Okinawan delegation urges the ministry to revoke its order

   An Okinawan delegation on January 15 visited the Education Ministry to reiterate the request that the ministry revoke its order to delete high school history textbooks accounts of the Japanese Army’s role in forcing Okinawan residents into “mass suicides” during the Battle of Okinawa at the close of World War II.

   The September 29 Okinawan Rally Organizing Committee took this action because the ministry did not give up its rejection of the textbook account of the “Japanese Army forcing Okinawans into mass suicides” in the screening of corrected textbooks submitted by the publishers for approval.

   At the news conference later in the day, Nakazato Toshinobu, Okinawa Prefectural Assembly chair and the Organizing Committee chair, said, “Although Senior Vice Education Minister Ikenobo Yasuko told us that the corrected textbooks are perfect, I told her we cannot accept that conclusion.”

   In giving his initial reaction, Nakazato had said the ministry’s screening of the resubmitted textbooks was acceptable. But at the news conference he retracted this evaluation saying, “I initially thought the ministry revoked its earlier opinion, but I realized that that was not the case.”

   He stated, “We will continue to struggle against the ministry’s position until it is withdrawn, no matter how long it may take.”
- Akahata, January 16, 2008