Score one for our side: U.S Navy beats a retreat

Brad Mayer concrete at dnai.com
Sat Feb 17 09:18:45 PST 2001


Ok, this is the third try - what's the problem? Less interesting for its perspective on "friction", more interesting as a story on how workers and leftists in the industrial harbor town of Tomakomai (Hokkaido) dealt a small "military defeat" to the U.S. Navy: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------

Mishaps force

U.S.-Japan relations into

the light

SUB ACCIDENT, REBUFFS TO NAVY

SHOW FRICTION BETWEEN PARTNERS

TOMAKOMAI, Japan -- When the USS Blue Ridge,

flagship of the Navy's mighty 7th Fleet, scheduled a

port call in this gritty mill town in northern Japan

earlier this month, American officials intended for

the visit to generate good will and demonstrate the

enduring strength of the U.S.-Japan security

partnership.

But when the Blue Ridge was forced to turn back

five miles from shore, unable to navigate the shallow

harbor entrance while hundreds of clenched-fist

leftists and union activists on the docks protested the

ship's arrival, the aborted visit powerfully

demonstrated something entirely different: The

alliance is sometimes more brittle than most

Americans realize.

Even before the Feb. 9 submarine collision in

Hawaii sank the Japanese training vessel Ehime

Maru, in which nine passengers, including four high

school students, apparently drowned, the

embarrassing withdrawal of the Blue Ridge on what

should have been a routine port call offered a

sobering warning to the new Bush administration.

The Republican White House is eager to strengthen

military ties between Tokyo and Washington and

prod Japan into playing a larger security role in

Northeast Asia.

But the Blue Ridge's ignoble retreat was part of a

larger pattern, including a spate of arrests involving

U.S. servicemen on the southern island of Okinawa,

simmering anger over the submarine disaster and

unanswered questions as to why civilians were

sitting at the controls when the USS Greeneville

abruptly surfaced.

Taken together, these incidents could seriously

jeopardize many aspects of security cooperation with

Japan that is often taken for granted in Washington,

while fanning anti-U.S. sentiments in a nation with a

five-decade-old pacifist tradition and a stubborn

determination to do things its own way.

Long before the submarine collision, Tomakomai -- a

blue-collar city of 172,000 -- was fiercely debating

whether the Blue Ridge should even be allowed to

tie up. Those political machinations, along with high

seas, low tides and the belated realization that the

ship was too big to negotiate the channel leading into

the city's east harbor, helped scuttle the visit.

``For the safety of the crew and the vessel, we

decided it would be imprudent'' to attempt to

navigate the passage, said Cmdr. Matt Brown,

interviewed from aboard the Blue Ridge, after the

ship's officers realized that Tomakomai's 33-foot

channel was a tight squeeze for the vessel, which

requires at least 32 feet of water to safely pass.

Japanese mayor resists

Shigeki Sato, Tomakomai's chief harbor pilot, said at

least eight docks that could have accommodated the

Blue Ridge were available in this bustling

commercial harbor on the island of Hokkaido, less

than 100 miles from Russian territory. But the

warship was assigned an isolated eastern wharf,

miles from the city's downtown, because Mayor

Tadayuki Torikoshi didn't want it anywhere near his

town.

Like many other Japanese mayors and provincial

governors, Torikoshi insisted that the ship must

declare that it carried no nuclear weapons before he

would welcome it -- something the U.S. military

refuses to do.

``I was not satisfied by the answers I received'' from

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when he asked

for a non-nuclear guarantee, the mayor said in an

interview. ``They never gave me a clear answer. If

you asked the majority of the people in this city,

those who said `no' to a visit would clearly be the

majority.''

After much arm-twisting by the Foreign Ministry,

which pointed out that the mayor could not legally

block the ship's visit under the enhanced U.S.-Japan

defense guidelines recently approved by the

Japanese parliament, Tomakomai grudgingly gave in

-- but only as long as the warship berthed at the

far-off dock.

``They knew a week ago the channel was 10 meters

deep,'' the flabbergasted mayor said, when he

learned of the navigational problem, ``so I'm very

surprised to learn now that it's too shallow.''

Nor was it surprising that when the Navy suggested

that perhaps another dock on the busy, western quay

might be made available, the mayor had a curt reply:

``It is not favorable to move.'' He later explained that

he was unwilling to let his commercial facility

become known as a military landing area. Besides,

he had run for re-election on a pledge not to let

warships dock in his town.

The cancellation of the Blue Ridge's port call was

just one in a series of public-relations black eyes

U.S. armed forces in Japan have been forced to

endure in recent weeks.

Just one day before the Blue Ridge's scheduled visit,

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston, the commander

of U.S. forces on Okinawa, was forced to apologize

to local officials for referring to his hosts as ``nuts''

and ``wimps'' in an e-mail he sent to his

commanders.

A week later, Hailston had to return again to Gov.

Keiichi Inamine's office to apologize, this time for

another Marine suspected of burning down a local

restaurant.

To the chagrin of Okinawan officials, the accused

had not yet been turned over to the Japanese for

prosecution because arson is not specifically listed

among the offenses for which a U.S. serviceman can

be transferred to Japanese police under the Status of

Forces Agreement governing U.S. troops in Japan.

On the general's second visit, a disgusted Inamine

refused even to shake Hailston's hand.

Port calls of the sort attempted by the Blue Ridge are

carried out as a matter of course in Australia, Hong

Kong, Indonesia and even Shanghai on mainland

China. The idea is to give sailors a chance to taste

local culture and do some ``public service'' works to

demonstrate their honorable intentions.

In fact, the Blue Ridge's sailors had hoped to come

ashore in this unprepossessing city of pulp mills and

warehouses, the home of the Oji Paper Co., to visit

Sapporo's famous ``Snow Festival,'' where gigantic

ice sculptures attract thousands of visitors. A

basketball game, a band concert and snow-removal

chores were also on the schedule, but they too were

scrubbed.

Collective self-defense

Before this recent rash of incidents, many of

President Bush's closest advisers, including Paul

Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, and Richard

Armitage, named No. 2 at the State Department

recently, had given top priority to creating a cozier

defense relationship with Japan and having Tokyo

abandon its decadeslong prohibition against

collective self-defense.

Yet many Japanese say they aren't ready to take such

drastic steps. And the sinking of the Ehime Maru,

which dominated newspaper headlines last week in

Japan, has raised new questions about the

competence and sincerity of the U.S. military.

Many Japanese are appalled that civilians were in

the control center when the Greeneville collided

with the Japanese boat, and can't believe that the

submarine crew didn't try harder to rescue survivors.

Others complain that the Japanese government

``passively accepts'' explanations given by the Navy

without demanding clear explanations.

But meekly accepting mandates from ``big brother''

Washington has been commonplace in a nation where

even open discussion of Japan's defense options has

remained something of a taboo. The United States,

after all, wrote Japan's post-World War II

constitution and promises to defend the nation. In

exchange, Japan allows the United States to base

37,000 military personnel in the country, the highest

concentration on Okinawa.

Now, even the Japanese government worries that the

tragic accident could harm the overall relationship

between Japan and the United States.

``A number of hurdles lie ahead, such as Japanese

families' strong request for raising the Ehime Maru

and compensation for the victims,'' the Mainichi

newspaper in Tokyo editorialized last week.

``Clearing each hurdle is the path to alleviating the

anxiety of the Japanese people.''

Yet these days, with scandals dragging down both

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's ruling party -- his

approval rating stands at 14 percent -- and the

Foreign Ministry, where a senior bureaucrat has

been charged with embezzling secret funds, there is

little hope that real leadership could emerge within

Japan to engage the nation in an honest discussion

about real-world security.

``At the political level, Japan is incapable of coping

with the Bush administration,'' said Tadae Takubo,

dean of the social-sciences faculty at Kyorin

University in Tokyo. ``Regrettably, all we can do for

now is to expect America to understand that Japan is

now in agony. There is no way for Japan to avoid

keeping the Bush administration waiting for a while.''

W. Michael Meserve, U.S. consul-general in

Sapporo, Hokkaido's capital, insists that the majority

of citizens support Navy port calls and welcome the

presence of American troops on the island.

But interviews with residents uncover deep anxiety

about U.S. intentions.

``This port visit has become a really sensitive issue,''

said Masashi Maeda, a 30-year-old civil servant.

``When this whole controversy started, people were

nervous and thought maybe another black ship was

coming to town,'' he said, referring to Commodore

Matthew Perry's landing in 1853, which forced this

isolated island nation to open to the West.

Does he think Japan should rethink its security

policy? ``It's a new era, and times have changed,'' the

30-year-old said, ``but we haven't reached the point

yet'' where Japan could accept a greater military

role.

Another port call canceled

Last week, the Navy quietly scrubbed the planned

four-day visit of another vessel, the destroyer USS

John S. McCain, which had been scheduled to tie up

at Otaru, another Hokkaido port. The Navy officially

cited the submarine accident as the reason for the

postponement, but Otaru, like Tomakomai, had also

asked the ship not to come.

As dusk fell on the grimy city of smokestacks on the

night the Blue Ridge made its U-turn, a hearty band

of socialists and labor activists paraded through

downtown, carrying the red banners they had used at

first light to protest the arrival of the Blue Ridge.

``We thought we would have a protest rally tonight,''

said postal worker Hideo Saito, one of the

organizers, ``but now it's turned into a victory

march.''

``I want to be friends with American people,'' he

said, ``but I want to be friends in a different way than

through the military.''



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