TOKYO, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- While the Supreme Court on Tuesday may have rejected an appeal from Okinawa and sided with the Japanese central government's plans to relocate a controversial U.S. Marine Corps air base within the southern island prefecture, Okinawa's wily governor Takeshi Onaga still has a veritable legal arsenal at his disposal to stave off the move he believes is utterly abhorrent and against the will of the people.
For all intents and purposes it may seem that Onaga and Okinawans in general may be running out of cards to play against the central government and the U.S. to block or otherwise hamper the construction plans for the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which under the ruling will be relocated from the densely-populated Ginowan area to the coastal Henoko district of Nago also on the island. This, however, is far from the case.
The court's ruling and central government's unilateral attitude hasn't taken the most important factor into account.
A factor not to be under-estimated or trifled with. That factor is the sheer, unwavering will of the Okinawa people, who, if Tuesday's protests on the island are anything to go by, will not take the decision lying down anymore and are gearing up, to up their own ante against the central government and the U.S. whose autonomous decisions have left the island in a state of untenable "wartime occupation," with locals forced to host 75 percent of all U.S. bases in Japan.
The rallies Tuesday, which also spread to the mainland including to the capital Tokyo, are gathering in numbers and volume and are honing in on who they believe is the real culprit of this protracted situation, the one pulling the strings in this bitter seemingly one-sided pantomime, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, motivated solely by his desire and penchant for kowtowing to Big Brother.
To this end, political observers said Tuesday that the voices of the islanders should not be ignored and the power of the people, as had been the case in the past, has been enough to more than force the government's arm and bring about legislative change.
Read the full story at Xinhua