Text Fwd: Hatoyama's Fall and Guam's Reprieve

* Martha Duenas to Famoksaiyan on June 5, 2010

Marianas Variety
Hatoyama's Fall and Guam’s Reprieve
Friday, 04 June 2010
by Gerardo Partido | Variety News Staff

He came into power by riding a historic wave that finally ended the conservative Liberal Democratic Party's half a century stranglehold on power.

Echoing the themes of a “Japan that can say no,” he promised an independent foreign policy, specifically one that would no longer be subservient to the United States.

But now, after just eight months in power, Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Democratic Party of Japan are in tatters --- so much of the promise of “a new Japan” wiped out by Hatoyama's resignation last Wednesday.

For all his rhetoric about kicking the American military out of Okinawa, Hatoyama, in the end, just couldn't do it and decided that the ire of the Okinawans is perhaps the lesser evil compared to incurring the wrath of the U.S.

Here on Guam, vice speaker BJ Cruz, always a media favorite because of his quotable quotes, described Hatoyama's fall as a “coup d’etat” by the United States, which, Cruz charged, precipitated Hatoyama's resignation.

The trouble with this view is that Hatoyama, in the end, turned out to be the Americans' man in Tokyo after all, as he betrayed his earlier promise to move U.S. troops out of Okinawa and decided to go on with the original Futenma agreement.

Is it a coincidence that just a few days before Hatoyama's resignation, the Associated Press reported that both the U.S. and Japan are considering a significant delay in the relocation of the Marines by as much as three to five years? Was this some kind of backdoor political deal? Some kind of last minute accomodation?

From all accounts, the man tagged to be Hatoyama's successor, deputy prime minister Naoto Kan, is even more outspoken and independent-minded than Hatoyama.

Perhaps the U.S. may be trying to force the Japanese government to commit to the Futenma agreement now, before a more hardline Japanese administration comes into power.

Remember, the transfer of Marines to Guam is dependent on “tangible progress” on the relocation of the Futenma Air Station to another site in Okinawa.

By delaying the transfer of Marines to Guam, the U.S. aim may be to speed up the “progress” in the implementation of the original Futenma agreement.

For many Japanese, the faster they abide by the Futenma agreement, the faster they can speed up the relocation of Marines to Guam to lessen the congestion in Okinawa.

If there really is a concrete plan to delay the relocation and it is adopted, this new timetable would be a much needed reprieve for Guam, giving the island enough time to get the necessary preparations in place to accommodate the increase in Guam's population caused by the Marines' transfer.

The AP report, which cited unnamed sources, also talks about a U.S. government plan to put together an infrastructure package worth billions of dollars for Guam --- all to be completed by next month!

While all this seems too good to be true, there are circumstances that could make this development quite plausible.

The finalized environmental impact statement is scheduled for release soon but with all the opposition to the original DEIS, maybe the federal government has seen the light and decided to follow its own USEPA's recommendation to delay the transfer.

July is also the month that President Obama is supposed to visit Guam, although there is speculation that he may postpone his trip again due to the BP oil spill crisis.

When the President was originally scheduled to visit last March, the White House hinted that Obama will announce a major policy initiative on the buildup, including a big infrastructure package. Perhaps the delay is the big policy statement that he'll announce.

Another possible reason for a delay in the Marines' transfer is financing.

Only yesterday, the Kyodo news agency reported that a U.S. Senate committee has cut outlays for the planned relocation of the Marines to Guam by some $320 million or 70 percent of the original proposed outlay.

Although the U.S. is reportedly still considering a multi-billion dollar financial package for the Guam relocation, congressional watchers doubt whether Congress would have the stomach to approve such a huge financing plan considering that the U.S. only recently crept out of recession.

By postponing the relocation, it is hoped that the U.S. economy would have recovered enough so that when the time to transfer the Marines comes, the money will be available.

And last but not last, there is the geopolitical angle. Tensions are again ratcheting up in the Korean peninsula and the two Koreas are almost on the brink of war. In case war does break out, the US needs its forces to be in Okinawa, not Guam, so that they can be deployed more swiftly.

In fact, the gathering war clouds in Korea was the reason cited by Hatoyama for his decision to backtrack on his original campaign promise of kicking out U.S. forces in Okinawa.

Any conflict in Korea would surely bring in the involvement of China and from that point, things can escalate and grow out of control pretty fast.

With Japan still dependent on the U.S. for its defense, it cannot afford to have a decrease in the American military's presence in their soil, at least for now.

And as Hatoyama's resignation showed, Japanese officialdom seems to still prefer a U.S. military presence, even with all its irritants, to a situation where Japan stands alone, without the U.S. security umbrella.