Japan Press Weekly

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2011 July 13 - 19 [JCP]

JCP 89th anniv. amidst disaster recovery and N-crisis

(excerpts)

The Japanese Communist Party on July 15 celebrated the 89th anniversary of its founding with continuing efforts to help recover from the disaster in Japan’s northeastern region and bring under control the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

JCP’s disaster recovery efforts

As the JCP has been devoting itself to reduce people’s hardships since its founding in 1922, the party is proactively engaging in the recovery efforts inside and outside the 3/11 disaster-hit region. It continues to press authorities to ensure reconstruction of victims’ lives and businesses and demand that the government shift its energy policy from nuclear power generation to renewable energy sources.

The JCP has so far collected more than 670 million yen in relief donations and sent about 6,000 volunteer staff to every affected area. Already 82 municipalities, 22 agricultural cooperatives, and 46 fishery cooperative associations have received the JCP relief donations. Meeting devastated areas’ demands and listening to sufferers’ needs, the JCP volunteers are working hard in delivering necessities to them.

JCP’s ‘founding spirit’

The Great Kanto Earthquake hit Japan in 1923, a year after the JCP founding. The party activities at that time were outlawed because it opposed Japan’s war of invasion as well as the tyranny of the Imperial regime. Together with many union activists, JCP members who were able to escape the suppression dedicated all their strength to assist people, though some of them were killed by the police or the military in the middle of their relief efforts.

Ten years later, a major tsunami struck the same area as the latest one. The JCP in its organ paper “Sekki (currently called Akahata)” called on all members to take part in rescue and relief operations. They greatly contributed to the relief of the sufferers, in particular by providing medical support to them. Again, the Imperial government resorted to a crackdown against JCP members.

In 1945, after WWII ended, the party was reconstructed as a legal party.

The post-war rule of Liberal Democratic Party had promoted the construction of nuclear power stations according to what the United States advised the LDP to do. Today, the Democratic Party of Japan had assumed the governing position, but nothing has changed.

The JCP, on the occasion of its founding anniversary, makes a renewed commitment to stick to the “founding spirit” to work hard to reduce the hardships of the people.