In contemporary Okinawan history studies, attention has largely focused on events in the political process of the reversion to Japan in 1972 and thus presenting the image that Okinawan postwar history can be neatly divided into two distinct eras. Recently, however, this premise has been questioned in light of the rape incident of 1995 and recent political issues, which show that pre-1972 problems remain almost three decades later. The U. S. -Japan military security regime has consistently been the main factor that fetters democracy and self-reliance in Okinawa throughout both periods.
This thesis proceeds from the premise above, and the author maintain that the basic foundation of relations and issues in postwar Okinawa until the present day originates after the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. The U. S. Forces inherited, occupied and developed the military air bases on Ie Island, central and south west coast of Okinawa Island (where U. S. Forces are based now) which the Japanese Army had constructed in the early 1940's. The surviving Okinawans interned in camps in the Northern area were not permitted to return to their homes and rebuild their villages.
On 15 August, the U. S. military government established the Advisory Council of Okinawa to rebuild government functions, a body composed of fifteen Okinawan representatives chosen by the Okinawan leaders and the American authorities. Although the Council was an organization hand-picked by the U. S. military government from above and no more than a sup-port group for the occupation, the debates in the Council went beyond the implementation of administrative policies. According to the records, the Council sought “self-government” institutions including the separation of police powers, war reparation from the Japanese government, freedom of speech. and press, popular elections for the democratic governmental body, and the proposition of a constitution for Okinawa. These debates were primarily focused on the situation inherited from Japanese rule, in which the Okinawans became enmeshed in the modern Japanese state system not as a colony, yet as a marginalized group within an imperialist power.
The demands for political change, however, did not last long. The events in the weeks after the surrender of Japan between August and October 1945 shuttered them. From late September to early October, the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff designated the military bases in Okinawa as a “primary base, ” for possible air base sites in the American overseas base system, and examined the possibility of exclusive rule. The U. S. Military Government in Okinawa changed the orientation of its “self-government” program and ignored the debates formerly discussed by the Advisory Council. Moreover, the military government suppressed freedom of speech and press, the Okinawans' demands to be allowed to return to their villages, and a general election for the governor and gubernatorial elections. The military government regarded the Okinawans as having no experience of living in a “democracy” and therefore the most appropriate form of government in Okinawa was the “prewar political institutions” with its strict controls from above. This, of course, reflected U. S. military strategy as it sought to use Okinawa as a “primary base” and develop a governing structure that would facilitate “exclusive rule” by U. S. Forces.
The Okinawan political leaders in the Advisory Council reacted cautiously to the military government and attempted to avoid conflicts with its new ruler. In spite of pressure from the Okinawans for the return of their villages and agricultural land, the Council ignored the petition protests from the leaders of local districts. The Advisory Council finally recognized that the “Nimitz Proclamation”
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