Okinawa assembly calls for review of US forces pact after alleged killing in Naha

Okinawa's prefectural assembly has adopted a resolution calling for a review of the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement after a US Marine was accused of robbing and killing a local woman in Naha. The vote took place on Friday on the island, which hosts the majority of the 54,000 US troops stationed in Japan. The assembly said the agreement should be adapted to help prevent similar incidents.

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The resolution will be sent to the US embassy, while a separate statement on the same issue will go to the Japanese government. According to the assembly, the move followed the arrest of Lance-Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, who has been accused of killing Anna Yagi, 39, at a hotel in Naha on Saturday. Ballard has denied the allegations.

Ryotaro Odo, who heads the assembly's special committee on US military bases, said the US military was "not functioning as an organisation" and pointed to failures in training and discipline. The assembly also urged the military to cooperate with investigators and discipline those responsible. Some members opposed the resolution because it did not call for the dismissal of the US military chief in Okinawa, according to local reporting cited in the source material.

The case has already triggered demonstrations in Tokyo and Okinawa, adding to long-running public anger over crimes involving US personnel on the island. The US military has said it paused operations for 48 hours from Wednesday and imposed a 30-day curfew from midnight to 5am starting on Friday. The incident has renewed scrutiny of the legal framework governing US forces in Japan.

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Okinawa remains central to the bilateral security arrangement because it hosts many facilities used exclusively by US forces, despite being under US control from 1945 to 1972. The current dispute is therefore not only about one alleged crime, but also about how military discipline, local accountability and the status agreement are managed in a place that has long carried a disproportionate share of the alliance's burden. Japanese officials have already responded at a high level, with the government calling in the US ambassador and the US forces commander in Okinawa to protest the incident.

The assembly's action also follows earlier protests over alleged misconduct by US servicemen. In 2024, it passed a similar resolution after a series of sexual assaults came to light, and municipal assemblies in Naha, Ginowan, Miyakojima and Motobu filed protests. That history helps explain why the latest case has quickly become a wider political issue in Okinawa rather than a single criminal matter.

It also shows how local institutions on the island have repeatedly used formal resolutions to press both Tokyo and Washington for change. What remains unclear is how far the latest calls for review will go and whether they will lead to any change in the agreement or in US military procedures. The criminal case itself is still developing, and the legal process for the accused Marine has not been resolved.

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