Defense minister refuses demand for new probe over logs of Japanese peacekeepers
Minister of Defense Itsunori Onodera has refused an opposition party demand for a renewed probe into whether his predecessor Tomomi Inada received a report on Japanese peacekeeping logs when their existence was being covered up.
The logs concerning Japanese peacekeepers dispatched to South Sudan were the focus of an out-of-session meeting of the House of Representatives Committee on Security on Aug. 10. On the question of whether Inada received a report from the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) on the existence of log data, Hiroshi Marui, an official at the Inspector General's Office of Legal Compliance of the Defense Ministry, echoed previous explanations by stating, "The testimonies of those involved were shaky, and we were unable to identify a statement."
Unconvinced by this response, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) demanded a renewed investigation, but Onodera rejected the request, saying a thorough investigation had already been carried out.
Read the full story at The Mainichi
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| Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera (Image: Wiki Commons) |
New defense minister deflects criticism over alleged cover-up of GSDF logs
Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera calmly fended off opposition attacks during an out-of-session Diet meeting on Aug. 10 over his ministry's cover-up of daily activity logs kept by Ground Self-Defense Force troops that were engaged in United Nations peacekeeping operations in South Sudan.
While the meeting was held in response to allegations that Onodera's predecessor, Tomomi Inada, was involved in the cover-up, neither the former defense minister, who stepped down in July over the scandal, nor Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who appointed her, was present at the meeting. Onodera and his ministry's bureaucrats just reiterated statements in line with the recently released results of an investigation into the scandal by the Inspector General's Office of Legal Compliance of the Defense Ministry -- thereby covering for Inada while triggering a fierce opposition backlash.
"The results of the investigation were very severe on the Defense Ministry and the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), and I view them as something we should reflect upon," Onodera said at the outset of the meeting in the House of Representatives Committee on Security. It was his first appearance in a Diet question and answer session as defense minister since July 2014, after he was reappointed to the post in the Cabinet reshuffle on Aug. 3.
Read the full story at The Mainichi