About 3,000 unionists rallied late Apr. 2 in Tokyo to protest a planned legal revision that would enable the government to continue the forced use of land in Okinawa Prefecture for U.S. military installations after the land lease contracts expire in May.
Masakazu Yamamoto, deputy leader of the Social Democratic Party, promised the participants that the SDP will lead the fight against the government to prevent the land expropriation law from being revised. "The government is going to make the sudden amendment in a way that is against democracy. We should unite to not victimize Okinawans any more," Yamamoto told participants. Yamamoto appeared on behalf of party leader Takako Doi, who was in Okinawa at the time.
The Cabinet is expected to decide this morning whether to submit a bill to the Diet for revising the 1952 land expropriation law governing the supply of land for U.S. troops in Japan. Several land lease contracts involving more than 3,000 owners of plots used by 12 U.S. military facilities in the island prefecture will expire May 14. "We should not allow the legal revision to happen as we are having the 50th anniversary of our pacifist Constitution on May 3, and the 25th anniversary of Okinawa's reversion to Japanese control on May 15," he said.