March 23, 1984Okinawa World Peace Monument
The Okinawa World Peace Monument was built by Soka Gakkai near its Okinawa Training Center in the town of Onna. Both the center and the monument are constructed upon the site of a dismantled U.S. MACE-B nuclear missile base.
During World War II, Japan's military deemed Okinawa as "expendable" in the cause of forestalling an eventual battle for Japan proper, and Okinawan civilians suffered massive casualties.
After the war, US construction of military installations accelerated at such a rapid pace that by 1971, one year before Okinawa's return to Japan, such facilities occupied 26.5 percent of the total area of the main island of Okinawa.
Ikeda was strongly resolved to transform the destiny of these islands and its people who have long been sacrificed in the name of national and international security, and the transformation of the former US missile base into a bastion of peace was symbolic of this.