berlinnews

Against the will of a large part of the japanese people a giant nuclear industry has been established and unkown amounts of nuclear arms are being stored on japanese soil. All made possible by governments heavily influenced by Washington, military and power industry interests and a mass media systematically hiding the facts.

Today the Japanese anti-nuclear movement, led by the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the aging „Hibakusha“ (survivors), plays a key role in the global nuclear abolition movement, serving as its conscience and its inspiration. Nuclear arms and nuclear power are among the most crucial topics concerning Japan’s democracy movement.

Since the late 1940s, electricity companies have worked closely with the Japanese government in opposing local communities who rejected the development of nuclear power. The electric utility industry is exceptionally strong in Japan. Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tokyo Electric) is the largest private electricity company in the world. The government and electric utility industry have long promoted the notion that nuclear power development would “do good to local communities” and “serve as part of a regional revitalization.”

In opposition, Japanese citizens have called call for “referendums,” opposing indirect legislative measures to build nuclear facilities. Consequently, since the late 1990s, acquiring new construction sites has become a more difficult task for promoters of nuclear power. Some nuclear proponents have resorted to enhancing the capacity of existing plants where communities are dependent on nuclear power, even as local opposition expands. In Japan, the state has used nuclear power development to influence and shape national energy policy. Most municipalities chosen as sites for nuclear power plants or nuclear fuel recycling are dominated by conservative legislative assemblies.

There have been constantly anti-nuclear protests and demonstrations against stationing of nuclear arms in Japan by the US-military and against the construction of nuclear power plants. Nevertheless the authorities suceeded to construct 53 nuclear reactors providing 34.5% of Japan’s electricity.

Since the mid-1990s there were several nuclear related accidents and cover-ups in Japan that resulted in further protests and resistance to new plants. The role of the mainstream media, until recently firmly in control of the LDPD led conservative governments was crucial in downplaying the accidents and subsequent protests.

When the Democratic Party came to victory in the August 2009 general election, defeating the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) things took a different direction for a while, but the new Primeminister Kan, more or less fell back to the old policies.

Additionally Japan’s three non-nuclear principles of not possessing, not producing, and not allowing nuclear arms on its soil, and Article 9 of its 1946 post-war constitution, which renounces war and prohibits maintenance of armed forces, are under permanent serious attack.
In 2004, Japan, one of the U.S.’s closest allies, deployed 1000 members of its „Self Defense Forces“ to Iraq – the first time Japanese troops were temporally sent into combat zone since World War II. Whether the newly elected japanese government is ultimately changing this kind of foreign policy needs to be seen. The promised change of policy in dealing with US-troops on japanese soil ended with the stepping down of Prime Minitser Hatoyama.

About 40.000 U.S. military personnel are still stationed in Japan, a fact that is meeting massive opposition by the people in Japan and especially in Okinawa.
The US-Seventh Fleet is based in Yokosuka. The US-Marines Expeditionary Force is based in Okinawa. 130 US Airforce fighters are stationed in the Misawa Air Base and Kadena Air Base. U.S. personnel have partial extraterritorial right. Officially there were never any nuclear weapons stationed on japanese soil.
Recent revelations regarding related „oral agreements“ between then Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira and a U.S. Ambassador have proven suspicions, that the US-military has all along been storing nuclear weapons in Japan. The secret pacts on nuclear arms and other issues were reached between Japan and the United States during the Cold War. This was also concluded by a Foreign Ministry panel ending the government’s decades-long official denial.

It remains to be seen what kind of policy change the people of Japan can expect from a government that is heavily influenced by policy makers in Washington DC and the Pentagon. The world community has to act in solidarity now and support the japanese in their ever stronger demands for the abolishion of the nuclear arms and energy.