Amami reversion movement
The reversion movement started in response to the so-called 2/2 Proclamation on February 2, 1946, in which the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) showed its intention to remove the Amami Islands from Japanese control and to annex them to what it called the Ryukyus.
The movement reached its first peak before the conclusion of the Treaty of San Francisco on September 8, 1951, demonstrating that 99.8% of the islanders wanted an immediate return to Japan.
In his letter to Stilwell, dated September 3, 1945, he requested:[3] I long for your lending us your powerful influence over Amami Gunto problem not to make these islands "the second Alsace-Lorraine.
"In the process of disarmament, Takada made an objection every time the U.S. Army "incorrectly" referred to the Amami Islands as the northern Ryukyus.
[6] On January 29, 1946, the SCAP issued a directive to the Japanese government that administratively separated the Amami Islands from Japan and placed them under the Okinawa-based U.S. military command.
[1] On October 3, the military governor renamed Ōshima Subprefecture to the Provisional Government for the Northern Ryukyu Islands [ja], which was again translated as Rinji Hokubu Nansei Shotō Seichō in Japanese.
In addition to the use of the term Nansei Islands, the fact that "provisional" (rinji) and "government" (seichō) were separated and placed at the opposite ends of the long phrase was seen as a sign of disaffectedness.
When movements toward a peace treaty started in 1947, people of the Amami Islands began to voice their ardent desire to return to Japan despite increasing oppression by the U.S. military government.
On September 10, the unofficial Council of the Heads of the Cities, Towns and Villages (Shichōsonchōkai) unanimously adopted a resolution that clearly stated the collective will of the people of Amami for return to Japan.
15, which clarified certain rights and liberties, he effectively banned gatherings, public statements and written materials critical of the military occupation.
Moreover, the U.S. did not incur substantial costs to rebuild Amami's economy but focused its limited resources to construct military bases on Okinawa island.
Leftist journalist Kōzō Nagata speculates that the U.S. intentionally destroyed Amami's economy to create a cheap labor pool for construction work on Okinawan military bases.
Using declassified documents, he shows that in 1946, the U.S. naval military government on Okinawa correctly anticipated the politico-economic chaos the separation of the Amami Islands from Kagoshima Prefecture would lead to.
On January 24, the military governor finally announced a drastic reduction of food prices, but Amami's purchasing power was not recovered.
[7] The food price crisis marked the beginning of the mass mobilization of ordinary people, which soon turned into a full-scale reversion movement.
In response to the street rally in Miyazaki in February, the Naze City Federation of Youth Associations held a meeting on March 24, 1950, with the reversion movement as a hidden agenda.
The Social Democratic Party, led by Hōrō Izumi [ja], developed a political narrative that insisted on the compatibility of reversion with the cooperation with the U.S.[7] On January 5, 1951, Prime Minister Yoshida took one step further from his remark last year, stating that the Ryukyu Archipelago (Ryūkyū Rettō) eventually would be restored to Japanese sovereignty because they had been Japanese territory for a long time and were not taken through invasion.
[7] In the Amami Islands, the series of crackdowns generated a sense of helplessness, but in response to the reversion movement in mainland Japan, Iekuni Murayama, the founder and head of the newspaper Nankai Nichinichi Shimbun [ja], floated a trial balloon by writing a carefully worded editorial on February 8, 1951, which concluded with the following sentence:[10] 琉球が琉球の帰属について、アメリカへの気がねからその意思を偽るようなことがあれば、共に後代救われぬ悲劇に陥るであろう If the Ryukyus hide their desire to return to Japan for fear of upsetting America, the future generations of both countries will find themselves in a tragedy from which they cannot be rescued.
The results were forwarded to the United Nations, the Far Eastern Commission, the Allied Council for Japan, the SCAP, Foster Dulles, Prime Minister Yoshida, and the presidents of the Upper and Lower Houses of the Japanese Diet.
On June 2, a resolution concerning territory passed the Lower House, which requested the Allies to grant the wishes of the residents who feared separation from Japan.
The Amami Islanders in the mainland held street rallies in Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Kagoshima, Miyazaki, and Fukuoka.
As a compromise, Susumu Nikaidō, representing Kagoshima Prefecture, posed an "emergency question" on the reversion of Amami to Japan on August 18.
[1] Witnessing growing ideological differences with in the reversion movement, Shomu Nobori, despite ill health, attended a special meeting of the Amami Rengō on August 11–12, 1952, and called for unity for the sake of the larger objective.
On May 28, 1952, one month after the treaty went into effect, the reversion movement in the mainland passed a resolution absolutely opposing a trusteeship and calling for the complete return to Japan.
Similarly in the Amami Islands, a mass gathering adopted a resolution calling for the abrogation of Article 3 and the complete return to Japan.
[1] In late September, the media reported that the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Robert D. Murphy, favorably considered the return of the Amami Islands.
The reversion groups both in the mainland and the Amami Islands were ecstatic with the news, but the initial enthusiasm soon turned to irritation and suspicion because the U.S. did not announce the date of transfer for months.
With strong oppositions from the Amami Islands and Kagoshima Prefecture as a whole, the candidate site was renamed Amami–Ryukyu before changing to the current, more descriptive name in 2017.
By contrast, the Amami Islanders felt a sense of difference with regard to their southern neighbor, Okinawans, and the reversion movement strengthened the self-perception.
From beginning to end, the reversion movement stressed that the Amami Islands did not belong to the Ryukyu Shotō but to Ōshima District, Kagoshima Prefecture.
