Okinawa Prefectural Assembly unprecedentedly adopts second resolution demanding retraction of Education Ministry directive denying forced ‘mass suicide’

   The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly on July 11 unanimously adopted a second resolution demanding that the Education Ministry retract its directive to remove from history textbooks an account that the Japanese Imperial Army had forced Okinawans into “mass suicide” during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

   It is unprecedented for the prefectural assembly to adopt more than one resolution of similar content in an assembly session.

   After the prefectural assembly adopted the first resolution on June 22, representatives of the prefectural government and assembly as well as the municipal heads’ council and the municipal assembly chairs’ council visited the Education Ministry in Tokyo and requested it to retract the directive. The ministry, however, ignored Okinawans’ unanimous voice of protest.

   The new resolution criticized the education ministry for rejecting Okinawa’s request, stating, “It is highly regrettable that the ministry failed to adequately take into account the significance of the fact that Okinawans’ unanimous opinion is expressed in the resolutions.”

   “It is an undeniable fact that ‘mass suicide’ during the Battle of Okinawa would have never occurred had it not been for the Japanese Army’s involvement. In order to accurately convey the realities of the Battle of Okinawa and prevent cruel wars from recurring in the search for peace, this prefectural assembly once again requests the education ministry to retract the textbook screening policy and swiftly restore the account,” states the resolution.

   Okinawa Prefectural Assembly Chair Nakazato Toshinobu, a Liberal Democratic Party member, later in the day stated, “The prefectural assembly has unprecedentedly adopted similar resolutions twice. This underlines the importance the assembly members and Okinawans are attaching to this issue.”

   He stressed the need to keep conducting interviews with survivors to shed light on the realities of the Battle of Okinawa and to keep pressuring the ministry, saying, “History should be taught accurately. Wars are atrocious.”

   After the education ministry turned down Okinawa’s request, the prefectural assembly, with the idea of adopting a second resolution in mind, dispatched to Tokashiki and Zamami islands a fact-finding mission consisting of its members from all assembly groups to conduct interviews with survivors who had witnessed the tragedy of “mass suicide.”

   In March 1945, when U.S. forces landed on the Kerama Archipelago which includes Zamami and Tokashiki islands, many residents committed “mass suicide.”

   The education ministry ordered the removal of descriptions of the Japanese Army’s involvement in the “mass suicides” from textbooks on the grounds that an ex-commander of an Army unit deployed to Zamami Island stated in a recent court trial that he himself had not ordered “mass suicide.”

- Akahata, July 12, 2007