Bad News, Good Omen: An Exodus Many would Applaud

U.S. Occupation Crimes v Okinawa, Seoul “anti-Americanism” (1945) 1950s-2000s

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arch 4, 2020

As hundreds of thousands of military personnel are posted in Japan and South Korea, the president’s statement has interesting implications.

“U.S. President Donald Trump made clear Tuesday that the administration is considering Japan for the list of destinations subject to travel restrictions over the new coronavirus.”

Asian Review Coronavirus reports “Trump weighs adding Japan to coronavirus travel restrictions”  Taisei Hoyama, Kiran Sharma And Shunsuke Tabeta, Nikkei staff writers March 3, 2020 / Updated March 4, 2020 https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Trump-weighs-adding-Japan-to-coronavirus-travel-restrictions

U.S. President Donald Trump: “‘We’re watching Italy very closely, South Korea very closely, even Japan very closely… And we’ll make the right determination at the right time. We’ve cut it off, as you know, with numerous other countries.’”

Inflicted on Japanese

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nited States Forces Japan (USFJ)

Yokota Air Base: United States Air Force (USAF) and Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF)	Active subordinate of United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM)
Active July 1, 1957 - present	Original Location: Fuchū Air Station, Tokyo, Japan
Headquarters: Yokota Air Base in Tokyo; Base location: City of Fussa, Tama Area, Western Tokyo	Size approximately:  50,000

Okinawa

U.S. military installations forces on Island of Okinawa	Activated with U.S. occupation of Japan: 1945 –
Location of 74.7 percent of all U.S. military facilities in Japan	Space occupied: 10.4 percent of the total land usage

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.S. Military Crimes on Okinawa

1972-2009: U.S. servicemen committed 5,634 criminal offenses:

25 murders	385 burglaries	25 arsons	27 rapes
306 assaults	2,827 thefts

[Virtually Ignored: U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement stipulating that “when U.S. personnel crimes are committed both off-duty and off-base, they should always be prosecuted under the Japanese law”]

National Police Agency (of Japan or NPA) report findings published February 12, 2008:

U.S. “troops were only convicted of 53 crimes per 10,000 U.S. male servicemen while Okinawan males were convicted of 366 crimes per 10,000

U.S. serviceman in Okinawa: 86 percent less likely to convicted of a crime by the Japanese government than an Okinawan male

Japan Times News reports:

Local protests have erupted in recent years because of crimes by U.S. military personnel, dependents and civilians ranging from rape to assault and hit-and-run accidents.

In including

“Helicopter crashes”

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950s – 2000s:

• 1957 “Girard incident”: U.S. soldier, 21-year-old Specialist Third Class William S. Girard (of Ottawa, Illinois) shot and killed Naka Sakai, a Japanese wife and mother of six, who earned a living collecting and selling scrap metal. The soldier had used “a grenade launcher mounted on an M1 rifle to fire an empty casing.”

• 1995: Two U.S. Marines and one U.S. sailor’s abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl led to demands for the removal of all U.S. military bases in Japan.

• 1996 “Padilla car crash”: member of the United States Marine Corps in Okinawa Lori Padilla driving a car at high speed swerves off the road and kills Rojita Kinjo and her young daughters Mitsuko and Mariko. Padilla eventually received a “two-year jail sentence” but the $580,000 lawsuit by the family against Padilla and the co-owner of the car was not met, leaving the U.S. Government to “eventually pay 25 million yen” ($237,350) and an added amount by the Japanese government to the victims’ family.

• 2002 “Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident”: a Filipina bartender in Okinawa, Japan, accuses U.S. Marine Corps Major Michael Brown of attempting to rape her and of throwing her cell phone into a nearby river; Brown denies the rape charges and sources pay off the plaintiff. 2004: After a 19-month court trial, a Japanese court convicts Brown of “attempted indecent assault and destruction of private property” and issues “a one-year suspended prison sentence”

• February 2008: a 38-year-old U.S. Marine based on Okinawa was arrested in connection with the reported rape of a 14-year-old Okinawan girl. The crime “triggered waves of protest against American military presence in Okinawa and led to tight restrictions on off-base activities”

• November 2009: U.S. Army soldier Staff Sgt. Clyde ‘Drew’ Gunn (Mississippi native stationed at Torii Station) “was involved in a hit-and-run accident of a pedestrian in Yomitan Village on Okinawa.” April 2010: Gunn “was charged with failing to render aid and vehicular manslaughter. October 15, 2010: Gunn was given a two-year-eight-month sentence.

• 2013: the Naha District Court handed down guilty judgments against “U.S. Seaman Christopher Browning (orig. Athens, Texas) and Petty Officer 3rd Class Skyler Dozierwalker (Muskogee, Oklahoma) (who confessed) for having raped and robbed “a woman in her 20s in a parking lot.”

Okinawans again protested) “military-related crime on their island” and the military imposed “tougher restrictions” on their personnel.

• 2016 (June): thousands turned out for an anti-military base protest “after a civilian worker” at the U.S. military base “was charged with murdering a Japanese woman.”

• 2017 (November): U.S. service member under the influence of an intoxicating substance “was arrested after a vehicle crash on Okinawa that killed the other driver.”

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nited States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM)

January 1, 1947 – present	Size: 375,000 personnel
Oldest and largest unified combatant command Headquarters: Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii, United States	Responsible for military operations in an area stretching across approx “52 percent of the Earth’s surface” — from waters off the U.S. West Coast to India’s west coast, from the Arctic to the Antarctic (100 million+ square miles)

Inflicted on Koreans

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nited States Forces Korea (USFK)

Subordinate Unified Command	Active 1 July 1, 1957 – present
Headquarters: Camp Humphreys, Pyeongtaek, South Korea	Size: 23,468 personnel
(23,468 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, and planning non-combatant evacuation operations)

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nti Americanism: South Koreans deem U.S. Forces “a social problem”

North Korea and South Korea’s anti-Americanism extends to the Korean War era and “has focused on the presence and behavior” of U.S. personnel (USFK), “aggravated especially by high-profile crimes by U.S. service members, with various crimes including rape and assault, among others.”

Women have died by suicide or murder committed by soldiers.

• 1990s “former victims of forced prostitution (termed ‘biggest sacrifice for the South Korea-United States alliance’) became a symbol of Anti-American nationalism”

U.S. military police and South Korean officials regularly raided clubs looking for women who were thought to be spreading venereal diseases, locking them up under guard in so-called monkey houses with barred windows--while there, “prostitutes were forced to take medications until they were well.”

• 1992: Member of the USFK 2nd Division Private Kenneth Markle (Kenneth Lee Markle Ⅲ) at a camptown in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi, South Korea, murdered 26-year old bar employee Yun Geum-i. May 17, 1994: soldier Markle received a 15-year sentence and “was imprisoned in Cheonan prison.” August 14, 2006: Markle was paroled and returned to the United States.

• June 2002 Yangju highway incident: U.S. soldiers operating a U. S. Army “armored vehicle-launched bridge, returning to base in Uijeongbu on a public road after training maneuvers in the countryside, struck and killed two 14-year-old South Korean schoolgirls” (Shin Hyo-sun and Shim Mi-seon) who had been “walking along a street in Euijeongbu, Gyeonggi-do,” South Korea.  A U.S. military court ruled the soldiers “not guilty” and returned them to the United States.

Again pain and outrage sent to the streets “hundreds of thousands of South Korean” protesters “against the U.S Army’s continued presence” in their country. Every year, South Koreans hold a commemoration event for these young girls.

• 2006: Thousands protested the U.S. proposed expansion of Camp Humphreys, Pyeongtaek headquarters. Some gave ground. Despite the large protests against the U.S. and Republic of Korea governments’ plan to expand Camp Humphreys and make it the main base for most U.S. troops in South Korea, nearby residents (in Daechuri and other small villages) “agreed to leave their homes,” making room for the U.S. base expansion for a price of some $600,000 per home.

• 2008 (May-July), South Koreans in Seoul held mass protests against U.S. beef import into their country.

Sources

United States Forces Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forces_Japan

United States Forces Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forces_Korea#Number_of_U.S._soldiers_stationed_in_South_Korea_by_year

United States Indo-Pacific Command https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Indo-Pacific_Command

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-American_sentiment_in_Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Padilla_car_crash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Brown_Okinawa_assault_incident

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