Current assaults occurred inside months of one another, stoking native anger over the continued US navy presence.
Japan has lodged a protest at america embassy in Tokyo over at the very least two alleged sexual assault circumstances involving American service members within the southern Japanese island of Okinawa that had been solely just lately made public.
Japan’s Vice Overseas Minister Masataka Okano met the US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, on Friday, requesting disciplinary and preventive measures over the 2 assaults, which occurred inside months of one another in December and Might.
“Legal circumstances and accidents by US navy personnel trigger nice anxiousness to native residents, and they need to by no means happen within the first place,” Chief Cupboard Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi informed reporters.
Prosecutors in Naha, the capital of Okinawa, had earlier this month charged a 21-year-old US Marine Corps member with non-consensual intercourse and assault, allegedly dedicated in Might, Hayashi stated.
An Okinawa police spokesman stated the lady had been “bitten within the mouth” and had taken two weeks to totally get well. Media studies stated she had additionally been choked.
The case got here to mild simply days after it emerged {that a} 25-year-old US airman in Okinawa had been charged in March with raping a teenage lady three months earlier.
Brigadier Common Nicholas Evans, commander of the 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, stated on Thursday that he was “deeply involved” concerning the “severity” of the allegations. “I remorse the anxiousness this has induced,” he stated.
He promised the US navy will totally cooperate with the investigation by the native authorities and the courts.
Stoking tensions
Each circumstances have induced outrage, stoking tensions amongst residents over US navy bases within the area. Okinawa residents have lengthy complained about accidents and crime associated to the bases, expressing anger over the dearth of disclosure.
The case involving {the teenager} is a reminder to many Okinawans of the rape in 1995 of a 12-year-old lady by three US service members, which prompted giant protests in opposition to the heavy US troop presence on the island.
It led to a 1996 settlement between Japan and the US on the closure of a key US air station, although the plan has been delayed attributable to protests on the relocation website on one other a part of the island.
Some 50,000 US troops are deployed in Japan beneath a bilateral safety pact, about half of them in Okinawa. The island’s strategic function is seen as more and more necessary for the Japan-US military alliance within the face of rising tensions with China.