Roundup: Anti-war animator Hayao Miyazaki urges Japanese gov't to follow pacifism

Japan's Oscar-awarded animator Hayao Miyazaki Mondayurged the Japanese government to follow the country 's 70-year pacifism since the end of World War II by dropping a plan to build a replacement within Okinawa for a controversial U.S. airbase and a security-related legislation package to allow Japan' s defense forces to exercising the right to collective defense.

Miyazaki, who also serves as a joint representative of the Henoko Fund that aims at supporting Okinawa's efforts to stop the replacement building in Henoko, told a press conference in one of his studios here that he wants to convey to as many people as possible the reality facing the Okinawans currently, the problem of U.S. bases and how much the Okinawa people want these bases be removed.

"I believed what is very clear with the situation in Okinawa is that more than half of the population there are against the building of the new Henoko facility," said the anti-war animator, adding that the Okinawans will "do everything in their power" to stop the government's move.

The Japanese and U.S. governments reached an agreement to build a replacement in the coastal area in Henoko in the Japanese southernmost island prefecture of Okinawa for the U.S. Futenma airbase that located in a populated area in the prefecture's Ginowan city, but the plan is strongly opposed by the prefectural government and local residents as the prefecture, which only accounts for less than 1 percent of Japanese territory, hosts over 70 percent of U.S. bases in Japan and the bases are becoming a major obstacle for local economic development.

However, without considering that the new military facility in Henoko would increase Japan's military deterrence, Miyazaki said the base would only serve as a new target in conflict.

The retired director's concern is reasonable and echoing a number of Japanese scholars who worry that Japan would become a target of hostility if a series of security bills architected by Japan's ruling camp aiming at allowing the country's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to engage armed conflicts overseas were passed in the parliament as early as this week.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is trying to ram through the bills in current Diet session, despite consecutive polls here showing that the majority of Japanese population oppose the legislation and over 90 percent of Japanese constitutional academics see the bills violate the country's war-renouncing Constitution.

"When the Iraqi war broke out, there was a political analyst from Britain appeared on a Japanese TV station and he summarized that the result of this war will be a greater turmoil in the world, " Miyazaki recalled, adding that the prime minister should keep this comment in mind when he moves forward his policies.

"I think the direction which he is moving ahead is exact opposite of the direction he should be moving," the 74-year old commented, adding that the way using military force to hold down another country is not the formation of the country's pacifist Constitution.

He went further to criticize the current ruling bloc, which groups Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its small partner of the Komeito Party, not really represents the Japanese public since they won the election through crippled election system with unconstitutional vote disparity and record-low turnouts.

"I believe what is happening today is that politicians are basically at low level and their true nature come forth. They have the number to not hold anything back and then, their true colors, their low quality, are exposed. It is a great sadness," said Miyazaki.

Meanwhile, the prominent animation maker stressed that Japan waged a war of aggression in the past against China and the historical fact is nonnegotiable and indelible, urging Abe to include Japan's reflection on the great sufferings it brought to China in wartime in his statement to be issued next month to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII.

Except to find justification in the past wars, "one should behave by fundamental principles that there are things that one should never do, or never engage in wars of aggression against other countries to pursue one's own interests and that is the all that need to be done. It is enough if we can live by the policy. Being an island country, that should be very easy for Japan to do, " concluded Miyazaki. Endi