1995 Okinawa rape incident

The 1995 Okinawa rape incident took place on September 4, 1995, when three U.S. servicemen - U.S. Navy Seaman Marcus Gill and U.S. Marines Rodrico Harp and Kendrick Ledet, who are all African American serving at Camp Hansen on Okinawa - rented a van and kidnapped a 12-year-old Japanese girl. They beat her, duct-taped her eyes and mouth shut, and bound her hands. Gill and Harp then raped her, while Ledet claimed he only pretended to do so out of fear of Gill.^[1] The incident led to further debate over the continued presence of U.S. forces in Japan.

Reaction

After the incident became known, public outrage erupted, especially over the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, which gives the U.S. service members a certain measure of extraterritoriality (exemption from jurisdiction of local law) only as it relates to the place the suspects were detained. While the crime was committed away from a U.S. military base, the U.S. initially took the men into custody, on September 6.^[2] Although false rumors spread that the suspects were free to roam the base and had been seen eating hamburgers,^[3] the suspects were in fact held in a military brig until the Japanese officials charged them with the crime.^[2] Despite an immediate request by Japanese law enforcement for custody and eventual trial, the men were only handed over on September 29, after the Japanese had formally indicted them.^[2] This delay followed the Status of Forces agreement, which states "The custody of an accused member of the United States armed forces or the civilian component over whom Japan is to exercise jurisdiction shall, if he is in the hands of the United States, remain with the United States until he is charged."^[4] Although the military drove the suspects to police headquarters in Naha for daily interrogations,^[5] the SOFA provision and the delay in handing over the suspects increased the outrage over the attack, causing the largest anti-American demonstrations in Okinawa since the treaty was signed in 1960.

As a consequence of the protests regarding jurisdiction, the U.S. made concessions and agreed to consider handing suspects over to the Japanese before an indictment if the severity of the alleged crime indicated it.^[3] This agreement was hashed out at an emergency meeting between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. The people of Okinawa also placed a full-page ad in the New York Times decrying the rape and other aspects of the U.S. bases in Okinawa. In 1996, the United States and Japan signed a bilateral agreement to reduce the amount of land on Okinawa covered by U.S. bases by 21 percent—the U.S. military had previously occupied 19 percent of the island.

U.S. Navy Admiral Richard C. Macke was the commander of United States Pacific Command at the time of the attack. At a press conference in November 1995, Macke said of the men's actions: "I think it was absolutely stupid. I have said several times: for the price they paid to rent the car [used in the crime], they could have had a girl [prostitute]." These remarks were condemned as insensitive, and Macke was removed from his post and forced into early retirement. He was also reduced in rank to rear admiral (two-star) from full admiral (four-star), which reduced his pension from US$ 7,384/month to US$ 5,903/month.^[6]

Trial

The offenders were tried and convicted in Japanese court by Japanese law, per the SOFA agreements. The families of the defendants initially claimed that Japanese officials had discriminated against the men because they were African American and coerced confessions from them, but later retracted the claims.^[7]

Gill pleaded guilty to the rape, and the other two men pleaded guilty to conspiracy. The trial concluded in March 1996.

Prosecutors had asked for the maximum sentences for the men, 10 years each. The judge sentenced Gill and Harp to seven years imprisonment; Ledet received six and a half years. Their families also paid "reparation money" to the family of the victim, a common practice in Japan.

Aftermath

The three men served prison terms in Japanese prisons and were released in 2003 and then given dishonorable discharges from the military. After release, Rodrico Harp decried prison conditions in Japan and said that the electronics assembly prison labor he was forced to do amounted to slave labor.^[8]

Ledet, who had claimed he did not rape the girl, died in 2006 in an apparent murder–suicide in the United States. He was found in the third-floor apartment of Lauren Cooper, a junior Kennesaw State University student and acquaintance whom he had apparently sexually assaulted and then murdered (by strangulation). It appears that he then took his own life by slashing his wrists.^[9]

In Japan, the crime continues to be well known and to have effects.^[10] In December 2011 then-Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa was the subject of a censure motion from the opposition Liberal Democratic Party for failing to know the details of the rape. This followed his subordinate Satoshi Tanaka speaking with reporters in a bar and using euphemisms for sexual assault to discuss moving the US Futenma airbase. Tanaka was terminated as director of the Okinawa Defense Bureau,^[11] and in the cabinet reshuffle of January 13, 2012 Ichikawa was replaced by Naoki Tanaka.^[12]

See also

• Rape during the occupation of Japan
• Sexual assault in the U.S. military
• 1945 Cave of the Negroes incident
• 1955 Yumiko-chan incident
• 2002 Okinawa Michael Brown incident

References