Abe sued over history textbooks

boy in blues SG

2006-09-14 16:26
TOKYO - Hundreds of people on Thursday filed lawsuits against leading prime ministerial candidate Shinzo Abe, demanding compensation and a public apology over his alleged support of nationalist history textbooks, plaintiffs said.
A group of 275 people, mostly Japanese citizens in southwestern Ehime Prefecture (state) but also including 56 South Koreans and 37 Chinese, filed one of the two lawsuits at the Matsuyama District Court, accusing Abe of taking a leading role in pressuring a government textbook panel into approving the nationalist books, plaintiff Kazuie Nishihara said.
The plaintiffs also accuse Abe of using political pressure on local education boards in and around Tokyo and Ehime to adopt use of the texts in their school districts. They demand Abe, as well as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and their ruling Liberal Democratic Party, pay 1,000 yen (US$8.5; euro6.7) in compensation for their mental anguish.
A separate group of about 195 people in Tokyo and nearby cities also filed a similar lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court.
"Mr. Abe illegally made political influence over the textbook adoption," Nishihara said. "His persistent effort to spread his ultra-nationalistic view in school education is extremely regrettable."
Plaintiffs also accuse Abe of leading a group of young lawmakers to support authors and a publisher of the textbooks "that distort and justify Japan's wartime actions," he said.
Abe, the nationalist leading this month's race for the premiership, has long been a supporter of history textbooks that critics accuse of whitewashing Japanese wartime atrocities.
He is widely seen as the favorite to win the September 20 election for a new president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The party president is virtually assured of becoming prime minister because of the party dominance in the parliament.
Abe's office refused to comment on the lawsuit.
The history and civics textbooks, both published by Fusosha Ltd. and approved by the Education Ministry last year, are currently in use at a small number of school districts, mostly in Tokyo and Ehime, after adoption by local education boards.
The texts have become a source of friction between Japan and its neighbors China and South Korea, which suffered Japanese wartime aggression in most of the first half of 1900s.
Many say the textbooks gloss over Japan's wartime atrocities such as the massacre of civilians in Nanking, China, and the use of Asian women as sex slaves by Japanese soldiers.

boy in blues SG

U.S. lawmakers on a congressional committee on foreign relations called for Japan's next leader to stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which includes convicted war criminals among the dead it honors.

Two senior members of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee criticized Japanese leaders for the shrine visits and for the treatment of World War II in the shrine's museum and some school textbooks which they say downplays atrocities committed by Japan.

``Paying one's respect to war criminals is morally bankrupt and unworthy of a great nation such as Japan,'' Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said according to a transcript. ``This practice must end.''

Relations with between Japan and its biggest trading partner, China, have slumped to their worst in three decades because of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to Yasukuni. Japan's differences with its neighbors make it harder to resolve regional issues like North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the congressional committee's chairman said.

``North Korea, as it reminded all Americans with its Fourth of July missile launches, remains a major source of regional instability, and maintaining the peace in the Taiwan Strait is a constant challenge for us,'' Henry Hyde, a Republican and chairman of the committee, said. ``All of these sources of tension in the Asia Pacific region require that we and our allies forge a united front. However, sadly, history keeps getting in the way.''

Koizumi steps down as president of the ruling Liberal Party later this month and is expected to replaced by Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, who is the frontrunner, according to polls.

The president of the LDP automatically becomes prime minister because of its parliamentary majority.

boy in blues SG

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday slammed the Japanese governments attitude to history in refusing to accept responsibility for drafting young women into sexual slavery during World War II. The House International Relations Committee unanimously passed a resolution on the so-called comfort women on Wednesday, before sending it to a plenary session to be held soon.
The resolution calls on Tokyo to acknowledge the fact that it drafted comfort women from Asian countries including Korea, accept responsibility and educate future generations about this crime against humanity. It accuses Japan of the worst human trafficking crime of the 20th century. The women were physically and sexually abused by the imperial army and forced to have abortions at the orders of the Japanese government at the time, it says, noting that Japanese textbooks downplay the crime.

The committee attempted to pass resolutions on the comfort women in 2001 and 2005, but they floundered due to lobbying from Tokyo. But this time, the resolution was backed by the committees irascible chairman Henry Hyde and Rep. Lane Evans, who cosponsored the resolution with Rep. Chris Smith. They were enraged by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumis visit to a controversial militarist shrine on Aug. 15, the day of Japans surrender in World War II, and insisted on passing it, sources said. It stands out by seeking a say in how Japan perceives its history and educates its people. U.S. lawmakers appear to have concluded that if Japans distortions of history go untended, they will have a negative impact on relations between Korea, China and Japan and as a result on U.S. diplomacy in Asia.