Anti-militarist protests in Japan

This video is called Protests Greet Osprey Aircraft Arriving in Japan.

U.S. choppers fly over Okinawa school despite promise to avoid it: Japan: here.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Locals say No to new US air transports

Monday 23 July 2012 by Our Foreign Desk

A shipload of the US military’s latest Osprey transport aircraft were greeted by a sit-down protest when they arrived by ship in Japan today.

What a shame that those war planes are called after beautiful birds, which, contrary to the planes, do not cost billions of tax dollars, do not pollute, do not kill US American soldiers and other people, etc.

Hundreds of people, some in small boats, took part in the demonstration in the southern city of Iwakuni.

Safety issues with the planes have added to long-standing grassroots concern over the presence of US bases in the country.

Workers began unloading the dozen Ospreys as soon as they arrived.

They will only be in Iwakuni briefly, but opposition there has been extremely strong with both the mayor and governor saying they do not want them there at all.

The US plans to deploy the tilt-rotor aircraft to Okinawa, where it has had major military bases since the end of the second world war.

Opposition to the large military presence on Okinawa is deep-rooted and protesters holding a protest outside the base where the Ospreys are to be sent have demanded the plan be scrapped because the planes are not safe.

Such concerns boiled over after Osprey crashes in Morocco in April and in Florida last month.

More than half of the roughly 50,000 US troops stationed throughout Japan are based on Okinawa and there have been a string of complaints over their behaviour. Tensions have been high in tha area for years.

To ease the tensions, Tokyo and Washington recently agreed to move about 9,000 marines off Okinawa, but that agreement has been widely criticised because no date for the move was set.

Okinawans are also angry that the Ospreys will be deployed to the huge marine corps air station Futenma, which the two countries decided to close more than a decade ago.

But the base has remained in operation because there is no ready replacement.

It is located in a heavily populated area and residents have long protested against the noise, the potential for accidents and the high levels of base-related crime.

Japan bans US war planes over safety concerns: here.