Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2025 June 18 - 24 [POLITICS]

Akamine & JCP local assemblymembers on Okinawa Memorial Day pledge to work for peace

On June 23, Okinawa’s Memorial Day marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa, Okinawa-elected Japanese Communist Party Dietmember Akamine Seiken visited former battlefields and monuments in Itoman City with JCP Okinawa prefectural assemblymembers and renewed his commitment to working even harder to protect peace.

Itoman City was the location of the final and fiercest battle during the Battle of Okinawa in which more than 240,000 people, including local residents, were killed in the ground warfare.

Akamine and the assemblypersons offered flowers to a monument built in memory of the teacher’s school students who had been mobilized as members of the student corps called “Tekketsu Kin’noh Tai”. The group of JCP lawmakers visited the Cornerstone of Peace, in which more than 240,000 names of the war dead are etched, at the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park and laid flowers to where the names of their relatives are inscribed.

They also offered flowers and prayers at the tower of soul spirits called “Kompaku no To”, the first monument erected in Okinawa after the end of the war, as well as at the “Himeyuri no To” tower and the “Shiraume no To” tower. These sites commemorate the female students who had been mobilized mainly as nurses and lost their lives.

The JCP lawmakers reaffirmed the historical fact that the Battle of Okinawa had inflicted tremendous sacrifices on the local residents.

On the same day, an annual memorial service hosted by the prefectural government and prefectural assembly took place at the Peace Memorial Park with about 4,000 people, including JCP Akamine, participating. UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Nakamitsu Izumi and Nihon Hidankyo representative Tanaka Shigemitsu also attended the ceremony.

Okinawa Governor Tamaki Denny delivered a peace declaration, and a representative of the Okinawa Association of Bereaved Families offered words of condolence. UN Under-Secretary-General Nakamitsu in her address called for peace and coexistence, not to ender the path to war.

Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, the House of Representatives speaker, the House of Councilors president, and the Supreme Court chief justice were also in attendance.

PM Ishiba in his speech justified the national government’s plan to evacuate residents of the Sakishima Islands in case the islands become a battlefield by saying that the government then will have to prevent collateral damage to civilians. A buildup of Japan’s defense functions is underway on the Sakishima Islands.

Past related article:
> Gov’t plans to evacuate 110K residents as well as tourists from Sakishima Islands in case of Taiwan emergency [April 2, 2025]