Attending a protest is not the only way to gain understanding about the postwar reality of U.S. bases in the southern island prefecture of Okinawa. A museum adjacent to a key U.S. base has become an unlikely place where lessons about the roots of the base dating back to the 1945 Battle of Okinawa can be learned.
Michio Sakima, director of Sakima Art Museum — which sits on land that was part of the U.S. Marine Corps' Air Station Futenma in Ginowan in the central part of Okinawa Prefecture — says his museum takes on the role of teaching visitors, including younger generations, about the horrors of the Battle of Okinawa and its connection to the Futenma base issue.
The 70-year-old director says the museum, which shares a fence with the Futenma base built during the battle, sits on his ancestral land returned in 1992 by the U.S. military after three years of negotiation.