Tokyo – The Japanese government protested outside the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on Friday over at least two cases of sexual assault involving U.S. servicemen on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa that only recently became public .
In one case, An Air Force member is accused in March of assaulting a teenage girl in Decemberwhile the other, which dates from May, is about a marine accused of assaulting a 21-year-old woman.
The case of the teenager's assault is a reminder for many Okinawans of the high-profile 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US servicemen, which sparked mass protests against the force presence of American troops in Okinawa. It led to a 1996 agreement between Tokyo and Washington to close a key US air base, although the plan has been delayed by protests at the site designated for its relocation to another part of the island
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About 50,000 US troops are deployed to Japan under a bilateral security pact, about half of them in Okinawa, whose strategic role is seen as increasingly important to the Japan-U.S. military alliance United in the face of growing tensions with China. His own army's move to southwest Japan is also heavily focused on Okinawa and its nearby islands.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters on Friday that it was “extremely unfortunate” that the two alleged sexual assaults happened within a few months. Japan “takes this seriously” and Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano expressed regret to the US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, and called for disciplinary and preventive measures, Hayashi said.
“I think the US side also takes this matter seriously,” Hayashi said. “Criminal cases and accidents involving US military personnel cause great anxiety for local residents and should never happen in the first place.”
The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo declined to confirm details of the meeting between Emanuel and Okano and how the ambassador responded, citing diplomatic rules.
Hayashi said Japanese prosecutors in Naha, the capital of Okinawa, had filed charges of non-consensual sex and assault against the Navy on June 17, which were only announced on Friday. The two suspects were handled by the Japanese authorities.
An Okinawa police spokesman told Agence France-Presse that the Navy is accused of “assaulting the victim with the intention of having sexual intercourse and injuring her,” adding that “The fact that used violence for this purpose and injured her constitutes non-consensual sex causing injury.”
The woman was “bitten in the mouth” and took two weeks to fully recover, he said. Media reports said she was also drowned.
Both cases have sparked outrage and echoed Japan's tense history with US troops, including the 1995 gang-rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US servicemen.
The Naha District Prosecutor's Office declined to confirm the charges in both cases by phone with anyone other than members of the local press club. Okinawa Prefectural Police said the two cases were never made public out of concern for the privacy of the victims.
Okinawa residents and the island's governor, Denny Tamaki, have long complained of accidents and crimes linked to US military bases and have expressed anger at the alleged crime and lack of disclosure.
Tamaki, who opposes the heavy presence of US troops in Okinawa, said he was “dumbfounded and outraged”. He stressed the need to “rebuild” the communication system in the event of crimes and accidents involving US service members.
“I am deeply concerned by the seriousness of this allegation and regret the anxiety this has caused,” Brig. Gen. Nicholas Evans, commander of the 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, who visited the Okinawa prefectural government with several U.S. officials, said Thursday, though he did not apologize.
He promised that the US military will fully cooperate with the investigation by local authorities and the courts.
Okinawa Vice Governor Takekuni Ikeda told Evans and other officials that the alleged assaults were serious human rights violations against women. “We find them absolutely inexcusable and we are outraged,” he said.
Ikeda also protested the delay in reporting the criminal cases, saying they caused anxiety among residents near US bases. He said the prefecture was only notified this week about the December case, when the suspect was charged in March, and only after investigations by the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
