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Candor a firing offense for Japanese defense official


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By Edward Neilan
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

October 27, 1999

TOKYO--They carried "freedom of expression" out of the Japanese Diet (parliament ) on a stretcher the other day.

"Freedom of expression" could not even be described as "walking wounded" after the incident. "Dead as a door nail" would be a more apt description.

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi apologized to the public Oct. 22, and is due to repeat the expression of high remorse on Oct. 29, when an extraordinary Diet session opens. This is to atone for recently appointed Parliamentary Vice Defense Minister Shingo Nishimura's remarks on nuclear armament and rape, which have led to Nishimura's resignation.

His crime: rocking the boat, verbalizing what every other Diet member is thinking privately and shooting his political boss, Obuchi, in the foot.

"It was a very regrettable incident, and I apologize to the public," Obuchi said.

Nishimura, a member of the Liberal Party, resigned from his post Oct. 20 amid outcry over remarks calling on Japan to consider arming itself with nuclear weapons.

In an interview published in the latest edition of the magazine Weekly Playboy, Nishimura also made an analogy to laws against rape to show why he thinks nuclear weapons are an effective deterrent.

"If there were no punishment for rape, we would all be rapists," Nishimura told the magazine. "We do not become rapists because there is the deterrent of punishment.

"If neighboring countries are aiming their medium-range ballistic missiles at major Japanese cities, Japan has reached the point where it needs to discuss in the Diet what we should do."

Obuchi also stressed that Japan will not change its "three nonnuclear principles" of not producing, possessing or allowing the entry of nuclear weapons.

He might as well have added a fourth "no": don't even mention the "n-word," nuclear weapons in the Diet.

The main issue was not nuclear arms nor rape nor even the urge by political oppositionists, including some overly-feisty media, to find some issue with which to bash Obuchi and his precarious coalition cabinet. The real issue is the example of trampling on freedom of expression.

Nishimura also told the magazine that he would order the Maritime Self-Defense Force to fire at and sink North Korean vessels should they ever again violate Japanese territorial waters. He was referring to the March intrusions by two suspected North Korean spy ships that escaped a lengthy chase by Maritime Self-defense Forces in the Sea of Japan.

Nishimura, known in Japanese political circles as something of a loose cannon, sparked controversy in 1997 when he made an unauthorized trip to the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

Such discussions of security contingencies are commonplace in the United States and other countries. But partly because Japan was the only nation to suffer an atomic bombing, the issue has been virtually taboo.

On Oct. 25, Nishimura abruptly canceled a luncheon speech to foreign journalists at the request of the cabinet and his Liberal Party.

"I received a request from the cabinet and the party to refrain from attending this luncheon meeting at this point in time," Nishimura said in a statement read by his secretary Toshio Sasaki. The luncheon was scheduled at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

In line with Japan's "kisha club" press system, news of the cancellation was not reported widely by the mainstream press.

Most of Nishimura's 319,247 constituents in Osaka's district 17 would only learn of the cancellation and its details if they read a foreign or Japanese wire service report.

Edward Neilan (eneilan@crisscross.com) is a veteran journalist, based in Tokyo, who covers East Asia and writes weekly for World Tribune.com.

October 27, 1999


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