Masahide Ōta

Masahide Ōta
大田 昌秀
Governor of Okinawa Prefecture
In office 10 December 1990 – 9 December 1998
Preceded by	Junji Nishime
Succeeded by	Keiichi Inamine
Personal details
Born	June 12, 1925 Kumejima, Okinawa
Alma mater	Hosei University
Website	onagatakeshi.jp

Masahide Ota (大田 昌秀 Ōta Masahide, born 12 June 1925) is a Japanese academic and politician who served as Governor of Okinawa Prefecture from 1990 until 1998.^[1]

Ota was educated at Waseda University, Tokyo, and Syracuse University, New York. He served successively as a Professor of Social Science, and Dean of the Faculty of Law and Letters in the University of the Ryūkyūs, specialising in modern and contemporary Okinawan society. He has written many books on Okinawa, of which the best known is his account of the Battle of Okinawa of 1945 as he saw it as a high school student at the time.

In March 1990 Ota retired from the university and in November of the same year was elected governor of Okinawa prefecture on a non-party platform but with broadly leftist support. He had a distinguished record as a governor, outspokenly arguing for the interests of the Okinawan people against both the United States military establishment in the Ryukyu Islands and the Japanese central government. However, after serving two four-year terms, he was defeated in a further re-election bid in 1998 by Keiichi Inamine, the candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party which dominates Japanese national politics.

See also

• Cornerstone of Peace

References

1. O'Loughlin, John Vianney; Staeheli, Lynn A.; Greenberg, Edward S. (2004). Globalization and its outcomes. Guilford Press. pp. 344–. ISBN 978-1-59385-045-6. Retrieved 22 April 2011.