A journalist who has documented the alleged existence of Agent Orange on Okinawa has accused Tokyo and Washington of side-stepping their responsibilities to local residents and military personnel who may have been exposed to the toxic defoliant.
Jon Mitchell, a research associate at Meiji Gakuin University's International Peace Research Institute, said the Japanese government has failed to investigate whether military toxins contaminated local seafood farms, and U.S. authorities have dodged the truth about what happened to the more than 250 veterans who reported ill health.
"These people, they deserve better. These people deserve justice," Mitchell told a press conference Thursday at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo. He was speaking a day before a Japanese translation of his book on the subject hit the stores.