OKINAWA Governor Denny Tamaki marked the 50th anniversary of freedom from US occupation today by calling on Tokyo to see remaining the US troops removed.

Japan’s southernmost major island was ruled directly by the United States from the country’s surrender at the end of the second world war until May 15 1972 and is still the base for 26,000 US soldiers, over half the total stationed in Japan.

Mass protests against the US presence took place on Saturday, with peace activists warning that Washington’s use of Japan as a forward base risksd putting it on the front line in a US-China conflict. The regional and central governments are at loggerheads over the planned relocation of a US military base, with environmentalists saying that it will drive the endangered Okinawa dugong, a type of sea cow, to extinction.

Japanese Communist Party chairman Kazuo Shii saluted the unity of Okinawans against the US military presence but attacked Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government for pushing for two “serious reversals” to the island’s peace and security: building the new base despite it “trampling over the wishes of Okinawans” and trying to overturn the Peace Constitution banning deployment of Japanese troops abroad.