Forty-five years since the end of the postwar U.S. rule of Okinawa and its reversion to Japan, there seems to be a deepening schism between the national government and the southernmost prefecture. Okinawa remains host to a disproportionately heavy presence of American military bases under the security treaty with the United States. The administration of Gov. Takeshi Onaga and Tokyo are in a protracted standoff over construction of a new airfield in the Henoko area of Nago, Okinawa Island, to take over the functions of the U.S. Marines' Futenma air station — with the promise of closing Futenma only if an alternate facility is built in Okinawa, symbolizing the government's policy over U.S. bases in the prefecture. If the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is serious about its stated desire to reduce Okinawa's burden of hosting U.S. bases, it should rethink its construction of the substitute facility in Henoko.
Chobyo Yara, who led the Okinawans' movement for reversion of their land and in 1968 became the first elected head of the government of the Ryukyu Islands under the U.S. administration, pursued an ideal of "building a peaceful and affluent Okinawa without nuclear weapons or military bases." That was based on local residents' harsh experiences during and after World War II. The Battle of Okinawa, which raged from March to June 1945, was the only World War II ground battle fought in Japan in which residents were exposed to the terror of combat. Some 150,000 residents of Okinawa, or about a quarter of the population, were killed.
What followed were 27 years of postwar U.S. rule of Okinawa, during which the U.S. high commissioner — a position held by U.S. Army lieutenant generals — wielded enormous powers, including appointing the head of the Ryukyu Islands government and promulgating ordinances. By means of a land expropriation ordinance, the U.S. requisitioned large tracts of land for military bases. It was only in 1968 that Okinawa residents won the right to elect the head of their local administration.