Japan Press Weekly

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2011 April 6 - 12 [JCP]

Individual compensation was a result in 1995 of efforts by quake victims and JCP

The Great East Japan Disaster has greatly damaged local communities in the Tohoku region. To restore sufferers’ livelihoods is an urgent necessity.

There has been a system of individual compensation in place to disaster sufferers since the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. The system was established as a result of efforts made by the quake victims and the Japanese Communist Party which brought up the need for such a system in the Diet.

The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake occurred on January 17, 1995, killing 6,434 people and destroying about 460,000 houses. It was the worst postwar disaster at that point.

Eight days after the quake, JCP Vice Chair at that time Tachiki Hiroshi used his question time in the Upper House plenary session to stress the need for such a system. He said, “The government on its responsibility should consider creating a system to compensate the victims for damage to houses, land property, and household goods.” In the following day’s Lower House Budget Committee, JCP representative Kokuta Keiji also demanded an individual compensation system, saying, “The victims cannot restore their lives on their own because the very basis of their lives has turned into rubble.”

However, the Prime Minister at that time, Murayama Tomiichi of the coalition government - the Liberal Democratic Party, the Socialist Party (dissolved), and the New Party Sakigake (dissolved) - rejected the demand by stating, “Japan has a private property system. So, individual property should be maintained based on individual responsibility.” All that the government intended to do at that time was to provide low-interest loans to the sufferers.

Angered by such a cold position, 45 organizations including workers’ unions in the afflicted areas, groups of doctors, lawyers, and researchers together with the sufferers launched a civic group for disaster relief and reconstruction. The group repeatedly conducted signature drives, made representations to the government, and held rallies to call for the creation of a solid support system.

Meanwhile, the JCP drafted a bill to help disaster victims to restore their living conditions and called on other political parties for support. With the eventual support of bipartisan lawmakers, the JCP hammered out the bill and jointly submitted it to the House of Councilors in May 1997.

In the 1996 Upper House by-election in the Hyogo bloc and in the 1997 Kobe City mayoral election, a JCP candidate and a candidate backed by the JCP ran for office and fought well. In the 1998 House of Councilors election, Osawa Tatsumi of the JCP won a seat in the Hyogo bloc, beating the LDP incumbent. These unexpected shows of strength by the JCP shocked the government.

In 1998, the power of a determined and united public forced the LDP government to approve the Natural Disaster Victims Relief Law.

The JCP and the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake sufferers have since continued working to have the government improve the law. As a result, a ceiling on the amount of compensation increased to three million yen from one million yen in 2004. Restriction on age, income, and how the money was to be used were removed from the law’s requirements in 2007.

In dealing with the aftermath of the Great East Japan Disaster, the JCP is demanding that the government dramatically raise the payment of compensation from the present three million yen.