LDP lawmaker partially retracts remarks about Okinawa battle
Upper House member Shoji Nishida apologizes on May 9 for remarks he made about student nurses killed in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa. (Takeshi Iwashita)
Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Shoji Nishida on May 9 retracted and apologized for remarks denigrating a war memorial in Okinawa Prefecture but stood by his assertion that the prefecture is 'rewriting history.'
'It was highly inappropriate to invoke the name of the Himeyuri-no-to memorial without proper explanation,' Nishida, a 66-year-old member of the Upper House, said at a news conference in Tokyo. 'I now understand how deeply painful and traumatic this history is for the people of Okinawa.'
The Himeyuri-no-to memorial, located in Itoman city, is dedicated to more than 200 nurses and teachers of the Himeyuri (star lily) Student Corps who were mobilized for the war effort and were killed in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa.
In a speech at a symposium held in the Okinawa prefectural capital of Naha on May 3, Nishida described the Himeyuri-no-to as 'terrible' and an example of 'rewriting history.'
He claimed the memorial's narrative wrongly implied that the Japanese military's presence led to the students' deaths, while portraying the U.S. arrival as a liberation of Okinawa.
An official at the memorial has said the site contains no such narrative.
Although acknowledging that he was 'insensitive to have caused distress' to the people of Okinawa, Nishida said he stands by his view that the history of the Battle of Okinawa has been distorted.
'I still believe what I said to be factual,' he said. 'I was wrong because I didn't understand the emotions of the Okinawan people, not because I said anything untrue.'
Nishida said he would not retract his broader critique of Okinawa's history education, including its interpretation of the ground battle.
After his May 3 speech, Nishida was roundly criticized by Okinawa Prefecture officials as well as politicians in both the ruling and opposition camps.
At a May 7 news conference, Nishida refused to retract his claims and accused the media of taking his statements out of context.
The lawmaker asserted that his remarks were based on fact, although he admitted he could not recall the exact wording of the memorial displays he saw more than 20 years ago.
Nishida represents Kyoto Prefecture in the Upper House and is up for re-election this summer.
(This article was written by Taishi Sasayama and Hayato Jinno.)
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