The people of Japan's southernmost Okinawa prefecture have come out against U.S. military bases in their prefecture, with the prefectural assembly unanimously adopting a resolution that seeks to downsize the bases and to ban the inmates from going outside them, Japanese media reported.
The assembly's resolution comes in the wake of what it calls a spate of crimes committed by U.S. servicemen in the prefecture which hosts two important American military bases.
The document adopted at an extraordinary plenary session of the legislature on Friday strongly protested such incidents involving U.S. service-members.
A night curfew was in force since last month for all U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan, after the alleged sexual assault of a Japanese woman by two U.S. Navy personnel in Okinawa. But two weeks after the curfew was imposed, an inebriated U.S. airman allegedly punched and injured a teenager after breaking into his apartment in the prefecture.
Such incidents show that the U.S. military's discipline-tightening measures are not working, Japan's NHK broadcaster reported quoting the resolution.
The document said lives and human rights of the people of Okinawa could be protected only through consolidation and downsizing of American bases, and by banning U.S. service-members from going outside them.
It also called for transfer to Japanese police custody any U.S. service-member suspected of committing a crime, and sought for a fundamental review of the bilateral Status of Forces Agreement between Japan and the United States.
A delegation of the legislature will visit American bases and the U.S. Consulate-General in Okinawa early next week to hand over the resolution to U.S. officials.
A staunch U.S. ally in the Asia-Pacific, Japan is home to a number of U.S. military bases with more than 50,000 soldiers, nearly half of them in Okinawa. Even though Japan and the United States have agreed to shift the Marine Corps Futenma Air Station from Okinawa, it is yet to be implemented.
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