Futenma dispute strains ties with Japan

[unhappycamper]

Futenma dispute strains ties with Japan
By Eric Talmadge - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Dec 29, 2009 7:11:04 EST

GINOWAN, Japan — When the U.S. took over a Japanese airfield here in the closing days of World War II, it was surrounded by sugarcane fields and the smoldering battlegrounds of Okinawa. It is now the focus of a deepening dispute that is testing Japan’s security alliance with the United States and dividing its new government in Tokyo.

A large city has grown up around the base, and helicopters and cargo planes from the U.S. Marine Corps facility buzz so low over Futenma No. 2 Elementary School, whose playground fence borders the facility, that the windows rattle and teachers stop class until the aircraft are on the ground.

“It’s just too much,” said the school’s vice principal, Muneo Nakamura. “I understand the political role the U.S. bases in Japan play. But we have to live here.”

That Marine Corps Air Station Futenma must go is not the dispute. U.S. military officials agree the base must be moved. The problem is where.

The United States says that Futenma cannot be shut down until a replacement is elsewhere on Okinawa, an idea that most Okinawans oppose. They have the ear of a new left-leaning Japanese government that took office in September and is reassessing the U.S.-Japan alliance.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/12/ap_japan_futenma_122909/