TOKYO — A Japanese court docket on Wednesday ordered the governor of Okinawa to approve the central authorities’s modified plan for landfill work on the deliberate relocation web site of a key U.S. navy base on the southern island regardless of persistent opposition and protests by residents.
The choice will transfer ahead the suspended building at a time Okinawa’s strategic significance is seen more and more necessary for the Japan-U.S. navy alliance within the face of rising tensions with China as Japan quickly seeks to buildup its navy within the southwestern area.
The ruling by the Fukuoka Excessive Courtroom Naha department permits the Land and Transport Ministry to order the modification work designed to bolster extraordinarily gentle floor on the designated relocation web site for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, overriding Gov. Denny Tamaki’s disapproval. The ruling ordered Tamaki to situation the approval inside three working days.
If accomplished, the brand new web site will serve a key Marine Corps facility for the area and might be additionally residence to MV-22 Ospreys which are at the moment deployed at Futenma.
Tamaki can nonetheless enchantment to the Supreme Courtroom, however the native authorities at this level has no energy to cease the work until the highest court docket overturns the choice.
Okinawa and the central authorities have lengthy tussled over the relocation of the Futenma base.
The Japanese and U.S. governments initially agreed in 1996 to shut the Futenma air station a 12 months after the rape of a schoolgirl by three U.S. navy personnel led to an enormous anti-base motion. However persistent protests and lawsuits between Okinawa and Tokyo have held up the plan for almost 30 years.
Japan’s central authorities started the reclamation work off Henoko Bay on the japanese coast of Okinawa in 2018 to pave the best way for the relocation of the Futenma base from its crowded neighborhood on the island.
The central authorities later discovered that giant areas of the designated reclamation web site are on gentle floor, which some consultants described “as gentle as mayonnaise,” and submitted a revision to the unique plan with further land enchancment. However Okinawa’s prefectural authorities rejected the revision plan and suspended the reclamation work.
The bottom enchancment plan requires tens of hundreds of pillars and large quantities of soil, which opponents say would harm the surroundings.
The Supreme Courtroom in September turned down Okinawa’s enchantment in one other lawsuit that ordered the prefecture to withdraw its rejection of the modified landfill plan.
Tamaki has stated it was unjust that the need of the residents is crushed by the central authorities.
Tamaki has referred to as for a major discount of the U.S. militar y on the island, which is residence to greater than half of fifty,000 American troops based mostly in Japan beneath the bilateral safety pact. Tamaki additionally has demanded the rapid closure of Futenma base and the scrapping of the bottom building at Henoko. Okinawa accounts for simply 0.6% of Japanese land.
Tokyo and Washington say the relocation inside Okinawa, as a substitute of shifting it elsewhere as demanded by many Okinawans, is the one answer.