Campaigners from Okinawa will arrive in Scotland on Monday to seek inspiration from the yes campaign as they look to boost support for making the southern Japanese island an independent nation. While Okinawa’s movement is tiny compared with its counterpart in Scotland, activists say they stand to benefit from mounting public anger over Tokyo’s plans to push through the construction of a controversial US military base in defiance of local opposition.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbWe’re really interested in seeing how the rest of the UK and the international community react if Scotland does vote for independence, said Masaki Tomochi, a professor of economics at Okinawa International University and a leading figure in the independence movement. Scotland has every right to be independent and to take decisions about its own future. That’s what people all over the world want, including the people of Okinawa. Tomochi and his colleagues, along with a reporter from the Ryukyu Shimpo newspaper, will tour Scotland meeting voters, academics and Scottish National party officials. Their group has posted a condensed Japanese version of the SNP’s Scotland’s Future manifesto on its website.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe history of Okinawa, Tomochi argues, is one of bloody sacrifice at mainland Japan’s behest, and collusion between Tokyo and Washington, beginning with a secret postwar agreement to allow the US to bring nuclear weapons to the island and maintain military bases there indefinitely. The 2012 deployment of MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft on the island, and the relocation of a military base have added to popular resentment towards Tokyo. The only way we can fix this is to declare our independence from Japan and go back to the way we were before Japan used force to take the islands, he said.<\/em> […]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe Okinawan activists hope to discover how the yes campaign in Scotland increased support to levels that make Thursday’s vote too close to call. A 2011 poll found only 4.7% of Okinawans were pro-independence, although more than 15% wanted more devolution. Just over 60% preferred the political status quo. Tomochi says support for independence has risen over the past two years.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbLike their allies in Scotland, activists here have been accused of endangering security and the economy. In an independent Okinawa, there would be no US bases and an end to subsidies from Tokyo. Fears the island would fall into Chinese hands were unfounded, said Tomochi, who regards Okinawans as ethnically different from mainland Japanese, with their own language and culture. We would be far more likely to be invaded by Japan. China never invaded us for centuries when this was an independent kingdom, he said. The pro-independence movement envisages an Okinawa relieved of its heavy military burden, with a thriving economy based on trade with China and south-east Asia.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 15 septembre 2014 \u00e0 06H13<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
L’\u00c9cosse inspire Okinawa Des partisans de l’ind\u00e9pendance d’Okinawa vont venir en \u00c9cosse pour suivre les op\u00e9rations ultimes et le r\u00e9f\u00e9rendum sur l’ind\u00e9pendance du 18 septembre. C’est un aspect tr\u00e8s original et remarquablement exemplaire de la diffusion d’une pouss\u00e9e centrifuge et donc antiSyst\u00e8me par rapport au contraintes que le Syst\u00e8me impose aux diverses populations qui sont… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[12375,4099,7865,2632,4345,4662,8661],"class_list":["post-75507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breves-de-crise","tag-aikido","tag-centrifuge","tag-faire","tag-globalisation","tag-independance","tag-japon","tag-okinawa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}