OUR BLINDSPOT IN ASIA
Mears, Helen
Our Blindspot in Asia by HELEN MEARS AMAJOR American blindspot today is our unwillingness to face the fact that the most powerful agent of Communism has been, and is, the wide gulf between the...
...The new plan made it clear that as soon as it could be worked out, a plan for the lump payment would replace the rental system...
...The Price Report concluded that "our own government . . . has failed to compensate the Okinawan for the loss which he has suffered...
...Moreover, in its distress, the Committee apparently forgot that the U.S...
...As outlined, the plan proposes to produce Okinawan capitalists who will invest the capital paid them for use of their land...
...The decision to retain control was primarily a military decision...
...Asian people are certain to find enlightening the workings of a plan which will enable an investment of considerably less than $560 to provide an "annual income" large enough to live on...
...Under the plan in force in 1955, the Army had appraised land at $330 an acre...
...As the Price Report points out, "Here, there are no restrictions imposed by a foreign government on our rights to store or to employ atomic weapons...
...Uprooted from their homes and given a yearly payment of $16 to $20, what could these people do...
...The new plan included the setting up of a new judicial commission to be appointed by our Secretary of Defense, to which the Okinawans could appeal...
...This explanation does not present a pleasant picture...
...policy is to remain in Okinawa "indefinitely," the Price Report did not discuss this...
...Occasional demonstrations by village people attempting to forestall the take-over of their land were dispersed by American troops...
...Transformed into policy they might literally spark a worldwide upsurge of faith and hope that would revolutionize international relations...
...It is not easy to follow the Congressmen's reasoning here...
...Lemnitzer does not say, but since the Price Committee was horrified at the idea of paying $560 for an eight-tenths of an acre farm, it can be assumed that the overwhelming majority of the new capitalists will receive considerably less than $560...
...There was, however, nothing in the treaty that assumed that the United States could make a unilateral decision to remain indefinitely...
...In 1955, when the Price Committee investigated, our military were using around 40,000 acres, but plans had been announced to acquire 12,000 acres more for the Marines, and under our "master-plan" other large acquisitions were contemplated...
...Then in writing the peace treaty, Dulles put in the provision that Japan waived all war claims of its nationals against the United States...
...forces in Okinawa...
...This meant that we could continue to hold land, and take more land, even if the landowner objected...
...military forces go home and Okinawan ties with Japan be resumed...
...When the peace treaty became effective it became necessary to "legalize" the land holdings...
...In their appeal to Asian peoples today our political leaders insist that our society mirrors a set of principles that presents to other peoples a recognizable, preferable, and attainable alternative to Communism...
...Today the U.S...
...Under the new plan, the land owner would receive $330 in a lump sum, and that would end the transaction...
...It asked that rent for the land already taken should be increased seven times...
...Our Blindspot in Asia by HELEN MEARS AMAJOR American blindspot today is our unwillingness to face the fact that the most powerful agent of Communism has been, and is, the wide gulf between the professed principles and actual practice of the West in the area of foreign policy...
...It would create a group of what might be called 'landed gentry' inasmuch as the dispossessed landowner would . . . receive, without the expenditure of any labor, the equivalent of his total land productivity . . . This proposal transcends any socialistic theory of compensation with which the members of this subcommittee are familiar...
...A military bastion, 6,000 miles from our homeland, which can exist only by—to state it bluntly—"enslaving" the people, is not the sort of "showcase" of which we Americans can be proud...
...The proposal is well beyond the realm of justice...
...However, the Report explains further, "the United States has certain responsibilities toward the Oki-nawans," one of which involved compensation to the dispossessed people for their land...
...The American military governor has over-all veto power...
...These are noble words...
...Since rent was paid at the rate of six per cent of this value the landowner of an acre received $19.80 a year...
...It is reported that one of every four of Okinawa's labor force works in one way or another for the U. S. military...
...it rejected the idea of a lump-sum payment as a substitute for an annual rent...
...This proposal shocked the Price Committee: "It is extremely difficult...
...And the failure to recognize the picture of "democracy" which the Asian peoples see when they peer into this "showcase" is alarming...
...American Army appraisers decided the terms of a fair annual rental...
...Just how unreasonable was this shocking Okinawan plan...
...We are in Okinawa," the Price Report declares, "because it constitutes an essential part of our worldwide defenses...
...Might it not be true that our real security lies in the confidence placed in our sort of society by the "uncommitted" peoples—who have this confidence because of our tra-ditional principles...
...It is not possible to turn an island into a complex of military installations without using the land...
...On the contrary, the Price Committee concluded that the U.S...
...and third, by policy statements of our government...
...Only two and one-half per cent of the landowners had holdings larger than two and one-half acres, and the average farmer held only eight-tenths of an acre...
...Any landowner may lose his land and home at any time, and not for purposes decided by his own government, but to satisfy the strategic needs of a foreign country...
...As a "colony" Okinawa could not possibly become a "show window" of democracy, for colonialism and democracy are based on entirely different principles...
...so long as it may be needed...
...The landowners . . . unanimously elected to appeal...
...For example, there is Okinawa, which some of our journalists and Congressmen call a "showcase of democracy...
...Even without 'the additional Marine acquisition, we had dispossessed "50,000 families or approximately 250,000 people...
...Meanwhile the 250,000 dispossessed people were creating a variety of problems...
...A family of five can subsist on a holding of only eight-tenths of an acre...
...Also "approximately one-third of 'the landowners have been permitted to farm their land . . . pending the time when full use of master-plan land will be required...
...The new plan included a project which General Lemnitzer said "is being developed for the benefit of those owners who wish to deposit their payments or part of them...
...The legislature of this native government is "popularly elected...
...There is a population density of 1270 persons per square mile, as compared with 281 in India, 178 in the Philippines...
...This conclusion is sharply challenged by a report issued after an on-the-spot investigation by the Japan Civil Liberties Union, which declared that the dispossessed Okinawans worked for the U.S...
...In other words: we take the land, pay what we decide, and then create a WPA to keep the people busy, at "minimum" wages...
...The rent for each landowner was deposited with the government of the Ryukyuan Islands, and the landowner could draw up to 75 per cent and still have the right to appeal for more money...
...Our answer to this refusal was to issue another proclamation which gave us the right to hold the land under "implied lease...
...The report declares that "Okinawa has become, in its most precise sense, a 'showcase of democracy...
...The Price Report recognized that the economy of Okinawa was overwhelmingly agricultural, and other jobs were few...
...The Price Report is an important document...
...Yet the report as a whole raises serious questions about our government's policies and attitudes—and suggests that in considering the problems of "backward" peoples, and in confronting the basic problems of freedom, democracy, and human dignity, our leaders have serious blindspots...
...American rulers of the island HELEN MEARS, who has lived in China and Japan, has written of the Far East for Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and The Saturday Evening Post...
...A family of five dispossessed from an eight-tenths of an acre farm would receive an annual rent of $112 a year (for as long as we used the land) plus a flat sum of $560...
...Why don't we have the courage to put our principles into practice...
...So the Army proposed 2) to set up a "minimum public works program" to give the dispossessed people jobs...
...It mentions among the benefits: paved streets, "modern concrete school buildings," a "university," "modern shopping centers," a "more varied diet," and a considerably lower death rate...
...All men, our Declaration of Independence said, are endowed with in-ailenable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...
...Having courageously reported the serious evils of our policies and stated that the "position of our own government to date is Unrealistic," the Price Report says that the Okinawans nonetheless have received "collateral benefits by reason of the presence of U.S...
...Our right to be in Okinawa— eleven years after the end of the war and four years after the peace treaty became effective—is explained by the Price Report in these terms: "We are in Okinawa: first, by conquest...
...That is why we hate a system which treats man as mere bits of matter to be made into the grinding cogs of some super state machine...
...Gordon Walker, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, reported that "Okinawa in the eyes of other Asians, is an American 'colony.' " Having reported this discreditable fact, he calmly adds that "as such it could easily be made a show window for displaying the basic U.S...
...and we want to protect liberty where it is, and to see it restored where it is lost...
...Trusteeship...
...have permitted some responsibility to the native people on local levels, and in the spring of 1952 a native central government was "formally established...
...She is the author of two books, "Year of the Wild Boar" and "Mirror for Americans...
...The justification for turning Okinawa into a military bastion is the claim that it is necessary for our "national security...
...The new plan did not go very far in meeting Okinawan requests...
...That is why we crave liberty for all men everywhere...
...it rejected the idea of long-term leases...
...Unless otherwise noted, all direct quotations in this account are taken from the Price Report...
...As for the farmers who are permitted to farm while waiting for our decision to dispossess them, can we really expect them to have a feeling of confidence in American guidance, or an affection for the ways of democracy...
...However sympathetic one may be to Ryukyuan problems, a simple unpopular truth must be faced: Our primary mission in the islands is strategic and this mission in the last analysis, and the military necessity which flows from the mission, must take precedence...
...But Asians see colonialism, and not democracy, when they look into our "showcase" of Okinawa...
...The Price Report describes sympathetically the plight of these people: "Okinawa traditionally has had a predominatntly agricultural economy in which land is the most precious possession...
...in a governmental fund for the cooperative use of the money in such a way as to provide interest or an annual income from the use of this capital...
...In many respects it is a model of democratic investigation...
...It is hard to imagine a situation in which the right to private property is more insecure...
...In view of the fact that once before all the landowners appealed, and that from their point of view, nothing much happened, this may not comfort them much...
...Among the projects was a proposal to open "virgin lands" in other islands of the Ryukyu chain, for the "resettlement of families already or hereafter to be displaced to meet the U. S. forces land requirements...
...But how much will these new capitalists have to invest...
...Until 1950 there was no payment at all...
...But it seems not to have been clear to the Committee that the entire operation had within itself the capacity to discredit our leadership, if our claim to leadership rests not on military might, but on the firm ground of human rights and democratic principles...
...The landowners, however, have been unwilling to enter into leases on this basis, contending that the payment rates were inadequate...
...54 in the United States...
...Because of the increasingly serious plight of the dispossessed people it was agreed to pay rent for the period beginning July 1, 1950...
...The native chief executive, however, is appointed by the U.S...
...They put this at six per cent of the value of the land taken, as they estimated the value...
...Its report was released in 1956...
...And of moral precepts, one of the most basic is the concept of the brotherhood of man . . . "Another aspect of our faith is belief in the dignity and worth of the human individual everywhere...
...Asian peoples interested in learning what is meant by our "People's Capitalism" are bound to find this plan revealing...
...The Price Report does not discuss the wage situation except to say that the Okinawan labor-force is "paid the highest wages in Okinawan history...
...or is it more accurate to conclude that democracy and militarism are incompatible...
...military at "slave labor rates...
...Some impression of the scandalously inadequate wage rate can be gleaned from a report to the Christian Science Monitor last November that the average Okinawan worker for Americans gets $13 to $17 a month...
...Confronted with these conditions, did our Congressional subcommittee conclude that Okinawa was not after all a suitable base, and that we should withdraw our military forces and installations...
...The Price Committee considered the Army plan and the Okinawan complaints and proposals...
...On this date, the Japanese peace treaty came into effect so that the Okinawans could no longer be treated as a conquered enemy, and a policy of payment of rent was worked out...
...As a demonstration of "People's Capitalism," the whole plan is not likely to gain us many friends in Okinawa or Asia...
...The military officials are aware, however, that a family of five (even Okinawans) cannot live very long on $330...
...In fact, "nothing could be more degenerating to the landowner or less fair to the American taxpayer...
...Must it be assumed that it is now accepted also for democratic countries...
...On the basis of the 40,000 acres held by our military in the autumn of 1955, the annual rental would amount to $8,-263,178 and the lump-sum for damages (to be paid only once) would have amounted to $14,368,104...
...If Okinawa is, in fact, a showcase of American democracy, then Asian leaders must be excused if they fail to understand the difference between American democracy and Communist enslavement...
...Full use," of course, means use for military installations, and it seems obvious that if a farmhouse has been demolished and an airstrip built on the farm land, the owner of that farm has lost his land forever...
...It says that "the eyes of the world, and particularly the hooded eye of the Communist world, are fixed attentively on our actions in Okinawa, the latter in concentrated study to dis cover what can be used as propaganda against us...
...farmers for not planting crops, and that these farmers are not dispossessed of their lands and homes...
...But those who reason that our security depends on military might may be tragically wrong...
...Where the Okinawan Plan had asked for increased rent at seven times the current level, the new plan only tripled the rate...
...In other words, Okinawa was greatly overcrowded even before more than than 40,000 Americans moved in and took for themselves "20 per cent of all of the arable land" on the island...
...That the Price Committee had certain doubts is suggested by its statement, "If the current annual-rental basis is continued, the economic plight faced by these landowners at the time of ultimate displacement, and by those who would be displaced to meet the Marines' requirements, would be such as to create a most serious civil problem...
...They made recommendations of their own...
...Accordingly the Okinawans have no legal basis to press the United States for compensation for the use of their land prior to April 28, 1952...
...The plan would meet the Okinawan wishes to keep title to their land...
...Whether such "benefits" do in fact compensate the uprooted Okinawans perhaps the future will disclose...
...It proposed 1) that the United States acquire long-term leases "granting full use of the land for so long as it may be needed by the United States"—but instead of paying a yearly rent for this land, to pay a flat-sum equal to the value of the land, as determined by Army appraisers...
...Is this unreasonable from the point of view of a family which has lost its home and livelihood...
...But it is a tragic fact that although our political leaders incessantly praise such principles, and claim that they seek their fulfillment, their actual policies only too often seem to represent the precise opposite...
...Responsibility is vested in the Army...
...U. S. troops took the Japanese island of Okinawa "by conquest" during World War II, and ever since our military leaders have treated the island as though they owned the land and the people and could deal with them as they chose...
...and in fact the peace treaty contained the suggestion that the United States might propose a U.N...
...The purpose of the Price Committee investigation was to consider what might be done to adjust the strategic aims of the U. S. military and the human needs of the Okinawans...
...When the peace treaty with Japan was written (Dulles has stated 'that he wrote the treaty), the United States retained the right to continue to administer and control Okinawa (and a broad surrounding area) for an unstated period...
...In 1945, U. S. forces took for their military installations approximately 45,000 acres of Ryukyuan land . . . These lands were taken originally as an act of war with no compensation to the landowners being made or contemplated...
...The Okinawans had strongly opposed lump sum payment instead of rent...
...At the rate decided by our Army appraisers, a farm family ejected from its farm (its home and livelihood) received a rental of less than $20 a year...
...and in addition to this increased annual rent it asked for a lump-sum "as compensation for their loss of livelihood" equal to five years of the increased rental...
...The Price Report explains that "large numbers . . . found employment in the construction industry which has boomed during the erection of military installations, or they have become employes of the U. S. forces...
...second, by reason of the peace treaty with Japan...
...The United States, however, has also taken the position stated by President Eisenhower that "We shall maintain indefinitely our bases in Okinawa...
...policy toward Asian populations--establishment of enlightened and prosperous self-government...
...The Army had worked out an "equitable solution...
...Since U.S...
...Because of overpopulation, landholdings were very small for individual families...
...the report adds that an average family needs $38 a month to live on...
...Our military leaders have used their absolute control over the land and people to develop the entire island into a massive complex of Army-Navy-Air-Marine installations...
...In January of this year, General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, governor of the Ryukyu Islands, told the Okinawans of the program which he said represented a "comprehensive, just, and practical program of the settlement of our land problems...
...The legal basis for developing the whole island as a base is highly questionable...
...The idea of people whom we call our "wards" being dispossessed from their lands and homes in large numbers to become manual or domestic labor for an American military force is not one to arouse our national pride...
...Therefore, should population conditions in the Ryukyus exist in the United States, the population of the United States would be 2.75 billion instead of the current 161.5 million...
...the United States, however, would retain "full use of the land...
...In this atomic era high principles have become the only really practical politics...
...The idea that Okinawa is a "show-case for democracy" is widely ac-cepted among journalists who write of the Far East and Asia...
...This decision is not surprising, considering the fact that the "average" family received "less than $20 a year...
...They are trivial contrasted with our military expenditures on Okinawa...
...strategic aims are more important than the human rights of the Okinawan people, and the Oki-nawans must adjust...
...Because we have total control, with no foreign government to interfere with us, and a docile people to deal with, our military can develop the sort of military complex we cannot develop in the territory of an ally...
...The facts that follow are largely taken from an official report of a Special Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives, which conducted an investigation in Okinawa under the chairmanship of Representative Melvin Price...
...The government, in effect, is a military dictatorship...
...The facts of our rule of Okinawa are so scandalous that when described in blunt language they seem unbelievable...
...The Okinawan people made a counter-proposal...
...And it was not possible for our military to use the land without dispossessing Okina-wans...
...The Army plan was to have the landowners sign leases...
...policies, Secretary of State Dulles has said: "The American people believe in a moral law and that man and nations are bound by that law...
...Obviously, the sums suggested by the Okinawans are trivial when compared with the billions our government spends both at home and abroad to provide military "hardware...
...The Okinawan plan opposed the idea of taking more land...
...There are 290,000 acres in Okinawa, of which only 80,000 are arable...
...We can be certain that the Asian peoples will never accept an American "colony" as a satisfactory demonstration of the sort of democ-racy they desire...
...The idea that peoples may be removed from their land at the whim of a government and transported some place else is recognized as standard operating procedure for totalitarian governments...
...Their first proposal was that the U.S...
...to understand, even on a bargaining basis, how such an extreme request could be made...
...they express noble aspirations...
...civil administration...
...In the course of time a new plan was evolved...
...government takes the position that Okinawa belongs to Japan and that in due course, our military control will end and the relationship with Japan be reestablished...
...On their eight-tenths of an acre farm a family has "a minimum but continuing means of livelihood...
...There is no question that the members of the Committee worked with the utmost conscientiousness, both in Washington and in Okinawa, to get the facts...
...government pays U.S...
...In other words we are there by conquest...
...Explaining the aims of U.S...
...Since the landowners are required to give up their "total land productivity," why should they not be paid for it...
...The report is clear and detailed, and every effort is made to be just to the Okinawan point of view...
...From a military point of view the only flaw in Okinawa as an American Gibraltar is the fact that the Ryukyu Island group (of which Okinawa is the chief island) is inhabited by some 800,000 human beings, of whom about 675,000 live on Okinawa...
Vol. 21 • July 1957 • No. 7
