Editorials
Tuesday, November 17, 1998

Okinawan election
results help U.S. bases

THE election of a businessman endorsed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party as governor of Okinawa should ease friction between the provincial and national governments over the issue of U.S. military bases on the island and relieve pressure for their removal.

The incumbent governor, Masahide Ota, who was defeated in a bid for a third four-year term, had lobbied in Tokyo and Washington to move the bases to Hawaii or Guam -- a policy rejected in both capitals.

The new governor, Keiichi Inamine, proposed building a military-commercial airport, including a heliport, in the northern part of Okinawa that would be used by the U.S. military for 15 years. This project would replace a national government proposal to build an offshore heliport northeast of Naha.

The offshore heliport was to be a substitute for the heliport at the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station, which is to be closed. Ota fought the offshore heliport proposal as part of his campaign to get U.S. forces off the island, but offered no acceptable alternative.

The director of the Japanese Defense Agency indicated that the government might be receptive to Inamine's proposal. Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said earlier that the government would be willing to reconsider the offshore heliport but that any alternative facility should be in Okinawa. It appeared that Washington might go along with such a change.

Two years ago the United States agreed to return the Futemma base, which is located close to residential areas in Ginowan, to Japan in five to seven years on condition that the heliport operations were relocated elsewhere in Okinawa.

The agreement was in line with efforts to ease the pressure of the military bases on Okinawa. The island accounts for only 0.6 percent of Japan's total land but has about 75 percent of U.S. military facilities in Japan in terms of land area.

The U.S. military presence in Okinawa is increasingly unwelcome to residents but the national government is committed to keeping the forces there. Until Japan assumes full responsibility for its own defense, which is not likely in the near future, Tokyo will maintain that policy. Washington needs the Okinawa bases to fulfill its broader responsibilities as well as the defense of Japan.

Cambodian bargain

A deal struck by Cambodia's feuding political parties could restore at least a semblance of normalcy to a country that has known little peace in decades. The agreement to form a coalition government broke a three-month impasse following elections last July that gave the former Communist Hun Sen's party a narrow victory.

The elections were supposed to give democratic respectability to the regime. Last year Hun Sen forcibly ousted Prince Norodom Ranariddh, leader of the royalist party, from the post of co-premier. That move nullified the results of elections held in 1993 under United Nations auspices, which gave Ranariddh's party more seats in the legislature than any other, and drew international protests.

Until now the opposition had refused to cooperate in the formation of a coalition government by giving Hun Sen the two-thirds vote needed to form a government. Its position was based on charges that Hun Sen's party had won the elections by fraud and intimidation.

Under terms of the agreement, Ranariddh, the son of King Norodom Sihanouk, will become president of the National Assembly, with Hun Sen serving as sole premier. Hun Sen's party will occupy the presidency of a new Senate, to be created by constitutional amendment.

There is no guarantee that this peculiar arrangement will prove any more successful than the failed attempts of the recent past. However, Cambodia has little choice but to try to make it work. The fact that the West can withhold economic aid from this impoverished country if there is another reversal of democratic gains is a strong incentive to compromise.

Medical mission

THE Aloha Medical Mission has been sending doctors and nurses to the Philippines and other Asian countries to treat indigents since 1983. This year the mission has assembled its biggest team ever -- 76 people, with about 45 Hawaii residents. A smaller group went to the Philippines earlier this year while other groups went to Bangladesh and Laos.

The 29th mission will leave Nov. 27 for the Philippines, where it expects to treat 15,000 to 20,000 patients in 10 days. The team includes general surgeons, ophthalmologists, ear, nose and throat specialists, dermatologists, obstetrician-gynecologists, anesthesiologists, plastic surgeons, internists, nurses and lay persons. Many are Filipino-Americans but there are also a number of other ethnicities. They expect to perform about 300 operations.

They will focus their efforts on Pangasinan, a province in Central Luzon that was hit by two typhoons last month, leaving 100 dead and 90,000 homeless. That they are going to Pangasinan at this time is a coincidence. Planning for the trip began almost a year ago, long before the typhoons struck.

This is strictly a volunteer program. Participants pay their own way. The mission brings its own supplies -- in this case about two tons of medications, gloves, syringes, sutures and other items, donated or purchased by the program. A 40-foot container of X-ray machines, wheelchairs and other equipment donated by local organizations has been sent ahead.

Dr. Ramon S. Sy, president of the Aloha Medical Mission, says the annual trip at this time of year is the most popular. "We time it after Thanksgiving," he said. "It's a feeling of giving back."

And a fine way to give back it is.

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Rupert E. Phillips, CEO

John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

David Shapiro, Managing Editor

Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor

Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors

A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor