TOKYO (Sep 19, 1995 - 23:12 EDT) -- The apparent rape
this month of a Japanese elementary school girl by three
American servicemen in Okinawa has provoked an uproar in
Japan, bringing calls to revise rules that critics say make it
easy for American soldiers to get away with crimes and to
remove American military bases.

Seeking to quell the outcry, Ambassador Walter F. Mondale
and Lt. General Richard B. Myers, commander of U.S. military
forces in Japan, apologized to the Okinawa governor,
Masahide Ota, at a meeting Tuesday in the American
Embassy here.

"This terrible tragedy was an outrageous act toward humanity
and makes all of us wearing the U.S. military uniform deeply
ashamed," Myers said at a news conference later in the day.

He spoke in an American military hotel in Tokyo where top
military officers from the United States and Japan and their
wives gathered for a previously scheduled "friendship dinner,"
celebrating 50 years of military cooperation since the end of
World War II.

The controversy comes as the United States and Japan are
trying to reaffirm their security relationship at a time when
critics say the end of the cold war makes it unnecessary to
station 45,000 American troops in Japan.

It is not likely that the Okinawa episode will cause a
reevaluation of the entire security treaty. But it is leading to
calls here for a change in the so-called status-of-forces
agreement, which stipulates that members of the American
armed forces suspected of crimes will not be turned over to
the Japanese authorities until after they are formally indicted.

The alleged rape occurred the evening of Sept. 4 in an
undisclosed city in northern Okinawa. The girl was walking
home from shopping at about 8 p.m. when she was snatched
off the street by men in a car, bound with adhesive tape, and
taken to a beach and raped.

Three suspects are being held in a United States military
prison in Okinawa. They are Marine Pfc. Rodrico Harp, 21, of
Griffin, Ga.; Marine Pfc. Kendrick M. Ledet, 20, of Waycross,
Ga., and Navy Seaman Marcus D. Gill, 22, of Jasper, Texas.

In light of the episode, Ota and many local assemblies in
Okinawa have called for a revision of the status-of-forces
agreement. They say the agreement puts the American military
members above the law, making it hard for Japanese police to
apprehend them.

Two years ago, for instance, an American soldier accused of
raping a Japanese woman escaped to the United States after
being held on his base. The man was eventually brought back
to Japan, but the charges against him were dropped by the
accuser, said a spokesman for the Marines in Okinawa.

Mondale said Tuesday that the United States was cooperating
with the rape investigation and was taking the three suspects
to an Okinawa police station for interrogation every day.

Foreign Minister Yohei Kono said Tuesday that he saw no
need to change the agreement since it was not impeding the
investigation.

Still, calls for change in the agreement are likely to continue.
And the episode is expected to lead to more opposition in
general to United States bases in Japan, especially on
Okinawa.

"All Okinawans are shaking with anger," said Fumiko
Nakamura, an 81-year-old opponent of the United States
bases in Okinawa. "We feel the same thing can happen again
unless the bases are removed."

Okinawa, a tropical island south of the main part of Japan, was
the scene of one of the bloodiest battles in World War II and
was occupied by the United States until 1972, two decades
after the occupation of the rest of Japan ended.

There are 29,000 American troops on Okinawa, said a Marine
Corps spokesman there. About 75 percent of U.S. military
installations in Japan are on the small island, and these bases
take up 20 percent of Okinawa's land. Many people resent the
noise and artillery fire. Ota said Tuesday that there had been
4,500 criminal cases involving American servicemen since
1972.

The greatest challenge to the bases in Japan, however, might
not be Japanese opponents, but American budgetary
constraints and the end of the cold war. But the Defense
Department issued a report earlier this year confirming its
commitment to keeping 100,000 troops in Asia to preserve
stability in the region.

On Sept. 27, at a meeting in New York, Secretary of State
Warren Christopher and Secretary of Defense William J. Perry
will meet with their Japanese counterparts and announce a
new agreement increasing the amount of money the Japanese
government will pay for keeping the American forces in Japan.
In their summit meeting scheduled for November in Japan,
President Clinton and Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama are
expected to issue a statement reaffirming the security
relationship.


(c) 1995 Copyright The News and Observer Publishing Co.
(c) 1995 N.Y. Times News Service