The Impossibilities of Protest: Agricultural Diversification in US Militarized Miyako

On July 24, 1965, farmers in Miyako, an island to the south of Okinawa, unexpectedly rioted.  Their protest was to block a unilateral attempt by the US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (USCAR) and Government of Ryukyu Islands (GRI) to rationalize the sugar industry through the merging of three sugar factories.  Because the US held no military installations on Miyako and both government officials and Okinawan radicals considered the outlying island a periphery to the Okinawa itself, the farmers’ violent rebuke of government policies ignited frantic responses throughout US military ranks and surprised reactions from the Okinawan public.  In the protest’s aftermaths, top officials in the sugar factory resigned, the GRI postponed merger plans indefinitely, and USCAR embarked on an extensive campaign to alleviate economic underdevelopment by introducing sustainable practices like crop diversification.

While studies about the US armed forces in Okinawa focus primarily on the installation of physical bases and the ensuing impact on the surrounding communities, a closer examination of the July 24^th action advanced by this paper illustrates the breadth of US militarization and novelty of radical resistance.  Focusing on the reports USCAR commissioned from agricultural economists and political scientists, the paper demonstrates how agricultural reforms anchored the US military presence both materially and ideologically.  In addition to tying local agricultural production to military demands through so-called development measures, the suggested agricultural reforms confined potential discourse to modernizationist rubrics.  This paper, therefore, conceptualizes the July riot as a significant act of resistance because it upended US military paradigms to assert alternative models of politics, protest, and government.