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.

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-------------------------------------
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
-------------------------------------
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