Rape Trial Resumes As Tensions Grow Okinawans Vent Anger Over U.S. Military Presence

The trial of three U.S. servicemen accused in the rape and abduction of a 12-year-old schoolgirl is set to resume Monday with no letup in tensions over the American military presence on tiny Okinawa.

If anything, emotions are running even higher than when the trial of the three began nearly a month ago.

Okinawa has been in an uproar since the September rape, which triggered the release of years of pent-up anger over the heavy American troop presence. About 27,000 U.S. troops are based on the southern island.

In the weeks following the attack, Okinawans staged their largest protests ever against the bases, which take up a full fifth of the island, and the governor mounted resistance to the renewal of military land leases.

Since the Nov. 7 start of the trial, more outrage has been stirred.

President Clinton was forced by budget infighting to call off a trip to Japan meant in part to quell public anger over the rape. A top U.S. admiral was ousted after saying that for the price of the rental car allegedly used in the attack, the three men could have simply bought sex instead.

The accused men’s families and their lawyers have indicated they will raise questions about possible racism in the Japanese authorities’ handling of the case. All of the defendants are black.

The defendants - Navy Seaman Marcus Gill, 22, of Woodville, Texas, Marine Pfc. Kendrick Ledet, 20, of Waycross, Ga., and Pfc. Rodrico Harp, 21, of Griffin, Ga. - hope to counter the effects of the trial’s devastating opening session.

At that hearing, Gill admitted raping the girl and Harp and Ledet acknowledged helping plan and carry out the attack. Prosecutors painted a chilling picture of the child, snatched from a street as she shopped for a school notebook, driven to a remote sugar-cane field, raped and dumped from the car.