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The razzmatazz and hoopla at G-8!!!

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G-8 delegations are seated at the round table before G-8 summit meeting at Bankoku Shinryoukan in Nago, Okinawa, Saturday, July 22, 2000. Delegations from left to clockwise are British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Bill Clinton, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, French President Jacques Chirac, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, European Commission President Romano Prodi, and Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

July 23, 2000 

NAGO, Okinawa (AP) - Along the bayside, dancers in bright robes limbered up. Musicians plucked at three-stringed Okinawan guitars. The sun filtered through clouds in the distance.

Okinawa was busy this weekend making a party of its few days in the spotlight as the host of this year's G-8 summit of top industrial countries and Russia.

The national government in Tokyo has advertised the high-profile conference as a potential boon for the troubled economy of Okinawa, Japan's poorest prefecture.

But few here expected the party to last.

"At least temporarily, the summit will help to increase employment here," said Miwako Uema, 31, before a dance performance along Nago Bay. "But it won't be for long."

The price tag for the summit promises a lot. Japan says it is spending an unprecedented 81 billion yen (dlrs 750 million) on construction and other costs related to the Okinawa meeting and conferences in other parts of the country.

With the summit site barely visible across the bay, Okinawans gathering for the show at a bayside outdoor theater Saturday said they hoped the summit would at least bring publicity to Japan's southernmost island.

Nariko Matsuda, 36, a kindergarten teacher in the Okinawan capital, Naha, said the summit could draw attention as well to the island's difficulties - such as the burdens of hosting large U.S. military bases.

Okinawa is home to 26,000 U.S. military personnel, and locals angered by crime, noise and pollution linked to the bases are increasingly calling for Washington to scale down its presence.

A group of radical students hit an effigy of U.S. President Clinton during an anti-U.S. base protest in Nago, Okinawa, Saturday, July 22, 2000. Claiming that the President is an arsonist of the war, they demanded withdrawal of the U.S. military from Okinawa. Leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations are holding its annual meeting on this southernmost subtropical island. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

"We can let the world know about Okinawa, its culture and history - and its problems, like the U.S. base issue," said Matsuda, who is also volunteering as a translator for summit officials.

That culture was well in evidence. Traditional Okinawan music twanged out of giant speakers at the outdoor theater. Dancers in robes and brightly colored sashes milled around along the beach, waiting for their turns on the stage.

Tatsuke Nakamura, 28, a dancer in a local youth group, said the summit had encouraged many more people to come out and participate in the annual dance festival.

"I don't think it will help us financially, but it has strengthened our sense of community," he said.

Not everyone was relishing that opportunity.

Okinawa has been last in line to enjoy the benefits of prosperity in the rest of Japan, and some in the crowd at Nago Bay said the summit was just another case of Tokyo using the island for its own purposes.

Others said the money that Tokyo had lavished on the summit had just fattened the pockets of big construction companies, without providing any lasting benefits to regular people.

"I don't think the summit is going to help Okinawa," said Yasuhiro Oshiro, 36. "The high-ranking guys are just using this place for a party."