Subject: [cwj 120] Protesters exit Tokyo dump site Tokyo metropolitan govt begins expropriation operations
From: Corporate Watch in Japanese <cwj@corpwatch.org>
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 15:49:02 -0700
Seq: 120
Protesters exit Tokyo dump site Tokyo metropolitan govt begins expropriation operations Yomiuri Shimbun Oct 12, 2000 Protesters Wednesday evening left their fortress on a plot of land scheduled to become a waste-disposal site in Hinodemachi, western Tokyo, after the Tokyo metropolitan government started expropriating the land earlier in the day. About 30 local residents, who stayed at the site through the night to continue their protest, started leaving at about 3 p.m. as metropolitan government officials clad in workers' uniforms lined up around the site. The last of the 30 protesters left the site minutes after 4 p.m. while singing a song to protest the forcible expropriation. The metropolitan government then started to remove a wooden stage and a six-meter monument from the site. The metropolitan government Wednesday morning gave up efforts to persuade the local residents who had jointly purchased the plot of land to prevent the planned expansion of the waste-disposal facilities to leave the site voluntarily. At 9 a.m., officials of the metropolitan government, which began expropriating the land Tuesday, approached a fence built by the residents and told about 30 of them to evacuate immediately. But the local residents refused and instead demanded that the expropriation be called off. Shortly after 10 a.m., three of the residents came over the fence and talked with metropolitan government officials for a few minutes. Metropolitan government officials then began expropriation operations at 10:40 a.m. as construction workers with chainsaws started cutting down the woods around the 460-square-meter plot of land and bulldozers began to level the ground. Local residents shouted, "Stop it!" as the construction workers were working. Another resident told the metropolitan government officials, "The expropriation won't be able to solve this problem." Expropriation operations were temporarily suspended just before noon. Tachikawa municipal assemblyman Yutaka Osawa, 50, who served as secretary general for a group of local residents opposing the expropriation, said, "We want to tell other people that the waste disposal issue will not be solved unless residents and the local administration cooperate with each other." The land was purchased and occupied by the residents after groundwater pollution had been detected at a neighboring disposal site. The ownership of the land was transferred in March to a waste-disposal association comprising 27 local municipalities in the Tama area, western Tokyo. The plot of land has been designated for the second-phase of construction of the Futatsuzuka waste-disposal facility, where incinerated waste and noncombustible waste from 27 municipalities in the Tama district are processed and buried. FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Corporate Watch in Japanese is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. ------------------------------------- Corporate Watch in Japanese Transnational Resource and Action Center (TRAC) P.O. Box 29344 San Francisco, CA 94129 USA Tel: 1-415-561-6472 Fax: 1-415-561-6493 Email: cwj@corpwatch.org URL: http://www.corpwatch-jp.org ------------------------------------- ______________________ The Corporate Watch in Japanese http://www.corpwatch.org/japan (CWJ) mailing list is a moderated email list in English designed to connect activists campaigning against Japanese corporations and investments around the world. * To unsubscribe from the CWJ mailing list, send an email to majordomo@jca.apc.org with text "unsubscribe cwj". To subscribe to the CWJ mailing list, send a message to majordomo@jca.apc.org with the text "subscribe cwj" * The CWJ mailing list is NOT intended for wide distribution. If you would like to post messages from this list somewhere else, we ask that you first contact us at cwj@corpwatch.org ______________________