Shii sees new foreign minister as unlikely to establish truth in NGO issue

Asked for comments on Kawaguchi Yoriko replacing dismissed Tanaka Makiko as foreign minister, Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on February 1 stated that the new foreign minister will be unable to establish the truth of the NGO issue.

Shii said that hearing Kawaguchi in the House of Councilors Budget Committee speak in defense of Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi made him think that Kawaguchi fails to get a clear understanding of the seriousness of the matter in which the Foreign Ministry barred the NGOs from attending an international conference on assistance to Afghanistan.

Shii said that the people now want the corrupt practices in the Foreign Ministry, such as the secret funds and special interest Dietmembers meddling in diplomatic matters, be brought to light. He added that he has an impression that Kawaguchi is not up to this task.

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Kawaguchi Yoriko was a former Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) official and served as a minister to the United States. After retirement in 1993, she took an executive position at Suntory Ltd. In July 2000 she was appointed Environment Agency director general in the second Mori Cabinet and was reappointed to the post as environment minister under the Koizumi Cabinet in April 2001.

In the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP7) in Marrakech in Morocco in November 2001, devoted to completion of preparations for the enactment of the Kyoto Protocol against global warming, Kawaguchi as the environment minister demanded that market forces be maintained. What she said was exactly in compliance with the call of the business circles. The NGOs in the conference criticized her statement as an environment minister trying to make the Kyoto Protocol legally non-binding. (end)