Funeral held for “embodiment of postwar Okinawa” Kosuke Uehara

Funeral held for “embodiment of postwar Okinawa” Kosuke Uehara

Great numbers attended the funeral of former Okinawa Development Bureau director Kosuke Uehara to pay their last respects at 2 p.m. on August 10 at the Sunray Central Okinawa Shiunkaku in Matsumoto, Okinawa City.


August 10, 2017 Ryukyu Shimpo Digital Edition

 

(Okinawa) On the afternoon of August 10, a funeral for former Okinawa Development Bureau director Kosuke Uehara, who died at 84, was held at the Sunray Central Okinawa Shiunkaku in Okinawa City.

Uehara’s friends and associates from his time in the Okinawa Garrison Forces Labor Union (Zengunro, now Zenchuro) and members of the political world attended the funeral to pay their last respects.

Shinsuke Tomoyose, who participated with Uehara in the Zengunro struggle, gave a eulogy, saying, “The sorrowful time has finally come to say our last goodbye.

[Uehara] played a decisive role in an era of great turbulence. [His life] embodied Okinawa’s postwar history.”

 

Influenced by his experience during the Battle of Okinawa, Uehara participated in the struggle for improved treatment of Okinawan laborers working on U.S. military bases as chair of the Okinawa Garrison Forces Labor Union, and also participated in the anti-war peace movement.

He served ten terms as a representative of Okinawa in the House of Representatives in the national Diet, and was the first Okinawan Diet member to serve as a Cabinet minister. He endeavored to address and resolve issues of Okinawa’s development and revitalization, U.S. base issues, and postwar recovery.

(English translation by T&CT and Sandi Aritza)

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