Protested Mayor

Okinawa is the one place where the U.S. finds itself embarrassingly thrust back into the colonial business. Once there, it has tried to make Okinawa both a political showcase and a military base. As a showcase, it must be democratic; as a military base, it must be secure. Often, as the British have learned in a more difficult situation on Cyprus, the two can be at odds.

For years the chief Okinawan thorn in the U.S. side has been an emaciated little man with a jet-black mustache and eyes that glare from behind thick spectacles. He is Kamejiro Senaga, the 49-year-old chief of the Okinawa People's Party. The party's principal plank was opposition to U.S. requisitioning of land for military purposes, which over the years has resulted in the seizure of one-fifth of Okinawa's arable land and the dispossession of 50,000 Okinawans. In a low, mild voice, Senaga called the U.S. occupation authorities "criminals, murderers, rapists, arsonists and thieves." The U.S. authorities considered him a Communist, jailed him two years ago for concealing a Japanese Communist smuggled in from Japan.

Emerging from jail last spring, Senaga was greeted by mobs of cheering supporters. He pounded away at such slogans as, "End U.S. rule of the saber," "Restoration of Okinawa to Japan the motherland," "Yankee go home." Last week, despite the best efforts of U.S. authorities, Senaga got himself elected to Okinawa's top elective office--mayor of Naha, the island's biggest city (pop. 170,000). With the two other candidates splitting the pro-U.S. vote, he won with only 40% of the votes.

Okinawa's majority Democratic Party took alarm. Its conservative businessmen leaders well knew that U.S. dollars were responsible for Okinawa's new schools and hospitals, even for the bright new concrete buildings and paved streets of Naha itself. Two days after election, 27 of Naha's 30 city councilors announced that they would "refuse to cooperate with a Communist mayor pledged to destroy all the progress Naha has made with the aid and good will of the U.S." Simultaneously, all 22 of the city department heads resigned "in protest against serving under ex-Convict Senaga." Moriyasu Tomihara, president of the Bank of the Ryukyus (in which the U.S. holds 51% of the stock and supplies nearly all the funds), declared that "no more money will be advanced to Naha city because of the changed situation," and froze payment of a $666,000 installment on Naha's reconstruction program. Explained Tomihara blandly: "Americans did not order me to chop off Naha's credit. I am doing so because Senaga in his campaign speeches said that if elected he would refuse all U.S. aid. You do not lend money to a man who has said he will never touch it."

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