Lawmaker pushes revisionist history
AFP
TOKYO - Thursday, Dec 21, 2006 - A top policymaker has called for Japan to "correct" its view on World War II sex slaves, saying the government should reconsider its apology.
Shoichi Nakagawa, policy chief for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, said in an interview with the conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper that the government should review a 1993 statement of regret.
The government needed to ensure that "what was said more than 10 years ago does not become an accomplished fact," said Nakagawa, who is known for his hawkish remarks, in the interview published yesterday.
In the 1993 statement, then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono admitted and apologized for the Japanese army's involvement in sexually enslaving women in Korea and other countries during World War II.
Abe has said his government follows the apologetic stance set by Kono in 1993.
But Nakagawa said: "During meetings with other parliament members to study it, even young people who were not parliament members when the remarks were made said that the remarks were very inaccurate."
"Unless the government swiftly corrects things if there is anything to be corrected, a wrong message would be sent overseas," he said.
"We need to avoid giving wrong information to children, too," he said.
Here is the original interview in Japanese.
Now I said in way back in September that Nakagawa would be given a post to "keep him off the streets". Perhaps they should have left him there. He could hardly be doing more harm as a rabble-rousing streetside screecher than he is doing right now.
That Kōno Yōhei is scheduled to meet with Hu Jintao on Christmas Day just makes Nakagawa's freelancing all the more stupid and tawdry.
All credit to reader MK for the pointer.
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