Tuesday, September 13, 2011

(Of All People,) Edano Apologizes to Fukushima Governor for His Predecessor's "Wrong" Words

According to Yomiuri Shinbun (9/13/2011), Yukio Edano, newly installed Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, apologized to the governror of Fukushima Prefecture for the inappropriate words by the just-dismissed Yoshio Hachiro.

And to apologize to the governor who was most likely to be the one who insisted on 20 millisieverts/year radiation exposure limit for school children in Fukushima, according to the report by TBS (link is in Japanese, with audio file of the radio program which has since been taken down as "private") - a major television/radio station.

Edano, who as the Chief Cabiniet Secretary (a very powerful position in a parliamentary system) told Fukushima residents and the rest of Japan that the nuclear accident was contained and the reactor core hadn't melted, that it was safe to eat contaminated food, that his government had no plans to evacuate Iitate-mura because the level of contamination was not high, on and on..., apologized for Hachiro's comments that the area around the nuke plant looked like a ghost town.

Telling the truth is not rewarded in the Japanese politics in particular, and the mistake of Hachiro was not to have learned it in his political career. Lies are to be covered with even bigger lies, and that's universal, not just in Japan.

Let's see, what would Edano's bigger lies be? My guess is decontamination (to be mostly done by the residents) and recovery (of the powerful construction industry and waste processing industry, if I were to be so cynical), and his claim that Japan is now fully recovered from the nuclear disaster.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If what Hachiro said was so wrong because it upset people's feelings (apparently, that's a right Japanese people have, it's in the Constitution ;-),
then the BBC should apologize, too, and maybe all commit seppuku. Inside Japan's nuclear ghost zone

paul said...

Trying to confirm a related issue on the supposed political attack on Hachiro. Rather than report, please see my comment from today, Sept 14, on an article that claims it was his relative anti-nuclear stance that made him the target of METI/Kisha Club/Tepco. Anyone have more info or understand the article I refer to?

paul said...

Oops, I should have given the link:

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/09/japans-trade-minister-yoshio-hachiro.html

Anonymous said...

Paul's link to his earlier comment didn't work. This should:
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/09/japans-trade-minister-yoshio-hachiro.html?showComment=1315983927761#c2909037880812761055

Anonymous said...

Apparently Edano is ruffling some feathers
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201109130341.html

Johntaro said...

Now I wonder who will apologize on behalf of Mr. Edano for holding back the SPEEDI data (on radiation levels) when people were in dire need of it.
I also wonder why nobody squawked when this past May former Minister of Health and Welfare, Ritsuo Hosokawa, used the exact same expression, "shinomachi" (ghost town), to describe the Fukushima towns surrounding the leaking TEPCO nuclear plant. I think he was even lauded for his straight talk about a catastrophe that has reduced these towns to ghosts of their former selves. In fact at least seven other politicians have used the same word on occasion with no controversy. What’s the big deal now? Maybe it’s because Hachiro was at least willing to seriously lend his ear to the voices calling for a nuclear alternative.

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