A woman dead in Naha, a governor's protest: Okinawa asks whether discipline is working at all
Okinawa's governor has demanded changes to the rules governing US forces after a Marine was arrested on suspicion of killing a 39-year-old woman in Naha. Japan's prime minister condemned the alleged crime, and residents took to the streets. The suspect denies the allegations.
NAHA: Anna Yagi, 39, was found dead in a hotel room in this city's Wakasa district early on Saturday. Okinawa Prefectural Police arrested Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, a US Marine stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, on suspicion of killing her and taking her wallet and backpack. Police say he denies the allegations. The case was sent to prosecutors in Naha on Monday; an arrest establishes suspicion, not guilt, and prosecutors had yet to announce charges as investigations continued.
What followed was not only a criminal investigation but a political reckoning. Governor Genta Koja, who took office on September 30 after an election that ended twelve years of prefectural leadership opposed to the Futenma relocation, delivered a protest in person on Monday to the commander of III Marine Expeditionary Force and the US Consul General, and called for revisions to the agreement governing US military personnel in Japan. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi condemned the alleged crime before parliament and demanded full investigative cooperation, tighter discipline and effective preventive measures. The foreign and defence ministers each summoned senior US officials.
The speed of the official reaction reflects the weight Okinawa carries. The island, about 1,000 miles south-west of Tokyo, hosts most of the roughly 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan and a large majority of the country's US military facilities. Because the suspect was arrested directly by Japanese police, he remains in Japanese custody, avoiding the custody disputes that have historically inflamed these cases. Residents gathered in Naha on Sunday to mourn Ms Yagi and to renew long-standing calls for the bases to be removed; a protest was also reported in Tokyo.
For Governor Koja the case is an early and unwelcome test. He had sought a more cooperative relationship with Tokyo, replacing the prefectural office that opposed the Henoko relocation with one tasked with accelerating the return of US military land. He has now questioned publicly whether discipline and troop education are working at all. That question — asked by a governor elected as a partner, not an opponent, of the alliance — is what makes this arrest different from the grim pattern that preceded it. The legal process will decide what happened in that hotel room. The political process has already begun, and it will be conducted, as it always is in Okinawa, in public.