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The Unai Method: The Expansion of Women-only Groups in the Community of Protest Against Violence and Militarism in Okinawa
Journal article   Peer reviewed

The Unai Method: The Expansion of Women-only Groups in the Community of Protest Against Violence and Militarism in Okinawa

M Tanji
Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, Vol.13(August)
2006
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Abstract

It has recently been reported that the US (and Japan) have decided to move 7,000 US marines out of Okinawa. However, the impression of the Island's military presence simply being reduced is misleading. The plans for a brand-new US military offshore airbase (popularly referred to as the 'heliport') next to the Henoko village of northeast Okinawa are still ongoing.[1] Even less accurately reported is the exhaustingly long battle that the local anti-base protesters have been waging. This story goes back to the 1995 rape of a twelve-year-old local girl by three US marines from Camp Hansen, located in northeast Okinawa Island – an event that precipitated a temporary crisis of the US-Japan security alliance.[2] It was a local women's group, the Okinawan Women Act against Military and Violence (or OWAAMV) that turned it into a major political opportunity to reveal the vulnerability of the US–Japan security alliance.

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