HAEBARU, Okinawa Pref. — While searching for records on the postwar history of Okinawa in the United States for nine years through 2006, Kazuhiko Nakamoto was impressed with the meticulous documentation management there.
"The documents at the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, included typed papers as well as handwritten memorandums (made by government officials), and I can see how they decided on their Okinawa policies by checking the filed papers in sequence," he said. "And if certain documents were not made open, it was clearly explained why."
As a senior archivist at the Okinawa Prefectural Archives, the 45-year-old Nakamoto is now focusing on how the Tokyo District Court will rule Friday on a lawsuit in which 25 plaintiffs are demanding that the government disclose three diplomatic documents over Okinawa's return to Japanese sovereignty from U.S. control in 1972.