2008年02月12日
Appeal against to the violence of U.S. Marine to the teenage Okinawa girl
February 12, 2008
Mr. George W. Bush, President of the United States of America
Mr. John Thomas Schieffer, U.S. Ambassador to Japan
Mr. Yasuo Fukuda, Prime Minister of Japan
Mr. Shigeru Ishiba, Minister of the Japanese Ministry of Defense
The raping of a junior high school girl on February 10th by the U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant serving at Camp Courtney in Okinawa Japan was reported on the following February 11th. The crime was committed inside the suspect’s car parked on a street of Chatan town in Okinawa prefecture. We, YWCA of Japan strongly protest against this crime of raping the teenage girl.
It is 13 years since an elementary school girl was raped by three U.S. soldiers in Okinawa in 1995. Okinawa citizens who live around the U.S. Military bases have seriously been suffering from the violence repeatedly committed by the U.S. military soldiers. Unless the military bases, where training of murder is practiced, are withdrawn from Okinawa and from all over Japan, violence against innocent citizens in the neighborhoods will never stop.
We, YWCA of Japan, sharing the deep sorrow and never-cured-pain of the teenage girl and the number of women and girls who have been victimized by the violence by the U.S. soldiers in the past, strongly urge the following articles to the Japan and the U.S. governments who have legalized the presence of the Military bases, ignoreing the Japanese Constitution, and have neglected the U.S. Military violence against Japanese citizens under the Japan-U.S. Peace Treaty.
We urge Japan and the U.S. governments to;
1. Stop strengthening the U.S. Military array both in Okinawa and Japan throughout, and endeavor to make all the U.S. Military bases withdraw at the soonest you can negotiate.
2. Initiagte drastic revision of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement
We urge Japanese government to;
1. Not hand over the suspect to the U.S., but punish him according to Japanese national law.*
2. Abide the Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.
*The Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, and its Article 17, Section 5 (C) in particular, stipulates that if accused U.S. military personnel are in U.S. custody they are to remain so until indicted by the Japanese authorities. In principle, unless Japanese police make arrests outside U.S. military facilities, they cannot keep suspects in custody during the investigation stage.
The Japan Times Online ( http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20060118a1.html )
