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Gov't in 1950s proposed Yasukuni honor war criminals
TOKYO, March 28 KYODO
The Japanese government was closely involved in discussions regarding whom
Yasukuni Shrine should honor, proposing in discussions since around 1958 that
Yasukuni Shrine honor World War II criminals, a book released by the National
Diet Library on Wednesday suggests.
The book with the English title ''A New Compilation of Materials on the
Yasukuni Shrine Problems'' contains 808 items, including nearly 180 documents
that the Shinto shrine in Tokyo disclosed in July last year for the first time
at the request of the library.
Some of the 808 items are minutes of meetings between the government and
Yasukuni on the shrine's honoring of war criminals. It is the first time such
records have been made public.
A document dated April 9, 1958, suggested the then Health and Welfare
Ministry urged Yasukuni to honor Class-B and C war criminals, with one official
saying, ''How about enshrining them in a way that would be hard to discover?''
Another dated April 4, 1959, showed the ministry asked the shrine ''not to
make public'' the shrine's honoring of Class-B and C war criminals, apparently
due to political sensitivities surrounding the separation of state and religion.
A Jan. 31, 1969, document also showed Yasukuni, which enshrines the war
dead, gave a green light to the idea of its enshrining Class-A war criminals
nine years before it actually did so in 1978.
The document suggested a group of lists were presented at a meeting of
officials from the shrine and the ministry.
The lists name people who could potentially be enshrined at Yasukuni and
indicate that the shrine and the ministry shared the view that ''Class-A'' war
criminals are ''able to be honored.''
The Japanese government has said it is ''not aware'' of how the shrine
ended up honoring the Class-A war criminals.
Yoji Kakihara of the Social Welfare and War Victims' Relief Bureau of the
Ministry of Labor, Health and Welfare, declined to go into details about the
book, simply saying that successive governments have ''adhered to the principle
of separation of state and religion in a consistent manner.''
Yasukuni, for its part, said it believes the materials will help people
understand not only matters related to its honoring people but the links
between the state and the shrine in the period between the war and Japan's
regaining of its independence.
The issues of government involvement in Yasukuni's honoring of war
criminals and Japanese leaders' visits to the shrine have been a source of
diplomatic disputes, mainly with other Asian countries such as China and South
Korea.
Included in the 1,200-page packet are 15 documents related to the policy
on Yasukuni of the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces, which ruled early
postwar Japan. These documents were collected by William Woodard, a GHQ
researcher on Yasukuni, and were obtained by the library through the
cooperation of the University of Oregon.
The publication of the collection follows that of a previous collection
issued in May 1976.
The library has recently received a growing number of inquiries from
lawmakers about Yasukuni, reflecting the often heated debate over the future of
the war-related shrine, it said.
Influential lawmakers have proposed putting the shrine under state control
or building a secular national memorial to enable everyone, including the prime
minister and the emperor, to lay flowers, particularly since former Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni angered some other countries,
notably China and South Korea.
Given the circumstances, the library said it started the research last
year and gathered 808 documents in total.
It has printed 1,800 copies of the packet, which is not for sale, for
distribution to lawmakers, administrative and judicial bodies, press and other
public organizations.
==Kyodo
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