Yasukuni enshrines Class-A war criminals from Pacific War

PM Takaichi makes offerings, donates offering fees

A wooden nameplate bearing the name of Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae is displayed on the first day of the autumn festival at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Saturday. [AFP]
A wooden nameplate bearing the name of Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae is displayed on the first day of the autumn festival at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Saturday. [AFP]

North Korea on Tuesday lashed out at Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae's ritual offerings to Yasukuni Shrine and the mass visits by Japanese politicians, calling the acts a "disgraceful display that summons the ghost of militarism."

A spokesperson for North Korea's Association of Victims of Japanese Forced Mobilization and Their Bereaved Families issued a statement titled "Japanese politicians' visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which summon the ghost of militarism, can never be tolerated," according to Yonhap, citing KCNA.

The spokesperson said Japan's right-wing conservative politicians had "once again staged the farce of making offerings and paying visits to Yasukuni Shrine on the occasion of the autumn grand festival."

The spokesperson condemned the visits as "a wholesale denial of the blood-stained history of past aggression," adding that they represented "an extremely dangerous manifestation of militarist fanaticism aimed at inciting revanchism in Japanese society and realizing the hollow dream of a 'Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere' — something that cannot be justified by any excuse or pretext."

The spokesperson further argued that what "cannot be overlooked" is that Japan's reactionaries have "brazenly discarded the signboards they long held up as symbols of a so-called 'peace state' — such as the exclusively defense-oriented policy, the three principles on arms exports and the three non-nuclear principles — and are now charging headlong toward the revival of a war state, even going so far as to talk about 'creating an environment in which the prime minister can visit Yasukuni Shrine,' driving the storm of neo-militarism ever more fiercely."

The spokesperson urged Japanese politicians to "bear in mind that the only thing to be gained from their collective visits is the fate of a second Tojo Hideki," and called on them to "come before the international community, which desires justice and peace, with a correct attitude toward history and sincere apology and reparations for their crimes against humanity."

Takaichi made successive offerings and donated offering fees to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo — which enshrines Class-A war criminals from the Pacific War — on Saturday and Monday. A number of cabinet ministers and politicians also visited the shrine in quick succession.


eyre@heraldcorp.com