Japan Press Weekly

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2011 August 3 - 16 [JCP]

JCP issues statement on 66th anniversary of WWII’s end

On the 66th anniversary of the end of World War II, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi issued the following statement:

In marking the 66th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Japanese Communist Party offers its sincere condolences to the war’s victims at home and abroad. The JCP renews its determination that “never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government” (from the Constitution of Japan) and resolves to further strengthen solidarity and friendship with peoples of Asia and the rest of the world.

We commemorate this anniversary in the midst of unprecedented hardships in the post war era caused by the Great East Japan Disaster and the nuclear crisis at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The JCP again expresses heartfelt sympathies to the disaster victims, those who lost their homes and jobs, and those who have been forced to evacuate from radioactive contaminated areas as well as people in primary industries who are seriously affected by radioactive contamination, including damaged inflicted by rumor.

Just after the war, with many cities burnt to the ground, the Japanese people hoped to build a peaceful and affluent new Japanese society. With this hope in mind, the people struggled together hand in hand for postwar reconstruction while facing various difficulties.

The March 11 disaster has completely changed the life of many people, especially those living in the Pacific coastal areas in East Japan. People across Japan have been providing emotional and material support to the victims. They are obviously facing a rocky road ahead. However, the JCP believes that through national efforts for relief and aid, it is possible to reconstruct local communities in which people can form even stronger and closer bonds than before the disaster.

The Fukushima accident has highlighted the inescapable danger associated with the very existence of nuclear power plants which are located throughout Japan, a nation probe to severe seismic activity. Once nuclear meltdowns occur, we are unable to bring them under control and serious effects of the accident spreads without limitation in space or time, as we are witnessing now.

Unlike natural disasters, nuclear disasters are human-caused disasters like wars. That is why humankind can prevent them from happening in the first place. In order to defend livelihoods and businesses which have prospered thanks to people’s hard efforts during post war era, we should withdraw from nuclear power generation without delay. In order to protect people from radiation contamination, it is our urgent task to achieve a Japanese society without nuclear power plants, have the government brake away from its nuclear deterrence policy, and simultaneously create a world without nuclear weapons.

The JCP is determined to make the utmost effort to establish a government that works to relieve hardships and puts importance on people’s lives and livelihoods.