Tokyo files lawsuit against Okinawa over US air base

National govt seeks to overturn local decision

The Japanese government took the local government in Okinawa to court on Tuesday, launching a legal battle in their long-standing dispute over the planned relocation of a US military air base on the southern island.

A lawsuit filed in a regional high court in Okinawa seeks an injunction to overturn Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga's recent decision to cancel a previously issued approval for land reclamation work for the base relocation.

The long-stalled plan would move the US Marine Air Station Futenma to a less-populated part of Okinawa, but many residents want the base moved out of the prefecture entirely.

Residents feel Okinawa bears an unfair burden of the US military presence in Japan. The prefecture houses more than half of the 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan, and US bases occupy nearly a fifth of the land on its main island.

Onaga's predecessor approved the land reclamation, but then lost to him in a re-election bid. The central government sued Okinawa after Onaga refused to follow an order from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to reinstate approval for the work.

Tokyo briefly suspended the reclamation work earlier this year while seeking a compromise but has since resumed it.

Okinawa was the site of a bloody World War II land battle.

A court ruling in favor of the central government would give the land minister the power to override Onaga's opposition.

"We're a nation of laws, and so we proceed according to the rule of law," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference. "This was the unavoidable result."

Onaga told reporters only that he "would respond firmly".

Perceptions of bullying from Tokyo could dent support for Abe, already struggling with an economy back in recession, before an upper house election next year.

Tens of thousands of people across Japan participated in protests to support Okinawa's stand during the past six months.

A big push by Tokyo also risks fanning Okinawan opposition to other US bases, said George Washington University professor Michael Mochizuki, who has studied the issue for two decades and has proposed an alternative plan that involves building a heliport in the Marine's Camp Schwab in the island's northeast.

"My concern is the more the Japanese government pushes the current ... plan, the more resistance will get stronger and eventually get so strong as to make it difficult to maintain other important (US) facilities on Okinawa," Mochizuki told a news conference.

The United States and Japan agreed in 1996 to close Futenma and move its functions elsewhere on the island, but relocation stalled due to opposition from Okinawa residents worried about noise, pollution and crime.

Political analyst Atsuo Ito said that public opposition could make it hard to force construction through.

"The government's biggest fear is that protests will grow violent and somebody will be hurt or even killed," he said.

"If the general Japanese public really takes Okinawa's side, this will be bad for the government, and an incident would make things blow up."

AP - Reuters