Fed: RSL takes low key approach to Japan PM's visit to shrine

AAP General News (Australia)
08-14-2001
Fed: RSL takes low key approach to Japan PM's visit to shrine

CANBERRA, Aug 14 AAP - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a shrine
venerating his country's war dead including convicted war criminals had left a sour taste,
RSL head Peter Phillips said today.

Retired Major-General Phillips said he was pleased that Mr Koizumi chose not to visit
the shrine in Tokyo on August 15 or to go through the elaborate Shinto ritual which might
have been seen as endorsing this veneration of the war criminals.

August 15 is the anniversary of Japan's surrender at the end of World War II and also
Korea's national day. Mr Koizumi visited the shrine yesterday.

"It still leaves a bit of a sour taste," Mr Phillips said today.

No Japanese prime minister has made an official visit to Yasukuni, the Shinto shrine
that honours Japan's war dead, including Class-A war criminals from WWII, since Yasuhiro
Nakasone did so in 1985.

Mr Koizumi did not make clear whether his homage was official.

"We were all concerned that this was a bit in-your-face to former enemies of Japan.

I wasn't at all surprised that the Koreans and the Chinese got upset about it."

Mr Phillips said the RSL had not come to any formal position on Mr Koizumi's visit
to the shrine and had not made any formal protest.

The RSL's main concern was how Japan's role in the Pacific war was taught to future generations.

That follows persistent complaints from inside and outside Japan that school textbooks
continue to gloss over Japanese aggression and war crimes.

"The one lingering issue on which we are agreed even within the RSL is how they teach
their children the facts of the war, the textbook issue," he said.

"There are still some in the RSL who think the Japanese parliament should resolve to
apologise to everyone. I think that is unlikely.

"Our government has accepted the apology of at least two prime ministers that have
visited this country.

"Our emphasis if anything is on the matter of the textbooks."

Mr Phillips said it had to be acknowledged that the Yasukuni shrine held enormous religious
cultural significance to the Japanese.

He said it was probably appropriate that someone from the new government should visit there.

"But it has also tended to be associated with extremists in Japan and there is a huge
opposition in Japan to that sort of thing. I am pleased that they are having this debate
internally about it," he said.

AAP mb/kjp/cjh/bwl

KEYWORD: JAPAN SHRINE RSL

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