TOKYO, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Japan's southernmost Prefecture of Okinawa on Friday marked the 72nd anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest in the World War II, with the presence of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a memorial service for the war dead not entirely welcomed by locals.
Local citizens attending the ceremony held at the Peace Memorial Park in Itoman, on the southernmost tip of Okinawa's main island, were visibly grief-stricken, as memories resurfaced of loved ones and entire families being wiped out during what was by one of the largest amphibious assault during World War II.
The assault resulted in a long and bloody 82-day battle that lasted until mid-June 1945, the atrocities of which have been etched into the minds of Okinawans and passed down to younger generations, themselves incensed at the central government's use of the tiny island to host the vast majority of U.S. bases and the instances of noise, crime and accidents they have had to endure as part of their base-hosting burdens.
Speaking at the memorial service for the war dead on Friday, Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga said that current developments on the island had been running contrary to the central government's continued promises to lift the citizens' base-hosting burdens.
With reference, among others, to a crash landing of a controversial, accident-prone Osprey aircraft near the main island in December, Onaga lamented, "We see moves running counter to a reduction of the burden."
He went on to slam the central government for pushing ahead with its plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to a coastal region on the island, which has been a source of great concern and discontent among local Okinawans, who feel the central government is adding to their burdens rather than sharing them with mainland Japan.
Along with Onaga, Okinawans want the base relocated out of the prefecture at a bare minimum and outside of Japan if possible. Onaga has attempted to block the central government's progress in the construction of a new replacement facility at every juncture and has been a persistent thorn in the side of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party led by Abe.
"The ongoing construction work cannot be tolerated as it is going against the will of the people in Okinawa," Onaga was quoted as saying, adding that the burden of hosting U.S. forces should be shared equally by the "entire nation" and not predominantly by the tiny island of Okinawa.
Abe's remarks made at the Peace Memorial Park, which was the site of the final stage of the Battle of Okinawa, reiterated the government's vow never to wage war again, and, to a palpably skeptical audience, conceded that the island's base-hosting burden is "heavy."
"I'm determined to produce definite results to allay the burden," said Abe, without specifying how he intends to achieve this.
But his words seemingly fell on the deaf ears of the islanders who have had to, along with accidents, noise and pollution, also contend with U.S.-base linked crimes including the alleged rape and murder of a 20-year-old Okinawa woman by a U.S. civilian base worker in April 2016, which led to anti-base sentiment reaching a fever pitch.
A monument erected by a former governor of Okinawa, Masahide Ota, who fought doggedly to protect the rights of Okinawan citizens on the island that were threatened by the presence of the U.S. military, saw the names of 54 war dead were newly inscribed on it.
The number of names irrespective of nationality and military or civilian status now inscribed on the Cornerstone of Peace in the park stands at 241,468.
Ota died in Naha on June 12, aged 92. He served two terms as Okinawa's governor, and fought for the Okinawan side against the U.S. military's continued use of private land at multiple locations on the island for military purposes.
Ota, a native of Okinawa Prefecture, was also in office when the island erupted in fierce protests following the rape of a local 12-year-old elementary school girl by three U.S. servicemen in 1995.
A former professor at the University of the Ryukyus, Ota also stood opposed to the central government's plans to relocate the air base to a coastal part of the island.
As a witness to the atrocities in the Battle of Okinawa, Ota was known to have worked on monuments to memorialize those who died, including those from the U.S. side.
The memorial service Friday was held in the vicinity of thousands of past suicides involving local Okinawans throwing themselves off cliffs to their deaths in the face of a brutal Imperial Japanese Army that had been ordered to never surrender to the Allies, forcing them to do so.
Other atrocities recalled by local citizens of Japan's southernmost prefecture towards the end of those bloody days 72 years ago, involved the Imperial Japanese Army forcing locals to take two hand grenades; one to be thrown at approaching invaders, while the second was to be detonated in groups causing mass local suicides.
There was little the Imperial Japanese Army could do to stop the advancement of the Allies, who having used islands like Guam and Saipan as bases, had been gaining ground on Japan and once had the upper hand in Okinawa, planned to use the island to launch major offenses by land, sea and air against the Japanese mainland.
In the bloody battle, mainland Japan saw 77,166 soldiers killed or take their own lives, while the Allies lost more than 14,000 troops and amassed casualties of around 65,000.
But as many as 150,000 local Okinawan civilians were killed or committed suicide in the Battle of Okinawa, which at the time was around 25 percent of the island's total population.
All fighting ceased however, two months after the gruesome fighting on Okinawa, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing Japan to surrender and leading to the end of WWII.
But 72 years after the battle ended, some locals are still haunted by the atrocities they had witnessed at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army and still feel as though the central government treats them like second-class citizens, or an underclass of Japanese society and not on an equal footing with mainland Japanese, either culturally, racially, socially or politically.
