The following article and sidebar are the last of Ang Bayan’s series on crimes committed by US troops.
One of the places where heinous crimes involving American soldiers have been occurring with great frequency is Okinawa, Japan. Currently, there are 32 US military bases in Okinawa occupying 20% of its land area. It is also host to half of the 50,000 US troops deployed in Japan.
The US military has been occupying Okinawa for seven decades now. It began the occupation in 1945 after Japan’s defeat in the hands of the US during the Second World War.
The US occupation of Okinawa and the establishment of its military bases were accomplished through violent means. In 1953, the US imposed a law allowing it to seize the lands and demolish the homes of thousands of Okinawans in order to build its military bases. Some farmers voluntarily left after being promised land in Bolivia and financial assistance. Many of them, however, died in the jungles where they were exiled and never received any assistance.
After the US’ seizure of Okinawa, it remained under US military control for 27 years. Okinawa reverted to Japanese control in 1972. But in exchange, the Japanese government had to allow the presence of US military forces in Okinawa. The US military likewise maintained custody and tried erring American soldiers.
From 1945 to 2000 alone, up to 5,000 crimes involving US troops were documented, including 110 rape cases.
In a span of six months in 1949, up to 29 Okinawans were killed by US military troops and 18 women raped, including a nine month old infant girl. In September 1955, a six-year old girl was raped and killed by an American sergeant, who threw the victim’s body in a garbage dump.
In almost all cases, the erring soldiers were either acquitted or meted very light penalties by the US courts martial:
March 1956. A 28-year old man crossing a street was killed after being run over by an American soldier. The soldier was acquitted.
October 1959. A 23-year old woman was strangled to death by a US soldier, who was sentenced to only three years imprisonment.
December 1959. A 55-year old woman picking spent bullet shells was gunned down by an American sergeant, who claimed that he mistook her for wild boar. The US court martial acquitted the soldier and the US paid $2,700 in indemnification to the victim’s family.
September 1961. An American soldier hit four children with his vehicle, killing two of them. He received a one-rank demotion and was confined to barracks for six months.
February 1963. A 12-year old boy was hit by a vehicle driven by an American soldier. His acquittal by a US court martial spurred widespread protests.
May 1970. A 16-year old girl was beaten and stabbed by a US soldier. The accused was sentenced to only three years in prison.
April 1971. A 23-year old woman was stoned to death by an American soldier, who was acquitted for “lack of evidence.”
Okinawa suffers one of the highest rates of rape committed by American troops.
The most horrendous case of the 1990s was the abduction, beating and gang rape by three US Marines of a 12-year old girl in September 1995.
The Okinawans’ widespread and intense anger at this crime forced the US to change the provisions of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) then existing to allow Japanese authorities to sentence and imprison American soldiers guilty of rape and murder.
In spite of this, rape and violence perpetrated by American soldiers against Okinawan women have not been put to a stop. Overweening in their knowledge of belonging to the world’s most powerful armed force, the rapist soldiers have not even bothered to conceal their crimes:
June 2001. A US Air Force sergeant raped a 20-year old woman on the hood of a car parked right outside a popular night club.
May 2003. A 19-year old girl was brutally beaten and raped by a US Marine by the roadside.
July 2005. Another US Air Force sergeant raped a 10-year old girl as she was on her way to school.
February 2008. Another US Marine raped a 14-year old girl inside his car that was parked near a military base.
Other reports state that almost half of all female students at an Okinawan high school recounted having “scary experiences” involving US troops while they were on their way to or from school.
Aside from the killings and rapes, many accidents related to the military bases’ operations have also resulted in deaths and other harm to Okinawans. Following are among the most striking cases:
August 1948. Bombs being loaded by the US Navy on a ship exploded, killing up to 106 passengers alighting from a nearby ferry boat and wounding 76 others.
June 1959. Seventeen students and teachers were killed and more than a hundred wounded when a US Air Force combat plane crashed on an elementary school.
December 1962. Seven civilians were killed and eight others wounded when a US transport aircraft crashed on a house.
May 1967. The US Army disposed of reject oil supplies by throwing it in four wells being used by residents.
April 1975. Five people were killed when sexivalent chromium, a toxic chemical, escaped from the Makiminato US Base.
October 1988. Four people were killed after a US helicopter crashed near a training field.
November 1994. Five people were killed or wounded after a US military helicopter crash.
[Ang Bayan is the official
news organ of the Communist Party of the Philippines
http://www.philippinerevolution.net/publications/ang_bayan/20150207/the-us-heinous-crimes-in-okinawa
More commie anti-US military propaganda. Given the penchant of CPP propagandists to engage in lies and disinformation it is difficult to asses the overall accuracy of the data in the article. That said, what the commie propagandists won't tell you is that criminal incidents involving US military personnel are few and far between when compared to those committed by locals.
ReplyDeleteHere is an excerpt from an article entitled "Crime and the US serviceman in Okinawa" by Bill Stonehill (http://www.davidappleyard.com/japan/jp22.htm)
"....Somewhere in there also are the crimes committed by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa. If you have a powerful enough microscope, and we recommend one of the super-duper high, high, high magnification models, you might be able to find the microscopic amount of "serious" crimes committed per year by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa.
A short look at the figures shows that U.S. servicemen are well behaved and law-abiding, particularly compared to the Japanese.
Looking at the Internet pages about crimes by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa (taking our information from the pages most strongly opposed to the U.S. presence in Okinawa), in the last 30 years since Okinawa reverted to Japan, U.S. servicemen in Okinawa have committed 5,000 "serious crimes."
Serious, of course, as defined by the NPA. Enter the bull hamster factor again. Of these 5,000 crimes, 90 percent can be immediately dismissed as misdemeanors: car accidents, drunken driving (a serious matter in Japan), shoplifting, drug possession and drug sale, and of course barroom brawls. The remaining 10 percent of incidents are what Americans would consider truly serious crimes, the rapes, the murders, the assaults, and the armed robberies.
Altogether, about 160 of what are considered "serious" crimes (once again, the NPA definition) are committed in Okinawa every year by U.S. servicemen.
By contrast, how many "serious" crimes are committed every year in Okinawa by Japanese? Roughly 23,800 crimes a year.
Let's take this a bit further. Making the assumption — it isn't correct, but there is no male/female breakdown given in NPA statistics — that all the crimes are committed by men, then 650,000 Japanese males in Okinawa (Okinawa's population is 1.3 million) are committing 23,800 crimes per year while 30,000 U.S. servicemen are committing 160 crimes per year.
This gives a crime rate of 366 crimes per 10,000 Japanese males against 53 crimes per 10,000 U.S. servicemen. In other words, the per capita crime rate of U.S. servicemen in Okinawa is only 14 percent of that of the Japanese...."