Abe gives up visit to Yasukuni on August 15

   On August 15, marking the 62nd anniversary of the end of WWII, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and other cabinet ministers, except one, did not visit Yasukuni Shrine.

   Since 2000, two to nine ministers have visited the shrine every year on the day, so it was unusual that only one minister made a visit.

   Criticism in and out of Japan of the Abe government’s view on Japan’s past wars forced cabinet ministers to refrain from visiting the shrine.

   In the recent House of Councilors election, voters expressed strong disapproval of Prime Minister Abe, who put up the slogan of “breaking away from the postwar regime”, and his Liberal Democratic Party. The U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution that urges the Japanese government to officially apologize to former wartime sex slaves.

   Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs Takaichi Sanae, the only cabinet minister who visited the shrine, had initially hinted at her intention to not visit the shrine on the day.

   Takaichi is a member of the parliamentarian league affiliated with the Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi), a right-wing organization actively seeking constitutional revision, and has played a key role in the campaign to remove descriptions of the wartime sex slavery from history textbooks. She decided to visit the shrine reportedly to avoid a situation in which no cabinet ministers visited the shrine on the day.                    - Akahata, August 16, 2007