Outraged in OkinawaFLOWERS and tributes left by angry Okinawans surround a makeshift shrine on the country road where Rina Shimabukuro’s body was dumped. The only suspect in her rape and murder, Kenneth Franklin Gadson, a former American marine, led police to this remote spot after he was arrested in April.
Ms Shimabukuro, who was just 20 when she was killed, has become the latest symbol in a conflict over American military bases that has raged for decades. On June 19th an estimated 65,000 people mourned her at a stadium in Naha, Okinawa’s prefectural capital. A letter from her father urged Okinawans to unite and demand that American soldiers leave. It was among the biggest such protests in years, and one of the most passionate.
America has 85 military facilities throughout Japan, but three-quarters of the area they occupy is in Okinawa. Futenma, a marine airbase, occupies nearly two square miles in the crowded centre of Ginowan, a small city. In 1996, after three American servicemen were convicted of raping a 12-year-old Japanese girl, America and Japan agreed to close the ageing facility and build a...Continue reading
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