Okinawa remains at mercy of armed forces, says expert
Residents of Okinawa Prefecture continue to be at the mercy of armed forces many decades since World War II, said Takeshi Yamaguchi, an expert working to share testimonies of war survivors in the southernmost prefecture.
Survivors wish for the island prefecture to never become a battlefield again, said Yamaguchi, professor of social studies education at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa.
The prefecture hosts many U.S. military bases, following its occupation by U.S. armed forces after Japan's defeat in the Battle of Okinawa in the closing days of World War II.
The Battle of Okinawa was the biggest land battle in the Pacific Theater of the war, killing some 200,000 people including civilians.
The U.S. military stormed the main island of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, after landing on the nearby Kerama Islands on March 26 that year.
Fierce fighting lasted almost three months, with the former Japanese military intending to stall U.S. forces on Okinawa to delay their possible landing on the Japanese mainland. About 94,000 Okinawan residents are believed to have died in the war under the Japanese side's doctrine that the military, public officials and civilians should share the same fate in life and death.
Academic research on the Battle of Okinawa began in earnest in the latter half of the 1960s, with records of testimonies created by municipal and prefectural officials, according to Yamaguchi.
Many survivors shared their experiences of Japanese forces shooting civilians who tried to become captives of the U.S. military, which gave them food. There were documents from the former Japanese military that backed up such experiences.
But Yamaguchi said that the U.S. military was not necessarily a liberation force, as residents placed in holding facilities faced threats to their human rights and lives due to sexual violence and other incidents by U.S. soldiers.
After a period of U.S. occupation, Okinawa returned to Japanese rule in May 1972. However, roughly 70% of U.S. military facilities in Japan are concentrated in the prefecture. Sexual violence by U.S. service members is a persistent issue.
Okinawans learned from their experiences that "the military does not protect residents," Yamaguchi said. "The fallout of the Battle of Okinawa remains in the continued threats to human rights."
The proliferation of social media has raised concerns about division among people over their views on history.
Last month, a lawmaker in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party was heavily criticized over his remark that descriptions on a monument commemorating the Himeyuri corps of female students who died in the Battle of Okinawa constituted "a revision of history."
"(The remark) was delivered from a certain view of history, and many Okinawans felt their memories were distorted," Yamaguchi said.
He said that the issue likely arose from the "reality in which people online, including on social media, are just declaring their views and not engaging in dialogue."
That is why it is important to return to the testimonies of people who have firsthand experiences, and to talk about the incongruities, he said.
As fighting continues around the world, including in Ukraine and Gaza, Yamaguchi stressed the importance of "making efforts to link the Battle of Okinawa with today's wars and think about peace."
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