Suzuki Muneo.

Suzuki Muneo is straight-talking, a man’s man. He has spent his career in the Diet in Tokyo and has rubbed elbows with–and rubbed the wrong way–just about every powerful person in Japanese politics over the past forty years. The two descriptions are mutually reinforcing. Suzuki uses power; he doesn’t worship it. He remains as much an outsider now–a Hokkaido patriot in the political maze of Nagatacho–as when he entered the political road in 1983.

Suzuki is unpopular now, as ever, because he refuses to follow the political herd on, above all, the question of Russia. Suzuki, whose home island is Russia’s backyard neighbor, maintains close ties with Russia. This brings benefits to Suzuki’s constituents, but it also wins him few friends in the Japanese political world, or in the media.

In this, our second long interview with Suzuki (first interview here), we ask him about his most recent visit to Russia, and about the future of Japan. Suzuki sees many possibilities for Japan with Russia, but laments that there is no one in power now who can turn those possibilities into reality.

Interview and text by Jason Morgan and Kenji Yoshida.

Kenji Yoshida and Jason Morgan (K&J): How was your visit to Russia?

Suzuki Muneo (SM): It’s been ten months since my last visit to Russia in October of 2023. Moscow is peaceful and orderly. The people of Moscow are out until late at night, strolling through the city. Restaurants are filled with customers. Department stores and other shops are fully stocked with goods. There is plenty of fruit for sale. Plenty of fish and meat.

Not far from this unhurried Moscow scene a war is unfolding, but one would never know it from inside the city. In this, I felt the strength and stability of Russia.

K&J: The West repeatedly imposes sanctions on other countries. In the case of Russia, the West imposed sanctions in response to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and tried to destroy the ruble. Those sanctions, though, appear to have had the opposite effect.

SM: Russia initiated its special military operation in February of 2022. In May of that year, President Biden imposed sanctions on Russia. Biden said that sanctions would lead Russia to give up within two months. Was President Biden correct in this pronouncement?

It’s been nearly two and a half years since then. In 2023, Russia’s economy exhibited a growth rate of 3.6%. The growth rate for this year is forecast to be 5%. Russia is the world’s biggest energy superpower. It was underestimated by the West, but it has proven to be a strong country. The West, including the G7 countries, made a mistaken assessment of Russia in this regard. Responsibility for this misreading falls heavily also on NATO.

The special military operation started February 24, 2022. In March [of 2022], Ukraine came forward with a peace proposal. On April 15, 2022, Russia was prepared to sign Ukraine’s peace proposal. However, it was Ukraine that then withdrew the proposal. The backdrop to this, we are told, is that then-UK prime minister Boris Johnson interjected himself into the proceedings and pressured Ukraine not to sign any peace deal with Russia.

I think this was a terrible mistake. The United States was apparently also involved. In the Ukraine situation, too, the tendency of the Anglo-Saxons to use force to get their way proved to be a mistake. The war could have been over. An armistice was within reach. But England and America sent everything in the opposite direction.

K&J: For more than a hundred years, the Anglo-Saxons have been using force of arms to impose their will on the world. They seem to believe that they are qualified to rule in this way. It’s arrogant.

SM: In the Ukraine war, Russia seems to have understood the nature of Anglo-Saxon power and decided to have a showdown with the UK-American way of rule. Looking at Russia’s recent alliance with North Korea and also its collaboration with China, India, and other countries, it seems as though Russia is trying, not just to deal with the Anglo-Saxons, but to end their rule. Russia seems to be not passively accepting the Anglo-Saxons’ way but trying to put an end to it.

I am thinking back to the Crimea incident ten years ago. At that time, the president was Barack Obama. Obama was saying that America was no longer the world’s policeman and no longer the world’s financial backer. He took a step back from the world’s affairs.

I think he was correct in his assessment. America had been the world’s leader in everything, but Obama was saying that the United States would no longer be involved militarily in every part of the world, and would no longer be throwing money around everywhere in the globe. Obama was forthright and upfront about this.

And yet, Biden has urged Ukraine to fight on, promising to send weapons and cash. Why?

It has been ten years since Obama said that America was no longer the world’s sole superpower. Biden seems to be operating under the impression that the United States remains the world’s champion nation. Biden has dropped out of the presidential race. But for three years now, I have been thinking that his mental faculties are off. Hence, the mistaken approach to Ukraine.

K&J: Is it only Biden? Biden is surrounded by neocons, and Washington itself has the same outlook as Biden.

SM: Yes, it’s true.

America and England are one thing, but France and Germany have their own reasons separate from the former two countries. And yet, France and Germany were pulled into the present war. I think this way of doing things is behind the times. I have some doubts whether France and Germany can see what is ahead.

The Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down. Germany was reunited. The Soviet Union collapsed and we now have Russia. History changed completely.

President George H.W. Bush told the world that NATO would expand no further east than the reunited Germany. Then-Secretary of State James A. Baker wrote as much in his book. Chancellor Helmut Kohl told Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO’s eastward expansion ended with the reunified Germany. Baker went so far as to say that he would not allow NATO to expand by a single inch. Gorbachev believed these statements and dismantled the Warsaw Pact arrangement.

NATO repeatedly said, year after year, that it would cut its presence. But the opposite happened. NATO expanded. It was Russia that took history as fact and faced the facts squarely. The West relied on sidestepping and deception. The West spoke of liberalism, solidarity. But behind the scenes it was plotting to weaken Russia. I don’t think this was fair.

K&J: Could it be that Obama laid a trap by appearing to retreat from the world’s stage?

SM: I think Obama made an honest and accurate assessment of America’s economic position at the time. America commanded a quarter of the world’s economic might. Today, that figure has gone down to less than ten percent.

I think Japan is making a mistake on this point. Japan is one of the G7 countries. When the G7 got underway, those seven countries accounted for some eighty percent of the global economy. Now, unfortunately, it’s forty percent.

K&J: BRICS has overtaken the G7 it seems.

SM: Yes. When you expand the G7 to take in the G20, the latter includes Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Kazakhstan [occasional guest at G20 summits], Argentina, Turkiye, and so forth. Now, the G20 accounts for eighty percent of the global economy.

The BRICS countries are in control of eighty percent of the world’s energy. Russia, Iran as of last year, Saudi Arabia, UAE–the world is moving to be carbon neutral by 2050 as part of the response to climate change, but for the next twenty-six years we will have no choice but to remain reliant on fossil fuels. Of the fossil fuels, natural gas is particularly important. The most abundant source of natural gas, and oil must also be included here, is Russia. It is essential to look at these facts dispassionately.

Russia is a superior country and is recognized as such worldwide. It is the world’s most important country in terms of energy resources, and also has a formidable might apart from this as well. Russia’s supremacy in energy resources is unwavering in the face of Western sanctions. I find it baffling in the extreme why the G7 and NATO countries do not comprehend this.

K&J: It seems there are many possibilities for Japan in a relationship with Russia. You have just visited Russia and seen for yourself. Are other Japanese politicians unaware of the possibilities that could be realized in dealing with Russia? Japan remains attached at the hip with the United States. Is this a sustainable arrangement?

SM: If America were as powerful today as it was thirty or forty years ago, then it would be understandable for Japan to be pulled this way and that by the United States. But now, even America is saying that America cannot remain the world’s sole superpower, that we have to take the rest of the world into account.

Ten years ago, Obama told then-prime minister Abe Shinzo that the United States would impose sanctions on Russia over Crimea. Obama asked Japan to cooperate. But Abe told Obama, clearly, “No.”

I heard this from Prime Minister Abe directly. He told Obama, “Japan and Russia are neighbors. There are issues between Japan and Russia that must be resolved. A peace treaty must be signed. The Northern Territories. Japan cannot survive if it takes the same position and adopts the same values as the United States. So, I will make an independent decision, for Japan.”

Abe said this straight out. He was correct in what he said. Obama, I am told, hung up on him.

The Foreign Ministry bureaucrats in Japan told Abe that President Obama would not attend the Ise Shima Summit that was being planned for the next year, 2015. The bureaucrats said that Obama also wouldn’t attend the Hiroshima peace memorial event to which he had been invited. The bureaucrats took a pessimistic view. But Obama came to the Ise Shima Summit.

[He also came to Hiroshima in 2016.]

This was proof that, at that time, a national leader with resolution and patriotism, and who had the mind of the people at heart, could expect to be understood. So I cannot understand, at all, why Prime Minister Kishida Fumio cannot do the same with President Biden. [As of September 27, 2024, Ishiba Shigeru is the new prime minister of Japan].

K&J: Russia’s relationship with North Korea has strengthened considerably as of late. The Japanese government has long entrusted to Washington the resolution of the abductions issue, wherein North Korean agents abducted Japanese civilians. But Russia’s influence over North Korea is, presumably, now considerable. What is the possibility that, if Japan were to ask Russia to intervene with Kim Jong Un and ask him concretely what his demands would be in exchange for allowing the abduction victims to return home, Russia would respond favorably?

SM: North Korea is a neighboring country, and is also a member of the United Nations. In light of these facts, it is highly unusual that Japan and North Korea have no diplomatic relations. Japan and North Korea ought to normalize relations immediately. Talks [between North Korea and Japan] must start with this.

Japan must not impose conditions before entering into talks, such as by insisting that North Korea acknowledge that it abducted Japanese citizens, or by declaring that the resolution of the abduction issue will take priority. The abduction issue is one to discuss after a summit meeting has been achieved and trust has been built.

No summit meeting is scheduled yet. Before we even get to that point, Japan’s imposing conditions will serve only to antagonize the other party. Japan will obtain nothing by doing so.

When Koizumi Junichiro was prime minister, he visited North Korea. The leader of North Korea at that time was Kim Jong Il, who admitted, before the world, to the abduction of Japanese citizens and apologized.

I think that this was an opportunity to make a fresh start. But Japan squandered this opportunity because the government, swayed by public opinion, advanced an intractable position. The Stockholm Agreement [of May 2014, in which North Korea promised to conduct investigations into the abductions issue] is one thing, but when Koizumi and Kim sat down together [in Pyongyang in 2002], they spoke with one another without any expectations. I think this was extremely important in building a relationship of mutual trust.

The six-party talks [started in 2003 and addressing security concerns in Northeast Asia, especially regarding North Korea] were underway around the time [North Korea and Japan were discussing the abduction issue]. The first chair country of the talks was Russia. The head of the Russian delegation was Alexander Losyukov [then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs]. Losyukov was a diplomat I knew very well. I thought it would have been a good idea to ask Losyukov [to help broker talks over the abduction issue]. Russia and North Korea have, historically, a close relationship. Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un, used to be a soldier in the Soviet Red Army. Because of these good connections, I still think it would be good to have Russia help [with the abduction issue]. It would have been good at the time, too.

But then the Americans got involved, then South Korea, and then China. There were too many parties involved, and the talks broke down.

Still, though, the only one that can broker and advise on this is Russia. Former prime minister Abe understood my views on this and accepted them. Abe was strongly determined to resolve [the abduction issue] without asking [the United States], but now it’s become such that Japan can do nothing without asking the United States. Therefore, there is no progress made at all.

K&J: Was that not the point of the six-party talks from Washington’s perspective? Far from wanting to resolve the abduction issue, it seems, even now, that Washington’s objective is to draw the problem out for political advantage.

SM: I think that the abduction issue, at the most fundamental level, can be resolved only bilaterally, only between Japan and North Korea. And how to bring about that bilateral engagement is to ask Russia to help [open channels of communication]. That is the only way. But the talks were put at the mercy of the United States in many ways, and things went awry.

Next year will mark eighty years since the end of the Second World War. I think this should mark a turning point on a number of issues, such as for example, concluding a peace treaty with Russia. I think we’re also approaching the last opportunity to resolve the abduction issue.

One often hears in Japan that it was the Soviet Union that unilaterally reneged on the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact [in 1945]. But it was the Americans who incited the Soviets to do this at the Yalta Conference. President Franklin Roosevelt told Soviet leader Josef Stalin that Germany would surrender in May, and that the Soviet Union should attack Japan two or three months later. Stalin took very serious stock of the situation and made his move after the American atomic bombings of Japan.

Taking an objective view of history, I came to the conclusion that when Japan follows the United States Japan’s legs are swept out from under her.

K&J: I find it very difficult to understand why Nagatacho should still trust a Washington which has thus proven itself devious time and again.

SM: The current American ambassador to Japan is Rahm Emanuel. He is butting into the moral values and historical sensibilities of the Japanese people. This is unprecedented. I am worried to see that some people are being led along by him and can see nothing but the United States.

The bill always comes due. And it’s surely going to be a big bill.

K&J: The United States has recently set up a joint-command structure in Japan. The new joint force headquarters is under the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, but is based in Japan. I see this as Washington’s preparing to involve Japan in a major war, possibly over Taiwan.

SM: Japan is, in part, being used for America’s global strategy. Seventy-three percent of America’s military presence in Japan is concentrated in Okinawa. This is not a normal situation.

Russia is a major nation. If there were a Japan-Russia relationship on par with the US-Japan alliance, then Japan could expect to play the role of counterweight between Russia and America. I want there to be a leader in Japan able to make the decision to do this. As things are now, it’s all one-sided for America.

Abe worked well with Trump. He worked well with President Putin. I think that if Japan’s leader was smart about it, then Japan could [work with both sides]. Japan must be firm in its dealings with other countries. We are not nearly firm enough now.

Look at India. India is very strong, but it also balances Russia against the United States very well.

K&J: Is there anyone in the Liberal Democratic Party today that can be that strong leader?

SM: No. There is no one. And it worries me.

Author: MOS Medical Group – Eglise Bell

Since Tokyo summer Olympic Game ended on August 8, 2021, the urgent status of the pandemic as Japan is now in its worst surge of the COVID-19 pandemic since the onset of the crisis in such a megacity of 14 million. Most recently, a record number of new cases were reported at 20,140 on August 14. Deaths aren’t as high as successive waves of the pandemic from February 2021 to the end of May, but nerves are frayed with record numbers of infections. Dr. Ozaki, The chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association, recently led an emergency press conference on August 13, Dr. Haruo Ozaki shared those 18,000 new infections are reported daily. However, the death count has eased as compared to previous surges.

Image Credit: Novikov Aleksey / Shutterstock

How to deal with the current dilemma is a huge challenge to Japanese government and medical agencies? Fortunately, India has an excellent testimonial. Since April 28, India medical officials started providing Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to its massive population. As India is the major pharmaceutical manufacture in the world, they were ready for this massive drug distribution. Miraculously, COVID cases were plummeting quickly since then thanks to the new rules.

Much like what was successfully accomplished in India, parts of Bangladesh, and places like Argentina and Mexico, Chairman Ozaki calls for the immediate use of ivermectin as cases surge in Japan.

Dr. Ozaki declared that ivermectin has demonstrated significant benefits in reducing infections and deaths where the regimen is prophylactically administered for another indication. With the encouraging medical data from ivermectin clinical trials’ reports worldwide, especially the one from FLCCC of US and BIRD of UK, the head of the Metropolitan Medical Association declared that while clinical trials were important, it was time to greenlight doctors to prescribe ivermectin in association with giving the patient informed consent.

Finally,greenlight for Ivermectin is on in the first developing country since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic，giving hope to all countries and regions. Perhaps this time because Japan did not have the big Pharm entering the COVID vaccine market, the government did not get much pressure, so the Japanese government’s anti-epidemic policy basically reflects a normal democratic regime should do, that is, to protect the health of the people. Expect the miracle of ivermectin in India to happen again.

References:

Chairman of Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association Declares During Surge, Time for Ivermectin is Now (Paywalled)

Could the mystery be revealed here? Perhaps you may notice how this article artfully omits an obvious possibility.

TOKYO (AP) — Almost overnight, Japan has become a stunning, and somewhat mysterious, coronavirus success story.

Daily new COVID-19 cases have plummeted from a mid-August peak of nearly 6,000 in Tokyo, with caseloads in the densely populated capital now routinely below 100, an 11-month low.

The bars are packed, the trains are crowded, and the mood is celebratory, despite a general bafflement over what, exactly, is behind the sharp drop.

Japan, unlike other places in Europe and Asia, has never had anything close to a lockdown, just a series of relatively toothless states of emergency.

Some possible factors in Japan’s success include a belated but remarkably rapid vaccination campaign, an emptying out of many nightlife areas as fears spread during the recent surge in cases, a widespread practice, well before the pandemic, of wearing masks and bad weather in late August that kept people home.

But with vaccine efficacy gradually waning and winter approaching, experts worry that without knowing what exactly why cases have dropped so drastically, Japan could face another wave like this summer, when hospitals overflowed with serious cases and deaths soared — though the numbers were lower than pre-vaccination levels.

Many credit the vaccination campaign, especially among younger people, for bringing infections down. Nearly 70 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

“Rapid and intensive vaccinations in Japan among those younger than 64 might have created a temporary condition similar to herd-immunity,” said Dr. Kazuhiro Tateda, a Toho University professor of virology.

Tateda noted that vaccination rates surged in July to September, just as the more infectious delta variant was spreading fast.

He cautioned, however, that breakthrough infections in the U.S., Britain and other places where inoculations began months earlier than in Japan show that vaccines alone are not perfect and efficacy gradually wears off.

Japan’s vaccinations started in mid-February, with health workers and the elderly first in line. Shortages of imported vaccines kept progress slow until late May, when the supply stabilized and daily inoculation targets were raised to above 1 million doses to maximize protection before the July 23-Aug. 8 Olympics.

The number of daily shots rose to about 1.5 million in July, pushing vaccination rates from 15% in early July to 65% by early October, exceeding the 57% of the United States.

Daily new cases surged just weeks ahead of the Olympics, forcing Japan to hold the Games with daily caseloads of more than 5,000 in Tokyo and around 20,000 nationwide in early August. Tokyo reported 40 cases Sunday, below 100 for the ninth straight day and lowest this year. Nationwide, Japan reported 429 cases Sunday for an accumulated total of about 1.71 million and 18,000 deaths since the pandemic began early last year.

So why the drop?

“It’s a tough question, and we have to consider the effect of the vaccinations progress, which is extremely big,” said Disease Control and Prevention Center Director Norio Ohmagari. “At the same time, people who gather in high-risk environments, such as crowded and less-ventilated places, may have been already infected and acquired natural immunity by now.”

Though some speculated that the drop in cases might be due to less testing, Tokyo metropolitan government data showed the positivity rate fell from 25% in late August to 1% in mid-October, while the number of tests fell by one-third. Masataka Inokuchi, the Tokyo Medical Association deputy chief, said falling positivity rates show infections have slowed.

Japan’s state of emergency measures were not lockdowns but requests that focused mainly on bars and eateries, which were asked to close early and not serve alcohol. Many people continued to commute on crowded trains, and attended sports and cultural events at stadiums with some social distancing controls.

The emergency requests have ended and the government is gradually expanding social and economic activity while allowing athletic events and package tours on a trial basis using vaccination certificates and increased testing.

To speed up inoculations, former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who left office recently, expanded the number of health workers legally eligible to give shots, opened large-scale vaccination centers and promoted workplace vaccinations beginning in late June.

Kyoto University professor Hiroshi Nishiura told a recent government advisory board meeting that he estimates vaccinations helped some 650,000 people avoid infection and saved more than 7,200 lives between March and September.

Many experts initially blamed younger people, seen drinking on the streets and in parks when the bars were closed, for spreading the virus, but said data showed many in their 40s and 50s also frequented nightlife districts. Most serious cases and deaths were among unvaccinated people in their 50s or younger.

Takaji Wakita, director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, told reporters recently he is worried people have already resumed partying in nightlife districts, noting that the slowing of infections may have already hit bottom.

“Looking ahead, it is important to further push down the caseloads in case of a future resurgence of infections,” Wakita said Thursday.

On Friday, new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said a preparedness plan to be compiled by early November would include tougher limits on activities and require hospitals to provide more beds and staff for COVID-19 treatment in case infections soar in a “worst-case scenario.”

He did not elaborate on details.

Many people are cautious about letting down their guard, regardless of the numbers.

Mask-wearing “has become so normal,” said university student Mizuki Kawano. “I’m still worried about the virus,” she said.

“I don’t want to get close to those who don’t wear masks,” said her friend, Alice Kawaguchi.

Public health experts want a comprehensive investigation into why infections have dropped off.

An analysis of GPS data showed that people’s movements in major downtown entertainment districts fell during the most recent, third state of emergency, which ended Sept. 30.

“I believe the decrease of people visiting entertainment districts, along with the vaccination progress, has contributed to the decline of infections,” said Atsushi Nishida, the director of the Research Center for Social Science & Medicine Sciences at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science.

But people headed back to entertainment districts as soon as the recent emergency ended, he said, and that may “affect the infection situation in coming weeks.”

By MARI YAMAGUCHI October 18, 2021
AP journalist Chisato Tanaka contributed to this report.

Introduction

At the New Year’s public opening of the Imperial Palace on January 2 1969, a Japanese war veteran by the name of Okuzaki Kenzō (1920–2005) fired three pachinko pinballs from a slingshot aimed at Emperor Hirohito who was standing 26.5 meters away on the veranda greeting about 15,000 visitors. All three hit the bottom of the veranda, missing Hirohito. Not many people seemed to notice that it was Okuzaki who fired them. Okuzaki then shot off one more, calling to the ghost of his war comrade, shouting, “Yamazaki, Shoot the Emperor (Hirohito) with a pistol!” Again he missed. Policemen on guard duty searched frantically for the perpetrator but could not identify him in the crowd. It was not certain whether Hirohito himself noticed the pinballs hitting the bottom of the veranda. Together with Hirohito, his wife Empress Ryōko, his two sons – Princes Akihito and Masahito – as well as their respective wives were also standing on the veranda, but it remains unclear whether any of them were aware of this incident.

Okuzaki approached one of the policemen frantically moving around the crowd and grabbed his arm, telling him, “It is me who shot the pinballs. Let’s go to the police station.” Obviously he did this intentionally, hoping to be arrested on the spot. Later he confessed that yelling “Yamazaki, Shoot the Emperor with a pistol!” was his tactic to attract police attention. He expected that the word “pistol” would immediately alert the police to the possibility of danger and that he would be arrested forthwith. Yet, disappointingly, this did not happen and therefore he had to ask a policeman to arrest him.1

Scene of the Pachinko Ball Attack, Emperor Hirohito at the Imperial Palace, New Year 1969

Okuzaki took this bizarre action in order to be arrested so that he could pursue Hirohito’s war responsibility in the Japanese court system. In his trial, Okuzaki argued that Chapter 1 of Japan’s Constitution (The Emperor), in particular Article 1, is unconstitutional.2 Yet the judges of the Tokyo High Court, and subsequently the Supreme Court, ignored Okuzaki’s argument. As far as I know, Okuzaki is the only person in Japan’s modern history to legally challenge the constitutionality of the emperor system, and indeed to provide a compelling analysis.

This paper investigates how Okuzaki Kenzō, a survivor of the New Guinea Campaign of the Japanese Imperial Army, legally challenged Emperor Hirohito and his constitutional authority by pursuing his war responsibility in court. It particularly examines Okuzaki’s legal claim that Chapter 1 (The Emperor) in Japan’s postwar Constitution is incompatible with the fundamental principle of the Constitution elaborated in the Preamble.

Okuzaki’s Personal Background Prior to the New Guinea Campaign

In order to understand the above-mentioned bizarre incident, it is necessary to look into Okuzaki’s personal background and war experience, as well as his immediate post-war life.

Okuzaki was born on February 1, 1920 in Akashi City of Hyogo Prefecture. In1930, when he was 10 years old, Japan was hit by a severe economic slump triggered by the Great Depression, which began in the U.S. in October 1929. Consequently, in the first half of the 1930s 2.5 million workers in Japan lost their jobs.3 One was Okuzaki’s father. Because of the acute poverty of Kenzo’s family, he had to start work as soon as he finished his 6 years of elementary schooling. Unable to find a permanent job, he did odd jobs, mainly as a shop-boy at different shops in Kobe, Ashiya, and Nishinomiya. He also worked as a trainee seaman for two years.

It seems that he had a strong appetite for knowledge, and when he had some spare time he read many books including the Bible. He also attended church services for a short period.4 His interest in Christianity seemed to have contributed to creating his strong sense of justice and to formulating the unique idea of “god” he developed in the latter part of his life.

In March 1941, he was drafted into the Engineering Corps in Okayama, and as a member of a group of 60 newly conscripted soldiers he was sent to the Engineering Division in Jiujiang in Central China. Here they received training for three months, after which they engaged in construction of bridges and roads in the occupied territories as well as occasional combat fighting against Chinese troops.

At the end of January 1943, twenty soldiers including Okuzaki were transferred to the 36th Independent Engineering Regiment (hereafter the 36th IER), and Okuzaki became one of 350 members of the 2ndCompany of this Regiment. In late February of the same year, the 36th IER left China for Hansa on the north coast of East New Guinea on a convoy of transport ships, via Takao (Kao-hsiung) in Taiwan, Manila in the Philippines and the Palau.5

Historical Background of the New Guinea Campaign

It is necessary to briefly look at the historical background of the Japanese Imperial Forces’ campaign in New Guinea in order to understand Okuzaki’s long and agonizing struggle for survival in this campaign.

Japanese war leaders, feeling exhilarated by an unexpected series of victorious battles in the first four months of the Pacific War after the Pearl Harbor Attack in December 1941, became overconfident. They swiftly expanded their war operation zone far beyond their capability to dominate it, leading eventually to the complete self-destruction of Japanese Imperial Forces.

As soon as Japan seized the entire southwest Pacific, the Navy leaders, who were initially cautious of expanding the war zone, began seriously contemplating invading Australia, believing that occupation of Australia was essential for defending the Pacific war zone. The Army leaders, preferring to save manpower and reinforce their operational capability for the future war against Soviet forces, strongly objected. As a compromise, the Navy and Army agreed to jointly carry out the Operations MO and FS in order to cut off the transportation line between the U.S. and Australia. Operation MO was designed to capture Port Moresby on the southeast coast of New Guinea by May 1942, and Operation FS was intended to seize Fiji, Samoa and New Caledonia by July that year.6

However, as a result of Japan’s successive defeats in the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, the Solomon Sea and the southwest Pacific between May and the end of 1942, the Imperial Headquarters called off Operation FS as well as the land attack on Port Moresby.

Yet, the Imperial Headquarters still had not given up on capturing Port Moresby. It drew up a new plan to send a large contingent of troops to Buna on the northeast coast of East New Guinea, and force them to march 360 kilometers to Port Moresby through dense jungle and the Stanley Mountains, which are 4,000 meters above sea level. For this plan, in mid-August 1942, about 15,000 soldiers from the South Seas Army Force (SSAF) and the 41st Infantry Regiment were sent to Buna. The food supply ran out within one month and the plan was a complete failure. When it was finally decided to withdraw the forces in January 1943, only 3,000 were rescued: more than 70 percent of the men had perished from starvation and tropical disease.7

Despite this series of colossal strategic failures of the Japanese military leaders and the resulting heavy casualties, less than a year after the opening of the war no one assumed responsibility. In fact neither the Army nor the Navy ever conducted serious studies designed to find reasons for those failures, and they made no effort to learn from them. On the contrary, Imperial Headquarters continued to provide false information to the nation regarding the state of the war. This total lack of a sense of responsibility on the part of the Japanese Imperial Forces was closely intertwined with the emperor system. Under the Imperial Constitution, the emperor, grand marshal of the Imperial Forces, was completely free from mundane responsibilities, being “sacred and inviolable.” Because the head of state and the military were free from any war responsibility, no one else accepted responsibility either.8

Despite the disastrous failure of the plan to capture Port Moresby, the Imperial Headquarters came up with a new plan, this time to recapture Buna and seize Lae and Salamaua (Salus). Taking these three places would allow the Japanese to advance to Kerema on the south coast of New Guinea, 200 kilometers northeast of Port Moresby. After surrounding and occupying Kerema, the Japanese would then proceed to their final destination, Port Moresby. However, in order to complete even the first half of this expedition, the troops would have to march several hundred kilometers from the northeast coast to Kerema through dense jungle and mountains.

The plan was prepared by staff officers of the Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo who had no knowledge of the topography of New Guinea. They drew it up based on their own experience of warfare conducted in China, i.e., on battlefields of flat, wide and open plains. Many soldiers mobilized for this operation were also sent from Manchuria. They were utterly unfamiliar with combat in the tropical jungle environment.9

To carry out this inept and futile plan, from March 1943, many troops of the 18th Army landed on the northeast coast of New Guinea. Eventually as many as 148,000 soldiers were mobilized for the campaign including 1,200 soldiers of the 36th IER to which Okuzaki belonged. Most of these men wandered aimlessly about in the jungle, constantly pursued by Australian and American troops, while hovering between life and death due to lack of food, water, medicine and ammunition. Many of them even turned to cannibalism in order to survive. Eventually 135,000 men perished, mainly due to starvation and tropical diseases such as malaria and dysentery, and only 13,000 survived – the death rate was 91 percent.10

On the other hand, the Australian and U.S. forces had conducted a close study of the geographical features of New Guinea and decided to fully utilize aircraft and battleships to counterattack the Japanese troops. They avoided as much as possible sending their own troops into dense jungle, being clearly aware of the dangers of jungle fighting. Instead they adopted the strategy called “leapfrog” or “stepping-stones,” by which they captured and occupied only the vital strategic places on the north coast of New Guinea such as Madang, Wewak, Aitape and Hollandia. By doing so, the Australian and U.S. forces chased the Japanese troops towards the northwest coast of New Guinea by continuously conducting aerial bombing and naval bombardment. Many Japanese troops were caught between the Allied troops stationed at these places, and, while hiding in the jungle they starved to death.11

Okuzaki’s Desperate Struggle for Survival in New Guinea

The 36th IER, which landed at Hansa in early April, moved towards the east down to Alexishafen, where they were assigned to build an airfield. Being the rainy season, it took three months to transport all the heavy construction gear on wagons 200 kms along the trackless seacoast. By the time they arrived at Alexishafen, many soldiers were suffering from malaria and could not work. Although they managed to complete the construction of the airfield within the following few months, the Allied forces gained command of the air in this area before the end of 1943 and started bombing the airfield. The 18th Army headquarters’ base on the mountain called Nagata located between Alexishafen and Madang also became the target of Allied bombing. In December 1943, the Japanese forces therefore decided to retreat to the base in Wewak, 400 kms west of Alexishafen.12

A long and desperate struggle for survival by Okuzaki and his fellow soldiers of the 36th IER and other troops of the 18th Army began at this point. When they reached Wewak in January 1944, they were ordered to retreat further west to Hollandia in West (Dutch) New Guinea, 400 kms from Wewak. There was a Japanese base in Aitape, which was located almost half way to Hollandia. Yet, as mentioned above, the Japanese bases in Aitape and Hollandia were attacked and taken over by the Allied forces well before the Japanese troops even reached Aitape.13

A picture drawn by one of the surviving soldiers in New Guinea

While walking in bush near Hollandia, Okuzaki was shot by a small group of Allied soldiers. His right thigh was wounded and the little finger of his right hand was severely injured. Yet, he managed to escape and still kept wandering around Hollandia for a few more days, searching for a passage towards Sarmi, a further 400km west of Hollandia. Eventually he realized that he did not have the strength to keep walking any longer and thus chose to be killed by enemy bullets. He boldly walked into Hollandia and surrendered, but he was taken prisoner and unexpectedly was treated well. From there he was sent to a POW camp in Australia where he remained until the end of the war.15Walking in the jungle and taking the long way around the Allied bases, it took Okuzaki 10 months to reach Hollandia, while most of his fellow soldiers perished in the jungle. Out of 350 members of the 2nd Company of the 36th IER, only Okuzaki and one other man survived – the survival rate was less than 0.006%. The number of survivors out of 1,200 men of the entire 36th IER was a mere six – the chance of survival was 0.005%.14

It seems that there are at least a couple of important reasons why Okuzaki survived. First, it was because he was selected as one of about 20 men on the reconnaissance patrol of the Regiment – i.e., four or five men from each Company. Their primary mission was to locate the Japanese food deposits, most of which were in the territories already occupied by the Allied forces, and to retrieve as many provisions as possible from them.16 It was quite a dangerous assignment, but by undertaking this task Okuzaki was able to gain sufficient food for himself from time to time. As time passed, Okuzaki and other members of this reconnaissance patrol became gradually separated from the rest of the troops as the patrol walked well ahead of them.

Eventually they were completely isolated from the many sick and starving soldiers left behind. As time passed, friction between the members of the reconnaissance patrol from different Companies also developed and eventually the patrols ceased to act in any cordinated fashion. For this reason, Okuzaki was not clearly aware at the time that cannibalism had become a widespread problem among the Japanese solders left behind in the jungle. It was not until 1982-1983, during the production of the documentary film “Yuki Yuki te Shingun (Onward Holy Army),” that he learned what had really happened among those starving fellow soldiers he had left behind.17

Another important factor for his survival was his personal character – a strong sense of justice and deep anger at unfairness. It is well know that, in the Japanese Imperial Forces, ill-treatment of soldiers by their officers and NCOs was endemic. Bentatsu (routine striking and bashing) was regarded by officers as a form of “spiritual training” for the soldiers. Defiance or mutiny by soldiers against their officers was severely punished, often brutally. Yet Okuzaki frequently resisted orders given by his superiors if he found them “unreasonable” or “unfair,” and he did so even by resorting to violence. Surprisingly, his officers and NCOs did not punish Okuzaki for his behavior. It seems that, because officers and NCOs felt ashamed to publicize the fact that they were beaten by a rank-and-file soldier like Okuzaki, they remained silent. Whatever the reason, Okuzaki soon became regarded an eccentric and his “temperamental behavior” went unpunished within his own unit. Okuzaki’s ability to distance himself from ironclad military rules and to maintain his independence was an important factor for his survival in the horrendous conditions of jungle warfare.

In 1969, while waiting for the trial of his “pinball incident” crime, Okuzaki wrote a long statement in preparation for the trial. He was at the time locked up in detention for many months. This statement can be called an “autobiography”; Part I is predominantly the detailed description of his horrific experience in New Guinea, and Part II is about his post-war life up to the “pinball incident” and the reasons for his action against Emperor Hirohito.18

Okuzaki’s depiction of the one and a half years long struggle for survival in New Guinea is strikingly graphic. Despite a 24-year time lag, his memories of what happened in New Guinea were so vivid that he could describe them as if they had happened yesterday. In other words, those memories were so powerful that it was impossible to eliminate them from his mind. He wrote of incidents such as a wild pig biting a sick soldier who could no longer stand up; a fellow soldier who had lost his mind due to an attack by a local villager with a poisoned arrow and could not stop calling Okuzaki’s name for help because of acute pain and deep fear of death; a soldier suffering from malaria and starvation begging Okuzaki to shoot and kill him (Okuzaki had walked away and left him behind); his own sense of shame for having blackmailed members of the reconnaissance patrol from a different Company in order to secure food provisions for the soldiers of his own Company; one of his comrades, Yamazaki, perishing in the jungle despite his strong desire to go home and his humane concern about his fellow soldiers’ fate.

In short, this statement is not a simple historical or intellectual account of the Japanese military campaign in New Guinea. Rather it is an intense and compelling accusation of the victimization of Japanese soldiers by their own military leaders led by the Grand Marshal, Emperor Hirohito. Although Okuzaki did not clearly express it in this statement, he was in fact suggesting that prosecutors and judges at the court, who would examine the “pinball incident,” must take “responsibility for this war victimization,” if they choose to condemn Okuzaki’s conduct against Hirohito. In other words, the heart of his argument was the _absurdity of the war_imposed upon millions of Japanese men by the nation and the ultimate liability that Hirohito had as the head of the state and its military forces.

The Postwar Life of Okuzaki

In Part II of the statement, Okuzaki explains how hard he worked in order to survive in the immediate post-war economy and society. Initially he worked as a coal miner but nearly died because of an accident in the mine. Then he worked as a factory worker, and married a young widow, who was working as a caretaker of the factory’s dormitory. He gradually set up a business selling car batteries.19 Undoubtedly he was diligent, yet it seems that his long and harsh war experience made him deeply distrustful of Japanese society, in particular people who abuse their power and exploit others.

In 1951, he opened a business selling car batteries and second-hand cars in a small shop in Kobe. The business prospered, benefiting from the Korean War special procurement boom of the 1950’s. As he needed larger premises for the shop, in early 1956 he decided to buy a house where he and his wife could live and run the business in the same building. He tried to secure a property through a real estate broker by the name of Nobuhara. However, Nobuhara was an infamous broker closely linked with yakuza gangsters. He made off with Okazaki’s money and Okuzaki was unable to secure the property.20

Infuriated, Okuzaki decided to attack Nobuhara. As he told his wife, he was prepared to go to jail for a short period but he had no intention of killing Nobuhara. In fact he gave his wife some money and asked her to pay for Nobuhara’s medical treatment if necessary. One day, Okuzaki went to see Nobuhara and stabbed him with a knife. Then he immediately took a taxi to a police station and confessed to the crime. About one hour later, while being investigated at the police station, Okuzaki was shocked learn that Nobuhara had died in hospital. Naturally he was immediately arrested.21

It was clearly a case of “bodily injury resulting in death,” in other words “manslaughter,” and according to Article 205 of the Criminal Law of Japan at the time, it was punishable by “more than two years’ imprisonment.” Considering the fact that Okuzaki voluntarily surrendered to the police, the prosecutors and the judge should have been lenient with him. Yet, the prosecutors accused Okuzaki of attacking Nobuhara with a clear intention of homicide. Okuzaki’s lawyer advised him to accept the prosecution’s charges and express his “remorse and repentance.” The solicitor said that such a humble attitude would bring a lenient judgment. In Japanese criminal trials, offenders’ sincere expression of “remorse and repentance” is deemed an important factor, often leading to a lenient judgment.

Yet, Okuzaki not only refused to compromise, but sent a statement to the prosecutors and the judge claiming that “this trial is a farce or a burlesque. Prosecutors should see the real world more clearly.” He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, the maximum punishment for such a crime. It is obvious that his anti-authority behavior did not help him to receive a fair trial. Over the following ten years, Okuzaki submitted a request for a retrial numerous times from prison, but to no avail.22

Development of Okuzaki’s Ideas on Japanese Society and the Emperor System While in Prison

As a result of his defiance of the prison authorities, he spent ten years in solitary confinement in Osaka Prison. He used this state of forced isolation to read numerous books and reflect on his life, as well as to think about various social and political issues. Soon he realized that there are many “enemies of the people” like Nobuhara, yet punishing such people or eliminating them would not solve the problem. He concluded that the real “enemy of the people” is the social structure, which keeps reproducing bad people and social problems including war.23

That social structure is, he believed, hierarchical, with the emperor residing at the top and every corner tainted with emperor ideology. In his eyes, this fundamental nature of Japanese society had not changed after Japan’s defeat in the war. Law, politics and religion still played vital roles in maintaining the inhumane social structure of the nation-state. He concluded that lawyers, politicians and religious leaders were obedient servants of the state and did not protect common people like Okuzaki. Thus he became deeply skeptical of the existing legal and political system.

Not long after he was imprisoned, he tried to gain permission from the head of the prison to send a telegram to the Minister of Justice, asking him to suspend the executions of all prisoners on death row. Following the telegram, he sought to send a statement to the Minister to explain his argument against capital punishment. He received no response to this request. Instead, he was examined by a psychiatrist, who diagnosed Okuzaki with “paranoia.”24

He was convinced that the problem lay with the vicious structure of the Japanese nation-state that mobilized tens of thousands of men for war and sent them to their death. Yet Hirohito, the person most responsible for this national tragedy, was not only free at large but admired by many Japanese. For Okuzaki, the same Japanese social structure constantly produced soial problems inluding crime, industrial pollution, unhappiness. He believed that it was imperative to destroy this venomous social structure based on the emperor system in order to create a new world, in which all could live happily and humanely. The new world should be constructed in accordance with “god’s will,” based on the principle of universality, equality and absolute truth. It is not clear what he really meant by “god,” as he did not elaborate upon this. He rejected state power, represented by the emperor, and claimed that people should be ruled by the principle of universality, equality and absolute truthfulness, not by the state. He did not elaborate upon “the principle of universality, equality and absolute truthfulness” either. However, here we can see a unique mixture of utopian anarchism and a vaguely Christian religious idea.25

It is interesting to note that Okuzaki tried to show continuity between the wartime “Emperor Fascism” and Japan’s so-called “post-war democracy.” He denounced post-war Japanese society, saying that it was not democratic at all. His claim was that “democracy” by nature was not compatible with “the emperor system.” He did not understand why Japanese people failed to realize this fact, which seemed self-evident to him.

The problem was that he could not articulate it lucidly, analytically or theoretically. It must have been extremely difficult to live for ten years without communicating with other people, except for a few prison guards. Although he had ample time to read, think, and write,26 solitary confinement prevented him from discussing his ideas with other people and re-examining his own thoughts from the perspective of others. He had no one to guide his private research towards more intellectual and constructive thinking.

It is therefore not surprising that, as time passed, he became more and more firmly convinced that his own ideas on such issues as society, politics, law, religion and the emperor system were absolutely correct. Based on his uncompromising belief that Japanese society had to be completely changed, he tried to take legal action 93 times from his prison cell, petitioning the Japanese government on numerous issues over ten years. Among those issues were cases involving the abolition of capital punishment, the unconstitutionality of the Self Defense Forces and the abolition of the emperor system. Indeed he submitted six petitions against the emperor system during his prison term.27 Although it was ironic that an anarchist like Okuzaki, who refused to recognize state power, submitted so many petitions to the government, it clearly demonstrates how deeply he felt about “injustice” in society. Sadly, however, the more obstinate his self-belief became, the more eccentric he was seen to be. This became a vicious cycle, particularly in his later life.

After his release from prison in August 1966, Okuzaki quickly re-established his business selling car batteries, working hard together with his wife. However, he was determined to disseminate as widely as possible the ideas that he had developed in prison. In pursuit of this aim, he attached banners to his business truck criticizing Hirohito as a war criminal and political statements such as “The real nature of the military and police force is violence! Nothing can be protected by violence!” Surprisingly many people expressed moral support for Okuzaki’s action. Encouraged by this, he contemplated taking some kind of “non-violent” action against Hirohito in order to publicize his idea of abolishing the emperor system and establishing a new society. At the end of December 1968, two years four months after his release from prison, he told only his wife of his plan, saying that there was no need to worry, as he had no intention to harm Hirohito.28

Okuzaki’s Solitary Battle Against Hirohito and the Emperor System

Okuzaki reasoned, however, that “because the emperor is the symbol of evil in modern society . . . , killing Hirohito per se would not solve the problem unless the current form of society, which keeps producing new emperors as well as imperial features in various places in society, would be fundamentally reformed.” Therefore he was not prepared to sacrifice his own life for such a futile act as killing Hirohito. His goal was to be arrested and have a chance to let the Japanese people know about his “idea of a new world without the emperor system.”29He knew that there was little likelihood that the pinballs aimed at Hirohito from a distance were likely to hit him. Even if they hit him, he thought it unlikely that Hirohito would be seriously injured. He nevertheless believed that “Hirohito deserves capital punishment for his crime of driving hundreds of thousands of Japanese men to their death in war.” He wrote that he would not mind killing Hirohito and even consequently receiving capital punishment himself “if that would bring truly eternal peace, freedom, and happiness to us.”

He succeeded in being arrested, yet, as mentioned above, few people around him noticed what Okuzaki had done while they were happily greeting the emperor and his family. Moreover, not even many among the 2,000 policemen standing guard became aware of what was happening at the time. The following day, all major national newspapers reported the incident, but all claimed that it was an act committed by a man suffering from paranoid personality disorder and amnesia, who had a criminal record of murdering a real estate broker. The Mainichi Newspaper was the only one to mention that Okuzaki was a survivor of the New Guinea Campaign in the Asia-Pacific War and that he had submitted six petitions holding the emperor responsible for the deaths of Japanese soldiers and calling for the abolition of the emperor system.30 Therefore, Okuzaki’s intention of politicizing his action against Hirohito and propagating his idea of establishing a new society miserably failed. In this sense, it was not Okuzaki but the majority of the Japanese population who were suffering from amnesia – i.e., remaining oblivious to the wartime suffering and the responsibility for it.

Shortly after Okuzaki’s arrest, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital for about two months. It seems that the prosecutors were trying to dismiss the case by handling it as “an act committed by a person suffering from paranoia and amnesia” in order to avoid a trial. The prosecutors may have realized that the trial of Okuzaki could become politically sensitive because it directly involved the person of Emperor Hirohito. Yet, since medical specialists did not diagnose Okuzaki as “psychopathic,” he was deemed capable of standing trial and so the trial had to be conducted.

The trial began in mid January 1970. In a minor assault case in which no injury occurs, the accused is usually released on bail prior to the trial. In fact, the Tokyo District Court accepted Okuzaki’s application for bail on January 24 1971, more than a year after he was arrested. However, the Tokyo High Court overruled it and therefore Okuzaki was not released until his second trial was completed on October 7, 1971. He was therefore detained for one year and ten months including two months in a psychiatric hospital.

Okuzaki’s Court Battle Against Hirohito

It seems that such harsh treatment of Okuzaki was due to the fact that the target of Okuzaki’s act of violence was not a common citizen but the emperor. If so, this was a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of Japan, which guarantees the equality of all Japanese citizens under the law and forbids discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin. In other words, even the emperor must be treated equally as a Japanese citizen, otherwise Japanese citizens would be discriminated against on the grounds of “social status and family origin.” It seems that prosecutors and judges in the late 1960th were still under the influence of the old-fashioned concept of lese majesty (fukeizai, the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign) of the former Meiji Constitution.31 It can be said that, even before the trial actually started, the Okuzaki case clearly reflected an idea expressed by George Orwell’s phrase in Anima Farm, “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

This trial is apparently the first and thus far the only case to involve the emperor personally under the new Constitution and after abolition of lese majesty in 1946. The prosecutors accused Okuzaki of committing a crime of assault against the emperor. A crime of assault is legally defined as a crime committed against “a natural person,” and therefore the emperor should also be regarded as a natural person, i.e., an individual, equal to all other Japanese citizens. Otherwise, as mentioned above, it would be a violation of Article 14 of Japan’s Constitution. Yet, in the indictment, the emperor’s personal name “Hirohito” was never mentioned, and only the term “Emperor” was used. In other words, the emperor was considered as some kind of “divine creature” and not as “a natural person.” It was and still is a custom in Japan not to mention the emperor’s personal name in public including newspapers and magazines because calling the emperor by his personal name is regarded discourteous.

Okuzaki and his lawyer strongly argued that “the crime victim” must be clearly identified as an individual in order to clarify the nature of the crime. Judge Nishimura Nori was sympathetic with this argument and advised the prosecutors to use the emperor’s individual name. The prosecutors refused to accept the judge’s advice. They appeared to see it as taboo to use the emperor’s personal name. Indeed, they claimed that the crime victim was “the emperor as a natural person, who is in the position of emperor,” and “there is no need to clarify his name as everyone knows who he is.”32 If that logic were followed it would mean that personal names of all the public figures such as Prime Minister, the Governor of Tokyo, and Vice Chancellor of Tokyo University would not be required in court cases. Clearly, the intention of the prosecutors was to preserve the special position of the emperor as opposed to Japanese citizens.

It was also extraordinary that the prosecutors presented no testimony of the crime victim, indeed, no evidence at all. It was and still is unimaginable to conduct the trial of a crime of assault without the victim’s testimony concerning the crime as well as his/her personal feeling as a victim. A crime of assault may provoke in a victim fear, anxiety or anger toward the perpetrator, even when no injury occurs. Thus it is essential to examine the experience and the feelings of the target of the assault. Without examining such essential matters, it cannot be proved that a crime of assault actually took place, and the court cannot assess the seriousness of the crime or the appropriate penalty. Nevertheless, the court heard only a limited number of eyewitnesses – several people from the crowd and a policeman whom Okuzaki approached after he shot the pinballs. No one testified against Okuzaki identifying him as the perpetrator of the assault and not a single affidavit was submitted. Indeed, the prosecutors did not even try to obtain Hirohito’s affidavit.33

Okuzaki requested that Hirohito appear as a witness, claiming that he had a right to a fair trial and to summon all the witnesses he required. He also submitted the following questions he wished to ask Hirohito during cross-examination.34

1. Name, Position and Career of the witness.
2. Do you know the accused Okuzaki Kenzo?
3. Did you notice that the accused shot pinballs towards the right-hand side of the veranda of the Imperial Palace, where you and your family members were standing at the New Year’s public opening of the Imperial Palace on January 2, 1969?
4. Did you know who on the veranda the pinballs were aimed at? Did you think that they were aimed at you?
5. After this incident, did you read any press reports or watched TV news concerning the accused action? Have you received any account of this incident from your chamberlains? Have you ever discussed this incident with your family members? Have you ever seriously thought over this incident?
6. Do you know that the accused is one of the surviving rank-and-file soldiers of the Imperial Army, who were drafted into the Pacific War conducted under the name of “the Holy War,” fought in New Guinea, wounded and narrowly escaped death?
7. As a fellow human being, how do you explain the fact that you were the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces (the so-called “Holy Army”) in which the accused was drafted, and that the above-mentioned war was conducted under your authority, and that the accused was one of the victims of the above-mentioned war?
8. How do you respond to the fact that the action by the accused was carried out to console the spirits of tens of thousands of his comrades who died as a result of starvation and injuries in New Guinea, and as a memorial service for them?
9. You are regarded as the victim of this incident. How do you assess the action carried out by the accused? Do you wish for clemency for the accused or punishment of the accused? How do your family members, who were together with you on the veranda, feel about this incident?
10. Other relevant questions.

The prosecutors opposed Okuzaki’s request to cross-examine Hirohito without explanation. Judge Nishimura also rejected the request, simply claiming “there is no necessity to do that.” When his request for summoning Hirohito was rejected, Okuzaki dismissed his lawyer and from this point the trial continued without a lawyer for the defense. By dismissing his lawyer, Okuzaki probably wanted to show his strong disapproval of the exercise of state power and the legal authority of the state. He might have thought that even his lawyer was part of the legal authority and thus of the state apparatus.35

As a result of this unexpected action by Okuzaki cross-examinations of witnesses including Hirohito – scholars, writers, war veterans, and relatives of the soldiers killed in action – were not conducted at all. It seems that Okuzaki could not organize those witnesses without his lawyer’s assistance. Thus the trial was concluded without identifying the name of the crime victim, without presenting the testimony of the victim, and without cross-examining the witnesses the accused requested. In other words, this was an extraordinary trial case, which can be called a quasi-trial of lese majesty. Strictly speaking, it appears to have been an unconstitutional trial, in which prosecutors tried to punish Okuzaki by applying lese majesty, despite the fact that such crime had been abolished in 1946.

It was also extraordinary that the prosecutors demanded three years imprisonment for the accused when the maximum punishment for a crime of assault at that time was two years imprisonment. Although, in the judgment handed down on June 8 1971, Judge Nishimura acknowledged that Okuzaki’s motivation for his action against Hirohito was to condemn Hirohito’s war responsibility, he did not discuss whether Hirohito himself was partly accountable for inducing Okuzaki’s crime. Judge Nishimura claimed “considering relevant matters directly related to the case in question such as the motivation of the accused, circumstances, behavior as well as the purpose of Article 14 of the Constitution, it is improper to impose a sentence that exceeds the punishment stipulated by Article 208 of the Criminal Law, which the prosecutors demand ……”36

Thus Okuzaki was sentenced to one and a half years imprisonment with credit for the 180 days spent in detention, although he had already spent more than one year in detention by then. This gave the impression that Judge Nishimura paid attention to Article 14 of the Constitution and thus treated Okuzaki and Hirohito equally as “natural persons.” Yet in the same judgment he discriminated against Okuzaki by treating Hirohito preferentially, stating that it was “a well prepared and planned crime carried out against the Emperor, ….. therefore the criminal liability of the accused is serious.”37 Moreover, as already noted, the way that the trial was conducted as a whole appears to have been unconstitutional.

On June 8, 1970, i.e., the same day the judgment was handed down, both Okuzaki and the prosecutors’ office appealed to the Tokyo High Court. This second trial, which was conducted by three judges – Chief Justice Kurimoto Kazuo, Judge Ogawa Izumi and Judge Fujii Kazuo, concluded on October 7, 1970. Okuzaki was found guilty again, and in the final judgment the judges strongly agreed with the prosecutors’ opinion that “the case in question is a crime committed against the Emperor, who is the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people as defined in the Constitution of Japan, and therefore it is a crime of a vicious nature with serious impact on society.”38

In other words, the judges condemned Okuzaki’s act a crime violating Article 1 of the Constitution. Yet, there is no such “crime against the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people” defined by present Japanese criminal law. As lese majesty was abolished in 1946, Okuzaki’s act could not be regarded as a criminal act except as a “crime of assault” under the current law. Therefore, as noted above, it is undoubtedly a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution to regard an act of assault against the emperor as particularly grave and serious in comparison with the same act committed against an ordinary Japanese citizen. Indeed, in this final judgment, unlike the judgment of the first trial, there was no reference at all to Article 14 of the Constitution. This judgment thus appeared a stronger application of lese majesty in comparison with the judgment of the first trial, and thus unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, as far as the actual penalty imposed upon Okuzaki was concerned, the final judgment supported the judgment of the first trial, i.e., one and a half years imprisonment, and rejected the prosecutors’ demand for three years imprisonment as an excess over the legally specified maximum punishment. Furthermore, it gave credit for one and a half years spent in detention instead of 180 days. That allowed Okuzaki to be released immediately.39 In this way, the reaction of the judges of the Tokyo High Court to this first criminal case committed against the emperor after the war was a strange mixture of the old fashioned idea of lese majesty and respect for the Criminal Law formulated under the new post-war Constitution promulgated in 1946.

Okuzaki’s Denunciation of Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan defining the position of the Emperor

Interestingly, Okuzaki’s struggle against Hirohito and the emperor system did not stop here. Soon he appealed to the Supreme Court. In his appeal, he stated:

Both the prosecutors and judges, who indicted or sentenced me at the first and second trials, respect the person, whom they regard as a victim of the case in question, as the Emperor. However, according to the Preamble of the Constitution, “we reject and revoke all constitutions, laws, ordinances, and rescripts in conflict” with the “universal principle of mankind.” It is our clear common understanding that the existence of the emperor is in conflict with the “universal principle of mankind.” The emperor’s authority, value, legitimacy and life are only temporary, partial, relative and subjective.Therefore, the fundamental nature of the emperor is absolutely, objectively, entirely and permanently depraved. Hence, Articles 1 to 8 of the current Constitution, which endorse the existence of the emperor, are definitely invalid. For a person with normal discernment and mind, those Articles are nonsensical, obsolete and foolish …… (emphasis added)40

This is an extremely powerful and logical argument, and as far as I know, so far no one has ever deliberated such a compelling denunciation of Chapter 1 (Articles 1 – 8) “The Emperor” of the Constitution of Japan. In the same appeal, Okuzaki also stated that both of his previous trials were violations of Article 14 and Article 37. Article 37 guarantees Japanese citizens’ right to a fair trial.41

On April 1 1971, the Supreme Court (Chief Judge Ōsumi Kenichirō, Judge Iwata Makoto, Judge Fujibayashi Masuzō, and Judge Shimoda Takezō) dismissed Okuzaki’s appeal in a very short statement (five lines). It claimed that Okuzaki’s argument on the invalidity of Articles 1 to 8 of the Constitution was “irrelevant to his case pertaining to Article 405 of the Criminal Law,” and that his condemnation of the violation of Articles 14 and 37 is simply due to his “misunderstanding of fact.” It gave no explanation whatsoever as to why Okuzaki’s argument was irrelevant, or what he had misunderstood.42

Such an abrupt statement by the judges gives an impression that they did not take Okuzaki’s case as a serious legal challenge to the Constitution. Or it could be speculated that Okuzaki’s argument was so forceful and compelling that they were incapable of refuting it. In fact, during the second trial, Okuzaki presented a similar argument on the denunciation of Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan, but the judges of the Tokyo High Court claimed that Article 1 explains that the emperor’s position derives “from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power” and therefore it does not contradict the Preamble.43 It is obvious, however, that the judges of the Tokyo High Court also avoided discussing the crucial issue, i.e., the contradiction between the universal principle of mankind and the emperor system that Okuzaki had sharply pointed out.

In order to truly understand Okuzaki’s discussion of the relationship between the universal principle of mankind and the fundamental nature of the emperor system, we need to read the entire first paragraph of the Preamble including the part Okuzaki used in his appeal to the Supreme Court.

“We, the Japanese people, acting through our duly elected representatives in the National Diet, determined that we shall secure for ourselves and our posterity the fruits of peaceful cooperation with all nations and the blessings of liberty throughout this land, and resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government, do proclaim that sovereign power resides with the people and do firmly establish this Constitution. Government is a sacred trust of the people, the authority for which is derived from the people, the powers of which are exercised by the representatives of the people, and the benefits of which are enjoyed by the people. This is a universal principle of mankind upon which this Constitution is founded. We reject and revoke all constitutions, laws, ordinances, and rescripts in conflict herewith”. (emphasis added)

As elaborated in the second paragraph of the Preamble, this universal principle of mankind also includes “the preservation of peace; the banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from the earth; and the right to live in peace, free from fear and want.” In Okuzaki’s mind, if we have truly “resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government,” why is the person most responsible for causing “horrors of war” still free from punishment for his role as commander in chief in the Asia-Pacific War? If we have decided that we abide by the principle of mankind, why does such an irresponsible person, who destroyed peace, created tyranny, slavery, oppression and intolerance, and violated the right of many Japanese and Asian people to live in peace, free from fear and want, still enjoy the prestige defined by the Constitution supposedly established upon the universal principle of mankind?

In other words, Okuzaki was clearly pointing out the inherent contradiction between the basic philosophy of the Constitution and its Article 1 “The Emperor.” Although Okuzaki did not discuss the source of this contradiction, it was undeniably created by the GHQ of the US Occupation Forces of Japan which decided to acquit Hirohito of his war crimes in order to politically exploit his majesty for the smooth control of post-war Japan, and to present him as a symbol of “peaceful post-war Japan” for the purpose of American benefit.44

As mentioned above, no one except Okuzaki has challenged the constitutionality of the emperor so vigorously and persistently. Post-war Japan produced many eminent writers, who produced novels and semi-autobiographies based on their own experiences as Imperial soldiers. Among them are Ōoka Shōhei, Noma Hiroshi, Gomikawa Jumpei, and Shiroyama Saburō, who conveyed strong anti-war sentiment thorough their moving stories. Some former soldiers, in particular those returned from China several years after the war, having been re-educated by the Chinese communist government, published honest and critical accounts of atrocities they themselves committed.45 Yet, they hardly discussed Emperor Hirohito’s war responsibility, and virtually none of them questioned the post-war constitutionality of the emperor.

Watanabe Kiyoshi, a survivor of the battleship Musashi destroyed and sunk by the U.S. forces in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, wrote excellent essays for many years after the war, criticizing Hirohito’s performance during and after the war. As far as I know he was the only former soldier, who sent a long open letter to Hirohito in 1961, harshly questioning him about his involvement in decision-making in various stages of the Asia-Pacific War. It is an excellent historical analysis of Hirohito’s war responsibility based on Watanabe’s thorough research of military and other official records. At the end of this open letter, however, Watanabe demanded that Hirohito abdicate the throne in order to show sincerity for his war responsibility, but did not question the constitutionality of Hirohito’s status as the emperor.46

Furthermore, as far as I know, no constitutional scholar in Japan has ever discussed the issue of the constitutionality of the emperor. We Japanese need to ask ourselves why we have failed to question such a crucial matter. It surely has to be faced if we are to establish a democratic society based upon a genuinely democratic constitution.

Conclusion: Who is Responsible for Creating an “Eccentric Person” like Okuzaki?

It is sad to see that Okuzaki, who had such a sharp mind, strong will and fervent sense of justice, broke down as a human being after the failure of this legal battle, which was fought for the purpose of promoting his bold idea of establishing “a happy and peaceful society without the emperor system.” The more people viewed Okuzaki as eccentric with extreme ideas, the more self-righteous and anti-authority he became, in particular toward lawyers and politicians. Okuzaki not only verbally condemned all who disagreed with him, but often resorted to violence in order to compel others to accept his ideas.

This is clear when we view his performance in the documentary film “Yuki Yuki te Shingun” produced between 1982 and 83. The dilemma and irony for viewers of this documentary film is that, without using violence to make former officers confess, Okuzaki probably could not reveal the fact that two of his comrades were executed by their officers 23 days after Japan officially surrendered to the Allied forces. Although they were executed on the excuse of “desertion in the face of the enemy,” the real reason was that they had refused to participate in group-cannibalism in New Guinea during the war. Officers wanted to silence them to cover up this dreadful fact.

Okuzaki believed that his idea was absolutely and always right, and eventually he saw himself as a martyr, who had a duty to follow a sacred calling from his “god” – a calling to establish a free, egalitarian and happy society like the utopia that Thomas More described, in which no one is controlled or exploited by anyone else. In December 1983, he committed manslaughter again – killing a son of former officer Muramoto Masao, who gave an order to execute the above-mentioned two soldiers. For this crime he was imprisoned again for 12 years.

Undoubtedly war, in particular, war of aggression, is an act of madness. Regardless of the official reason for the war, one cannot kill so many people without deadening the conscience of society. At the same time, one cannot be prepared to be killed unless one is prepared to kill others. For Okuzaki, who was forced to experience the madness of war and saw many people dying in front of his eyes, it was unimaginable that the person, who was most responsible for creating such madness and driving hundreds of thousands of fellow human beings to their deaths, seemed to have no conscience and no sense of accountability at all. Equally unimaginable to Okuzaki was the fact that society shielded the emperor from responsibility for the deaths of millions.

Indeed, while Okuzaki’s acts of violence against a few individuals bore opprobrium in postwar Japan, the person who created the madness of war that took the lives of millions continued to be venerated by the people as the symbol of a peaceful nation. For Okuzaki, this situation itself was mad. It must have been extremely difficult for him to encounter this madness, particularly to accept the fact that the large majority of his fellow citizens, including many former soldiers who had experienced that madness and saw their comrades die in vast numbers even as they barely survived themselves, saw this as neither “mad” nor “absurd.”

For Okuzaki, people who considered him eccentric and appalling had failed to understand the madness of war. “How could you forget this madness?” We can vividly feel Okuzaki’s intense anger when we read his appeal to the Supreme Court, or see the documentary film “Yuki Yuki te Shingun.”

“How could you forget this madness?” Okuzaki’s anger is palpable. But so engrossed did he become in pursuing Hirohito’s war responsibility that he lost the ability to remember his own responsibility to respect the lives and basic human rights of others.

The problem was, however, because he was so engrossed in pursuing the war responsibility of Hirohito and others that he lost the sanity of remembering his own responsibility to respect the lives and basic human rights of others. Indeed, he paid little attention to the fact that the war victims were not only Japanese soldiers but also many civilians, in particular those killed by indiscriminate bombings conducted by the US forces in the final stage of the war. Similarly, he hardly commented on the deaths of millions of Asian people, i.e., the victims of Japan’s atrocious war conduct. In other words, he was not really capable of internalizing the pain of war victims other than his own fellow soldiers.

Therefore, we need to remember that we Japanese including Hirohito, who have failed to internalize the pain of war victims as our own and to carefully pursue Japan’s war responsibility, are indeed responsible for creating a contradictory, complex and difficult person like Okuzaki Kenzō.

We may need to learn from Okuzaki’s life that we should not forget that the madness of war actually paralyzes our sanity to understand how mad and absurd all wars are.

A four-square-metre box with a screen and computer.
This is what Japanese cyber-cafes offer, around the clock.
Most customers just spend an hour or two here.
But there are thousands who spend their lives in them.
The Manboo in Tokyo has its own permanent residents: Masata and Hitomi.

It is a home for them, even though they sleep on the floor.

The Yamabushi in northern Japan practice a once forbidden ancient religion. While their tradition is at risk of disappearing, it offers a way for those seeking a different path in Japan‘s society.

Walking barefoot through rivers, meditating under waterfalls and spending the nights on mountaintops - that is the way of the Yamabushi. They walk into the forest to die and be born again.

Their teachings of Shugendō 修験道 were first established 1400 years ago and peaked in popularity during the 17th century, when Yamabushi visited around 90 percent of all villages in northern Japan. The monks were said to have magical powers and served as advisors to samurai and warlords.

In the late 19th century, when Japan opened itself to the west and moved from a feudal state towards industrialization, their religion was forbidden. Only the monks of Yamagata prefecture in northern Japan practiced the tradition in secret. Their isolation near the three holy mountains of Dewa helped them to save their customs.

Today, their religion is not forbidden anymore, but there aren't many left who practice it either. Some schools have opened their doors to allow women and foreigners. They offer private courses to help maintain their sacred places:
yamabushido.jp/

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Justifying the biggest public enterprise of the United States with its use three-quarters of a century ago is a tricky business, not just because of so many unpopular uses of it since, but also because of the lack of concrete actions to memorialize. Has nobody ever noticed that there’s no holiday to commemorate the date on which the United States decided to rescue the Jews? It’s hard to glorify things that didn’t happen. This is part of why Pearl Harbor is so incredibly important. With the saving-the Jews myths alone it simply would not be the case that you could rehabilitate a blood-soaked warmonger like George HW Bush by saying the world “World War II.” A World War II without Pearl Harbor myths could not possibly outweigh Central American death squads, killing thousands of people in an attack on Panama, manufacturing a war on Iraq with grotesque lies and then bombing principally civilians and retreating troops and installing bases that would generate 911, ginning up new excuses for a permanent military after the Soviet collapse, sending the vultures to exploit Russia, and of course the October Surprise and the possible role in killing Kennedy, not to mention the fact that during World War II Bush’s father was doing profitable business with the Nazis. What gives the phrase “World War II” the power to erase all such horrors is a concoction of overlapping and interlocking myths in which the keystone is the Pearl Harbor Lie of Innocence.

The combination is difficult to make sense of. If being innocently attacked by the Japanese justifies the war, and rescuing the Jews justifies the war (even though neither of these things actually occurred), should Yemenis try to rescue Afghans if attacked by the United States and Saudi Arabia? And would they be wrong to try to rescue Afghans if not attacked by the United States and Saudi Arabia? Would the mythical rescuing of the Jews have been wrong without the mythical surprise attack by the Japanese? Would fighting the Japanese have been wrong without the mythical rescuing of the Jews? In any case, despite not being dependent on logic, faith in the Good War is dependent on each of its major myths. So, knocking down the Pearl Harbor one is helpful.

Winston Churchill’s fervent hope for years before the U.S. entry into the war was that Japan would attack the United States. This would permit the United States (not legally, but politically) to fully enter World War II in Europe, as its president wanted to do, as opposed to merely providing weaponry and assisting in the targeting of submarines as it had been doing. On December 7, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt drew up a declaration of war on both Japan and Germany, but decided it wouldn’t work and went with Japan alone. Germany quickly declared war on the United States, possibly in hopes that Japan would declare war on the Soviet Union.

Getting into the war was not a new idea in the Roosevelt White House. FDR had tried lying to the U.S. public about U.S. ships including the Greer and the Kerny, which had been helping British planes track German submarines, but which Roosevelt pretended had been innocently attacked. Roosevelt also lied that he had in his possession a secret Nazi map planning the conquest of South America, as well as a secret Nazi plan for replacing all religions with Nazism. The map was of the quality of Karl Rove’s “proof” that Iraq was buying uranium in Niger.

And yet, the people of the United States didn’t buy the idea of going into another war until Pearl Harbor, by which point Roosevelt had already instituted the draft, activated the National Guard, created a huge Navy in two oceans, traded old destroyers to England in exchange for the lease of its bases in the Caribbean and Bermuda, and — just 11 days before the “unexpected” attack, and five days before FDR expected it — he had secretly ordered the creation (by Henry Field) of a list of every Japanese and Japanese-American person in the United States.

In January 2014, more than one hundred scholars, peace activists and artists from around the world issued a statement condemning the Japanese and U.S. governments’ plans to close MCAS Futenma, which is located in the middle of a congested urban neighbourhood, and build a new base for the US Marine Corps offshore from the coastal village of Henoko in Northern Okinawa. While we applauded shutting the Futenma base, we strongly objected to the idea of relocating it inside Okinawa.

Okinawa has suffered at Japanese and American hands for more than a century. It was incorporated by force into both the pre-modern Japanese state in 1609 and into modern Japan in 1879. In 1945, it was the scene of the final major battle of World War Two, resulting in the deaths of between one-third and one-quarter of its population. It was then severed from the rest of Japan under direct US military rule for another 27 years during which the Pentagon constructed military bases, unfettered by Japanese residual sovereignty or Okinawan sentiment. Reversion to Japan took place in 1972, bases intact. In the continuing post-Cold War era, Okinawa has faced the pressure of state policies designed to reinforce that base system, not only by construction of the Henoko facility but also by the building of “helicopter pads” for the Marine Corps in the Yambaru forest of northern Okinawa and by the accelerating fortification of the chain of “Southwest” (Nansei) islands that stretch from Kagoshima to Taiwan (including Amami, Miyako, Ishigaki, and Yonaguni).

Signatories of our 2014 statement included linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, filmmakers Oliver Stone, Michael Moore and John Junkerman, Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire, historians Norma Field, John Dower, Alexis Dudden and Herbert Bix, former US Army Colonel Ann Wright, authors Naomi Klein and Joy Kogawa, former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard Falk, and former Defense and State Department official Daniel Ellsberg. The present statement follows on from that of four years ago and from subsequent statements such as those in January and August 2015. It includes many of the original signatories.

This is a compendium of four short films with English subtitles. Sachio Yoshioka is the fifth-generation head of the Somenotsukasa Yoshioka dye workshop in Fushimi, southern Kyoto. When he succeeded to the family business in 1988, he abandoned the use of synthetic colours in favour of dyeing solely with plants and other natural materials. 30 years on, the workshop produces an extensive range of extremely beautiful colours.

Mr Yoshioka generously made two gifts of naturally dyed textile and paper samples to the V&A in 2016 and 2017. The process of creating these samples was recorded for a documentary broadcast in Japan in May 2017.

The programme also explored the background to Mr Yoshioka’s passion for natural dyeing and his long-standing quest to revive historical colours whose methods of making have been forgotten.

The sequence of running is as follows: In Search of Forgotten Colours - 5’15” Beni Red (safflower; carthamus tinctorius) - 4’39” Paper Flowers and the Omizutori Ceremony - 3’15” Murasaki Purple (purple gromwell; lithospermum erythrorhizon) - 4’17”