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An American sailor was arrested in Japan on Sunday on suspicion of drunk-driving and causing an accident on the southern island of Okinawa, where public anger has run high over crimes by US military personnel. (June 5) AP
Protesters take part in a demonstration in Naha, Okinawa island, southern Japan, on May 15, 2016, to protest against the construction of a U.S. Marine Corps air base in Nago's Henoko district.(Photo: Hitoshi Maeshiro, EPA)
TOKYO —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>The<span style="color: Red;">*</span>U.S. Navy<span style="color: Red;">*</span>imposed a total ban on alcohol consumption Monday<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and ordered all American personnel<span style="color: Red;">*</span>confined to their bases for non-essential activities<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to thwart a string of crimes by current or<span style="color: Red;">*</span>former servicemembers that has provoked outrage among Japanese.
The announcement followed the arrest early Sunday of an American sailor on drunk-driving charges.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>A Japanese woman was hospitalized and a man was slightly injured after Okinawa police said the sailor drove the wrong way on a busy highway late Saturday, striking two other cars head on. The sailor was not injured but was arrested by Japanese police after she was found to have a blood-alcohol level six times Japan’s legal limit, according to Japan’s Kyodo News service.
The arrest came just a week after U.S. authorities announced that all military personnel on Okinawa would be banned from drinking alcohol off base as part of a 30-day period of “unity and mourning.”
The mourning period was declared after a U.S. base worker, who is a former Marine, was arrested May 19 and charged with the brutal rape and murder of a 20-year-old Japanese woman. Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase and dumped in a wooded area.
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Such high-profile crimes have strained<span style="color: Red;">*</span>U.S.-Japan relations and jeopardize plans to relocate a key U.S. airbase in Okinawa.
Many Japanese already were shocked by the arrest of a Navy corpsman two months earlier on charges of raping a Japanese woman in a hotel in the city of Naha, Okinawa’s capital. The Navy corpsman pleaded guilty in a Japanese court last week. No date has been set for sentencing.
Roughly half the 54,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan are in Okinawa, and some residents have long complained of noise, congestion and crime associated with the heavy military presence.
The recent arrests generated headlines and sharp reaction across Japan, where violent crime is infrequent<span style="color: Red;">*</span>by U.S. standards.
Protesters are organizing a mass rally on<span style="color: Red;">*</span>June 19 that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>they hope will attract a larger crowd than the 85,000 who showed up to protest the kidnap and rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S servicemen in 1995. That incident led to negotiations to reduce the U.S. base presence on Okinawa.
On Sunday, Okinawa voters elected a solid majority of anti-base candidates to the prefectural legislature. That seems certain to further complicate the national government’s efforts to relocate the U.S. Marine’s airbase at Futenma to another part of Okinawa.
Opponents, including the local governor, want the airbase moved off the island entirely, and protesters have established a permanent presence at the relocation site.
“There is a great amount of anger on Okinawa now. The anti-base movement is very strong,” said Hiroshi Meguro, a research fellow at Hosei University’s Institute of Okinawan Studies<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in Tokyo.
A May 19, 2015, photo shows U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft on the tarmac at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma surrounded by residential areas in Ginowan on Okinawa Island, southwestern Japan.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Hitoshi Maeshiro, EPA)
Protesters also are calling for renegotiation of the Status of Forces Agreement, which restricts, under some circumstances, the authority of Japanese police and prosecutors to investigate crimes committed by U.S. troops while on duty.
U.S. authorities have promised to cooperate fully with Japanese police in the recent arrests of the Americans,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>who remain in Japanese custody.
Japan’s national government announced plans Friday to send 100 additional police officers and 20 new patrol cars to Okinawa by early next year to deal with base-related crime. Local government is organizing new neighborhood watches. And women’s self-defense courses have reported a five-fold increase in enrollment.
On May 19, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida summoned U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy to his office to deliver a protest shortly after the arrest of the former Marine in the murder case.
Several days later, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe publicly confronted President Obama over the murder and earlier hotel rape at the start of the Group of Seven<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Summit in Ise-Shima, Japan.
USA TODAY
President Obama calls Okinawa crime 'inexcusable'
Kishida sent another message of protest to Kennedy on Sunday, according to local news reports.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>The U.S. Embassy told USA TODAY on Monday that it would have no comment.
According to a statement issued<span style="color: Red;">*</span>by the U.S. Forces Japan, the senior U.S. military commander in Japan, Lt. Gen. John Dolan, spoke by phone on Sunday with Kennedy and the head of U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Harry Harris, and arranged “emergency meetings” with Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps commanders in Japan.
U.S. Naval Forces Japan issued a statement expressing deep regret and “heartfelt sympathies” for the alleged drunk-driving accident.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“The fact that this accident happened during a time when we are mourning a national tragedy is deeply upsetting. We are cooperating fully with the Japanese police," the statement said.
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