Indigenous or ethnic minority? Ryukyuans in Okinawa and the U.S. Military bases!

By Kamrul Hossain

On 12-15 July 2024, the Centre for Environmental and Minority Policy Studies (CEMiPoS), a Sapporo–based think tank, organized an international seminar entitled “Decolonizing Futures: Transforming an Era of Environmental Catastrophe, Poverty, Hatred, Discrimination and Violence into an Era of Hope.” The conference attracted approximately fifty scholars, a diverse mix of local and foreign participants from a dozen countries worldwide. The Meio University in Okinawa served as the host for the conference. Content-wise, the conference attendees discussed diverse issues related to ethnic, minority, and Indigenous identity in the mainstream societies they inhabit. An inter-disciplinary dialogue among the participants, each bringing their unique perspective, made the conference special. The dialogue recurrently included and compared with local perspectives prevailing in Okinawa regarding the community culture and identity of the Ryukyuan people of the Island.

As a scholar invited to the event, I had the privilege to discuss how minority and Indigenous identities form around the practice of culture recognized by the international human rights framework, and how the human rights treaty monitoring bodies – particularly the Human Rights Committee (HRC) under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – provide a protection regime for minority and Indigenous peoples. In this context, I discussed the three specific roles of the HRC, including the complaint mechanism. While discussing the complaint mechanism, I brought examples of a number of cases showing how the HRC Interpreted the violation of Indigenous rights, particularly concerning the implementation of Article 27 of the ICCPR on the enjoyment of community culture. Additionally, I discussed the relationship between exercising the right to the culture of Indigenous peoples under Article 27 and the right to self-determination under Article 1. My talk attracted several interesting interactions concerning the Ryukyuans’ status as a distinct social group under the Japanese administration and their rights under the international human rights law. It was a profound and exciting learning experience: learning about the colonization process of the Islands by Japan and then the ongoing local conflicts and interests responding to the United States (U.S.) military bases on the Island, and simultaneous movements and aspirations for being recognized as an Indigenous people in Japan like the Ainu.

Japan has not officially recognized the Ryukyuans as Indigenous people of the country. Nor has it identified them as a minority, even though they are the largest ethnolinguistic minority in Japan. Japan administers the island as one of its prefectures, which contains around 1.8 million people. Historically, the islands have been called the Ryukyu Kingdom, which ruled it roughly for four hundred years from 1429 until Japan officially annexed it. During World War II (WW II), the U.S. defeated Japan in the battle known as the Battle of Okinawa. The Island and its people suffered heavy damage both physically and culturally. At the end of the War in 1945, the U.S. took control of Okinawa until it was returned to Japan on 5 May 1972. However, by then, the U.S. influence had caused severe damage to the Ryukyuans’ traditional culture, which was yet another assault after the cultural aggression committed by Japan for several hundred years. The situation made it so that it was not Ryukyuans who decide on their political and cultural identity and existence. The fate of the Ryukyuans was on  Japan or the U.S. at different times and different historical points. Both Japan’s assimilation policy, which aimed at discrimination and exploitation, and the U.S. military bases installed since the end of WW II, have contributed to the destruction and wiping out of their livelihoods, culture, and identity, eventually putting the people of the Island under severe distress and frustration.

However, today, the Ryukyuans are more awake than ever in their fight for the revival of their culture and identity as Indigenous people of Japan. While, at the political level, they continually seek to establish their case as an Indigenous people of Japan, on the ground, they undertake a social movement for the removal of U.S. military bases from their lands. The actions of military bases offer substantial evidence of severe environmental damage that harms human health and the Island’s biodiversity. The pollution inflicted on fresh water is expected to prevent approximately half a million Ryukyuans from having clean and safe drinking water. The toxic chemicals used, for example, in the production of food wrapping, nonstick cookware, and military firefighting foams are said to have caused impacts not only on human health, but also on the health of marine and terrestrial ecosystems and organisms, which will eventually pollute biodiversity, harming the food chain on which the Islanders are dependent.

Although not recognized as an Indigenous group, the Ryukyuans conform to the characteristics of the famous Cobo definition to conceptualize who the Indigenous peoples are. The definition suggests several criteria, including the presence of the community before the territory was colonized; the distinctness of the community in terms of language, religion, and social practices; and non-dominant status in the current societal context. There is yet determination to preserve and develop the community’s culture and transmit to future generations, and maintaining the ethnic identity, following its unique cultural patterns, social institutions, and legal system. This definition corresponds well to the Ryukyuans' claim in their fight to revive their identity as Indigenous people. Hence, a well-established case exists for the Ryukyuans to seek a protection regime under the human rights legal framework, given that their distinct culture, language, land, and political institutions have been not only historically and forcefully seized by colonial powers, but the current situation of continued presence of U.S. military bases and their actions causing water pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, and the degradation of coral environments threaten the Ryukyuans from enjoying their rights, both in terms of physical and cultural existence.

The responsibility attributed to Japan can be based on the recognition of the Ryukyuans’ Indigenous identity or, at the very least, confirmation of their status as an ethnic minority. Once this recognition is established, the Ryukyuans will have grounds to develop their case under the international human rights legal framework, invoking Article 27 of the ICCPR and Article 15(1/a) of the International Covenant on the Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), as interpreted by the treaty monitoring bodies established under the Covenants. One step could be to pressure the Japanese government with a unified Ryukyuan voice for such recognition and seek a positive opinion from the national justice system. In addition to the human rights framework, other legal mechanisms, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), might be invoked. Japan, as a party to the CBD, bears the responsibility for ensuring respect for Ryukyuans’ locally developed knowledge and practices concerning the Island’s biodiversity conservation and management, even if not as an Indigenous community but as a local community, under Article 8(j), responding to what happens currently as a result of the military activities of the U.S. bases in Okinawa.