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Japanese PM visits Tokyo war shrine
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-17 09:29
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi prayed at a Tokyo shrine honoring
the country's war dead on Monday, defying critics who say the visits glorify
militarism and risking a further deterioration in relations with China and South
Korea.
The visit was Koizumi's fifth to the Yasukuni Shrine since becoming prime
minister in April 2001, and came despite a recent court decision that ruled the
visits violate Japan's constitutional division of religion and the state.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
arrives at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo Monday, Oct. 17,
2005.[AP] | Koizumi last went to Yasukuni in
January 2004, triggering protests by Beijing and Seoul and compounding tensions
between Tokyo and its neighbors. Those tensions peaked in April with
anti-Japanese riots in several Chinese cities.
The international implications of the visit were immediately apparent. South
Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon summoned Japanese Ambassador Shotaro Oshima
to protest shortly after the visit. Kyodo News agency reported that the Japanese
Embassy in Beijing had issued a warning urging Japanese citizens to be cautious.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pays
homage at the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo October 17,
2005.[Reuters] | Japan's 2.5 million war dead are worshipped as deities at Yasukuni, a shrine
belonging to Japan's native Shinto religion. They include executed war criminals
from World War II, such as wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. The shrine also
runs a museum that attempts to justify Japan's wartime aggression.
In what could be a nod to the constitutional dispute, however, Koizumi made
the visit in a business suit rather than traditional Japanese dress, and he only
stood in silence and bowed at the entrance to the shrine, throwing coins into a
donation box, rather than entering the inner chamber as he has done in the past.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
smiles prior to a meeting at his official residence at his official
residence in Tokyo on Friday October 14, 2005, just after the upper house
approved the privatization of the country's postal service, setting in
motion the creation of the world's largest private
bank.[AP] | Speculation has been high all year
that Koizumi would visit Yasukuni, but he had not said whether he would go until
an announcement early Monday. The visits are popular among conservatives and the
families of soldiers who died in World War II.
"If my children were dead and enshrined here, I would want him to make a
visit. So I understand the prime minister's feelings," said Kyoko Matsuura, a
housewife in her 40s who was in a crowd at the shrine. "I think he comes here
with a commitment not to repeat a war."
Public opinion, however, is deeply split over the visits. Nippon Television
conducted a poll over the weekend showing that 47.6 percent of respondents
supported the visits, while 45.5 percent were opposed. NTV surveyed 479 people
from Friday to Sunday, and provided no margin of error.
Koizumi's move also defied a recent ruling by the Osaka High Court that the
visits violated the constitutional division between religion and the state.
Koizumi suggests the visits are personal, but as in past occasions, he went to
Yasukuni on Monday in an official car, accompanied by his aides.
But several other rulings have avoided ruling on the constitutionality of the
visits.
Yasukuni officials said a group of more than 100 national lawmakers are
scheduled to visit the shrine Tuesday morning.
The visits have enraged Japanese neighbors and worsened relations with South
Korea and China, which suffered from Tokyo's conquest of East Asia in the first
half of the 20th century.
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