78 ASDF officers took part in controversial essay contest

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

78 ASDF officers took part in controversial essay contest

The Defense Ministry on November 6 revealed that 78 Air Self-Defense Force members (*) submitted essays to an essay contest, including ASDF Chief of Staff Tamogami Toshio, who resigned the position after he was found to have written an essay justifying the past Japanese war of aggression contradicting the Japanese government position.

(*) Later the number increased to 94.

Essay submissions from ASDF personnel accounted for about 30 percent of the 235 contestants in the essay contest under the theme “true views of modern history.” The SDF participants included three Colonels, three Lieutenant Colonels, four Majors, 64 officers below the rank of major, and four non-commissioned officers, and 62 members belonging to the ASDF Komatsu Base (Ishikawa Pref.) where Tamogami served as a commander.

The Defense Ministry also said that the ASDF education department informed SDF members of the essay contest.

At a news conference on the same day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kawamura Takeo said that the government may consider punishing the participants in the essay contest who expressed views that contradict the government’s official position that the past Japanese war was a war of aggression.

Successive cabinets must be held accountable for keeping Tamogami as ASDF chief: JCP Shii

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on November 6 said that Tamogami’s essay amounts to an “outrageous praise of the war of aggression. It is necessary to make clear the accountability for appointing him as the ASDF chief.”

Shii stated that since the Abe Cabinet appointed Tamogami to be the ASDF Chief of Staff in March 2007, the successive Fukuda and Aso cabinets have kept him in the position.

Shii criticized the successive cabinets for allowing Tamogami to hold the position despite the fact that he had already expressed views praising the war of aggression in 2003 and 2004 in his writings in the ASDF magazine “Hoyu.”

“Their responsibility of all prime ministers and defense ministers since the Abe Cabinet is called into question,” he said.

“The question is that an SDF official has said something contradicting to the government position. It is a very dangerous sign that could lead to the military organization’s lack of respect for the Constitution. But the root cause is political,” said Shii, and pointed out that the parliamentarian league affiliated with the rightist association “Japan Conference” has in it many Liberal Democratic and Democratic party members of the Diet.

The JCP chair stated, “It is significant that Tamogami was first assigned as the ASDF chief by the Abe Cabinet, which included many “pro-Yasukuni” advocates who maintain that the past Japanese war of aggression was justifiable.”

- Akahata, November 7, 2008