The Rape of Okinawa: Sexual Violence and Popular Protest in the Shadow of the US Military

Abstract

This thesis explores the relationship between the policymakers of the US-Japan security alliance and feminist anti-base protestors in Okinawa. In particular, it considers how a particularly violent rape, committed by three US personnel in 1995, sparked a wave of anti-base protest that was predominantly led by women’s groups. The interaction between protestors and policymakers in the weeks and months afterwards created a crisis in Okinawa that threatened the entire US-Japan alliance, and led to significant changes being implemented in the US base network in Okinawa. Despite these changes, the situation in Okinawa remained tense. This highlights the issue at the centre of the crisis, that the two sides did not share any common ground in their understandings of the cause of the rape or potential solutions. Subsequent rapes, committed in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2012 and 2016, demonstrated to anti-base protestors that alliance policymakers had not addressed the fundamental problems with the US bases in Okinawa, while increasingly radical demands from protestors asked more than policymakers were willing to concede to. This thesis will therefore explore two key moments in this ongoing crisis, as well as two of the primary reasons why a lack of common ground continues to exist, in order to ascertain why a solution has remained elusive, and whether the actions of either side have had a bearing on the behaviour of the other.