[Shadow Kira01]

FOCUS: Anti-base Okinawans expect Hatoyama to end carrot and stick policy

''We now face an epoch-making chance to transform Japan's subservient relationship with the United States into more equal one,'' Tamaki said. ''Many Okinawans object to the current plan to relocate (the Futemma base) within the prefecture and they are frustrated because their hopes for change raised in the election could be betrayed.''

Tamaki, a son of a member of the U.S. military, said there is no need for Hatoyama to rush to a conclusion on where to move the Futemma facility and urged him to be ''a tough negotiator.''

''What we want is to turn everything back to zero and to restart negotiations from scratch. Political compromises can spawn great ideas,'' he said. As alternative relocation sites, the parliamentarian suggested utilizing regional airports in sparsely populated areas of the country, where demand for air services is low.

The activist said the DPJ can give serious thought to the idea because Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa has expressed the view that the role of the U.S. military in Japan should be trimmed down, saying the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet based in Yokosuka would be ''enough for the U.S. presence in the Far East.''

Takuma Higashionna, 48, a Nago city assembly member who has sued the U.S. Defense Department over the Futemma relocation plan as it could harm dugong, an endangered marine mammal in the area, said pushing through the current plan would be detrimental to the interests of both Japan and the United States.

''U.S. President Barack Obama was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and Japan is set to host a major U.N. conference on preserving biodiversity next year. Destroying the environment for the Futemma relocation would hamper the two countries' ambitions to be front-runners in conservation and would draw criticism from the international community,'' he said.

Higashionna said he believes Obama can ''feel other people's pain'' and that he expects the president to give up on the existing Futemma transfer plan.

Ashitomi and the assembly member also pointed out that the plan involving the reclamation of some offshore areas was enlarged to incorporate the demands of Japanese vested interests -- namely construction businesses and politicians representing the industry -- and can be regarded as a ''wasteful public works project.''

Defense analyst Motoaki Kamiura, 60, said that from a military viewpoint the United States does not need new runways at Camp Schwab as he believes the emergency response capabilities of U.S. forces have been enhanced over the years to reduce the need to forward deploy tens of thousands of servicemen.

Kamiura said, however, he thinks the threat of North Korea will decline sooner or later with leader Kim Jong Il's health problems, eliminating the need to have a major Marine presence in Okinawa, where the corps was originally deployed to respond to a contingency on the Korean Peninsula.