Japan Press Weekly

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2012 March 28 - April 3 [TOKYO]

DPJ goes against its own manifesto and approves fish market move

The Democratic Party of Japan in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly on March 29 agreed upon the budget earmarked for the plan to move Tokyo’s fish market from the present location to a contaminated former factory site, again abandoning the party’s election manifesto.

Japanese Communist Party assemblymember Kachi Kayoko criticized the DPJ for “seriously betraying the voters’ trust.”

A middleman at the Tsukiji wholesale fish market angrily said, “It is absolutely a betrayal and is very upsetting to me.”

The proposed relocation site is at the previous location of a Tokyo Gas factory. The soil there contains toxic amounts of cyanide, arsenide, mercury, and benzene at levels up to 43,000 times higher than the permissible environmental standards. In the wake of the 3.11 disaster last year, soil liquefaction occurred at 108 locations in the site.

The DPJ, in its manifesto published at the time of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election in 2009, opposed the transfer of the fish market promoted by Tokyo Governor Ichihara Shintaro. The party even kicked off its election campaign near the fish market with the DPJ head at that time, Hatoyama Yukio, shouting, “To have our party in power will be the only way to stop the market relocation.”

Chairman of a labor union at the Tokyo fish market, Hanekawa Makoto said, “I’m astounded at the DPJ having approved the budget to proceed with the plan to move the Tsukiji fish market. The party broke its promise made to Tokyoites, fish wholesalers, and market workers. Shame on them!”