09/09/2012
The Sep. 9th Okinawa People’s Rally
Militant workers and students fought under the banner ‘Against the US-Japan military alliance’
‘Stop the deployment of the Osprey!’ 103,000 of workers, students and other local residents exploded their vehement indignation against US and Japanese imperialist rulers, by rallying resolutely in the Sep. 9th ‘Okinawa People’s Rally’. Workers and toiling masses in Okinawa definitely asserted ‘NO!’ to the imperialists’ attempt to enforce the deployment of the US Marine MV-22 Osprey, which was widely notorious for its repeated crushes in Morocco, Florida and many other places.
We, the JRCL, and revolutionary workers and students promoted this day’s struggle under the banner of ‘Smash the US-Japan military alliance!’ Some conservative heads of local governments who stood for the US-Japan Security Treaty tried to use the Rally as a measure to beg the government to reduce damages due to the presence of the US troops by controlling the executive committee for the Rally. In order to foil their scheme, we made a concerted effort and fought to realize the Rally as a great eruption of the struggle against Ampo, the US-Japan military alliance.
Also acting for the distortion of the struggle was the JCP leadership. It raised no direction to fight against Ampo, and only opposed a ‘dangerous’ deployment of the Osprey in a bid to accommodate to conservative politicians and bourgeois in the name of ‘cooperation with a wide range of people’.
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103,000 people rallied from the island, whose population is a million plus.
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Revolutionary workers and students opposed all of these attempts and, by overcoming such degenerate leadership, struggled for a militant change of the Rally.
‘Fight for the destruction of the US-Japan military alliance!’ The revolutionary appeal encourages a huge throng of the masses
Far before the rally’s starting time, which was set at 9 o’clock a.m., workers, students and other people began to converge in the Ginowan Marine Park, with their burning angers towards the US and Japanese governments. The square soon became closely packed. At the entrance of the park, a JRCL’s bright-red flag and its huge banner of ‘Promote the struggle for the destruction of the US-Japan military alliance!’ are fluttering proudly, attracting the workers and others. To the all participants coming into the square, a special edition of weekly ‘Kaihoh’ was being handed out.
Trade unions under the umbrella of Rengo’s Okinawa regional federation stationed themselves in middle of the park with their union flags raised aloft, carrying banners and placards on which slogans were written ‘Stop the deployment of the Osprey!’ and ‘Remove the Futenma base!’. People coming from various districts were also raising their residents’ association flags and banners. Soon, the park became filled with a burning anger against the US and Japanese governments. In the very middle of the park, the banner of the JRCL was waving in the wind.
Zengakuren raising the placards, 'Down with the Noda government!'
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The rally started at 11 o’clock a.m.. Five of the executive committee members made their remarks. The following was the presentation of a message from Okinawa Prefectural Governor Nakaima. Just when it was beginning to be read, a storm of fierce hecklings and shouts were stirred up by workers and students from every corner of the square. ‘Stop it, right now!’, ‘You shouldn’t read it out!’, the hecklings kept going on and on. Finally, it became a loud chant in chorus so much so that the message was hardly heard.
Nakaima had formally expressed his ‘concern’ about the Osprey; however workers and people exploded with anger, surely, finding out something suspicious about the Governor. They had known —— owing to the JRCL’s repeated struggles to expose the Governor’s sneaky deal taken part in the beginning of August with an executive member of the ruling DPJ party —— that the Governor was, in fact, seeking its way to accept the deployment of the Osprey in exchange for bundles of money.
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Next was the remark from the Mayor of Ginowan City, where the US administration planned to deploy the Osprey. He expressed his ‘opposition’ to the deployment but, at the same time, arrogantly emphasized the need to maintain a national policy for the US-Japan military alliance. In that instant, there came a sharp heckling of revolutionary students, ‘Smash the Ampo!’. It tightened and changed the atmosphere of the square and was responded by the many saying, ‘Agreed! Agreed! Let us fight!’
This heckling raised by the revolutionary students clearly showed what is the root cause which allowed US imperialist rulers to enforce the deployment of the Osprey in alliance with Japanese imperialist rulers. Additionally, it revealed what is the origin of the people’s unbearable pain, which has continued due to the presence of the huge US military bases in Okinawa throughout the 40 years after the reversion to Japan and the legal end of the US occupation.
At every moment during the Rally, workers, students and other people in Okinawa erupted not only their strong will to struggle against the deployment of the Osprey but also their anger against the military alliance.
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A Zengakuren banner behind: Smash the military alliance! Remove the bases!
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The fight of the revolutionary left that led the Rally to a great upsurge
The rally of this day was, beforehand, designed by the official leadership to beg the government to ‘withdraw deploying the Osprey’ then ‘close the Futenma base’. Revolutionary and militant workers and students, struggling together with the JRCL, fought for the rally with the aim of promoting it as the one against the drastic strengthening of the new US-Japan military alliance, the current central element of which is precisely the deployment of the Osprey in Okinawa.
Revolutionary and militant workers rallied together with a great number of other trade union members, on the basis of struggles they had created in their respective trade unions. They created this huge mass protest against the deployment of the Osprey from within the labour front by breaking through the oppressions launched by the Rengo leadership, who announced that ‘Rengo does not oppose the deployment’.
Fighting students in the Ryukyu Univ. and the Okinawa International Univ. fought out in the forefront to realize the rally militantly. Nowadays, the official opposition leadership intends to show, to the US and Japanese governments, a ‘people’s will in Okinawa opposing the deployment of the Osprey’, in order to use it just as a tool for begging the government not to carry out its plan. Fighting students struggled to break through such a distorted attempt.
Immediately after the rally’s program ended, the students independently set off to march on the very Futenma base. A great number, including workers and residents, followed them, as they called on the participants to join in their demonstration under the banner of ‘Stop the deployment of the Osprey!’ and ‘Smash the US-Japan military alliance! Remove the bases!’. With the flag of Zengakuren in the forefront, militant demonstrators descended on the front gate of the US base.
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In front of a gate of the Futenma base they carried out a protest action as stirring up the flames of indignation
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The Noda government of Japan is fully assisting the Obama US administration in deploying this imperialist war machine under the pretext of strengthening ‘the deterrent force’. In East Asia, the military confrontation between the US and China is intensifying day by day, focusing on both of the East and South China seas. US imperialist rulers, without concealing their irritation towards China, are hell-bent on strengthening its military encirclement against China, which is attempting to expand its sphere of influence. They are drastically strengthening the new US-Japan military alliance, according to the new ‘national defense strategy’ targeting China as its main enemy. In order to foil China’s attempt to take over the sea command, the Obama US administration has been in hurry for the realignment of US Marines in the Pacific region and enforcing the deployment of the Osprey in Okinawa as its key measure.
The Noda government of Japan, subservient to the US imperialist rulers, is fully cooperating to the US administration’s attempt in the name of ‘dynamic defense cooperation’, by subordinating Japan’s own military strategy to the US new national defense strategy.
Precisely, the deployment of the Osprey to Futenma base is the most important present issue for US and Japanese imperialist rulers. Moreover, it is obvious that the US-Japan Security Treaty is the legal basis for the new US-Japan military alliance as an imperialist alliance for the interest of the bourgeois class, presently targeting China as its main enemy. We revolutionary left have been promoting the struggle against the deployment of the Osprey by regarding it as a struggle against the drastic strengthening of new US-Japan military alliance as an offensive and defensive alliance against China. This issue is the urgent and the most important issue of our antiwar and anti-Ampo struggle.
Militant students starting an independent demonstration. With fighting students in the Ryukyu Univ. and the Okinawa International Univ., together with Zengakuren students from other regions, hundreds of people marched on an entrance gate of the Ftenma US base, under the banner of ‘Remove the Futenma Base! Smash the US-Japan military alliance!’
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Exposing the criminality of the JCP-led campaign that has no direction of ‘anti-Ampo’ but emphasizes a need to ‘struggle jointly for one limited issue’
We, revolutionary left, have fought out the struggle of this day by exposing the criminality of the JCP-led campaign that has no direction against Ampo. In the scene of mass movement, the leadership of the JCP never says, even a word, that they unfold a campaign for ‘the abrogation of the US-Japan Security Treaty’, which used to be their catch copy. It limits the issue to ‘the dangers involved in the deployment of the Osprey’ according to its line of ‘cooperating with a wide range of people’ for ‘a single issue’. Their policy itself towards the Security Treaty is now just to emptily show ‘a beautiful future of the nation after the abrogation of the Security Treaty’.
By exposing such a deceitful behaviour of the JCP leadership, we have been fighting to overcome their campaign that has no direction of ‘anti-Ampo’. By so doing, we are now receiving favourable responses to our revolutionary tactics from JCP rank-and-file members and activists
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We, revolutionary left, have unfolded ideological and organizational struggles against the JCP leadership in the middle of our struggle to promote militantly the fight against the deployment of the Osprey. Our advancement has accelerated a ruin of the JCP organization, which still acts like a leader of Japanese workers and toiling masses even after its ideological conversion to ‘the party for revised capitalism’.
Spread flames of the antiwar and anti-Ampo struggle from Okinawa!
The flames of workers’ and people’s indignation stirred up in the Sep. 9th Okinawa People’s Rally has deeply shaken both US and Japanese imperialist rulers. We fought the struggle in its forefront.
Look at a DPJ leader Maehara’s urgent visit to the US on Sep. 11th, immediately after the Rally, panicking and begging the US imperialist rulers to review (postpone) the time of deploying the Osprey! This clearly show that the only way to win the victory is to elevate this struggle into the struggle against the US-Japan military alliance. This is exactly what we have stressed from the very beginning of the struggle.
Workers and students!
Now is the time to fight for the eruption of the huge antiwar and anti-Ampo struggle! Promote the struggle against the deployment of the Osprey and elevate this struggle into the antiwar/anti-Ampo struggle!
On Sep. 19th Minister of Defence, inexcusably, declared that the safety of the Osprey was confirmed and its deployment should be carried out without delay. In the meanwhile, the US and Japanese imperialist rulers have both set off to enforce the deployment. Responding to their offensives, militant workers and fighting students have immediately risen in the struggle throughout the country. The US military arrogantly announced that it would introduce Ospreys into Futenma base in the end of September, and start their operation in October. Militant workers and students are now preparing to stop the deployment with all their strength.
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A rally in Tokyo in solidarity with the Okinawa Rally |
Let us fight this struggle in solidarity with workers and people who are fighting all over the world, especially with workers in China and South Korea, against the chauvinist propaganda by the Noda government!
Workers and students! In order to smash imperialists’ dirty attempt, make a concerted effort to spread the flames of antiwar and anti-Ampo struggle!
JRCL-RMF
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