Japanese media try character
of alleged rape victim in Okinawa
By David Allen, Okinawa
bureau chief
CHATAN — Sometimes it’s hard to tell who is on trial here
in what is being called the “Chatan Incident.”
Air Force Staff Sgt. Timothy Woodland goes on trial Sept. 11 in a
Japanese court for allegedly raping a 24-year-old Okinawa woman in June. But to read some
news reports, it’s the woman’s character that is being questioned.
Charges of rape between adults are not taken as seriously in Japan as
in the United States, they say. Judges have been known to rule in favor of the accused
just because the woman was divorced.
Add race to the mix — Woodland is black — and it might be
hard to convince the tribunal that will judge the case that the victim was not at least in
part at fault, said Ryunosuke Megumi, an Okinawa-based economist and political analyst.
Although his lawyers said race will not be a factor when
Woodland’s trial starts, it may already have played an important role in the court of
public opinion.
His alleged victim, an Okinawan nurse, has been described in
Japan’s sensationalist tabloids and a major American news magazine as being an Amejo,
a Japanese female with a fetish for Americans — especially GIs. A few have even gone
as far to describe her as a Kokujo, a derogatory term for a Japanese female who
seeks dates with black Americans.
And to many Japanese, that makes her a less-sympathetic figure who
they say may have been out late at night looking for trouble.
“There has been a lot of victim-bashing in this case, especially
in the press,” said Suzuyo Takazato, a member of the Naha City Council and founder of
the Okinawa Rape Victim Crisis Center.
News stories said that the incident occurred at 2 a.m. June 29, and
both Woodland and the alleged victim had been at a club that was a popular meeting place
for Japanese women and American GIs.
Woodland claims they were having consensual sex that was interrupted
when the woman’s friends came looking for her after the club closed. The woman claims
he forced himself upon her. Both said they did not know each other before the incident.
At least one senior Japanese official downplayed the incident at
first. Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, Japan’s highest-ranking female government
official, reportedly quipped to colleagues that “something must be wrong with the
girl, going out so late at night.”
The tabloids, especially, pressed the issue. Japanese reporters came
to Okinawa to ferret out every minute detail of the nurse’s life. They held her
family hostage in their own supermarket in central Okinawa, demanding pictures and
interviews.
It was so bad that the woman wrote a plea, released by the Okinawa
Rape Victim Crisis Center, begging to be left alone.
“There have been merciless rumors spread about me and I feel
indignant that some weekly magazines have written false stories that denigrate me,”
she wrote. She later moved from her parents’ home to her sister’s house, which
is on a U.S. base on Okinawa.
Her sister is married to an American and their home is in one of the
few places on the island that is off-limits to the Japanese press.
“The way the media reports a sexual crime shows that they still
live in the myth of rape,” Takazato said. “Unless the victim is too young to
take the blame or the situation is totally unavoidable for the victim, it is always the
victim who is to be blamed. It remains strong in the public perception that the victim is
somehow at fault to a certain extent.”
On Monday, the Okinawa Bar Association’s Human Rights Committee
issued a warning to one of the tabloids, “Shinchosa,” for allegedly publishing
“inaccurate and slanderous” articles about the alleged victim. It also issued a
statement Aug. 2 urging the Japanese media to be “more discreet” in reporting
about the incident.
“Responding to a plea from the victim, we examined the context
of the articles,” said Tetsu Amakata, a member of the bar committee. “We could
not determine that those articles definitely violated her human rights, but it is clear
that they were written with malicious intent and that they have gone beyond freedom of the
press.
“The association will send out a warning to the publisher within
a week or so.”
He said the committee also is considering taking action against a
Tokyo reporter for another tabloid who confronted the woman at the hospital where she
works, even though she had turned down a request for an interview by phone.
Local residents often use such incidents as a tool for political
protest.
The June incident in Chatan again focused international attention on
the base issue on Okinawa. Opponents of the U.S. bases said the crime was just one more
example of the danger they face by being surrounded by the U.S. military bases, which
occupy 20 percent of the island.
And local politicians were quick to use the incident to press their
call for a reduction of the U.S. bases and the number of U.S. troops on the island.
“Leftists on Okinawa attempted to hold a protest rally after the
Chatan incident, but it failed,” Megumi said. “The people’s reaction was,
Why should they go out in the heat for this playgirl?’”
Megumi said he believes the alleged rape victim will get little
sympathy if it is shown she was an Amejo or Kokujo.
Had Woodland been Japanese, the rape case may never have gotten as
far as it has, Megumi said.
The issue was taken up by Time magazine in its Aug. 13 Asian edition.
“Both racism and sexism are relevant because they must dictate
this case,” the article states. “When off duty, most military personnel tend to
congregate according to race. The clubs that black servicemen frequent are also the haunts
of the Kokujo. Of course, saying she was there to meet a man is not proof of
consent, nor are her sexual history or any particular proclivities or preferences.
“In the U.S. today, a woman’s lifestyle and sexual history
wouldn’t be relevant. Here, they can invalidate the charges altogether.”
That article, too, caught the attention of the Okinawa Bar
Association, which announced Monday that it would take action, if the victim requested,
against Time magazine.
“I believe this article completely made a wrong guess,”
Amakata said. “Such articles will not serve favorably either side. It just
unnecessarily heats up the story, only to amuse readers and satisfy their curiosity.”
Woodland has a team of three attorneys representing him, two Japanese
men and one American woman, Annette Eddie-Callagain, a former Air Force attorney. They
plan to argue that Woodland and the woman were engaged in consensual sex in the parking
lot of the American Village shopping complex in the Mihama district of Chatan after
leaving the 3F, a popular hip-hop club.
Eddie-Callagain, who is black, said she believes she can get a fair
trial for Woodland in a Japanese court.
“I know some people believe the Japanese have this prejudice
against African-Americans, but I don’t buy into that,” she said.
However, Time quoted her as saying: “When a suspect is black and
from the military, people assume he must be guilty.”
She said she was misquoted and had been relaying something someone
else had said.
“As far as my feelings regarding the trial and the whole race
issue, if there is one, I believe that he will receive a fair trial,” she said.
The only “negative,” if any, against Woodland, she said, is
“he is a foreigner who is serving in the military.”
“Will the judges let this sway them?” she asked. “I do
not think so, and I surely hope not.”
She said Woodland, a native of Hampton Roads, Va., who has been
stationed on Okinawa for four years, is “holding up well” in a Naha detention
center, where he has been held since his arrest July 6. Detention in a Japanese jail is
much different than waiting for trial in the United States, or even in a military brig. He
has no communication with anyone on the outside except his attorneys, not even his family.
He also is not allowed contact with other prisoners.
During the day he is confined alone to a small cell, where he has
endured Okinawa’s record-breaking heat without air conditioning. The only reading
material he has been allowed is a Bible, minus a couple of pages that had notes from
well-wishers.
The only privilege he has been granted is having a Western-style meal
on a regular basis.
“He has not indicated he is concerned about whether being an
African-American will hurt his case,” Eddie-Callagain said.
Chiyomi Sumida contributed to this report.
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