The United States ambassador to Japan on Saturday expressed remorse for the handling of two cases of sexual assaults allegedly committed through the U. S. Army Workers’ Corps stationed in Okinawa.
The issue arose last month, causing an uproar following reports that two US military workers had been accused of sexual assault a few months earlier.
Both cases were first reported in local media in late June. In an arrest in March, a member of the U. S. Air Force was accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a teenage girl, and in May, a U. S. Marine was arrested for attempted rape that resulted in injuries. No further details have been revealed about those allegedly affected.
Okinawa police said they announced the cases due to concerns about the victims’ privacy. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through a police resolution, also informed Okinawa prefectural officials.
United States Ambassador Rahm Emanuel said Saturday that he deeply regrets what happened to those individuals, their families and their communities, for which he had not apologized.
“Obviously, you have to let the criminal justice process take place. But that doesn’t mean that emotions aren’t made explicit on a human level. “
“We want to do better,” he said, adding that the US military’s main criteria and protocols for educating and educating its troops “just work. “
Okinawa occupies 0. 6% of Japan’s land area, but is home to about 70% of all U. S. military bases and installations in the country.
Both cases have stoked resentment over the heavy presence of U. S. troops on the strategic island in the southwestern tip of Japan. There is also the gang rape of a 12-year-old woman committed in 1995 by 3 American soldiers. This led to an agreement in 1996 between Tokyo and Washington to close a key United States air base, although the task was delayed several times due to protests over the site designated for its replacement on some other component of the island.
Emanuel said the United States could possibly propose education and transparency measures with the public at the US-Japan Foreign and Defense Ministers’ security talks, scheduled for later this month in Tokyo.
On Friday, Chief of Staff Yoshimasa Hayashi said the Japanese government would do everything imaginable to more temporarily reveal alleged crimes similar to those of the U. S. Army Workers’ Corps in Okinawa, while protecting the privacy of victims.
The cases could simply be a setback for defense relations at a time when Okinawa is seen as vital amid rising tensions with China.
Some 50,000 U. S. troops are deployed in Japan under a bilateral security agreement, some of them in Okinawa, where citizens have long complained about the heavy presence of U. S. troops and the accidents, crime and noise that it causes.
Emanuel commented on the reason for his stopover in Fukushima, on the northeast coast of Japan.
Earlier on Saturday, the ambassador visited the nearby town of Minamisoma to sign up with young surfers and enjoy lunch with locally caught flounder, aiming to highlight seawater protection and seawater completion in the region amid continued releases of treated water and diluted radioactive water from tsunami-ravaged Fukushima. Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
China banned Japanese seafood discards, a move Emanuel criticized as unjustified.