4
bilateral commission was formed, the Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO),
charged with reviewing SOFA provisions and basing rules. Among the varying issues of
its mandate was the creation of a phased plan to return over 12,000 acres of U.S. base
land in Okinawa to civilian use. This involved the relocation of some key U.S. military
facilities to smaller parcels of land located away from Okinawa’s main population
centers, so that everything from noise pollution to the risk of being harmed by a military
accident would be reduced for local civilians.
5
In addition, the U.S. Marines established
a community relations office in Okinawa for the first time ever,
6
and all of the services
instituted more stringent rules in an attempt to get better control over the off-base
behavior of military personnel and their dependents. The Japanese government went so
far as to send an ambassador from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to Okinawa,
believing that someone of high diplomatic rank was needed to act as a local observer and
negotiator for base-related issues.
Such gestures served merely to further galvanize Governor Ota. In late September 1995
he announced his refusal to sign the Spring 1996 official lease renewals for the
landholders in Okinawa whose property was occupied by U.S. military facilities, an
annual ritual that kept the American base presence legal.
7
Not surprisingly, Ota’s refusal
5
Yoichi Funabashi, Alliance Adrift (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999), p. 309; Defense
Facilities Administration Agency of Japan (DFAA), “Progress of the SACO Final Report,” unpublished
memorandum, Tokyo, 2003.
6
Authors’ interview with a senior U.S. military official, Okinawa, May 2003.
7
Robert D. Eldridge, “The 1996 Okinawa Referendum on U.S. Base Reductions: One Question, Several
Answers,” Asian Survey 37, no. 10 (Oct. 1997): 879-904.
Convention