Sanae Dakaichi, the newly appointed Minister of General Affairs of Japan announced in a statement on the 5th that Japan will continue to host worships at the Yasukuni Shrine, reports Yonhap News. Often referred to as the “War Criminals Shrine” by Koreans and other non-Japanese, the statement has stirred a considerable amount of controversy within Korea and other countries that have historically fought against Japan during the Second World War.
In an interview with Kyodo, Minister Dakaichi stated that so far she has participated in such worships and pilgrimages to the Yasukuni shrine and she wishes to continue to pay her respects to the spirits of the Japanese who died during World War II. The minister was known to have gone on a pilgrimage to the highly controversial temple on August 15th, which is “Liberation Day”, the equivalent of Independence Day for Korea, but also celebrated in Japan as the day the war ended.
The Yasukuni Shrine is a religious site that is said to hold the souls of Japanese veterans that fought in the World War II as heroes and veterans. When Shinzo Abe, the current Prime Minister of Japan announced that he will be recommencing pilgrimages and worships at this site, the statement and the following actions caused uproar in Korea, for Korea at the time of the war was a Japanese colony from which Japan acquired most of the resources, both material and human, that it required to wage war with China and later the United States.
Even President Obama expressed great disappointment at Prime Minister Shinzo and Japan’s attitude regarding this history. Chinese and Koreans also expressed frustration at the fact that both Japan’s leaders and citizens are so gratefully paying homage to those that inflicted great pain upon their ancestors and calling such actions “patriotism”.
Historically during the 1930s to the 1940s, the Japanese military committed a considerable amount of war crimes during the Second World War that many still remember today. During the invasion of China, Japanese ground forces massacred thousands of Chinese civilians in the incident remembered today as the “Rape of Nanking”.
The Japanese military also forced thousands of Korean, Chinese and Southeast Asian women to serve their soldiers as sexual slaves all over Asia wherever Japan was fighting. The White House, after holding a conference with two of these “comfort women” as they were referred to, that this was a definite violation of human rights by the Japanese.
Mister Kakaichi’s statement is causing some controversy even among some Japanese politicians. Before being appointed Minster of General Affairs, Kakaichi was serving as a leading member of Japan’s Liberal Democracy Party, which is openly critical of the Abe administration’s policies regarding history and the Yasukuni worships. Even while serving the party, Kakaichi was believed to have actively participated in pilgrimages to the shrine.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democracy Party insiders have expressed heavy criticism regarding the Abe administration and suggested that now it is time for Japan to make things right, especially concerning their war crimes such as the use of “comfort women”.
