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.