Pyongyang, October 20 (KCNA) — A spokesman for the Association of Korean Victims of Forcible Drafting and Their Bereaved Families on Oct. 20 released the following press statement “Japanese politicians’ tribute to Yasukuni Shrine to revive souls of militarists should never be tolerated”:
Shortly ago, right-wing conservative politicians of Japan made offerings and visits to the Yasukuni Shrine again, occasioned by the autumn ancestral rite day.
The current chief executive of Japan made offerings to the shrine two times on the occasion of the April spring ancestral rite day. And on the day of Japan’s defeat, she made a bow toward the shrine on her way to the venue for a national memorial service for the war dead. She again made an offering to the shrine during the autumn ritual period.
Meanwhile, about 70 dietmen belonging to the Association of Dietmen for Visiting “Yasukuni Shrine” flocked to the shrine, led by cabinet members, to pay tribute to the late militarists buried at the shrine and prayed for their souls’ revival.
This constitutes Japan’s categorical denial of its past blood-stained history of aggression and a manifestation of its lunatic militarism, a dangerous attempt to realize the daydream about the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” at any cost by inciting revanchism through society. No excuse or pretext can justify this.
The international community has opposed the Japanese politicians’ tribute to the shrine and taken it seriously for decades, but the ruling politicians of Japan have persistently paid tribute to the shrine on every occasion to spread venomous militarism throughout Japan.
Visitors to the shrine pray for repose of the dead war maniacs and human butchers, punished by history for the hideous massacres they had committed by spearheading the invasions of other nations in the last century, and even praise them as “gods who brought comfort to the country” and “heroes”. So its existence is just a serious matter.
What should not be overlooked is the fact that the Japanese reactionaries work hard to turn Japan into a war-capable nation after throwing away such signboards, so far put up as symbols of a “pacifist nation,” as “exclusive defense”, “three principles of arms export” and “three non-nuclear principles”, and even talk about “creation of an environment for realizing the prime minister’s tribute to the Yasukuni Shrine” to fan up the flames of neo-militarism.
The present chief executive of Japan is so impudent that she told the Diet there was no reason for her to reflect on the past crimes as she does not belong to the generation directly responsible for them. This shows her true colors as a descendant of militarism.
Now that an ultra-right politician, armed with militarism to her marrow of bone, has taken power, other politicians do not feel guilty about the past crimes but visit the Yasukuni Shrine to praise the war criminals as “patriots” who laid down their precious lives for the peace and prosperity of Japan and swear revenge for Japan’s defeat. And they regard it as a “demonstration of their existence”. This is the political climate of Japan.
Far from redeeming the sinful past, the Japanese politicians ceaselessly visit the Yasukuni Shrine dedicated to the top class war criminals, who inflicted untold misfortune and sufferings on the Korean people and other Asian peoples in the last century, and those killed on battlefields of aggressive war. This is an intolerable mockery of and insult to the victims of the Japanese imperialists’ wars of aggression and their bereaved families and an unpardonable challenge to international justice and peace.
We cannot repress our surging indignation against the reckless moves of the Japanese authorities that continue rubbing salt into the unhealed wounds of the victims by distorting the history of aggression and insulting them, far from feeling guilty about the atrocities of the Japanese imperialist brutes and reflecting on them. And on behalf of all the victims and their bereaved families, we vehemently denounce the authorities.
The Japanese politicians should show the international community, desirous of justice and peace, their correct attitude towards history and make sincere apology and reparation for the thrice-cursed crimes, mindful that they would get nothing but the fate of Tojo for their group visits to the shrine. -0-
