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Ex-PM Koizumi’s ’zero nuclear’ remarks causing a stir among lawmakers, gov’t officials
Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s call for a “zero nuclear” policy has been causing a stir among lawmakers and top government officials.
The opposition camp has been buoyed by Koizumi’s recent remarks calling for the government to phase out nuclear power generation. Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Tadatomo Yoshida held talks with Koizumi in Tokyo on Oct. 29. At the meeting, Yoshida and Koizumi agreed on the importance of eliminating the use of nuclear power. Koizumi, however, rejected the SDP’s call for him to ally with the opposition party in pushing for a nuclear phase-out. The ruling camp is poised to take a wait-and-see stance as it supports Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, which places a policy of maintaining nuclear power generation as a pillar of its growth strategy. Such being the case, Koizumi’s “zero nuclear” remarks have so far remained only as a “ripple.”
“The government can make a political decision toward a nuclear phase-out by changing public opinion,” Koizumi said during the meeting for about 45 minutes with Yoshida at a think tank, to which Koizumi himself serves as adviser. Koizumi vowed to continue to make remarks calling for Japan to eliminate the use of nuclear power.
According to Yoshida and SDP Secretary-General Seiji Mataichi, who was also present at the talks, Koizumi said, “I wonder if nuclear waste can be disposed of permanently in Japan, a major earthquake-prone country. It’s impossible to continue with nuclear power generation any longer.” Yoshida urged Koizumi to ally with his party, but Koizumi was quoted as telling him, “Each political party must make efforts consistently toward a nuclear phase-out.” Koizumi was also quoted as saying that he had “no intention of launching” a new political party aimed at realizing the elimination of nuclear power.
The talks between Koizumi and Yoshida were made possible after the former prime minister advocated a “zero nuclear” policy for the first time before TV cameras in a lecture in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, on Oct. 16, a day after the opening of an extraordinary Diet session. Following the remarks by Prime Minister Abe that Koizumi is his “political mentor,” the opposition camp built on the momentum to successively demand during Diet deliberations that the government adopt a “zero nuclear” policy. The opposition camp subsequently succeeded in creating a focus of confrontation with the ruling bloc by having Abe say, among other remarks, “I am responsible for pursuing a responsible energy policy as I am in the position of governing the country.”
Following the Koizumi-Yoshida talks, Your Party Secretary-General Keiichiro Asao said, “Members of the public will start thinking when information is relayed to them. I think the Abe administration’s judgment will change if public opinion changes.” Mitsuru Sakurai, policy chief of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), on the other hand, criticized Koizumi for his remarks, saying, “It is wrong to leave a nuclear phase-out to public opinion.” Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who also advocates a “zero nuclear” policy, simply said, “I think it is good for each one to act with their own ideas.”
Citing the process in which Koizumi accepted an offer from the SDP to hold talks, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga indicated at a news conference on Oct. 29, that the meeting should simply be taken at face value. Suga made it clear to hold the line against Koizumi by saying, “It is the government’s role to pursue a responsible energy policy.” Koizumi’s son Shinjiro, who is a parliamentary secretary in charge of post-disaster reconstruction, told reporters, “I can’t control such things as who my father meets.” But he went along with Suga over the issue of a zero-nuclear policy, saying, “My father is his own man, I am myself.”
Mainichi Shimbun, October 30, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131030p2a00m0na002000c.html
Ex-PM Koizumi defends antinuclear drive, seeks policy change
YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) — Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi defended his antinuclear stance on Sunday, urging the government to change its policy of restarting atomic power generation in the wake of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Koizumi brushed off criticism that he was “irresponsible” for calling on Japan to phase out nuclear power generation, saying in Yokohama that the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “should discuss how to introduce renewable energy that would substitute for atomic power.”
The former leader, who promoted nuclear power generation when he was in power, justified his change of attitude, saying, “People often change their minds.” As an example, he referred to the fact that Japan became an ally of the United States after World War II, even though the two countries were enemies during the war.
He said it would be impossible to build a permanent disposal site for spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste in Japan due to opposition from local residents.
Koizumi pointed out that a disposal site was not built even before the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
“If a strong leader emerges, can he or she achieve the construction of a site that can be used for 100,000 years by ignoring oppositon of local residents?” the former premier asked. “It would be optimistic and irresponsible to think that it is possible,” he said.
Koizumi is scheduled to speak about Japan’s energy policy at a press conference at the Japan National Press Club on Nov. 12.
Kyodo News, October 30, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131103p2g00m0dm085000c.html
Get Koizumi: Nuclear village goes on offensive
Since spring, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has become increasingly vocal in his opposition to nuclear power. Though he decided Japan should abandon atomic reactors after the Great East Japan Earthquake set in motion the Fukushima crisis, he was already retired from politics. The mass media paid no attention.
Then he sat for an interview with the Mainichi Shimbun in summer and described a trip he took to Europe, at his own initiative and in the company of several nuclear industry executives, to inspect the Onkalo nuclear-waste repository in Finland and the situation in Germany, which has moved away from atomic energy. Despite the presence of men whose job it was to convince him otherwise, he returned even more resolute in his belief that Japan must reject nuclear.
The response has been divided along predictably ideological lines. Politicians who are against the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s plan to reopen as many plants as possible are delighted to have the former president of the LDP on their side. Since Koizumi is one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s mentors it might be bad form to criticize him, but last week he called Koizumi’s idea “irresponsible” on TV Asahi.
The official party position seems to be to ignore him. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga remarked that like any citizen, Koizumi “can say anything he wants,” though Economic Revitalization Minister Akira Amari told reporters that Koizumi’s stance demonstrates that he’s not thinking about what he’s saying.
All this beating around the bush hardly mattered to the average person, but on Oct. 20 Koizumi gave a lecture in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, and invited TV cameras to record it. That night, every station showed clips of the speech and suddenly the ex-premier couldn’t be ignored, since the general public could see for itself that he is adamant in his opposition to nuclear energy, which he supported when he was a lawmaker. The speech itself was nothing special, but the fact that he was making it – and making a big deal of it – was.
Still, it wasn’t as notable as the letter Koizumi wrote earlier in response to a Yomiuri Shimbun editorial that slammed his position. Koizumi’s angry missive picked apart each complaint made by the paper, which backs the LDP’s plan to restart reactors. The Yomiuri called Koizumi’s belief in Japan’s ability to develop renewable energy “optimistic and irresponsible,” and reiterated all the arguments of the pro-nuclear camp – that nuclear is cleaner and cheaper; that thermal is bad for consumers and the environment.
Koizumi’s rebuttals were flimsy, but his main assertion – that Japan cannot maintain a nuclear-power industry if it has no place to put its waste – was attacked by the paper with sloppy logic. The Yomiuri dismissed Koizumi’s concern because the short-sightedness of not providing a nuclear waste repository “is the fault of politics,” of which he was at the center for many years. Koizumi has no right to complain about a situation he had a hand in creating.
In his famously casual way, Koizumi waved off the criticism by admitting he didn’t develop a plan for storing nuclear waste when he was prime minister, but that doesn’t mean “a person can’t correct himself.” In any event, the Yomiuri professes the same unfounded optimism it accuses Koizumi of advancing. The paper says the problem of finding a place to put nuclear waste will eventually be solved “by political means,” but there is no indication that anyone in Japan will ever allow the government to bury it in their backyard.
Political pundit Yoshiya Kobayashi, quoted by online news magazine Zakzak, was flabbergasted by the letter, saying that while Koizumi has firmly stated he has no intention of running for office again, he appears to be even more of a henjin (eccentric) than he was when he was a legislator. Koizumi is “pushing his opinion” even though he gains nothing personally from it. This is a first for Japan: a political figure who not only undergoes a change of mind in public, but tries to make a difference after giving up the political power to do so.
Koizumi’s public challenging of a major daily’s editorial position is something else no Japanese politician of his stature, retired or active, has done before, and the backlash was immediate. Isao Iijima, Koizumi’s closest aide for 35 years, wrote an article for the weekly Shukan Bunshun in which he implies his former boss never had an original idea in his life. Most politicians are facilitators, not idea men, and whatever you think of his pet privatization project, Koizumi was good at selling it, what with his knack for communicating policy in simple, down-to-earth language. Iijima’s article is transparently self-serving, since he now works for the LDP as a cabinet adviser. Like the Yomiuri, he believes that all the problems with nuclear power will be solved over time through “political efforts.”
What might be making the LDP nervous is not so much Koizumi’s activism but rather the effect it could have on his son, Shinjiro, the party’s rock star. Shinjiro is genuinely liked by the public, which is why he volunteered for the position of reconstruction minister, a job nobody else in the LDP would touch. Abe is in his debt, because people in the disaster-affected areas think that if the LDP is sending its most popular politician to Tohoku, it means the government is serious about rebuilding.
That places him in an awkward position, since the media wants to know his thoughts on his father’s genpatsu zero (no nukes) advocacy. An article in Yukan Fuji quoted him as saying that while he must follow the party line, he wants to hear what his father has to say.
Earlier, Mainichi reported that he had answered some journalists’ query about Koizumi Sr. with the observation that politics is a struggle between “the ideal and reality,” and no one wants a politician who “ignores people’s hopes and dreams.” Of course, many of his supporters hope that the nuclear reactors don’t reopen – but maybe it’s just a dream.
Philip Brasor, Japan Times, October 26, 2013
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/10/26/national/get-koizumi-nuclear-village-goes-on-offensive/#.UnL4mCdjbRY
600 march in business suits in central Tokyo to protest against nuke plants
An estimated 600 workers from different companies wearing business suits and ties took to the streets in central Tokyo on Oct. 30 to protest against nuclear power plants.
“No nuclear plants! Protect our children!” shouted participants including Michihiko Senda, 47, and his wife Rie, 45, during a 1.7-kilometer march in Tokyo’s Shimbashi district. The couple and two other people who met at anti-nuclear demonstrations and meetings organized the event. They called for participants on their website and Twitter account.
The group required participants to wear business suits to raise awareness of the nuclear energy policy among company employees who have important roles in the business world and to appeal to society.
Mainichi Shimbun, October 30, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131031p2a00m0na003000c.html
Human rights experts rap U.N. report on Fukushima radiation
NEW YORK — Human rights experts, including a U.N. special rapporteur, are criticizing a U.N. scientific report dismissing concerns about the effects of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the Japanese public.
Speaking Thursday at an event organized by U.S. and Japanese nongovernmental groups, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to health Anand Grover took issue with the report’s conclusion that “there is nothing to worry about” for members of the public exposed to radiation from Fukushima No. 1.
The report was prepared by the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.
The committee, which studied the levels and effects of radiation exposure caused by the nuclear disaster after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, found that for the general public, “no discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected.”
Grover, who visited Japan in November 2012 and compiled his own report on the situation from a human rights perspective, said the data on radioactive exposure is insufficient to rule out the possibility that low doses could have ill effects on health.
He also said that ensuring the participation of affected communities in decision-making is “one of the core obligations” of governments and that the public has a right to information.
Special rapporteurs are independent investigators tasked by the United Nations with investigating human rights issues and can only investigate a country if invited to do so by its government.
Mari Inoue, a representative of Tokyo-based Human Rights Now, meanwhile called for the UNSCEAR report to be revised.
She said the report should endorse evacuation from areas where exposure exceeds 1 millisievert of radiation per year, well below the Japanese government’s yardstick of 20 millisieverts per year.
It should also recommend continued study of contract workers exposed to radiation, increased community participation in the government response to the disaster, and recognition that it is too early to rule out future health effects for the exposed, Inoue said.
Also on Thursday, Human Rights Now released a statement signed by 64 community organizations in Japan calling for revisions to the report.
Kyodo News, October 25, 2013
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/10/25/national/human-rights-experts-rap-u-n-report-on-fukushima-radiation/#.UnLsGidjbRY
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