Tokyo – It was learned on April 24 that the security contractor awarded the contract to patrol and secure the ocean area designated by the Okinawa Defense Bureau (ODB) for new military base construction in Henoko, Nago City, overcharged by 740 million yen.
The information was disclosed by a whistle-blower to the ODB.
This over-charge was reduced after revising the contract, however The Ministry of Defense singed an additional service contract with the same security company that ran through last year, for which the Board of Audit of Japan (BoA) indicated the security contractor over-charged as well. Even after learning of the over-charge, the contract continued at the original stated price.
Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera explained at a press conference April 24, “The situation is currently being handled appropriately, but of course, at the previous time it was not.”
The security company in question is Rising Sun Security Service in Shibuya, Tokyo.
The ODB opened bidding for temporary facility construction in June of 2014, and the Taisei Corporation won the contract with a bid priced at 5.96 billion yen that included security, for which they commissioned Rising Sun.
It appears Rising Sun padded their security expenses.
According to the Ministry of Defense, in January of 2016 a whistle-blower reported the fraud, revealing the overages.
In March of the same year, the ODB and Taisei Corporation revised the contract to eliminate the 740 million yen over-charge.
Also, in a separate bid for maritime security in 2015-2016, the ODB accepted only the estimate from Rising Sun, awarding them the contract.
In November of last year, the BoA indicated that the company was overstating their personnel expenses by about 190 million yen, and requested that the Ministry of Defense rectify the situation.
The Rising Sun explained to Ryukyu Shimpo reporters that as part of the sub-contract with Taisei, the money was treated as a temporary advance.
They said that at the end of the contract a “thorough audit is properly done,” and that this should not really be considered an over-charge.
Yaese Lion Dance group, which consists of traditional-arts performers in Yaese town, visited Hue City in Vietnam to participate Hue Festival 2018, which opened on April 27.
The group, led by Takeshi Kamiya, visited the Hue Central Hospital to hold a workshop with Thai Nghi Duong Lion dance group.
More than 260 audience-members enjoyed the powerful lion dance and bo performance.
The Tomoyose lion dance, a delicate and brisk dance featuring the deep sound of a gong, while the Shitahaku lion dance shows powerful moves.
The group performed “tomoyose-no-maikata” and “kogusuku-no-bo,” entertaining the audience with the dramatic performances.
The Thai Nghi Duong Lion group performed with vivid red and yellow lions at the end of the show.
The groups also held a workshop after the show to share ideas on the materials of their lions and dance moves, developing a bond with each other.
44-year-old Tin Wen Bangching from Hue city visited the performance with family, and smiled while commenting, “The Okinawan lion dance was very beautiful with powerful moves.”
Shogo Kamiyo, who is a member of the performing group from the Shitahaku bo-association, said, “I was nervous since this is my first time visiting a foreign country, but I’m glad I got to perform my best. This is a great experience for me, to be connected to other people through lion dance.”
Group members looking at the Thai Ngi Duong Lion group’s lion during the workshop
Thai Nghi Duong Lion dance with red and yellow lions
The Hue Festival opened at 7PM on April 27 in Vietnam.
The performing group will join a parade in the city on April 28, and then perform during the main event on April 29.
April 25 marked one year since embankment work commenced for the new base in Henoko, Nago City.
The Helicopter Base Objection Association held a sit-in on the water in Oura Bay.
A little after 9:00 a.m., 150 people called to action assembled in 60 canoes and 8 boats and set out together.
They faced the shore of Camp Schwab where construction is moving forward and raised their voices with the messages: “Don’t destroy nature,” and “Stop construction.”
At 1:00 p.m. the protestors met on the shore in Henoko to hold a solidarity assembly.
Around 9:20 a.m. on April 25 citizens protest from the water, calling for a halt to construction of the new base. The K3 embankment, which is under construction, is visible in the center of the photograph.
As of April 28, it has been two years since it occurred that a U.S. military contractor sexually assaulted and murdered a woman in the central part of Okinawa Island.
On the 26th an attorney who represents the family of the deceased released a document in which the family expressed their present state of mind: “We still think of our daughter and pray for her departed soul.”
The defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment in the first trial. However, he carried his appeal to a higher court, and the appeal trial will be held in the Fukuoka High Court Naha Branch in June through to July.
The wounds of the bereaved family have not yet healed.
In March this year, the bereaved family submitted a bill to the Okinawa Defense Bureau to request compensation for damages from both the US and Japanese governments according to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). However, the United States refuses to pay because the US military did not directly employ the defendant.
According to the first trial, in April 2016 the defendant assaulted a woman going for a walk in Uruma City with the intention of murdering her, hit her on the head with a bar, strangled her with both hands, and stabbed her several times in the neck with a knife.
The body of the woman was abandoned in the mountains in Yafuso, Onna Village.
He attempted to rape her but failed.
In the process, the woman died.
He is accused of murder and sexual assault resulting in death.
Before the trial the defendant denied having intent to murder and told Stars and Stripes, a news bulletin associated with the U.S. military, that he would speak in court in detail.
However, in the first trial at Naha District Court, he exercised his right to remain silent and refused to make a statement.
Many people visited sunny beaches on March 18, which is March 3 on the old lunar calendar, to hold an event called Hama-ori. Many children enjoyed clam digging on the beaches.
About 40 children, aged four to five, from Gajimaru nursery school in Mekaru, Naha City, visited and played at the beach in Urasoe. Putting sea water on hands and forehead, the children prayed for health before stepping in the water.
The school director, Principal Yumiko Itokazu, commented, “We do this Hama-ori event every year so we can teach our children tradition and so they grow up healthy.”
Hama-ori is an annual event practiced in the Amami and Okinawa regions, when people visit beaches to dip feet and hands in sea water to purify and to pray for health.
Around 3:30 p.m. on April 16 in Matsuda, Ginoza Village, 10 or more U.S. military amphibious vehicles crossed National Route 329 while traveling from the ocean toward the mountains. Regular traffic was stopped for over 10 minutes as the amphibious vehicles passed.
When U.S. forces move north and south across Route 329, the passage of regular traffic is restricted. The amphibious vehicles crossed Route 329 in succession, heading from the coast of Katabaru in Matsuda onto Camp Hansen.
The Jeju Museum of Art on Jeju Island off the southern coast of South Korea began their “Post Trauma Exhibit” March 31 to mark the 70th anniversary of the “Jeju Uprising,” a revolt that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of island residents at the hand of the South Korean military. The exhibit will run through June 24. The exhibit will display works from 10 artists both from South Korea and abroad with the themes of peace and human rights. The exhibit will feature two artists from Okinawa. The first is sculptor Minoru Kinjo ,79, who will be displaying seven works including a replica of “Han no hi” and “Fisherman McCulley’s Statue.” The second, filmmaker and artist Chikako Yamashiro, will have her film “Tsuchi no hito” shown on as many as three screens in the museum.
The Jeju Uprising occurred from 1948 all the way through 1954. Caused in part by the opposition to the formalization of the Korean peninsula being split into north and south halves, the revolt was for a long time seen as a, “communist uprising,” causing the survivors of the incident to face alienation.
The “Post Trauma Exhibit,” looks to re-interpret the historical meaning of the Jeju Uprising, with the goal of protecting human rights and creating a peaceful society. Kinjo’s “Han no Hi” depicts the brutal and severe reality of war; in the sculpture a Korean forced-laborer is being marched to his execution site with his hands tied behind his back by a Japanese soldier hitting him with the butt of his gun during the Battle of Okinawa. Yamashiro’s “Tsuchi no hito,” takes place in both Jeju and Okinawa, and uses an allegorical depiction of the strife in both regions as they grapple with their respective military bases.
Both Kinjo and Yamashiro attended the exhibit’s opening. Kinjo, based on his experience participating in the exhibit, proposed that for Okinawa Memorial Day, “I would like to devise a way to share these cultural messages such as showing ‘Tsuchi no hito’ at the Peace Memorial Park.” Yamashiro commented, “I felt the strength of will and depth of expression consoling the spirits of the dead. Artists from Taiwan, China, Vietnam and others participated. The exhibit made people reflect on their own country’s history and have conversations about not letting it fade from memory.”
How did a person from the Paleolithic era 27,000 years ago look?
On April 20 at 9:30 a.m., the Okinawa Prefectural Buried Cultural Property Center announced that the work of restoring the face from a skull found at Shiraho Saonetabaru Cave Ruins has been completed.
The reconstructed face model was released at the exhibition “The Paleolithic Era of Okinawa is Hot!” which began at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno, Tokyo on the 20th.
An archeological survey conducted in 2012-2016 found over a thousand bones from the Paleolithic era at the same site. The ruin was noted for “the first domestic Paleolithic cemetery” and “the oldest whole-body skeleton in the country.” These findings were exhibited at the Okinawa Prefectural Buried Cultural Property Center last May, and many visitors gathered to see them.
Three-dimensional digital restoration techniques were used on these bones. Researchers scientifically examined the muscle, skin, and hair of the skull from 27,000 years ago, which is the oldest among these discoveries, and reconstructed a face.
From April 20 to May 27, the Prefectural Buried Cultural Property Center is exhibiting photographs of a cranial model made by the three-dimensional digital construction of acrylic resin, and a reconstructed face model. For inquiries, please contact the Prefectural Buried Cultural Property Center at 098 (835) 8751.
April 20, 2018 Ryukyu Shimpo
Washington Special Correspondent Yukiyo Zaha reporting
At the UN Headquarters in New York, the Seventeenth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) opened on April 16 to discuss expanding protections for indigenous people’s rights. On April 18, a representative of the Association of Comprehensive Studies for Independence of the Lew Chewans (ACSILs), Shinako Oyakawa, spoke at one of the Forum’s side events. She conveyed the reality that United States military bases were built on Okinawan people’s lands, and that even when Okinawan people demonstrate their will to not allow new bases to be constructed through the election of their representatives, that will is not reflected in decision-making.
The Forum programming was held over a period of five days (as of April 20). Another representative of ACSILs and professor at Okinawa International University, Masaki Tomochi, is attending the Forum along with six other Okinawans.
At an event focusing on the Indigenous Human Rights Defenders and Land Rights in Asia, Oyakawa attended wearing a kimono with her hair tied up in an Okinawan hairstyle called uchinākanpū. She discussed with representatives from the Philippines and Malaysia about the sustainable development of lands that have been traditionally protected by the indigenous people, and rights involving decision-making. They identified the common features of injustice being historically forced upon indigenous people, and affirmed the importance of decision-making being made to reflect indigenous people’s voices.
Oyakawa introduced the history of the Ryukyu Kingdom’s annexation into Japan, and of U.S. military bases being built in Okinawa during the Battle of Okinawa. She also pointed out that sex crimes and murder by soldiers are issues that have persisted due to the presence of military bases. Despite requests that Futenma Air Station be closed down and the land it rests on be returned, the U.S. and Japanese governments are forcing Henoko, Nago to be the site for a replacement facility. Oyakawa pointed out that, “The problem is that [the governments] ignore indigenous people’s voices and charge forward.”
After exchanging opinions, Oyakawa said, “The government belittles Okinawa’s issues, holding that ‘military affairs don’t disrupt the region,’ and ‘it is for the sake of peace and stability in Asia.’ We have been able to share that these claims, and excuses from factions that approve of military bases, are not justifiable.”
On April 16, Governor of Okinawa Takeshi Onaga came to work at the Prefectural Office for the first time in 12 days, after he had been told to rest following the discovery of a tumor in his pancreas. As for attending the first policy meeting of the week to discuss with department heads, Governor Onaga said to the press that his physical health has not changed since the time of his interview. He said that he has had check-up after check-up, and that he is keeping his spirits up and doing his best.
The policy meeting was set to discuss measures against measles, among other related policy. According to an attendee, Onaga called for others to work hard even while he is absent.
Governor Onaga had announced that a tumor was found in his pancreas during a physical examination. He is assigned to rest and not to attend work until the tumor is surgically removed.
The University of the Ryukyus has teamed up with the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP), an international conservation project that collects and stores seeds from all over the world to ensure the Earth’s biodiversity for the future.
Researchers from the project recently came to Okinawa, and on April 11 visited the forests in Kunigami with researchers from the University of the Ryukyus to collect seeds from the forest’s trees.
The seeds are kept as a genetic resource that can last for hundreds of years, and can be used if a habitat is destroyed, if the plant is needed for (a yet-to-be-discovered) medication, or can “return home” if necessary.
This is part of a collaborative research project between the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, who have developed the project, and the University’s department of science headed by Professor Yasuhiro Kubota.
Currently in Japan, only the University of the Ryukyus and Kyushu University are participating in the project.
Kew is the world’s largest botanical garden, and stores 38,500 varieties of seeds from all over the world.
The research collaboration with Professor Kubota’s team, which leads the way on east-Asian biodiversity research, began last year.
For the April 11 seed collecting trip, three researchers from MSBP led by Seed Conservation Project Office Sharon Balding came to Okinawa.
They presented the project to the University, and gave instruction on how to collect and store seeds.
Balding explained that the significance of storing the seeds, “protects the diversity of plants, and as they are kept in a state where they can be used, they can be used to deal with any crisis that may arise in the future.”
At the University of the Ryukyus Yona Field in Kunigami, trees such as Sarcandra glabra and Rubus graynus were targeted as foundations of biodiversity.
The plan is to collect 130 varieties of seeds over the next two years.
Balding said, “While they may be ignored by some as all looking the same, I want the people of the world to understand the diversity of Okinawan plants and the importance they have for our lives.”
Webcam(Kokusai Street)
