August 16, 2024

Prime Minister Kishida Fumio on August 15, the anniversary of the end of the Pacific War in Japan, made cash offerings (“tamagushi-ryo”) at Yasukuni Shrine as president of the Liberal Democratic Party, and three Cabinet Ministers, including the Defense Minister, also visited the shrine, the ideological symbol of prewar/wartime Japanese militarism.

As the Japanese and U.S. governments have been pointing to China as a potential threat and preparing for a military confrontation with China, the dedication of “tamagushi-ryo” and visits to the shrine by Japan’s Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers will only arouse criticism from neighboring Asian countries that suffered the devastating effects of Japan’s past war of aggression. Not only that, their actions will stir up conflicts, intensify tensions, and undermine security in the region.

Since the beginning of this year, the shrine and the Self-Defense Forces have been in close proximity. Akahata in January reported on a group visit to the shrine by 22 senior officers of the Ground SDF, including Kobayashi Hiroki, then Vice-Chief of GSDF Staff, as well as a group visit by senior officers of the Maritime SDF. In addition, former MSDF Admiral Otsuka Umio in April became the shrine’s top priest.

Pilgrimages by SDF personnel to specific religious facilities are in violation of the 1974 official notice by Vice-Minister of Defense.

Japanese Communist Party Diet Policy Commission Chair Kokuta Keiji (House of Representatives) in the Diet pointed out that the group visits by Kobayashi and others constitute a violation of the 1974 official notice. However, Defense Minister Kihara Minoru defended them by claiming that they were private visits of their own free will.

Hibako Yoshifumi, who served as Chief of GSDF Staff, wrote in an article in the August 2011 issue of “Nippon no Ibuki”, a magazine of the right-wing constitutional reformist “Nippon Kaigi”, that he cannot deny the possibility that SDF personnel in near future may die in battle to protect Japan. He insisted on reviving Yasukuni Shrine as a “national memorial and commendation institution” and on urgently establishing a system so that SDF personnel who “gave their lives” can be “enshrined” at Yasukuni Shrine.

During the war, Yasukuni Shrine worshipped the war dead as “Heroic Spirits” and mobilized the entire nation for the war of aggression. After the war, it justified the war as a “just war” in order to liberate Asian nationals from Western control. The pilgrimage to such a “war shrine” by Japanese Ministers are nothing but a “bad example” that desecrates the war victims and encourages SDF troops’ visits to the shrine.