http://www.asyura2.com/18/senkyo241/msg/366.html
| Tweet |
極右に便宜を図り、官僚が文書の改竄まで犯した、という論調。
For more than a year, Shinzo Abe has deflected allegations that he and his wife were involved in a sweetheart land deal. Now, a government report suggests that some crucial evidence may have been deleted. https://t.co/9SPLrJOBcD
— The New York Times (@nytimes) 2018年3月12日
NYT。｢関わっていたら辞める｣発言を冒頭に置き、改竄部分も詳しく報じている。森友学園が極右であり、教育勅語を暗唱させていたこと、また、右翼組織としての日本会議の名が文書から消されたことも紹介するなど、全体としては首相夫妻が極右に便宜を図り、官僚が文書の改竄まで犯した、という論調。 https://t.co/I1IsGRwilw
— 高井 寛 (@Butsubutsu804) 2018年3月12日
ここ数時間で「安倍の未来に暗雲」等と報じた英字メディア:
— Chihiro (@chivillain) 2018年3月12日
🇦🇺 ABC, SBS
🇨🇦 ロイター・カナダ
🇺🇸 CNBC, ワシントンポスト
🇲🇾 マレーメール
🇵🇰 ジオニュース
🇸🇬 CNA
🇭🇰 SCMP
🇨🇳 新華社
🇮🇳 ニュース18
🇬🇧 ガーディアン
🇳🇬 ヴァンガード
🌐 ロイター通信, Quartz, Yahoo
etc... pic.twitter.com/NgvoXgIGY6
Asia Pacific
Shinzo Abe of Japan Back in Spotlight Over Tampered Documents
By MOTOKO RICH MARCH 12, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/world/asia/shinzo-abe-japan-scandal.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime
minister, with lawmakers in Tokyo on Thursday. Mr. Abe’s popularity has
been declining as reports have indicated that documents relating to a
land deal were altered.
Credit
Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
TOKYO
— Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan offered to resign a year ago if
evidence emerged linking him to a sweetheart land deal. No such evidence
ever surfaced, allowing him to ride out the scandal and hang on to
power.
But a government report released on Monday suggests that some crucial
evidence may have been deleted — and that has put Mr. Abe back in the
hot seat. An internal investigation by the Finance Ministry concluded
that unidentified officials tampered with official documents related to
the land deal by deleting references to Mr. Abe’s wife and senior
members of his party.
The
findings caused an uproar in Japan, where critics called for the
finance minister, Taro Aso, to resign. At a news conference on Monday,
Mr. Aso, a former prime minister,
said he would stay in his post. But analysts said the latest
revelations would be politically damaging for Mr. Abe as he prepares to
seek a third term.
“This materially changes the outlook for Abe’s future,” said Tobias Harris, a
Japan analyst at Teneo Intelligence, a political risk consultancy based
in New York. “The basis for him seeking a third term is evaporating.”
For more than a year, Mr. Abe has deflected persistent allegations that he and his wife were involved in the arcane scandal involving an improper public land sale at a steeply discounted price
to an ultraconservative education group. Despite repeated calls from opposition lawmakers for a broader investigation, Mr. Abe won a commanding majority in Parliament last fall, which put him in position to become the country’s longest-serving leader.
But on Monday, the Finance Ministry submitted an 80-page report to the governing Liberal Democratic Party, admitting that ministry bureaucrats had deleted portions of 14 documents related to the land sale, including ones containing the name of Mr. Abe’s wife, Akie Abe, and her alleged remarks.
Mr. Aso suggested that the document tampering was limited to a handful of bureaucrats.
“Only
some of the Finance Ministry’s employees were involved in the
alteration” of the documents, he said. “It’s not the case that the whole
Ministry of Finance was involved. But it’s regrettable if the trust for
the whole ministry is lost.”
The prime minister apologized shortly after the disclosures became public.
“As
head of the administration, I deeply apologize,” Mr. Abe said in brief
remarks to reporters on Monday afternoon. He added that he hoped an
investigation would “uncover the whole truth.”
The
most dramatic admission was that bureaucrats had removed Mrs. Abe’s
name and alleged comments from a description of a meeting between
Finance Ministry officials and administrators of the Moritomo education
group, which operates a kindergarten where children recite a
19th-century patriotic royal decree and are taught that some history
textbooks in Japan and elsewhere in Asia wrongly characterize the
country’s wartime atrocities.
Finance Minister Taro Aso during a news conference in Tokyo, where he said he would hang on to his post.
Credit
Toru Hanai/Reuters
According
to the deleted remarks, a Moritomo administrator told Finance Ministry
officials in Osaka that when he showed Mrs. Abe, a onetime honorary
principal of a planned Moritomo elementary school, the location of the
land, Mrs. Abe said: “It’s good land. Please go ahead.” The land was
slated for construction of a new school in Osaka, Japan’s third-largest
city.
The
report also showed that Finance Ministry officials had removed the
names of several Liberal Democratic lawmakers from the land sale
documents, as well as a reference to Nippon Kaigi, a prominent
right-wing pressure group of which Mr. Abe and other influential
conservative politicians are members.
At
the news conference on Monday, Mr. Aso said bureaucrats altered the
documents between February and April last year. Last February, Mr. Abe
said he would resign as prime minister and a member of Parliament if
evidence emerged showing that he or his wife was connected to the
discounted land sale to Moritomo Gakuen.
When
reporters asked Mr. Aso on Monday whether the bureaucrats had acted to
protect the Abes, Mr. Aso said that in his judgment, Mrs. Abe had
nothing to do with the case.
Last
week, Nobuhisa Sagawa, former chief of the bureau within the Finance
Ministry that oversaw the land sale, resigned from his current post as
tax agency chief. Earlier this month, a Finance Ministry employee in the
Osaka branch office that had dealt with the land sale committed
suicide.
Opposition
lawmakers have long questioned Mr. Abe’s denials of involvement in the
land sale. But as news of the altered documents emerged, even members of
Mr. Abe’s own party were skeptical of the explanation that bureaucrats
acted independently.
In
comments to the Nikkei newspaper, Shinjiro Koizumi, a rising star
within the party and a son of Junichiro Koizumi, a former prime
minister, said blaming bureaucrats was the equivalent of “cutting off a
lizard’s tail.”
“If
the falsifications are true, we need to tell the truth to people,” Mr.
Koizumi said. “We have to take it not only as an administrative issue,
but as one that affects all politics.”
And
in a speech on Sunday, Shigeru Ishiba, one of Mr. Abe’s rivals within
the Liberal Democratic Party, said he did not believe that bureaucrats
had the power to alter documents without political direction.
Akie Abe, the wife of Shinzo
Abe, in 2017. Finance Ministry officials deleted portions of 14
documents related to a land sale, including ones containing Mrs. Abe’s
name.
Credit
Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York Times
“Unless we clarify who did this, trust for the Liberal Democratic Party will be shaken,” Mr. Ishiba said.
Polls
have shown Mr. Abe’s popularity declining as media reports suggested
that document tampering had taken place. A survey over the weekend by
the right-leaning Yomiuri Shimbun found the cabinet’s approval rating
had dropped below 50 percent for the first time in five months. That
same poll found that 80 percent of respondents said the government was
mishandling the Moritomo case.
Analysts
said Mr. Abe’s ratings were likely to decline further at a time when
his government is struggling to gain exemptions from steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by President Trump and to grapple with the foreign policy implications of Mr. Trump’s decision to meet with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
“The
political authority or prestige of the Abe administration will decrease
drastically because of this scandal,” said Jiro Yamaguchi, a professor
of political science at Hosei University in Tokyo.
Critics
of Mr. Abe said the way the disclosures had slowly emerged showed the
weakness of the Japanese news media and the conservative tilt of the
government bureaucracy.
The
bureaucracy is “very secretive, arrogant and authoritative,” said
Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo. He
added that because the opposition had been so divided, it had not been
potent enough to challenge Mr. Abe.
Analysts
said the slow drumbeat of the scandal would inevitably weaken Mr. Abe
and his agenda. His most cherished long-term goal — to try to change the pacifist clause in the country’s Constitution — is now probably compromised.
And
even if Mr. Abe can hold off calls for resignation now, his chances for
re-election in a party leadership vote in September have diminished.
“Without clear signs of his being involved, I think it’s hard to assume that he’s going to be forced out,” Mr. Harris said.
“But
I think there’s enough here now that as you approach the preparation
for the L.D.P. elections in September, there is going to be a sense in
the party of ‘You know what, enough of the drama and more than a whiff
of scandal. It’s time for someone clean and a little more low key,’ ” he
added.
▲上へ ★阿修羅♪ > 政治・選挙・ＮＨＫ241掲示板 次へ 前へ
投稿コメント全ログ コメント即時配信 スレ建て依頼 削除コメント確認方法
▲上へ ★阿修羅♪ > 政治・選挙・ＮＨＫ241掲示板 次へ 前へ
スパムメールの中から見つけ出すためにメールのタイトルには必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。すべてのページの引用、転載、リンクを許可します。確認メールは不要です。引用元リンクを表示してください。
