SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Before we begin this next story, we want to let you know it talks about sexual assault, including crimes involving a child. It's about sex crimes committed by U.S. military personnel in Japan. A Japanese court held a preliminary hearing today for a U.S. airman accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a Japanese minor. This case and similar allegations are putting pressure on a key U.S. alliance in a strategic location. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: In court on the island of Okinawa, Airman Brennon Washington pleaded not guilty. He denied knowing that the girl he picked up was under age 16 and claimed that she had consented to have sex. A total of five similar cases have come to light since June. Two have resulted in arrests. Neither U.S. nor Japanese authorities reported the arrests to the Okinawan prefectural government. Denny Tamaki is Okinawa's governor.
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DENNY TAMAKI: (Speaking Japanese).
KUHN: "If there's a lack of thorough discipline within the U.S. military," he told reporters, "it's a very serious situation, and I am furious." Pentagon spokesman Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said the Pentagon is troubled by the allegations but...
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PATRICK RYDER: The alleged behavior of those members does not reflect the core values of the U.S. military, nor does it represent the conduct of the overwhelming majority of Japan-based personnel that we have forward deployed.
KUHN: U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel expressed regret about the incidents but did not apologize. Okinawa hosts about 70% of U.S. military bases in Japan on less than 1% of its land, and sex crimes involving U.S. servicemen have angered locals for decades. Japan's government doesn't publish complete statistics, but Okinawan women's history researcher Harumi Miyagi keeps a tally of known cases.
HARUMI MIYAGI: (Through interpreter) We've counted the disclosed cases, and so far, the total is nearly a thousand cases between 1945 and 2021.
KUHN: Many of the cases are never prosecuted, she adds, and the numbers don't tell the whole story.
MIYAGI: (Through interpreter) The statistics don't convey the fear and the screams of the women who have been raped.
KUHN: Some Japanese question the central government's explanation of why it kept Okinawan authorities in the dark about the cases. Fumiaki Nozoe is an expert on U.S.-Japan relations at Okinawa International University.
FUMIAKI NOZOE: (Through interpreter) The Foreign Ministry says that they didn't disclose the information to protect the victim's privacy. But in reality, it was to protect the U.S. It is a problem that they didn't inform local authorities due to political considerations.
KUHN: Nozoe points to two likely considerations - an April summit between President Biden and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Okinawan prefectural assembly elections last month. Nozoe says Tokyo didn't want the U.S. military issue to mar either of those events, and it didn't. But in 1995, three U.S. servicemen's rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl led to a U.S.-Japan agreement to relocate some Marines from Okinawa to Guam. Fumiaki Nozoe says circumstances today are different from 1995.
NOZOE: (Through interpreter) I don't think it will go that far. Today, with the military rise of China and North Korea's nuclear and missile development, there is a certain amount of support within Japan and Okinawa for U.S. military bases.
KUHN: But on Wednesday, Okinawa's prefectural assembly passed a resolution calling for revisions to the U.S.-Japan agreement, which specifies which country has jurisdiction over U.S. military suspects. They added that the assembly protests, with, as they put it, a fury that is all over our body.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEX BRAIN'S SONG, "CRY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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