Word: ryukyus
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Jeers & Contempt. Last week, after Okinawa's High Court and the Ryukyus legislature refused to interfere, Army Lieut. General James E. Moore, the U.S. High Commissioner, intervened. Acting nominally on an appeal by 24 of Okinawa's 64 mayors, he decreed a change in the assembly's bylaws to allow a no-confidence vote if a simple majority is present. He thoughtfully added a new electoral regulation barring "convicted felons" from holding public office-which effectively barred Senaga from seeking reelection. When the assemblymen gathered at Naha's city hall and voted the mayor...
...reassurances that Japan maintains "residual sovereignty" over the American-occupied Bonin and Ryukyus Islands, including Okinawa; i.e., it will eventually get them back, but not until conditions "of threat and tension" abate in the Far East...
...visitors, led by Daisuke Takaoka, conservative member of Japan's Diet, got red-carpet treatment all the way. General Lemnitzer himself flew down with them. Tokyo, genially wined and dined them at the plush Ryukyus Command Officers' Club. Scooting about the island in a fleet of khaki-colored Chevrolets escorted by white-helmeted MPs. the Japanese talked with everyone from the Communist mayor of Naha to farmers whose land had been requisitioned by the U.S. military. What they saw-new towns, new roads, new factories-was in great contrast to the derogatory stories that the jingoistic Japanese press...
...cooperate with a Communist mayor pledged to destroy all the progress Naha has made with the aid and good will of the U.S." Simultaneously, all 22 of the city department heads resigned "in protest against serving under ex-Convict Senaga." Moriyasu Tomihara, president of the Bank of the Ryukyus (in which the U.S. holds 51% of the stock and supplies nearly all the funds), declared that "no more money will be advanced to Naha city because of the changed situation," and froze payment of a $666,000 installment on Naha's reconstruction program. Explained Tomihara blandly: "Americans...
Tons of rain sweeping across the island at speeds of up to 156 m.p.h. breached sea walls, wrecked the Ryukyus Command building, reduced 3rd Marine Division headquarters to rubble and killed a military policeman. While Okinawa's 40,000 Americans shook inside their typhoon-proof but half-flooded houses, World War II Quonset huts were hurled into paddies and wrapped around telegraph poles. Thirty-five hours later, Okinawans found 7,000 homes and 80 public buildings totally destroyed, 27 fishing boats wrecked. Gone was 40% of the island's precious rice crop, 80% of the sweet-potato crop...