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Further Reading

Camp Kinser
Makiminato Service Area / Supply Site
Urasoe City, Okinawa, Japan

Marine Corps logistics operations on Okinawa are based at Camp Kinser [not Camp Kinzer], which has about a million square feet of warehouse space for Marine forces' use in the Pacific. For example, warehouses hold war reserve supplies on Okinawa that would support US operations, including 14,400 tons of ammunition, 5,000 pieces of unit and individual equipment, and 50 million gallons of fuel.

Also known as the Makiminato Service Area, the facility is a large Marine Corps logistics service base in Urasoe city. It runs 3 km north to south from National Highway 58 to the western coastline and 1 km east to west. The former Makiminato housing area in this US Army Support Activity was returned to Okinawa in the 1980s. US buildings were razed and the land returned, but disagreement among Okinawan owners has forestalled development for more than a decade.

National Highway 58 as well as the new Naha Port and the wholesale commerce area, which are located along the western coastline, encircle this service area. This area is not only an important region for the development of Urasoe city but for all of Okinawa. There are plans to build an arterial roadway for south central Okinawa here.

The United States and Japan released the Final Report of the Special Action Committee on Okinawa on December 2, 1996. The report made 27 recommendations to reduce the impact of the U.S. military presence on the Okinawan people. This included the return of land adjacent to Route 58 (approx. 3 ha/8 acres) in order to widen the Route, after the facilities which will be affected by the return are relocated within the remaining Makiminato Service Area.

In June 2000 JCP Okinawa Prefectural Committee Chair Seiken Akamine called on the prefectural government to request the Japanese and U.S. governments to find out the cause and responsibility, check up health and environmental damage, disclose information of military-related waste in the US Camp Kinser, and immediately remove DU-bullets from the US Kadena arsenal depot.

In Okinawa on September 14, police arrested a US marine stationed in Camp Kinser in Urasoe City for assaulting a taxi driver. Police say that the marine beat the taxi driver in the face after he was angered by the driver. The driver told the police that he got the marine out of his taxicab because the man spat in the car.