FHAN is an international network founded for the joint purposes of closing Futenma Air Station, a US base perilously located in the middle of Ginowan City, Okinawa (pop. 91,363) and preventing the destruction of Okinawa’s cherished Henoko Bay to make way for a new US military air base. The network was founded by teachers, students and others working in the educational field, though we welcome support from all quarters, within Okinawa, Japan, the United States and worldwide.

Our network emerged in response to two critical developments: The crash of a US military helicopter from Futenma into an adjacent university campus on August 13, 2004, and the Japan Defense Agency’s construction of drilling platforms in Henoko Bay later the same year.

Since then, a heroic occupation of the drilling platforms at Henoko  has forced a change in tactics  on the part of the US and Japanese governments. Nevertheless, holding the will of the Okinawan people in contempt, neither the US nor Japanese governments have offered any assurances whatsoever that flights over Ginowan City, including training maneuvers, will be stopped, or that the devastating Henoko project will be scrapped. Instead Okinawans are being presented with the prospect of living until at least 2014 under the torment caused by Futenma Air Station, while bearing witness to the destruction of their environmental heritage.