News / Interviews

'Okinawans will rise against US military base relocation'

Sunday, 12 August 2018 12:24 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 12 August 2018 12:28 PM ]

The planned relocation of a US military base on the Japanese island of Okinawa certainly makes the people rise up against the American military occupation of the region, says a journalist.

Brecht Jonkers, journalist for al-Masdar news, told Press TV on Sunday that there was "a decades-long history for the people of Okinawa against the American military occupation" of the islands of Okinawa.

The base is planned to be relocated to "an area, which is a very fragile ecosystem and where they are planning to make a military base that is even bigger than the one they already had in the city," Jonkers said.

The journalist argued that it was "very much understandable" that the Okinawan people "rise up against" such a move.

Some 70,000 people took part in a rally at a park in Okinawa’s capital, Naha, on Saturday to protest the Japanese government’s plan for the relocation of the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.