| This incident was a confrontation between U.S. soldiers and the nearby residents of Koza City regarding the way in which the police were handling a fatal accident involving an Okinawan and a U.S. soldier who was driving. With the intervention of the Military Police, the crowd which had gathered burnt 73 cars belonging to Americans in a nearby parking lot. It developed into a rather large incident. Tensions in the area rose just previous to this incident when a U.S. soldier was found not guilty of the murder of a housewife in Itoman-cho by a U.S. military court. A string of accidents and incidents concerning U.S. military personnel brought the resistance of the Okinawans to the surface. December 20, 1970 Photograph courtesy of Okinawa Times Publishers "Shashin Kiroku, Okinawa Sengoshi" |
