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photo:Some 35,000 demonstrators raise placards reading “Do not yield to authority” during a rally to protest the Futenma U.S. air base on Okinawa, Japan, in May 2015. Jiji Press / AFP / Getty Images
Residents of Japanese island oppose relocation of controversial Futenma facility to Cape Henoko
August 24, 2015 5:00AM ET
by Jon Letman
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series examining the U.S. military presence in Okinawa.
HENOKO, Japan ― Demonstrators, many old enough to have survived the bloody Battle of Okinawa as children, sing buoyant but defiant protest songs while holding placards reading “No new base” and “Give us back peace, give us back land.” One sign, directed at the U.S. Marines reads, “We respect you but not your job.”
Polls consistently show Okinawans and, increasingly, mainland Japanese are opposed to replacing Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, a sprawling military base in the south of the island, with a new facility in the rural Henoko district of Nago in northern Okinawa. Referred to as Henoko, the Futenma Replacement Facility (FRF) is planned to have multiple helipads, 5,900-foot dual runways, an ordnance depot, a fuel depot and an 892-foot pier capable of docking amphibious assault ships.
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