January 6, 2015
Officials of the Self-Defense Forces stationed in Hokkaido’s Asahikawa City visited a local shrine on January 5 which served as a psychological prop to mobilize the general public for Japan’s war of aggression during World War II.
Those visitors, totaling about 60, were from the Ground SDF second division and the SDF Asahikawa Provincial Cooperation Office. They attended the morning meeting at their offices to kick off another year of work and visited the shrine in dress uniform.
That religious facility is one of the local branches of the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which the former Home Ministry established in 1939 throughout the nation. The shrine in Asahikawa calls itself the “northern Yasukuni” on its website. The Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrined Japanese Class-A war criminals, has openly claimed that Japan fought a just war for the sake of its “self-existence and self-defense”, even after the end of WWII.
Some criticize the SDF staff’s visit to the shrine as a violation of the constitutional provision for the separation of religion and politics. When an Akahata reporter asked the SDF members exiting the shrine about the issue, they all walked away without comment. In response to Akahata’s inquiry, the PR department of the GSDF second division said that those officials visited the facility while they were “taking a break”.
Asahikawa Peace Committee secretary Yui Hisashi pointed out that this action hints at the government’s intent to drum the “Yasukuni ideology” into SDF members’ heads so that they can willingly head into battlefields. He went on to stress that it is completely unacceptable for the Abe administration to legislate for the unconstitutional Cabinet decision that enables Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense.
Past related articles:
> SDF officials regularly visit ‘Yasukuni’ in Hokkaido [February 10, 2014]
> SDF top officials in uniform attend ceremony at ‘Yasukuni’ in Hokkaido [June 6, 2014]
Those visitors, totaling about 60, were from the Ground SDF second division and the SDF Asahikawa Provincial Cooperation Office. They attended the morning meeting at their offices to kick off another year of work and visited the shrine in dress uniform.
That religious facility is one of the local branches of the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which the former Home Ministry established in 1939 throughout the nation. The shrine in Asahikawa calls itself the “northern Yasukuni” on its website. The Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrined Japanese Class-A war criminals, has openly claimed that Japan fought a just war for the sake of its “self-existence and self-defense”, even after the end of WWII.
Some criticize the SDF staff’s visit to the shrine as a violation of the constitutional provision for the separation of religion and politics. When an Akahata reporter asked the SDF members exiting the shrine about the issue, they all walked away without comment. In response to Akahata’s inquiry, the PR department of the GSDF second division said that those officials visited the facility while they were “taking a break”.
Asahikawa Peace Committee secretary Yui Hisashi pointed out that this action hints at the government’s intent to drum the “Yasukuni ideology” into SDF members’ heads so that they can willingly head into battlefields. He went on to stress that it is completely unacceptable for the Abe administration to legislate for the unconstitutional Cabinet decision that enables Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense.
Past related articles:
> SDF officials regularly visit ‘Yasukuni’ in Hokkaido [February 10, 2014]
> SDF top officials in uniform attend ceremony at ‘Yasukuni’ in Hokkaido [June 6, 2014]
