Latest news with #MoritomoGakuen
Asahi Shimbun
4 days ago
- General
- Asahi Shimbun
Film sheds light on settlers' sex deal with Soviets in Manchuria
Fumie Matsubara, director of 'Kurokawa no Onnatachi,' discusses her documentary film in Osaka's Yodogawa Ward on June 19. (Akari Uozumi) A statue called 'Otome no Hi' (Monument to the maidens) was erected in 1982 in Gifu Prefecture. But an explanation on who the 'maidens' were and why they were being commemorated did not appear until 36 years later. A plaque inscribed with an epitaph explaining the long-hidden shame of the former village of Kurokawa was set up in 2018. And now, a documentary film sheds further light on the plight of the maidens, who were forced to 'sexually entertain' Soviet soldiers in exchange for their protection of the village's settlement in Manchuria after Japan's defeat in World War II. Directed by Fumie Matsubara, 'Kurokawa no Onnatachi' ('In Their Own Words: The Women of Kurokawa') focuses on women who started talking on camera about their traumatic experiences of sexual violence nearly 70 years after the war. It also features an association of bereaved family members of the Manchurian settlers who, inspired by the women, went to great lengths to set up the explanatory plaque at the stone monument. PROTECTION DEAL Settlers from Kurokawa, now part of Shirakawa town, emigrated to Manchuria in northeast China when it was under Japanese rule. After the war ended and the Japanese troops went home, the settlers were left to fend for themselves in hostile territory. From September through November 1945, they offered about 15 unmarried females between 17 and 21 years old to Soviet soldiers in return for protection against looters and angry locals. Four of the women died in Manchuria. The settlers eventually returned to Japan and kept mum about the sexual services. But the surviving women who came home suffered from defamatory insults. GOING PUBLIC The stone monument was erected to console the souls of the four women who died far from home. Director Matsubara has been covering the Kurokawa settlers since 2018, when she was working at TV Asahi Corp. and presented a two-minute news clip about the completion of the explanatory plaque. At the time, she was also pursuing a political scandal over falsified Finance Ministry documents concerning the heavily discounted sale of state-owned land to Moritomo Gakuen, a private educational institution. 'At a time when history was being forged, ordinary people were squarely facing an inconvenient fact of history,' Matsubara recalled. 'I felt it was a great consolation.' The film captures the changes the women went through after they shared their experiences. Harue Sato was 20 years old when she was in Manchuria and is one of the first women who went public about her ordeal. Students and locals started visiting her home to hear her stories. A senior high school teacher in the area offers a class on wartime violence based on Sato's recounts. Reiko Yasue, who was 17 when the war ended, had kept her past a secret even from family members. She would only talk about her experiences on condition of anonymity. She couldn't sleep when she remembered her days of anguish, and she rarely smiled. But her wounds began to heal when her granddaughter and other supporters, who learned about the sexual violence through news reports and books, gave her warm words. 'I really felt that dignity can be restored when you have supporters,' Matsubara said. She decided to make the documentary to show the strength of the women who publicly spoke about their tragedy and those who listen to their stories. The director asked Shinobu Otake, who has appeared in many films, television shows and theater productions that deal with the theme of peace, to serve as the narrator. The actress immediately accepted the offer. 'Inspired by what the women told them, everyone started searching for what they could do, including making this film' Matsubara said. 'I hope each audience member will also become one of the collaborators to convey their legacy.' The 99-minute film is currently showing nationwide.
Japan Times
12-06-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
More Moritomo Gakuen documents disclosed to widow of MOF official
The Finance Ministry disclosed Wednesday another set of documents related to the dubious sale of state-owned land to Moritomo Gakuen to the widow of MOF official Toshio Akagi, who killed himself after being ordered to tamper with official records on the sale. The newly disclosed 8,800-page documents, kept by the ministry's Kinki Local Finance Bureau, where Akagi was working, contain his handwritten notes as well as emails and other internal records associated with his job. They are the second set of Moritomo documents voluntarily submitted to prosecutors and disclosed to the widow, Masako Akagi, by the ministry after a bundle of some 2,200 pages made available to her in April. In response to an Osaka High Court ruling revoking the ministry's decision not to release the documents, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato in March promised their full disclosure. The papers that were handed to the widow in April unveiled the process of the land plot in question being sold to the Osaka-based private school operator at a substantial discount as the construction site for an elementary school. The ministry started tampering with the Moritomo documents after then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a parliamentary meeting in 2017 that he would quit not only as prime minister but as a lawmaker if he or his wife, Akie, or both were found to have been involved in the land deal. Akie was named honorary principal of the planned elementary school. The ministry intends to gradually disclose all the documents, which total more than 170,000 pages. In a related development, the ministry disclosed in June 2021 the so-called "Akagi file," which was compiled by the deceased official to show how he was forced to tamper with the documents. However, the partially blackened-out file failed to reveal details of the ministry's misconduct.
Asahi Shimbun
06-06-2025
- Business
- Asahi Shimbun
VOX POPULI: Government never faced up to lack of records on ‘Abenomasks'
Plaintiff Hiroshi Kamiwaki, middle, holds a sign proclaiming victory in a lawsuit against the government at the Osaka District Court on June 5. (Minami Endo) There's a Japanese expression, 'shokushogimi'—the sense of being fed up after overindulgence. By now, many in Japan are surely fed up with hearing about the 'Abenomask,' the government's much-maligned initiative under then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to distribute reusable cloth face masks to every household during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the enormous outlay of taxpayer funds, the masks failed to reach people when they were most needed, and vast quantities ended up in storage. Rarely has a government policy drawn such widespread ridicule and criticism. So how were these masks procured in the first place? On June 5, the Osaka District Court overturned the government's decision to withhold documents related to the contracting process. The court dismissed the government's assertion that 'no documents exist' as implausible. The government claimed that most interactions had been conducted 'orally,' without written records. That means contracts totaling 40 billion yen ($278 million) for 300 million masks—each differing by vendor—were arranged through verbal agreements alone. The notion strains credulity. Even if true, such an approach reveals a staggering level of administrative negligence. We saw a similar attitude among senior bureaucrats during the Moritomo Gakuen scandal, which involved the questionable sale of state-owned land to a private school operator with ties to Abe. Officials brazenly claimed that documents related to the land deal had been discarded and that virtually nothing was known. Such an outrageous excuse is so appalling that it leaves one speechless. It inevitably casts serious doubt on the credibility of those involved. In the case of the mask contracts, even emails that had supposedly been discarded were later unearthed during reinvestigation. As Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927), one of Japan's most influential writers, once observed with remarkable insight and precision, 'There are truths that can only be expressed through lies.' 'There was absolutely nothing wrong with it,' Abe maintained, defending the controversial policy and continuing to don the cloth masks. But the success or failure of a public policy is not determined by the policymaker—it is judged by the people. What, then, are the lessons to be drawn from the pandemic? If access to legitimate information is obstructed, it becomes impossible to scrutinize the historical responsibility of those who shaped critical decisions. Not long ago, I learned that a friend still had an Abenomask at home. Feeling a twinge of nostalgia, I asked to see it. The small mask, made of thick, coarse gauze, felt oddly familiar. When I held it to my face, it gave off a faint scent—reminiscent of 'warabanshi,' the rough, low-grade paper once commonly used in Japanese schools for handouts and practice sheets. —The Asahi Shimbun, June 6 * * * Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
Asahi Shimbun
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Asahi Shimbun
VOX POPULI: Key questions in the Moritomo Gakuen scandal still unanswered
Moritomo Gakuen had planned to open a private elementary school on this plot of land in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, previously owned by the government. (Asahi Shimbun file photo) It saddens me to imagine a scene of black smoke billowing into the sky. Eighty years ago in this country, pages and pages of official documents were destroyed by the military, which is no surprise. But the same thing also happened at the Foreign Ministry where, just before and after Japan's defeat in World War II, a whopping 6,698 volumes of diplomatic documents were destroyed, mostly by incineration. What the ministry's senior bureaucrats feared most was the documents falling into the hands of outsiders. Although there was opposition to destroying them, it appears that the officials ultimately agreed, so they wouldn't be questioned about their war responsibility. The decision to incinerate was reached on Aug. 7, 1945, the day after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, according to 'Gaiko wo Kiroku shi Kokai suru' (Diplomatic Records and Their Declassification) by Ryuji Hattori. I am now wondering how many official documents have been destroyed by the Finance Ministry. It has come to light that some of the ministry's recently declassified documents concerning the Moritomo Gakuen scandal were missing vital parts, many of which were believed to pertain to a certain politician and his wife. The ministry has admitted to destroying those parts and having acted inappropriately. In the case of this scandal, what the bureaucrats concerned feared most was being questioned in the Diet by opposition lawmakers. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared at the time, 'Were my wife and I to be told that we are involved (in the scandal), I would immediately resign as prime minister as well as from the Diet.' But are we supposed to really believe that no politician was involved, or that not a single politician said and did things in anticipation of what Abe would expect? Over the long term, even documents that are inconvenient to the administration of the time can bear vital testimony and pass on historical lessons. As such, they are not only valuable assets of the people who are living now and will be living in the future but also serve to solemnly protect the honor of those who died fighting injustice over long periods. Why did the government sell its land at an impossibly low price? Did the Finance Ministry think it was alright to let insiders 'investigate' the case like it was no big deal, and then claim ignorance because the pertinent documents have been destroyed? If that is the ministry's position, it could not be more wrong. The people who created the documents are still around, and so are the people who got rid of them. I demand that the scandal be re-examined, and thoroughly this time. --The Asahi Shimbun, May 17 * * * Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
NHK
09-05-2025
- Business
- NHK
Japan Finance Ministry: Missing documents in Moritomo scandal were discarded
Japan's Finance Ministry says it believes some of the documents related to a controversial sale of state-owned land were discarded before they could be disclosed. Akagi Toshio, who worked for a regional bureau of the ministry in western Japan, was forced to falsify documents on the heavily discounted sale of state-owned land to school operator Moritomo Gakuen in 2016. Akagi committed suicide in 2018. His wife, Masako, demanded the ministry disclose documents it had voluntarily submitted to prosecutors. The ministry on April 4 released over 2,200 pages of materials, including information on negotiations with Moritomo. The released documents were mostly numbered in chronological order. But many of the numbers were missing. Akagi's lawyers asked the ministry for an explanation. On Friday, the Finance Ministry issued a written response and released a table showing the process of the land deal. The ministry says that 382 numbered documents were likely created in the course of dealings with the school operator between June 2013 and June 2016. It added that of these, 74 went missing, and 52 of them were never made public. The ministry says many of the missing parts are believed to contain references to people in political circles. Most of the documents likely went missing in the record-disposal process. It was revealed in 2017 that records of negotiations with the school operator had been intentionally destroyed to reduce materials that could lead to parliamentary questioning. The ministry says it believes that this is when many of the missing documents were discarded. Among the 52 missing records are documents from April 28, 2014, in which Moritomo's former head Kagoike Yasunori showed bureau officials a photo of him with the wife of then-Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Kagoike reportedly claimed that Abe's wife had told him, "You should proceed because this is a good piece of land."
