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2016 October 26 - November 1 [POLITICS]

Agriculture Minister at one time signed anti-TPP petition

Akahata on October 26 learned that Agriculture Minister Yamamoto Yuzi, who recently implied supporting a “steamroll vote” on a bill to give Diet approval to the TPP trade pact, had once signed a petition opposing Japan’s entry into the controversial multilateral free-trade agreement.

This was in mid-November 2015 at a farmers’ festival held in Yamamoto’s constituency in Kochi Prefecture. At the festival which was hosted by a local Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA), local groups of the Democratic Commerce and Industry Organization (Minsho) and the All-Japan Federation of Farmers’ Unions were collecting signatures together with the festival organizer, demanding a retraction of what Japan agreed upon in the TPP talks.

Yamamoto came to the festival to participate in the annual “rice-cake throwing” event and stopped by a signature booth for farming-related petitions. According to Akahata, he said, “I’m opposed to the pact at this stage. So I will sign the petition.”

The petition demands that Japan retract the agreement made in the TPP negotiations in disregard of a Diet resolution and refrain from either signing or ratifying the pact. The petition furthermore demands that written materials and details of the agreement be swiftly disclosed in order to ensure national discussions on the matter.

Nishimori Katsuki, secretary general of the local Minsho, was the person who asked the Minister to sign the petition. Nishimori said, “The Minister wrote down his name after carefully reading the items listed on the petition. As he is now in charge of Japan’s agricultural affairs, he should stand up for farmers by withdrawing from the ‘agreement’ and not ratifying the TPP accord.”

Past related articles:
> Agriculture Minister’s ‘forcible passage of TPP’ remark denies Diet role [October 20, 2016]
> 4 opposition parties agree to force Agriculture Minister to resign [October 21, 2016]