LEADS NEW DEMONSTRATIONS AT ARMY HOSPITAL AND ATRPORT
Japanese students are maintaining the offensive in their struggle against Japan's involvement in the war in Vietnam. Members of the militant Sampa Rengo [Three Faction Alliance] group of the Zengakuren (National Federation of Student Self- Government Associations] staged new denonstrations against the opening of an American army hospital in Tokyo March 28, and at the site of the projected New Tokyo International Airport in Narita March 31. The students, allied with radical farmers and unionists, charge that the airport will be used for U.S. military flights to Vietnam. There were sharp clashes between students and police at both places less than three weeks earli-~ er. [See World Outlook, April 5, p. 304.]
On March 28, 140 students were arrested of a group reported at 400 near the U.S. army hospital at Camp Oji in Tokyo. The students were met by 2,500 police when they marched to the hospital after attending a rally at Hosei University.
The Mainichi Daily News reported March 29 that a group of about 100 students battled the police while "some 49 actually entered the hospital and its garden." The police, Mainichi said, were "armed with clubs and aluminum shields. The police also wore heavy arm-length gloves which...enabled them to handle barbwire used to ward off the surging students."
The demonstrations at the hospital resulted in at least a partial victory for the students: Foreign Minister Takeo Miki told the Diet the same day that the issue of the army hospital would be discussed at U.S.-Japan joint committee meetings "on the premise that the hospital will be moved to a suburban area of Tokyo in the future." The Sato government had
previously given its assurances that the
hospital would not be moved.
U.S. military authorities’ an-
nounced March 30 that twenty-eight GI's
who had been wounded in Vietnam had been
moved to the Camp Oji hospital. This
touched off two further demonstrations,
one that afternoon by about 4300: high
school students who held a rally in Yana-
gida Park in Oji, and a second action
that evening by about 250 people, mainly
housewives.
At Narita the alliance of the.
Sampa Rengo students with local farmers
was further consolidated in the March 31
demonstration. The Mainichi. Daily News
estimated April 1 that 1,000 students
and 1,400 farmers and unionists took part.
More than 4,600 police were mobilized
against the demonstrators.
The major clash took place in
front of the Narita branch office of the
New Tokyo International Airport Construc-
tion Corporation. The students and farm-
ers marched to the office after holding
a rally at Sanrizuka Park five miles away.
The Japan Times said April 1, "On
their way to the corporation office, they
rained stones on a newly completed dormi-
tory building for Narita police officers,
shattered 30 windowpanes and made a sham-
bles of a dormitory room.
"Climbing to the rooftop, some stu-
dents hoisted Sampa flags."
The Times added that "About 800 of
the student ralliers stayed overnight at
local farmers' houses Saturday."
Mainichi said that twenty-two po-
lice, sixteen students and a newsman were
injured in the March 31 clash.