/ 15 August 2007

Japan offers remorse on WWII surrender day

Japan offered remorse for past atrocities on the anniversary on Wednesday of its World War II surrender as top leaders steered clear of a shrine at the heart of friction with neighbouring countries.

Sixty-two years after Japan capitulated in the deadliest conflict in history, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged that his country would not return to war and would contribute to world peace.

Japan “caused tremendous damage and suffering to many countries, especially in Asian nations”, the conservative leader said, using identical language to previous statements by Japanese leaders.

“Representing the people of Japan, I, with deep remorse, offer my condolences to the people victimised,” Abe told an audience, including Emperor Akihito.

Akihito’s father Hirohito, who was revered as divine and had never spoken to the public before, went on radio on August 15 1945 to announce Japan had to “bear the unbearable” and surrender as its cities lay in ruins, two of them obliterated by United States nuclear bombs.

Among the people at the ceremony were 101-year-old Koto Matsuoka, whose son, Kinpei, died three months before Japan’s surrender serving in Burma.

“War must not occur. It’s good that we have peace now,” she said from her wheelchair.

Passions about the war still run high in East Asia, with many Chinese and Koreans resentful over Japanese atrocities on their soil. Koreans on Wednesday celebrated “Liberation Day”.

Abe, the grandson of a World War II Cabinet minister, is known for his conservative views on history and speaks sparingly about Japan’s past wrongdoing.

But Abe, who is languishing politically due to domestic scandals, has cited improved relations with China and South Korea as a key achievement of his nearly year-old government.

Abe stayed away from the Yasukuni shrine, which honours war dead and war criminals alike and has been a source of constant friction with neighbouring countries.

Last year, Junichiro Koizumi became the first sitting prime minister in 21 years to visit the sprawling Shinto shrine in central Tokyo on the sensitive surrender anniversary, setting off protests by China and South Korea.

Koizumi, who handed power to Abe last September, went again this year. Passers-by cheered as Koizumi, dressed in a suit and tie, silently went into the shrine’s inner sanctum in the early morning.

Seizo Noguchi, an 87-year-old navy veteran who prays at the Yasukuni shrine every August 15, said he wished Abe had come to the shrine but understood he “faces opposition from the outside”.

“But I’m sure that in his heart he would like to visit the shrine and that’s enough for me,” said Noguchi, wearing a necktie and sailor’s hat with images of a battleship.

Only one member of the Cabinet visited the Yasukuni shrine: Sanae Takaichi, the minister in charge of food safety and gender equality among other portfolios.

Forty-six members of Parliament went together to the Yasukuni shrine, with some scoffing at Abe’s no-show.

“This isn’t like Mr Abe. I think he should have visited,” said former agriculture minister Yoshinobu Shimamura, an outspoken nationalist.

But the opposition, which seized control of the upper House of Parliament in elections last month, took a fresh shot at Abe on the surrender anniversary.

Opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa called for Japan to take historical facts “humbly” and attacked Abe, whose signature issue is rewriting the pacifist post-World War II Constitution. — AFP