Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2013 March 13 - 19 [POLITICS]

JCP calls for halt to ceremony to commemorate ‘Japan’s restoration of sovereignty’

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on March 14 expressed his opposition to the Abe Cabinet’s decision to hold a ceremony to commemorate “Japan’s restoration of its sovereignty” on April 28, the day when the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty came into effect, saying that it is a ploy “to smooth the path for constitutional revision.”

Behind this move lies Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s recognition, Shii pointed out, that the Japanese Constitution, established before the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, was forcibly imposed on the country by the occupation forces and thus should be drastically revised.

At the March 15 Lower House committee meeting on foreign affairs, JCP representative Kasai Akira demanded a cancellation of the ceremony, pointing out that the San Francisco Peace Treaty put Japan under the subordination to the United States.

Kasai criticized Abe for stating that the treaty “led to the return of Okinawa to Japan” at a Lower House budget committee meeting on March 11.

He stressed that for Okinawans April 28 is “The Day of Humiliation,” when they were abandoned and separated from mainland Japan so that the U.S. continued its forcible seizure of their land and violation of their human rights.

Past related article:
> April 28 is anniversary when Japan’s sovereignty was restored: PM Abe (March 12, 2013)