Monday
Dec212009
Revealing "Secret U.S.-Japan Nuclear Understandings": A solemn obligation of Japan's new government
Monday, December 21, 2009 at 12:04
Matsumoto Tsuyoshi and Steve Rabson,
The Democratic Party's decisive victory in the August 30, 2009 Lower House election brings a change in Japan's government. With the Liberal Democratic Party leaving power, momentum is building to illuminate the darkness surrounding secret understandings concluded between the Japanese and U.S. governments. Previous governments in Japan have persistently feigned ignorance of two secret understandings from the 1960s permitting the U.S. to bring nuclear weapons into Okinawa after reversion. Former Prime Minister Aso Taro insisted recently that "no such understandings exist."
Continuing to lie for forty years about these secret understandings, which are the source for maintaining the excessive burden of bases in Okinawa, is a "government crime." There has been no relief for hardships imposed by the bases because the Japanese government has followed a foreign policy of subordination to the U.S., turning its back on Okinawa's residents. Now comes the chance of a lifetime to break the spell of deception. The Democratic Party leading the new government has a solemn obligation to fulfill its promise to investigate and to make public these secret understandings to ensure that history is accurately transmitted to future generations.
Matsumoto Tsuyoshi is a journalist with the Ryukyu Shimpo.
Steve Rabson is professor emeritus of East Asian Studies, Brown University, a Japan Focus associate, the author of Righteous Cause or Tragic Folly: Changing Views of War in Modern Japanese Poetry, and a translator of Okinawan literature. See also Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa.
This article was published in Sekai in November, 2009.
Recommended citation: Matsumoto Tsuyoshi, "Revealing 'Secret U.S.-Japan Nuclear Understandings': A solemn obligation of Japan's new government," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 51-3-09, December 21, 2009.
The Democratic Party's decisive victory in the August 30, 2009 Lower House election brings a change in Japan's government. With the Liberal Democratic Party leaving power, momentum is building to illuminate the darkness surrounding secret understandings concluded between the Japanese and U.S. governments. Previous governments in Japan have persistently feigned ignorance of two secret understandings from the 1960s permitting the U.S. to bring nuclear weapons into Okinawa after reversion. Former Prime Minister Aso Taro insisted recently that "no such understandings exist."
Continuing to lie for forty years about these secret understandings, which are the source for maintaining the excessive burden of bases in Okinawa, is a "government crime." There has been no relief for hardships imposed by the bases because the Japanese government has followed a foreign policy of subordination to the U.S., turning its back on Okinawa's residents. Now comes the chance of a lifetime to break the spell of deception. The Democratic Party leading the new government has a solemn obligation to fulfill its promise to investigate and to make public these secret understandings to ensure that history is accurately transmitted to future generations.
Matsumoto Tsuyoshi is a journalist with the Ryukyu Shimpo.
Steve Rabson is professor emeritus of East Asian Studies, Brown University, a Japan Focus associate, the author of Righteous Cause or Tragic Folly: Changing Views of War in Modern Japanese Poetry, and a translator of Okinawan literature. See also Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa.
This article was published in Sekai in November, 2009.
Recommended citation: Matsumoto Tsuyoshi, "Revealing 'Secret U.S.-Japan Nuclear Understandings': A solemn obligation of Japan's new government," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 51-3-09, December 21, 2009.
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