industries in Okinawa. They are receiv­ ing the support of the Yara government, which argues that this will help to create an economy which is independent of the bases. Is this a way out? Can Okinawa be liberated by being flooded with Big Money?

The answer of course is no. Nor do the big trusts and monopolies which are moving into Okinawa have any such intention. Their sudden interest in Okinawa is quite naturally based on their own grand strategies for profit and expansion. And Okinawa and its people play about the same role in those strategies as they do in U.S. military strategy: something to be used.

What is the true reason for the sudden interest in Okinawa? In the first place, of course, Okinawa is a source of cheap labor. Wages are low, and the mass firing of base workers by the U.S.,.plus other forms Mainland businessmen before a big meal. (A reception given in Naha for of social and economic confusion caused by the rever­ "state policy" enterprises) 36 strategy. From the Japanese point of view, this has Okinawans themselves are supposed to live in the been best expressed by MITI (Ministry of International narrow space that remains, jammed in between the bases Trade and Development): "Okinawa should be thought of not and a line of stinking oil refineries. What is left as the southernmost tip of the Japanese economic zone, of agriculture will die out, since it expected that but rather as the beachhead to Southeast Asia." sugar cane grown on what little land remains will be destroyed by factory smoke. Fishing too will disappear... This statement reveals the kind of understanding which just from the reclamation work of the Toyo Sekiyu company the power structure of Japan has of the reversion of alone the fish have already disappeared from Nakagusuku Okinawa, an understanding which one can only call Bay. The small Okinawan fishing boats which for hun­ imperialist. To them the meaning of reversion is not dreds of years operated around the islands will become the righting of an injustice or the reuniting of a ohselete, and the Okinawans will have to buy their fish divided people, but a first step in expansion...a from the great Japanese fishing corporations, whose fleets step to be followed by other steps. are capable of operating beyond the ; polluted waters. Okinawa will become an island without a natural ecology, As an example of how this works, in 1969 Toyo and with no primary industry. And since Okinawan cul­ Sekiyu (Eastern Oil, a joint venture of Caltex and Hyu- ture has always been rooted in farming and fishing, the kyu Sekiyu) began construction of an oil refinery on forcible destruction of those industries threatens the the edge of the Bay of Nakagusuku. -The crude oil ie destruction of the culture itself...or rather, what is to be brought in by ship through the Malacca Straits left of it. What was once a green and graceful island, from the Middle East,* refined in Okinawa, and then surrounded by bright clear water, whose people were skill­ Shipped to Japan. The Toyo Sekiyu refinery is to be one ed at music, dance, and folk art, will be transformed in­ of a chain of refineries leading south...others to be to a sterile, sooty, industrial slum. built in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian countries. It is also believed that Toyo Sekiyu plans to build a direct pipeline to the nearby Kadena Airbase.

Thus Yara's idea that he can free the Okinawan economy from dependence on the bases by importing big industry is tragically naive. He has forgotten that the war machine and the capital machine are the same machine. The companies which are moving into Okinawa are only able to survive in Asia because the U.S. military holds back the Asian revolution and creates counterrevolutionary zones in which they can do business. By basing the new Okinawan economy on these giant international corporations, it is made dependent on the military in a more profound sense than ever: that is it becomes dependent not only directly on the bases on Okinawan territory, but also on the entire counterrevolutionary military effort in Asia. Okinawa After the Reversion Deal But what about the direct effect on Okinawa? Will not the new industries at least give a boost to The fact that the Sato government has found a way the standard of life? Quite the contrary. As mention­ to bring about administrative reversion without lifting ed above, the existing Okinawan economy has been any of the conditions of oppression...and in fact making utterly crippled by the existence of the bases. things worse...has brought about some rapid changes Agriculture has been almost entirely destroyed, and the in thinking in the reversion movement. In many ways... service industry has been bloated to grotesque proportions.. though there are important differences...the history of 45$of all employed persons wore in the service industry. the reversion movement can be compared to that of the The only way to create a truly balanced economy on Okinawa integration movement in the United States. Both the would be to alter its basic structure...which means that Blacks and the Okinawans acted on the illusion thst they the essential first step would be to remove the bases. could achieve liberation by being admitted as:<£ull-fledged However the projected economic development of course does citizens to their respective countries. But both integr­ ation for the Blacks and reversion for the Okinawans no such thing, but is simply going to be grafted onto turned out to be new forms of perpetuating subordination. the crippled structure that exists...an operation that Yara can also be compared to Martin Luther King, at least can only produce a monster. in the sense that both were noble enough men that it was a bitter disappointment when they ended up betraying the In the first place, all the best sites for industrial people they were suppossd to be leading. One can at least plants have already been occupied by bases. As a result say to King's credit that he did not, like Yara, run it is planned to reclaim land along the southeastern for political office and end up sending out the police on coast and build an industrial belt along the water's edge. his former companions. Toyo Sekiyu has already begun construction in just that area. The point is that the western side of the island is already a belt of bases. What this means is that the The disillusion with mainland Japan is similar to the Black disillusion that led to the Black Power movement in the U.S. Keitoku Okamoto, an Okinawan professor, put it this way: 99$ of all the Crude oil consumed by Japan comes from the Middle East through the Malacca Straits So far we have been holding illusions about Japan. (between Singapore and Indonesia). For this reason Illusions about progressive political parties as alone the success of the present counterrevolutionary well as about the government. Recently such il­ governments in that area is essential to the present lusions have been smashed. We are awakening to a Japanese economy. Recently the leaders of Nikkeiren new reality politically and ideologically. We now (Japan Federation of Employers' Associations...similar understand that„only we ourselves, and nobody else, to the American National Association of Manufacturers) can do anything for us. began urging the government to build a navy powerful enough to convoy the Japanese merchant fleet through Southeast Asia. The Toyo Sekiyu refinery, Nakagusuku Bay

37 armed GIs and their armed pimps, fought their way out with The first wave strike was staged on Jan. 8and 9, the wooden staves and whatever else they could find. The mil­ second from Jan. 19-24. The military iput all bases on itary retaliated to the strikes by taking "disciplinary special alert (Condition Green), cancelled all liberty, action" against 2000 workers, including suspension of up closed down dependents' schools, threw concertina wire to three weeks. across the gates, set up new guard posts, and called out troops with fixed bayonets to face the strikers. The Japanese public was shocked when the national news­ papers printed a picture of a GI running his bayonet Then in April that story which has b ened all too into the forearm of an unarmed worker, who was holding often on Okinawa was repeated again: thv ^vement was up his arm to protect his face. betrayed by its leadership. Union chairman Uehara accepted a truce accord without the dismissals being cancelled, and without submitting the agreement to the union members for a vote. The Japanese govern­ The functioning of the bases was seriously disrupted. ment got in the act by promising to pay a retirement Military transport was completely paralyzed. The army allowance to the dismissed worders...a bribe, essential­ computor center was put out of Operation. Dockworkers at ly amounting to about 230 dollars each. And Yara show­ Naha naval port stayed off their jobs in sympathy. More­ ed his utter misunderstanding of the situation by over the daily life of GIs and dependents was set in a saying that the dismissals were "welcome" since they state of confusion, PXs and other facilities opening meant "a reduction of the bases." late and limping along with newly hired, unskilled scab labor. GIs friendly '.to the strikers reported that a psychological state of crisis prevailed on the bases. Nervous wives stocked up their homes with can­ However the real radical force in Zengunro was the dles andjfilled buckets with water "in case the Oki­ workers themselves, especially the youth sections that nawans turn off the electricity and water." They had been orgainzed on all the important bases. These also were supplying their cars with extra gasoline angry workers demanded action, and on Sept. 10 and 11, (to make their escape?). Those who lived off base night after the truce expired, another powerful strike would lock the doors and roll up the windows of their was held. An important Changs in the main slogan cars and drive fearfully through the streets until they indicated a new level of confidence and determination: came to their homes, where they would lock the doors "Return the bases" (a demand addressed to the U.S.)) and turn on the TV news to see how things were going. was replaced by "Sieze the bases" (a statement of It seems that the Zengunro strike forced the Americans intention). There were other exciting new elements. to feel the fundamental insecurity of their position on A Zengunro support group produced a leaflet and a Okinawa, and raised in their imaginations the spectre of poster in English calling for the support of anti­ what would happen if all of Okinawa rose up against them. war GIs. Never before has the Okinawan movement seriously attsmpted to gain the support of CIs, and of course it has only been in the last few years, with the rise of the GI movement, that such support was A bizarre side effect of the strike was the counter­ conceivable at all. The poster contained, in addition attack of what are called the "A-sign businessmen." to the Zengunro slogans ,ths slogans "Free Oppressed The A-sign is the on-limits certificate given to es­ GIs" and "AllPower to the People." Many GIs reported tablishments whose business is fleecing GIs. These that the poster had the effect, in their words, of parasitic camp-followers, pimps, bartenders, and sot blowing thsir minds: they had never dreamed that the other hustlers, armed themselves with clubs and knives, Okinawan workers might have any intsrest in the oppres­ and attacksd the strikers. At gate 2 of Kadena there sion of GIs, or agree with the Black Banther slogan. occured the first semi-armed battle in Okinawa's post­ The effect was immediate and positive. GIs smuggled war history, as Zengunro workers, trapped between the

jgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgas GAS GAS GAS gasgssgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgasgssgas

Kamiyama Chozo was told by the US military doctor at Chubu hospital that he couldn't work for at least a year. Being an ordinary sort of Okinawan, he couldn't pay his bills without working. He thought the US military was ultimately responsible for his illness and should compensate him, but the doctor would give no opinion on its cause. It had begun shortly after he had passed two GI's near Ginoza village who were fully armed and wearing strange-looking gas masks. At the time, he smelled s pungent odor and his throat became sore. But he couldn't prove to the satisfaction of the authorities that the ensuing illness resulted from poison gas inhaled that day on his way home from work.

In the same village, just s few months before Mr. Kamiyama's misfortune, (January, 1965) the junior high school was paid a surprise visit by the commander of the nearby US military base. He apologized for the lunch-hour chaos at the school that day when students ran frightened out of their classrooms, eyes smarting and streaming with tears. As he explained, his men had been conducting training maneuvers and had been employing gas in the mock battle.

On July 18, 1969 an enterprising American newspaper revealed to the world the presence of chemical and biological weapons on Okinawa. Few Okinawans registsred surprise at the news.

gasgasgas 39 copies of the poster into the bases and posted them, combat contingents and began physical obstruction replacing them again after the MPs tore them down. with barricades and with their own bodies of the Signs of solidarity...raised fists and Vsigns...were transport of gravel to the reclamation site. Even given to the strikers. More important, GIs began at night their picket line was maintained by more talking to "the baseworkers...who after all work right than 100 people. next to them on the base...about thestrike and about As the struggle went on it gained support from other Okinawan politics in general. At least one group of Okinawans. On Nov. 16, on the eve of Sato's departure GIs...Blacks who identify with the Panthers...began for Washington, a militant support rally was held, a series of meetings with Zengunro workers to exchange which was attended by over 1000 persons...farmers, views on racism, imperialism, third world liberation... base workers, teachers, white collar workers, high and on the possibilities of joint action. school and university students. No political party supported this rally. The People's Party, the The Zengunro action represents something entirely Socialist Party, and the Social Masses Party had all new in Okinawa. It has gone far beyond the old beer, entrapped by their committment to building a reversion movement, and at the same time it is not "peaceful economy," and found themselves unable to merely a trade union movement. The Zengunro strikes oppose the Toyo Sekiyu. project. Once again the people signal the beginning of a new level of struggle which found themselves deserted 'oy their political organiza­ Will grow in the seventies, a genuine struggle for tions and had to fight on their own against this first liberation against the two imperialist powers which wave of the capitalist invasion. jointly rule Okinawa. It is important that the driving force of the strikes was young workers, especially those influenced by the Hansen workers movement (Hansen seinen Iinkai. or Anti-War Youth League, a new revolution­ ary movement of young workers. See Ampo no. 6 for an On December 4 the police attacked the villagers's Jtarri- article on Hansen) cade, but it was soon reerected. On Dec. 14 there was another major confrontation, at which a curious thing happened. A goon squad of members of the Toyo Sekiyu workers union, in helmet3 and overalls, was sent in to attack the barricade. They attacked the villagers, ganged up on isolated activists, and beat up and injured primary school children. It is reported that the most violent were Japanese from the mainland.

As repression comes in on them from all sides, the fighting villagers are seeking ways to develop their strategy of struggle. They are building links with groups engaged in similar fights in other parts of the islands, such as the farmers union on Migagi Island which is success­ fully resisting the Gulf refinery, and workers on Henanza Island who have gone into a long term strike against the Chicago Bridge Company there. They hope to develop an organization to fight against industrial combines still in the planning stage, such as at Nishihara village, where Esso has already purchased land.

While the fight began as an effort by the villagers to protect their livlihood against deadly pollution, it has gradually developed into something wider. Confronted by the oil refinery, the people were forced to ask why it was being built. When they realized that it was part of a great economic and military chain leading through The Toyo Sekiyu Struggle Southeast Asia all the way to the Middle East, they came to understand that their fight for immediate As mentioned above, the first concrete step in the survival and the fight against imperialism is the same new "economic development" program has been the thing. Thus they have also actively been building links construction of the Toyo Sekiyu oil refinery on with the most militant workers, in particular with Chubu reclaimed land on the edge of Nakagusuku bay. In (Central Okinawa) Hansen. Hansen workers have, in addition Sept. 1969 the reclamation work began with absolutely to participating directly in defending the barricades, no advance notice to the villagers in the area. The brought radical films into the village and organized study villagers realized immediately what was in store for groups. them, having heard of what happened to the lives of villagers in places in Japan, such as Yokkaichi, when huge oil refineries were suddenly put up next to their On Jan. 22, 1970...as the second Zengunro strike was homes. Among other things, they knew that their going on...200 villagers broke into the construction site, crops would die in the fields and the fish would die and set fire to bulldozers, cranes, dump trucks, and the in the bay. They immediately held a demonstration construction office itself, which burned to the ground. directing their attack on the village authorities who This was the first time that such a thing had happened on had swallowed the project without consulting them. Okinawa...and certainly notthe last. It was at this point The town assembly, beseiged by angry farmers and that the Yara administration revealed finally and decisive­ fishermen, was forced to pass a resolution demanding ly which side it was on. Realizing that if this struggle that Toyo Sekiyu suspend construction work. continued and spread it would jeopardize his economic master plan, Yara resorted to fierce repression. Forty-six Toyo Sekiyu of course refused. The villagers then were arrested, and riot police were stationed permanently began a prolonged direct action struggle, which is in the village. at this writing over a year old and has not ended yet. Five hundred men and women organized themselves into However the villagers struggle was not destroyed and continues today.

u frogfrogfrogfroffrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogrrogfrogfrofffroefrogfrorfro-. ° ° I WONDERS t

A frog with nine legs? In the summer of 1968 farmers found frogs with nine, eleven and thirteen legs in 1 the rice paddies just outside the town of Gushikawa. No fact-finding team has turned up reassuring explanat­ ions for the strange mutations. Folks in Gushikawa worry, remembering the day that same summer when children from a swimming party at the beach were taken to the hospital with pains in the eyes, nose and side of chest and swelling of the genitals. People don't swim at the beautiful beach anymore as nobody wants to take a ' chance. Investigators verified the presence of a poisonous substance in the water along 20 km of coast, but inspection of the drainage from the local factories failed to reveal the poison's source. And the nearby US 1 % military bases? Well, what goes on there is a secret. H a i % frogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfroefrojrfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfrogfroe 40 inside the wire mesh was america

rfiM.ii iit»,aur*

wma Inside tne wire mesh, was America.

The southern sun was shining down on the America of wide, wide lawns. The stars and stripes floated in the blue sky.

'ARMED FORCES MUSEUM'

Inside this 'America' thers is an American war museum—inside the wire-mesh fence beside the broad Government Route 30. As I stood st the gate, I said to myself that I was about to enter America.

I walked along wide streets marked 'Nevada Ave.' and 'Arkansas Ave.' Beautiful pavement. Lawn, and more lawn.

In front of the war museum, was an anti aircraft gun gleaming black in the strong sunlight. I opened the door and was greeted with a stream of cold air.

A white man, with glasses, a big belly and a bald head, cam. to show us around. In the first room there was a display of Okinawan arts and crafts. Ths next room was very strange.

In the center of the room there was a model of Okinawa Island, about 10 meters long and 3 meters wide, with chairs lined up on both sides of it. In front of it was a big, life-size figure—General Buckner commanding in the battlefield. To his right and left, dozens of photos of soldiers' faces, glaring at the room, and many battle photos with explanations. In all of them I could see the word 'Jap'.

The man, his stomach shaking, began rattling explanations in English, Unfortunately, with my English I could only understand a little.

From the seats on both sides we looked at the model of Okinawa Island. Strange little red and blue and white bulbs covered the whole island, and somewhere in the southern part a lonely white cross was stand­ ing. What would happen?

The man said that they had tapes of the explanation in 20-some languages, and that today they would play it in English. He pushed a button and went out of the room. As the cold voice of the tape began, the small bulbs, like lights on a Christmas tree, began to flash on and off. But I couldn't understand the English very well. There were small white bulbs encircling the island—the fleet, maybe; the red bulbs were the Japanese troops; and the blue bulbs, the American troops.

The blue-bulb American troops land on the Kerama Islands—March 26, 1945. The bulbs flash on and off. .. On April 1st, the American troops land at Kadena village, about the center of the island, dividing north and south.

The red-bulb Japanese troops are gradually driven into the southernmost part. Little by little, the light of little blue bulbs spresds out farther and farther.

The single tiny white cross also flashes on and off. It is the place where General Buckner died. But on the model there is nothing to represent 'Himeyuri no To* or 'Kenji no To'.* There is no cross st the place where General Ushijima killed himself. It is just a little toy war. # Menorials for Middle School students who died in the Battle of Okinawa

by Masaho Suzuki Shiso no Kagaku No. 96, 1969 41 5ut while the imperialists have grasped the vital Importance of Okinawa, radicals have up to now failed to understand it with comparable clarity. Tne Okinawans have been carrying on their lonely struggle for 20 years receiving a little support...mainly expressions of sym- ' pathy...from r-.dicals in Japan, and virtually no support or even acknowledgement of their existence from radicals in other parts of the world.

However this situation is beginning to change. On the one hand the movement on Okinawa itself has taken a decisive turn awgy from nationalistic "reversion" toward a highly conscious and determined struggle against U.S.-Japanese imperialism. With this change in their wn conception of their movement, the vital importance of wiat movement is sure to become increasingly recognized elsewner,?. Tne Okinawan struggle thus has the potential conclusion to become the focal point for an alliance bstween fie The U.S. military ct-lls Okinava the "Keystone of the revolutionary forces of mainland Japan, Southeast Asia Pacific;" the slogan is imprinted on the license plate South Korea, and anti-war S.;..-.. ..and of course the of every Au.eriqan-owned automobile. There is no -.oubt Okina«an people themselves. The formation of such an alliance is the key to tne overtnrov of th- greit that the description is accurate: Okinawa has proved war-and-mcney-machine which the U.S. and Japan are to be vital to the U.S. military in its wars in Korea building around tne perimetei of Ar.ia. and Indochina, and it is certain to prove equally vital in the joint U.S.-Japanese plans for containing and suppressing the Asian revolution in tne 1970s. Nixon's so-called "reduction" of the U.S. presense in Asia, which in fact is nothing more than a strategic reorg­ anization, will make Okinawa's role more complex but will in no way reduce its strategic importance. On the contrary, as the New Japanese Empire takes over more and more of the task of counterrevolution in Asia, and as Big Capital works to consoliaate its economic empire in that area, the "keystone" function of Oki­ nawa will be greatly expanaed in the 1970s.

But the important thing about a keystone is what happens to the arch when it is removed, vhile from one aspect, Okinawa may look like en impregnable bastion, from another point of view it ie potentially a weak link in the imperialist chain. For Okinawa is indeed the meeting place of the revolutionary struggles of all the peoples of Asia and the Pacific. Vietnam and Indochina are there: we have described already the vital role Okinawa has played in the strategy of the U.S. attacks in Southeast Asia. The closeness of Oki­ nawa to Vietnam was recently brought home vividly by the expose1 that 15-year old South /ietnemese boys are being trained in Okinawa as paratroopers. China is there: Okinawan bases place U.S. strategic bombers and missiles well within range of all important Chinese targets. Korea is there: Pak Chung Hi has called Okinawa the most important rear base supporting his "republic." Of course the U.S. is there: not only in the form of officers and equipment, but also of thousands of unwilling draftees, among whom awareness The situation on Okinawa is changing and developing and rebellion are spreading. And finally Japan is so rapidly that we have had to make revisions in this there: and her increasing presense is the concrete pamphlet because of events that nave occured while it measure of her new expansionism, bringing the Okinawan >:as in preparation. Not only are attacks on the people nothing more than a new conquest by the military presense there Decoding bolder and more mainland "Yamatonchu." frequent, but an alliance is developing wnich would have been unthinkable just a few year? ago, bt tveen Tf Thus if Okinawa is the keystone for the U.S.­ radical Okina ans and anti-war G.I.s, in particular Japanese counterrevolutionary strategy in Asia, it Black G.I.s. Cf course et this stage there is only can also be turned into a keystone for the disruption n bare beginning, but it leads one to speculate: of that strategy and for the liberation of the people think what could be r.ccomplishert for tne *rorld if of Asia. In the new era opened up by the 1969 Sato- all the unliaerated people on Okinawa were able to Nixon joint communique, the struggle of the Okinawan get together... people, because of its pivotal position in the structure of imperialism, is vitally connected to the light for liberation in the entire Asian Pacific area.

42 PLANNER EDITOR ART DIRECTOR DESIGNER ILLUSTRATOR : #mmm&M£%% m osf^fttt CAMERA MAN COPY- WRITER INTERIAL DESIGNER

* fc

PRttI-CMfM I*HT^^BT2-32

• 262 aC-S-fflfiS 1 0 2 6 • 4 6 0 9 • 4 6 6 7

Editors' note: Practically all of the photographs in this special issue of Ampo are taken from two photographic collect­ ions that came out in 1970. Neither publisher has requested OKINAWA: The Agony and Resistance payment. We urge our readers to obtain copies of these two of a Million People important books, which tell the story of Okinawa in a way that Editors: Okinawa Reform Joint no words can achieve. Prices and addresses are printed here. Struggle Committee Publisher: Shinjidaiaha Photo credit: Address: 2-7-12 Nishikanda Photographs from Okinawa: The Agony and Resistance of a Chiyoda-ku Million People appear on pages 17, 29, 35, 37 (top), 38, Tokyo •0, 41, 42 (center). Pries: ¥400 (japan); $2.00 (over­ seas) Photographs from Okinawa: 69-70 appear on pages 15, 16, 18, 22, 29, 30, 34, 36, 37 (bottom), 42 (top, bottom), and on the front cover.

^rarmjHjraDDDraxrjaraam^

OKINAWA: 69-70 Editors: Photographic group 1970; Publisher: Aaia Printing House; Photographer: Osamu Yoshioka; Address: Mr. Kinya Tanabe, 4-40-13 Honmachi, Nakano-ku, Tokyo; Price: ¥750 (Japan); $3.00 (overseas).

j'l'Uii 69-70 fflts *wi # wmmimTM'm

AMPO No. 7-8

A Report From the Japanese New Left li Ampo is produced in Tokyo by the Ampo Collective

Send correspondence to: Make checks payable to: AMPO Ampo. Account no. 0061656 Ishii Building Kagurazaka Branch 6-44, Kagurazaka Mitsubishi Bank Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Japan

A six-issue subscription costs: Single Issues: Japan ¥600 Japan...... ¥200 Overseas....$6.00

AMPO is not copyrighted, and Movement publications are welcome...in fact urged... J to reprint any articles published herein. All.we ask is that you give proper credit. Non-Movement publications should contact us first. We trust you to know which you are.

It is our specific hope that this magazine will contribute to unified international action against Japan-U.S. imperialism, which is the enemy of the people of both countries, and of the people of all Asia.

Any suggestions, either for this magazine or for unified action, will be welcomed.

Printed in Japan ARbport from the Japanese New Lett No. 9 Jo

Vietnam in Japan 3 Mitsubishi's War Industry 51 A Report Prom the Front 8 One-share Stockholders' Movement 54 Pollution 15 Immigration Control 56 Minamata Di sease 27 Immigration in Action 60 Minamata Interviews 31 Operation Freedom Vault 64 Mishima Yukio & Democratic Fascism 34 GI Join Us'. 67 THE ECONOMIC MIRACLE THE ECONOMIC MIRACLE THE ECONOMIC MIRACLE THE ECON

The world has heard a.lot about the "miracle" of Japan's post-war economic development. With its 10$ annual growth rate and its GNP said to be now the third largest in thevworld, this country is held up in the popular press as the ideal model for a capitalist future for other nOn-Western countries. In this issue we present some of the less-widely publicized aspects of the Economic Miracle. The articles on Sanrizuka show how the attempt of the industrialists to deal a final blow to Japan's peasant culture has given birth to a movement that can only be described as Vietnam in Japan. Ui Jun demonstrates how pollution has been not a side effect but one of the central factors in this country's economic growth, making Japan into the world's most polluted country. The most powerful indication of this is the new pollution diseases, such as Minamata Disease, which have appeared for the first time in the world in Japan. And finally, as we have argued previously, Japan's economic growth is solidly based on its position in the imperialist structure in Asia which it jointly manages with the U.S. While this fact has been partly obscured by the postwar myths of Peace and Democracy, these myths are fading and the realities are becoming more harshly visible as we move into the '70s. The Mishima incident is a harbinger of future trends. Companies like Mitsubishi are devoting more of their energies openly to war industry. And the Government's Immigration System continues to intensify its policies of oppressing minorities in Japan...especially Koreans...and of nourishing those rascist attitudes so necessary in any imperialist policy. ,esJUrxebom

• VIETNAM IN JAPAN SANRIZUKA kitazawa yoko a ooe?7e ot tn Sanrizuka lies within the farm area of (Ampo). One of the reasons given for Narita, some 66 km. to the east of the cen­ the new airport is the overcrowding ter of Tokyo. Until the beginning of the of the present International Airport at Meiji Bra (1868) the district was relat­ Haneda, but a major reason for the over­ ively undeveloped, due partly to the low crowding there is the greatly increased productivity of the soft, volcanic soil, use of Haneda by U.S. military charter and partly to the fact that much of it flights following the escalation of the war was kept as a range for wild horses, in Indochina. **ree U8e 0f Haneda is guar­ which were captured and used by the anteed the U.S. military by Ampo, and the feudal lords. Reclamation began after same right would of course extend to the the Meiji Restoration. In response to new airport at Sanrizuka. Another factor the new agricultural needs of the ex­ determining the choice of the site is the panding capital, the farmers after a long existence of the "Blue 14" air route which, struggle managed to make the barren soil as stipulated in Ampo, is reserved for the fertile, and today produce a variety of exclusive use of U.S. Military Aircraft, and crops grown in sequence through all the which makes it impossible to put the airport seasons of the year: wheat, peanuts, taro, to the west of Tokyo, for example. ginger, watermelons. However it is not only because of these On June 22, 1966 the government military aspects of the airport plan that suddenly announced that Sanrizuka had it is opposed by the farmers. They argue been chosen as the site for the new that whether the airport is military or Tokyo International Airport. This civil, its construction aims at the destruc­ amounted to a change in plans, the reas­ tion of agriculture in Japan. The Sanri­ on for which is significant: the farmers zuka International Airport is one of the in the area which had been previously main pillars of a redevelopment plan for chosen, Tomisato, had been putting up a the entire Hokuso plateau on which Sanri­ strong resistance. Tomisato has a long zuka stands, which in turn is to be a test history of peasant struggles dating for a vast plan for the reorganization of back to the Meiji Era. Sanrizuka re­ the entire economic structure of the nation. commended itself as an alternative for This plan involves the transformation of several reasons. First of all one present agricultural areas into indust­ third of the site for the proposed rial areas, the destruction of farmland airport is occupied by the Imperial and the uprooting of peasants from their Pasture Estate and by forest lands life and culture to be transformed into owned by the prefecture, both of which an industrial labor force. It is not quite could be easily confiscated. Secondly, correct to call this a "decentralization" the majority of the remaining lands plan, since it involves the expansion, not had been reclaimed since Vorld War II. the dissolution, of the metropolis. Thus As a result of this the farmers had not yet the airport is part of a general plan to developed the kind of communal solidarity urbanize the entire Hokuso area, to bring that is found in older rural areas. In in metals and machine industry to be tied contrast to most hamlets where farmers' in with the Kashima and Keiyo industrial homes are clustered together, most of the areas along the coast. Narita New City farmhouses in Sanrizuka are separated from is to be tfuilt on 487 hectares of Sanri­ each other in a symmetrical pattern formed zuka land, to accomodate the labor force by the land distribution plan. Thus the associated with the airport. A new trans­ Sato government calculated that it would portation network is to be built both with­ be easy to divide the farmers against in the area and between the area and the each other, and to buy them off one by capital. Most important is a plan to al­ one. ter the rivers in the area so as to divert the waters from agriculture to industry, The government of course tries to which will mean the final death of the present the airport plan as a natural farmlands. part of the industrial progress of Japan. However the matter is not so simple. In short, the Sanrizuka struggle is Contained in the plan are a number of not only in opposition to the airport it­ realities of Japanese politics today. self, but is a battle against the entire First of all, the plan is tightly bound Hokuso Development Plan. It is a struggle up with the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty of the local people against the tendency 3 of monopoly capital to expand, modernize, compensate farmers with land in the amount and rationalize for its own benefit. of 150# of their present holdings . In ad­ dition the Kodan went to work on the land­ owners individually, making threats and promises, and particularly making use of On the 28th of June, 1966, six days the argument that selling their land would after the government announced the choice get the farmers out of debt (many owed as much as 13000 to banks and to the agri­ of Sanrizuka as the airport site, 1000 cultural cooperative). By the summer of farmers braved a rainstorm to attend a 1967, 80# of the farmers who owned land meeting in the local school. There they within the airport site were won over from decided to form the Opposition Union of opposition to support of the project. The Sanrizuka, and made their first declaration, community divided into two sharply oppos­ which read in part: ing blocks.

After having been defeated by the strong On the 10th of Oct., 1967, the opposition of the Tomisato farmers, the movement entered a new stage. Prior to government has now chosen Sanrizuka as that time there had been several forceful an alternative site. This new proposal demonstrations by some of the farmers, but does not differ from the fundamental these had been spontaneous, and the leader­ nature of the previous one. This means ship had still stuck to the peaceful, to deprive the farmers of the lands they parliamentary methods recommended by the have cultivated with their sweat and JSP and JCP. On October 10 the Kodan had blood, to destroy farming with jet scheduled a survey of the land, and planned plant noises and air and water pollution, to bring in surveyors protected by riot and to threaten the life of the area and police. Hantai Domei announced a policy of the education of children over a vast resistance without violence , and called for area. We regard as unacceptable this support from the people all over the count­ proposal which ignores the fundamental ry. On the morning of the 10th the farmers the fundamental human right to live. sat down on all possible roads to the air­ ....We hereby warn the government that port site. The government chose this occa­ if they try to enforce this construction sion to attempt to destroy the Hantai on us they will be driven into a corner Domei with an overwhelming show of force. and will be forced to dig their own 2000 riot police went into the attack, beat­ grave. ing even women and the aged. The Japan Communist Party "support" group, which Two days after this meeting the farmers had taken a position at the front line of of nearby Shibayama town gathered at the the sit-in, reacted to the appearance of Agricultural Cooperative and decided to the riot police by first telling the farmers join the struggle. Shibayama, a town with not to be "provoked," and then by withdraw­ a strong tradition of farmers' rebellion ing to a distant area and singing songs. dating back as far as the 1910s, is not actually in the area to be seized for the On that day the farmers learned two airport, but is so close that the jet things: first, that they themselves, and noises there are expected to reach a not "support committees" from the outside, level of 100 phons, which is the same as were the only force that could prevent the the noise inside the Tokyo subway. Their building of the airport; second, that they decision to join brought about the creation could never succeed if they did not meet of the Sanrizuka-Shibayama Federated Union force with force. to Oppose the Construction of the Airport... generally called Opposition League (Hantai Domei)...which became the major force of Coincidentally, it was only two days the movement, and which today, after five before that, on October 8, 1967, that years of struggle, has become the vanguard Zengakuren engaged in the historic Haneda of the peasant movement in Japan. struggle, in which they for the first time took the offensive against the police, cap­ At the beginning the Hantai Domei, turing and burning police cars, in an attempt following the advice given them by the to prevent Sato from visiting South Vietnam. Socialist and Communist Parties, restrict­ That battle not only changed the character ed its actions to holding meetings, staging of the student movement in Japan, but also peaceful demonstrations, and petitioning gave a great boost of encouragement to the the local and national government. During Sanrizuka farmers, opening for them a new that first year the government totally ig­ path, and marking the beginning of their nored the farmers and went right ahead as invisible alliance with the student move­ if the construction would be a certainty. ment . At the same time relations with the JCP worsened rapidly, until in December the Hantai Domei announced that JCP had been They published a blueprint of the airport, expelled from the movement. formed a Public Corporation (Kodan) to build it, bought over the Narita City Council so that it reversed its stand from opposition The development of the to approval, and announced that they would political thought of the Hantai MAP No.l MAP No. 2 KANTO AREA around Tokyo: Industry & Military Base

SANRIZUKA (Sanrizuka district of Narita n.ity & Shibayama Town of ~biba Pref.)

fco Narit Statio'

Ol

{jsj-j Military Base

Industrial Zone

J$%fr jjmperor'r E'sta U.S. aeriel control zone fa hut of "Unity'

El H.Q. of Kodan Domei can be seen in excerpts gth through actual strength...that's why from speeches made in the summer we say that whoever first overpowers the of 1968. In one speech, the other is the winner. The police prob­ president of Hantai Domei, ably think the same way. But inside Issaku Tomura, began by drawing they're the same human beings we are. a parallel between the and so the outcome is going to be de­ Sanrizuka farmers' movement and cided by which side is going to be di­ the Vietnamese National Liberation vided, by which side is going to overtake Front, and asked what it was that the other. It is not as if we were going gave both the power to resist to slaughter each other with guns... their powerful enemy with all it3 sophisticated weaponry.

...I think that here we must think ab­ Since the summer of 1968 Sanrizuka out the meaning of "humanity" as ap­ has been the scene of so many battles that plied to each of the members of the it is possible here to give only a brief League. It is a power which the others chronology. do not have. It is~an indestruct­ ible power which the farmers of Sanri­ Summer 1968 Two full months of almost zuka alone possess. This itself...our daily battles against the soil survey humanity...is our fighting spirit and which Kodan was trying to carry out under will. riot police protection. For example on July 7, 500 riot police were sent in to It is because of this that we can breach several barbed wire barricades set continue to confront the riot police up by the Hantai Domei. First they encoun­ even though we get our heads bashed tered the Old People'8 Brigade, which was open....It is only through confronting using one of the most effective weapons the the riot police right on our own land farmers have discovered: liquefied human when they come to make surveys that we shit, which the farmers traditionally coll­ are going to win our victory. If this ect and make into fertilizer, brought to is what it comes down to, then what do the front lines in barrels and fired at we lack? There will be times when we will the police by means of long-handled wooden clash with the police, times when we will dippers. The enraged police arrested the have to fight with our farming tools. leader of this group, 76 year old Kazu- There may be times when we will have to toshi Sugasawa. Next the Women's Brigade swing our sickles to defend ourselves. came to the front forming a solid line, hand in hand. Finally, in the afternoon, We must be prepared to g0 that far. This is not like the peasants' revolts the police were forced to retreat under a in the feudal age. I believe that what shower of stones thrown by the Hantai Domei. we have here is a farmers' liberation front. Moreover, I believe that this August, 1968 Hantai Domei held a mass is an instance of a revolutionary move­ meeting of 1000 members and decided to ment. These farmers who were oppressed set up a system of three-member patrols by state power and made to go along with as protection against infiltrating plain- whatever they were told...these people clot hesmen. are now, in Sanrizuka, really going to break themselves loose from this author­ Nov. 24. 1968 A national meeting was held ity and destroy it. This history-making at Sanrizuka, attended by 1000 members of struggle began at Sanrizuka. When we Hantai Domei, 4000 Zengakuren students, look at the struggle from this stand­ and 3000 Han-sen (Anti-war Youth Committee) point, we fear neither violence from the workers. This was the largest meeting ever riot police nor death itself. ...We cannot held at Sanrizuka, and came as a shock to win unless you're prepared to chop off the police and the Kodan. Kodan officials the heads of one or two policemen. began to admit that they might not be able We are prepared to carry our struggle to begin construction in 868 as scheduled, to that point. but still announced that the first planes would be taking off from the airport in April, 1971. In another speech, Hiroyuki Shima of the Youth Action Brigade made a thoughtful Winter 1968-69 Police launch campaign of • analysis of a problem that the Hantai Domei systematic arrest and confinement of leaders was wrestling with, the meaning of the use and militants in Hantai Domei. The farmers of violence. respond with successive waves of protest at Chiba Prefectural police headquarters. When it comes to using arms, that is something we can't avoid when the police carry out this kind of repress­ July. 1969 The Old People's Brigade goes ion against us. There is also the mat­ to the Imperial Palace to protest the sale ter of retaliating for the injuries in­ of the Imperial Pasture Estate to the Kodan. flicted on our comrades. We're saying The sale takes place anyway. The Youth Act­ that we're going to make a show of stren- ion Brigade attacks the closing ceremony of the Estate with staves. The Old People's Feb. 19. 1970 Kodan, supported by 3000 Brigade decides to organize sit-ins around riot police, attempted the first forcible the trees of the estate to prevent them survey. Hantai Domei, including the from being cut. Children's Action Brigade which struck from school, and 3000 student and worker support­ In the same month, members of the ers from the outside, entrenched themselves Hantai Domei participated in a meeting in the three fortresses. The Kodan was not of another important farmers movement, at able to enter the area, and was forced to Kita-fuji. Since 1947 the Kita-fuji settle for some aerial photographs of the farmers have been ceaselessly struggling to area taken from helicopter. get back 5000 hectares of their land at the base of Mt. Fuji which had been May 21, 1970 The Youth Action Brigade beg­ siezed and used as a training area by an digging a tunnel system under their the U.S. Military. The Kita-fuji movement Unity Hut, working every night from the is led by women: the Mothers' Committee of time they finished work in the fields to Shibokusa Village has built a hut in the midnight. The Women's Action Brigade target area of the U.S. artillery range, decided to prepare supper and tea for where three-woman teams keep up a 24- them each evening. hour watch to prevent artillery practice. This long and stubborn struggle by the July 5. 1970 The underground fortress Kita-fuji farmers, whose land is far completed. It has space to contain 40 less fertile than that of Sanrizuka, people, and has beds and a toilet. made a strong impression on the Hantai During the summer the Children's Brigade Domei. In addition this new linkup holds a study course in this fortress. helped to an important new reconception of their own fight: it came to be seen During the summer of 1970 two more unity not just as a local struggle to protect huts are built. At the same time the land, but as part of the class struggle farmers begin cultivating the fields in Japan. which supporters of the airport had sold to the Kodan and which has since been left November. 1969 The Kodan begins construct­ neglected. These fields are declared the ion of roads into the area where the 4000 common property of the Hantai Domei. meter airstrip is to be built. Thirteen Hantai Domei members, including president Sept. 30. 1970 marked the beginning of a Tomura, arrested for sitting down in front three-day battle against the Third Forc­ of the bulldozers. ible Survey, for which were mobilized 450 Kodan staff and 2000 riot police. The January. 1970 Kodan announces a plan to farmers defended themselves with multiple carry out a forcible survey, including barricades including moats, scattered man­ inside buildings on the airport site. ure, rotten watermelons, burning rubber This means the inside of the Unity Huts tires, pitfalls (into which the riot police which the Hantai Domei has built in the commander was the first to fall), and area. The farmers respond by building devices which dropped buckets of shit barricades around the huts, transforming from trees on police passing beneath. them into fortresses, and announcing that One group of farmers who had been hiding they will keep up a constant 24 hour watch in a small hill, sprang out and attacked inside the fortresses for the entire 500 the Kodan officials who had been keeping days until April 1971, the month when the safely...they thought...behind police cars Kodan has said the first flight will leave in the rear. The farmers attacked them with from Sanrizuka Airport. The Youth Action bamboo spears and forced them into a rout. Brigade issued a bulletin on the 500 day One farmer caused the police to flee simply sit-in: by pouring shit all over himself and rushing at them. Enraged police responded with in­ Today, in the lands of Sanrizuka which discriminate and brutal beatings. Sixty are falling into decay with every pass­ people were arrested. ing day, all that remains is the barri­ cades of Hantai Domei which are under construction. In order to consolidate For an account of more recent events them, in order that they may grow further at Sanrizuka we turn to the report of a into the depth of the Sanrizuka soil, we have decided to stay inside them. These Tokyo activist who recently spent two weeks barricades within which we stay are not there. merely a symbol of battle nor an express­ ion of our will to fight. They are our real battlefield and the forefront of our struggle. Therefore we must con­ tinue to consolidate them. At the same time a barricade must be built within our minds. To prevent the forcible survey; to prevent the seizure of our lands; to crush the airport: these are the fort­ resses within which we stay. a report from the front matsumoto yuko

The Opposition League had shut them­ On March 5, the 12th day after the selves in trenches behind barricades at beginning of the land expropriation, the six points in the small valley of Komaimo, Airport Corporation became irritated with which contained the 814 hectares of land to the fruitless negotiations and took con­ be expropriated. Lying in the floor of the trol of the proceedings from the Chiba valley were the first four fortresses, the Prefectural government. It brought in fifth lay on the valley slope, and the sixth 3500 riot police, placed the area around was situated on a small hill looking down Komaino under its control, and shut off into the valley. The four fortresses in the traffic to and from the area, fearing the valley proper were defended mainly by farm­ thousands who were crowding in to confont ers, the other two mainly by students. No - the state power. From early in the morning thing hindered the view...a desolate lands­ the government forces were busy making cape of bare, red soil, which had already ready to take the land, taking every possible been surveyed for construction. The only measure to keep the situation under their thing reflecting the warmth and throbbing control. of human life was the log barricades, and At around five in the morning the writer the black and white smoke trailing off into and some supporting students entered one of the dark blue sky from the fires by which the fortresses. Everyone was working hard the farmers and students were warming them­ to repair the barricade which had been des­ selves. In the stiff wind there waved dozens troyed twice in the fighting the day be­ of flags and banners: the sun flag of Japan, fore. Small children and old people, men the red flags of the students, the straw and women, farmers and students, all were flags of the farmers. On them was written joined in the work, bringing in stones and the militant messages of the League: logs of fir and pine, laying them up to "Keep to the land until death'." "We de­ form barricades in the faint morning light. fend life, heart, and family." "The At the top of one tall uncut pine was a spirit of the farmer." "We will defend the small wooden lookout hut, like a birds nest. trenches to the death." "We won't give away Below, two youths had chained themselves to this land, cultivated with the soul of the trunk. The heavy fragrance of the fir Japanese farmers." "The destiny of Japan trees spread throughout the barricade. depends on this battle: each member will Finally the barricade was finished...green fight to the end!" and brown, as if it had grown up out of

8 fa.. -r—l*i^f .li»| oft" the earth. Another flag was raised their duty and for assembling with weapons. against the sky of deepening blue: Next a big truck was brought forward "Be ready for bloodshed, riot police!... loaded with sandbags, which were used to Youth Action Brigade." fill in the outer ditch. At this point the Opposition League farmers told the Around six o'clock the barricade was surrounded completely by riot police. students to leave the barricade, saying Timid officials of the Airport Corporation that they alone would form the last lines were pushed forward, and they announced the of resistance, and prevent physically the beginning of expropriation. As they appro­ entry of the riot police and the Airport ached the barricade rocks were thrown and Corporation officials. bamboo spears thrust out to hinder their progress. The Airport Corporation, with no morality or Justice on its side with which After repeatedly being repelled by to persuade the farmers, only assaulted stones, the attackers brought out a them with overwhelming physical force... bulldozer, which moved foreward under the riot police and its machinery. In the cover of a police armored truck its path stood phalanxes of farmers, their with a water-cannon. However the bull­ wives and children, empty handed. The dozer was quickly disabled by a molotov whole Sanrizuka struggle was symbolized in cocktail. this clash. The farmers were firmly con­ vinced of the justice of their position. The attack was escalated. Two Over the course of more than five years more water-cannon trucks were brought they had come to understand that when forward to cover a power shovel sent state power said, "For the nation," it in to dig out the barricade. The water meant only meant "For small numbers of from the water-cannons made it hard for capitalists." For them, on the other hand, us to open our eyes. A rainbow, long to be robbed of their farm land was to and thin, appeared momentarily in the rob them of their existence, their life. mist, and then was gone. The country which was doing this was no longer their country. They insisted that How powerful was the machinery! The their country, the true Japan, existed only shovel thrust once, twice...and the barric­ behind the barricades at Sanrizuka. ade was broken with a crash. The Airport Corporation Officials were shouting arro­ gantly, "Come out of the barricade to avoid It was easy to destroy the wooden danger," "Leave this land and do not inter­ barricades. They knew this. But physical fere with us in the execution of our duty." power alone could not crush a human spirit At last they announced that all people inside determined to stake life itself to continue the barricade were under arrest for in­ to live as farmers. • terfering with them in the execution of 10 If each of the riot policemen thrown policies, such as recommending the cul­ in by the state as physical force looked tivation of watermelon after a year in like a grain of sand, the farmers looked which the watermelon crop has failed, or like human beings, with individual faces cabbage after a cabbage crop failure, and reflecting different personal histories. then refusing to take responsibility for The backs of the farmers standing in the resulting losses and debts. Making their resistance lines told of the rich matters worse was the policy, actively weight of lively human existence...of promoted by the government since 1964, lives refusing to be measured. to build a silk industry in the area as "the central axis for the betterment of peasants' life and the reform of farm villages." This plan became a great A Philosophy Rooted in the Soil dream among the farmers, who went deeply into debt converting farmland over to Events such as this have not been mulberry trees and building a large rare in Japanese history. Farmers have cooperative breeding house for silkworms. been oppressed in this land from ancient This dream was crushed when the plan was times, and especially since the beginning suddenly brought to a halt by the air­ of industrialization they have been stead­ port project. The initial despair soon ily uprooted, building up an uncompen­ turned to anger at having been deceived sated sadness which can find no way to so completely, and this anger became explode. part of the energy behind the resistance to the airport construction. Most of the farmers of Sanrizuka came heij after world war II, to cultivate The airport site was set at Narita new land which had been opened for use after having been driven out of Tomisato by .the post-war land reform. The whole and Yatsumachi by fierce opposition. They village slept in a stable after each hard thought that there would be little resist­ day of felling trees, burning grass, and ance at Narita because most of the people clearing roots. They worked in the day were at that time supporters of the Liberal- on neighboring land in exchange for something Democratic Party, and because so many of to eat, and worked on their own land late the people were newcomers, this very con­ at night under the moonlight or early in tempt readied the farmers to make their the morning, borrowing carts and tools and stand. A fire was set deep in the thick returning them to the owners in the layers of grudge, spreading through the morning when the normal work day began. center of the soul. Like a fire burning Through this kind of hardship Sanrizuka inside a cotton quilt, there is no scar­ was transformed into a rich farmland. let flame seen leaping up on the outside, yet the fire keeps burning steadily and Added to this is the grudge against patiently, producing a faint, quiet smoke. the government's planless agricultural This is the fire which is hardest to quench.

II

I u

It was this manner of burning that was A member of the Youth Brigade says, expressed in the underground fortresses. "It's a good thing for me to be arrested To dig deep into the earth and build strong, in my own field. The farmers re fighting invisible, fortified tunnels beneath the a on their own land, from which they need surface, to shut themselves inside and not run away. Where else could we go?" risk their lives defending them...this indicated that they had gone beyond their first position, defense of their land, and The Beginning of the Revolution had moved to a new and more profound position: defense of the soil itself, the The airport plan split the Sanri­ soil which denys both private ownership and zuka community into several parts... expropriation. supporters of the plan, those who gave it conditional support, and the Opposition This new level of attachment was League. In the midst of this process achieved only through the experience of of dissolution the solidarity of the struggle. A farmer's wife says, "How I Opposition League has grown up firm hated being a farmer. I was always and strong. To fight was to organize, wishing I could leave my family. But and this meant for each member to first now, what a joy to see the ripened har­ organize himself...to organize his sad­ vest, to see ears of rice changing their ness, resentment, hatred, and other in­ color or to see peanuts ripening...it is expressible feelings lurking deep in the a real pleasure, one I could never get soul. The process of the struggle has working in a company office. I exper­ been a process of self-affirmation, creat­ ienced this pleasure for the first time ing a new figure of farmers, united to­ in the struggle, because we worked in the gether in a new way. Thus separate fields during the intervals. We could brigades have been formed for children, not experience this without pain and hardship. youth, women, parents, and old people, and each has conceived and created its Thus the struggle began as a defense own activities...school boycotts, study of private land and deepened to one to programs, propaganda activities in both defend the soil itself. The farmers say, near and distant villages, the 500-day "We might not be able to defend the land, sit-in, barricade construction, managing but we are convinced that we can defend the common farmland, continuous protests the soil." The farmers know this soil, against the Expropriation Committee, they know its differing degrees of richness, raising money by hiring out as laborers and which fertilizer is suited to each, raising money for relief. All these and they insist that the soil is destined activities were and are carried on daily to die if it is separated from them, just with tremendous energy. as they are destined to die if they are separated from it. To them the asphalt of the proposed airport is a great arti­ This degree of organization gives ficial monster which will suffocate the their struggle great depth, and makes it soil. Asphalt is abnormal and monsterous possible in cases of emergency to confront compared with a green shoot of wheat. And state power with many layers of fronts. a green shoot of wheat will never grow on Each hamlet can take care of the farms of the runway of an airport. those who are arrested. The questions of 13 direction, course, and strategy of the its coming military aggression; a state which, struggle are discussed in regular meetings, to clear a space for this airport, beat farm in an atmosphere that calls for the indepen­ women with truncheons, pushed children into dence and responsibility of each member. ditches, cut off the fingers of a child who had tied himself to a tree, dragged The resistance of the Opposition League away bleeding women who had tied them­ has succeeded in exposing the intention of selves to posts with barbed wire, cut down Japanese Imperialism to disembody the farm­ a tree with people sitting in its branches, ing villages and place them at the lowest trampled students underfoot, dug out tunn­ level of the society. But their resist­ els filled with people with power shovels, ance does more than just reveal the truth ignoring the danger of cave-in and disaster. about the other side; it has also develop­ What is this state to them? They are coming ed into a sharp attack and a serious chal- to think that it is the state...not they... lange against this state which seeks to pro­ that should die. duce a new breed of farmers who will in­ differently sell their farms for money, in All the state's violence has not the end producing crowds of isolated succeeded in destroying the resistance of people as lonely as grains of sand, to be the farmers, but has only solidified their molded by the hand of power. resolution. This is a resolution not to accept as history the history that is being written by the state, a history that The farmers of Sanrizuka would no would sacrifice their lives to the im­ longer consider it a satisfactory victory age of the "Progress of the Age." just to stop the airport plan. They would They say that history is what they them­ not imitate the farmers of Tomisato, who selves are creating now in their struggle. presented eight bales of watermelons to the The force and energy with which they mayor of the prefecture when the airport created farmland out of the virgin soil site was transferred from Tomisato to of Sanrizuka will continue to propel Sanrizuka. Their struggle has taken them history forward. They will continue further into an unknown realm which their life, cultivate the land, build is yet to be conquored. their farmers' life into a struggle, and out of the corpse of the old dissolved While the idea of the farmers at the community their hamlets and villages beginning was only to keep their land, this will be reborn in the midst of our has changed in the process of the struggle. community, directly in front of the They came face to face with state power and state power. If the state razes our grasped its substance...a state which would environment with bulldozers, buries and not allow them the minimum condition for suffocates life under concrete, we their lives as farmers, to live and die with will grow and thrive in our new form of the soil. A state which needs a new air­ unity until we smash through the nation from field because of the increase in U.S. mili­ the inside, like a tough young tree tary air traffic at Haneda; a state which breaking out from under the concrete. needs a new airfield to strengthen its economic aggression and to prepare for This is their struggle. They stand at the very forefront of the class struggle in Japan, serving as an example and leader for the entire movement.

i

14 15

BASIC THEORY CF KOGAI • BY Ul JUN

Ui Jun, 38, is a sanitary engineer and a faculty assistant at To­ kyo University. Since 1959, the year that the connection was first discovered between Minamata disease and mercury from factory waste, Ui has been obsessed with the problem of pollution, and in particular with the guilt of his own eng­ ineering profession. In addition to conducting his own re­ search on the problem, writing, and lecturing, he has also been appearing in the Minamata trials at Niigata as an expert witness. On May 25, 1970, he was among thirteen citizens arrested for sitting in at the Health and Welfare Ministry, protesting the government's handling of the Minamata case. Ui also managed to obtain a room at Tokyo University one evening a week, where he has started an "open schoolT In this open school, which has been causing great excietment here, Ui has been attacking...with the systematic care of an engineer.*. two sacred cows which have until now gone almost unchallenged in Japan: science and economic progress. He argues, not ab­ stractly but in concrete detail, that there can be no third parties in pollution cases. This means that there can in principle be no such thing as a neutral science..scientific research can be carried on from only one of two viewpoints, that of the assialant corporation or that of the victim. He argues that the scientific establishment in Japan is so constructed that it can only see pollution from the position of the corporations, which means that it is systematically incapable of grasping the problem as it confronts us^the victims, who wither and die from poisoned air and water. Moreover, Ui argues that Japan's pollution problem is not just an oversight or a result of "distorted" growth, but rather that it has been a basic factor in Japan's economic growth. The fact that Japan has the world's fastest growing economy and the fact that Japan is the world's most polluted country are simply two sides of the same process.

The following article has been abbreviated, with Ui's permission, from his published Open School lectures.

(The Japanese word which is used to identify the pollution problem, kogai. is difficult to translate. Literally, it means "public hazard" or "public nuisanceo" The standard translatior is "environmental pollution," but in Japanese kogai is used to refer to all sorts of things that aren't strictly pollution: factory noise, vibration, obstruction of sunlight, traffic congestion, water shortage, and so on. In the article below we have sometimes translated it as "pollution" and sometimes used the Japanese word.) .Ja.'Vv*;." *•=;:< '***&&% K /-.twWfl^33l

*fW*f.

' i*~mnQ t*MC™*' For about ten years now, every time response to the complex social phenom­ I have visited areas damaged by kogai and enon of kogai, and a response which is talked to the victims, I have been con­ anyway too late. Furthermore, in the fronted with their questions: Why had investigations I have done beginning with kogai come? Why had it been left to the Minamata problem, I have always found grow more severe? Why had nothing been that universities and their graduates... done to prevent it? These questions engineering departments and their engineers. are frequently reflections of distrust are always on the side of the production to our modern technology, and of feel­ of kogai. Tokyo University is the most ings close to hatred for this prof­ typical example: the only time this uni­ essor coming down from Tokyo University versity has ever done any research from the to tell them,"Kogai isn't so bad. Bear standpoint of the victims was the mine it." poisoning incident at Ashio (in the late 19th century). That was the first and Placed in the position of a rep­ last occasion. resentative of Tokyo University, I many times felt my responsibility for these It is natural that a university that things, and could only lower my head is given its money and buildings by the before the victims. state, and whose purpose is to make officials and engineers who can serve as Ky profession concerns the treat­ useful personnel for the state, should ment of waste water from factories and teach techniques whose only use can be the development of techniques for the the expansion of the strength and wealth prevention of kogai. However my exper­ of the state. And it is a fact that we ience as a faculty assistant in civil ourselves have chosen Tokyo University as engineering has convinced me entirely a place to learn these techniques. But that the only purpose of these techniques when I visited Warsaw University in is to gain time and to silence protest. Poland, I found that its classrooms were As an instructor I have been in charge private houses in an area similar to the of some seminars and laboratory classes Ginza. I wes told that the reason was that at Tokyo U., but the only thing the stud­ the universities had been the bases of ents were looking for there was their resistance every time the country had engineering diplomas, or the units going been occupied, and that as a result they toward those diplomas. They were given had been destroyed by occupying forces, my laboratory instruction because they professors commonly being shot or purged from the country. But eager students still visited the homes of their profess­ needed units in "testing of water quality." ors, where they heard lectures secretly What I have come to realize through late at night. These private homes several years at this position is that at present Tokyo University is nothing more than became what is now the university. a collection of vocational training centers. When I heard of this, I realized the The Department of Law is a vocational train­ possibility of the existence of a univer­ ing center making bureaucrats, and the sity which is precisely the opposite Department of Technology...applied chemistry, mining engineering, electric­ of Tokyo University. al engineering, shipping, civil engin­ eering: we can imagine the enterprise that fits each of these. It is obviously New, if we exclude the element of a vocational training center. As for the privilege, and the element of rising in students, their aim is to rise in the the world through university education, world, and the very reason for the univ­ what will we have left? With regard to ersity's existence is to train people for the kogai problem, is it possible to create jobs. Therefore it is natural that it a study or a knowledge which is built not out of the techniques for producing excludes the problems of pollution of kogai ndr for the establishment of the environment. countermoasures by the producers of kogai, but which is built rather out of a common understanding, or a common When students learn science or sci­ experience, with the victims of kogai in entific technology in this way, that is, Japan, how they have resisted, why they solely as a way of advancing their own failed or how they won, and, throughout individual interests, they perceive nature the history of the last 100 years, how as merely as a subject to be utilized, or they have progressed or retrogressed? to be cut up into pieces for use. Attempts This kind of knowledge would perhaps to deal with kogai problems are limited aid no one in rising in the world, but to the treatment of waste in the case of it is a knowledge which is necessary water pollution and the building of to our survival, as kogai gets pro­ high chimneys in the case of air pollution. gressively worse. . These are precisely the techniques for utilizing a nature which has been split into pieces, and represent only a partial 16 By chance there was a room in the an unspecifiable many, and that the victim Civil Engineering Department that was is also unspecifiable. But the expression not in use at a certain time at night. "unspecifiable many" is made up of two I thought that it might not be meaningless different terms, and if we investigate to start an open school which offers no adequately we can specify both the assail­ knowledge of use to the establishment in ant and the victim, even though they may the very place where, in the daytime, be many. establishment engineering is taught under the name of "city planning" and "sanitary engineering" and so on. So I got set on the idea of using that room, and thanks to various people we So I decided not to depend on any have been given permission to use it. definition, and to take any case in which the inhabitants of an area claim, "We Those who experienced the "campus are victims, and we are victims of disorder" may know that the buildings kogai," as a case of kogai. And for of Tokyo U. are not t£e buildings of ten years now I have had notime to the people. They are under the control make a definition of kogai, being forced of the school authorities, and to get simply to follow the living and moving permission to be here we had to accept instances of kogai. So let me go ahead many conditions. One of the conditions without answering your difficult question, was not to fight violently in this room. though it is fundamental, of what defin­ (Laughter) It's a joke to us, but not ition I would make. to the professors. So I told them that my first promise was that I would request the members of the open school not to exchange blows with sticks. Hk (Answering a question): In your question, you pointed out the fact that i I began our school without first giving a definition of the term "kogai," thus Perhaps you know that Japan has the departing from the orthodox practice of worst problem of environmental pollution most universities. of any country in the world.

Well, I'll tell you some of the Japan is surrounded by the sea...the definitions which are offered by people sea with the tide coming in and out and with the Black Current flowing by...and is also who are called "kogai scholars." In a country with much rain, which does not general they are of two kinds. On the remain long within the land. The biggest one hand there are highly technical lake in Japan is Biwa-ko, where the water definitions, like the definition of air changes completely every 7 years, approx­ pollution given by the World Health imately. Seven years is not a very long Organization. On the other hand there is time. In Sweden and Finland, for example, the kind of definition which is offered where there are lakes filled by the water by government or industrial agencies from glaciers, it sometimes takes scores or by the professors associated with of years for the water to completely change. them, in which it is always said that Of course in Japan there is Mashu-ko, which the assailant* in a kogai problem is has no exit, and there the water stays very long. But that is an exception; in general * In Japanese there is a pair of general water flows through Japan very rapidly. terms (kagaisha/higaisha) which is used, If we have a lake that requires several depending on the context, to mean oppressor/ score years for the water to change, and oppressed, aggressor/victim, or assailant/ victim. To analyze a problem in terms of we pollute it, the consequence is that kagaisha/higaisha is to both politicalize it the polluted water will not go out for and to radicalize it, since it focuses the one generation of man. And even if the problem in terms of a line on which a strug­ water goes out, the mud and fish do not. gle can be carried out. Thus a major part of So it is well known that once a lake is Ui's argument is that the kogai problem polluted there is hardly any possibility can and must be analyzed in kagaisha/ for recovery. However, in Japan if we higaisha terms, opening the way for organ­ drain waste into the rivers, the rivers ized action by the victims. Establishment rush it out^to the sea within ten days. engineers, on the other hand, try to argue And of course; in practice that is what has that no such line can be drawn, which is in been done and what ie done. effect to argue that the whole problem should be left up to the experts: themselves. The same thing can be said about the In this translation we have used the wind. There is no season, no month, no rather inadequate words "assailant" and ten-day period, when there is no wind. "victim" for "kagaisha" and "higaisha." 17 Especially the strong winter wind, which rich supplies of wood and water. Japan is blows almost every day, washes out the a country with little wood and water, and polluted air, though the air pollution with a population density for its inhabitable in the Kanto Plains area (around Tokyo) land of twenty to a hundred times that of never leaves completely. So this is a the other countries. Nevertheless, in Japan country constantly washed by natural there are few pulp factories that make any conditions. reasonable effort to treat their waste. The most blatant example is Fuji City, where Nevertheless we are living in the the big factories have been located right most polluted country. It is difficult in the middle of the crowded city, and not to express the severity of this pollut­ one of them is making any attempt to treat ion quantitatively, but it was in Japan that various new diseases fatal to man, and coming from water pollution, first appeared. Minamata disease appeared in two places in Japan in rapid succession, and it has been reported that there has been a third, less severe, outbreak in Finland. And it is almost certain that Itai-Itai disease ("itai" mains "pain" in Japanese), which is cadmium poisoning, first appeared at Toyama, and then later at Tsushima. And Yubimagari disease ("yubimagari" means "twisted fingers," which is one of the effects of this disease), which is suspected to be a kind of poisoning by cadmium and other its waste. There has been no objection, and heavy metals, has appeared in a number so it has been possible to locate the fact­ of places in the country. And now ories there and develop the "rapidly ex­ Itai-itai disease has appeared in a third panding economy." In other countries it has place, also in Japan. And so my assertion been a matter of common sense that 10-20$ that Japan is the country with the of the productive facilities are necess­ most advanced kogai has become so arily directed to treatment of waste so that well accepted that even Sato Eisaku it does not do severe harm to the fish. doesn't deny it. In Japan they can use that 10-20^ for production. Moreover, they can build factories near consumer cities, or in The first factor in this situation the middle of towns, so they can trans­ has been, I think, the rapidly developing port their product at little cost. Only economy. It is often said that kogai is a a fool could fail to make pulp-producing side effect of, or a distortion of, rapid into a booming business under these economic development. But I think that conditions. So Japan is ranked among this is a notion that comes from the the world's first six pulp-producers, side of the producers of kogai. But as far as I can see, kogai is not such a where it has no business being. trifling thing as just a side effect or Someone might object that the pulp a distortion of rapid economic development. industry is not a principal industry. To say that it is "distortion" is to say So let me talk about an industry which that if economic development were carried anyone would agree is central: the on rightly, or managed to follow a natural steel industry. course without distortion, kogai would not Steel engineers say that the most appear. But the fact is that kogai is one important factor in the rapid recovery and of the most powerful factors of rapidly modernization of Japan's post-war steel developing economies. Japanese economists industry has been the Oxygen LD furnace. have pointed out a number of factors in We are familiar with the multicolored the success of Japan's capitalist econ­ smoke that comes from the chimneys of omy, and the things most stressed have steel mills, which is a necessary pro­ been low wages and trade protection. Now duct of this LD furnace. In Europe or I am adding to these a third; the neglect the USA this kind of furnace cannot be of kogai...the permitting the economy to used unless its smoke is cleaned in a dirty its own clothes. The problem of dust collector. But if this dust collect­ kogai is an essential part of the structure or ie taken into account, the LD furnace of the capitalist economy of Japan. is not particularly cheap. This dust collector and the necessary connecting For example, the principal pulp ducts are several times larger than the producing countries in the world are furnace itself. Of course we cannot six or seven: first, the U.S.A.; second, judge their cost just from their size, but they cost at least 30# of the whole Canada; and after thatSweden, Finland, setup...and the small furnace itself is the U.S.S.R., and Japan. If we compare already very expensive. In Japan it has these six countries, it is obvious that been possible to operate this furnace with- all these countries except Japan have 18 out the cooling duct and dust collector. Industrial Water Section of the Ministry Thus the steel companies in Japan have of Industry pointed out the window and profited some 30$ on each furnace, a said, "In that five-storeyed building over profit which can be turned to more pro­ there many doctors from Tokyo University fit, and so on. are doing research, and they say that your The same kind of thing can be said claim about the waste from the factory is of most other industries, large or small. groundless." Now, as far as I know there This is my claim, and if our economists is absolutely no research institute find that I have misunderstood the matter or organization that has a five or they should correct me, giving concrete six or seven or eight storeyed build­ examples. But so far there have been ing anywhere near the Ministry of Inter­ no straight answers offered... national Trade and Industry. While he was talking maybe he was pointing at the Ministry of Finance or some other government building. Thus our bureaucrats are easy liars...these bureaucrats produced by Tokyo University.

Another important factor which has allowed the spread of kogai is our poor sense of community. As Miyamoto Ken'ichi pointed out in his Shakai Shihon Ron (Theory of Social Capital), the number of self-governing bodies in Japan has been reduced, through combination, to l/27th of what it was 100 years ago. There have been two great drives to combine self-governing bodies: one was in the Meiji period for the purpose of spreading elementary education, and the other was in the post-war period, partly for the purpose of establishing and main­ taining the lower elementary schools. The big aim has been to spread education. Standardizing the language and teaching basic calculating ability have been very important in the foundation of modern industry, by creating an efficient labor force, and soldiers. There is no other country in which rationalization has reduced the number of self-governing units to almost l/30th of what it was. And we can Bee that through this rationalization we have lost our power to make decisions The second factor is the close inter­ concerning our local communities... locking of the government and the corpor­ very often they can no longer even be ations. They help each other to make kogai more severe. And this close cooperation called self-governing. And there have is the main theme in our open school. In been cases where local bodies have been the Ashio case (l880s-90s) the government combined specifically for the purpose went all-out to oppress, smash up, and of silencing the voices protesting against corrupt the protest movement. For example kogai. This has been done again and again the police called each activist to the from the Ashio case right up to the Fuji office, threatened him, and hinted at the case. sweet life he would live if he would work with them. And, as we can see in the Kawamata incident, the police had no The problem of kogai also involves trouble smashing the protest, just in a problem of social discrimination. We the same way as they are presently can point out various ways in which kogai oppressing the protesting students. creates social segregation. One is given a disease from pollution, becomes poor because of the disease, and then is dis­ Given this close cooperation, there criminated against because of the poverty. is no point in trying to discriminate The reason why one group of Minamata between the government and the assailant patients accepted the humiliating com­ corporations, or between the ministry of promise plan for compensation was that industry and the ministry of welfare. it was the only way to escape this dis­ crimination. Until then they had been in And when the petitioning group of the position of depending on "sympathy" victims of Minamata disease came down from payments from the corporation, and being Niigata to Tokyo, the section chief or who ever it was that received them in the treated by the townspeople as money- 19 grubbers; now at least the compensation There have been many cases in is official, even though it is not enough. which Tokyo University has taken sides And in Tsushima, an agreement was made amo­ with the polluters, sought to obscure the ng pollution victims to keep out scholars causal relation, or has even oppressed who came from outside to investigate, be­ honest researchers. Perhaps the people cause if it became known that there were who did these things were caught up in the victims of Itai-Itai disease, no members system of Tokyo U., and subjectively of their families could marry or get a did not intend to commit such acts. job. Perhaps this university by its nature For the victim of discrimination, is built in such a way as to lead those it is difficult to explain just where he who start with good intentions into the is discriminated against and just why he position of the assailant. The actual feels uncomfortable. Discrimination is shape of research and education at something pertaining to his whole life, Tokyo U. is that of petty status- and if he picks out just one or two phenomena, like his lower wages or his longer working hours, these will be refuted by some strong evidence. There will be some stastics showing equal opp­ ortunity in employment or marriage. Quant­ itative expression always deals only with small parts of the problem, thus breaking down the gestalt of discrimination against whole lives.

It is announced that sulphuric acid as is present at such and such ppm ?parts per million), and that lead is present at such and such ppm in our daily suffering of city kogai. We breathe air with various poisons: sul- pheroue acid gas, carbon monoxide, lead, or oxidant; and we drink polluted water, and eat food polluted with chemicals, or mercurous and chlorous agricultural chemicals; and we suffer from noises and vibrations, and so it is not surpris­ ing that we get sick. Under these con­ ditions it is very hard to show a connection between a certain factor and, say, asthma or bronchitis. Nevertheless, in spite of this difficulty, some correlation between sulpherous acid gas and bronchitis can be found. But this does not mean that since sulpherous acid gas is present at only half the level of the environmental standard, it should not be blamed as a cause of bronchitis. The sufferer al­ ways bears kogai with his whole body, that is, synthesically. But the assailant or the third party judges from numbers which ex­ press only a small part of the whole. Thus the assailant's understanding of kogai is at a completely different level from that seeking carried on within limited spec­ of the victim. And it is impossible to ialties with narrowly limited perspect­ put these two levels of understanding on ives, aflu therefore it is systematic­ a single scale and to take the point half­ ally incapable of grasping a problem such way between them as an objective or neutral as kogai, which has to do with the evaluation. But there are many scholars synthetic effect of complex and over­ who arrive at their evaluation in just lapping natural conditions. Thus the this impossible way. They listen to the scholars of Tokyo U. often...no, nec- assailant and the victim, and take some cessarily stand on the side of the "satisfactory" position in between. By assailant. doing this they take the side of the assailant or the discriminator. The only Let me tell you an incident that occu­ possible answer to the assailant's question rred at Nissan Kagaku of Toyama Prefecture about how the victims feel is to ask him as an example of how we engineers split to come and live with the victims, to nature into pieces. Nissan Kagaku (a breathe the same air, to drink the same chemical company) was draining its waste water, and then feel the same feeling. into a river called Ida-gawa, where it

20 sometimes killed the fish. When angry middle range computors is kogai monitering fishermen protested against the factory, centers. So most of the divisions of the the response was that the PH meter had not of the Technological Department at moved since the evening before, and there­ Tokyo U....which is to say, most engineers fore the factory was not responsible. The in Japan.. .have something to do with fishermen then made two separate fish pre­ kogai, and most of them are making money serves, one of which was put into the from it. stream above the point where the waste came out and the other in the lower stream. When this monitering by computors, or On the next day the fish in the lower the setting of "environmental standards" is stream were found all dead, and those discussed, the question always comes up, why in the upper stream alive. The fishermen is it that we never touch the source which rushed to the factory with this conclusion, is producing kogai? If we did, we could but the company engineer and an official eliminate kogai before we measured it. from the Prefectural government told them But present preventive techniques can not that the PH meter had been operating all do that. Our way of attacking the problem night, and that they always regulated the is organized in such a way as to leave the PH of the waste so that it was neither source alone, and to consume as much money acid or alkaline, and that their PH as possible in "preventive measures." meter was far more scientific than the The procedure that has become orthodox, fishermen's experiment with fish. growing out of the technological point of view of Tokyo U....where all of us make our Of course this kind of thing ie going livings...is to moniter kogai with com­ on all the time. Perhaps you accept that putors. But the present technological combined or mixed drugs are more effective, system itself is necessarily producing but we forget that mixed poisons are also kogai, and cannot be separated from more effective. And this kind of geo­ kogai. metrical effect is not considered in the setting of our "environmental standards." Needless to say, most engineers within This shows how naively we believe in today's the corporations are in equally degraded science. positions, and are treated entirely as no more than parts of a machine. I am An example of a somewhat advanced presently engaged in the Minamata-disease form of this kind of thinking was once trial in Niigata, and in court my task is pointed out by Miyawaki Akira. He had to examine and refute each piece of evidence a discussion with a leading economist offered by the defendant corporation, Showa about city planning, and was given an Denko. What I have found out in this proc­ ess is that their pieces of evidence are beautifully and tightly separated according to their narrowly channeled professions. In chemistry, for example, they are separa­ ted into the specialties of analysis, of chemical responses, of statistics, of medical chemistry. And each specialist makes his own testimony independently of the others. Each testimony is often easy answer: "If you need green, it's very plausible; that is, it persuades enough to paint some plastic green. us that Minamata disease did not come It is a needless luxury to leave green from the factory waste. But if we listen trees at a time when land prices are so to some three or four of their testimonies, high." He insisted that if there is some through one entire day, we can recognize the special psychological effect of greenery, lack of consistency among them. Day after the color green should be enough. Thus day we have been addressed by contradictory the ideal of today's city planning is a testimonies. city which looks nice and where one can freely move anywhere by car. Perhaps the If the top man of ShowaDenko were model for this will be School City at to come into the courtroom and hear the Tsukuba, for it is being planned by the city- testimonies of his men and see how they planners of Tokyo U., and it has already are refuted, and if he were a man of been decided that Tokyo U. itself will common sense, he would immediately stop not move there. fighting the claim in court. But in Japanese legal procedure it is permiss­ And you are already aware that ible for the defendent to never appear in today's capitalism makes profit even from court, leaving the whole thing in the hands kogai, and that the kogai-preventive of his lawyer. And the engineers who are industries are now the stars of the appointed will not report back to the stock market. Some students of, for company that their arguments have been example, Electronics, will say that they refuted...in many cases they do not real­ have no connection at all with kogai. ize that their testimony has been refuted, However according to some computor manu­ for within their narrow perspectives they facturers, one of the best customers for feel some consistency. So t suppose that 21 the trial will go on in this way up to the dangerous. Moreover, this accumulation final judgement...a time that is almost of the radioactivity released at that time endless to the victims. is still going on, not only in the sea, but on the land, especially in the Many believe that there exist Arctic Circle. techniques for the prevention of kogai, but in fact there are no such techniques, Now we are beginning to regret that and the only thing taught at universities we didn't realize earlier, with the concrete is that the most economical way to dispose evidence of midorigaki and the radioactive of waste is to let it go into the sea. And tuna, that diluting dangerous substances only when this becomes impossible, they say, in the water is not a safety measure but, should you look for some other treatment. on the contrary, a positive danger. This notion that anything diluted to its invisible state thereby ceases to exist And now, in the case of Minamata was introduced from the U.S., where they disease, we find the same kind of acc­ had found that, at least for the moment, umulation. There the density of mercury no visible harm seemed to result from their in the water is at most 1 microgram per practice of diluting waste in the sea. For liter, which means that the presense us the sea is a vital source of food, while of mercury cannot even be detected in America fishing is primarily a kind of by normal analysis. But we find some sport, though of course they feel various 10 ppm of mercury in the fish, which is inconveniences from polluted water. But to say, a concentration of 100,000 times, their situation is not so pressed as that and sometimes as much as 1,000,000 times. of we Japanese who will have almost nothing to eat if we lose the fish. Neverthe­ less we introduced this American theory that disposal into the sea is harmless. We see how Japan's capitalist industry has been willing to buy anything foreign or Western no matter how stupid it is.

In fact this principle...or rather, hypothesis...has been refuted in practice many times, and we have been warned that we could not depend on it. The oldest refutation was the phenomenon of the midorigaki (green oyster) which has been known in Europe since the 19th century. In a copper or zinc contamin­ ated sea, oysters grow green and puckery, and this has been common knowledge since before the war. In this case we find almost lOOppm of copper and zinc in in the oysters, but little in the water. Between the water and the oysters there takes place a great concentration of some 10,000 times. Shellfish generally have a function of concentrating these metals from the water...this has been known since the prewar period.

The next clear refutation of the hypothesis of dilution was the radioact­ ive tuna that appeared following the nuclear test at Bikini. It was not such a simple matter as the tuna simply being covered with dead ashes and' therefore becoming radioactive. The artificial radioactive material was first eaten by the small plankton, and these plankton were then eaten by small fish, and these small fish were eaten by larger fish, and finally the tuna ate them. Through this process an extremely high level of radio­ activity came to accumulate in the fish, despite the statements of the government at that time and of some American scientists that because the amount of the sea water was very large one or two bombing exper­ iments on that scale were by no means And perhaps you know that at the beg­ profitable to manufacture them into inning of the '60s natural concentration of fertilizer. It is very difficult for this DDT was also found. Despite all these mentality to grasp that these shells were facts, however, our university still made by shellfish by an elaborate process teaches the theory of dilution today. of gathering calcium from the water.

Let us change our way of thinking. And the conclusion drawn from this The same conclusion would follow even if pitiful etate of mind is that kogai we didn't know about Minamata disease or at half the level of our "environmental about the concentration of ,DDT. For standard," which was arrived at from our example, the shell of a shellfish is rat experiments, can never cause diseases. built almost entirely of calcium car­ bonate, CaCo , and this calcium ion Don't trust our present science. is gathered by the shellfish from the Don't trust our present education. I water, where it is present at most in say these things because I think that if the amount of lppm. And several percent we have this understanding, this common of our bones is phosphate of calcium, understanding, we will have some hope of Caj^O^; the same is true of the getting out of this situation. bones of fish, but the water in which the fish live contains only .Olppm of phosphate of calcium. These things can be understood by common sense, without any training in Q: We hear that there exist quality chemical analysis. But present education standards for the discharge of waste and makes this common sense altogether other things. How are these standards difficult. We engineers will look at arrived at? the shells, note that they contain much calcium carbonate, and conclude that A: We can say that all these stand­ if shells are cheap maybe it would be ards are nonsense; any water quality standard set according to the water quality maintenance law is nonsense. ... The way these standards are fixed is by sett­ ling on a level at which the given cor­ poration can carry out the treatment with- lout going bankrupt. Once the corporation

presents a level and says that any higher standard would break them, then the standard will be set at about that level. -JK-^Sfj^A; 3<*For example, the standard for the Tagonoura area of Suruga Bay is a maximum of 70ppm for floating substances. This level can be obtained by simple settling; not even this method had been practiced before the -setting of the standard. And as another example of this nonsense, I hear that a standard has been set at a level of 1200 or 1300 ppm for a brewing company that had been putting out several thou­ sand ppm up to then. JSZJSgr. But to meet the present water qual­ ity standards, actually no treatment is needed at all. For since no limit is set to the amount of water they can use, they can just take in a lot of clean water to dilute their waste and that will be eno­ ugh. There are practically no water quali­ \ '•-^SflBP. ty standards that set a limit to dilution, ,n3r # except perhaps at Ashio. So if the waste is twice as dirty as the standard permits, 11 they have to do is drill some wells to get water for dilution. This method is actually practiced more than any other, and in the worst cases the waste is dil­ uted at a rate of more than ten to one. "-Si*", This is the nature of all the quality j standards that the government has been [putting out. And to say that we should jadopt these standards as soon as possible lis the same as saying that we should imm- lediately give official approval to 2 3 pollution. And yet this is what has been sized is not so much the quality as the demanded by practically all the political quantity of the objections, since their parties and workers organizations. And only purpose is to deceive people who the logical result of this way of thinking know nothing, and just make a variety is the institution of a new law defining Kogai of different claims can help to obscure crimes, which will secure the big corpor­ the true cause. But if all the claims ations like Showa Denko or Chisso from all were obviously deceptive they would not punishment. It will have at most a slight serve their purpose of effective neutral­ effect against second class corporations, ization, and so there are sometimes ob­ and will probably be interpreted mainly to jections that appear rather scientific... attack things like the chimneys of the but only appear so. public baths.* This will be a law that benefits only the capitalists, but not the In 1959 Chisso, the assailant company, people. raised four different objections, with Moreover, these limitations always gradually increasing detail. At bottom deal with only one or two particular they were repetitions of the same claim substances. This means that the standards that there was no relationship between permit the companies to drain out all other Minamata disease and the mercury in their waste. In fact, in the previous year, 1958, kinds of substances without limit, thus when Kumamoto U. scientists were still raising the general level of pollution. sticking to their idea that manganese or As Mitsuo Taketani shows in our work Anzensei no Kangaekata (The Concept of Safety), almost all of the quantities permitted by these standards are not quantities which meet a scientific stand­ ard of safety, but are quantities which meet a social balance between drawbacks and advantages. And because these quantity standards are always put over on those who don't know this, kogai is, as I said before, a kind of social discrimination. Its full extent cannot be caught through quantification, this is certain. It is useless to talk about "ppm's" and we should abandon this method entirely.

Several years ago when I was res­ earching Minamata disease, I came to realize that there are four stages in any Kogai dispute. First pollution or damage from pollution is discovered and research in to the cause is begun. Second, the cause is found. Third, the assailant company or some self-styled "third party" always begins to raise objections to this finding. The fourth stage is the stage of neutralization, in which the question of which side is right is lost in vagueness. This is what I call the first principle of kogai. In the case of Minamata, the first stage was between 1956 and 1959, the second stage was the summer of 1959 when organic mercury was discovered to be the cause, and the third stage was from that autumn to I960. In the third stage what is empha-

* An example of the kind of enforcement Ui is talking about occur ed a few years ago in Kyoto, where the city forced one of its traditional pottery works to close because of the smoke from the kiln. In the meantime, to the south of town,, dozens of industrial chimneys can be seen smoking daily. selenium was the prime suspect, Chisso put together the possible refutations In I960 the so-called Tamiya Com­ of this hypothesis and announced their mittee was formed, having many famous objection. In 1959 they repeated all authorities as its members* and claiming the same refutations, only replacing to be impartial. After some detailed the words "manganese" or "selenium" with study it turned out that this Tamiya "mercury." committee had been financed by the Society of Japanese ^hemical Industries. Of course there were other obviously transparent objections besides these. The In the meantime at Kumamoto Univer­ most typical of these was that given by the sity, findings were coming in one after the managing director of the Society of Japan­ other that indicated large amounts of ese Chemical Industries, Ohshima Takeji. mercury in the fish and in the water in He argued that the cause might be some Minamata Gulf. In Nov. 1959 a special bombs that had been disposed of at the end research committee within the Welfare of the war, following the lead of the Ministry, consisting mostly of Kumamoto city mayor (who had previously been one U. staff, made an interim report to the of the chief engineers at Chisso). But Minister that the cause of the disease this objection scarcely survived a month, was a kind of organic mercury which had because a former officer who had handled been in the patients, in experimental the bombs testified that they had been animals, and in the mud from the bay. disposed of them not in the inner sea of The committee was dissolved the same Yatsushiro, but far out in the deep sea off day. The dissolution was so abrupt that Sasebo. But it doesn't matter so much to one of the members did not find out about them if the true nature of the objection is it until several days later, when he heard about it from newsmen.

-Qr -0- ^K *&- o- -&• •^ 6 -G~ •& -O- -O- *©* -e- -e- -e -e- -o* -9, -9- L L L L L L L L L L

"The problem will be investigated by a panel of experts.' revealed, since its only function is to gain time and to turn aside our attention The following year the government and energies. formed a new committee of scholars and officials to study Minamata disease. This The next objection was the famous one committee met four times a year, and then made by Professor Kiyoura Raisaku of Tokyo dissolved saying that its budget was Technological Institute, who tried to make exhausted. The reports from that committee the world believe that some ammoniate from were all kept secret. stale fish had caused the disease. Another part of his objection was that there were Thus the fourth stage in any kogai some other places where fish contained much struggle is characterized by the govern­ mercury but caused no disease, and that ment and the scholars making joint efforts therefore mercury had no relation with to nullify any findings inconvenient to the Minamata disease or with the drainage assailant company. from Chisso. He indicated in his report This is what I call the second princi­ that such places really existed, but said ple of kogai: there can be no such thing that their names would be kept concealed as a "third party." in order not to upset the public. Some of the places could be easily identified, but one that was supposed to be in the Hoku- Finally, however, in the summer of 1959 the people of Minamata learned riku District could not. This report from the newspapers that the cause of became very important for us, and it the disease had been verified to be took me two years to locate the place. the waste from Chisso, which is what they At last we found that it was Naoetsu, where along the upper river there are two factories using mercury. The fact * Ui's account of the long parade of that the fish at Naoetsu are polluted with phoney committees investigating Minamata mercury is positive evidence in support of disease is quite detailed, naming names the hypothesis that it was from the waste and associations. We have eliminated of Chisso that the fish of Minamata much of that detail from this English accumulated mercury. So I could under­ version, since we assume that it is stand why Mr. Kiyoura concealed the unlikely that the reader is very fam­ place names. iliar with the Japanese scientific establishment. 25 had suspected all along. And in August proposals, have given up. I am a man they had a series of demonstrations, whose job is the treatment of factory sit-ins, and bargaining meetings with waste, but I could solve nothing there, the factory officials. and now I am determined to prosecute each and every case of kogai in court. The company still maintained its arrogant attitude, saying that its And only when companies are turned staff had also been investigating and out of many places by absolute opposition had found no relation between mercury and will they begin reluctantly to make some the disease and that therefore it could treatment of their waste. This can be make no compensation, but since they had seen in some actual examples. In Aichi heard of the poor catch, they would present Prefecture there was a pulp factory which some money to the patients in the form of was polluting the Kiso River, damaging the a gift. Finally the fishermen shut paddy fields and culture ponds in the lower up the company representatives in the stream. At last it was driven out of the meeting room and smoked them all night area, and looked for another place to set­ with burning red peppers. So the police tle. They inquired after land in Akita came and arrested the fishermen for Prefecture, but just when they were on the illegal detention. Then at some point point of buying the people there learned some important persons in the city came about their past career and refused to let out to "mediate" between the victims and them come in. Then they tried Onahama, the company. These were the city mayor but the same thing happened. Finally they and members of the municipal assembly, went to Fuji, where the area was already and they managed to beat down the demand badly polluted by other companies. The of the Minamata Fisherman's Organization point is that people try to think in terms from several hundred million yen (a of "realistic" measures, instead of organiz­ hundred million yen is $277,777) to ing absolute opposition, the result is that 35 million yen ($97,230). many dirty companies will come to them, and stay, and continue to pollute. Compensation money is always fixed between the figures proposed by the two And now Japanese corporations are parties...not halfway between the two, preparing to go abroad, to Indochina, but at around the geometrical average.* to Thailand, and so on. We can imagine This is what I call the third principle how they will behave in those countries, of kogai. The result is that if one how they, who have been doing such wild side insists that there should be no things at Yokkaichi and Minamata, will go compensation, any demand however large into what are in effect their colonies and will be beaten down to zero. There can destroy them. Minamata disease will occur, be no scientific way to fix compensation and so will Yokkaichi asthma. When that in kogai cases. And what happens in the happens, with whom will the victims make end is that it is always fixed at the solidarity? Which is our task, to tol­ geometrical average. erate kogai, and try to think up "real­ istic" countermeasures, or to beat kogai Finally, I want to talk about out of Japan? I hone that we will be the so-called "realistic" way of attack­ able to say, "We have beaten kogai out ing kogai. Sometimes it is objected that of our country like this, and perhaps you movements based on absolute, uncompromising will be able to do it the same way." opposition are nonsense. NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation, run by the government) for example tells us that going to court cannot solve the kogai problem, and that we need more "realistic" solutions. But kogai has reached the point where professional engineers such as myself, whose business it is to make "realistic"

* The geometrical average between two numbers is found by multiplying them together and taking the square root. The result is always less than the arithmetic average...i.e. the figure halfway between the two...and of course if one of the figures is zero, the result will be zero no matter how high the other figure is. A check of some kogai damage cases has shown us that Ui is actually right, that settle­ ments come remarkably close to the geometrical average. 26 -* MINAMATA BISEASE

give us back our sea !

On Nov. 2, 1959 three thousand men, fishermen from Kyushu' Shiranui coastal region gathered in front of the Minamata police station for a demonstration. From there they pour ed into the streets and marched to the municipal hospital. ItJiad rained the night before and the water stood in pud­ dles on the sidewalk in front where the men collected in groups or sat, silent-faced, holding those flags one sees on the fishing boats in that area. They hardly fit the "militant demonstrators" stereotype.

The slogans on their banners: "Give us back our sea!", "Stop the factory's dumping of waste immediately", - expressed J the straightforward manner of fishermen and, perhaps, their ^naivete - as the one which read: "Welcome, Dietmen". Did -they look a trifle pathetic? In fact, they were desperate.

'/iiF0Ur d*rk 8UB,er8 bad Passed since the outbreak of the T.^jscourge which has come to be called simply "Minamata Disease", Q The cause of the disease had never been firmly established, ^but people knew it was somehow connected with the fish in L?the area. They stopped buying fish and eventually the .vfishermen were forced to sell their boats and tackle. [{Those who could, borrowed money to live. Some were lucky iijjenough to get day labor on the government unemployment Relief program. But for too many people fishing was life. When the disease struck, the bottom fell out of their life.

In the spring of 1959, autopsies on victims of the Minamata disease revealed the presence of large amounte of methyl mer­ cury, an organic mercury also found in samples of mud and fish taken from the bay of Minamata. Furthermore, victims had shown the same symptoms as those associated with mer­ cury poieoning. (Until that time the doctore had been un­ aware of the fact that mercury was used at the factory; and they would hardly have dreamt that such expensive metal was being dumped into the sea.) The fishermen tried to piece together what they knew and finally, after much hesitation, they went to the factory to ask for compensation. The fac­ tory flatly refused to acknowledge their claim, pooh-poohed the theory that linked the disease with the discharge of mercury, and put forward their own theories as to the cause of the trouble.

So the three thousand fishermen who had gathered before the hospital, after presenting a petition to the visiting Diet Investigation Committee, held a mass meeting and decided they should go and demand an interview with the factory officials. But because a few days before a member of the fishermen's union had forced his way into the factory, in ithe meantime the company had been fortifying the gate ^against intrusion. So when the fishermen coming from the rally reached the main gate, they found themselves locked out. Their anger at the company's refusal to meet flared into violence, and they broke into the factory wrecking whatever they could lay their hands on. Yelling, "Pigs!" and "stop up the pipe!" they smashed desks and chairs against the pipe from which the factory's waste dumps into nation-wide attention to Minamata disease. 27 disease, reflecting the complete eco­ nomic dependence of the town on the minamata disease factory. And when finally the prefec­ tural governor set up an investigating committee, it was with the understan­ ding that no inquiry into the factory's Minamata is a small city on the island culpability would be made. People who of Kyushu, far from Tokyo. The nearest took part in the sit-ins during those large city is Kumamoto, three hours away winter days were left out in the cold by train. It used to be just another one in more ways than one: even the labor of the quiet little fishing villages that union from the Chisso factory asked dot the delta area of the Minamata and for the tent back they had lent them. Kataide rivers. But now the town is com­ pletely dominated by a big factory; in Then the investigating committee fact, when you emerge from the railroad threatened to dissolve if the victims station you immediately are confronted by didn't agree to negotiate on the basis its large tank. This factory, the Mina­ of its proposal. The fishermen agreed mata plant of the Shin-Nihon Chisso Fertilizer to withdraw their first demand, $17 mil­ Co., was the source of the pollution which lion compensation, and accepted the com­ resulted in the appearance of Minamata di­ pany's offer of $280,000. They really sease, an affliction which has come to be had no choice but to sign the agreement, known throughout the world for the misery and they did. This settlement is note­ its victims suffer, and the first pollu­ worthy for its unbelievably low terms: tion disease to appear in Japan after the $830 for the dead and only $277 per year end of the war. It is, in short, an ex­ for an adult victim, $83 for those under ample of the dreadful consequences of wa­ twenty (to be raised to $138.89 at age ter pollution by industrial wastes. twenty.) The agreement also included some articles monumental in the history Minamata disease is a poisoning cau­ of pollution cases: Article 4 states sed by eating the fish and shellfish of • V that in the future, should it be esta­ waters polluted by industrial wastes which blished that Minamata disease is not contain the heavy metal, mercury. First due to industrial waste, compensation comes a numbness of the limbs and lips. payments will be terminated at the end The most specific symptom among others ap­ of that month; Article 5 states that in pearing within too or three weeks is con­ that case the victims shall not seek any centric constriction of the vision field. further compensation from the company. Ataxia, severe disturbance of motor func­ This was only too typical of the atti­ tions, is seen in all victims. Speech is tudes the Minamata disease victims had slowed and slurred. Simple tasks like to face. drinking from a cup or buttoning a shirt become very difficult. In extreme cases, When, in 1965, Minamata disease victims lapse into unconsciousness and struck again - this time in Niigata (a are agitated by involuntary movements and large city in eastern Honshu) - it was shouting. The fatality rate is high. painfully clear that no research since Of the 121 officially recognized cases of I960 had been carried out, either as to the disease, 47 of the victims have died. its causes or its prevention. But at least in Niigata there was a support group for the victims. By means of a A small amount of poisonous material leaflet, the Conference of Citizens' contained in the industrial waste acculu- Organizations for Minamata Disease or­ lated in the bodies of the fish and shell­ ganized the victims and tried various fish in the sea around Minamata; this pro­ tactics to get compensation. This duced the disease in people who ate the movement did a lot to demolish the fish. Now, that relationship of cause "logic" which attempted to divert atten­ and effect seems quite simple, but it took tion from the real source of the di­ more than six years to establish it from sease. Two years later, in June, 1967, the time the disease first appeared, and the victims in Niigata brought the first it was a full thirteen years before a com­ court action against industry in the his­ plete explanation was made. tory of the disease. The year before, Minamata disease began to get publicity During that time throughout Japan and this action in Niigata had a strong every sort of interest group, from lo­ impact nationally, (in all, four pollu­ cal communities to political parties, tion cases have now been brought to composed of people from every strata court; besides Minamata disease cases in of society have responded to Minamata Minamata and Niigata, there is the Asthma disease, each in its own way. And case in Yokkaichi, and the Itai-itai case yet nothing seemed to be able to get in Toyama.) research into the causes of the disease and its treatment off the ground. In the meantime, a group of victime Furthermore, in Minamata itself, there from Niigata visited victims in Minamata has been incredible discrimination di­ for the first time in January, 1968. Out rected against the very victime of the of this contact citizens' support groups 28 in Minamata and nunamoto were organised. And by this time the workers at the Chisso factory had reversed their opposition to drink the mercury] the victims' struggle. Their own wage struggle in 1962 had split the labor union and many workers had experienced the kind of treatment at the hands of the company that had been dealt out to the disease victime. In Sept.1968 the government came out for the first time with a report on Mina­ mata disease and shortly thereafter exe­ cutives of the Chisso's Minamata factory called on the victims in their home. When the victims raised fresh compensa­ tion demands, however, the officials made no reply; they suggested" that the issue of compensation be submitted for arbitra­ tion to the Welfare Ministry. But the officials of the Welfare Ministry put for­ ward a settlement proposal that was, for all practical purposes, drawn up by the company; they said, further, that only if the victims unconditionally agreed with this proposal would they help them. The The victims of Minamata disease and document required that the victims en­ their families stood up. They rose up in trust the selection of committee members the wrath of seventeen years: they bought to the Welfare Ministry and that they pro­ stock in the Chisso Co. and took over a mise to abide by the decision taken by stockholders meeting, the symbolic locus such a group! of power in the world ruled by profit. They tried to turn it into a meeting to But if the victims turned down this strike back in their anger and revenge offer, they would have only the courts to at the executives of the company. That resort to; and they had no idea how long was the first time a stockholders meeting a court case might drag on nor how much had been used to confront industry with it might eventually cost them. So dri­ its responsibility. How different it ven by their desperate economic situation was from a court battle! The victims were and out of trust in a "public" institution, saying, "We aren't asking even for a cent. most of the victims and their families We're asking the people from this company- finally decided to take a chance on the you executives, the president, everybody - Welfare Ministry's proposal. The group we're asking you to drink mercury. We're of victims was then split between those asking forty-two people to die. We're who entrusted their cause to the Welfare asking your wives to drink it too; and Ministry and those who would fight to the then, when sixty-nine people are living end for their own terms of compensation. with Minamata disease, we'll be satis­ fied. That's all we want." People came to this meeting from all over the country: The settlement the Welfare Ministry Kumamoto, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka, came up with completely betrayed the vic­ Okayama, Kobe, Tokyo. Many people came tims' trust: $10,000 was to be paid for a to support the victims. Many groups were death and annual compensation to living organized all over the country and the victims ranged from $1,000 to $400 - in­ stockholders movement spread nationwide. credibly low. So the two groups were once again united in their disillusionment and anger. On Nov. 28,1970 the seventh session in the Minamata disease trial came to an end in the Kumamoto district court. The plaintiffs in the case then donned the white clothes which are the traditional Buddhist attire for a pilgrimage and went up to Osaka where they marched into the Chisso Company's stockholders meeting. An "explanation" by the company about Mina­ mata disease was on the agenda.

The company had rented a hall with a capacity of 1,100, hired private guards, and invited right-wing extremists to the meeting to handle the crowd that was ex­ pected. From early morning the street in front of the hall and a nearby park 29 were filled with people carrying banners with words like "Anger", "Revenge", "Mina­ mata Citizens' Conference", "Accusation", etc. At 10:30 the company suddenly bar­ and back in minamata red any more of the one- share stockholders from entering; they said it was getting too crowded, though there weren't more There are numerous problems which sur­ than five hundred people inside. round Minamata disease. There are the court fights. There are the many victims At 10:45 an old man inside the hall who are not yet aware that they have the proposed that everyone pray for the Mina­ disease because there has been no inves­ mata disease victims. The hall became tigation to detect new cases. There are still and only the chanting of the pil­ those who already show its symptoms but grims could be heard. Then someone be­ have not yet been officially recognized gan weeping and soon the crying spread as Minamata disease victims. And then, no­ throughout the hall. At 11:00, when body knows what abberations the disease the meeting was scheduled to start, the will produce in its victims in the future. Chisso Co. Board members appeared on the stage. Egashira, the president of the The workers at the Chisso factory are company, began a speech in very mechani­ having a hard time too. The company has cal tones. People started shouting, announced it is drastically cutting back "Murderer, admit your responsibity!", production and will fire many workers. The but he paid no attention and proceeded workers have been struggling for higher to go through the agenda. Confusion wages for six years. And with respect to broke out and when a lawyer, a leader of their attitude toward the disease victims, the stockholder movement, got up from his by August, 1968 they had come to realize place on the stage and tried to approach whose side they were really on and they Egashira, the stage curtain came down and criticized themselves for not fighting be­ somebody announced, "The financial report side the victims on this basic issue of has been approved. The next item on the human life. Then they spoke out against agenda is the explanation." (About Mina­ Minamata disease and last year they held mata disease.) It took all of four min­ an eight-hour strike to protest the terms utes. People were furious and rushed of compensation for the victims. onto the stage. The board members were at a loss. And for the victims themselves, the struggle has only just begun: they have In 1969, after Minamata disease had to secure their livelihood, obtain from finally been officially recognized, Egashira an indifferent officialdom the means for had visited the victims and brought them rehabilitation, and some talk about using cakes. They never imagined they would one company land to set up a colony for those day face him in this bizarre fashion. At for whom rehabilitation is not possible. the company's "explanation" meeting, the As for the future, nobody knows yet what Chisso spokesman's reply to the victims effects Minamata disease will have on the went like this: "We feel very sorry for the offspring of the victims. victims. Its not our intention to avoid our responsibility at all; but as you know, But in spite of these anxieties, the it has not yet been clearly established people have a beautiful spirit. They are that the disease stems from industrial very honest and warm and at the same time waste," etc! are determined to fight to the end in order to wipe out pollution, not only in Hamamoto Fumiyo-san, whose parents Minamata, but everywhere. Some want to had died from Minamata disease, held set up a kind of museum and information their pictures up before Egashira and center in Minamata about the dread disease. said, "Both my parents died. Do you know During demonstrations the victims them­ what it's like to be a child and to want selves participate, because they want people your parents back?" She said, "Drink, to know what a horrible disease it is. drink the mercury yourself!" Egashira , simply sat down. He could never have under­ These people who have continued the stood the victims. Then the curtain came struggle through eighteen years of mis­ down once again with the announcement that understanding and discrimination on the the meeting was over. Chisso's "explana­ part of their own townsmen know who the tion" meeting was nothing but a farce. real enemy is...Chisso. On the surface they don't seem "radical", but they know the meaning of true anger and of determi­ nation to fight. And now, at last, they have comrades all over the country who are fighting with them. ,

30 . • e minamata Interviews

the first victim

Mizoguchi Toyoko. Officially recognized as Victim No. 1 of Mina­ mata Disease, on Dec. 1, 31st year of Showa (1956). Third daughter of Mizoguchi Tadaaki and Masue. Died March 15, 1956 at the age of eight.

"r*ll never forget," says Mrs. Mizoguchi. "It was our wedding anniversary the day she died." The mother now recalls that at first she was simply frightened. "She'd been up and hopping about like a bird and the next thing she was on her back all mushy like a drunken being. Looked like she was grinning all the time. Couldn't figure out just what in the world... Then I said it must be some terrible disease. I thought my child must be diseased like those cats and crows that were dying all about us. I said to myself, we've really got something serious on our hands."

Toyoko collapsed at breakfast on December 5 of the 28th year of Showa (1953). The attack came out of a clear blue sky, or at least so it seemed to the family. Minamata Disease is now established as a process of brain- cell affection by organic mercury compounds accumulated in sea food. All this was unknown at that time.

Grandfather was the first to mention the strange disease raging among cats, crows, and kites of the area. Birds went fluttering around on the ground unable to take off, and cats died mad, foaming at the mouth. Grand­ father collected dead crows and put them up on sticks to scare away sparrows from the fields. •

"Mullets and perches floated capsized on the surface of the sea, which we had only to dip up with our nets. We made them into tasty dishes by roasting or boiling or making sashimi (raw fish) of them. My child was particularly fond of sashimi, little as she was." The child still lives in the mother's memory as the cute little five-year old she was then.

"Grandfather used to say that crows somehow know when a person is going to die and wait flying around above the house. But the crows themselves were dying in those days. And my child...But I said, No, a human being just ca€n't die like those ominous creatures. I told myself and my husband that Toyoko would be up and well again." Toyoko fought, the family fought, and especially the mother fought.

"Once at the Company Hospital they tried to get her spinal fluid with a needle as big as a tatamin«edle , and oh did she cry then! It must have hurt her so. After that she used to pull my hair like mad and cry Oh No whenever we went by the hospital."

Spring came and for a while the child's illness turned for the better. Her dream came true; Toyoko could waddle around outside to her heart's content. She played at keeping house under cherry blossoms. The mother prayed and almost believed that her recovery was now just a matter of time. But when winter came the numbness in the limbs became tonic convul­ sions and she was laid up again. The voices of the neighborhood children reached Toyoko in bed and she badgered her mother to take her out again. "Later," the mother promised, "when the cherry blossoms are out again."

Toyoko crawled about on Tatami and always had her shins skinned red. Ber hands, arms, feet, legs, and shins looked as if they had been burned, but she felt no pain thanks to the paralysis. 31 "I thought nutrition was the main thing and went to Koijishima to find my child good oysters. But what I saw there was black industrial wastes all over the coast that smelled like rotton eggs. The oysters were dead with their shells half open. Imagine my surprise. There was poison in those wastes that killed the fish. And cats and crows and kites. My child ate the fish and she liked them. But she ate poison and nothing else. Oh no, I said, we can't eat fish any more."

When the weather turned warm Toyoko could be up and waddle though not without pain, but with the coming of winter she went back to bed again. And so it went for three years.

"You'll be going to school next year," the mother told her child. "When spring comes you'll be going to school with your friends." And the child rehearsed her dream over and over again. But death did not wait for spring. Before she could go to sc hool the tiny flame of her life went out with a terrifying amount of foam at the mouth.

"She wanted so much to go to school, and for a while I couldn't help seeing her in every schoolgirl of her age. They say it's a clever child that dies young. She was a good one, my Toyoko, quick-witted. People ordinarily have a life of fifty years, but my child used it all up in eight years fighting poisonous mercury. If she were alive she'd be twenty- two now."

a second blow

A small but sturdy man ef about fifty leaking up at the darkening sky turns around and cries out in a shrill voice, "Rain. Quick. Get the cevers." The small fries, boiled in salt water and half-dried, must net be expesed to rain. Men and wemen ceme running out ef lighted heuses and the weoden frames containing the fries are quickly cevered. "Did yeu say rain, eld man?" "Sure. In an hour er se." "Busy fishing?" "Not se busy as when there were tauchi crabs. N» crabs, fewer people, little business."

Tauchi crabs, the bringers ef goed tides. On the tideland aleng the ceast of Minamata Bay you once saw so many white crabs parading in an army­ like formation — a side-splitting sight which everybody from the area still remembers from the days before the sea got polluted. The clawed soldiers are gene now. Probably all dead.

Nagashima Tatsujiro also died. On July 9th ef the 42nd year ef Shewa (1967). At the age ef sixty-three. "He died," says his wife Akine, "giving no treuble to anybedy. My man was simply indestructible. A goed sume wrestler. Always wen the champion ship in the Company tournament. Sneaking out of the house whenever there was a festival match semewhere." A grade- A heavy artillery soldier, he came back from the War as a superior private.

And entered the Minamata Factory ef the Shin-Nihen Chisse Hiryo Ce. in April ef the 8th year of Shewa. The newly built Factery produced nitric acid. "Our parents were fishermen, but my husband never liked fishing. He made 85 sen (0.85 yen) a day at the Factery. At a time when rice cest 24 sen a sho (app. 1^ quarts). That was 5 sen mere than ethers get. He was a superier private, you see."

The first blew came en March 16 ef the I9th year ef Shewa. The water tap had long been in need ef repair. That day the water gushed eut as frem a hydrant. Only it was net water but nitric acid that came spouting eut showering Nagashima-san all ever the face, shoulders and chest. He managed to shield hie eyes. "My husband was werking overtime and wanted me te bring him lunch. I had almost finished cooking when a man came running frem the Factory. When I got there the foreman shouted to me, "speak to him - say something te him!" 32 Totally blinded, the man shouted back to him wife that he was all right. "I knew then that my husband would live. Nobody else would, but my husband would live. I was sure ef it." The jaw was burned fast te the chest, the mouth would not shut, the nose had to be severed from the upper lip, and the nose and ears had to be perforated. So many operations during the next three years made him look like a combined illustration of poor plastic surgery models.

In April of the 22nd year of Showa Nagashima-sanwas reinstalled in the same position as before. "My husband said, 'I can't wrestle any mere, so I'll fish in my spare timec. He got a small b oat and began night angling." Ten years later he was to feel that mysterious numbness in the limbs for the first time.

Doctor Hosokawa of the hospital attached te the Factory examined him and had him hospitalized for months giving him no word as to the cause of his ailment. He was then transferred te a quarantine hospital, te which he protested saying, "This is no contagious disease, doctor. It wouldn't smart like this if it were that. It must be some kind ef poisoning." He guessed right. It was food poisoning which later came to be called Minamata Disease. The second blow that Nagashima-san had to suffer proved fatal.

A week before he died Nagashima-san had himself pushed in his wheelchair to a wash stand and allowed himself to savor a cup of cold water which he found "so good" an unusual remark in the sixty odd years of his life. Says his wife: "Of the forty years I'd been married to him I spent twenty nursing him. A hard life."

33 muto ichiyo

One wants to figure out what Mishima He had planned to go on for two hours, Yukio's final harangue and dramatic sui­ but he stopped after only seven minutes. cide amount to. Weigh the idiosyncracies He disappeared from the balcony back into of the brilliant writer; allow the super- the office where he and one of his follo­ rational, economic-animal nation its lacu­ wers committed suicide in exemplary samu­ nae of cultural madness; put all these rai fashion. But even stranger was what considerations beside "the revival of Ja­ came after. Hundreds of riot police, panese militarism"...and yet,all things whose headquarters is near the SDF Ichi- considered, wasn't the whole thing some­ gaya base, in full battle gear and rat­ how anachronistic? tling their big metal shields, invaded the SDF headquarters and arrested the sur­ viving Shield Society members while the soldiers themselves looked on with the be­ mused distraction of school boys at a fire drill. What a coup! And what an Consider the scene at the Ground army! Self-Defense Force Headquartera in Ichi- gaya,Tokyo on the morning of Nov. 25,1970. Mishima and four followers, members of his Shield Society, had invaded the office of the commander and tied up General Mashita Were the soldiers revolutionary then, to his chair. Mishima then stepped out that they so flatly rejected Mishima's onto a balcony, hung streamers covered reactionary appeal? Hardly. Why were with slogans over the edge and began to they so hostile to the cause of their address the more than one thousand soldiers self-appointed champion? He would have gathered in the yard below. But before called them out of their non-existence. he had even opened his mouth, the crowd (They don't exist: it says so in the Con­ wae responding to its would-be agitator stitution. ) In an order founded on lo­ with heckling and boos. The jeering reach­ yalty to the emperor, they could be self­ ed a high as he got to the heart of his consciously and gloriously real. The message. He was shouting,"Now the Self- fact of the matter is that the men of the Defense Force must become a real national Self-Defense Force, including the officers army; the Consitution has got to be chang­ - who,by the way, yelled the loudest ed." But even those up front could bare­ against Mishima - feared more than any­ ly hear him for the catcalls. To the thing defiance of the status quo or a very group he was depending on to carry challenge to law and order. They wanted out a coup he had to scream, "Listen,lis­ to defend themselves from radical appeals ten,listen to me!' You,listen to me! Be of whatever sort, reactionary as well as quiet. Aren't you going to listen to a revolutionary. Their base was invaded, samurai ready to die for your cause? their chief interned, tied up in his chair, Listen! Don't you understand? Under­ and what did the soldiers do? They rang stand? LISTEN TO ME!..." But the up­ up the police. roar below swelled even louder: "Go home! We hate heroes!" Raising his white- gloved fist, Mishima bellowed, "Isn't there a single man among you who will There is a temptation to feel em­ rise up with me? Won't any of you..." barrassed for Mishima, to think of his (He paused ten seconds waiting to hear, act as a pathetic and futile anachronism, "Me, I will!", but the soldiers eontinued with no relevance to our lives or to the to shout, "Fool","Madman", "No,nobody.") actual political situation: a curiosity. "All right, nobody. All right, I'll die. But the fact is it was not futile, and - I can see none of you has the guts to rise Mishima's romantic world-view, his samu­ up with me and change the Constitution. rai heroics, and the soldiers' lack of I don't have any illusions about the Self- response to him notwithstanding - Mishima's Defense Force. Now I'll say it: 'LONG action was not anachronistic. It was not LIVE THE EMPEROR!'". a gesture whose moment has past. 34

/

67)2476 In terms of its stated ends it was pulated, CIA-fashion, by them. He did certainly premature. Mishima's counter­ not commit suicide to promote the inte­ revolutionary ideology was ahead of the rests of the Sato government. If his Self-Defense Force men he addressed on appeal and suicide were so neatly co- Nov. 25th; his appeal could not have opted by the Sato government, it is be­ raised a revolt in the Self-Defence Force. cause of their perfect timeliness; and It was nevertheless effective. Not long to get at the meaning of Mishima'a act­ after the affair, Prime Minister Sato ion we need to go beyond its immediate came out with the statement that the Con­ effects and understand the situaion stitution should be changed. He had which, on the one hand gave rise to it, never before dared to say that for fear and which, on the other, it augurs. It of antagonizing public opinion. But now is a situation of fundamental change in ...hadn't somebody, a crazy samurai swing­ the historic mode of being of the Japan­ ing a sword, called for a coup and a ese state. Mishima's life and thought change of the Constitution...all of a sud­ focused on this problem of the essence den it seemed peaceful and democratic for of the Japanese state, and his final Sato to propose the same thing to be gesture has the timeliness of the classic achieved by legal means. Indeed, an im­ tragedy whose message is rather about portant function of the right wing is to the collective dilemma of the audience act as an advance guard for the rulers, than the fated demise of the Play's pro­ to expand the frontier of possible poli­ tagonist. Ichigaya, Nov.25,1970, was a ' tical actions, and at the same time to moment confirming the arrival of a whole always provide a contrast against which new period in which the Japanese state - the rulers' actions seem moderate. Sim­ its form, its ideology and its Constitu­ ply stated, a gesture like Mishima's is tion - is being called into question and effective in terms of the goals of the three alternatives put before the people: ruling class because it serves to raise will there be counter-revolutionary break­ the mean of the reactionary imperialist through to a new mode, a gradual transi­ temperature in this country. tion to counter-revolution, or will there be a revolutionary breakthrough? Mishima's gesture is about the decay and crisis in Not that Mishima was in the pay of the period of Postwar Democracy and the the ruling party politicians, bureau­ progress of the transition to Democratic crats or industrial magnates, or mani­ Fascism.

Postwar Democracy: MJBhima

Mishima saw that the dilemma of Japan to say that he is disgusted with all these is Postwar Democracy. He wanted to break things. up the "rotten status quo" of "democratic" postwar Japan and establish the state on a new, or rather, old, ideological basis. In constrast to the postwar state of In his final appeal Mishima said, "The "cultural emasculation" and "moral degene­ Self-Defence Force, an army that denies ration" - moral degeneration is Mishima's (under the Constitution) its own identi­ favorite category - he posits a myth of ty, is the basic cause of the decay in the the prewar state that could only be crea­ spirit of the Japanese people and the cor­ ted by a romantic intellectual able to ruption of their morality." Because he ignore the concrete history of the times. considered the Constitution the corner­ This prewar state of national integrity stone of the postwar state, it was synono- was "represented by the irreplacable being mous for him with all that was wrong with of Tenno" (the emperor). For Mishima, Japan. The values that flourished in a prewar Japan is above all characterized society founded, in his view, on a con­ by the manly strength of the samurai per­ stitutional "peace and democracy" order, fected in death - a willed death:suicide - were diametrically opposed to what he which achieves the identification of the imagined to have been the authentic values individual with the national essence, the of the Japanese nation. For him, post­ emperor. In his literary works Mishima war Japan, with the Constitution as its exploits every linguistic artifice - his unifying symbol, was characterized by images positively glitter - to create an crass economism, materialism, the ethic identification of death and beauty. (Per­ of selfishness, hypocrisy instead of pu­ haps "glorious" death can only be convin­ rity of purpose, pacifism, demise of the cing if this identification with beauty masculine principle, and communism which can be brought off.) Read his novels: "exploits peoples' weakness." When Mishi­ at the heart of death is beauty, and at ma refers to the Constitution, he wants the heart of beauty is death. 38 the name of the emperor. Mishima himself Of course Mishima did not invent played the part of the hero, an officer that identification. He was just be­ who missed his chance to act with the others ginning his literary career before the but who, in the end, reconciles his heroic war ended. The heroes of his day, like aspirations with the blind alley history the kamikaze pilots who perished in "glo­ has driven him into by committing consum­ rious sacrifice for the nation", were in­ mately beautiful suicide. He wins after doctrinated with a kind of modernized all, effacing by heroic death in the name bushido spirit, reworked to fit the needs of the emperor the hypocrisy of an age of the bureaucratic industrial nation- that betrays the purity of its noblest state, with which the fascist rulers ex­ sons. So,too, Mishima's real-life suicide, tracted discipline and self-sacrifice **e in his own terms, was the perfect resolution from the people. Mishima grew up under of a quarter of a century of spiritual cri­ the influence of the school of Japanese sis. As a personal phenomenon it can be romanticism that was said to enable war­ "explained" only by reference to its inner time teenagers, (well, some of them?) to consistency with his life and thought, die "with calmness and joy, gloriously" just as the"effectiveness"of his rejected for the emperor.* The war, with its appeal, in his own eyes, should be judged death-beauty aesthetic for doomed intel­ against the background of his "perfect" lectuals, was indeed Mishima's golden resolution of that failure. (This is not age. Never mind the vast sufferings to suggest that he wasn't serious in his and meaningless sacrifices of ordinary appeal, merely to point out that in his Japanese people; never mind the genocide own ideological terms - and this exposes committed against the Chinese and other the ultimately subjective nature of his Asians in the name of the emperor. That position - there is no such thing as po­ wasn't what the war was all about. For litical failure, for individual heroism Mishima the war was an aristocratic, in­ transcends history.) But we are con­ tellectual aesthetic field. War meant cerned, not with what his death meant for death, but glorified death, or the beauty Mishima, but with how it affects the of readiness to die, and selflessness and people's struggle. Now we must go back devotion to the supreme deity, the empe­ again and look at the post-war period from ror. It was so many happy days for him the perspective of the peoples of Asia. who never experienced the misery and bit­ terness of the conscripted soldier. Twenty years after the war, when the li­ terary world began to consider his works Nobel Prize material, he had this to say: "I wonder if I'll see the day when I can Postwar Democracy: The Peoples of Asia write in my will, 'Long live the Emperor!'? Whether or not that day comes, I recall with tremendous bliss and sense of happi­ ness that I once lived in such an age." The prewar imperialist superstructure This was the ideological and aesthetic with tenno at its head, together with its stance he kept to the end. ultranationalist ideological system, was shattered in 1945. The structure which took its place was built up according to the dictates of U.S. imperialism, but in But in 1945, with the defeat of the a way which marvelously suited the needs Japanese Empire, the emperor declared him­ of the Japanese ruling class as well. For self a human. Thus, for Mishima, the post­ a brief period after the surrender, when war age was inaugurated with a betrayal, the occupation authorities were intent on not only of those who had died in the name preventing a rebirth of the militaristic of the emperor, but of those too who, like state, left-wing movements were encouraged, Mishima, went on living aspiring to die in democratic ideas flourished, and the unique his name. In 1967 Mishima wrote the sce­ Peace Constitution was handed down from on nario for a movie which he titled,"Why did high. Moreover, in the turmoil of the sumerogi (the emperor) become a human?". early postwar years, the Japanese people The movie is based on the 1936 fascist coup created a revolutionary situation, and for attempt that ended in the execution by the a while it looked like capitalism was up imperial government of the reactionary against the wall for the first time in the idealistic young officers who had acted in history of this country. Early in 1947

•That whole style and way of thinking has never been that of the Japanese nation, but only that of a snail ruling class. In the Edo period, bushido or "the way of the war­ rior" was the ehtic of the samurai class only, while the great mass of the nation li­ ved as farmers, kept a rich and lively folk tradition in the midst of poverty, and had not the slightest interest in killing themselves gloriously. The popularized bushido the government used in ruling the people after the Meiji Restoration relied on the tra­ ditional nationalism tied to the emperor system and did not involve Mishima*s kind of tortured intellectual consciousness. 39 40 the workers began organizing for a gene­ kers: the "prosperity" that followed "peace" ral strike that would have shaken the very robbed the postwar movement of its militan­ foundations of this capitalist society. cy, leaving a "democracy" that was about as But the bubble burst -(the almighty occu­ far from popular rule as the pre-war emper­ pation forces were, after all, American or system had been. Though from a stand­ imperialists): MacArthur banned the strike point diametrically opposed to Mishima's, on its eve. The period of euphoria was we too say: postwar Japan was an hypocrisy. doomed anyway with the coming of the Cold War; counter-revolution and the red purge set in with the occupation authorities ex­ pelling all communists from government What peace was there? "Peace at home", offices and private enterprises: the Ame­ because the country had a little umbrella, ricans had launched their "reverse course" the Peace Constitution, which just covered policy. Then the Korean War was unleash­ it, though not Okinawa. But the real gua­ ed and Washington was no longer concerned rantee of "peace at home" (peace for the about crushing the war potential of its for­ ruling class) was the big umbrella, the mer imperialist rival, but rather wanted to American "nuclear deterrent" which covered strengthen Japan as the forward base from the whole "free world". If you shut your which to attack the Korean and Chinese peo­ eyes to the big umbrella -there was, of ples in the name of Dulles' anti-communism, course, no peace for the rest of Asia, but (it was at this time that MacArthur called constant war - it was easier to live com­ for a "police reserve force" and Japan's placently under the little umbrella. There postwar army was born.) was peace for the ruling class to build its imperialist base structure.

Early in the 1950's three major deci­ sions were taken by the Americans: l) to conclude a peace treaty with Japan on the basis of which Okinawa would be separated from Japan and placed under the sovereignty What democracy was there? There was of the U.S. Armed Forces to be used as the the illusion of competing political plat­ "keystone" of the U.S. anti-communist mili­ forms, though in fact, the forces that com­ tary encirclement of China and the Asian pose the present Liberal-Democratic Party revolution; 2) to conclude a security treaty have ruled the country for all but one of with Japan that would section the permanent the last twenty-five years. The LDP, which stationing of U.S. armed forces in this sow has more the nature of a state institution country; 3) to foster the growth of Japanese than a competing political party, has a capitalism in order to guarantee the deve­ semi-permanent "opposition"- the Communist lopment of the country into a powerful and Party (JCP), the Socialist Party (JSP) and reliable bastion of anti-communism. The its labor organization, SOHYO, and assorted Japanese ruling class easily adapted itself progressives - which provides the system to this line dictated by the strategic goals with a "democratic" solution for the dissa­ of the U.S.; it dovetailed beautifully with tisfied. In comparison to the difference its own imperialistic objectives. between the Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. system, say, the antagonism in the Japanese system between the opposition a and the ruling party may have seemed at times quite deep-seated. And it was, in The rulers of this country had never fact, quite sharp over the question of the abandoned their dream of restoring Japan to Security Treaty and other foreign policy its prewar state of military might, and in issues involving the question of war and terms of their own long-range objectives peace. But the little umbrella of the they could look at the American package deal Peace Constitution kept Japan from seeing for postwar Japan with perfect satisfaction: beyond the coastline, aggravating its curious l) they needed "peace" at home and the fact pattern of nationalism, "one-nationism". that it was bought at the price of condem­ The frame of reference in the political ning one million Okinawans to the modern -da- struggle was, in the end, the same for both despotism of the American military was, for the conservatives and progressives: Peace them, of no real consequence; 2) they wel­ and Democracy, postwar Japan's liberal con­ comed the presence of U.S. troops provided sensus. As far as a revolutionary perspec­ for under the Security Treaty; they were do­ tive based on class-consciousness goes, ing double duty: protecting the ruling class both sides were operating on the basic interests from the Japanese people and from bourgeois principles, and the deep-rooted the threatening Asian revolution and, at one-nationism rendered the Left's interna­ the same time, stimulating the rapid growth tionalism mere lip service. of those interests by the very fact of sav­ ing Japan the expense of building its own full-blown defense system,i.e., allowing for an unbelievably rapid accumulation of economic surplus; 3) the arrangement with the U.S. enabled them to re-establish their class hegemony over the Japanese wor­ And what kind of prosperity was there? But that situation was not to continue From what has already been said it is clear for ever. The seeds planted in the postwar that the "miracle" of the GNP was no pure period are now coming to maturity and the economic phenomenon. The initial energy whole complex of socio-political factors for Japan's recovery was sucked from the that shaped that age have been forced to blood of the Korean people; as former Prime change in the past few years. The Sato Minister Yoshida put it so well in his me­ cabinet stepped into power for the historic moirs: "The Korean War was a god-send for mission of ending this whole period of Post­ our country." The capitalists have been war Democracy. Why is the change)necessary? trying to buy off the SOHYO-led labor move­ There are two major factors at work: l) the ment with annual wage increases; the wor­ defeat of the American counter-revolution, kers produce ammunition and war supplies especially in Asia and most particularly in which Sato ships off to Vietnam, happy Vietnam: the weakened position of American that they have peace and democracy at home imperialism in the world system of oppres­ and that the Prime Minister is "sincerely sion and exploitation urges Japan to come desirous of an early peaceful settlement" to the front of counter-revolution in Asia; of the war in Indochina. The "economic and 2) the pressure of the economic expan­ animal" (ikeda Hayato, Sato's predecessor, sion of Japan itself, which impels Japanese inspired a Pakistani minister to so des­ imperialists to grab for themselves the con­ cribe Japan), and the "transistor sales­ trol of their markets, energy and raw mate­ man" (DeGaulle's term) have also been mer­ rial resources all over the world. The chants of death; we've got sandbags for Japanese imperialists would like, in fact, ARVN and vinyl bags for the corpses of the to take advantage of the plight of American American troops. imperialism in Asia and elsewhere while still counting on its role as world police­ man. If the change in Japan could be brought about simply by a decree abolish­ ing the Postwar Democracy state and re­ According to the division of labor on placing it with a fanatic fascist govern­ which the postwar period was based, Japan ment -(after the Weimar Democracy came the concentrated on economic prosperity while Hitler regime in Germany.) -then Mishima's America was responsible for counter-revo­ way with his storm troopers and emperor- lutionary violence against Asian peoples. worshipping Self-Defense Force officers To the extent that this division was still would have made a lot more sense as a rea­ viable, the inconsistencies were minor and listic, strategic move. This is not the did not contradict the peace and democracy case,however; the change which Sato would consensus at home to which everyone paid bring about in the domestic structure is homage. Indeed, postwar Japan was a form of necessarily a gradual one and has an ideo­ bourgeois state that had its own historical logical vagueness which derives from the personality, just as the Weimer Democracy continued sharing of counter-revolutionary in the post-World War I period had its own. tasks with the U.S. The basic relationship with the U.S. impe­ rialist domination of Asia had the effect of blunting the class antagonisms inside the country; as a result political antagonism was put on a very vague basis -(confronta­ tion on foreign policy issues, but within the framework of peace and democracy)- and The external relations of a country the party claiming the revolutionary man­ and its internal make-up are not mutually date, the JCP, became a party of progres­ independent. If the domestic Postwar De­ sives and pacifists. The progressives' mocracy was the internalized form of the fight was mostly to resist the"return"of postwar Japanese external relationship, the Japan to the prewar condition and to oppose U.S.-Japan "division of labor" mentioned reactionary tendencies, not to build social­ above, the change in the latter naturally ism. Within this situation the ruling class has to call forth a corresponding change in was in a position to move to the right, the Postwar Democracy itself. The Sato almost imperceptibly, the consensus among cabinet wanted to do both, and is doing the people until "peace" came to mean the both. The first step in this direction status quo and "democracy" the polling was the signing of the Japan-South Korea booth. Not only had the GNP replaced the "Normalization" Treaty in 1965 which in­ emperor as the symbol of devotion, but the augurated the fresh exploitation and colo- emperor system itself was wedded to the nialization of South Korea by Japanese bourgeoisie when the crown prince in 1962 imperialists. And, as we pointed out took as his bride the daughter of a wealthy in the special Okinawa issue of Ampo, flour maker family. Such was the era of the most decisive move toward this goal Postwar Democracy. was the Nixon-Sato Joint Communique; it not only provided for the transfer of sovereignty over Okinawa in 1972 with the huge military bases intact, but al­ so virtually placed the whole Northeast Asian area, particularly Korea, under the control of Japan, From now on 41 42 Japan has to assume direct responsi­ no longer Postwar Democracy Japan when bility, if not total responsibility, its premises are removed. The internal for counter-revolution in foreign lands. basis for the Japanese state must be The division of labor between Japanese overhauled and remade into something and American imperialists is not obso­ else that can support its direct respon­ lete - it is absolutely necessary for sibility for counter-revolution abroad. them in revolutionary Asia - but it has The notorious statement by Takeshi taken on a different pattern: while it Sakurada, a leading big businessman, that used to be a division with Japan as pri# the Japanese state for the entire post­ marily the economic plunderer and the war period was "semi-state" and that the Americans as counter-revolutionary fight­ urgent task facing the Japanese leaders ers, the new division of labor has Japan was to"change it into a full state", (im­ and America sharing both functions be­ plying a state with a full-fledged, full- tween them. status armed forces, powerful police, an anti-people judicial system, and the ideological unity of the people),elo­ quently, and with some political-philo­ sophical insight, has spelled out the The is bound to change the whole enormous mission the Japanese ruling political-social-ideological set-up of class has taken upon itself in the Postwar Democracy Japan. In fact it is crisis-ridden decade of the 1970's.

% • • Something's got to be done. t • •

Because the transition to Democratic Self-Defense Force, an image which hard­ Fascism is essentially the internal trans­ ly concealed the kind of chauvinism that formation of the status quo, it is a gra­ lay at the heart of Mishima's world-view. dual process, deliberately designed to be While Nakasone, then the defense minister, as imperceptible to the people as pos­ was telling the men they should regard sible. Nevertheless, for those who are themselves as soldiers and no longer sim­ looking, there are signs everywhere, ply as civil servants, Toko Kon, an LDP both of the crisis necessitating the Dietman (also a novelist) told them at a change and the progress of the transi­ lecture, "Your mission is to kill; that's tion itself. If in the stable days of not murder. You just kill them; its all Postwar Democracy, Mishima had conten­ right and its legal. The state takes ted himself with cultivating his death- responsibility for what you do, so never beauty aesthetic in his writings and pri­ mind, you can kill with a clear conscience vate life, in recent years he began to sense the crisis and to prepare to inter­ anyone who is not of the Japanese nation." vene in a decisive way in the course of The time was right and Mishima approached events. Though he perceived that the the Ground Self-Defense Force. dominant force in power was not interes­ ted in a radical transformation -(once he shrewdly remarked that it was the LDP, not the opposition, that now had the most to gain by guarding the Constitution.) - there were other forces, he thought, "in" For its part, the SDF was overjoyed the Establishiment but not "of it", so to be embraced by the noted man of letters. to speak, that might be: the Self-Defense He was good publicity for the army whose Force. Given the nature of his dreams, recruitment problems were aggravated by it is not surprising that Mishima en­ the general shortage of young laborers, ,

of accusations and censure of the masses, must protect their very future. Or rather, we do not pro­ tect their future; we protect the fundamentals of which they (the people) are not aware, but which enable them to "be": our history, culture and tradition. 44 It is clear that Mishima's hatred saying that the militant students would for the Postwar Democracy state is based assault them and their property. (Act­ on a deep contempt for and abhorrance of ually, the Self-Defense Force was put on the people. In his eyes, they are fil­ stand-by alert, but they weren't openly thy and the very basis of their condition mobilized.) In a word, it was the tra­ contrary to his notion of beauty. The ditional conservatism and spirit of pre­ people are small-hearted and might put serving the status quo - law and order - "communists" in power because they want that were mobilized against the revolu­ to "keep their living safe" and shun tionaries and not the Mishima-type coun­ self-sacrifice. This is why he hated ter-revolutionary fervor that defies law the Peace and Democracy consensus; and in and order. This was an enlightenment for so far as the Liberal Democractic Party Mishima and brought home to him the ex­ flattered the "meanness of the people", tent to which the very ground of a "radi­ the mainstream ruling circles were also a cal" confrontation in the name of an ideal target of his attacks. was being eroded.

His disillusionment forced him to But would his natural allies, the compromise his vision and a few months Ground Self-Defense Force, be up to the before his death he came out with a pro­ task he envisaged for them; and how pre­ posal pathetic in its grudging incorpora­ cisely did he expect them to trigger a tion of "reality" into his myths. He breakthrough to the new order? As he suggested that the SDF be divided into wrote in his final speech before his sui­ two parts, one pledging loyalty to the cide, he had thought the Self-Defense emperor and the other to the prime mini­ Force would be mobilized "for public safe­ ster. Ten percent of the SDF would be ty" to put down the students' street offered to the prime minister to defend struggle in the autumn of 1969. (This the "administrative state" of Japan and was the semi-armed rising which aimed at ninety percent to defend "the essence of preventing Sato's departure to Washing­ Japan", or the emperor. Of course this ton for the conclusion of the agreement meant that the Japanese state itself was with Nixon which sealed the post-rever­ to be divided into two parts, the admini­ sion fate of Okinawa.) But instead, strative state and the ritualistic state, the government called out the riot po­ headed by the prime minister and the em­ lice and mobilized conservative elements peror, respectively. But having written of the population to form "self-defense this statement, which is tantamount to an units" (jikeidan) in downtwon Tokyo. It admission of defeat, he neverthless went threatened the ordinary people with po­ on with his preparations for the drama lice violence and intimidated them by which unfolded on Nov. 25th.

What happened?

by the three surviving Shield Society It will be a clever historian in­ members that showed Mishima's action was deed who can discover under the layers of a deliberate coup attempt. On the 25th official and semi-official non-statements sources in the Tokyo Ushigome police sta­ on the affair -(and in spite of the deli­ tion had leaked the report to the news­ berate suppression of evidence) - what papers. According to the Shield So­ actual government and SDF involvement ciety members as quoted in the report, these preparations entailed. By Nov,26, Mishima began charting a detailed coup it was already too late to get the facts; plan in March, 1970; he explained it in and every day that has passed since then outline the same month to a "crack force" has seen the official benign neglect and of Shield Society members and had comple­ the semi-official expressions of sympathy ted the details by September. In October for Mishima the patriot push these ques­ he visited the Ichigaya GSDF camp often tions even further into obscurity. There to survey the layout; he was especially has been only the most perfunctory inves­ interested in the conditions of the 32nd tigation; and the trial of the sur infantry company, whose support he was viving Shield Society members, who face counting on. (That company is a kind of charges like intrusion, murder at the re­ Imperial Guard.) Mishima's political quest of the victim, etc., promises to slogan called for changing the Constitu­ produce no more than (sic) a thorough and tion by force in order to legalize the sympathetic airing of Mishima's thought. SDF as the official army, navy and air On Nov. 26, evidently under pressure from force of Japan. To do this he was going military and government figures higher up, to occupy the parliament with the1 mobili­ the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Board sup­ zed SDF men and about ninety Shield Socie­ pressed a report based on statements made ty members. .r Mishima liked to have his picture taken in different costumes: here he is dressed up as a policeman, as an SDF member, and acting out ritual suicide in his movie Aikoku (Patriotism). » Immediate reactions of government officials like Sato and'Nakasone as well as SDF officers were expressions of shock and disapproval of Mishima*s action tem­ pered by "understanding of his patriotic (According to unconfirmed reports feelings." The press contributed signi­ quoted by the New China News Agency, ficantly to the muddling of the event by Mishima secretly conferred with Nakasone largely ignoring its political content and Gen. Kinugasa, chief of staff of the and playing up the image of ."the tragedy GSDF, in October, 1969, and began work­ of a great author" and Mishima*s "fran­ ing out a concrete coup plan with the tic love of beauty." As we have noted cooperation of veteran rightwing leader, already, however, Sato was quick to capi­ Sagoya, and ultra-rightist boss, Kodama, talize on Mishima*s "madness" in his sane, at the end of the year. Other persons level-headed public statements subsequent who are said in this report to have par­ to the act about the military build-up, ticipated in the coup plot include, besi­ higher defense-consciousness among the des Kinugasa: 0hshima,hea6> of the GSDF people, soldiers as warriors rather than cadre school; Aoki, head of the proba- government employees, etc. These things tional officers' school; Eastern corp are as fundamental to the government's Commander, Mashita (the one who was tied program as they were to Mishima's vision. in his chair on Nov.25th); Yamaguchi, The imperialist rulers of this country, head of the non-commissioned officers* while disavowing Mishima, are fast imple­ school; Saito, chief of staff of the 1st menting his program. There is one impor­ division of the GSDF; and Yazumi, head tant difference, however: the way to of the training center for paratroopers.) achieve it.

The way of Democratic Fascism

Mishima1s formula for the establish­ Fascism would gradually overhaul the Post­ ment of a new order involves a leap, a war Decocracy state. Speaking of the breakthrough from Postwar Democracy, national structure which the Constitution through a coup d'etat, to the imperialists' imposed on Japan in terms of a mask, he ideal forms of state and society with its says: active chauvinism among the people,emperor- As long as the mask was imposed by worship (with, of course, the "MacArthur- irresistible outside forces, we have imposed" Constitution abolished and the em­ accepted it gallantly as our fate; peror restored to his position as "the but all the while we are trying to head of the state" -whatever that means), melt it away into the flesh of our a fully legitimized, indeed, idolized, own face...by changing ourselves. We military whose units can be dispatched must, for instance, formulate modes overseas at any time, and whose soldiers of action that bind together indi­ take pride in their patriotic function and viduals in the ecomony in such a way are willing to die for the emperor. that they find themselves in a social hierarchy of value. Take work, for The formula of the mainstream ruling instance. Methods of production of class is different. (We prefer to regard course have to be refined, moderni­ Mishima's formula as complementary, rather zed, rationalized in any case; this than opposed to this formula because, as is where trade unions come in as such we are seeing, it can be ingeniously inte­ a basic ingredient in the democratic grated into and utilized by the way of economic structure of Japan. Rela­ Democratic Fascism.) It would not create ting to one another in trade unions an abyss between Postwar Democracy and the is a means for people to participate new imperialist state but would ensure a in the work of building the national gradual transition. In a series of arti­ economy. Individuals need to find cles written by ideologists in Yomiuri their place in the social hierarchy Shimbun, (Mishima contributed an article by virtue of reference to something outlining his plan for the double SDF- super-personal; from now on the trade and the double state mentioned above to union movement should respond to this series.) -Muto Mitsuro, a so-called these legitimate needs of people to existentialist philosopher and mouthpiece relate, providing the reference for of the Democratic Socialist Party, in a them to identify with the local enter­ polemical argument with Mishima, laid out prise, then the industry, and finally the argument for the way that Democratic the national economy. 46 47 This is.the myth of the new state, a na­ Under Postwar Democracy, unions tional community concept from which the were still unions however reformist, very category of class antagonism has and they had to fight militantly for been eliminated. This new state is dis­ specific economic demands under the tinct from the Postwar Democracy one in leadership of SOHYO. That was need­ two main ways, and it is on the basis of ed by the ruling class, too, since the these characteristics that we call it a Postwar Democracy state was based on a democratic-fascist state. sort of social equilibrium between competing forces. But now, the ideal pattern of rule is to eliminate this equilibrium, and to replace it by a single block based on the type of right- wing pinciples Muto Mitsuro expounds. The Federation of Steel Workers' Unions, for instance, whose true nature you may infer from the above example,still be­ longs to SOHYO which claims a left-wing policy. What the ruling class hopes to do is to coalesce all these unions in a single front, irrespective of First, it rests on a comparatively the present affiliations with different broad coalition of social forces composing union centers such as SOHYO. Out of a single right-wing block. Both the tra­ this front they would encourage the ditional conservatives and the emaciated formation of a single right-wing Labor "peace and democracy" type progressives, Party through a fusion of the Social­ (who are not only inherently un-revolution- ist, Democratic-Socialist and Komei ary, but have almost lost their former Parties creating an American Repub- vigilance against reaction) are coalesced lican-Democrat-type bi-partisan poli­ and fused in this single block, though in tical system. What is taking place a somewhat ambiguous fashion. at present within the labor movement is part of the basic pattern of the new Japanese imperialist state itself. In the passage quoted above Muto points out the fact that the replacement of Postwar Democracy by a new form of state is but the working out of an on-going pro­ cess. He cites the role the unions play in the work of integrating the people in­ to the new society; this case is an apt one and shows the extent to which the so- called porgressive forces are already in­ corporated in the single right-wing block. Take the unions of the major private in­ dustries - the steel industry, for example. At giant steel mills like that of Nippon Steel, there are, of course, unions and the election of union officers by the rank- and-file. But in fact, the union is an integral part of the company's labor con­ trol system and its officers like so many members of the company's labor control section. The candidates in the election for union leadership positions are hand- picked by the management, and though wor­ kers are sought to cast votes, all the What about the JCP? Isn't it signatures on the ballets are later exa­ fundamentally irreconcilable with the mined by the company side. Furthermore, right-wing block on which Democratic- the union has so completely allied itself Fascism is to be based? As far as with the management and the police, that its principles go, the JCP has for the if young workers participate in radical past few years been on a long right- demonstrations their names are immediately wing march during which it has shed telephoned to the company and the company the concept of violent revolution, tells the names to the union, and the (the expression has been erased from union, cooperating with the company's translations of Lenin), and the prin­ labor section disciplines them by for­ ciple of the dictatorship of the cing them to resign. Here we have the proletariat. The following example ideal union system conceived by Mr. Muto; may suffice to show to what extent the and its not just a dream, but already a party has made its own the basic con­ reality which, though it meets with tre­ sensus on which the block rests and, mendous resistance from rank-and-file in fact, is fast being integrated in­ workers, is being carried out. to it. 48

One morning shortly before the battle The second main characteristic which to prevent Sato's departure to Washington distinguishes Democratic Fascism from Post­ referred to above, a pile of gravel for war Democracy is the systematic lopping road work was found in a yard neighbor­ off of elements which cannot be integrated ing a JCP cell near Haneda airport. This into the heterogeneity of the rightwing occassioned a mini-crisis for the party block. Democratic Fascism is a more which it settled by calling up the police severe police state than Postwar Democracy and begging them to remove the revolution­ used to be, and random arrests, increasing ary weapons some radicals had maliciously use of fire arms by the police, etc. are put there; and since the police were too necessary to combat the radical revolution­ busy, they organized the neighbors into a ary elements in society. This hard side self-defense group (jikeidan) to protect of Democratic Fascism makes up for the themselves and violently attack the radi­ weakness inherent in the heterogeneity of cal demonstrators! Akahata, the JCP the rightwing block. paper,proudly reported," and thus the residents are very grateful to our cell." The opposition parties, still championing "peace and democracy" are now fighting The ruling class, which has been carry­ side-by-side with the government against ing out violent repression of radical revo­ the elements that threaten their joint lutionaries for some time, recently began stake in the status quo. eleminating dissident elements within the ruling system itself, specifically within the judiciary. In the months since the Mishima affair, the Sato-appointed Supreme Court along with the LDP Judge Indict­ ment Committee of the Diet has begun to And as for the progressives who carry out a purge of the district courts were wont in the past to parry with their that has been in the offing for over a pens every attempt by the government to year and a half. (During this time the violate the "peace and democracy" rules - Supreme Court was trying to intimidate the now its law and order for them too. judge in a case involving the construction During the students' struggles which of a SDF Nike missile base which threatens shook the campuses in '68-'69, the pro­ to apply a Constitutional measure to the gressive professors championed the univer­ process of remilitarisation.) Supreme sities' solution to the radical students: Court Chief Justice Ishida this year ser­ calling in the riot police; and since then ved notice that only those judges who the pattern has been for them to arrange consciously pledge allegiance to the pre­ "treaties" with the police specifying the sent capitalist system can expect to be conditions under which they will automa­ re-appointed after the expiration of their tically enter the campus and restore order. current terms. One judge has already been disqualified and four judicial train­ ees prevented from becoming lawyers on this principle.

Another example, this time from the local community : at a PTA meeting recent­ * ly in suburban Tokyo, a Liberal Democrat, serving as chairman of the local board of education, was invited to speak to a hundred housewives. The speech was about "ways to prevent sons and daughters from becoming 'violence wielding students'". r The audience was serious, intent, and at the end burst into applause. The funny thing is that the "sons and daughters" of the mothers were all less than ten uea of age! What is frightening about all these manifestations of the social trans­ formation taking place is that the JCP still claims to be loyal to Marxism- Leninism, the professors still consider Just as Japan's postwar relationship themselves champions of "peace and demo­ with the U.S. distorted the domestic poli- cracy", and the mothers include not only cal antagonisms and made for all the hypo- LDP sympathizers, but also - and for the cricies of Postwar Democracy, so too, the most part - Socialist and Communist Party ambiguous nature of Democratic Fascism sympathizers. Unconscious of any shift with its heterogeneous rightwing block (as in their position ( in fact, they haven't I opposed to a state founded on a Hitler- moved from an essentially bourgeois posi­ 'type fanaticism) is still due in part to tion), they have shifted from the "progres­ Japan's external relations. We are in a sive camp" to the "rightwing block". [world where U.S. imperialists still are 49

supposed to play the major role in counter­ revolution. Though the postwar U.S.­ Japan division of labor has been changed, yet in these early years of the '70s Japanese imperialists are not left alone at the forefront of counter-revolution. Thus we still have the Security Treaty, and the U.S. bases on Okinawa remain. It should be understood that the To the extent that the U.S. plays the value of the people which makes them sus­ main role, Japanese imperialism's mission ceptible to integration into Democratic 'is alleviated and the appearance of the Fascism is not materialism; it is the continuation of Postwar Democracy is maintenance of the status quo. A survey maintained. taken of GSDF soldiers and officers is revealing in this regard. To the ques­ tion, "What is the motivation of your daily living?", while only &f> of the soldiers (and 27$ of the officers) gave an altruistic response like, "to work for society", 26$ - which was the lar­ The myth of the cult of GNP, more­ gest response group - answered, "just over, which was so servicable during follow my inclinations; not ambitious Postwar Democracy, is still good today. either to make a lot of money or to do Domocratic Fascism doesn't have to re­ something great." In another survey, place it with something new, the cult of the question was asked,"As soldiers, the emperor, for instance; it can simply what do you think it is that you're graft on to it a new and aggressive poli­ going to defend?" Sixty-nine out of tical program. The expanded and more seventy-seven either gave no reply or politicized cult of the GNP still con­ said, "I don't know." However, fifty- tains the economism of Postwar Democracy one stated that, if there were a war, Japan, but that economic chauvinism now they would be willing to die fighting ..,- "naturally" assumes all the attributes of in it! It is not necessary for the ..flj great-powerism. Japan does not have to soldiers of the Self-Defense Force, or K |have a blatantly nationalistic, militaris- any other segments of society, for that F-Jiic ethic. It is enough to say that matter, to be imbued with plainly chauvin­ '* Japan is a great power with the world's istic ideals; it is sufficient that they !second largest GNP..."naturally", it belong to the state and are willing to |also has the world's seventh largest mili- die to defend the status quo: there is jtary farce. But beneath the myth of the chauvinism enough and to spare in that. [cult of GNP are the people and their act- lual values.

It is this conservative tendency of people, and not the Mishima-type aesthetic-heroics, that the maincurrent Japanese imperialists count on as the binding power of their right-wing block. It is a clinging to what is understood as the status quo, a fear of change seen as coming from outside, obedience to orders coming from above, and a conception of the government as always superior. The most extreme manifesta­ tion of this kind of conservatism was after the Great Earthquake of 1923. The police deliberately spread rumors that the reason that disease was spreading was that the Koreans were poisoning the wells, and that in addition they were planning an uprising. As a result thousands of innocent Koreans were massacred by ordi­ nary Japanese people. The ideology of the status quo is inherently rascist and chauvinist and the .1 ike 1 dan groups re­ ferred to above for "defense" (read, "attack") against radical students and workers, are easily turned into groups capable of massacring Korean or other Asian people. 50

A Paper Tiger

The power with which the ruling class Despite these weaknesses, weaknesses manipulates these tendencies for building which Mishima wanted to rectify through a basis for their program of aggression polarization, the rightwing block is not in Asia appears formidable; but when we going to collapse on its own. it must look carefully at the right-wing block on be attacked and split and polarized (but which they are staking their future we in such a way as to provide a mass base see the fatal weaknesses inherent in it for the revolutionary left) if it is which can be attacked by the radical left- going to be exploded. When attacked, wing movement. On the one hand, the the rightwing block will produce more block binds together different classes Mishimas at its extreme right, but on with different class interests and dif­ the other hand, it will crystalize a ferent political groups - ranging from revolutionary left. This is the mis­ JCP to LDP. This causes the block to sion of the New Left, a task diametri­ be heterogeneous and subject to falling cally opposed to that of Mishima. apart should the manipulation fail. The danger that this will happen is increasing because the ruling class has failed to achieve a "welfare state" type of society in Japan: it has a basic committment to boost ever more and more the interest of monopoly capital. Hence the pollution, the disruption of the environment, the sterner repression by the police, the growing gap between the rich and poor, the dissolution of rural communities - these are all factors that sharpen class antagonisms and call forth resis­ tance . The rightwing block on which Demo­ cratic Fascism operates is a "paper tiger" in Chairman Mao's sense. If it is let alone, it is a real tiger and can eat people. Unless it is chal­ On the other hand, the rightwing lenged and split, the rightwing block block state has a major weakness in the can grow and consolidate to the point fact that it lacks a safety valve. where it can constitute a domestic poli­ While the Postwar Democracy was based tical-ideological base strong enough to more or less on social and political support aggression overseas and the cold­ equilibrium of antagonistic camps, the blooded killing of Asian brothers. But fusion of them into a single block de­ if it is fought against effectively by prives the system of social and politi­ the people, it turns out to be a paper cal rule of this safety valve (represen­ tiger, collapses and is thrown away. ted by the Socialists and Liberal Demo­ Its intrinsic weakness (and the guar­ crats.) Taking the labor movement as a antee that in this process of polari­ case in point, when unions at steel, zation it will not be Mishima-type shipbuilding, electrical and other major ultra-rightists but the authentic left industries cease to function as unions, who holds the essential advantage) at least capable of channelling the rank- rests in the fact that the people share and-file demand into a reformist and eco­ their real interests neither with the nomic struggle, in what direction are rightwing block nor with the aristo­ the workers to look? cratic tennoists.

Mishima anxiously watching a demonstration from behind police lines 51 DEATH TO THE DEATH MERCHANTS /

Why has the anti-war movement started picking on Mitsubishi? Because Mitsubishi is the axis of Japan's war industry, which is now leaping to recovery from its temporary post-war decline. Of the companies which have received orders from the Defense Agency between 1964 and 1968, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries...which makes F104 jet fighters, submarines, and T61 tanks...ranks number 1 at $300 million. Number 2 at $140 million is Mitsubishi Electric, which makes Hawk missiles. The value of the weapons contracts received by these first two companies is equal to that of the next eight combined.

But this is nothing compared to what is planned. In October of 1970 Defense Minister Nakasone announced that the budget for the Fourth Defense Buildup Program (1972 - 1976) would be $16.1 billion, more than double that of the third program. But this does not accurately reflect what March 1, 1971; 7:30 am. Fifteen is planned for the weapons industry, ^he members of the Tokyo Anti-Military Action Defense Agency strategy, rather like that Committee gather at Sagamihara Station, of Nixon, is to make up for a relatively just south of Tokyo, and begin handing out small number of troops by backing them up leaflets to passing commuters. Their target with a gigantic technological war machine. is the nearby plant of Mitsubishi Heavy In­ Thus the budget for military equipment is dustries; their appeal, "Stop the Manu­ to leap from $2.44 billion to $6.95 billion. facture of tanks." Within thirty minutes For Mitsubishi it's going to be just like after they begin, the fifteen demonstrators the good old days. are surrounded by thirty regular police and fifty riot police. The police fall on the Mitsubishi is one of the three gigantic demonstrators with clubs and boots, driving economic combines, or zaibatsu, which have them from the station area. On the after­ ruled Japan's economy and wielded great po­ noon of the same day some thirty members of litical power since the Meiji Era, in the the Committee stage a demonstration at an­ late 19th Century. It thrived and grew other big Mitsubishi factory in Tokyo. on the government's war policy, which it This thirty-person demonstration is flanked also helped to promote, profiting and all along its route by some 100 riot police expanding from the Sino-Japanese War in their surreal, futuristic battle uniforms: (1894-5), the Russo-Japanese War (1904- helmets with full plastic face masks, huge 5), and Japanese participation in World curved metal shields with eyeslits, padded War I. During the fascist period Mitsu­ uniforms, hockey gloves, steel lined boots, bishi, like the other zaibatsu, slipped clubs. Inside the factory wait fourteen easily into the new structure, transform­ (14) armored police vans. Just when the ing itself into a partial organ of the demonstration passes the main gate of the fascist government. During the war period factory, the riot police attack, flail around Mitsubishi produced the famous Zero fighter with clubs and boots, and arrest four. plane, and also turned out 40$ of all the The four arrested are carried off...into warships produced in Japan between 1937 the factory! and 1945, some 310,000 tons. In 1945 the Mitsubishi zaibatsu had become a monster organization composed of 31 different Are the Tokyo Riot Police the gate companies and controlling 400,000 laborers, guards for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, many of whom were drafted workers. or is the Mitsubishi factory a kind of police station? It comes to the same thing. It is not just that the government is so In 1945 the U.S. Occupation, whose wildly anxious about protecting Mitsubishi early policy was to destroy Japan's military from the slightest scratch, but that the potential, correctly understood the role of boundary that separates those institutions... the zaibatsu in Japanese militarism, and Mitsubishi, the government, and the police... began a sort of trust-busting. Top leaders is difficult to locate. in Mitsubishi and other companies were purged, and the zaibatsu were broken up into smaller units. Mitsubishi Heavy In 1963 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Industries was divided into three companies. which had been broken up into three, merged This policy was brought to a quick halt, back into one. In 1964 president Usami of however, before it had gone very far; not Mitsubishi Bank transferred over to the because the U.S. had decided that its analy­ presidency of the Bank of Japan...equi­ sis of zaibatsu militarism was wrong, valent to the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank... but because with the change in American illustrating both the power of Mitsubishi Far East Strategy it was decided that and the vagueness of the boundary between Japanese militarism might not be so bad Mitsubishi and the government. In July of after all. The purged were de-purged, and 1970 the Mitsubishi Group was made up of the zaibatsu came to life again, growing 44 companies with total assets valued at ¥9,403.8 billion ($26 billion), or 9.2# of and recombining. Of particular aid were all assets in Japan. This represents cont­ the rich "special procurements"...essentially rol by Mitsubishi over a larger part of defense contracts...coming from the U.S. the economy than it held in 1937, at the military during the Korean War. height of the fascist period.

Along with the rebirth of the the Chinese people, all reparations for zaibatsu and the military there of course damages suffered on the^mainland under follows the reconstruction of the Japanese Japanese aggression in China...and of course economic empire in Asia. Of key importance the Japanese government accepted that waiv­ in this process are the military dictator­ er gratefully. In the case of Korea, Japan ships in South Korea and in Taiwan, in his refused to consider paying reparations, historically ominous joint communique with arguing that during the war Korea was Nixon in 1969, Prime Minister Sato effective­ an integral part of Japan, and that a ly extended Japan's "defense" line to South country does not have to pay reparations Korea and Taiwan, by announcing that the for damages it does to itself. But even the security of those two dictatorships are though reparations were never paid, the "essential" and "very important" (in that money began flowing in a different form: order) to the security of Japan. * • in the case of Taiwan, as loans; in the But the basis of this expansion goes case of South Korea, as payment of back to the Japan-China (i.e. Taiwan) "claims." Peace Treaty of 1952 and the Japan-ROK Here is how it worked. In April Normalization treaty of 1957 (the latter 1965 the new Sato cabinet agreed to make negotiated by Mr. Shin'ichi Takasugi of a $150,000,000 loan to Taiwan, and in Mitsubishi Electric). In those two December of the same year it agreed on a treaties, the Japanese government re­ $800,000,000 settlement of South Korean cognized the legitimacy of the Chiang and "claims." This money never left Japan. What happened was that orders came from Pak dictatorships, and laid the ground­ Taiwan and ROK to the big zaibatsu work for economic expansion. No war re­ groups, which were then paid for by the parations were paid to either, for aston­ Japanese government from the loan and claims ishing reasons. In the case of Taiwan, money. Put simply, it comes to this: these Chiang Kai-shek waived, in the name of all great sums of money, fixed by international 52 negotiation, were paid not to the people of the recipient countries nor even to their governments, but to the Japanese zaibatsu, in order to finance their economic invasions into those countries.

The Mitsubishi group of course came off nicely, exporting a $7.8 million sulfuric acid plant to Taiwan, and a $35 million steel mill to ROK. And of course once the door was opened, Mitsubishi began moving in in other ways, giving a private loan of $3 million to the Korean Shipbuilding Corp. and beginning capital investment in other fields such as the electrical and auto­ motive industries.

Thus in all this generous sounding "loaning" and "claims-paying" it is not really wealth that is being exported, but power. And as the Japanese economy entre­ nches itself in the sagging dictatorships that surround China, the meaning of "self- defense" gradually must expand to mean the defense of those dictatorships. In par­ ticular, as dollar defense and the The shareholders* meeting toward which Indochina fiasco force the U.S. to re­ Beheiren was moving was held on May 28 of arrange its Asia policy, more and more of this year. For an account of that event the task of "Policeman of Asia" will be we are including the following article taken over by the Japanese military. by a team of Swedish reporters, who were present on the scene.

The protest movement against military industry has been growing, focusing itself on Mitsubishi. In addition to the efforts described above to appeal to the workers in the factories themselves...which still con­ tinues despite the startling repression it received...there is also a movement organi­ zed by Beheiren to buy single shares of Mitsubishi stock in order to gain the right to enter stockholders meetings en masse and ask questions. In addition to the general problems of the firm's political, military, and imperialist roles, the movement has a symbolic target in the proposed nomination of Tojo Teruo as a member of the board of directors. Tojo's appointment is almost like a parable illustrating the history of Mitsubishi, its character, decline, and resurgence. Tojo is the son of Tojo Hideki, wartime prime minister and convicted war criminal. While the was building the Greater East Asia Co-Prosper­ ity Sphere, and leading the nation toward war, the son was busy at work at Mitsubishi designing the Zero fighter. He complains that is is unfair to call him a militarist: "I've devoted myself to designing airplanes all my life. Nothing else." The Mitsu­ bishi airplane factory at Nagoya, of which Tojo is presently the head, is scheduled to start manufacturing Phantom jets for the Self-Defense forces soon.

53 STOCKHOLDERS' CORRAL • • ! \wt^^- •••••••• m Li* i *: m * '" 1 Usa & lasse berg lllili^^ f T JJlfl ft •! *ri if I*

•K v^XlMMMMt&reiHMW «I^HM •™ y**-WW«*U!!,.!s •*•••• -<%*m..,« -r>*0*-*m The large hall was in complete dark­ ness. Far across the room, there was a row of men in dark suits at a long table 1 ghostly lit up in the darkness by strong •** rW. Jr**,' floodlights. In the meeting hall: tumul­ tuous scenes between sturdy guards (sokai- yas) and demonstrators wearing skeleton masks; loudspeakers roaring their "death to the merchants of death"; a high-powered In the Fourth Defense Buildup Program meeting between two worlds, two cultures. 1972-1976 the budget for industrial con­ Place: Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo. Cir­ tracts will triple to $4.6 billion and the cumstances: the share-holders meeting of ratio of the domestic production of arms Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on May 28. will increase from 50$ to 80$. And now, since Japan has obtained its first contract 250 persons from Beheiren's One-Share for arms-export since World War II (heli­ movement had invaded the meeting of the copters to Sweden), Mitsubishi's future shareholders to use their rights as share­ will look even more rosy with their expec­ holders to question the management on the tations of mushrooming arms-export. activities of the company. Mitsubishi at present has assets worth $28 billion, close to one tenth of all the in­ Through this campaign, Beheiren wanted dustrial assets in the country — as much to create an opposition in Japan to rearma­ as the GNP of a country such as Sweden. ment and the growing war industries, with Another ploy in the five year plan very Mitsubishi as a giant forerunner. Beheiren attractive to big business is the fact that bought 2000 shares in Mitsubishi Heavy In­ the budget for technical development will dustry and distributed them among 100 mem­ increase from the present $147 million to bers. This company constitutes the heart $520 million. It is possible that Mitsu­ of the Mitsubishi group. Mitsubishi, con­ bishi with this backing will try to replace trolling 52$ of all arms production in Rolls-Royce as a world supplier of jet Japan, and having heavy influence in the engines. government, constitutes the key to Japanese rearmament. But the campaign of Beheiren is only one among several similar one-share move­ Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (or, as ments started lately and directed against it is called, "Ministry of Munitions") in the policies of the big business. In one 1969 got defense contracts valued at more instance it might be a campaign for envir­ than 200 million dollars. That was one- onmental reasons such as the one against third of all the defense contracts in the the Chisso company which caused the world- country. The close co-operation between known mercury poisoning catastrophy in the different companies in Mitsubishi give Minamata. In another instance it might be an increased competitive strength. Or to directed against the "merchants of death" phrase it as did Kishi, one of the Beheiren at Mitsubishi. All are signs of deepgoing one-share holders: "Look at their tanks: movements among workers, housewives, and the caterpillar is made by Mitsubishi Cater­ students against the arrogance of power of pillar Industry, the body is made by Mitsu­ big business. bishi Heavy Industries, the electrical sys­ tem is made by Mitsubishi Electric Company, The big companies are frightened by the oil is from Mitsubishi Oil, and so on." this development and their counterstroke has up to now been to use sokaiyas, such as those Mitsubishi employed on May 28. But who are they? Sokaiyas are what you &JlM ± i3 could call professional shareholders paid by the companies to control the shareholders meeting — if possible by heckling; if ne­ cessary, by violence. They travel around to different shareholders meetings making their voices heard and their fists felt, and woe that management who hasn't secured their support.

It was such hired guards who "stormed into the hall and attacked the Minamata sufferers, smearing the green seats'of the chairs with blood," during the Chisso com- 54 pany shareholders meeting (in the words of one of Tokyo's newspapers) and it was also the sokaiyas who crushed the bones of Behei­ ren members on May 28. Joined by rightwing students and members from the private army of "Greater Japan Patriotic Party", the sokaiyas went berserk among the demonstra­ tors. It was as the Asahi Shimbun wrote in connection with the appearance of all

paid by big business for the sake of keeping their meetings in a nice atmosphere. The very diligent sokaiyas are able to visit a few hundred meetings a year and can make several hundred thousand dollars.

Now, all these one-share movements are threatening this game. It doesn't look nice to the public when an influential company such as Mitsubishi is hiring guards to knock out shareholders wanting to exercise their legal right of questioning the management. So if they want to avoid having their meet­ ings turned into battlefields they have two possibilities. One which they do not seem to have yet pondered is to listen seriously to what these movements are saying and allow the stockholders meetings to become what they are meant to be — the highest decision-making body of the company. Another those brutal guards: "The general public possibility which they now have discussed has learned about one aspect — watching much more seriously is to enforce new legis­ television, many people must have felt lation allowing only those shareholders with that a stockholders meeting is a meeting more than one thousand shares the right to of gangsters." Another paper, Mainichi, attend the meetings. wrote that the use of sokaiyas to protect This might be a sign of how threaten­ the management from unwelcome surprises ing Japanese big business feels is the had made the stockholders meetings into humble demand of the one-share movements: "mere ceremonies that are held only because the right not to be killed by bombs or the law stipulates so." And the paper con­ poison. tinued: "In the opinions of most corporate officers in charge of running the meeting, it is nonsense to leave a chance for share­ holders to point out a mistake or misjudge­ ment by the company management."

The most important and most influential sokaiyas are assisted by computers and staff comprising up to 50 aides. They collect for the sokaiya important information, an­ alyze the financial conditions of the com­ pany, obtain in some way or other secret papers, and, most important, muckrake for him, digging up scandals or secrets which if revealed to the public could hurt the management or the company. This informa­ tion is then used for blackmailing and the bigger the scandals the higher the price for the co-operation of the sokaiya.

It is very tentatively estimated that 3000 sokaiyas make an average of $9000/year by visiting a few shareholders meetings. That would make a sum of $27 million a year 55 is increased from 60 days to 90 days (2) the procedure of entrance into Japan is simplified, for instance sightseeing travel for more than ten days is possible without visa (3) the control of the foreigners in Japan is rationalize*, that is, the kind of the activities and the places is regulated, and restriction of political activities is legalized.

Lee Sun ja, a 44-year old Korean Year by year the control of anti- woman, is an owner of the small Korean government foreigners in Japan by Japanese restaurant in Fukuoka, Kyushu. She came is growing stronger and stronger. The to Japan just after the 2nd World War depth and strength of this control is shown following her husband who had come to in another article in this issue of AMPO. Japan during the war. Afterwards she was The true purpose of the government's divorced and had to live through the hard immigration policy has been blantantly times with five children for the past displayed in the following public state­ twenty years. At the end of July in 1967, ments. she received a notice for her entire family to come to the immigration office in Fukuoka. Since she was in the process of "Foreigners are not guaranteed applying for renewal of special permission fundamental human rights in the Japa­ to stay in Japan, she immediately went to nese Constitution." (Nakagawa Susumu, the immigration office. What she had to head of the immigration office, made face there was the unexpected announcement the statement at the Justice Ministry's stating, "We cannot allow permission for committee of the House of Representati­ your stay". Also included was an order ves, June 17th, 1969) for her entire family to leave Japan. On "Foreigners have no right to live in that day immigration took very strong countries other than their own. measures to detain her family. Therefore we can expel them for any reasons we choose. According to the After one night, Sun ja and her young­ principles of International Law, est daughter were allowed temporary release, whether we eat them boiled or eat but her other four children were sent to them fried is up to us." (ikegami Omura Concentration Camp in Nagasaki. The Tsutomu, a former oouncilor of immi­ reason these steps were taken was that was gration office) that previously she had received welfare benefits. In the immigration order, it is The immigration problem is not limited clearly stated that "the poor, the vagrant, simply to Japan's exclusionism and policy the physically handicapped, those types of of national isolation. The direct object people whose lives constitute a burden on of immigration policy are Asians in Japan the national or local government" shall be especially Koreans. Koreans make up 90 the objects of forced deportation. per cent of the whole foreign population (Asahi Newspaper. Nov. 17th, 1970) in Japan. Presently and from the very beginning, immigration policy has served This incident shows very clearly the the special purpose of maintaining the true meaning of the "Immigration Bill" public peace and order amongst the foreign population. For example, in the Foreigner's which the LDP is bringing in the Diet. Registration Law, it is the responsibility of foreigners to always have an alien registration card in their possession. Presently the control of foreigners in Japan, is conducted by two laws: "The Immigration Control Order" and "The Between the year 1947 and 1961, close to Foreigners* Registration Law". LDP has to 190,000 Koreans in Japan have been tried to revise the "Immigration Control arrested, had their homes searched and suffered punishment of imprisonment and Order" since around 1965 when "Japan- fine for not possessing this alien regist­ ROK Normalization Treaty" was signed. The ration card. Onethird of this number bill was introduced in 1969 during the includes women and children. Almost all 61st session of the Diet and was scrapped of the cases were situations in which the at that time. registration card had been accidently forgotten and left at home. According to the LDP, the purpose of this bill is as follows: To meet the in­ creasing tempo of travel and foreign ex­ This form of organized oppression of change in the age of the S.S.T. in this foreigners in Japan is what is called the revised law (l) the length of stay which "Immigration System" (Nyukan taisei). is allowed in Japan for short-time visitors By systematically placing the Japanese 56 people as a whole in a position "superior" employers will not accept Korean to other Asians, it aims at preparing the employees" ground, psychologically and sociologically (from the Asahi Journal. Jan. 1971. for renewed aggression in Asia. That is, vol. 22.) " it builds discrimination into the social structure, and systematically works to destroy from Japanese social life any feel­ ings of solidality and equality with other Asians. This tendency is to be greatly THE HISTORY OF KOREANS IN JAPAN strengthened in the new Immigration Bill. Japanese who were educated before the 2nd World War, held in their minds an image of Koreans as objects to be conquered. This can be viewed as the KOREANS AND THE "COLONY IN JAPAN" result of Japan's dream, extended over four centuries, of "conquering Korea." It extends from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea in the 16th century, to It is said that presently there are the idea of subjugating the Korean people, 600,000 Korean living in Japan. They speak propagated by the leaders of the modern Japanese and have been forced to assimi­ Meiji era. Thus anti-Korean feeling has late into Japanese society, but they still deep roots in Japanese history; it was receive both material and immaterial dis­ not invented by the imperialists, but crimination from the Japanese people. rather revived and used by them for They are scattered throughout the whole of Japan, but about one-fourth live in the new policies. Osaka area. The next highest concentra­ tions are in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Aichi, Kyoto In 1854, Yoshida Shoin, enlightened Hyogo, Yamaguchi, Hiroshima and Fukuoka. philosopher, insisted that "We must now They live in crowded conditions in Tokyo's have an army to conquer Korea, divide Arakawa and Adachi wards and in Osaka's Northern Manchuria, South Taiwan and the Ikunoku ward and Aichi's Nakamura ward. Luzon islands. In these prosperous times, Anyway, the Japanese call these areas we shall receive tribute, progress, and "Chosenjin buraku" (Korean Villages), an show our spirit". This idea epitomizes expression that contains a strong impli­ Japan's actions towards foreign countries cation of inferiority. and also is the origin of what is called the "Greater Asian Co-prosperity Sphere". Koreans who have lived in Japan since before World War II and second generation In 1910 Japan colonized Korea by the Koreans, that is Koreans born in Japan "Annexation of Korea" in which Japan constitute over 70$ of Korean population in stated: "Korea is annexed to the Empire for­ Japan. About 100,000 Koreans have ever". Since this annexation was done attended Japanese schools. Of this number the immigration of Koreans to Japan started approximately 5$ have received a college to increase drastically. education or over. But even graduates of college almost without exception meet racial discrimination and find the roads The people, mainly peasants, who were to employment closed. The depth of the deprived of lands and means of life by the "land reform" policy in Korea tby Japan) barrier created by discrimination i8 shown in the following typical anecdotes. became lumpen proletariat and drifted into Japan as cheap labor. "Last year in February, in a small factory in Osaka's Ikunoku ward, a Glance at national census. In 1916 part time employed woman (Japanese) Koreans living in Japan were 7,225: in said 'three of us worked half a day 1917 - 17,463: 1918 - 27,340: T?19 - and quit. It was because the 35,995: 1920 - 40,755: 1930 - 419,009 manager was a Korean,. • reached. This period is called the first Another example in Yokohama City, Pak period of the Koreans living in Japan. The situation of those immigrants forced Jon suk, a nineteen year old Korean to live in Japan can be summarized: employed last year in December, on a "Almost 90$ of Korean labors who came to trial basis at a factory. He was at Japan up to 1938 had been peasants in first told that he had been granted Korea - that is, they didn't have any employment but then at the next step of trial term he was denied employment, experience as modern industrial-workers or as because he was Korean. While the unskilled farm workers. Also couldn't employment rate for Japanese is 50$ speak and didn't have the training re­ (of the population), that for Koreans quired in modern industry. These handi­ is only 25 $, or half the rate for caps plus racism determined the basic the Japanese. The reason is not that nature of the jobs Korean workers filled. they can live at leisure without They were forced to do very simple, low - working. It is that virtually all 57 level work. Working conditions were dirty who were conscripted as soldiers the 10, uncomfortable, with extraordinarily long 000 were organized by 1943. In 1944 when working hours and low wages. They were the conscription law was issued 187,000 Koreans were included in army and 22,000 given the most dangerous jobs in construc­ in the navy. Civilian employees were used tion, coal mining, low level jobs i n for the construction of airports or for factories or carrying out human refuse from guarding prisoners in south Asia. Further­ latrines, kuzuya( trash dealers ) day labor­ f more after the war, at the Far East Inter­ er in Japan". (Katsumi Sato: "History and national Military Tribunal, 23 Koreans were Present Situation of Koreans in Japan") sentenced to death and 148 punished from Under such miserable living conditions, one year to life imprisonments as war Koreans were forced to live together either criminals. at the edge of the town or the almost uninhabitable swampy areas. Thus the image that Koreans are "dirty", "cunning" has According to a governmental document, been built in the Japanese consciousness there were two million Koreans in Japan and the structure of discrimination was re- just after the war, but is is assumed that enforced. actually there were 2.4 to 2.6 millions. After the war many Koreans returned to their own land and around 520,000 took the The massacre of Koreans in 1923 was the risk of going home by very small, 2 or 3 most extreme evidence of this discrimina­ tons boats at their own expense. The tion. In Septmeber of that year the Tokyo Koreans who stayed in Japan amount to less area was hit by the Great Earthquake and than one-third of the total. fire. A great number of people lost their houses and wandered about in the destroyed city. To get these people under control the false rumor "Koreans are planning to start a riot" was circulated intentionally OMURA CONCENTRATION CAMP and spread all over at once from Tokyo to the west or north-east area of Japan. The government's policy toward Koreans More than six thousands Korean were killed in Japan has not been changed in its by either police or ordinary Japanese. characters even after the war. The exis­ tence of Omura Concentration Camp in When Japan started to invade China in Nagasaki, Kyushu shows clearly the reality 1937, mobilization of workers from Korea of the "Immigration System". This camp increased abruptly. From 1939 "forced is reserved for Koreans only; all other labor drafting" was begun. That is, foreigners are sent to a separate camp in Japanese government decided to take Korean Yokohama. This is the camp to which workers (to fill in the shortage of workers) Lee Sun-ja's children were taken by the for important industries as coal and other immigration officers. The formal name is, mines,construction. The way by which the "Ministry of Justice's Omura Immigrants government took Koreans was .... Camp". According to the Immigration autho­ rities, this camp is "the place to detain "It was difficult to collect Koreans people who entered Japan illegaly after having in an ordinary way, pursuading them having been punished according to the la* and waiting for their application to until they are be sent back by ship". That the job. So the man of the labor is, Omura is technically not a prison for section of each village attacked punishment; nevertheless many Koreans each house in which there were men in the family suddenly at night or whose status is vague spend years there. early in the morning, or while they The capacity is 1,000 people. were working in field, bringing a truck and ordering them to get in. As for the Koreans who rushed back to Then they were organized into groups their home land after the war, the reality and sent to coal mines in Hokkaido they had to face was the division of their or Kyushu?. (Sawaichiro Kamata: country between south and north, and the "Chosen Shinwa") military domination by the U.S. Army in South Korea. It was understandable that one or two percent among more than one Almost 725,000 Koreans were taken to million people who returned Korea wanted to re-enter into Japan. Most of them had left Japan during the 2nd World War in this way. their families in Japan. The Japanese 340,000 among those were forced to do the government arrested great number of them pit work of coal mines at half the pay of for illegal entry and imprisoned them the Japanese workers and in much worse mercilessly. working conditions.

The number of the Koreans who were drafted to work or conscripted by the Japanese government during the war reached In May, 1946, S.C.A.P. issued the "Memo concerning repatriation" which pro­ almost six million in all. Among those hibited people who had returned once to 58 their own contry from coming back to Japan. "Omura Concentration Camp" was built. It In June S.C.A.P. ordered The Japanese Govern­ is surrounded by a 5 meter high wall, with ment to issue the "Memo concerning suppres­ a watchtower on each corner. People inside sion of illegal entry into Japan", which are not allowed to meet visitors or to re­ ruled that people who entered Japan ille­ ceive mail freely without the permission gally must be arrested and sent back. of the head of the camp. There is the regu­ This order is the beginning of the present lation that they must not make any appeal or "Immigration Order". Based of this memo unreasonable demand to the Immigration the Japanese government began the arrest Office. The actural state of the camp is detention and surveillance of Koreans. worse than a jail. Thus the three ways to oppress Koreans — "Foreigners Registration Law", "Immigration Order", "OmurS Concent­ ration Camp" — have been established and In 1947 the "Foreigner's Registration now the government intends to strengthen Law" was issued. Among 635,042 foreigners them. in Japan at that time, 591,410 were Koreans. That means this law was primarily directed Since December of 1950, almost 25,000 to the control of Koreans. Those who don't Koreans have been detained in Omura Camp. have registration cards were arrested. Among these 20,000 were sent back. The This is exactly the same method as was used destination is of oourse South Korea which during the war. In those days The Japanese is ruled by Pak's puppet military dictator­ government made Koreans carry a"Harmony ship. Many of them entered into Japan "il­ Association Notebook" and Koreans called legally", but some of them are Koreans who this note "Keipyo" (dog license). They sought political asylum in Japan as parti­ call the post-war registration card by the cipants in the anti-government movement, same name. or as deserters from the Vietnam War.

In June, 1950, when the Korean war was (to be continued) started, the number of refugees from South Korea increased suddenly. The Japanese government gave them no help;on the con­ trary it strengthened the regulation of immigration. It was in this year that concerned theatre japan Concerned Theatre Japan is not a political journal, but it is the most significant source of information in English on the sociocuIturaI foundations of radical politics in Japan.

Past issues have explored the dynamics of the struggle of the people of Okinawa against Japanese-American imperialism, the plight of black Marines stationed in Japan, and the parameters and potentials of "the movement," as well as the place of theatre and art in the overall struggle for authentic liberation.

The current double-issue of Concerned Theatre Japan treats the cartoon medium and its place in the battle against repression and includes more than one hundred pages of cartoons. Forthcoming issues will treat Japanese rascism, masculine-feminine liberation, and discrimination against the mentally and physically handicapped.

Concerned Theatre Japan will make a special offer to readers of Ampo. Clip out this ad and send it to us. We will send you volume one of Concerned Theatre Japan complete (nearly 700 pages) for only US$6.50, or volume two, including the special double issue on cartoon communica­ tions, for only US$8.00. (Check must accompany order.) Write to Concerned Theatre Japan, Nishi-Azabu 3-1-14, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan 106. 59 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On April 26,1971, three University of California students were forcibly deported from Japan for their political activities. immigration This event is only the latest success of the government's notorious Immigration De­ partment. Elsewhere in this issue there is an article which analyzes the Immigra­ tion system in its political and histori­ cal perspective. In order that the reader in action can understand better the Kafkaesque system of oppression which the Immigration Depart­ ment represents to the foreign resident here, we list here a few of the more well- known incidents, beginning with the UC students' case. The reader should keep Univ. ef California Students (1969-1971) in mind several things. First, all these incidents took place under the Immigration In August 1969, twenty-two University Control Order, which Immigration feels is of California students came to Tokyo's too lax, and which the Sato government is International Christian University under trying to replace with a far more repres­ U.C.'a Education Abroad Program= They sive Immigration Control Law. Second, found the university closed down by & stu­ this list represents only a small sample: dent strike. The university administra­ it is estimated that the Immigration De­ tion called in the riot police to drive partment manages te deport some 2000 peo­ the students eut of the buildings they were ple each year, mostly Koreans and Chinese. occupying, put the campus under police Of course not all are deported for politi­ guard, and announced the reopening ef class­ cal activity; some are deported for being es. The strike was still in progress, but poor, others for the crimes associated with EAP director, Haas Baerwald, ordered the U.C. poverty, still others for trying to pro­ students to scab by registering. Six re­ test and organize against the conditions fused and were immediately expelled from SAP, that keep the Chinese and Korean communi­ expelled frem U.C, and expelled from ICU. ties oppressed and poor. While net all This amounted te special treatment, since the deportations and ether forms of eppre- no Japanese students were expelled frem ICU sion carried out by the Immigration De­ at that time for failing te register. ICU partment are for political activity, it obligingly sent a letter te the Immigration is all political oppression. Department telling them that the six no long­ er had student status, and could therefore be deported at any time. The reader should also recognize that most of these incidents involve all the le­ Three ef the students chose to leave; gal complexities characteristic of struggles three others-Kathy Horikoshi, Phyllis Ogata, that have been entangled in courts and bu­ and Sandy Sher-chose to stay and fight it reaucracies. Here we will try to give only eut te the end. Not only did they put up the briefest account of the essence of each a court fight, but they joined with radical incident. students and young workers and made their case the center of an important movement against the immigration system as a whole, and the political conditions which lie be­ hind it. The court finally decided against them, but even then they refused to leave voluntarily, stubbornly sticking it out and continuing their movement until actually physically forced to leave. Finally on April 19 they were arrested and :imprisoned by immigration authorities, and on April 26 O put on a plane and deported. And in this last act the immigration officials outdid themselves in displaying their pettiness: the plane only took them as far as Guam, and they were forced to pay their own way after that.

(it should be mentioned that part °f the information that follows is taken from a pamphlet en the Immigration System pro­ duced by these three students while they were here.) 60 Chen Yu Hsi (1968) Liu Wen-Ching (1968)

Chen Yu Hsi was an exchange student Liu Wen-Ching came to Japan from Taiwan in from Taiwan at the East-West Center in 1962 and entered Tokyo University of Educa­ Hawaii. While there he participated in tion, frem which he took an M.A. in 1967. some demonstrations against the war in In the meantime he had joined the Taiwan Vietnam, and read seme writings frem the Independence Association. In 1965 his Mainland. After he received his M.A. he passport expired, and he refused to set didn't want to go back to Taiwan, se he feet in the Taiwanese embassy to have it came to Japan and entered Hosei University. renewed. In the legal complications that Immediately he became embroiled in compli­ followed, he was able to stay on under the cations with Immigration. On January 23, tenuous condition of "provisional release" 1968 he deposited ¥100,000 ($277) in a bank (a kind of bail status). as guarantee money demanded by the Immigra­ tion officials. Shortly thereafter he re­ ceived an order to appear at the Immigra­ Late in the afternoon ef March 26,1968 tion effices on February 8, with which he Liu went te the Tokyo Immigration office unsuspectingly complied. When he get to apply for an extension of his provision­ there he was presented with a deportation al release. He was presented with a de­ order, seized, handcuffed, and dragged portation order, and seized. The law pro­ struggling off te prison. He wos allowed vides for an appeal to the Minister of no phone calls, no opportunities to see his Justice, which usually takes months; in lawyer or any ef his friends, no time te this case it was written, delivered, re­ collect his belongings. Early the next jected, and returned, all within a couple morning he was turned over to Taiwan police of hours. His friends found out about who were waiting on a Cathay Airlines plane the situation around 6:00 PM and learned which immediate^ took off for Taiwan. In that he was to be deported at 9:30 the Taiwan he was tried by a military court and next morning. They contacted a lawyer sentenced te death. Strong protests both who worked all night on an appeal and in Hawaii and Japan caused the government presented it in court when it opened at to reduce his punishment to seven years 8 AM, demanding a stay ef execution. In imprisonment, which he is new serving. the meantime, however, the Immigration officials _ who knew that an appeal was being made - hustled Liu off to the airport. At the airport some ef his friends tried to Li Chih-ch'eng (1969) rush through the guards and free him as he was taken te the plane. One broke through On April 20, 1969 Li Chih-ch'eng, a the police line and grabbed and shook him, Chinese student at Nara Prefectural Medi­ but Liu did not seem te recognize his cal School, committed suicide by taking friend. Evidently he had been drugged. peisen. He left a note attacking the new As police carried him up the ramp of the Immigration Control Bill and the Foreign Cathay Airlines plane, he began te bleed Students' Bill which had been proposed by frem the mouth: he had bitten through his the Sato government. tongue.

OKINAWAN REVERSIOjl*******What does it mean for EDUCATION .J If that's what you're the future of imperialism in Asia? The special ler the Okinawa Special Issue issue of AMPO on Okinawa (no.7-8) analyses the in bulk: role Okinawa is expected to play in U.S. - Japan 1-9 copies $1.00. ea. pacification of Asian revolutionary peoples in 10 - 99 copies.... $ .50. ea. the '70s. The issue contains a section on the 100-500 copies $ .35 ea history of the island and a description of the (We'll send them sea mail.) Make checks payable to: present social and economic situation of the Ampo,Account no. 0061656 Okinawan people and their evolving forms of Kagurazaka Branch Mitsubishi Bank struggle. This issue is ideal for political

fil The Voyage of the Phoenix (1969) Vietnamese Students (1969) On June 10,1969 the peace yacht,Phoenix, of Dr. Earle Reynolds set off on a good­ will voyage to China. The captain and On June 9,1969 twenty-five Vietnamese crew were net able to enter China, and students staged a demonstration inside the returned to Japan on June 28. Those on South' Vietnamese embassy in Tokyo. Almost board with tourist visas, who planned to immediately three of them received draft return to the U.S. immediately, were allow­ notices from Saigon. When they refused te ed back in; the three who had been living return they were tried in absentia and given in Japan and who had planned to continue six-year sentences on Dec.30,1969. In doing se : Reynolds, Roger Scott, and Brian April, 1970 the passports ef seventeen of Victoria - were denied re-entry. Finally them expired, but a movement was organized they were given 90-day visas and told to which succeeded in forcing the government to make preparations to leave. All three let them stay on. It should be recognized went to court. Scott, who had a multiple that Japan has no legal provision for-gran­ entry visa, went to Okinawa and returned, ting political asylum. Thus the Vietnamese and was refused permission to enter. An students and ethers in their position can Immigration official then hinted that he only place their hopes en the power of a might try getting off the boat anyway; he movement to force the government to grant did and was arrested and imprisoned for some sort of tenuous and temporary "exception" two months. Finally he was forced out of Japan on Dec.10,1969.

Reynolds, a Quaker activist who has long made Hiroshima his heme, kept up a court fight until finally he ran out of appeals. Then he refitted the Phoenix, laid in sup­ plies, and with his wife and several friends Indonesian Students (1966) set sail for San Francisco an June 7,1970. The day before he left an Immigration offi­ cial came down to his ship and told him that During the bloody aftermath of the the Justice Minister had just granted him a Sept.30 incident in Indonesia, the Indone­ brief extension, so that it could not be sian embassy called in all Indonesian stu­ said that he was being forced out. dents for investigation. It was decided that three should be ordered back home, and Victoria, a Buddhist priest and a gra­ the Japanese government cooperated in their duate student at Kemazawa University, had deportation which took place on July 29,1966. had trouble with Immigration before he To the concerned inquiries of their univer­ went on the China voyage. Because ef his sities, the Indonesian embassy replied that extremely active participation ift the anti­ they would ail be back in September. They war movement here, Immigration had cut his never returned, and it is not known what visa from six months to three and had told happened to them. him quite openly that if he didn't stop it he would be thrown eut. Since coming back from the trip he has been jailed twice by Immigration, thrown into solitary confinement (for organizing a demonstration with Scott and some ethers in the detention center), and both times released by the courts. He is now free pending the final decision of Lu Chuan Hsin (1966-7) his various appeals, and remains one of the most active of the American activists here. Lu Chuan Hsin, after a long history of anti-Chiang Kai-shek activities on Taiwan, came to Japan in I960 on a 90-day visa.with • ae .0( the intention of trying to stay. When Immi­ gration refused him an extension , he threw away his passport and tried te hide out. Through various devices he managed te stay IJLUm U?/ free until Feb. 1966, when he was placed in detention by Immigration. He pleaded with the authorities not to deport him to Taiwan but to Hong Kong, Macao, or Mainland -TWTW Dot/ China. On March 2, 1967 he received notice that he was to be deported the next day, to Taiwan. On March 3, before they came to take bin away, Lu Chuan Hsin hanged hinself in the Yokohama Detention Center. 62 refused te pay, eventually amounted to over $1000. Finally the government and the hotel hit upon a plan: the hotel an­ LiuTsai Pin nounced that she was to be evicted, and Immigration refused te find her any ether place te stay, making clear that she would be arrested for illegal entry if she left Liu Tsai Pin came to Japan frem the hotel, and arrested for trespassing Taiwan in 1956, took a PhD. at Tokyo Uni­ if she stayed. Rather than letting her­ versity in astronomy, and has been engaged self be forced into committing a crime for in research since then. She is married to which she could thenbe imprisoned, she a Japanese citizen and has two children. left on Feb. 5,1971 for Okinawa where she is continuing her work in GI organizing. In 1967 two Taiwanese returned home for a vacation and were arrested and sen­ tenced to death for their association with members of the Taiwanese Independence Asso­ ciation in Japan. In the same year two other Taiwanese who had been involved in the Association were deported after over­ staying their visas. Liu realized that Ren McLean even though she was in Japan, se long as she was under the jurisdiction of Taiwan she was in danger. From that day on she Ron McLean is a former Peace Corps refused te go te the Taiwanese embassy to volunteer who is in Japan teaching English have her passport renewed. She insists and studying Japanese music. He has also en being recognized as a citizen of the been active in the anti-war movement in People's Republic of China, and has refused Tokyo. In the spring ef 1970 he applied te apply for Japanese citizenship or to ac­ for a renewal ef his one-year commercial cept a status of "no nationality". Of visa. Finally after hemming and hawing course the Japanese government does net re­ for months, Immigration gave him a four- cognize the People's Republic and has re­ month visa with the status, "preparing te fused te recognize Liu as a Chinese citi­ leave Japan." The trick was that the time zen. As a result she has been kept in a was retroactive: Immigration had already dubious status, in constant danger of de­ used up over three ef the four months, and portation to Taiwan. Probably the only was in reality only giving him a few weeks thing that has prevented her deportation to pack up and get out. No reason was so far is the large support movement that given by Immigration for refusing Ren's has grown up around her case. normal extension until they were taken te court, at which time they said that it was because he had "changed jobs". The court ruled in Ron's favor, saying that this was not a good reason. Immigration immediately appealed (under Japanese law the government can appeal not-guilty findings!). In the appeal court Immigration shifted its ground and decided to risk the truth, saying that Barbara Bye (1970-71) the real reason for net renewing Ren's visa was his political activities. They produced a long list ef the things he had Barbara Bye came te Japan frem the U.S. done over a period of several years, which in the summer of 1970 on a multiple entry proved nothing except fer their anal me- tourist visa. She proceeded to Iwakuni and ticulousness. not one ef the items on the began working with the extremely active list violated the law: on such and such a movement of anti-war GIs which exists at day, McLean attended a rally and listened the Marine Corps Air Facility there. In to speeches, or marched in a demonstration, October she attempted to renew her visa by or went to a meeting. They even included traveling te Okinawa and returning under on the list the fact that he had signed the multiple entry clause. On her return (along with a number of others) a letter from Okinawa, Immigration officials stopped te the editor of an English language newspa­ her at Haneda Airport and refused her entry. per protesting the imprisonment of Brian She appealed the decision, and Immigration, Victoria! The case is still pending; it instead of letting her in under provisional is expected that it will be decided at the release or placing her in the Detention end of this summer. Center, put her in an expensive room in the Haneda Terminal Hotel under the triple guard of Immigration Police, hotel offi­ cials and Japan Airline hostesses. The case dragged on for over three months, and all the time Barbara was never let out of the airport. The bill, which she 63 •n om [IcyjM

With much fanfare the U.S. and Repub­ ter" troop transports of the Military Air lic of Korea forces conducted an air trans­ Command (MAC) which had flown the paratroop­ port exercise, "Operation Freedom Vault", ers from Ft.Bragg took off from Kadena Air from the 3rd to the 6th of March this year. Base. These Strike Command Forces, the It was the first grand operation of the "stars" of the show, reached Osan before sort since "Operation Focus Retina" two 10 AM. Their airdrop was followed by years before and, like that exercise, cost that of 250 Korean Special Forces para­ the U.S. taxpayer at least two and a half troopers with a Counter-insurgency Opera­ million dollars (announced figure for costs tions Command. U.S. and South Korean directly related to the operation ). Ope­ Air Force planes (F-4 Phantom jets, F-5A ration Freedom Vault was billed as a de­ fighter-bombers or "Freedom Fighters") monstration of the U.S. ability to speedily simulated attacks with the use of napalm airlift strike command troops on the Asian bombs, air-to-ground missiles and sweep­ mainland; it showed that Nixon's "low pro­ ing machine gun fire in tactical air sup­ file" defense policy by no means implies a port demonstrations. CH-47 "Chinook" heli­ relinquishingof U.S. committment to come to copters brought in troops of the South the aid of its Asian allies. Freedom Korean Army's 11th Division while Korean Vault was, moreover, a timely statement, marines were transported by C-49s. coming as it did in the course of the 20,000 Korean troops took over positions of the troop pull-out from the Republic of Korea first Strike Command troops. MP's from and right in the middle of the rabidly the 8th Army's Korea Support Command anti-communist re-election campaign of (KORSCOM) had carried out security tasks President Park Chung Hee. It is impor­ including the evacuation from the drop tant, however, to examine the circumstan­ zone of approximately 1000 villagers. ces in which the three-day wonder was car­ These and other Freedom Vault support ried out. Piecing together elements in tasks - supply, communications, recovery, the exercise which were either played down billeting,etc. - were handled by sections or concealed in official releases, a pic­ of the specially constituted Division ture emerges, not only of the aggressive Support Command (DISCOM). SO much for warfare in Asia the U.S. continues to plan, the "highlights" of this three-day "joint but also of the vital role which Japan- U.S. and Republic of Korea exercise". Okinawa play in these schemes in the age of Operation Freedom Vault was, in fact, the Nixon Doctrine. part of an 18-day plan for all-out war predicated on the integral involvement of Japan-Okinawa in the "joint exercise".

According to inside sources, Opera­ During Operation Freedom Vault the tion Freedom Vault did not begin on March attention of the public was drawn to the 3rd (or, as it turned out, March 4th) but exercises conducted from the 4th to the on February 15th. That is, the U.S. 6th of March in the vicinity of Osan Air Strike Command arrived in Korea eighteen Base, Korea. (The exercises we?e to have days after the beginning of the operation. begun on the 3rd and involve 700 paratroop­ D-18 (D minus 18) designated the first day ers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division of the operation; on D-2,D-0,D+l,D+2 those based 13,600 miles away at Ft.Bragg, North events took place which were so widely pub­ Carolina as well as contingents of the 8th licized: on D-2 the U.S. Strike Command U.S. Army, Osan Air Base and troops of the left Fort Bragg; on D-0 the Strike Command South Korean army and airforce. The exer­ dropped at Osan; on D+l the airdrop of cise was postponed 24 hours due to incle­ Korean marines and paratroopers took place; ment weather; the 82nd Airborne troops wait­ D+2 marked the end of the operation. What ed out the delay at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa*) kind of exercises were held between D-18 At 7:18 AM on March 4th the C-141 "Starlif- and D-2? r 64 The hypothetical situation to which participation of Special Forces and Psy­ Operation Freedom Vault was a response had chological units is vital in the kind of two main components: it supposed that troops warfare envisaged by the Freedom Vault of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea operation. (About the time of Operation crossed the 38th parallel, invading the Freedom Vault a young sergeant assigned South, and it posited an uprising in the to the Seventh Psychological Operation South against the government of the Repub­ Group refused to carry out his assign­ lic of Korea. ment: preparation of a leaflet to be dropped over North Korea in the wake of D-18 designating the day of the North's the use there of weapons of mass destruc­ invasion of the South,the situation would tion. See the article in this issue on be likely to develop in one of two ways, the GI movement for details.) necessitating the launching of a Freedom Vault on D-2. In both cases the entrance Activities at Kadena Air Base since of troops from the U.S. in the fighting the beginning of the year belie the mili­ would be at the request of the South Korean tary's denial that forces in Okinawa par­ government. In the case of the first hy­ ticipated in Operation Freedom Vault. pothetical development, the North Korean Since December repair facilities and bar­ forces are supposed to have succeeded in racks have been increased and the number overrunning the South, leaving the troops of guards has doubled. Whereas C-5A of the South Korean army in control of on­ Galaxy transports used to visit Kadena on ly a portion of the runways at Osan Air a once-a-month basis, in February they be­ Base. On D-2, then, the U.S. decides to gan arriving twice a day; arrivals of C- enter the war. The fighting to retake the 141s also increased in frequency, (During base would lead to a situation necessita­ this same period C-5As also began landing: ting invasion of the North and, then, of daily at Yokota base in Japan.) A For­ China. The U.S. would be forced to make ward Command Post was actually set up at use of its chemical, biological and/or Kadena for Operation Freedom Vault, and radioactive (nuclear) weaponry (CBR/N). two days before the start of the operation In the alternative development, the situ­ Okinawan bases were put on "Condition ation sixteen days from the start of the Green" (a state of emergency). Quantities invasion from the north would find the of ammunition were shipped hastily out of South Korean troops in control of most of Okinawa. After February 15th the number the country, having successfully put down of guards increased five times. A large the popular riots and largely overcome the number of winter jackets were issued to troops from the North who by D-2 control the Third Marines in Okinawa and they only Osan Air Base. At that point the were given a stand-by order for Korea. U.S. forces would join the war and, after Usually these troops wear warm weather ca­ securing Osan, would invade North Korea and mouflage jackets; the supposition is that China. Essentially, both developments they were sent to await a landing off the would be considered "Second Korean War" si­ coast of Korea. tuations and would invite the U.S. to en­ gage in a CBR/N war against China. Okinawans are deeply disturbed by the role their island plays in the military If the official version of the story schemes of the U.S. and Japan. On March of Operation Freedom Vault was misleading 5th the Okinawa Times editorialized on the as to its scope, it was also falsely bil­ "U.S.-South Korea Manuevers and Us":... led as a joint venture of the U.S. and "These manuevers have been conducted not Korean forces. In fact it took place only by the U.S. and South Korea, but have with the active involvement of troops on involved the U.S. bases in Okinawa as well. Okinawa, the use of the Yokota Base faci­ The role of the Okinawa bases has been an lities in Japan and with the vital coopera­ important one; in fact, without the bases tion of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. in Okinawa the manuevers could not have Given the projected CBR/N war in the back­ been carried out. Obviously the giant ground, Operation Freedom Vault could hard­ transports play the main role in the ly have dispensed with the aid of those trans-oceanic movement...U.S. strategy is units whose involvement the military was based on the strengthening of bases in so anxious to conceal. Okinawa, the Republic of Korea, Japan and the Republic of China. Of these Okinawa is the most vital, and its role will be­ The U.S. military was particularly come even more important as U.S. forces sensitive about the involvement of units withdraw from many areas of Asia. In the on Okinawa. Whereas in 1969 the partici­ U.S.-Japan Joint Communique (Nov.1969) pation of the First Special Forces unit Sato says that the security of the Korean and the Seventh Psychological unit in Ope­ peninsula is essential to the security of ration Focus Retina was not secret, this Japan. If war breaks out again in Korea, time the authorities vehemently denied Okinawan bases will be used to fight it." their involvement. (A reporter covering the manuevers at Osan spotted a member of the First Special Forces unit in the area; when he tried to photograph the soldier, the man hid.) Obviously the 65 The editorial expresses the real an­ highway linking Pusan and Seoul could xiety of the.Okinawan people over the un­ be used as airstrips in the event of war. limited use of Okinawan bases in the ope­ Japan, now that it has F4EJ aircraft, ration of the Japan-U.S.-Korea-Republic of will be able to use these facilities China military system. Reversion will should it be necessary to "defend" bring no relief in the basic situation of Korea in another U.N. policing opera­ Okinawa: Japanese militarism serves Nixon's tion. Asian policy of crushing national libera­ tion movements, promoting the Sato regime's Japanese Self-Defense Force troops imperialistic designs and strengthening the have, moreover, conducted transportation policy of containment of the Democratic exercises to prepare for a movement by land People's Republic of China. and sea to Korea. Last year troops moved from Tokyo to Shimonoseki (in Kyushu) via During Operation Freedom Vault not the Tomei and Meishin highways. In the only were U.S. forces in Okinawa and Korea event of war they would have crossed to placed under a war command structure, but Pusan using the Kan-Pu ferry and then ta­ at the same time the Japanese Self-Defense ken the direct highway to Seoul from Pusan. Force was placed on alert. Of course the C-141 transports depended on information supplied by the Self-Defense Force commu­ At present military exchangee between nications bases for navigation across the Japan and Korea are an everyday occurence. Japan Sea. The flight plan must have beem Officers of the Self-Defense Force are fre­ worked out in cooperation with the Japanese quently sent to Korea for training. There military. The 5th Air Force and the Air are two Self-Defense Force military Self-Defense Force in fact operated the attaches permanently stationed in Korea. Command Operations Center (COC) in common. It is clear that the exercises carried U.S. strategy for Asia, involving out by the Self-Defense Force, were they close cooperation between the forces in carried out in war, would bring the Japan and the Korean military and depen­ troops to Korea. Furthermore,the coordi­ ding on the free use of Okinawan bases, nation of manuevers with the U.S. mili­ was illustrated by the U.S.-Korea joint tary which occured during operation operation, "Golden Dragon", conducted Freedom Vault was a single example of from the end of March to the beginning the thorough interlocking which must exist of June, 1970. This exercise was held between the U.S. and Japanese forces. on the seas between Okinawa, Taiwan, and Freedom Vault also illustrated the abso­ the Philippines and involved the parti­ lutely vital role which Okinawa will con­ cipation of Marines from the Ninth Divi­ tinue to play in the "defense" of sion, the 36th Air Wing and the 165th America's allies in Asia. As one U.S. Marine Helicopter Wing . The 211th military spokesman said at the time, Attack Squadron, the 232nd Attack Squa­ Okinawa - which has been known as dron, the 535th All-weather Attack Squa­ "the keystone of the Pacific" - might dron came from Japan as did the entire be better called a "stepping stone". First Marine Air Wing stationed at Iwa- The vaulting armies in the age of the kuni. The Republic of Korea's First Nixon Doctrine will not seem so light- Division also participated. During footed to the Asian peoples on whom the exercise four-day landing manuevers they land. were held on the Korean peninsula after movement through the Formosan straits.

Moreover, it was no accident that at precisely the time Freedom Vault was con­ ducted five frigates of the Maritime Self- Defense Force were carrying out joint ma­ nuevers with the U.S. Navy's nuclear sub­ marine, "Snook". The Maritime Self- De­ fense Force is expanding rapidly, and un­ der the fourth defense plan which begins next year Japan will acquire its own nu­ clear submarine.-

In more ways than one the road is being smoothed for future rapid deploy­ ment of Japanese as well as U.S. troops on the Korean peninsula. The U.S. is presently building ten landing strips which will play an important part in its plans for the future. There are already one hundred emergency runways in Korea, forty of them three kilo­ meters long; parts of the little-used ^__tjgte ^^rtEiSL^_ 66 n&x 4o?u

Takahashi Taketomi is co-ordinating Japanese movement support for the growing GI movement. He is interviewed here on the current state of the movement by Koda Kyoko, an Ampo member who has been instrumental in building ties between the GI movement in Okinawa and the Okinawan resistance movement.

KO"da-san The GI movement has great political What has been the general evolution of significance, for America and Japan. It the GI movement in Japan? is working directly to destroy the American military. At the same time, GIs who are radicalized in the military struggle be­ Takahashi-san come strong potential to contribute to the American peace and liberation movements when they leave the military. These con­ The GI movement in Japan started by help­ ing deserters. It developed into suppor­ cerns are central to the development of the ting resistance in the military and is now revolutionary movement in the United States. actively aiding the destruction of the American Military. According to these The GI movement has great importance changes the function and the name of the to the Japanese peoplo - for the movement support group have also changed. JATEC working for a Japanese revolution and in started its activity in the autumm of 1967 regard to Japanese responsibility to the under the full name of Japan Technical Com­ Asian people. Japan is an important base mittee to Aid Anti-war American Deserters. for the American government to use in its The main direction of our activity began invasion of Asia. Since the Nixon-Sato to alter in the autumn of 1969; by spring Joint Communique in the fall of 1969, Japan 1970 decisive changes were evident. The has played an increasingly important role initial expression of our anti-war con­ in acting as a military police force in sciousness, manifested by protecting and Asia in coordination with the American mili­ hiding deserters and arranging for their tary. The GI movement becomes particularly escape from Japan, developed into more ac­ meaningful as the Jietai (Self-Defense Force) tive and aggressive involvement. We began expands its numbers and strength. The know­ to organize GIs in the military in order ledge gained from working in the GI movement to destroy from the inside the military can be transferred to a struggle against the that is invading Vietnam. Of course in Japanese military. emergencies Japanese anti-war citizens of JATEC do help deserters, but most of the An important sidelight is the oppor­ activists who belong to JATEC are directly tunity the GI movement has given us to work engaged in organizing GIs in American bas­ with American activists following and fight­ es all over Japan. In correspondence ing American imperialism all over the world. with this change of focus, the name of We often talked in tho past about interna­ JATEC was changed to Japan Technical Com­ tionalism in the peace movement and now we mittee to Aid Anti-war GIs. In January are particularly glad to be able to actually Of 1971 JATEC Center was established in work with foreigners in an international Tokyo as a center for coordinating the GI peace movement. movement throughout Japan, and good rela­ tions were established with American acti­ vists working in the GI movement through Pacific Counselling Service.

It is quite obvious that the core of the GI movement is the GIs themselves. The role of the civilian activist is to deter­ mine how to concretely support GIs who rise to resist the brass and end the war. The factor that differentiates the GI movement in Japan from that of Europe is that local activists play a significant role in the K5da-san movement. Japan is also unique in that there are close working relationships be­ tween the citizens of Japan and American What i,s the present situation at the activists. individual bases in Japan? 67 On July 4th, a riot in the Iwakuni Misawa Base brig brought the GI movement in focus and sparked many important developments. It showed the strong support of Japanese Takahashi-san citizens, uncovered atrocities of the military in international press coverage, showed the American movement for the first First, at Misawa in northern Japan. In time the importance of the Asian anti-war the summer of 1969 GIs independently pub­ movement, and provided the impetus for the lished an anti-military newspaper, Hair, Japanese and American anti-war movements inside the base. The next signs of dis­ to unite to make a strong defense in court. content appeared on October 21st, Moratorium For the first time a Japanese lawyer, Ono Day, GIs gathered around a pole in a vigil Noboyuki, participated in an American to stop the war. They were predictably court martial. An anti-war lawyer and a dispersed by MPs and the organizers were legal counsellor, Mark Amsterdam and Carol shipped back to the U.S. Japanese acti­ Dudek, came to Japan to participate in the vists learned of this through the Bond, trial. (American Servicemen's Union newspaper) and consequently went to destribute leaf­ lets in order to make contacts; but no re­ action was elicited. As a result of the brig riot thirteen men were accused as provocateurs,. Eight of them were sent to the Yokosuka Naval In the summer of '70 Japanese activists, Base brig by plane, in which - as was un­ as an act of consciousness, opened an anti­ covered in court - they were kept naked and war coffeehouse in Misawa despite serious chained to each other. The epoch-making financial difficulties. The activists live trial was of one of the accused provoca­ in the coffeehouse and have continued con­ teurs, Norm Ewing. At the April love-in tact with GIs; it serves as a good medium Norm had first manifested his will to de­ through which much politicization and con­ sert. He was helped by JATEC and for three sciousness-raising is done. The Air Force months lived with a Japanese family. At his in gereral is the most difficult branch of trial the housewife of that family, Mrs. the service in which to do organizing since Kamiya, testified that he was a tender airmen typically come from middle-class, in­ American who studied very much and became telligentsia backgrounds. After several an excellent anti-war activist. After months of hard activity previously uncommit­ three months with the Kamiyas, Norm made up ted GIs published the second issue of Hair. his mind to return to the military and or­ Although the military announced and "offi­ ganize from within. He was sent to the cially" completed the transfer of its 475 brig and later convicted of helping to in­ Tactical Fighter Wing(consisting of 54 Phan­ cite the Independence Day riot. Professor tom F-4Ds) from Misawa to Korea, it is still Shunsuke Tsurumi, a philosopher, testified an important base for GI organising. Misa­ at the trial that Norm's reaction was natu­ wa 's communication base, one of the few of ral for a sensitive American student, just its kind in the world, is too big to be ne­ as it was natural (and legal, according to glected. the Japanese Constitution) for Japanese stu­ dents with a peace consciousness to support him.

Norm Ewing was sentenced to six months Iwakuni Marine Base in the brig, a significant reduction from the two years he had expected. The prose­ cution dropped charges against another GI, Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station has and sentences were reduced for others. The perhaps the strongest anti-military move­ Iwakuni court struggle can be seen as a suc­ ment of any base in the world. Early signs cessful intervention in the usually corrupt of unrest were seen in January '70 when and un-noticed military judicial process. Semper Fi was first published. In Febru­ ary there was s mass meeting with the brass to discuss the discontent, especially racial discrimination in the military. When spring came there was a love-in with anti­ war GIs and Japanese and a demonstration of The movement at Iwakuni is still Japanese expressing their will to unite active and strong. It is facilitated with anti-war GIs. This was a significant by the International Counter-Military 9e demonstration for the GI movement. Japanese Collective, where Japanese and American signs had previously read, "Yankee go home"; activists are living and working toge­ now the slogan became,"GIs join us". ther to help liberate GIs,. 68 Shortly before his court martial on Okinawa AWOL charges he went on a popular talk- . show to accuse the military of practicing As for Okinawa - because it is such a genocide. On April 10th he called a press stronghold of the American military, a move­ conference to clarify his pacifist stand and to expose the activities of the Psy­ ment to help deserters was never strong. In n the summer of 1970 American activists star­ chological forces Tka «*t day he for­ ted to live in Koza. The summer saw the mally brought charges against three officers publication of Demand for Freedom, an anti- for preparing and carrying out criminal military paper written by a Black GI group anti-human work. He said, further, that in Kadena Air Base. It also produced it was obvious that the Psychological for­ group meetings of Blacks and Okinawans. ces are working for all-out nuclear war. For the first time GIs and Okinawans, usual­ The Psychological Forces turns out millions ly separated by racism and mutual exploita­ of propaganda leaflets every year which it tion fostered by the military, began to un­ drops over Asian socialist countries, some­ derstand each other's position and struggle. times concealed in soap or toys from Japan. This new understanding was evidenced in the And these activites are not only confined Koza riot in December, when Okinawans to socialist countries; recently Indonesia attacked White GIs but not Blacks. After has been a target for psychological ope­ the riot blacks made a declaration of sup­ rations. The press conference was widely port for* the. Okinawan people, and the Oki­ reported in the Japanese mass media, and nawans published a leaflet to GIs saying the Japanese people, especially Okinawans that oppressed GIs are not the enemies of were shocked. the Okinawan people - the enemy is the American military.

Since December the GI movement and the awareness of anti-war GIs and Okinawans MILITARY of their common oppression has accelerated. Three new anti-military papers have appear­ ed and Demand for Freedom is continuing. On days of Zengunro (base workers'union) Poplin's April 14th court-martial re­ strikes opposing the dismissal of 3000 wor­ sulted in a relatively light sentence: re­ kers, GIs wore red arm bands and put up pos­ striction to base for two months and reduc­ ters inside the base to support the strikers. tion in rank from E-6 to E-l. One GI spoke at a strikers rally, and ano­ ther refused security duty. The increa­ On April 20th he was charged with singly joint struggle of the Okinawans and five counts of disobedience, four counts of GIs intensified in May when there was an failure to repair and one count of disre­ island-wide strike to protest the Reversion spect. He was put under pre-trial confine­ Treaty to Japan that is being negotiated. ment to await his general court-martial. A truly international struggle is emerging. The brass, meanwhile, tried to make a deal; Lt.Col. Underhill told Poplin he'd get a general discharge if he dismissed his ci­ vilian lawyers, Mark Amsterdam and Carol One GI dealt a strong blow against the Dudek. Poplin, however, went on a hunger- reversion negotiations now in progress. strike from May 4th in the Joint Services ( In the negotiations the wishes of the Stockade to protest the violation of his Okinawan people are being ignoredj after re­ constitutional rights. During that time version in 1972 the U.S. will still retain the brass harrassed him by making him go its important bases, including those with to chow and sit through the whole mealun- nuclear weapons, and the Japanese will send til everyone finished. In the middle of Jietai to protect the American bases. Be­ the night of May 15th he was slashed from sides the future of the Special Forces units, his right shoulder to his chest while he the Voice of America, and Training School, slept in the stockade; another inmate was a vital issue of the negotiations is the also attacked. The guard, whose presence continued presence of the 7th Psychological is legally required, was mysteriously not Unit.) David Poplin, a member of the Psy­ on duty. The knifer's identity is still chological Forces was ordered in the summer not known. After receiving 23 stitches of 1970 to write a leaflet to be dropped Poplin pleaded not to be taken back to the over North Korea explaining the necessity stockade where he was not safe, but he was of using"weapons of mass destruction" (nu­ ordered to return immediately. He asked clear weapons are implied) on that country. to be segregated; a psychiatrist drugged He refused the orders because of his paci­ him heavily and sent him back to the stock­ fist beliefs. Consequently he suffered ade. extreme harrassment by the brass and life (Ed. On June 17, after pleading guilty to a in the military became unbearable. He P~ the above charges, Poplin was sentenced to plied for discharge as a consciencious ob­ nine months at hard labor and given a bad jector. conduct discharge.) 69 Particularly since the Laos invasion we Japanese anti-war citizens have realised Ko"da-san the desperate nature of the Asian situation. We were able to d0 nothing to stop escala­ What is the American military strategy tion. The people in Indochina badly need in Asia? our help; the Laos invasion failed, the Nixon Doctrine is coming apart at the seams, and the possibility of new aggression soars. Takahashi-san We are terrified to think that nuclear arms sight be used in Indochina. We have re­ Generally speaking, the Nixon Doctrine is cently received information that indicates a policy to make Asians fight Asians with­ training for the transport of nuclear wea­ out direct participation by Americans. To pons in and out of Japan is occurring on say, however, that America is withdrawing bases in Japan, particularly in Okinawa. from Asia is deceiving. Gradually the Since October Honest John missiles, capable Army will disappear from Japan and mili­ of carrying nuclear warheads, have been tary bases will be reduced considerably. moved in and out. In Okinawa this opera­ But that by no means implies that Ameri­ tion took place twice in January, four can military strength will be decreased. times in February, and recently has occur- Becaub? of the dollar crisis, some bases ed very frequently. The practice is done will disappear. At the same time, however, under extremely stiff guard, and in the those bases that are necessary for Far actual transport from Chibana ammo store Eastern military strategy will be strength­ age dump all traffic in the area is stop­ ened. The bases important in Japan: Misa­ ped. On March 20 it was reported that an wa and Yokota for the Air Force, Iwakuni Honest John carried by a C141 reached as a Marine Corps Air Station, Yokosuka Danang. and Saeebo for the Navy, all the forces on Okinawa, and many communication bases will be fortified to provide vital stra­ Koda-san tegic links between Japan, Taiwan, Korea, What is your plan to deal with this situ­ Okinawa, and the Philippines. ation?

Takahashi-san

Because of Japan's geographic and strate­ gic position and the resulting responsi­ bility of Japanese anti-war citizens, we are making very concrete plans. We are uniting with local Beheiren and groups of , anti-war citizens in April, May, and June to build a spring offensive. Our pur­ poses are: l) to stop the functioning of American bases and prevent air raids in Indochina from originating from these these bases,2)to work with GIs inside the base to bring this about, and 3) attack military industries and other businesses - There are many examples of the impor­ home electricity, oil, and automobiles - tance for strategy in Asia of an intri­ which are contributing to the war in cately connected netwsrk of bases. Air­ Indochina under the name of economic aid. men from Misawa fly frequently to Korea and Taiwan. There is evidence that the November, 1970 Son-Tai rescue mission was On May 5, celebrating Children's Day dispatched from Iwakuni. The Laos in­ in Japan and co-ordinating with the Mora­ vasion particularly clarified the strate­ torium in America, there will be demonstr- gic importance of bases in Japan. Direct­ tions surrounding the bases. On June 13, ly after the invasion Marines practising the closest Sunday to the anniversary of at Kita Fuji moved into Indochina through the day on which AMPO was renewed, we will Okinawa. Two hundred Iwakuni airmen went accelerate the quantity and quality of our to Danang. The Seventh Fleet in Tonkin action. There will be large and various Gulf came from Yokosuka and Sasebo. Yokota non-violent protest actions and even lar­ Air Base and Kadena Air Base in Okinawa ger demonstrations surrounding the bases. are the most important bases not only We in the GI movement are uniting with to transport GIs but also to supply Indo­ American activists to ask GIs inside the china with material and arms. Over 50$ bases to support the attacks from the out­ of the aircraft from America to Southeast side. We are doing heavy leafletting Asia passes through Yokota. An impor­ suggesting mess hall strikes, work slow tant point to emphasise is that it appears downs, and. sick call strikes, and encoura­ that GIs are being committed directly from ging GI papers to report the situation is Japan to the struggle in Indochina, an Indochina and the struggles in the US and action specifically prohibited by AMPO. Japan. 70 (Ed. On May 5th in Misawa fifty or sixty £ In the GI movement there are problems GIs marched around the base wearing black of cultural differences and misunderstan­ armbands. In Iwakuni people flew kites dings - with GIs and between Japanese and irom boats at sea and from a spot just be­ American activists. We are trying to yond the end of the runway so that no work co-operatively to minimize the prob­ Planes could take off or land for several lems resulting from these differences. hours. This kind of non-violent, people's American military strategy is co­ technology was able to stop planes which ordinated throughout Asia. Sato indica­ are the most modern war machines. On the ted in the Nixom-Sato Joint Communique same day in Yokota over one thousand citi­ that Japan is playing an increasingly im­ zens surrounded the base, set off fireworks portant role in Asia (thus the reversion and launched balloons. On May 16, Armed of Okinawa to Japan). It is necessary Forces Day, an anti-war teach-in was held for us also to co-ordinate in Asia; we in Koza, Okinawa; over thirty GIs, black should never think of Japan alone. The and white, Dlus 150 Okinawan citizens took GI movement should expand to other bases part. The June 13th demo at Yokota brought in Asia. There are many incidents which out even larger numbers of citizens and also indicate there is strong potential for more severe police violence. In spite of ef­ activists to be useful in the GI movement forts to segregate the inmates of the base, at other bases in Asia. For example, oa many GI's and dependents found ways of ex­ Feb. 5th, Martin Luther King's birthday, pressing their support.) Blacks in Korea stationed near the 38th parallel held a rally and demo. In the Philippines a GI paper was published and we heard of two small divisions of heli­ copter pilots who refused to make an air raid on Martin Luther King's birthday. In Saigon 400 Blacks marched to Long Binh Koda-san jail to protest racism in the military and What have been some of the problems in the demand freedom for Angela Davis. We want GI movement? to unite with such GIs and struggle with them for the destruction of the military. Takahashi-san Until now the movement has progressed spon­ taneously. The new situation in Asia, how­ ever, demands new qualities. We must deal concretely with the new conditions. Among Japanese activists there is a need for high consciousness and more ability. We want Americans to realize the importance of the GI movement in Asia and to send trained and experienced activists.

***»»*»*»#*•»****#»**»*********#*****»***»•»*»•»*#»***» •»*••**•*»***•»**********»*

The photographs in this issue of Sanrizuka, including the cover photo, were taken by Kitai Kazuo, who lived at Sanrizuka for three years. Mr. Kitai has cooperated with the Youth Action Committee of Sanrizuka in the production of two books which may interest the readers of Ampo. The first is a 192-page collection of Mr. Kitai's photographs of Sanrizuka. The second, entitledEshi Sum Fukei -.Sanrizuka Nomin no Sei to Kotoba (Gangrenous Landscape: The Life and Words of the Sanrizuka Farmers).is made up of discussions held between members of the Youth Action Committee. In addition to covering the history of the movement there, it contains an important analysis of the way in which traditional farmers' familial and corporate organizations, normally considered to be a bastion of conservatism, have become the basis of revolution­ ary struggle at Sanrizuka. Sanrizuka Photo Collection of Kitai Kazuo, 192 p. $4.00 Eshi Suru Fukei (Gangrenous Landscape). 521 p. (in Japanese)—$3.00 (prices include mailing) Address: Norasha; 6-19-53 Akasaka; Minato ku; Tokyo, Japan

71 /WPO

AMPO No. 9-10

A Report From the Japanese New Left

AMPO is not copyrighted, and Movement publications are wel­ come...in fact urged ...to re­ print any articles published / herein, with credit. Non- • Movement publications should contact us first. We trust you to know which you are.

It is our specific hope that this magazine will contribute to unified international action| against Japan-U.S. imperialism, which is the enemy of the people of both countries, and of the people of all Asia.

Any suggestions, either for this magazine or for unified t action, will be welcomed.

Ampo is produced in Tokyo by the Ampo Collective

NEW ADDRESS 1 NEW ADDRESS'. Make checks payable to: AMPO Ampo, Account no. 0061656 42-8 Nishigoken-cho Kagurazaka Branch Shinjuku-ku Mitsubishi Bank Tokyo, Japan

A six-issue subscription costs: Single Issues: Japan ¥600 Japan...., .¥200 Overseas....S6.00

Mailing Address AMPO P.O.Box 5250 Tokyo International Japan ARbporl fk>m the Japanese New Left Ha 11

contents

3ditorial .2

Sanrizuka. 5

'72 Okinawa Reversion Fraud...... 13

"Okinawan Compatriots in Japan, Unite and Rise!" 19

Economic Analysis (l) : Junk-Yard Development....21

Liberation, not Reversion (Iwakuni) „.» 28

Japan against Asia » 29 editorial: SATO AND A SEMI-CRISIS

To have Eisaku Sato do everything bloody, "shocks", the "tomorrow-oriented" profit harsh and unpopular before his political life and powerseekers have begun maneuvering ends — this seems the strategy at the moment everywhere. In Sato's own party, most of of the Japanese bourgeoisie as they are all the anti-maincurrent factions including those but lost in the violent, revolution-caused headed by Takeo Miki or Masayoshi Ohira, maelstrom of the Asian situation. The to say nothing of the traditional tiny appalling tempo at which the Nixon doctrine pro-China intraparty groups, have become is being implemented (Laird's visit to Japan suddenly vociferous, criticising Sato's and South Korea in July, putting on the order reactionary China policy in their of the day the building of Japan's own Seventh attempt to get their uproar heard by fleet), the sudden announcement of the plan Premier Chou En-Lai. Big businessmen, too, to send President Nixon to Peking — these are busy organizing goodwill missions to aftermaths of the confirmed defeat of China, disavowing in as dramatic fashion American imperialists in Indochina are coupled as possible their decades-long committ­ with unbearably aggravated economic contra­ ment to Chiang Kai-Shek and Pak Chung-Hi. dictions with the United States. The New Even Nippon Steel Corporation, the world's Economic Policy of Nixon of Aug. 15, 1971 biggest steel maker and the backbone of came as the last blow to the old framework of Japanese imperialism, refused to attend the Asian-World situation in the context of the recent meeting of the Japan-"Nationalist" which Sato, in 1969, boastfully signed the China Cooperation Commission. Komei Party "Okinawa reversion" joint communique with sent its chairman to China. To say nothing the U.S. President. The Nixon doctrine, the of the Socialists, even the Democratic so-called U.S.-China rapprochement and the Socialists sought to contact Mr. Wang Kuo dollar-yen problem — all of these factors Chuan (visiting Tokyo recently) and, in are closely intertwined for the Japanese meeting him, suddenly reversed its extreme­ ruling class, the solution of one contingent ly pro-Chiang Kai-Shek and anti-Communist for that of another. And if one takes into diplomatic policy in favor of "one China". account such other factors as the intraparty conflict in the ruling Liberal Democrats and Sato's isolation thus seems complete. the dwindling popular support for Sato, one His cabinet could easily be toppled only would say that for the Japanese ruling class if the supra-artisan Japan-China friendship there is no solution at all. For one thing, alliance of Dietmen (embracing all opposition if Sato insists too much on Japanese party members and a significant number of imperialists' particular economic interests anti-Sato Liberal Democrats) rise and pass vis-a-vis U.S. capital, the U.S. Congress a non-confidence resolution. could blackmail him by threatening to vote down the Okinawa Treaty, on which Japanese imperialists stake their whole future But they are in no mood to do so, at least expansion scheme toward Asia. The bourgeoisie for the time being, and Sato does not fall under the impact of the dollar'crisis yet. All bourgeois opponents are talking naturally wants to secure China as its new loudly about "post-Sato", but they never do market, but they fear economic reprisal from anything decisive to bring about the "post- the United States if Japan refuses to Sato" era. Why? Because they need him for cooperate in the hopeless design of passing a little while longer. the Chiang Kai-Shek protection resolution through the United Nations. The Japanese ruling class needs Sato until at least he carries the Okinawa Treaty through the Diet and revaluates It is in this situation that the Sato the yen on his own responsibility. Cabinet is going to impose the Okinawa Perhaps most important, they need him reversion treaty on the Okinawan people to prepare the foundations of Japan's (and the mainland Japanese too) by trying Northeast Asian Empire as soon^possible to railroad it through the special Diet to be handed down to his successor convened on October 16. imperialists.

a „ic), *„„ +v, c * • o „ . SatSatoo knowknows hihiss rolrolee perfectlperfectlyy wewelll . One ••^Jw'Vol fows +u ^-I Certainly He knows that his "bigotry" at the momomene t "K?«Jn T another. The "dollar shock". his successors' counter revo- win facilitatary scheme e and tnat nis mission is to thKissingee shatterinr shocg kdefeat and; othf e thmajoe Japan-U.Sr "shock". froresolutiom n pillutionare up ya s schemmany e faits-accompliand that his smissio as possibln i e on China in the United Nations. (As for this before he falls. last, it was rather Japan's resolution than a joint resolution). And under the impact, of these The bourgeoisie knows this, .too. That is why, after the Okinawa Diet opened, major banks hastily handed over to Sato ¥1,700 The New Economic Policy of Nixon, it million in'cash (nearly $5,000,000) in loans is true, represents the beginning of the to buy off intraparty opposition and meek collapse of world capitalism and presents a opposition parties. They think of "adapt­ serious threat to Japanese capitalism in the ation" to the new situation that will arise essential sense. But for the Japanese in Asia but never think of rescinding their working class, the "dollar shock" means a once-established imperialist expansion scheme. shower of threatening propaganda channeled They are too deeply committed to their semi- through all mass communication media. "You completed Asian Empire, centering on North- may lose your job", "You will have no wage- East Asia to do that. When Kissinger's visit increase next year", "How to survive the age to Peking was announced, Sato made no comment, of depression by your own self-protective but on August 9 announced that Japan would measures", "You cannot demand seasonal bonuses provide ¥8,000 million ($22 million) in any long" etc., etc. On the other hand, as is yen loans to Taiwan as the first "in a series most dramatically exposed in the National of new loans to that country". On Aug. 10-11 Railways, frantic "productivity drives" are during a Japan-South Korea ministerial conf­ intensified to destroy the unions and trap erence, the Sato Cabinet promised that more the workers in a "national interest" than $200 million will be given to Pak Chung- ideology. On the part of capital, the export Hi in an additional loan to help build the industries one after another bring pressure ammunition industry and infrastructure of to bear on the government for special subsidies South Korea. Earlier, Sato visited Seoul from the national budget to "cover the exchange to celebrate the inauguration of Pak as loss" while import industries, such as oil president, and on that occasion promised to refining, declare that they would not lower give $50 million in loans. the domestic prices of their products. For Remember that the additional outlay for Pak big business, the "dollar shock" is another was decided as Sato's reply to Premier Chou chance for profiteering. En-Lai's announcement about Nixon's visit to Peking. Tne decision to co-sponsor with Yet, it must be said that the semi- the U.S. the defeat-doomed U.N. resolution crisis could be a real crisis if the Japanese came after all these. On Oct. 12, the Sato proletariat and people fight back. The serious cabinet toojtthe credit for a militarist blows given to the Japanese ruling groups from revival by letting its Defense Agency Director outside are in a way a powerful internationalist state openly to foreign newsmen that the Japanese assistance for the Japanese people's struggle SDF men would be deployed overseas "for the for liberation. And the Japanese proletariat rescue of Asian people in disasters". Nothing and working people are called upon to react Sato has done and is going to do during the to this semi-crisis in a revolutionary manner rest of his political life is for later in order to answer the Vietnamese and Asian cancellation by the Japanese ruling class. people's struggle that has caused this The 4th Defense Buildup Program will not be particular crisis. cancelled. The occupation of Okinawa by The whole context, as we have seen, Japanese military forces will not be cancelled< The vested interests of Japanese capital in suggests two ways of overthrowing the Sato Asia will not be retracted (far from it, they government — one by replacing Sato through are designed to be further strengthened). parliamentary procedures with a new alliance It is the design of the ruling class to hold of New Right imperialists after Sato completes fast to the key positions built by Sato while his immediate tasks (especially the ratification loudly disavowing Sato after he falls. of the Okinawa Treaty) and the other way being that of overthrowing Sato NOW; by So, the crisis that hits the Japanese blasting together with Sato the Okinwa Treaty, ruling class in the new Asian and world situation, the 4th Defense Program,Japan-Taiwan Treaty which is basically caused by the victorious and the Sanrizuka airport project, and by march of the Asian revolution, is actually a defeating the fascistic police repression semi-crisis that leaves the ruling class on the people's movement. If the people's room for resuming and continuing its 1969 struggle can overthrow the Sato Government imperialist expansion course. The 1969 in the second way, it will usher in a whole strategy naturally may have to be revised period of political instability in which partially (for instance, if Taiwan is no hand-picked alliance of bourgeois political restored to the People's Republic of China, groups will be able to constitute a stable it will drive a wedge into the middle of government to inherit Sato's deed. the Japanese imperialists' chain of peripheral invasion that runs from Okinawa No opposition parties (to say nothing of to Southeast Asia). But because the "shocks" the Liberal Democratic anti-Sato factions) mainly came from outside and not primarily including Japan Socialist Party and Japan Com­ from the upheaval of the domestic class munist Party, can have this perspective . struggle, the ruling class can contemplate The major two opposition parties, JSP and utilizing even that critical situation for JCP, can talk about the situation only in the acceleration of their militarist and terms of "national interests", and though imperialist program. they speak critically of the Okinawa Treaty, against the Okinawa Treaty, developing their own perspectives. While this split is not they do so firstly because the treaty can be unimportant as far as the difference of the a parliamentary weapon to take Sato to task. nature of the Okinawa liberation struggle They would never oppose the idea of "reversion is concerned, we must confirm that the age of Okinawa" itself and only want some improve­ has arrived when unlike in the 1960s these ment of it. A spokesman- for the Socialist facade political alliances alone cannot Party revealed his party's tactic to a newsman: represent the depth and expanse of the JSP will be satisfied if the government pro­ revolutionary undercurrents of the Japanese mises to apply the "three non-nuclear principles" people. A major change that has taken place, to a returned Okinawa. What a fraud'. The under the strengthened police repression treaty itself, and the "reversion" (read of the Sato era is that the mass demonstration "annexation") itself, means oppression of the even if people are semi-armed with wooden Okinawan people, their non-liberation from staves etc., alone does not work as the major the heavy military presence of the U.S., form of struggle. Another change is that the the occupation of the islands by Japanese New Left, more or less of student origin, troops, perpetuated discrimination against must put its roots down to the working people Okinawan people. But the political philosophy if it is to hold out in the age of Japanese of the traditional "left" parties never allows imperialists' aggression of Asia. them to think beyond the narrow "national During the June 15 demonstration this year, a interest" boundaries. Furthermore, they are powerful bomb was exploded near the entrance utterly unrealistic. Didn't Laird say when of Meiji Park, and the arrival of the age of he came here in July that the presence of bombs for the Japanese class struggle was nuclear warheads was something that should declared by many. Explosions followed never be discussed? Wasn't this statement here and there, and the police consider that seconded by Secretary of State Rodgers at numerous unidentifiable groups are planning the U.S. Congress? Who can confirm the absence guerilla-type actions against the police. of nuclear warheads when the U.S. Secretary of How about the question of the mass basis Defense and Secretary of State are so outpsoken for the New Left? Outside of the union in keeping nuclear weapons continually on Okinawa? bureaucracy, now completely coopted, explosions of rank-and-file actions involving wildcat Thus, what makes the critical world situ­ strikes, occupation of the control office, ation for imperialism a semi-crisis in Japan attacks on the most wicked foremen etc. is the gap between the level of the Asian are developing (although not yet generally people's revolutionary struggles and the level at the moment) even at major enterprises such of class struggle in Japan. The question before as Nissan Motor, General Oil Refinery and the Japanese left is how to fill this gap, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The combination turning an objective crisis into a real crisis. of these mass upsurges with the dauntless And as is obvious from the already explained attack on the enemy nerve center — this is position of the Old Left, it is only the New the required quality of the Japanese class Left (revolutionary left) who have the respon­ struggle in the new era Japan is entering. sibility to fill in this gap by raising the In this sense, Sanrizuka on Sept. 16 represented class struggle in Japan to the required level. the peak of the Japanese class struggle at the moment (as explained in this issue) in that What is the situation in the New Left? there were both the ocean and the fish; there At a glance, a confusion. The national front is a new united front of armed people, con­ of new left groups (which consisted of eight solidated and unspoiled by the bourgeois political organizations) as embodied in the politicking of the facade united front. National Zenkyoto and National Hansen was split in May, over the strategic question of The Okinawa struggle in mainland Japan is whether or not the slogan of "Getting Okinawa going to be carried out with this array of Back to Japan" is correct. The line of new left forces, in which a dual united front "getting Okinawa back" was in fact the is required — the front of facade politics traditional line of all leftists until some leading mass demonstrations in the street and time ago,but as the nature of the Reversion the National Liberation Front type of front Treaty was bared with its relationship to that could arm the masses in the Sanrizuka Japanese imperialism's design, it came to fashion. represent a whole system of strategy that However, the ideology of the Sanrizuka promotes on the part of the New Left the struggle — the ideology that shares the same integration of Okinawa into imperialist quality as that of the Vietnamese United Front Japan. Thus, the political facade of the and the Third World struggle — is still'to New Left has been split into two alliances, spread to the entire revolutionary left of one centering on the Revolutionary Communist Japan. For the semi crisis to be turned to League (Chukaku) adhering to the "getting a real crisis for the ruling class, the primary back" line and the other a loose, largely task of the Japanese left will be to accelerate heterogenous alliance consisting of four the formation of this new force and the growth political groups (Communist League, Communist of this new ideology transcending the "national Workers' Party, Front and Socialist Youth interest" and one-country barriers and helping League Liberation Faction). On the surface of the fighters to identify themselves directly the politics, these two new left alliances, with the Third World struggle including somewhat U.S. PLP type organization Kakumaru the Okinawan people's struggle. Jhe Okinawa and Beheiren and other citizens' groups struggle in Japan will be the first step toward stand as organizers of street demonstrations this. *'ln the Name of Japanese Peasants We Reject Land Confiscation SANRIZUKA For nearly six years the spirit ex­ area of Sanrizuka, defying the destruc­ pressed in this slogan has sustained the tive forces by their struggle to carry peasants of Sanrizuka in their fight to on their farmers' existence. thwart the construction of a huge interna­ tional airport on their farm land; but on Mrs. Ohki Yone's house in on the edge Sept. 16th the words took on new weight. On of this area. If you look out from her that day the peasants and their supporters yard across the waste land you can see from all over Japan battled the riot police colorful flags flapping in the breeze and the Airport Corporation (Kodan) with the around three "unity huts" built by the determination and resistance tactics of true Opposition League (Hantai Domei) in liberation forces. Scores of resistance defiance of the Airport Corporation's fighters were wounded or arrested, but this attempts to seize the people's land. time three fully armed riot policemen lay On March 5th, during the first wave of dead in the wake as well, significantly forcible land expropriation, the huts changing the relationship of force between and the fortressed around them were the people and state power. crushed by Kodan's bulldozers and their defenders violently arrested; but the Press reports that day were inconsist­ Opposition League and its supporters from ent. Some newspapers reported that a 30- all over Japan returned to rebuild the man police platoon was nearly destroyed and huts, the fortresses and the network of three of its members killed. Others admit­ tunnels under them. The people call ted that a whole battalion received a devas­ the huts by name: from Ohki Yone-san's tating blow in a surprise attack by some 500 house you see Kinone Unity Hut to the unidentifiable "students." What is clear is south, Tennami to the West, and Komaino that the riot police, "invincible" in their to the north. expensive armor and equipment, who in the past have killed and injured students, work­ ers and others with impunity, were thorough­ Kodan announced that on Sept. 16th it ly demoralized as their attackers, armed only would carry out its second wave of forcible with helmets , clubs and molotov cocktails, land confiscation, razing the huts and fort­ dashed into their ranks in one of the most resses and seizing the one-tsubo (about 3m ) successful surprise attacks ever seen in land-holdings of some anti-airport Socialist this country. Party Congressmen; it would confiscate Ohki Yone-san's house and land on the 21st, it THE NARITA SCENE said. As the 16th approached supporters of the paeaants began pouring into Sanrizuka. Set on any of the buses that leave On the 15th riot police with their helmets from the little station in Narita. and shields converged on the Narita train You will soon be passing lovely fields station, moving among the emerging travelers, planted in vegetables and rice bordered picking out those who looked like peasant by fir grooves. The enchanting supporters and forcing them to pass through scenery and fresh air seems far re­ their cordon and open their belongings for moved from the airport until, suddenly, inspection. But Opposition League support­ a bend in the road reveals strips of ers were there too: jostled by the riot land flattened and criss-crossed by police, they announced with their bull horns bulldozers, with concrete blocks piled the latest news from the struggle site, up on one side ready to pack the earth leafleted passengers and solicited contri­ and cover it from the air and sun. butions (campa) from those who sympathized Nearing the airport site at Sanrizuka but could not join the confrontation to take one can sense a battle being waged by place the next day. the very land itself. The farmland bordering the already devastated areas flourishes with golden rice stalks, GUERILLA WARFARE IN JAPAN but according to the Kodan plans it will soon be stripped and torn up. The site of the 4,000 meter runway is The struggle on the 16th differed in already a vast expanse of flattened several important respects from previous earth flanked by a half-completed air­ confrontations. In the past the peasants port tower and the pre-fab dormitories and their supporters responded to Kodan*s of the construction workers. But like expropriation moves with the kind of mass- the "Iron Triangles" of Vietnam, people demonstration type struggles in which either are living all around the devastated nl"

to'i :; - :

>' " -••;. * *iswd* e$be eri? no B Isaox* ted moil *wo 3i dl ,*qs3 ©ea aao xrov, i> X&b *srf* esesid ©d* Lis moil ed* yd *iig ed* bas n± (x 0 tar ttttt a!aox*ai listedil • biUBl aie*ria±l 1c evaw >id* ©mx* e*wd e al bs&b eiew [ '- \ '• •-.•:' Tied? b 3d* ed* *«< BO-ll 818*10 ed* fc . ,—_—... 10 ^TOw*»n ed* has sease'i^TOi ed* ,e*ud bas b&xottsBh xJiaafi asw noo*eIq eoxloq asm -*xsnbs sis. i-Kimem e*x 10 s»id* the fighters win in a paramilitary confron­ -es. Also as in the case of Vietnam, a ^ tation or lose completely. On the 16th united front of fighters was essential. Kodan-mobilized unprecedented numbers of During the months that followed the first men and machines to meet this type of res­ land expropriation in March, it became clear ponse (4,000 plainclothesmen, 5,000 riot to all who were prepared to fight seriously, police with improved anti-bullet and anti- rather than for the prestige of specific explosive jackets "against students'guerilla groups, that the kind of unity that exists warfare," bulldozers , steam shovels, cranes among the fighters of the NLF should bind water cannons and armored trucks J. They them together. One of the most remarkable planned to concentrate their attack on the things about the battle on the 16th was the Komaino fortress; and to keep the enemy unity of radical new left factions that had from masking In large numbers they deployed previously been antagonistic> unity was several-thousand men in a cordon around the necessary for victory, and a new unity did whole area. Curiously, they announced ahead develop. of time.that 1,000 supporters would be per­ mitted to slip through the siege into the The struggle on the 16th had two focal area - to be attacked and arrested. It points: an early morning guerilla attack ,,,.,, .-.'IBB eflj CIB r against the riot- police, and the Kodan ,eT8rdVB¥? fiSx3T:9ras ed* gcjosaa gnxvoai ,ncxJsi a forces' onslaught against the Komaino strong­ While a. small group of Opposition hold of the Opposition League. It is diffi­ people,did indeed defend, the fortresses'to cult to obtain an accurate picture of the the end, at the same time, guerilla units former, however. In banner headlines the went on the offensive, ambushing with bourgeois Japanese press screamed ''THEY ARE superior force at specific points the riot NO LONGER STUDENTS, THEY ARE INSANE . police besieging the area. By the end o1f MURDERERS!"; yet the articles and radio-TV the day it was clear that the guerilla news coverage of the attack are full of offensive had been effective: a battalion contradictions, and the police authorities of riot police was put. out of action and the had almost nothing to say. Nevertheless, following day completely recalled because, by piecing together the fragments, the the press said, "their vacillation and following picture emergessnal v.-iev e fatigue made them useless." As in the Viet­ 9ifl i>e*£*8sveb ^baeila ed* gnliebiod nam struggle, Sanrizuka people and their "The group which was attacked was the supporters armed with the simplest weapons 250 members of the Hotta Battalion of but filled with a sense of justice and right the Kanagawa Prefectural Police .Depart- were able>to resist the .might 01 the fully- ment'« Riot Squad. The duty of the equipped, riot police and Kodan .goons. .battalion at the Toho crossroads was 8*naeaeq eii.l *aaq ed* nl .enol*a*noiinoo to check up on the radical students and e'rtBboX o* oebLoqeai eie*ioqqi/B tied* baa aur:- dai-rxq «dt bas iewo* *ioq ad* d*xw sevens aoi jxa 93ill *1(S ,a1# 1*001*8803 ed* 10 isrf*is J t aalssmt*8 *»f> a^ii exqoeq ,«s*!i*9iV 10 "a*l$aaxTT noil" ed* be*s*eavsb ed* braiioia lie, gnivxl eta 6 if look out for arms that might be brought police, students, or farmers might die in from the east." (Weekly Asahi, Oct. if it were carried out. It seems to l) "When the first company truck of the me that Kodan itself was prepared to battalion loaded with 30 riot policemen face such an eventuality, but this parked some 200 meters from the cross­ time the victims happened to be police roads, 500 student-like people who had ...During the past six years of our been hiding in the woods nearby, struggle, the peasants have suffered divided into groups of 200, 150 and 150, greatly. We have much to avenge." suddenly showered them with a concentra­ tion of molotov cocktails from three The Asahi Journal pursued the question: different directions and then attacked the entire battalion with wooden staves "Had a wedge been driven between the and iron pipes." (Tokyo Times, Sept.17) peasants and their allies? We persis­ "Chased by the students the riot police ted in asking this question of many were scattered and seemed to have been peasants, but none of them nodded in dragged into the woods and bushes one affirmation. In the days that followed by one, surrounded by several attackers, more than 2,000 students continued to and beaten mercilessly." (Yomiuri. Sept. stay in the area. It is reported that 17) "Until late that evening radical almost none of them slept out in the students rampaged the area around the open. The fact that the peasants were construction site of the airport and taking in such a large number of stu­ dents was clear enough evidence that Narita City, throwing rocks at the no wedge existed between them." police from amidst the shelter of on­ (Oct. l) lookers, building barricades and obstructing traffic. But students who What happened at the second major were estimated at 200 disappeared with confrontation of the day, the battle of the the sunset and the police, who could Komaino Fortress, was witnessed by several not find them, were thrown into utter hundred Opposition supporters, AMPO people confusion." (Asahi. Sept. 17) included, The following is a translation of an emergency report issued at the time The press tried to give the impression by Tomura Isaku, president of the Opposition that the deaths of the police had driven a League. He begins by referring to the wedge between the peasants and their allies; fighting which commenced at 6:45 a.m. to but Hiroyuki Shima, leader of the Youth defend two of the three unity huts and the Action Brigade of the Sanrizuka peasants one-tsubo land and then describes the told the Weekly Asahi that the death of fierce battle at the Komaino fortress: three policemen "is an inevitable outcome of the forcible construction of the airport." He continued: "Together with the peasants, students, and workers at the fortress of Komaino "It has been clear since the announce­ Unity Hut, I have struggled since ment of the second expropriation that dawn against the enemy. For the whole morning we succeeded in our life-or- Eleven peasants, workers, and students death resistance and maintained our were still on the top when it happened. superior position over the enemy. They That was the climax of the battle of mobilized a large number of earth- Komaino. moving machines against our fortress. "Inside the fortress there were four Seven or eight of them we completely other watch towers. Kodan goons burned out. scampered up and began indiscriminate "At 12:30 when we set a fire that des­ beatings of the peasants and students troyed the last steam shovel to rush inside. Only the lightly wounded were our barricades, the enemy started to arrested and carted away by the police. withdraw. Instantly a roaring shout They left the severely wounded lying of triumph was raised throughout the in the mud, blood, and ashes. One of fortress. these militants is still in critical "In the afternoon the enemy suddenly condition with a deep wound in his began repeated attacks with new re­ right lung. inforcements. In spite of the weari­ "Around the Komaino fortress people ness that we felt after the morning's attempted to break through the heavy fighting, and with no hope of rein­ cordon of police. Even peasants who forcement because of the heavy encir­ were not organized into the Opposition clement of riot pigs, we were prepared League joined the guerilla-style to wage a decisive battle of resis­ struggle against the riot police. tance alone. "I consider that it is one step of the "Soon, after fierce battle, the enemy advance toward final victory that we succeeded in invading the fortress by succeeded in exposing to such a naked destroying the barricades. The place degree the brutal and violent nature was filled with the blood of the of the state power. All the members wounded who were not allowed to go to of the League, together with other our nearby field hospital. We gave peasants who live near Sanrizuka are them first-aid treatment on the battle­ in good fighting spirit and determined field. to fight through to the end."

PROUD OF BEING PEASANTS

What, then, does the struggle mean to Sanrizuka peasants? During nearly six years of mounting oppression by state power the peasants' consciousness has been changing. The Youth Action Brigade members in parti­ cular have used every free moment to dis­ cuss together the history and meaning of the struggle. What has emerged is a re-discovery and a very conscious affirmation of their identity as Japanese peasants. Japan is an agricultural country. It goes without say­ ing that peasants have been the backbone of the country throughout Japanese history. Yet throughout this history they have been oppressed and used by the ruling class according to the changing wind of the times.

And now peasants are being denied their very existence as peasants by the government's anti-agriculture policy. The Sanrizuka peasants are fighting with a conscious effort to prevent historians from writing: Japan Tomura-san speaks to the fighters was an agricultual oountry.

"A huge mobile crane suddenly charged At the same time they were re- discovering our 20 meter broadcasting tower and their identity as Japanese peasants, the succeeded in hooking on. A group of Youth Action Brigade members began to under­ Kodan goons with oxy-acetylene torches stand what had made some of the other peas­ began to cut into the iron tower. Then ants sell out to the government. Most of the crane suddenly gave a jerk and a those who had given up and left Sanrizuka pull. Simultaneously the tower broke had come rather recently into the area; in two and came crashing down furthermore they had for some time been and was quickly engulfed by fire. changing over to "agricultural modernization methods." This in itself was a departure 8 ^%

ifrom the endemic peasant desire to cultivate lland. Thus they gave conditional support to Dear Comrades in arms, the Airport Plan, and finally sold out when economic conditions were either favor­ My land and home are going to be taken able or made it inevitable for them to do next, so I am going to fight like any­ so. On the other hand, those who remain thing. When Kodan and the running dogs to fight in Sanrizuka are doing so because of the government come and trample me they have their own peasant philosophy and down with their bulldozer, I'm still going to fight at this family grave spirit which has nothing to do with economic with manure bags and my late husband's conditions. In the discussion of the Youth sword. Action Brigade members it becomes clear that the Anti-Airport Struggle is a defiance of From when I was seven, I was sent off "modernization," because by being "modern­ to work as a nurse-maid, so ever since ized" Sanrizuka is truly becoming a "gang­ that time whatever I had to do alone I did with all my might. renous landscape." (Gangrenous Landscape, That's why the struggle has been the Nora-sha, 1970) This is why, like the happiest time of my life. It seems peasant uprisings of old, the Sanrizuka that my body - it belongs to me but peasants have chosen to show their peasant also it doesn't belong to me. My body pride and stubborness fully prepared to die belongs to the Opposition League. for it, rather than to sit and wait for Over six years now I have been fighting death. with the League and supporters. So no matter what anybody says,I'm going to There is no better example than Ohki fight to the end. Yone-san who lived in a Tokko section of Sanrizuka. Ever since her husband died Let us fight through to the end!! she had made a meagre living by tilling her small plot of land and going out as hired help. Tokko was an old village owned and Aug. 30, 1971 controlled by a handful of rich landlords. Being one of the poorest villagers, Ohki- Ohki Yone san was discriminated against or ignored altogether. Yet she is the only person in Tokko to remain in the struggle to the end. Sixty-three year old Yone-san is illiterate, When scores of Kodan men and over but she made the following declaration and 1,000 riot pigs came with 3 huge bulldozers had it written and put up on a large board and a steam shovel and surrounded her house in front of her house: on Sept. 20, Ohki-san was busy threshing. As the machines tore down her fence and bit ••It********************************************************************************* : * l THE DEATH OF SANNOMIYA FUMIO * * x* t A LETTER BEFORE DEATH * * * * The six-year long Sanrizuka struggle has been full of # pain and sacrifice both in physical and spiritual terms. * * Recently, Sannomiya Fumio, a 22-year old fighter in the pea- * X sants' Youth Action Brigade, committed suicide, causing a deep shock to everyone engaged in the struggle. This is the * X letter he left behind: * * *i X* I hate those who brought the airport to our land. My x* X comrades of the Opposition League, the Women's Action X Brigade, the Old People's Action Brigade, the Children's X Action Brigade, and my own Youth Action Brigade, please X keep up the fight. All my energy has been sapped in I * this struggle. But no matter what happens please keep x* up our fight until the airport is crushed. ** X havTo me yworrie motherd -an Everytimd sufferede .I waIs arrestedfelt so ,muc hoh wfo yoru yo musu t * * *X and yet I could not bring my feelings out in words. * * If we were not faced with the airport problem I am * * sure I would be married by now and be a good strong * X farmer. But the more I think about it the more I * * hate those who brought the airport to our place. * X Please don't be discouraged because I am no longer here. * * * * To my father - I'm sorry I spent so much time with the * X Youth Action Brigade and didn't do much farm work. I X X did work with all my might in between the Youth Action X Brigade activities. I was looking forward to build- J * ing our watermelon house with you this year, but it J * is impossible now. Father, you are also becoming % * frail with age, but please keep up xhe fight until J * Hiroshi graduates and can take over. * * X * So far I haven't been able to do much for you, my J * parents, and have always caused you worry instead. * I But it couldn't be helped. They brought the air- J * port here and anyone with a conscience could not J X help but fight against it. I wonder why people who J X want to live as humanly as possible are treated in- X * humanly. Truly, how frightening state power is, J * that picks up and beats down the lives of peasants. J * * X Grandfather, goodby. Hiroshi, goodbye, and take J * care of everyone. I have so much to say, but the X words don't seem to come out. A few minutes ago J X I was uneasy, but now I feel calm. When I am gone X X could you wrap me up in the torn flag of the Youth * * Action Brigade... * * X Crush the Sanrizuka Airport! * | * X Please live on in Sanrizuka till the end. In strength. * * * * Midnight, Sept. 30,1971 J * * * Sannomiya Fumio J * i * i * i 10 away her land Ohki-san continued threshing, Another newspaper noted that the police watching the rice grains coming out of her were rushing around madly trying to stop»the small thresher until she was forcibly attackers, but they were always too late, pulled away by three riot policemen. In always off balance, and nearly ineffective. three hours time there was nothing left of The attackers always attacked the kitchens her house and land and trees. first because propane gas then fed the fires.

But Grandma Ohki is determined not to Since the 16th, scarcely a day has leave her land, and Opposition League has passed without renewed guerilla attacks declared that they will rebuild her house. against the facilities of Kodan and its Immediately after the event, the Women's Action Brigade and the Youth Action Brigade allies. Surprise attack worked once for sent out an appeal all over Japan to "campa" Kodan but it works better foi the people. for Yone-san. The response has been over­ whelming. CONCLUSION: THE JAPANESE CLASS STRUGGLE

From the very beginning, as in all AFTERMATH cases when state power and peasants confront each other, the relationship of force.in The forceful requisition of Ohki-san's Sanrizuka has been clearly unbalanced. land had originally been announced for the After all, state power has on its side the 21st of September, but the events of the 16th political, economic, and judicial world, had so shaken the Airport authorities that they plus money (our taxes), machinery and police mobilized for the expropriation on the 20th. to enforce its decisions, while the peasants A Kodan spokesman was reported to have said: have nothing. The strength of the struggle "This surprise move might work now, but we in Sanrizuka comes from the peasants' are uneasy about the revenge that will pro­ realization that the situation there is by bably come later." His fears proved well- no means an isolated phenomenon in Japan, founded; the Sanrizuka struggle is con­ but is rather a forecast of much greater tinuing. struggles to come. As their slogans spell out unmistakably, the Japanese peasantry as The evening of the day Ohki-san's land a whole — even including the relatively was expropriated a series of confrontation well-to-do medium scale ones — are faced between a confused and demoralized riot every where with the same brutal logic of police force and a well-organized force of capital and the government. peasants and their radical allies showed that the loss of the fortresses simply meant The Sanrizuka peasants are conscious an increased emphasis on guerilla warfare. that peasants everywhere are up against a modern society that is caught up in a tech­ Yomiuri Newspaper reported the scat- nological development syndrome and which ^nr*.^ well-coordinated attacks thus: takes it for granted that peasants should get out of the way "for the public good." "At 6:30 p.m. two large dormitories This phrase "for the public good" has been totalling 200sq. meters of the Tokyu used by most oppressors of the so-called Construction Company at Sanrizuka were democracies of this century because of its attacked and burned together with conveniently fine-sounding, vague, and in­ three automobiles. At the same time finitely stretchable nature; but it always another 130sq. meter dormitory belong­ turns out that the "public" which is meant ing to Matsumura Construction Co. near­ is only the particular race or class in by was completely destroyed. power anxious to keep the status quo or to "At 8:50 p.m. in Shibayama six out of expand its domination. seven dormitories of Nishimatsu Const­ ruction Co. totalling l,000sq. meters was destroyed. "At 9:00 p.m. the attackers returned to Tokko, burning seven out of eight Goyo Construction Co, dormitories and a number of light trucks. A force of 980 riot police rushing to the scene were stopped by a force of peasants and students for more than an hour before they could reach the scene."

11 During this second forcible land expro­ Sanrizuka was chosen as the airport priation Kodan sent away most of their con­ site after an arbitrary decision to switch struction laborers because they judged that from the previously designated Tomisato they were of the class most prone to sym­ area. After trying to buy off the peasants with guarantee money, state power then for­ pathize with the peasants and therefore cibly expelled them from their land. By would not only be in the way during the raising the banner of national interest in expropriation but might even prove dange­ the name of the public good, they condemned rous to Kodan, These laborers, called all those who refused to cooperate as "dekasegi" are those people seen working "traitors." But for the peasants the strug­ on road and subway construction sites in gle simply to live and work on the land in cities at night. They are mostly peasants this technological, materialistic, profit- who have been forced to the cities for jobs motivated and polluted world is not only because the government's agricultural policy not traitorous, but a true struggle for the makes it impossible for them to make a liv­ public good. In the words of Tomura-san: ing no matter how hard they till their land. "Dekasegi" literally means "going out to "The Sanrizuka struggle is not one that earn money." They leave their womenfolk seeks to confront with force the naked and children to continue farming as best force of state power. The Sanrizuka they can, and mail home part of their earn­ struggle is a struggle to overcome the ings. Some of them are so far from home deep-rooted feeling of defeat in the that they see their families once a year face of ruling power; it is not an op­ or once in several years at the most. On portunistic attempt at reform within the day Komaino fortress was attacked by the established system. This so-called the riot police a number of these laborers "feeling of defeat" is the delusion and had slipped back and were mingled with the doubt which comes from the submissive- by-standers. Looking into their dark faces, ness and contradictions within us; these it seemed as if their eyes were glued to things exist even before we have actual­ some words painted on one of the towers in ly experienced external defeat at the the fortress. Each time water from police hands of state power. By recognizing cannon trucks hit the tower, each time smoke this feeling of defeat and yet taking and tear gas covered the area, the words on and overcoming the tyranny of state would appear again stronger than ever before: power, the Sanrizuka struggle has become a decisive struggle for real "LOOK AT THIS OUR DESPERATE PEASANT SPIRIT!" human change."

BULLETIN OF HAvy/A jl CONCERNED PONO ASIAN SCHOLARS JoujSNAL Articles from radical North American scholars published quarterly by the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars. Subscription rates: S4/year U.S. and Hawaii Subscriptions: S8/year foreign and institutions *6 for one year, *4 for students. Make checks out to "HAWAII PONO Correspondence: JOURNAL" and mail to Wist Hall 208, CCAS 1776 University Ave., Honolulu, 9 Sutter Street Hawaii 96822, U.S.A. San Francisco California 94104, U. S. A. VfitUi

The Provisional Session called the it has been a struggle against enforced "Okinawa Diet" began on the 16th of October assimilation into the lowest rung oi the 1971. The main object of this session was Japanese social ladder, a struggle similar to discuss and ratify the Okinawa Reversion Treaty signed simultaneously in Tokyo and to those of the people of Quebec against Canada and East Bengal against Pakistan. Washington on June 16th, this year. At the same time the Diet began discussions on the A. THE STRUGGLE OF THE OKINAWAN PEOPLE China issue and problems of the interna­ tional monetary crisis. Already by April 1970, the betrayal of the Okinawan people had become clear The Reversion of Okinawa, which is through various reports on the negotiations, planned for next year, represents "the third as well as the policies for Reversion of arbitrary disposal of Ryukyu(Okinawa)", administration made by the Japan-U.S. govern­ according to the Okinawan people. It is ments such as the plan for dispatching the to be a forced assimilation of the Okinawans Self Defense Army to Okinawa, the Programme into Japan proper, and means the creation for post-Reversion of Okinawa etc.. And the of a new domestic colony within Japanese experience and Bnergies accumulated in the society. The people of the "future course of the mass struggle waged in all Okinawa prefecture" believe they will be corners of the islands, such as mass uprising treated as second class citizens, exploited in Koza on December 1970, the struggle to by monopoly calital and suppressed by the prevent the imposed firing exercise in the imperialist government of Japan. Kunigami village, the struggle to oppose the careless, transportation of poison gas etc., helped unite the people of Okinawa and developed and deepened their all-round confrontation of the Japanese government for crushing the Treaty and against its policies COUNTEROFFENSIVE OF THE PEOPLES AGAINST for post-Reversion. THE OKINAWA REVERSION TREATY Okinawa day, held on April 28th, which had been the symbol of the Reversion Move­ After the signing of the Treaty, ment of Okinawan people throughout the 1960's Premier Eisaku Sato boasted that"with this saw the first counter expression of unified Treaty, Japan leaves the post-war period opposition; it began with the meeting of and begins a march toward a new period in 20,000 people in Yogi Park in Naha City. the history of the Pacific era." The ultimate signal of the emergence of this new The leaflets distributed by the various Japan was Sato's sending of Emperor Hirohito groups which assembled there- established on an 18 day tour of Europe in September, leftist groups such as the Socialist Party just before the Diet session began. The and the People's Party, the Okinawa Prefec­ trip, marred by demonstrations of European ture Reversion Council (FUKKI-KYO), new memories of the Emperor's war crimes and left groups and anti-war GI's etc. - showed by an incipient trade war, was a failure, that despite the differences between the but Sato's ambition was not curbed. established left and the new left in their approach to "Reversion", antagonism between The struggle waged by the peoples of the two was less visible in Okinawa than in Okinawa and Japan proper against the Treaty Japan proper. On this year's Okinawa Day, since its provisions became known in 1970 the speeches reflected a new change in have manifested serious contradictions. the direction and essence of the struggle In summary, the struggle in Japan proper as compared to the past. has centered around resistance to the terms of 1972 Reversion only, for they make The struggle reached its peak on May Okinawa a new keystone for aggression 19th, the day chosen by the FUKKI-KYO for against Asia by the Japanese and the "General Strike to crush the Reversion American imperialists. It has not been Treaty based on the Japan-U.S. Joint a struggle against Okinawa Reversion per Communique of 1969". The strike was plagued se. For the Okinawans, on the other hand by difficulties such as the failure of 13 government employees to win the right to KENROKYO (the Okinawa Prefectural Labour strike due to the measures taken by Governor Association) clashed with a group of Chobyo Yara to avoid the strike and the rightists, and new left students clashed arrival on May 21st of 200 rightists from with the riot police. Towards the end of various organizatio ns from Japan proper the demonstration, all the demonstrators to take part in a "Crush the General Strike" staged a sit-down in front of the U.S. rally. Furthermore, four university students Civil Administration in Ryukyu (USCAR) who were distributing leaflets to appeal for building and began a protest rally without "General Strike" in the streets were suddenly permission. They tossed Molotov cocktails arrested, an unprecedented event in Okinawa. into the compound and burned an American flag. The U.S. military shot water cannons On May 16th, American anti-war GI's in at the demonstrators . At 6:00 p.m. 1,000 Koza City held their first anti-war public riot police launched two attacks on rally, and distributed leaflets proclaiming the demonstrators who fought back with their solidarity with the strikers; bamboo sticks and wooden staves. Tens of " We are moved by the sight thousands of demonstrators crowded together of the Okinawan people fighting with and continued their sit-down protest. The sticks, stones and their bare hands car of the FUKKI-KYO leading the demonst­ against wire mesh, helicopters and impe­ ration called upon the demonstrators to rialists such as our officers. Brothers disperse. The demonstrators shouted back and sisters of Okinawa! Your struggle is to the car; "Do you think it's enough to truly beautiful We must crush just stage a demonstration ? Stop ordering American imperialism through our solida­ us around." The determination of the rity." Okinawan people to fight could at this point no longer be contained by the lead­ The plan of the general strike proceeded ership of the FUKKI-KYO. amid st difficulties , oppression, conflicts and support. When the Sato government anno­ OB June 4th, the nationwide campaign unced that "everything is under negotiation" for the House of Councillors election began. in its May 15th interim report on the Treaty In Okinawa, however, there was no active negotiations, the Okinawan people took this campaign movement because the Okinawan people as a "challenge to their general strike" rejected the election as merely an "expression and there was a heightened consciousness of of the pro and con sentiments of the Okinawan total confrontation with the Japanese gover­ people towards the Reversion Treaty". For nment. the first time the Ryukyu Independence Party ran a candidate in this election. This On the day of the strike, 439 schools Party represents the interests of the small including five universities were closed, and and middle bourgeoisie who had grown up 72$ of the Okinawan base workers - some in Okinawa through the 26 years of U.S. 35,000 by U.S. military estimates, - left military rule and which will have to cope their jobs. Six hundreds buses, the sole with the invasion of monopoly capital of public means of transportation,were stopped Japan proper once Reversion takes place. and the telephone and telegraph workers, The Ryukyu Independence Party candidate postal workers, port workers, and base steve­ used a three-star Party flag throughout dores went on strike. Workers from some his campaign, calling upon the people to hospitals and financing, hotel, printing, vote for him "as a Ryukyuan and not a mass communications and service industries Japanese". *We must put an end to milita­ also participated. This was the first time rization through the fourth Defense that a strike of this scale had been orga­ Build-up Programme and oppose the proposed nized and carried out for political objectives. R*version of 1972 which would destroy the history and life of the Ryukyuan". Secretary General Nakasone of the FUKKI­ KYO said, "the strike is going to be success­ The FUKKI-KYO and all progressive ful. It may not be a general strike in the groups told Governer Chobyo Yara of their literal sense of the word but it is the determination to "forcibly prevent" him greatest protest actio,n against the Japanese from attending the signing of the Treaty and American governments in Okinawan history. in Tokyo on June 17th, to which he was I wish to stress the fact that it is at the officially invited. Yara's absence was same time an ultimate warning to the people not the expression of his personal oppo­ of Japan proper that the first step of mili­ sition to the Treaty but that of lthe tarism is about to begin in Okinawa. " Okinawan people. The Japanese government quickly retaliated. A typical example of their attitude is the statement made by At 2:00 p.m. 50,000 people assembled the then Minister of Home in Yogi Park in Naha City, all trooping Affairs Nemoto at the official press con­ to the rally on foot. As the demonstration ference : "Giving Okinawa the status of passed before the Okinawa Office of the a prefecture in Japan proper is like Japanese government, a violent half-hour spoiling a child by giving him too much battle ensued as the Youth Division of the 14 candy and fattening him". The statement Session on Okinawa this fall is for "Oppo­ made by Nemoto reveals the policy of sition to the ratification of the Treaty, discrimination towards Okinawa that the Demand for Total Reversion, and Abolition Japanese authorities will take after of the Security Treaty." The CP's ultimate Reversion. objective is to overthrow Sato, establish a "People's front " type of democratic The rallies and demonstrations of coalition government and proclaim the June 17th, the day of signing, were of a "Abolition of th'e Security Treaty;" the smaller scale than those of May 19th. How­ "opposition to ratification" is only a step ever, on June 22, Foreign Minister Aichi in that direction. It is clear from this was met at Naha airport by young demonst­ analysis that the CP regards the Treaty and rators 3houting " Aichi Go Home! ". On Japan-U.S. Joint Communique of 1969 on which October 15th, the day before the opening it is based,as merely a quantitative expan­ of the Okinawa Diet Session, the Okinawa sion of the subjugation of Japan to the Office of the Japanese government in Naha U.S. Their analysis not only overlooks the City was set afire with the Molotov cocktails role of Japan as an aggressor in Asia in thrown by the demonstrators. Those incidents the 1970's but at the same time ignores the were indeed symbolic of the struggle for struggle of the Okinawan people for their liberation of the Okinawan people against liberation; a typical example of an assimi- the imminent oppression of the Japanese lationist policy from the left wing. imperialists as revealed in the"Nemoto Statement". The General Council of Labour Unions (SOHYO), the major national center for Japan's labour movement, at their 1971 B. STRUGGLES OF PEOPLE IN JAPAN PROPER annual assembly accepted the membership of a new committee composed of the Okinawa At present, struggles of the same Base Workers Union(which previously had an nature as the afore-mentioned struggles observer status in the organization) together of the Okinawan people against the Rever­ with the Mainland Base Workers Union. The sion Treaty have not been developed in February 4 strike failed because HQ Offi­ Japan proper. Not only is there an absence cials dispatched from SOHYO in Tokyo (see of such struggles, there is a lack of the Ampo No-7-8) tried to crush it from within. thought and militancy necessary This new move is a first attempt to make for a true understanding of the advanced na­ Okinawa subordinate to Japan proper by ture of the struggle of the Okinawan people. starting from the labor movement. It is an attempt to contain the Okinawa Base The established leftist groups in Workers Union (ZENGUNRO) within the refor­ particular already accepted the word mist framework of the Mainland Base Workers "REVERSION" as a continuation of the old Unions (ZENCHURO). This ZENCHURO is Reversion Movement after the War and trying to barter their jobs for severance limited their attacks to the terms of the pay and introductions to new jobs. Further­ Reversion Treaty. This attitude is one more, because SOHYO separates its member­ of regarding the Okinawan people as the ship by industries, the Okinawan industrial people of Okinawa prefecture, that is, as unions are annexed into their less militant an integral element of the Japanese nation. counterparts on Japan proper. The ZENGUNRO The Okinawan people's struggle against will thus lose its independence and freedom Japanese-American imperialism is not seen to determine its own struggle policy. as a struggle of the same nature as the The less militant stand of the workers on struggle of the oppressed Third World peoples Japan proper is evident in the fact that for liberation but. merely on the level of on October 2, just a few days before the a struggle of the people of Japan's 49th "Okinawa Diet", SOHYO was unable to decide prefecture. on any policy for action whereas the Okina­ wan workers, led by ZENGUNRO, had decided The Japan Communist Party's analysis to stage a 24-hour general strike on of the Reversion Treaty is as follows: November 10th. "(The Treaty ) will serve to strengthen the aggressivenature of the Japan- U.S. Security The Okinawa Teachers' Association, Treaty and is a dangerous plot to make which had been a major force in the Reversion Okinawa the keystone of U.S. imperialism's Movement of the 60's, was dissolved in aggression in Asia." The CP's demands, as September and reorganized into a new organi­ expressed in the slogan "Total Reversion zation, the Okinawa Prefectural Teachers's of an Okinawa without nuclear weapons and Union, in an attempt to bring the educa­ bases"used in their struggle against rati­ tional system into line with that of the fication of the Treaty, are "dismantling prefectures in Japanproper. This means that of all U.S. military bases and nuclear decisions regarding materials, curriculum weapons and complete compensation for the and teacher performance which were local losses in lives, health , property, rights matters, are being made in Tokyo by the incurred by the Okinawan people". According Ministry of Education, which has been widely to the CP, the occupation of Okinawa and criticized for assimilation of Okinawan Security Treaty were responsible for the education into the system of "remilitari­ subjugation of Japan to the U.S. There­ zation" being fast consolidated by the fore, their struggle against the Diet central, government. 15 On the 17th of June, the established However, those new left groups which left in Jepan proper led by SOHYO, held advocate this second approach have not yet a meeting at the Yoyogi Park, culminating reached a decisive perspective on what kind in a demonstration, which was peaceful-as of action they should take in solidarity usual. Meanwhile the various organisa­ with the Okinawan people. This is the tions of the new left, split into four most serious task facing them in the autumn factions, each held a separate meeting and of 1971. waged violent demonstrations. Unlike the case in Okinawa, there exists a clear-cut These two tendencies are the reason difference between the established left for the lack of agreement among the new and new left in Japan proper, regarding left groups regarding the Okinawan struggle. the Reversion Treaty. The new left, although deeply split by conflicts among themselves, agree that the 72 REVERSION OF OKINAWA means an installation of strategic There are some early signs of the rise bases for politico-military expansions of of new Okinawa on its own feet - probably Japanese imperialism. Nevertheless, forecasting a future full scale uprising. Many Okinawan people are forced to come to there are two opposite EVALUATIONS of the the Japanese islands, often en masse as Okinawan people's struggle. young labour force. Actions of new style and new outlook for the first time burst The first approach ( mainly of the Revo­ in Japan proper. lutionary Communist League-CHUKAKU) stems from the belief that the fate of Japanese On October 19th, the day the Diet imperialism depends entirely on its alliance began debate on Okinawa with a policy with U.S. imperialism as condensed in the speech by Premier Sato, Firecrackers continued seizure of Okinawa by the U.S. suddenly exploded in the spectators' military and in the Japan-U.S. Security gallery of the Lower House like so many Treaty. Their opinion thus boils down to shots of machine guns, a long banner a three-in-one slogan: "Let's get Okinawa reading " We smash Okinawa Reversion" back(to Japan)", "Smash the Security Treaty", unfurled and leaflets scattered. The whole and "Overthrow Japanese imperialism". The session was thrown into confusion; Sato was achievement of the former two slogans; in stunned and his speech suspended. This their view, almost automatically means the protest action was staged by a courageous end of Japanese imperialism . Recently young woman and two young men from Okinawa they added one more slogan - "Turn Japan­ who are members of the Okinawa Youth League. ese imperialist aggression of Asia into a This was a signal for a new Okinawa Libe­ civil war", but their concept of the Okinawa ration Movement. problem basically does not differ from the traditional post-war mediocre think­ ing of the Japan-U.S. imperialist relation­ The following is taken from the leaf­ ship. More importantly, although their way let distributed by the Okinawan Youth of fighting does differ from that of the League, an organization of these young established left as far as militancy in emigre* workers , at a rally on October action is concerned, their basic approach 3rd. lacks a consciousness of the LIBERATION of the Okinawan people themselves, a charact­ eristic approach of the assimilationist " For us, there is no other way policy of the new left, and it has not to liberation but rebellion against transcended the framework of the conven­ Japan and a confrontation with the tional Reversion Movement. military rule of American imperialism. We must achieve the strong unity of the Okinawan people and solidarity with The second approach is to regard the the peoples of Asia. This is because Okinawan people's struggle as a vanguard the people of Okinawa and all the peoples struggle related to the revolutionary libe­ of Asia have a common enemy - Japanese ration struggle of Third World peoples. and American imperialism. " From this view point, what should be demanded " The attempt by some elements to is not a "better reversion" vis-a-vis the call the Okinawan people 'people of "bad reversion" as arranged by Sato. The Okinawa Prefecture',and to imbue idea of trying to liberate Okinawa through this term with revolutionary meaning, reversion to Japanese sovereignty is in is clearly a crime and will never be itself erroneous. Liberation of Okinawa can accepted by the struggling people of be achieved only through the struggle for Okinawa. We, the core of the Okinawan liberation of the Okinawan people themselves. liberation struggle , appeal to the And the Japanese proletariat,shaped in the Japanese proletariat: Block the rati­ imperialist metropolis,can expect to libe­ fication of the Reversion Treaty which rate themselves only when they form has been announced by the imperialists themselves into a new internationalist and which will constitute another mile­ class that can really fight shoulder to stone in Okinawa's history of humiliati­ shoulder with the self-liberation struggle on . Crush the '72 Reversion." of Okinawan people and generally the Third World peoples. 16 * 1TIJ8 Earlier on September 25, two days be­ fense Force. These conflicting statements fore the Emperor's departure for Europe, by the American and Japanese governments a commando unit of four youths, three of were aiming at manipulating public opinion whom were Okinawans living in Japan proper, in Japan and Okinawa and at obscuring the invaded the Imperial Palace in an attempt fact that the absence of a clear-cut statement to confront the Emperor with a letter of on nuclear weapons in the Treaty is actually protest. The letter included statements an attempt to conceal the continuous exist­ such as: "Hirohito, what are you trying to ence of nuclear weapons. do, going to Europe at a time of crisis for the post-war rule of the Japanese imperia­ Let us momentarily disregard the incon­ lists", "the Emperor should be sentenced gruity of a sentence on nuclear weapons, which to death for his involvement in the war", has to be a military concern, in an article "forcibly block the Emperor' s visit to Oki­ dealing with purely economic matters. The nawa" and "forcibly block the ratification then Foreign Minister Aichi explained that of the Okinawa Reversion Treaty". "concerning the removal of nuclear weapons from Okinawa, it is stated, although inqirect- ly, in the sentence that says that Japan II will bear the expenses of dismantling and removal (Japan will provide $70,000,000)." The original for this ambiguous statement is THE OPPRESSIVE AND AGRESSIVfi Paragraph 8 of the Joint Communique' which NATURE OF THE OKINAWA REVERSION TREATY states only that: "Premier Sato explained to the President of USA that the Japanese people had special feelings against nuclear The Sato government claims that the weapons and the policy of the Japanese gov­ three principles, l) 1972 reversion, 2) with­ ernment had taken these feelings into con­ out nuclear weapons and 3) with the same sideration," to which "the President expressed status as Japan proper, are stipulated in the his deep understanding.... and promised to treaty. Let us take a look at each of these carry out reversion not in contradiction principles. with the policy of the Japanese government ...in so far as it did not interfere with The first principle, 1972 reversion, is the US standpoint in prior consultations in the paragraph on "effectivation," Article based on the Security Treaty." Premier Sato 9 of the Treaty, and is concrete and feasible. himself has said that "there is no way of For Reversion in '72, however, ratification ascertaining whether the nuclear weapons by the US Senate is required, and the US has have been removed from Okinawa. All we can made many demands of Japan in return for ra­ do is -fo trust the US." tification, ranging from self-imposed restric­ tions on textile export to the US to the Even if President Nixon's "deep under­ complete liberalization of capital. standing" were to result in the complete re­ moval of nuclear weapon from Okinawa, there is no guarantee that they will not be brought The second and third principles, the re­ into Okinawa again. The subject of rein­ moval of nuclear weapons and mainland status stalling nuclear weapons will probably come are a complete fraud. up in the prior consultations, and Sato has said, in a speech at the Press Club in Washington, D.C, in November, 1969, that he would "deal with prior consultations in a A. "WITHOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS" positive manner." The Washington Post com­ mented that "the Treaty has infringed upon The Sato government states that this Japan's inviolability concerning nuclear second principle is expressed in the sentence, weapons." In other words, nuclear weapons "the US government will carry out the rever­ may be removed by the time of Reversion, sion of Okinawa not in contradiction with the but they may be brought into Okinawa again. policy of the Japanese government as stated in This is not clarified in the Treaty and Japan, Paragraph 8 of the Joint Communique" of November as stipulated by the Security Treaty, does 21, 1969.", in Article 7 (financial expendi­ not have the right to conduct inspections. tures) of the Treaty. An article in the New York Times (June 16) reported that in order to support Sato the Dept. of Defense and the Sfate De.pt. of the US had advised the White House to transfer the several hundred tacti­ B. SAMS STATUS AS JAPAN PROPER cal nuclear weapons stored in Okinawa to Guam, ROK, Taiwan, Philippines and the US mainland. This is a fraud based on the manipu­ On the other hand, Secretary of Defense Laird, lation of misleading figures. According to on a trip to Japan from June 5, hinted to the the US News & World Report, "the US has in­ foreign correspondents in Japan that the Nixon vested (in Okinawa) more than $1 billion in Doctrine called for the nuclearization of the post-war years on what was probably the Japan and the replacement of part of the Seventh Fleet by Japan's Maritime Self-De­ most elaborate multi-service military ins­ tallation anywhere in the world." 17 On June 15, the Japanese government issued a list of the US military installat­ D. DISPATCH OF THE SELF-DEFENSE ions that would be dismantled or reduced in FORCE TO OKINAWA Size at the time of reversion. According to this list, 46 installations would be removed The oppressive and aggressive nature of (12 of them would be turned over to the Self- the treaty is seen not only in the fraudu­ Defense Force); this will leave 88 - or per­ lent support of the status quo as explained haps 124, according to an earlier US milita­ in A. and B above, but most importantly in ry classification. The government claims the plot of the Japanese government to dis­ that 40$ of the US military installations patch tha Self-Defense Force to Okinawa. would be dismantled. However, this is just The Japanese and US governments have jointly a manipulation of figures. In actuality, the discussed the stationing of Self-Defense total area of the installations to be disman­ Force troops, as the Japanese government tled amounts to only 2.5$ of the total area must bear the primary defense responsibility of US military bases on the islands. The together with the reversion of administrative object is to decrease the number of bases and rights over Okinawa. reorganize what remains into a more efficient tool of the American military power. Of The aggressive nature of the Self-Defense course, the most important bases are intact: Force which is scheduled to be dispatched to Kadena Air Force Base, where the F105 Thunder Okinawa in '72, has already been shown by the Chiefs, which are capable of carrying tactical expansion of the army under the "Third Defense nuclear weapons, and the SR71 strategic re­ connaissance planes are located; Naha Port, Buildup Program." (1967 - 1972) Furthermore, the center of the Second Logistic Corps; Futenma the aggressive nature of the Self-Defense Air Force Base, home of the Third Marine Force is becoming increasingly clear as the Division and the transit base between Iwakuni government comes up with new terms such as and Vietnam; the Chihana ammunition storage "Defensive defense" (Senshu-boei) for its area, where nuclear weapons are believed to Fourth Defense Buildup Program scheduled to be stored. The Seventh Psychological Warfare take effect next year. Unit, which has its headquarters in Okinawa and branches in Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Saigon The scale of the first deployment of the and Bangkok; the Special Forces for Asia (Green Self-Defense Force as reported in the Japa­ Beret); the Far East Network broadcasting faci­ nese press is the following: lities; the VOA broadcasting facilities; the submarine cable linking Okinawa and Taipei's The Land Defense Force: Military-police - telephone and telegraph systems; the Okinawa two infantry companies, one engineering branch of the CIA in Camp Chinen; will con­ company; aircraft — ten planes includ­ tinue to operate in Okinawa. ing helicopters and reconnaisance planes; Hawk missiles — one division of four companies to be stationed at four posts. The Japanese government is considering new The MPs will guard the U.S. military legislation, "the Special Law concerning the bases from "the enemy within," meaning continued use of military bases by the US the people opposing the bases. and their transfer to the Self-Defense Forces," in order to ensure the permanent military use The Maritime Defense Forces: base forces of the land of the Okinawan people. — six of l,4500ton transport vessels; aircraft — twelve air submarine patrol C. THE TIAO-YU-T'AI (SENKAKU) ISSUE planes; in addition, two destroyers for the patrol of Okinawa to be stationed in The Treaty gives Japan the right of Sasebo, to complement the anti-submarine administration of the Tiao-yu-t'ai islands functions of the Seventh Fleet in the area. chain. It is clear that these islands do The Air Defense Force: 25 F104 fighter not geographically constitute part of Okinawa, planes; nine F104 training planes; four even as its southernmost tip. The Tiao-yu- rescue planes; Nike troops — a division t'ai islands chain are over 200 km. away from of three companies to be stationed at Okinawa and located just to the east of the three posts; radar sites — four places. Chinese mainland; they are geographically The air defense of Okinawa will be under­ part of the Chinese continental shelf. taken by these forces in collaboration Historically, the Japanese imperialists with the Land Defense Force's Hawk troops seized the Tiao-yu-t'ai islands chain at the to replace the Fifth Airborne Div. of the time of the colonization of Taiwan under the U.S. and reinforce its network in Taiwan Shimonoseki Treaty (a one-sided treaty disc­ riminating against China) in 1895* and South Korea. The theory of Japanese ownership of the From the date of reversion, 6800 Self- Tia-yu-t'ai(which they call the Senkaku is­ Defense Force troops (note that the popula­ lands chain) is endorsed by opposition tion of Okinawa is 1,000,000) will be deployed parties such as the Socialist and Communist to Okinawa in two years. The range of acti­ parties, as well as by the Sato government, vity of this first group extends in naval and will serve to justify Japanese economic and military aggression against this oil- activities from the Philippines in the South rich territory belonging to the People's to the coast of China, Tsushima and Soya straits Republic of China. in the east, from Kunashiri Islands in the 18 (to be continued to P.27) «» . Id JK?Atf,

s J

On the 19th of October, Premier Eisaku Sato made his keynote speech at the plenary session of the "Okinawa" Diet. Just as he began to get into the issue of Okinawan reversion (the central issue to be dealt with in this special session of the Diet), three youths from their places in the spec­ tators' gallery, unfurled a banner with the slogan, "Crush the Okinawan Reversion Agreement!", exploded several firecrackers, and began distributing leaflets. The entire hall was thrown into confusion; Sato, shocked by the sudden explosion, stopped in the middle of his speech.

The same afternoon the Okinawan Youth League announced that the three were Oki­ nawans and members of the League's Action Brigade. Their militant action and the message of their leaflet called upon Okinawans in mainland Japan to unite and rise up against the Okinawan Reversion agreement in the days of struggle to fol­ low. The call to struggle contained in the leaflet marks the beginning of a new page in the history of the Okinawan people's liberation movement.

ItHIIIIIIUUMHUHIiHMUUMliHMHItHMHUHUUMUMHUMUIIilllllUHMUHUHUHUUMIIUUMUUUIIIIWHUHUIIUIIMUNUUUIlHUUUHlS

OKINAWAN COMPATRIOTS IN JAPAN, UNITE AND RISE!

Our Okinawa stands at the crossroads of history.

The 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan, decided by the '69 Sato-Nixon Joint Communique, is a merciless overall social reorganization of Okinawan society intended to end the existence of Okinawa as an integral ethnic entity.

The"Okinawa Diet" of Japan has met today on this situation. Having signed the Okinawa Reversion Treaty on June 17, 1971, the Imperialist Sato Government is determined to ride roughshod over all opposition parties, trying to manipulate not only the proponents of the treaty but also critics who take it for granted that reversion of Okinawa to Japan is basically a good thing. For this purpose they are carrying on an intensive propaganda campaign eulogizing reversion of Okinawa as "achievement of the heartfelt wishes of the Japanese people." 19 But we have to pose this question. Can the fate of Okinawa be decided through Japanese parliamentary procedures? = s s Our history has been a history of ruthless exploitation and expropria- s tion by outsiders ever since our islands were annexed to Japan by the Satsuma feudal lords. In modern times, the rulers have changed three times % arbitarily annexing or separating our islands according to outsiders' desires. The Ryukyu disposal in Meiji Era turned Okinawa into a subordinate territory, % a domestic colony for the purpose of accelerating "modernization" of Japan. * After World War II, Okinawa was separated from Japan so that the occupation of Okinawa by U.S. imperialism in turn could help rehabilitate Japanese capita- | lism. Thus, Okinawa was turned to a military prison of the United States, | suffering the fate of slave for a quarter of a century. Now, the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972 represents the design of Japanese imperialists to utilize Okinawa for their overseas expansion again. * £ We declare that japan has no right to determine the fate of Okinawa. *

3 We can already foresee what will happen after the 1972 reversion. J 3 Through the reversion, Japan will end her post-war period and begin to move out of its'own boundaries into Asia once again. For Okinawa, this kind of reversion means the dissolutuion and reconstruction through imperial­ ism of our social structure, It means the destruction of the ideals of our Reversion Movement, which was in itself the history of post-war Okinawa. 3 * Okinawa must prepare for an all-out confrontation with the imperialist * state of Japan in 1972. r The era of complacency is over. Now that the "homeland Japan" which was t looked upon with 3uch fervor all through the period of the Reversion Movement e has revealed her true imperialistic nature, the Reversion Movement has no alter- I native but to become a tombstone signifying the end of the post-war history of r Okinawa. * Okinawa is now experiencing labor pains. Whether the pains of this third * disposal of Ryukyu will turn into the birth of a new people, or whether it will I result only in despair: that is the question.

It is clear that an era is coming to an end in Okinawa. Okinawa is waiting I for a new era to replace the old. The Okinawan people are plagued by anxiety and * impatience by the confusion of the false image and the true image of the a "homeland Japan," and are trying to search for their direction through many a trials and errors. They have discarded their former illusion-based and s others-oriented pursuit of a myth. With a new self-awareness, Okinawans are s searching for new direction; and have a new consciousness of their own class, a their own potential, and a determination to confront reality. s 3 The violent uprising in Koza and the development of people's struggle throughout Okinawa are a manifestation of the Okinawan people's determination I to begin a "struggle to the en'd" for true liberation from their bitter past. 3 Okinawans in Japan, now is the time to rise! Destroy your own s myths about the "homeland" and prepare for prot racted struggle. * 3 For us, there is no way to liberation other than rebellion against Japan and a confrontation with the military rule of American imperialism. We must achieve the strong unity of the Okinawan people and solidarity with the peoples I of Asia. Now that our Okinawa has become a major stronghold for aggression1 3 =r and counter-revolution in Asia at the hands of the imperialists, ours is a great 3 I but difficult task. I I I r Block the ratification of the Okinawa reversion treaty! s I % I Smash the 1972 Reversion! Herein is the historical key to tha liberation I §E of Japan and Okinawa! •I - Okinawans, unite and rise! 3 I October 19, 1971 SI s 5 z Action Brigade of tha Okinawan Youth League s E * = ' ' IlMMBHH !1Hlt lilt ll»M HI* HnHIINMHHBH Hit Hit ttlllt M M n »» M tlH Hit It H H It till Mil Hit MM II M H « » HH II « M» l» till H HII l» H HM lilt HII Ml MM 3 20 ECONOMIC ANALYSIS (l) • Junk-Yard Development More Sawizukas Inevitable

Shinzenso, spelling out the long-term perspec­ The national monopoly capital of Japan tive for domestic resource utilization, calls has come a long way since the days of war- for (l) formulation of a national network torn devastation. It has managed to re­ system of 'poly-grid' pattern; (2) planning build itself from scratch, and is today and implementation of large-scale development called "one of the world's greatest economic projects; and (3) consolidation of broad powers." Nonetheless, Japanese capital is livelihood zones. This formula is expected standing at a crossroads and is obliged to choose a path to sustain "the enormous eco­ to spread the possibility of development to nomic growth" of the past quarter of a all corners of Japan. century. This year the Economic White Paper carried a recollection of Japan's 25 years The New Economic and Social Development of post-war economic growth. Technological Plan, on the other hand, spells out an over­ innovation embodied in private investments all economic plan for a much shorter period. in productive facilities and expansion of As was the case with its predessessors, such exports are pointed out as the driving as the "Ten-year Income Doubling Plan" of force of the post-war Japanese growth. The the 1960s, it is more of a paper plan, a pace­ bourgeoisie loses no time in boasting of setter for private corporations. It, there­ some of the "merits" brought about by the fore, reflects an agreed-upon consensus of high growth: increased productivity, materi­ the Japanese corporate interests, and is al abundance, increased employment opportuni­ subject for amendment at any moment if its ties, strengthened competitive power in prescription seriously diverges from reality. exports, etc. But at the same time it admits that high growth rates bring disadvantages Indeed its amendment is already being too serious to be left unmentioned: increased discussed among the government and business international economic friction caused by circles, taking into account such drastic the growing Japanese surplus in the balance current changes in the economic situation as of payments; and misallocation of resources the dollar crisis and the China problem, but or imbalance between private investments in its basic philosophy will by no means be productive facilities and public investments altered. The 5 year plan is based on Shin­ zenso^ the Comprehensive Program, and in social overhead capital the net result portrays some additional programs: promotion being the notorious kogai (pollution — see of Japan's independent innovational and AMPO. no.9-10), deteriorated housing, un­ technological development; extensive use of bearable price inflation, etc. Economic information and systematization; implementa­ White Paper emphasizes the need for tion of a system that would allow each in­ the Japanese economy to define principles dividual member to explore his ability for its international economic activities throughout his life; consolidation of liveli­ and to reorganize itself internally into a hood environments to keep pace with the wealthy welfare state. increasing leisure;lasting and stable acqui­ sition of energy resources and raw materials In other words, the entire Japanese through independent development of overseas ruling class feel the need to readjust the resources and raw materials, development of Japanese economy to pacify a population nuclear energy related technology, etc. deeply disgusted with the fruits of economic growth, a growth accomplished by forcing the Note that while Japan's Fourth National entire nation to save 30 to 35$ of the income Defense Build-up Plan is not explicitly each year for private investments, while mentioned in the 5 year plan, it is not un­ allowing the devastated conditions of daily related to this 'grandiose' philosophy. In lives to deteriorate further. The need is the past several years, the business leaders also felt in the international sphere to became utterly articulate in pointing out continue exploring new markets for Japanese the vital importance of overseas resources. goods, and new resources of raw materials For example, in 1969, Kikawada Kazutaka, a and energy, to keep the economy going- leader of a rather far-sighted and rigorous businessmen's group Keizai Doyukai (Japan Programs now being implemented to meet Committee for Economic Development), suggest­ these needs are, among others, Shinzenso ed that destroyers of the Japanese Naval (the New Nation-Wide Comprehensive Develop­ Self Defense Force be deployed in the Malacca ment Program) enacted in 1969 with the plan­ Straits , an essential spot on the 'oil ning period of 1965-1985, and the New Economic road', Japan's survival line. Or, in the and Social Development Plan, to run 1970-1975. same year, Sakurada Takeshi, one of the 21 leaders of Keidanren (Federation of Economic every single member of the nation. This Organizations) remarked: "In order to secure scheme was eagerly advocated by Liberal energy resources, we need sincerely to in­ Democrat Diet member Nakasone, former Director vestigate the defense problems." These and of National Defense Agency.) other aspects of the Japanese capital's ac­ tivities overseas will constitute further The logic of the Shinzenso program is articles to be published serially in AMPO quite simple: (l) it aims at attaining later. In the following, we shall focus our 'economy of scale' via gigantic development attention on the problems of domestic consolida­ projects; and (2) with the new network con­ tion and industrial development projects, and necting these large scale projects and urban the impact upon the peasant population. This areas, it intends to spread the effects of seems a rather necessary procedure before development all over the country. we launch our analysis of the international activities of Japanese capital. If we recall Sounds greatJ But is it really so? that most of the so-called South East Asian Let us first examine what lies behind the countries where Japanese imperialism is logic of urging larger scale development pro­ stretching its hands have an average of 70 jects. The official government publications to 90$ peasant population, it is worth while and materials are quite reluctant to spell to investigate what the same imperialists this out, but after searching through piles have done and are doing to peasants inside of documents, one might spot here and there Japan. hints of what they actually have on their minds. For example, a report of the Council for Industrial Structure explains the INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS relationship between the large-scale industri­ al bases and Japanese expansion abroad: "In The new industrial development policy view of the activated corporate expansions program deals with a new era when urbaniza­ overseas, the accelerated international divi­ tion is expected to advance further, and sion of labor, etc. which are taking place 'information' is expected to play more and in the era of internationalized economy, the more important a role in all the facets of new industrial bases should be effective as the people's lives. Its main purpose is to well as rational, both in terms of comparative direct and promote affective investments of economic advantage of their domestic and the public sector in ever-growing social over­ foreign locations, and in terms of industrial head capital, in such a way as to affect and systematization to be promoted domestically guide private investments. It is based on and abroad." Its logic is to stress the im­ large-scale national projects which can be portance of reinforcing international com­ broken down into three categories: (l) such petitive power by drawing as much 'economy infrastructure as communication, air-transport, of scale' as possible from larger industrial super-express railways, and express-ways; projects. (2) large industrial development projects related to construction of industrial bases, This idea of reinforcing international agricultural bases, and circulation bases, competitive power by increasing 'economy of in which the private sector is expected to scale' is something reminiscent of industrial perform the leading role; and (3) projects policies adopted by the Japanese government to be promoted with a view of preserving the since the Meiji period. So far, however, the natural environment and resources, or to application of such an idea has been limited facilitate sight-seeing and recreation. to individual plants, or to the management of individual strategic businesses or groups The fruits of large-scale industrial of businesses. The extent of application is development and environment preservation greater than ever, encompasssing far more projects are supposed to be channeled to all types of industries and a far greater number the corners of the country through nation­ of individual corporations. Previously, the wide networks of data-communication, air­ industrial policies centered around the transport, super-express railways (extending existing urban areas, such as Tokyo, Osaka about 4,000 km. by 1985) and express-ways and Kita Kyushu. The idea was to accumulate (of about 7,600 km. by 1985), thus assuring industrial development there and spread its balanced development of the entire nation. fruits to the rest of the country. Now, the (And indeed, at least 3 super-express rail­ Japanese ruling class has begun to see that ways, similar to the one between Tokyo and these existing centers are too small to offer Osaka, are under construction, with the one additional 'economy of scale' or to accomodate connecting Osaka and Okayama having been additional large-scale development projects. almost completed. An under-sea tunnel con­ It has decided that new development sites necting Honshu and Hokkaido is under construc­ should be opened on virgin soil, or the under­ tion; it will accomodate a super-express rail­ developed regions. way stretching from Tokyo and Sapporo and connecting these two cities in perhaps 4^- The explicit purpose of the Japanese hours. As a part of the national "data- industrial location policies, as such, has communication network," the government has been simply to protect private corporate already started to attach a code number to interests; there has never been a policy for 22 the rank and file .population. This fact is whole capitalist system in Japan are promoting quite revealing of the characteristics of Shinzenso-type development program. Moreover, capitalism in Japan and elsewhere. Except for pollution and urban devastation, and citizens' purely technological restrictions, Japanese struggles against these are factors accelerat­ corporations have always been able to choose ing such thinking. the most profitable locations. It was not only that they have been seldom put under Then what sort of picture is being laid zoning restrictions, but the national and out by Shinzenso for the industrial consolida­ local governments have assumed the responsi­ tion in Japan for the next few decades? The bility to provide basic industrial facilities, Ministry of International Trade and Industry literally leveling mountains and reclaiming and the Council for Industrial Structure have land from the oceans. This exceptionally made estimates on the basis of Shinzenso and courteous protection offered by the govern­ the New Economic and Social Development Plan ment, an essential condition for the enormous that indicate just what economic growth will prosperity, has passed under the guise of cost. Acreages of land demanded for in­ industrial location policies. In other capi­ dustrial sites are expected to approximately talist countries, industrial location policies double those of 1965 by 1975, and to triple are tha way government intervenes in the pri­ by 1985. Fresh-water supply needed for in­ vate corporate activities when individualistic dustrial purposes in 1975 and 1985 are expected and anarchistic behaviors cause various pro­ to triple and quadruple that needed in 1965. blems and nuisances in the industrial regions and thus threaten the smooth operation of the Demands for iron and steel in 1970, 1975 capitalist economic order. To some extent, and 1985 are respectively, 97 mil. tons, they usually assume an air of welfare poli­ 150 mil. tons, and over 200 mil. tons. By cies. But this has never been the case in expanding the existing facilities, and build­ Japan. ing new ones on the already secured sites, it is only possible to meet the demand of Corporate businessmen and economic bu­ 150 mil. tons per year. To meet the demand reaucrats do not hesitate to say: "Industrial of 200 mil. tons per year, several more large- location policies in Japan are basically and scale steel mills of 20 mil. ton per year seriously conditioned by the fact that corpora­ capacity will be needed. Demands for al- tions which utilize the locations are export minum for the same three years are estimated industries. Japanese manufacturing industries at 1 mil. tons for 1970, 2.3 mil. tons for rely for most of their raw materials on for­ 1975 and 6 mil. tons for 1985. (Here, too, eign countries, and must expand their exports; more than 10 additinnal plants of 0.3 mil. they are required to be highly competitive in tons per year are needed.) the internatinnal markets. Therefore, when industries are dispersed into the country, In the case of ethylene, demands are utmost care should be taken that costs of estimated at 3.2 mil. tons, 6 mil. tons and production are not raised. Regional develop­ 15 mil. tons (implying that nine more addition­ ments in foreign countries often aim at at-, al plants with 1 mil. ton per year capacity, taining full employment; they have character­ or additional acreage of 4,5000 hectares, are istics of social policies, or have national needed by 1985.) defense purposes. But Japan, which emerged late into the world's capitalist economy, As to electricity, the demand was 280 seriously lacks capital accumulation. There­ bil. KWH in 1969, and estimated demands for fore, our industrial location policy cannot 1975 and 1985 are respectively 530 bil. KWH afford to pursue certain purposes like foreign and 1 to 1.1 tril. KWH. (The power plants countries. Unless we concentrate on industri­ already in use and the ones under construction al rationalization, and win the export com­ would at most meet the demand for 1975, and petition, it is impossible to sustain our an additional acreage of 3,000 to 4,000 hec­ economic growth. In Japan, therefore, in­ tares for thermal and nuclear power plants dustrial growth policies must always guide are needed.) regional development and the dispersal of industries into local districts." (Ministry At present, eleven localities are picked of International Trade and Industry, ed., up as prospective development sites. With Industrial Location in Japan, 1962) the few exceptions, they are in the farthest corners of the country. Their distance causes It is against this background of the serious problems, inspite of—or because of industrial location policies, (actually in­ —the grandiose communications construction dustry-protection policies), that the new programs. large-scale development program is being formulated. Scarcity of land is becoming First, from the point of view of in­ more and more acute in the developed industri­ dividual corporations, virgin soil needs al areas; rent costs are soaring; yet, because enormous investments in infrastructure, in­ of external economies available there, many vestments far too prohibitive to be born by corporations are still interested in expand­ each corporation; it is true that the price ing themselves in the cities. That is why of land is low and the cost of pollution pre- those with vision who are concerned with the 23 vention would be low, but the lack of related internal land areas have also been growing industries in the area means that there will quite rapidly. 45$ of the total area for be few external economies; moreover, it is development lies along the sea coasts of Japan, difficult to recruit a labor force of high while the balance is in the interior. ' In quality in the countryside. 1967 and 1968, of the government statistics on industrial land acquisition of 1,000 sq. Secondly, from the point of view of the meters or more show that respectively 94$ people, tax-payers must bear the enormous and 95$ of the cases, and 75$ and 61$ of the costs which the government will pump into acreage were in internal land areas. Although preparation of infrastructure. the government promises to decentralize heavy industries around the coast in the farthest All these points considered, the type of corners of Japan, experience and reason in­ businesses, which would expand into these dicates that light and medium fabricating new developing sites—and thereby profit most and manufacturing industries will continue --are basic industries such as steel, almirum, to construct new facilities in the interior oil-refinery and electricity. areas, contributing to the degeneration of the nation's enrironment.

INTERNAL COLONIES The people living in the would-be large- scale industrial development sites are to Not all of the land in these areas has be made victims of greasy land requisition been secured. Government officials and busi­ of the industry. Concurrently, the people ness leaders drew blue prints sitting in arm living in the interior urban areas and their chairs in comfortable offices somewhere in vicinities are facing the same threats, downtown .Tokyo. They have made up the plan although these land will be nibbled by smaller for themselves, and are now trying to confis­ scale industry, not gobbled by the giants. cate the necessary plots of land from the Thus, the new enclosure movement is a nation­ local peasants. To smooth out difficulties, wide phenomenon. It is being carried out on they energetically spread rosy-colored dreams the century-old philosophy of protecting of gigantic development projects to the local private corporate interests. Of course, the bosses and incite their ambition to escape only way to save Japan, and make it a place poverty and under- development . And when suitable for human beings, is the citizens' they confront the peasants, they assume struggle against industrial location program s. paternalistic and authoritative attitudes Unfortunately, however, nation-wide citizens' and threaten them to comply with the 'national struggles are still in their early stage. And projects.' at the moment, the job seems to be left largely to the peasants, who are directly Would the new gigantic industrial develop­ suffering from these grandiose programs and ment progran s, then, bring about what they from the agricultural policies making too promise: more effective utilization of the little of agriculture and the peasants. whole national territory and balanced develop­ Hidden behind the high percentage growth ment? Do they really solve all the regional rates of Japan are the suppressed working problems Japan faces today: overgrown cities, and living conditions of the Japanese workers, devastation of livelihood environment, mal­ including peasants. The capitalists are distribution of population and industries, competing with the peasantry for land and and regional imbalance of economic growth? fresh-water resources. But most important Basic resource-processing, heavy and chemical of all, they have been regarding the peasant industries are not ones around which various population as an immense reservoir of labor multi-faceted industrial area would develop. force. Agriculture's share in the total Instead, they are of a type which will form in the local region an industrial base, iso­ •king pupulation rapidly dropped from about lated from its surroundings, something similar Sfi in 1961 to less than 20$ in 1969, and to to a concession, or a treaty port. Both with about 10$ in 1970. The 1971 issue of the respect to raw materials, and with respect to Agricultural White Paper praised the fact products they make—and often with respect that over the last decade, 8 million workers to labor allotment, too—they are completely have been extracted from agriculture and detatched from the local economy. They merely shifted to other sectors. exploits the land and resources of the area concerned, destroying natural beauties of the In early 1960s, in the wake of trade landscape, and offering in return pollution. liberalization and high economic growth, the government hoisted what they call "agriculture The basic resource-processing industries modernization policy" and advocated the co­ draw much attention in Japan, probably because existence of agriculture and industry. The they are technologically complex and spread drive to increase income in the agricultural over enormous sites, and of course, because sector, which was put forward by the Funda­ the industrial policies of the national mental Law of Agriculture enacted in I960, monopoly-capital have been more heavily con­ appears to have been accomplished. The average centrated in this field. However, manufactur­ income in the agricultural household's income ing industries in and around urban areas and was 81$ of the national average for the enti re

24 worker's households in I960, approximately Although many Japanese peasants seem lOO/o in 1964, and 117$ in 1967. Indeed, an to be rebuilding their houses, owning cars, agrarian household's income has increased. etc., the overall condition of village life Yet, income earned by each agricultural worker is deteriorating. As a whole, the Japanese in 1964 was only 55$ of income earned by a peasantry is being proletarianized by the worker in a city, and 64$ in 1967. When we logic of capital'and absorbed into the evaluate these figures, we should take into poisonous cities. account that a peasant family must cover by its own income all the cost of production as Japanese monopoly capital is now trying well as its regular household expenses. to exterminate the domestic 'low productive' Besides, working conditions for peasants are agriculture, and to replace it with profit- of course much more harsh. oriented, mechanized, and systematized farming by capitalist corporations and large, rich Even more damning of the agricultue farmers, as the Economic Council's report modernization policy is the fact that increased "The Road toward the Japanese Agricultural income in the agricultural sector has not Development" demonstrates. For this purpose, been earned in agriculture itself. In 1970, the monopoly capital is devising several 84$ of the agrarian households had some side strategies. Revision of the Agricultural businesses other than farming, while in I960 Lend Regulation is on the table to make it only 66$ did. Actually, in 1970, 51$ of all easier for the rich peasants and monopoly agricultural households earned more than capitalists to acquire larger plots of land, half of their income from side businesses, or to use agricultural land for other purposes. while in I960 only 32$did. Of the small According to Shinzenso, by 1985 at least one agricultural households with less than 1 sixth of the land currently used in agricul­ hectare of land, which comprise more than ture will be converted for industrial use. half of the total peasant families in Japan, (Any vast plot of land with an easy access 90$ have side businesses, and 80$ earning to the oceans and with plenty supply of fresh­ more than half their income from side busi­ water is going to be used for industrial nesses. The Japanese peasants, in essence, location.) Also on the table is termination are a hoard of wage earners with tiny plots of the Food Control Program, a subsidy to of land. In Japan there are 5.34 mil. peasants in support of price of rice. The peasant families, and 6.7 peasants with side government is undertaking an extensive pro­ businesses; more than 4 mil. of them are full- paganda campaign to arouse urban antagonism time wage earners. Many husbands commute to toward the peasants who are demanding higher small or medium size factories in neighboring price for rice, thereby contributing toward cities or in their home villages, and tend price inflation. The government is speaking their land only during the busiest seasons much of the ¥300 million deficit suffered by of harvest and sowing , leaving it in the the price-support program in 1970, and of hands of wives and the old people for the its being uneconomical. This is quite funny. rest of the year. (Of the total work force Unbecoming of a governmental 'program* it is in agriculture, women and the aged over 60 operated on an independent profit system. constitute 70$.) But in the case of peasants When the government talks about the deficit, in snowy districts such as Tohoku and Hokuriku, it intentionally avoids talking about the majority of husbands leave their homes practi­ wages paid from the Program's budget to cally half the year and hold seasonal jobs 280,000-odd government employees working in in Tokyo and other big urban centers, often the Program. While these wages account for as construction workers. They are nothing most of the 'deficit', other regular govern­ but an industrial reserve army of Japan, mental expenses are never regarded as 'deficit.1 obliged to work under less than satisfactory conditions, layed-off first when business becomes dull. As the first measure for terminating governmental support to peasants, the govern­ It is not only the husbands who hold ment initiated in 1970 a policy to reduce side jobs; an increasing number of peasant acrease of rice fields under cultivation. wives are holding side jobs, usually working In 1970, 10$ of tht! rice fields was left in a small neighborhood factory, working long uncultivated. Peasants are to receive com­ hours every day, and (85$ of them) receiving pensation for three years, but the future between ¥500 to ¥1,000 (UI1.75 to 3.00) per measures are not made public. The Japanese day. Look at their lives: regular domestic agricultural soil, extremely fertile and duties, land tilling, side business, and made even more so by enormous input of ferti­ child nursing. Rapid migration of people lizer, will soon be overgrown with weeds from rural to urban districts often makes once it is left untenctered. Once taken out medical doctors feel that they do not have of cultivation, it cannot be used again for enough patients and they leave the rural several years. Moreover, weeds expand into districts. Local village schools are often neighboring cultivated fields, forcing closed down because of the decreasing enroll­ peasants to spend much more energy in taking ment; children must commute much further.... care of their crop.

25 Beside large-scale farming, the ruling a lot of fertilizer and insecticides. The class sees the new role for agriculture in Indonesian government made contracts»with its different technological character from three leading Japanese trading companies, industry, in its natural environment pre­ Mitsubishi Shoji, Mitsui Bussan and Nichimen serving and recreation offering functions. Jitsugyo and with European chemical companies, (Perhaps this would mean the ruling class CIBA (Switzerland), Hoechist (W.Germany) and bastards want some more golf courses!) AHT (W.Germany), and asked them to deliver Obviously, such thinking does not offer any and distribute fertilizer and insecticides to new perspective for the fundamental role of 410,000hectares of fields in Java. The total agriculture to produce food. What is there acreage for which the Japanese companies is the idea of creating highly productive assumed responsibility was 200,000 hectare, agriculture on the basis of trade liberaliza­ an area just about the size of the land that tion and profit-oriented management? The layed uncultivated in Japan in 1970. This ruling class is indeed betting a risk at the 'Green Revolution' in Indonesia was a total expense of the peasants. failure, and was abruptly terminated in May, 1970. The reason: too much reliance on the 1 Should the domestic agriculture be ex­ 'modern technology while the basic socio­ terminated? Should the Japanese peasants be economic structures were left intact. The discarded? What does it mean to the rest of miracle rice was advertized for its extremely the world for Japan to rely heavily on imported high productivity, as much as ten times as agricultural products? great as that of conventional rice seeds used in South East Asia. Yet, such remarkable The government and the ruling class are results were obtained only in model farms, busy culculating the static, comparative under the greatest care by the 'experts.' advantage. As we have pointed above, the The Bismas Program exemplified the logic of so-called high economic growth was attained Japanese international corporate interests by sacrificing the absolute majority of the greedily to expand markets for fertilizer, population. If the economic growth were much insecticides and farming tools. Its failure more well-balanced, free from the horrible shows that the Japanese capitalism must inter­ disadvantages and nuisances, then agriculture vene further if it is to be even partly suc­ would have its own place in the economy. cessful in gaining its ends. Experts, aid, protection—imperialism. Closely related to this point, is the problem of Japan's international economic re­ Japan's domestic agriculture, if based lations. It would doubtless be absurd for on a balanced growth of the economy, taking anyone to dream that Japan can or should sup­ into account the interests of the Japanese port herself entirely by her own domestic people, and denying an imperialist route of agricultural production- But it is a completely development for the Japanese economy, can different question as to whether or not we hold its own place in the future. should submit to the capitalist position of pursuing heavy and chemical industrialization by giving up use of domestic agricultural land. However, she is actually possessed A majority of Japanese peasants became with land to be used for agricultural produc­ owners of land after the War, through the tion. Japan once before reached out her hand land reform enforced by the U.S. Occupation for food and raw materials, attempting to Forces, perhaps the only example of success follow the example of Imperial England and for land reform by capitalists in Asia. In become the "factory of Asia." In the 19th the early years of the post-war period, when Britain concentrated on controlling the the food situation was very bad, the peasants world's industrial market, dispersing agri­ could feel rather comfortable, and contented culture into foreign lands to operate capital­ themselves with the exsistant situation. In istic plantations there. In the 20th century this sense, they shared the common attitude Japan founded plantations in the Northeast of the entire Japanese population, seeking Province of China and massacred millions a place for peaceful living in the disguised throughout Asia to defend them. given situation of peace and prosperity pro­ tected by a tiny umbrella of the 'pacifist There is already one incidence indicative Japanese Constitution' and the U.S. nuclear of post-war Japanese capital's intention to umbrella. The high economic growth, the secure food from the South East Asian count­ utmost result of the disguised peace and ries in the future. In 1969, the Indonesian prosperity, has now turned itself into a threat government started a 5-year Economic Develop­ to the entire working class. ment Plan, called Bismas Gotong Lojong (meaning Mass-guidance Program) of which aim The peasant's land is losing its value was to increase food production by adopting as a means of agricultural production; instead, the'miracle rice' invented at the International it is becoming the last resort, sort of a li fe Rice Research Institute in the Philippines saver, which the peasants, a vast hoard of (funded by Rockfellor and Ford Foundations). industrial reserve army, hope to grasp at when Unlike the traditional seeds, this miracle their livelihood is threatened by the waves rice, the seeds for 'Green Revolution,' need of industrialization. They tend to regard their 26 land as an asset which would bring in some centersof the would-be Mutsu-Ogawara large- amount of money when its price increases as scale industriar development project in the demand for industrial sites soars. Yet, Aomori Prefecture of northern Honshu, unani­ as the peasants of Sanrizuka put it, "the mously voted to appropriate ¥10 mil. of the peasants' lot would end, once they sell their village's small, budget of ¥500 mil. for the land." village-wide struggle against the development project. Of the eleven would-be sites for The peasants of Sanrizuka, who are pretty gigantic industrial development to be consoli­ well-off with Tokyo—the large market for dated according to Shinzenso program, Mutsu- their vegetables—near at hand, started their Ogawara project is the first and the largest struggles from their rather individualistic, to be launched, spreading over-23,000 hectares egoistic demands for preserving their land and including, among others, a 20 mil. KWH proprietorship. Soon however they began to nuclear power plant, the largest ever to be visualize their own positions in the world­ constructed in the world, wide liberation movement. The ruling class ed* Y.iiaeI0 «m.q c *a anxjiBJ's BOXJBTJB.' is trying to confiscate their plot of land and • When the peasants of Sanrizuka say, convert it into the essential synod of the "We refuse land confiscation in the name of national, and international, network system of the Japanese peasants," they are indeed de­ transportation and communication, which can claring, in the name of the Japanese people be used for military purpose at any time. as a whole, the struggle against the ruling In mid-September, 1971, the village CIP.SS' attempt to convert the whole nation council of Rokkasho Village, situated in the into a gigantic Japanese junk-yard. eie. ga. ** ___

The Zero-Yen Bill ••• the money of the '70i ,nox*fiT*8nois8b a bs*iB*a *oo-Jg *sri! ,e.I.D Y.i*newT .egbx-a iaiatA 101 -^aidOTBis (continued from p.17) OKINAWA .saerusqsL OS bas ,tedt.^oi e*iriw baa Zo&ld Kurills to the South Tori Island. Airborne dispatched to Okinawa 10 days after the signing activities extend to Taiwan, which is covered of the treaty. The letter asked for "the coope­ by radar, Fu- Kieng Province of China, the ration of the people concerning the transfer of Korean peninsula, part of the Northeast the US military bases to the Self-Defense Force* Provinces of China, Maritime Provinces of the All but one of the mayors responded by issuing USSR and the southern part of Sakhalin. declarations of protest or sending letters of protest to the Defense Ministry. Thus the Japanese and U.S. forces have a system of joint action in Okinawa. The On June 25, 200 Self-Defense Force members Japanese forces will cover the defense of who entered Okinawa on an LST were blocked from Japan proper and its surrounding area, and entering Naha Port by port workers who were will bring up the rear of the U.S. forces which will concentrate on Taiwan and ROK. picketing the main gate of the Naha military Japan will also have a speahead to thrust port. On the evening of June 26, two members southward for the expansion of its military of the Maritime Self-Defenee Forces might into Southeast Asia. were beaten up by two Okinawan youths, and stickers protesting the deployment The predominantly military concern of the of the Maritime Self-Defense i'orce were put Japanese government is shown by the fact that up throughout the city. And on July 24, anti­ they decided all details of troops deployment war landowners protesting the requisitioning and began training the Okinawa occupation forces of their land for military bases formed an even before it takes finally formulates the organization to refuse to sell their land to much fanfared "economic program accompanying the Self-Defense Force. reversion." Around the end of June, Vice Mi­ nister of Defence Utsumi sent a letter to the mayors of the principal cities and towns of To be continued in the next issue Okinawa through 43 representatives of the Land, (Okinawa "development plan" - forma­ Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces who were tion of a Third World) 27 On Oct. 3rd I.C.M.C. (international Counter-Military Collective) held a "People's Rock Festival" in a park which started at noon. Iwakuni Base closed its gates with the excuse that there was a Japan Communist Party de­ monstration starting at 3 p.m. Clearly the G.I.s were being restricted to the base because of our Festival. But over 50G.I«S defied the curfew and came to join us anyway.

Lolling on the grass and moving to the music. Reading leaflets. Some bought hand­ made posters and many G.I.s jumped on the stage and wanted to sing, while others sunned themselves to sleep, A time of li­ beration.

Around 5 p.m. the Rock Fest came to an end, but there was a shout,

"Down with the American War of Aggres­ sion! Let's show our opposition to Milita­ ry Bases of Aggression by direct action!"

"Right on!"

That shout started a demonstration, marching for Kintai Bridge. Twentry G.I.s, black and white together, and 20 Japanese.

made them secretly between duties on Streamers appeared! The G.I.s base. The glow of the sunset shines hung them from the bridge... they had on their faces as they sing anti-war songs on the bridge.

28 I «. >I^: <**& — WE HAVE NOT LEARNED LESSONS

INTERVIEW WITH TSURUMI YOSHIYUKI

see Japan as a model. And in that type of AMPO: I understand you've had some interest context we will certainly have to study more in forming study groups on education seriously, and that was one reason for my of young people about attitudes toward Asia. organizing this, particularly among those who had been criticizing the power or who Tsurumi: Yes, this was started last June, had been in the campus movement or so on. and I have been trying to organize it during the past almost one year. And my They certainly need to study more serious- purpose, or basic thinking is that we are iy» ...that is Japan, Japan as an imperialist country, militarist country...is becoming AMPO: You mentioned the slogan "Asia is much, much more important to the Asian one," which I think was coined by Okakura countries. And the stretch of the power to Tenshin, and there was a movement, an Asian- ist movement, based on the idealistic idea the Asian countries is getting much bigger and closer, and there is not really any that Asia is one, which as I understand corresponding thinking or plans on the part it was thoroughly coopted into a justifi­ of the movement to catch up with this kind cation for'the colonization of parts of Asia of thing. In general...for the past two " and the invasion of other parts. (Tsurumi: years, let's say...Japanese students and Yes) "Asia is one" meant that Japan could others in the movement, began to shout about rule Asia with a clear conscience. Do you Asia, sometimes, for example, denouncing our think there is any corresponding attitude system of racial discrimination against remaining today in Japan? Asians in Japan, and sometimes even shouting for Asian revolution. But my thinking is Tsurumi: Ah, the structure of Japanese that they will really have to face up to the common thinking about Asia is very...very basic facts of Asia. For example, we say characteristic. Our historical attitude of that Chinese culture and Japanese culture so-called datsu-a-nyu-o...exodus from Asia, are doobun dooahu. you know,"same language or "get rid of Asia," to catch up with or and same race." But actually we aren't to join with Western countries. really of the same race or same language. And this type of thing we will have to have AMPO: Ah...leave Asia and join Europe... a really serious understanding of in Asian affairs. And there is also a very favorite Tsurumi: Yes, And this structure never slogan among Japanese that "Asia is one'." changed even in the day of surrender in 1945. And there are also some Asians, and parti­ We are still more or less Western oriented, cularly Southeast Asians, who are thinking and looking down upon the rest of the Asian in that line, but factually it is not really people, in the sense that they are far less true that Asia is one. I was invited to "advanced" than Japan and so on. Now this attend an Asian Journalists Conference which typical path of history since tha Meiji Res­ was held in Manila last year, And the title toration is structuralized in our society in' of the conference was One Asia Assembly, and that we respect Westerners...particularly it was attended by very highly sophisticated Caucassians like yourselves here.».in this intellectuals like Mr. U Thant and so on. country, and look down upon the Asians And they praised how Japan was modernized, residing in this country. And it is struc­ industrialized, and so on...I felt very much turalized to the effect that the Asians and embarassed in attending that kind of the Causasians do not belong to the same conference, you know..."Japanese as a model sector of the society. For example, this of modernization and industrialization". interview is being done here at the Inter­ It is true that we actually modernized ourselves; national House. This International House ourselves...modernized in quotes...and in­ is...intentionally or non-intentionally... dustrialized ourselves, but there is another adapted more to the west, you see, So you aspect, another side of the coin, that it was meet more or less the American professors mainly making other Asians the victims of and American students...or Westerners at our industrialization." And yet there is a least...and you don't see many of the Asian group of people in Asian countries that scholars or Asian students gathering at this institute , you see. They belong to another 29 fiNPO

V >*•• / S

\ h i "X'-

members of the Okinawan Youth League tmiiimmtMiiMtMitnniiititmmmttmtttMtiiiitMitHttimniHittiiiiiit!

AMPO (A Report Prom the Japanese New Left) No.11

AMPO is not copyrighted, and Movement publications are welcome...in fact urged...to reprint any articles published herein, *ith credit. Non- Movement publications should contact us first. We trust you to know which you are.

It is our specific hope that this magazine will contribute, to unified international action against Japan-U.S. imperialism, which is the enemy of the people of both countries, and of the people of all Asia.

Any suggestions, either for this magazine or for unified action will be welcomed.

AMPO is produced in Tokyo by the AMPO Collective.

Address: AMPO P.O.Box. 5250, Tokyo International

Make checks payable toj A six-issue subscription costs: Japan ¥600 AMPO, Account No. 4040971 Overseas $6:00 Kagurazaka Branch Mitsubishi Bank * Account number has been changed!!