TOKYO —

The legal battle to reveal the secret Japan-U.S. agreement over cost burdens for the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty from U.S. control started Tuesday at the Tokyo District Court, with the plaintiffs demanding the government mainly disclose three documents concerning the bilateral pact. Although the documents, compiled between 1969 and 1971, were declassified by the U.S. government in the early 2000s, the state, for its part, said at the first hearing that it does not possess them and requested the court to reject the lawsuit.
 
‘‘In general, documents compiled in the process of bilateral or multilateral negotiations are sometimes abandoned later if they are not the final agreement,’’ the state said, suggesting the documents in question may have been lost, although it could not confirm whether it had owned them in the past. Presiding Judge Norihiko Sugihara said, however, ‘‘It is understandable that the plaintiffs are arguing that the Japanese side must possess the documents as the U.S. side has them…I expect the state to provide rational explanations if it says it does not possess them.’‘
   
The Japanese government has consistently denied the existence of the secret pact, despite the declassification in the United States, and the plaintiffs are apparently aiming to push Tokyo to admit to concluding it during the court battle.
 

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7 Comments

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  sakurasuki at 07:57 AM JST - 17th June

  The Japanese government has consistently denied the existence of the secret pact, despite the declassification in the United States, and the plaintiffs are apparently aiming to push Tokyo to admit to concluding it during the court battle.

  One of the criteria of good governance is transparency, in case they forgot.

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  wanderlust at 09:58 AM JST - 17th June

  Why don't they just read the US documents? If they have been declassified, they should be available...

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  sakurasuki at 10:35 AM JST - 17th June

  This is one of the good case when the government try to hide something but somehow they just failed. If the plaintiff won this case, it will give advantage for similar cases in the future that required government transparency.

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  soldave at 10:57 AM JST - 17th June

  They should just keep denying it and starting that the foreigners are lying. I mean, the Japanese government has never been known to mislead the public...

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  franz75 at 01:11 PM JST - 17th June

  "I expect the state to provide rational explanations if it says it does not possess them." the rational explanation is that there is no secret pact.

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  TheMarion at 06:32 PM JST - 17th June

  Japan Today has removed at the very least over fifty articles I have written concerning Takichi Nishiyama - a man would wrote in the Mainichi Shimbun about this "secret pact' and the government of Japan has literally destroyed this man for "Spilling the Beans" something every good newspaper would do if they stumbled over a story as far reaching as this very important document. sakurasuki wrote on this suject the profound words "one of the criteria of good governance is transparency" but obviously Japan has yet to learn this.

  The whole sorid mess is about to be dumped in our laps...

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  bdiego at 02:45 AM JST - 18th June

  So what are the plaintiffs trying to achieve by acknowledging said pacts? What's the reason this is so controversial, especially if this is now public domain?

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