Protests Against U.S. Military Base Policy in Asia: Persuasion and Its Limits (Studies in Asian Security) - Hardcover

Kawato, Yuko

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804794162 ISBN 13: 9780804794169

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2015

Synopsis

Since the end of World War II, protests against U.S. military base and related policies have occurred in several Asian host countries. How much influence have these protests had on the p;olicy regarding U.S. military bases? What conditions make protests more likely to influence policy? Protests Against U.S. Military Base Policy in Asia answers these questions by examining state response to twelve major protests in Asia since the end of World War II—in the Philippines, Okinawa, and South Korea. Yuko Kawato lays out the conditions under which protesters' normative arguments can and cannot persuade policy-makers to change base policy, and how protests can still generate some political or military incentives for policy-makers to adjust policy when persuasion fails. Kawato also shows that when policy-makers decide not to change policy, they can offer symbolic concessions to appear norm-abiding and to secure a smoother implementation of policies that protesters oppose. While the findings will be of considerable interest to academics and students, perhaps their largest impact will be on policy makers and activists, for whom Kawato offers recommendations for their future decision-making and actions.

About this title

About the Author

Yuko Kawato is a Research Fellow at the Asia Center, a think tank in Paris, France.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Protests Against U.S. Military Base Policy in Asia

Persuasion and its Limits

By Yuko Kawato

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8047-9416-9

Contents

List of Acronyms, 
Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
1. Response to Protests in Okinawa Under the U.S. Administration, 1945–1972, 
2. Response to Protests in Okinawa, 1995–1996 and 2009–2010, 
3. Response to Protests in South Korea, 2000–2007, 
4. Response to Protests in the Philippines, 1964–1965 and 1972–1979, 
5. Persuasion and the Closure of U.S. Military Bases in the Philippines, 1991, 
Conclusion, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Response to Protests in Okinawa Under the U.S. Administration, 1945–1972

In the first two island-wide protests on base policy in postwar Okinawa, normative arguments mobilized large protests but failed to persuade policymakers. The first wave of protests occurred under the American occupation in the 1950s, in which protesters mobilized against forced expropriation of privately owned land for American military use. Persuasion failed because knowledge and beliefs of policy-makers led them to reject protesters' normative arguments, and policy-makers did not find leading protest organizations credible. Although protests generated important political incentives for policy change, the American military administration, which governed Okinawa with vast authority, was able to eliminate the incentives. Although the American authorities did not change the policy of forced land expropriation, they nevertheless offered symbolic concessions to ensure a smoother implementation of this policy. The second wave of protests came in the 1960s, in protest against the American military administration of Okinawa. Protesters demanded Okinawa's reversion to Japan and closure of all American military bases. Persuasion failed, but protests generated important political and military incentives for reversion. Japan and the United States compromised and offered limited policy change both to calm the protests and protect their interests. Tokyo and Washington agreed on Okinawa's reversion to Japan but kept U.S. military bases on the islands, contrary to the protesters' preferences. In addition, in response to protesters' antinuclear argument, the United States agreed to withdraw all nuclear weapons from Okinawa before reversion. But the two governments concluded a secret agreement that would permit the United States to reintroduce them in emergency situations in the future.

Protest Against the American Land Policy in the 1950s

Expropriation Policy, Protest Mobilization, and Base Policy Outcome

The U.S. military's forceful expropriation of private land for military use, and many Okinawans' belief that the United States failed to provide adequate compensation for the land use, led to the first "island-wide struggle."

During and immediately after the Battle of Okinawa (April–June 1945), the U.S. military sent local civilians to internment camps and secured land for military use without landowners' consent. The United States justified the land acquisition on the basis of the Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 1907. Although the convention's annex, Section III, Article 46 says "Private property cannot be confiscated," Article 52 says "Requisitions in kind and services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the needs of the army of occupation." The U.S. military had already declared itself an "army of occupation"; on March 26, 1945, concurrent with the American landing on the Kerama Islands that started the Battle of Okinawa, Admiral Chester Nimitz issued U.S. Military Directive No. 1, placing the Okinawa Islands under U.S. military administration.

American forces built camps and airfields as they gained ground in the battle in order to continue the war effort both in Okinawa and the Japanese mainland. American forces also took over many airfields that the Japanese forces had abandoned. An example is Central Airfield. When Okinawans returned from internment camps, they found Central Airfield replaced by Kadena Air Base, which was approximately forty times larger than Central Airfield. The U.S. military occupied, partially or totally, land from fifteen Okinawan villages to make way for Kadena Air Base.

Many Okinawans found themselves homeless due to American military use of their land. The majority of the population engaged in agriculture before the battle, and land was indispensable for making a living. They had also guarded their land with family tombs for generations, making land more than just a source of income or some property to sell. Despite the landowners' predicament, the U.S. military continued to use the land without paying the landowners. The Hague Convention says: "Contributions in kind shall as far as possible be paid for in cash; if not, a receipt shall be given and the payment of the amount shall be made as soon as possible." This article with loopholes—payment "as far as possible" and "as soon as possible"—did not bind the United States to pay for the land use.

The U.S.-Japan San Francisco Peace Treaty that came into force in April 1952 ended the American occupation of the Japanese mainland. However, it formalized the American administration of Okinawa while recognizing Japan's "residual sovereignty." Once the treaty came into effect, the United States lost legal recourse to the Hague Conventions for military land acquisition. The U.S. Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (USCAR) under military command, which was the main policy-making body on Okinawa, began to require contracts and payments for land acquisition.

In November 1952, USCAR issued Ordinance 91, which announced that the United States would offer back payment for the use of land expropriated after July 1, 1950. With this ordinance, USCAR also created a system in which landowners leased their land to the Government of the Ryukyu Islands (GRI, a local government with limited powers), and USCAR in turn rented from the GRI. However, 98 percent of the landowners refused to sign the leases because they believed that the compensation was too little. USCAR offered less than 2 yen per year for one tsubo (3.3 square meters) of land, or 200–300 yen per year to a landowner with an average landholding. At the time, a bottle of Coca-Cola cost 10 yen. The landowners also refused to sign because the lease was for twenty years, which they thought was too long. In response, USCAR issued Ordinance 109 in April 1953, which allowed the U.S. military to expropriate land even without landowners' consent. In 1953 alone, the U.S. military relocated 447 households and expropriated about 530,000 tsubo (1,749,000 square meters) of farmland.

The U.S. military used force to expropriate when landowners refused to sign leases. Forceful expropriation occurred in Okinawan villages such as Aja, Mekaru, Hirano, Okano, and Gushi in 1953, in Iejima in March 1955, and in Isahama in March and July 1955. American soldiers used tanks, bulldozers, and fire to destroy landowners' houses and crops, and brought tear gas and guns fixed with bayonets to force landowners off of their land.

Dislocated farmers had to live in tents that the U.S. military distributed, suffering from heat, lack of drinking water, poisonous snakes, and water seeping from the ground when it rained. The U.S. military gave them cement, nails, and other materials to build new homes elsewhere, but the landowners preferred to return to their own land and the material largely remained unused. Separated from their farmland, many of them quickly became malnourished, and some even died of starvation. USCAR paid for land use after expropriation but the payment was only 2–3 percent of the average agricultural revenue for the landowners.

The relocation sites that the U.S. military offered the landowners were mostly unsuitable for farming. The landowners were thus forced to continue farming within military installations when possible, often at great risk to their safety. Some farmers became injured or died during American military exercises. At times American security guards kicked and beat farmers in and around the military zones. USCAR considered that its ordinances and land-use payments granted it the sole use of the land, and thus put the farmers found in exercise zones on military trial and imprisoned them. When the U.S. military destroyed crops in preparation for and during military exercises, it paid no compensation.

In response, landowners created a land committee in each village, and these committees together created a Landowners Union (Shichoson Gunyo Tochi Iinkai Rengokai) in 1953. Landowners negotiated with USCAR and the GRI for just compensation for land use, return of their land, and end to expropriations.

In March 1954, USCAR announced a plan to obtain permanent leases from landowners with a lump-sum payment. USCAR offered an amount that equaled 6 percent of the land value times 16 (for 16 years) for a permanent lease of the land for military use. This announcement shocked landowners and the public. There was a consensus that this would essentially amount to an American land purchase. Landowners opposed the plan also because USCAR's lump-sum payment would prevent them from receiving compensation for the increase in land value over time.

There was opposition to the USCAR plan from across the political spectrum. The Okinawan parliament (Rippoin) declared its position in the Four Principles on the Land Issue (gunyochi mondai ni kansuru yongensoku). The four principles were: 1) American land purchases, permanent use, and lump-sum payments must not be permitted; 2) for land that is already in military use, the United States must provide adequate compensation (the rent must take into account the landowners' asking price, and there must be annual rent evaluation and payment); 3) the United States must swiftly pay adequate compensation to landowners for damage; and 4) the U.S. military must return land that is not needed, and must not expropriate additional land. The Landowners Union, the GRI, the Okinawan parliament, and two organizations of local leaders (one for mayors and town/village chiefs, and the other for leaders of local assemblies) formed the Five Group Coalition (Gosha Kyogikai) to negotiate with the American authorities. Delegates from the Five Group Coalition visited Washington in May 1955.

Okinawan outrage increased in September 1955 after an American soldier kidnapped, raped, and murdered a six-year-old girl near the Kadena Air Base. Another American soldier raped another child less than a week later. Many Okinawans participated in the first Okinawan Citizens' Rally (kenmin taikai) in protest.

In the context of increasing Okinawan frustration, the U.S. House Armed Services Committee sent a special subcommittee headed by Melvin Price to investigate land issues in Okinawa for four days. Despite the Okinawan opposition to the land policy, the Price Report in June 1956 recommended the permanent lease of land for military use, lump-sum rent payments, and further land acquisition. USCAR announced that it would raise the rent six times but it would continue the lump-sum payments and carry out additional expropriations.

The Price Report's recommendations and the subsequent American actions were contrary to the Okinawan parliament's Four Principles. In response, the GRI executive branch, members of the parliament, and chiefs of cities, towns, and villages threatened to quit in protest. Sixteen political organizations, including the Okinawa Teachers Association (OTA), the Youth Group Association, the Women's Association, the Parents Association, the Okinawa Socialist Mass Party (OSMP), the Okinawa People's Party (OPP), the Okinawa Democratic Party, the Chamber of Commerce, the Mayors Union, and the Landowners Union, formed the All-Okinawa Coalition for Land Protection (Zen Okinawa Tochi o Mamoru Kyogikai) to protest the American land policy. Within two weeks, approximately 160,000 to 200,000 people out of the Okinawan population of 800,000 joined rallies in fifty-six of Okinawa's sixty-four cities, towns, and villages. Students from the University of the Ryukyus demonstrated for the first time on the streets, yelling "Yankees Go Home" and carrying placards with anti-U.S. messages. On July 28, 150,000 people gathered at a rally for the Four Principles in Naha, Okinawa's capital.

In response, USCAR suspended the lump-sum payment policy in April 1958, offering it—in the form of a lump-sum payment for a ten years' lease—only to landowners who requested it. In February 1959, with Ordinance 20, the United States offered new lease terms with twice as much rent as in 1956, paid annually, and renewed every five years. The new rent equaled 80 percent of what the Land Union had demanded in 1956 and 60 percent of the annual farm income. The United States also allowed farmers to farm within military zones outside training hours (early morning, evening, and Sundays). The Americans called such areas "farming areas with tacit permission" (mokunin kosakuchi). However, the United States reserved the right to cancel permission at any time, and did not pay for losses incurred by such cancellations. Moreover, under the ordinance, the U.S. military was still able to expropriate land without the landowners' consent.

In sum, the United States retained the policy of expropriating land at will, while making some symbolic concessions such as suspending lump-sum payments, increasing rent, and designating farming areas with tacit permission. The following section explains this base policy outcome.

Normative Arguments Against the Land Policy and Failure of Persuasion

Protesters used several normative arguments to oppose the American land policy in the 1950s. First, they emphasized humanitarian concerns in opposing expropriation and asking for just compensation. Farmers said they could not survive without the land to cultivate or adequate compensation. The Iejima farmers' "beggars' march" across Okinawa was such an example. The death of two women by starvation after the expropriation of their land triggered the march. Twenty to thirty villagers marched for about nine months, publicizing the humanitarian costs of the American land policy. Human rights organizations supported the farmers. Roger Baldwin from the American Civil Liberties Union and the International League for Human Rights learned about the American land expropriation in Okinawa, and advised the Japan Civil Liberties Union (JCLU) to conduct an investigation. The JCLU investigated for ten months and published a report critical of the American administration in Okinawa, citing forceful land expropriation as a human rights problem.

A second normative argument focused on protection of private property. For example, the OPP leader Senaga Kamejiro wrote an open letter to the deputy governor of the Ryukyu Islands, Major General David A. D. Ogden:

It is a fact in Onna-son to which your land acquisition order was recently accorded, that there is put up, in the area for which not rental rate has been determined nor has the contract been concluded, a notice-board which reads "This area is belong [sic] to the State Department of the United States of America. No person is allowed to enter into this area without permission." Such act, regardless of an individual and a state, as not only using another's personal property without permission but also asserting his rights to another's is considered not an infringement of property rights, but rather a plunder of property. It is also considered an act against justice and humanity, isn't it?

In addition, landowners protested with a slogan against the lump-sum payment: "Money is for one year but land is for ten thousand years." Landowners asked for the protection of private property and the provision of adequate compensation.

Some landowners also made antiwar and antimilitarism arguments. In Iejima, landowners opposed expropriation and demanded their land back by arguing that they were against war, "which is the worst tragedy and crime of mankind." This argument was informed by the Okinawan experience in the Battle of Okinawa, an extremely destructive battle, which claimed the lives of about one in three Okinawans. Landowners did not want their land to be used to prepare for and fight wars. In addition, one of the Iejima protest leaders, Ahagon Shoko, was a Christian, and he cited the Bible while trying to dissuade American officials from expropriating land: "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword."

Although most landowners focused on humanitarian concerns and property rights, some of the protesters made political arguments as well. The Communist OPP criticized the existence of the U.S. military bases in Okinawa and opposed the "entrenchment of U.S. colonialism in Okinawa." A related argument was a nationalist one. It appealed to many Okinawans' desire for reversion to Japan, and argued that Okinawans should oppose the American land policy that would allow the U.S. military to use their land permanently. The OPP and the OTA combined the land struggle with the issue of reversion, stressing the "importance of Okinawa's land rights for defending [the] integrity of 'Japanese territory' from US encroachment."

Okinawan people and organizations deployed these normative arguments through protests and in presentation of demands to American officials both in Okinawa and Washington. The normative arguments failed to persuade USCAR officials, who were the main policy-makers on Okinawan issues, because the arguments did not fit with the officials' beliefs. First, USCAR policy-makers believed that the establishment and expansion of military bases through land acquisition would help ensure military effectiveness. A lump-sum rent payment in exchange for a permanent lease would ensure long-term military effectiveness, a crucial issue for the United States since it considered Okinawa strategically important. The Cold War was taking shape by the late 1940s. In July 1949, in the context of the Chinese civil war which resulted in the establishment of the People's Republic of China in October, the U.S. Congress approved the allocation of 58 million dollars for military base construction in Okinawa. The Korean War, which erupted in June 1950, increased the strategic importance of Okinawa even more. American bombers based in Okinawa attacked North Korean targets. Okinawa thus became the "keystone of the Pacific," allowing the United States to conduct surveillance over, and strike if necessary, many important targets in the Pacific and East Asia. In his address to the GRI's legislature on April 11, 1958, the high commissioner (the top administrator of Okinawa), Lieutenant General James E. Moore, declared: "The United States maintains a military base here as its contribution to the defense of the Free World against the continuing menace of Communist aggression."

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804794162
• ISBN 13: 9780804794169
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 245