TOKYO, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Demonstrators in Okinawa on Friday started a three-day "Peace March" to protest the central government's plans to relocate a controversial U.S. military base within Japan's southernmost prefecture.
The protests, comprising more than 800 participants, come ahead of the 46th anniversary of Okinawa's reversion to Japan from U.S. control, with calls rife for the planned relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to be scrapped.
The people of Okinawa have ardently been calling for the central government's plans to move the controversial base from the densely-populated area of Ginowan to the coastal Henoko region, also on the island, to be abandoned, with many local residents wishing to see the base moved off the island or out of Japan altogether.
The "Peace March" on Friday started at and coincided with an ongoing sit-in by protestors in front of the gate of U.S. Marine Corps' Camp Schwab in Henoko. Another route began outside the Okinawa prefectural government office building in Naha.
A ceremony was held at the prefectural government office, with local media reporting that Naha Mayor Mikiko Shiroma conveyed his vexation at the U.S. military for a seemingly endless slew of crimes and accidents on the tiny subtropical island, that bears the brunt of hosting the majority of U.S. bases in Japan.
"Crimes and accidents linked to bases continue to occur with no end in sight," Shiroma was quoted as saying.
The groups of protestors will march to hold an annual peace rally in Ginowan on Sunday. Other demonstrations will also take place on Okinawa's islands of Miyako on Saturday and Ishigaki on Tuesday.
The annual protests against the continued U.S. "occupation" of Okinawa were first held in 1978, with local residents still indignant to this day at having to play host to the majority of the U.S. bases here, despite the island's sovereignty being returned to Japan in 1972.