Outside the site of a new proposed US military base at Henoko on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, three members of the American anti-war campaign group Veterans for Peace are singing songs while surrounded by a cordon of police to show solidarity with local people demonstrating against the facility. Tarak Kauff, Ken Mayers and Michael Hanes, who were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, are part of a delegation of six visiting the island, three of whom are former US Marines previously stationed on Okinawa.
Local opposition to the presence of US forces on Okinawa, home to numerous American military bases, has been growing stronger again recently following a series of crimes by military personnel and base workers, including the alleged rape-murder of an Okinawan woman in April.