Political terrorism in Nagasaki
(From The Japan Times April 20 issue)

許せない政治テロ

    Seventeen years ago, Mr. Ito's predecessor Hitoshi Motojima was seriously injured after being shot by a rightist who was angered by the mayor's comments concerning the Emperor Showa's war responsibility.

    Such acts of terror against politicians are absolutely unpardonable. The coldblooded murder of Mr. Ito must be condemned as no less than an attack on democracy itself. It is also regrettable that the violent incident occurred in Nagasaki, a city that, having suffered an atomic bomb attack, has a particularly strong yearning for peace.

    The man who shot Mr. Ito is an acting head of a gang directly under the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest underground organization. Taking advantage of an unguarded moment when Mr. Ito had finished campaigning and was walking back to his office, the attacker approached the mayor from behind, drew a handgun and fired from close range. Two bullets pierced Mr. Ito's heart and lungs, inflicting fatal injury to him.

    The gangster was reportedly angry over his failure to receive compensation from the city for some minor damage that his car sustained in 2003 at a construction site. He complained to the city office more than 30 times, but his demands for compensation were rejected.

    The April 17 attack occurred at a time when an arson attack on the house of Mr. Koichi Kato, a former secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, is still vivid in our memory. On Aug. 15, 2006, the same day that then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Yasukuni Shrine, a rightist burned down Mr. Kato's house in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture. Prosecutors said that the rightist had decided to carry out the attack after reading a magazine article in which Mr. Kato criticized Mr. Koizumi's Yasukuni visits. Although some politicians and other people criticized the attack, the incident did not appreciably strengthen sentiment in Japanese society against political violence.

    Sadly, Mr. Koizumi himself waited 13 days before speaking out against the attack. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's initial statement on Mr. Ito's assassination, which only called for a strict investigation, was also disappointing.

    Mr. Ito was first elected mayor of Nagasaki in 1995, defeating Mr. Motojima, who was seeking a fifth term. Coincidentally, both were conservatives yet both were targeted.

    In December 1988, a time when the Showa Emperor was seriously ill, Mr. Motojima said in a city assembly session that he thought that the Emperor bore some war responsibility. The Emperor passed away the following month. On Jan. 18, 1990, a rightist angered by Mr. Motojima's statement shot the mayor in the back in front of City Hall, causing serious wounds to him.

    As Nagasaki mayor, Mr. Ito was active in the campaign against nuclear weapons. Every year on Aug. 9, the anniversary of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing, he read an annual peace declaration addressed to the world at a memorial service for the bomb victims.

    In last year's peace declaration, Mr. Ito called on the nuclear powers to humbly listen to the voices of atomic-bomb survivors and other peace-loving people, and to abolish nuclear weapons entirely. He also called on the Japanese government to maintain the Constitution's pacifist principle.

    In 1995, Mr. Ito, together with Mr. Takashi Hiraoka, then mayor of Hiroshima — the only other city to suffer an atomic bombing — told the International Court of Justice in The Hague that nuclear weapons were a clear violation of international law.

    He not only criticized the nuclear-weapon test by North Korea in October 2006, but also censured LDP policy chief Shoichi Nakagawa, who, following Pyongyang's test, called for Japan to hold discussions on arming itself with nuclear weapons. The death of Mr. Ito is a great blow for the campaign to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    It is not enough to simply carry out a thorough police investigation of this heinous crime. The shooting has highlighted how guns are readily available to members of Japanese underworld organizations. The government must further tighten gun-control measures and take steps to make it more difficult to smuggle in guns from abroad.

    Political terrorism was rampant in Japan during the early 1930s. But postwar Japan has also suffered many attacks on politicians, including the horrific Oct. 12, 1960, incident in which Japan Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma was stabbed to death by a 17-year-old rightist while giving a speech in Tokyo. To prevent Japan from slipping back into such dark days, every citizen must speak out against such violence.

The Japan Times Weekly: April 28, 2007
(C) All rights reserved

    政治テロは絶対に許してはいけない。伊藤市長の暗殺は民主主義に対する攻撃であり、平和を強く希求する被爆都市、長崎で起きたことは遺憾きわまりない。伊藤氏殺害の実行犯は、03年に長崎市内の工事現場で起きた自動車の自損事故について市に賠償を請求したが、当局の対応に強い不満を持っていたという。

    昨年8月15日には、加藤紘一自民党元幹事長の山形県の実家に右翼団体構成員が放火したことは記憶に新しい。事件が起きたのは、小泉純一郎前首相が靖国神社参拝を行った日で、犯人は、加藤氏が小泉氏の靖国参拝を批判したことで犯行を決意したという。

    残念なことに、小泉氏が放火事件を非難したのは、13日後のことだった。また、安倍晋三首相は、伊藤市長の暗殺について、厳正な捜査と真相の究明を求めただけだった。

    伊藤市長は、核兵器廃絶運動を積極的に推進し、8月9日の被爆日に毎年開かれる平和祈念式典では、世界に向け平和宣言を読み上げていた。

    昨年10月、伊藤氏は北朝鮮が行った核実験を非難し、その後、日本の核武装の可能性についての議論を求めた中川昭一・自民党政調会長の提案を批判した。伊藤氏の死去は、核廃絶運動への大きな打撃である。

    事件の徹底的究明だけでは十分ではない。政府は銃の規制と密輸取り締まりを強化せねばならない。また、国民は一致して、政治テロを許さないという強い決意を示さねばならない。