JCP Chair Shii arrives in Hanoi and offers flowers at war victims' cenotaphs

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JCP Chair Shii arrives in Hanoi and offers flowers at war victims' cenotaphs

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on January 9 arrived in Hanoi in his first visit to Vietnam. He led a JCP delegation visiting the country for the first time since September 1999, when then JCP Chair Fuwa Tetsuzo visited Vietnam.

At Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, the JCP delegation met Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee External Affairs Commission Vice Chair Tran Van Hang (CPV Central Committee member) and Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Hattori Norio.

On arrival in Hanoi, Shii visited Kham Thien Street in Hanoi City to lay flowers to express his condolences at a cenotaph in memory of victims of U.S. carpet bombings during the Vietnam War. According to the Vietnamese official account, the U.S. B-29 bombings on the night of December 26, 1972 either killed or injured 577 residents and completely or partially destroyed more than 1,700 houses in the Kham Thien quarter.

In front of representatives of the Kham Thien quarter residents who guided the JCP delegation, Shii stated, "The victory of the Vietnamese people's anti-U.S. national salvation war has the world historical significance. I pay tribute to those who fell in the struggle."

Shii then went to the Vinh Tuy quarter to lay flowers at a cenotaph dedicated to the two million victims who had been starved to death in 1944-1945 under the occupation of the Japanese Army that had deprived the Vietnamese people of food and forced them to grow crops exclusively for the Japanese military.

Shii said to the Hai Ba Trung District People's Committee Vice Chair Ngoc Bich who welcomed the JCP delegation, "I think that the Japanese people should never forget the fact that two million Vietnamese people starved to death as a result of the Japanese Army's occupation. We will make this fact known to the Japanese people using Akahata and other means, so that more Japanese tourists coming to Hanoi will visit this cenotaph."

The JCP delegation consisted of Executive Committee Chair Shii Kazuo (delegation head, House of Representatives member), Vice Chair Ogata Yasuo (vice delegation head, International Bureau director, House of Councilors member), Executive Committee member Morihara Kimitoshi (International Bureau deputy director), Executive Committee member Yamaguchi Tomio (Social Sciences Institute vice director), Executive Committee member Ueki Toshio (Press Service Department head), and Central Committee member Kasai Akira (International Bureau deputy director, House of Representatives member).
- Akahata, January 10, 2007