Photo/Illutration Visitors pack Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on Aug. 15, 2022. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

It was recently learned that Maritime Self-Defense Force members, including a senior officer, visited Yasukuni Shrine as a group.

The finding came on the heels of an earlier revelation of a group visit to the war-related Shinto shrine in Tokyo by members of the Ground SDF.

The actions not only breached the constitutional principle of separation of religion and politics but also raised suspicion the Self-Defense Forces have not broken with the imperial Japanese military as they are supposed to have done.

Officials should conduct an investigation to find out if there have been any similar cases in other SDF units.

It has emerged that graduates of the MSDF Officer Candidate School visited Yasukuni Shrine with Rear Adm. Yasushige Konno, commander of the Training Squadron at the time, and others in May last year ahead of a long-term overseas training cruise.

An article in Yasukuni Shrine’s newsletter presented a photo image of SDF members in uniform bowing on the floor of the main shrine building. The article also carried a statement that could be construed as saying that SDF members are annually visiting the shrine ahead of a training cruise.

Adm. Ryo Sakai, the chief of staff of the MSDF, told a news conference that many of the 165 graduates took part in the visit but emphasized it was a private visit that was paid during a break during a training session in the Tokyo region and was based on individual free will.

Sakai said he does not believe the visit violated a 1974 notice of the administrative vice minister of defense that prohibited military unit visits to religious institutions and compulsory participation of SDF members in similar visits.

A cash offering was collected on the basis of free will and was presented collectively to Yasukuni Shrine, Sakai added.

By appearances, however, the group visit by the SDF members in uniform appears an organized action. It also appears as if the visit represented an integral part of the development process for senior SDF officers.

We are left to wonder if young SDF members can really decide if they will participate in a similar visit at their own free will. 

Sakai said no records are available because the visit was voluntary and he has no plan to investigate the matter because it created no problems.

We are tempted to ask what allows him to make such a decision without looking into the past to discern the realities.

The Defense Ministry should properly establish the facts without leaving the matter in the MSDF’s hands.

It had been revealed only in January this year that members of the GSDF aircraft accident investigation commission, which is headed by the GSDF vice chief of staff, visited Yasukuni Shrine as a group.

Yasukuni Shrine was administered jointly by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy and was the spiritual pillar of nationalism and militarism until the end of World War II. It also enshrines 14 Class-A war criminals who were held responsible at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

Freedom of religious belief is, of course, guaranteed for SDF members. An organized visit to the shrine, however, is a different story.

Officials should take this opportunity to survey the entire SDF organization to check if remorse over the past is not fading away within the SDF, which is supposed to have made a fresh start under the pacifist Constitution.

Defense Minister Minoru Kihara last month mentioned a possible review of the administrative vice defense minister’s notice that banned SDF unit visits to religious institutions.

“The notice is 50 years old,” he said by way of justification. “There have since been several Supreme Court precedents on the freedom of religious belief and on the principle of separation of religion and politics.”

It remains unclear what change of direction Kihara had in mind. It would be out of the question if he were planning to relax the existing restrictions.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 25

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