An upturn in ties for U.S. forces in Japan

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/17/news/japan.php

An upturn in ties for U.S. forces in Japan

By James Brooke The New York Times

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2006

TOKYO After a U.S. Navy sailor was confined on an American base near Tokyo, accused of the Jan. 3 beating death of a Japanese woman, 20 people held a protest there the following Saturday. One man held up a sign that read, in English: "Dear Sailors, Don't Kill Local Women."

A decade ago, when three American soldiers were detained on a U.S. base in Okinawa in connection with the rape of a 12-year-old girl, 85,000 people marched one weekend in protest. Many held placards demanding the withdrawal of bases from the southern Japanese island.

Something has changed in the years between these two incidents. Japan's attitude toward the alliance with the United States has moved from wariness to a renewed recognition that it may be useful. At the same time, Americans have become more accommodating and less rigid in their dealings with the Japanese on matters involving the military.

Ten years ago, American officials were much slower to respond to requests that they place a U.S. soldier in Japan's custody. But there also are major differences in Japanese attitudes toward the nation's military alliance with the United States.

In 1995, the Cold War had recently ended and many Japanese believed Japan no longer needed U.S. troops. The most recent tragedy comes amid a growing concern here about China's steadily increasing military strength.

William Reese, a 21-year-old sailor stationed at a naval base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, was arrested shortly after Foreign Minister Taro Aso of Japan warned that China was "becoming a considerable threat." Aso has been outspoken on the China question, but his remark nonetheless reflects hardening attitudes. Underscoring Tokyo's anxieties about tensions in its neighborhood, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi subsequently reaffirmed the primacy of Japan's commitment to the U.S. security structure in the Pacific.

"Japanese people are more and more concerned about China's economic and military rise and North Korea," Koji Murata, an international relations professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto, said in an interview. "Japanese people are getting more and more realistic and think we have to sustain military relations with the U.S."

Indeed, after a few days, the murder case vanished from the Japanese news media. Instead, last weekend many Tokyo newspapers ran front-page photographs of black rubber rafts carrying Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers and U.S. Marine Corps instructors as they practiced amphibious landings near San Diego.

"Japanese media have changed their attitude," said Tatsuya Yoshioka, director of Peace Boat, a private group devoted to reducing military tensions in the region. "There is a completely hostile nationalism against North Korea and China that is promoted in the Japanese media, and on television."

The other side of this coin is the equally marked change in U.S. attitudes. The difference between the way Americans handled the case here last week and the Okinawa case a decade ago is as night to day.

In the autumn of 1995, popular anger stewed in Okinawa as the three suspects were kept in U.S. military custody for almost two months until there was a Japanese indictment. In March 1996, a Japanese court convicted the three soldiers and gave them sentences ranging from six-and-a-half to seven years. The sentences were served in a Japanese prison.

This time, Reese was remanded to Japanese custody as soon as a Japanese arrest warrant was obtained, four days after the killing. The U.S. Navy announced the transfer in advance and allowed it to be filmed for Japanese television.

Under the agreement regulating relations between Japan and the U.S. military, the United States is not required to hand over military personnel suspected of committing crimes off duty and off base without an indictment. But, after the Okinawa rape case, the United States agreed to give "sympathetic consideration" to the early transfer of suspects of major crimes. The transfer of Reese was the fourth such case.

"Transfer of custody is absolutely the right thing to do in this case," Rear Admiral James Kelly, commander of U.S. naval forces in Japan, said in a statement. "We will continue to provide our complete support and cooperation with all Japanese authorities."

Two days after the killing, Kelly expressed his regret, and the next day apologized to the family of the victim, Yoshie Sato.

Sato, 56, was killed around 6:30 a.m., apparently dying from a fractured skull and blood loss. Her purse was missing the equivalent of $131.

About 100 U.S. Navy officers and sailors attended a wake for Sato. Kelly and Captain Ed McNamee, commander of the Kitty Hawk, the aircraft carrier where the sailor was billeted, burned incense in her memory.

In Tokyo, the U.S. Embassy issued a statement promising close cooperation with the Japanese authorities. Ambassador J. Thomas Scheiffer expressed "my personal sorrow and outrage about the uncivilized behavior that resulted in the death of Ms. Yoshie Sato."

Some analysts note the gap between attitudes in Yokosuka and those in Okinawa. Yokosuka is 50 kilometers, or about 30 miles, from central Tokyo and is Koizumi's home district. By contrast, Okinawa, the only major Japanese island attacked by U.S. troops during World War II, has long resented the fact that about half of the 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan are stationed there.

But Yokosuka has been divided by debate over Washington's decision two months ago to replace the Kitty Hawk in 2008 with a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the first for which Japan would be the home port.


U.S. jet crashes in Japan

U.S. military officials said an American F-15 fighter jet crashed into the sea near Okinawa Island on Tuesday morning, but the pilot ejected and was rescued with only minor injuries, The Associated Press reported from Tokyo.