H.K. groups protest Yasukuni Shrine visits

0 Comments | Asian Political News, August 19, 2002

HONG KONG, Aug. 15 Kyodo

Several Hong Kong civic groups protested against visits by Japanese political leaders and government officials to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine as they marked Thursday's 57th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.

The groups held their rallies separately but all urged Japan to face its wartime wrongdoing and to openly denounce militarism.

Their calls came amid visits earlier Thursday to the Shinto shrine by five Japanese cabinet ministers and a group of Japanese lawmakers.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who paid homage at the Shinto shrine in April, did not visit it again Thursday.

Still, protesters in Hong Kong condemned the Japanese leader's previous visits to the shrine that honors 14 Class-A war criminals along with Japan's 2.5 million war dead.

Asian neighbors, particularly China and South Korea, have repeatedly criticized Japan over visits by Japanese prime ministers and other politicians to the shrine, which is widely seen as a symbol of Japan's wartime militarism.

''We oppose Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine,'' chanted some 50 members of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), a pro-Beijing political party.

''We strongly demand the Japanese government promise not to visit Yasukuni Shrine in any form in future,'' they said.

Holding placards and banners, the protesters marched to the Japanese Consulate General in the territory to hand over their protest letter, which also demanded Japan apologize for its wartime atrocities and pay compensation to the victims.

Separately, some 20 representatives from eight other Hong Kong groups observed a minute of silence to mourn all those Chinese killed in the 1937-1945 resistance war before marching to the Japanese consulate.

Representatives of Hong Kong Reparation Association, meanwhile, staged a separate protest, calling on Japan to apologize for the war and to pay them in cash for the now worthless military scrip they were forced to hold during the war period.