Okinawans are somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that, as The Okinawa Times remarked in an editorial on Friday, it took the "sacrifice of a schoolgirl" to make progress in the movement to scale back the U.S. military bases that occupy 20 percent of the land on this Japanese island.
But there is no denying that the abduction and rape of a 12-year-girl, for which three U.S. servicemen were sentenced on Thursday, unleashed a public outcry against the bases, focused world attention on the issue and forced Washington and Tokyo to deal more urgently with a situation that they had tended to sweep under the rug.Now, with the trial of the servicemen over, opponents of the bases vowed to push on but acknowledged that their struggle might now become a bit more difficult.
"We just hope the media people will keep an interest in the Okinawan issue," said Suzuyo Takazato, a Naha city councilwoman and a leading opponent of the U.S. bases here. "The media people are saying this will be the end. This is not the end. It has only just started."
The Naha District Court on Thursday sentenced Navy Seaman Marcus Gill of Woodville, Texas, and Marine Pfc. Rodrico Harp of Griffin, Ga., to seven years in a Japanese prison and Marine Pfc. Kendrick Ledet of Waycross, Ga., to six and a half years.
Many Okinawans were not satisfied with the sentence, even though it was somewhat long by Japanese standards. "The sentence is too light," said Hiroko Takayasu, a housewife. "I'm sure the victim will be fearful for the rest of her life."
Newspaper editorials said that putting the three men in jail does not get at the root cause of the crime - the presence of the U.S. bases.
Okinawa, which occupies less than 1 percent of the land area of Japan, is home to about three-fifths of the 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan and 75 percent of the U.S. bases as measured by land area. That is because Okinawa was occupied by the United States until 1972 and because, many Okinawans feel, they have been treated as second-class citizens by mainland Japan.
With the rape trial over, attention is now turning to a race against time as the Japanese government seeks to renew a lease for a plot of privately owned land inside a U.S. military communications facility.
The lease expires at the end of this month and the landowner, a pacifist who achieved notoriety by once burning the Japanese flag, refuses to renew. Gov. Masahide Ota of Okinawa, a longtime opponent of the bases, has the power to sign the lease in place of landowner but has refused to do so.
So the national government has started court proceedings to allow Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto to sign the lease. The final hearing, at which Ota will testify, will be held on Monday.
It is not clear what effect losing this one plot of land - should it come to that - would have on the operations of the communications facility, which many people suspect is used for electronic eavesdropping on other countries.
But leases for 34 more plots of land on various bases owned by base opponents expire next March. The U.S. government says it is confident Japan will find some way of continuing the use of the land by the U.S. bases.
Attention is also focusing on a special committee, made up of government officials from the United States and Japan, that is developing a plan to consolidate some of the bases in Okinawa and to reduce the noise, pollution and public-safety hazards of military training exercises.
The committee, formed in the aftermath of the rape, has a deadline of November.
But Masaaki Aguni, director of the military base affairs office for the Okinawa government, said he is skeptical that the committee will recommend significant base reductions, because it is assuming that the total number of U.S. troops in Japan will not be reduced.