JCP holds funeral for former JCP Central Committee Chair Miyamoto Kenji

   The Japanese Communist Party on August 6 held a funeral in Tokyo for Miyamoto Kenji, former JCP Central Committee chair who had been at the forefront of the JCP leadership for more than a half century since the prewar days and died on July 18 at the age of 98.

   Attending the funeral were about 1,300 people, including JCP members, representatives of the Diet and Japan’s political parties, representatives from the embassies of Cuba, China, Vietnam, and Venezuela, as well as academics and intellectuals.

   To pay their last respects, many people, including those who traveled from as far as Hokkaido and Hyogo prefectures, visited a tent set up outside the pavilion in which four large screens were installed to show the funeral.

   After a silent tribute, JCP Chair Shii Kazuo on behalf of the Funeral Committee made a speech.

   Enumerating Miyamoto’s works such as the indomitable struggle for peace and popular sovereignty in the prewar days, the establishment of the JCP’s sovereign independent policy line through the heroic struggles against interferences by big powers, the establishment of the JCP programmatic policy line of exploring democratic change within a capitalist framework, and the building of a strong and large JCP firmly connected with the public at the grassroots level, Shii pointed out that Miyamoto established the basis for the JCP’s development and contributed to peace and social progress in Japan and the rest of the world.

   “I express my heartfelt gratitude and pay homage to our great leader. Always remembering what we have learned from Mr. Miyamoto, we are determined to make utmost efforts in order to make use of those lessons in carrying out our undertakings of Japan’s political changes in the 21st century,” Shii said.

   On behalf of the JCP Central Committee, former Central Committee Chair Fuwa Tetsuzo made a memorial address.

   Fuwa praised Miyamoto’s works saying, “Whenever the JCP was faced with grave crises, Mr. Miyamoto, always with indomitable will and rational thinking, came to forefront in the struggles to overcome such crises and opened the way for new developments.”

   Messages of condolences from heads of political parties and individuals of seven countries were read out.                    - Akahata, August 7, 2007