Growing distrust over an island of gravel
During the shell firing exercises carried
out at the Torishima US Millitary Firing
Range in Okinawa Prefecture in December 1995
and January 1996, the vertical take-off and
landing (VTOL) Harriers owned by the US Marine
Base at Iwakuni fired 1,520 rounds of DU,
a radioactive weapon. This fact was revealed
a little over a year later, in February 1997.
The demands of Okinawa citizens that the
US military retrieve the rounds were ignored.
In May 2000, the US Air Force Command in
Okinawa announced that they were storing
DU shells in the Kadena munition storage
area. A few days later, 473 rounds of used
DU shell cartridges were discovered in the
storehouse of a local company that purchases
scrap from the US military. Thus, DU shells
that should have been removed from Okinawa
are still stored on the island, and negligence
has resulted in the sale of used cartridges
to the private sector as "steel scrap."
When I visited Okinawa just prior to the
G8 Summit, even as the local residents welcomed
the event, their distrust of the US military
was mounting.
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