The U.S.A. Marine Corps has suspended flights of its Osprey aircraft in Japan after one of the planes crash-landed off the coast of Okinawa, injuring five crew members.

The crash triggered protests on Okinawa, where anti-U.S. military sentiment is already strong.

Many Okinawans were opposed to deploying the Osprey on the island due to safety concerns following a string of crashes outside Japan, including one in Hawaii last year.
The Mayor of Nago, Susumu Inamine, said: 'This is what we have feared might happen some day. We can never live safely here.'

More than half of the 50,000 American troops in Japan are stationed on Okinawa under the Japan-US security treaty.

Japan’s first lady Akie Abe says she is “ready to face criticism” after attending an anti-government rally, protesting the construction of new helipads at the US-operated military in Okinawa.

“This is my first step to create a world of love and harmony,” Akie Abe wrote in a Facebook status update.

The helipads are being constructed as compensation for a 1996 agreement, in which the US would hand back 4,000 hectares out of the 7,800 that constitute the training area, providing six new landing spots would be built on the remaining land.

Construction began in 2007, yet so far only two have been completed, after an unending series of protests and legal challenges.

Work has recently restarted, but residents of the nearby village of Higashi – who say that the helipads will be too close to residential areas – have blockaded roads, prevented trucks carrying materials from entering the construction site, and staged sit-ins.

Nearly three quarters of US military resources in Japan are located on the small archipelago to the south of most of Japan’s islands, and residents say they have long been inconvenienced by the base, which was constructed following the country’s defeat in World War II.

Anti-U.S. base demonstrators and riot police clashed here on July 22, when authorities started removing a barricade set up to obstruct a project to build helipads for the U.S. military.

The Defense Ministry’s Okinawa Defense Bureau, which oversees the helipad project, said the barricade, consisting mainly of vehicles, had been dismantled and that construction has resumed.

But the scuffles involved showed that the protesters are far from ending their opposition to the project.

About 100 riot police arrived at a path leading to helipad construction sites near the Takae district of Higashi village in the prefecture’s northern region around 5:30 a.m.

About 200 residents, conservationists and activists had already assembled there to keep the barricade intact. Some lied down or sat on the path to block the police.

However, the riot police forcibly removed the demonstrators. Shoving matches ensued and screams of anger were heard when the protesters were carried away from the site.

“Are you going to lend a hand in the destruction of Yanbaru?” one of the protesters shouted, referring to the forest where helipads will be installed.

“We are against the helipad for Osprey,” screamed another, referring to the tilt-rotor aircraft used by the U.S. military.

One woman complained of being ill and requested help from emergency workers.

As of 11 a.m., the vehicle barricade had been removed, but more than 100 cars were still parked on the sides of the road to hinder the project. Supply vehicles still cannot enter the construction sites.

Construction started in 2007, and two helipads were completed by 2014. But work to build the four other helipads was suspended after opponents blockaded the path. On July 11, the day after Upper House election, the defense bureau started preparations to resume the project.

POTENTIALLY thousands of extra American sailors and Marines will flood through the Darwin port in coming years with a US General confirming a greater military presence in the South Pacific.

The head of US Marine Corps Force Command, Lieutenant General John Wissler, said the Pentagon planned to dispatch another three-ship amphibious ready group to the Asia-Pacific region as early as October 2018.

The Marine Corps Times reported that the ships would likely carry an embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU).

That would see an extra 4000 sailors and Marines in the region.

Lt-Gen Wissler said the goal of the MEU was to augment the number of Marines already coming to the Top End as part of the annual six-month Marine Rotational Force Darwin deployment.

This year, about 1250 Marine are deployed to Darwin, based mostly at Robertson Barracks about 20km from the Darwin CBD.

US and Australian officials hope to boost that number to 2500 by 2020.

“The actual basing (of the extra Marines and sailors) ... and all of those significant details are being worked out,” Lt-Gen Wissler said.

“That’s why it’s a (fiscal) 2019 problem because, as you can imagine, it’s a very complex undertaking.”

The Japan-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit presently conducts two 90-day patrols in the Pacific each year — one in spring and another in autumn — and respond to humanitarian crises in the region throughout the year.

Lt-Gen Wissler said the new arrangement would allow that unit to focus on north eastern Asia while the new ARG/MEU conducted two 90-day patrols in the South Pacific.

He said the Marine Corps has not determined whether the new MEU will come from the continental US, Hawaii or Japan.

Lieutenant Commander Matt Knight from the US Pacific Fleet said it is too soon to say which ships may be assigned to the MEU in fiscal 2019.

Former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jon Greenert said the amphibious assault ship America was a “prime candidate” to visit Australia as part of such a group.

“They will go into Darwin … and conduct on-load and off-load,” he told Navy Times in March 2015.

He said while the Marines trained in the Top End of Australia, the ships in the ARG could operate and hold exercises in South East Asia.

Protests against American military presence in Japan continued on Saturday, as the country’s defense minister lodged a formal complaint over the latest case of alleged murder and rape of a young Japanese woman by a US military base employee.

Gen Nakatani visited the US Kadena Air Base on Saturday to formally protest the alleged crime to its commander Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson.

"I deliver a strong message of regret and at the same time make a protest,” he said as cited by the public broadcaster NHK.

Japanese officials including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed outrage over the latest in a string of crimes, which has been poisoning US-Japanese military ties for decades. The country’s Foreign Ministry filed a formal complaint over the case as well.

Critics of the deployment of US troops in Japan complain of the crimes committed by American personnel against local residents, environmental damage done by US bases and other negative sides. Okinawa Island hosts roughly half of all American troops in Japan, and sentiment against the arrangement are especially strong there.