2024/04/23

Hideaki Uemura, the center’s representative and a professor at Keisen Jogakuen University, emphasized the significance of the governor addressing the United Nations.
“If Governor Onaga speaks before the UN Human Rights Council, which deals with human rights issues, opposition to the construction of the new base will be understood as the collective will of Okinawa’s residents, and that will likely put pressure on both the Japanese and U.S. governments,” he said.
Apart from those who read the newspapers in Okinawa, surely no one knew what was really going on, myself included.
September 9, 2015
The following is from the opening of the ten-page essay that Satoru Nakamura, mentioned earlier, wrote for the monthly magazine Seiron (正論).
＊The following is mine.
I have been working on the Okinawa issue for about seven years, and I have now ventured deep into the history of Okinawa, a vast subject far removed from my background and well beyond my qualifications.
China and South Korea have waged a “history war” against Japan through what I regard as historical fabrications concerning “military comfort women,” the “Nanjing Massacre,” and “forced conscription.”
In my view, however, the largest and most important history war Japan faces is the one over Okinawa’s history.
The other two are used to rob the Japanese people of their pride and prevent them from defending themselves independently, while propaganda that falsifies Okinawa’s history is used to divide and destroy the Japanese people.
This issue concerns the entire Japanese people and represents their gravest crisis, but I am convinced that only by reclaiming Okinawa’s history and resolving this deeply rooted problem can the Japanese people rise again as a strong, united leader on the world stage.
Civic Groups Pave the Way for the UN Speech
Okinawa’s local newspapers reported that Governor Takeshi Onaga would attend the session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, from September 14 to October 2 and speak about the relocation to Henoko.
The relocation of Futenma Air Station to Henoko is a matter of defense and foreign policy between Japan and the United States.
It is unthinkable that the head of a local government should take a matter of defense and foreign policy to the United Nations, and such a thing should never happen.
Yet, inexplicably, Governor Onaga reportedly intends to give a speech on the “relocation to Henoko” in an effort to stop it.
The Okinawa prefectural government is not the one actively working to make the speech happen.
That work is being done by private organizations known as UN NGOs.
(It became known on the 22nd that Governor Takeshi Onaga was likely to have an opportunity to speak about the construction of the new base at Henoko at the UN Human Rights Council session to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, from September 14 to October 2.
The governor’s UN speech had been prepared by Shimagurumi Kaigi, formally the Island-Wide Council to Implement the Okinawa Petition and Open the Way to the Future, which campaigns to stop construction of the new base and had secured the cooperation of several NGOs associated with the UN.
According to Shimagurumi Kaigi, the governor’s schedule had yet to be finalized, but arrangements were being made for him to speak on or around September 21 or 22 during the session.
Since his election, Governor Onaga had expressed an interest in bringing the issue before the United Nations, and if the speech went ahead, it would likely give him an opportunity to draw broad international attention to the need to resolve the dispute over the new base.
At the request of Shimagurumi Kaigi and others, the Citizen Diplomacy Center, an NGO with special consultative status at the United Nations, indicated that it was willing to give Governor Onaga its speaking time before the Human Rights Council.
NGOs with special consultative status at the United Nations routinely give their speaking time to others, and the arrangement was said to be possible.
Hideaki Uemura, the center’s representative and a professor at Keisen Jogakuen University, emphasized the significance of the governor addressing the United Nations.
“If Governor Onaga speaks before the UN Human Rights Council, which deals with human rights issues, opposition to the construction of the new base will be understood as the collective will of Okinawa’s residents, and that will likely put pressure on both the Japanese and U.S. governments,” he said.
In preparation for Governor Onaga’s speech before the Human Rights Council, Shimagurumi Kaigi had been coordinating with another UN NGO, the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR).
The emerging arrangement was for IMADR to coordinate the schedule with the Human Rights Council and for the Citizen Diplomacy Center to give up its speaking slot …) (Ryūkyū Shimpō, July 23, photograph on p. 250).
The remainder is omitted.
＊Apart from those who read the newspapers in Okinawa, surely no one knew what was really going on, myself included.
For the first time, I learned what the Japanese people involved with the UN Commission on Human Rights were actually doing.
I was appalled, and I could not have been angrier.
That anger should be directed above all at papers such as the Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun.
After you let such an unbelievable situation go unchallenged for so long, I can no longer call you Japanese news organizations.
After all, you made your living as writers, so you must have known these people existed and what they were actually doing.
September 11, 2015
It was only after reading Satoru Nakamura’s essay that I learned what the Japanese people involved with the UN Commission on Human Rights were actually doing.
I was appalled, and I could not have been angrier.
That anger should be directed above all at papers such as the Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun.
After you let such an unbelievable situation go unchallenged for so long, I can no longer call you Japanese news organizations.
Unlike ordinary people like us, who spend our days earning a living, you are journalists whose job is to uncover the facts, people who make their living as writers, so you must have known these people existed and what they were actually doing.
Yet you never told the Japanese public about these people or what they were actually doing.
What they have done, or what they set out to do, is damage the credibility of Japan and the Japanese people abroad.
And at the United Nations, where Japan has continued to contribute enormous sums second only to those of the United States, our country let people work behind the scenes to vilify their own country.
What could be more foolish?
There is no country this foolish anywhere in the world.
In other words, there are no newspapers anywhere in the world as foolish as the Asahi and the Mainichi.
Though there may be some editorial writers at The New York Times, major German papers, the South Korean press, and the People’s Daily to reckon with.
A man whose name almost no one in Japan knew had been damaging the honor of Japan and the Japanese people and steadily eroding Japan’s credibility abroad.
Here is who he was.
On this occasion, the Citizen Diplomacy Center, an NGO with special consultative status at the United Nations, received a request from Shimagurumi Kaigi and others …
The center’s representative was Hideaki Uemura, a professor at Keisen Jogakuen University …
Hardly anyone in Japan would have known who this man was, myself included.
Almost no one in Japan would have heard of the university either.
Judging by what this man was doing, my first instinct was that he was not genuinely Japanese, but when I searched online, I found an entry for Hideaki Uemura (上村英明), born in the city of Kumamoto.
It said he had completed graduate studies in economics at Waseda University and was currently a professor at Keisen Jogakuen University and the representative of the Citizen Diplomacy Center.
Well, isn’t he the same sort of man as Kang Sang-jung, who, according to Wikipedia, used the Japanese name Tetsuo Nagano (永野鉄男)?
What an absurd state of affairs!
Japan has gone on contributing vast sums, second only to those of the United States, and all the while it has let a man like this do as he pleases at the United Nations in broad daylight!
There can be little doubt that they are acting in concert with China and South Korea.
In China, they would be executed on the spot for treason against the state.
In South Korea, they would be made to kneel and bow to the ground in front of the entire country, kicked, beaten, pelted with raw eggs, and denounced as traitors and unpatriotic citizens.
While we went about earning our living, a man like Totsuka, a lawyer and Rikkyo University graduate, was active without the Japanese public knowing, just as Totsuka had been.
Totsuka had repeatedly gone to the UN Commission on Human Rights and argued that the women were “sex slaves” rather than “comfort women,” establishing that characterization internationally.
To the Japanese press, to the Asahi and the Mainichi: enough of this nonsense.
Where else could you find such contempt for the Japanese people, such a brazen attempt to make fools of them?