Politic-Economic-Society-Tech

Shrine visit sparks bloodshed

By Stephen Lunn, Tokyo correspondent 

JAPAN'S Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has fanned tensions across north-east Asia about his militarist leanings by visiting a Tokyo shrine that honours his nation's war dead.

Mr Koizumi's decision to pay his respects yesterday at the Yasukuni Shrine was met with outrage by China and South Korea. It also raised concerns from Australia's Returned Services League. 
The Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto temple that honours 14 convicted and executed war criminals – including wartime leader General Hideki Tojo – among the 2.5 million Japanese killed in wars. 

Efforts to placate his Asian neighbours by visiting the shrine yesterday instead of tomorrow, on the 56th anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender, backfired. 

In South Korea, 20 people cut off their fingers in a bloody protest against Mr Koizumi's visit to the shrine, which they see as an inappropriate recognition of Japan's wartime exploits, including its brutal occupation of their country and others in Asia. 

Other South Koreans are on a hunger strike at Yasukuni to demonstrate their opposition. 

China also reacted angrily to Mr Koizumi's visit, casting a pall over the Japanese leader's planned trip there in October. "(It shows) the Japanese side is able to reject any genuine self-examination of its history of aggression and its relation with Asian nations, including China, that suffered injury," China's Foreign Ministry said yesterday in a statement. 

RSL national president, retired Major-General Peter Phillips, said Mr Koizumi's visit would be read by some Australian veterans as "an ultranationalist stance". 

"But we must also remember the Yasukuni Shrine has a lot of cultural and religious significance in Japan, and the visit is very much for the purpose of domestic politics," Major-General Phillips said, adding a visit tomorrow would have been extremely provocative to veterans from many nations. 

Yasukuni remains steeped in controversy for the secret enshrinement of the 14 war criminals, including Tojo, in 1978, and more generally as the main shrine of state Shintoism – which is closely associated with previous outbreaks of militarism. 

A grim-faced Mr Koizumi yesterday apologised for the "shameful act" of breaking his promise to visit the shrine on the surrender anniversary tomorrow, a day traditionally used by Japanese to remember dead relatives by praying at Yasukuni. He said he had done so out of respect for the concerns of other countries but wanted to go to "renew his pledge for peace". 

"If the visit to the Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of the end of the war is to bring suspicion to people at home and abroad over Japan's stance of rejecting war and placing importance on peace, it is something I do not wish," he said. 

"Towards our Asian neighbours, at one point in the past, we conducted colonialisation and aggressive acts based on a mistaken national policy and caused immeasurable pain and suffering. That has left many people in the region with unhealable wounds." 

Mr Koizumi faced a delicate balancing act after he first promised to visit the shrine tomorrow during his campaign to become prime minister in April. 

Surveys showed more than 50 per cent of Japanese support his wish to honour Japan's war dead at Yasukuni tomorrow, but China, the Koreas, the Opposition, his coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed New Komeito party, and even some members of his own Liberal Democratic Party lined up against him. 

Opposition Leader Yukio Hatoyama said Yasukuni wasn't a place of reconciliation and visiting the shrine sent the wrong diplomatic signals. "It will be taken as condoning Japan's invasion of Asia and as an attempt to blur responsibility for the war," Mr Hatoyama said. 

After breaking his promise yesterday, some in the LDP's powerful right wing lobby lashed out at his capitulation to China and South Korea. "He has betrayed his nation and his people," one said. 

Your feedback:
Every other country pays respect to its war dead, why shouldn't Japan be able to do the same? In The Japan Times, date Tuesday August 14, 2001, Junichiro Koizumi expressed his "feelings of profound remorse and sincere mourning to all the victims of war", acknowledging: "Japan caused tremendous sufferings to many people of the world, including its own people...following a mistaken national policy during a certain period of its past, (where) Japan imposed, through its colonial rule and aggression, immeasurable ravages and suffering particularly to the people of neighboring countries in Asia."
Koizumi doesn't want war - Japan doesn't want war; but most Japanese believe if they don't keep apologising for past wrongs, war will be thrust upon them. The idea that only countries in war's 'losing teams' have war criminals is ridiculous - every country in every war has done atrocious things and it's interesting that many of the countries considered victors have continued the indignities to their own, to those who were there before them and to the ecosystem, without which all is lost. Japan is far from a warlike country - how long will it be "forgive and forget" versus "lest we forget"?

source: The Advertiser , Aug. 14, 2001, Kate Buchanan