In early 2001, a major Japanese television documentary intended to address the country's war crimes was censored due to right wing pressure. Lisa Yoneyama, who participated in the program's production as an in-studio commentator, provides both a personal and an analytical perspective on the documentary and the implications of its censorship.

From January 29 to February 1, 2001, Japan’s public broadcasting agency, NHK (Nihon Hoso Kyokai), aired a four-evening series titled Senso o Do Sabaku ka (How Should We Adjudicate Wars?) on its educational television channel (ETV). The series explored recent attempts throughout the world to adjudicate and redress acts of violence and injustice that have never adequately been prosecuted under the category of “crimes against humanity.” “How Should We Adjudicate Wars?” took up many of the most ghastly incidents of the twentieth century. These included pan-European participation in the Nazi Holocaust, mass rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the French war against Algeria, sexual violence and torture in Guatemala, the Japanese military’s sexual enslavement of women, and South African Apartheid. By exploring memories of these atrocities, the program sought to show how the concept of “crimes against humanity” had been critically challenged and reconfigured in such ways as to help communities remember, make reparations for, and adjudicate racial, gender, ethnic, sexual, colonial and other forms of violence and injustice. The program was produced jointly by NHK, a video production company called Documentary Japan (DJ), and NHK Enterprise 21 (NEP).

However, the second night’s programming on January 30 was heavily censored through deletion, interpolations, alterations, dismemberment and even fabrication.1 This segment was originally supposed to cover the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery” that had been held in Tokyo in December 2000. The Women’s Tribunal was a transnational people’s court that utilized international law to try individuals within the Japanese military, including Hirohito, for their alleged involvement in the sexual enslavement of women.

I became personally involved in this series, and appeared as one of two studio commentators on the second and third nights. When I received an invitation in early December, I was asked to comment specifically on the Women’s Tribunal (on the second night), and on the Public Hearing organized by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) Women’s Caucus (on the third night), which was held in conjunction with the Tribunal. The other commentator, Takahashi Tetsuya, who has written extensively on questions of Japanese war responsibilities, recommended me as his co-commentator. He appeared in all four parts of the series and played a central role in the production process. Takahashi explained the series’ purpose to me as follows: it was supposed to examine the intellectual and political shift that had been taken in the 1990s with respect to the concept of “war crimes” in international law; and we would assess the Women’s Tribunal as one of many recent attempts at overcoming major historical trauma of the twentieth century. The second night’s program would have questioned Japanese responsibilities for colonial and military aggression. I found the objective to be timely and thoughtful and thus agreed to participate in the studio recording, which took place on December 27. However, what aired on January 30, 2001 as the program titled, Towareru senji sei boryoku (Wartime Sexual Violence Interrogated), differed drastically from the version in which I had agreed to take part.

THE TRIBUNAL

The Women’s Tribunal was made possible by a transnational network of feminist organizations. While a number of feminist and other progressive grassroots groups and NGOs contributed to planning the Women’s Tribunal, the three primary conveners were: the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, the Asian Centre for Women’s Human Rights (ASCENT) of the Philippines, and the Violence Against Women in War-Network, Japan (VAWW-NET). The Tribunal was modeled after the 1967 Russell Court that judged US war crimes in the Vietnam War. At the same time, its genealogy can be traced to the transnational feminist alliance of the 1970s that protested against US militarism and Japanese neo-colonial violence against women, especially in Korea and the Philippines. The Women’s Tribunal, as I argued during the studio recording, can be understood as a major accomplishment of the late twentieth century non-identitarian, anti-imperialist feminism theorized primarily by Third World feminists and women of color. Informed by critical race theory and post-colonial awareness, this feminism refuses to see women as uniformly victimized by male violence and patriarchy, but instead attends to the historical and structural asymmetry that constitute the gender relations and categories. It is also worth mentioning that the Women’s Tribunal shares many characteristics with the Korean War Truth Commission, an organization devoted to the investigation and adjudication of US atrocities committed against civilians during the 1950-53 Korean War. They both strive to adjudicate the past in order to bring justice to women who have been dispossessed and suffer under current forces of militarism and globalization. 

Most importantly, the Women’s Tribunal began to undo the epistemological foundations of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Trial). First, it accomplished what US Cold War policy prevented the Tokyo Trial from doing: it found Emperor Hirohito, the prewar and wartime supreme commander of the Japanese military, guilty. Second, it determined that while primary responsibility for the atrocities lay with Japan, the initial responsibility for suppressing knowledge of the crimes rested with the Allied Forces who, despite the weight of available evidence, had left the issue uninterrogated. Failure to fully prosecute military sexual violence against women allowed similar cases of violence to remain invisible in subsequent decades. These cases have included rape, sexual abuse, torture and captivity that occurred during military conflicts, as well as in the institutionalized sex industry around overseas US and other military bases. The adjudication of the past, therefore, was inseparably linked to the deterrence of future violence. Third, by prosecuting atrocities committed against women of Asia and the Pacific as “crimes against humanity,” the Tribunal challenged the Tokyo Trial’s underpinning epistemology. This is the west-centric and male-centered notion of humanity that has historically tended to exclude women as well as those in the colonized, racialized and under-classed position. Moreover, by prosecuting the state violence committed collectively against women by Japan, the Women’s Tribunal effectively challenged the individual-based notion of legal rights. In these different ways, the Women’s Tribunal enacted an alternative to the course of history that the postwar international community had taken, and thus unleashed possibilities for imagining different presents.

The Women’s Tribunal does not possess the power to enforce its legal decisions. Yet, it was a formal trial proceeding authorized by international law. More than seventy survivors of the “comfort stations” and other wartime violence gave testimonies. Among the most important international law experts who participated were Patricia Viseur-Sellers and Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, who respectively served as chief prosecutor and presiding judge. They had both been centrally involved in considering gender and sexual violence at the former Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal. The Tribunal conveyed the weight and force of international opinion against the Japanese government’s unwillingness to face up to its historical responsibilities. If the knowledge about the Tribunal were properly conveyed to the public, there might be an impact on Japanese opinion and lead to legislative measures for an official reparation and eventually even reconciliation. 

To be sure, the Japanese government and public have admitted their moral responsibility by offering official apologies. They also established the Asian Women National Fund that offers monetary compensation and financial support for the survivors’ welfare. Yet, many surviving victims refused the atonement money and instead demanded clarification of juridical responsibility. The Tribunal’s organizer responded to such demands by setting the following principle: without adjudication, there would be no true reconciliation and end to the culture of impunity. This precept, one that was rendered initially by the survivors of Japanese military sex slavery and formalized by the Tribunal, can be applied to other war crimes cases and crimes against humanity that are being committed by many countries, including the US. Unless the international community formally acknowledges and condemns the criminality of the acts committed by the perpetrating governments, atonement money or humanitarian aid is insufficient for true reflection, reconciliation, and prevention of future violence. The Women’s Tribunal thus can usher in many positive changes on multiple fronts. It is therefore truly regrettable that NHK failed to capitalize on the opportunity to report fully and accurately on the Tribunal’s accomplishments.

CENSORSHIP, ALTERATION, INTERPOLATION

Censorship achieves its purpose in two ways: one through erasure, concealment and silence; the other by giving selected subjects a veneer of eloquence. The problem with the censored program was not only its insufficient reporting of the Tribunal. We need to interrogate what the program conveyed to its viewers as much as what it failed to air. It is necessary to problematize the truth and knowledge disseminated about the Tribunal through the double process of censorship. 

The January 30 program reduced videotape recording (VTR) footage of survivors’ testimonies to one-third or less of what had been included in the scenes that I had commented on during the original studio recording. Moreover, the censored program extensively purged and truncated the comments of many individuals in misleading ways. Because I spoke primarily on the Tribunal’s historical and intellectual significance, most of my statements were cut or misconstrued. 

Furthermore, NHK deleted my comments on the empowering effects of the Tribunal as a gathering of transnational grassroots organizations; on the Tribunal’s principle that “reconciliation” cannot be achieved without clarifying historical accountability; on the significance of survivors’ testimonies; and on the verdict and its potential to effect social transformations at various levels of Japanese society.2 In order to fill in the gaps created by deletion of testimonies as well as my studio commentaries, NHK inserted extended and irrelevant film footage from European wars, the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and the 1980s democratization of South Korea. Even so, the program came out four minutes shorter than the other three (40 minutes as opposed to 44 minutes).

Most importantly, the altered program presented the Women’s Tribunal in a distorted manner and disgraced the survivors who appeared in video footage as witnesses. This was done in two ways. First, by adding a suggestive caption in the relevant frames insinuating that the women who testified at the Tribunal were making false assertions about having been enslaved against their will. The second was by interpolating segments of an interview with Hata Ikuhiko, a conservative critic who has gained worldwide notoriety for his extremist views and his denials of the Japanese military’s involvement in the “comfort station” system. Hata is also one of the chief promoters of the recent controversial textbooks that sought to whitewash Japanese colonialism and militarism, and glorify conservative family values. His association’s history textbook was certified by the Ministry of Education, but was adopted by only a handful of schools following a campaign of mass protest by citizens and scholars in 2001. 

At the time of the December 27 studio recording, the script did not call for an interview with Hata. Yet the January 30 broadcast contained several minutes of a video recording in which Hata not only denied the military’s involvement in recruiting women for sex, but disparaged the Tribunal as biased and fraught with technical shortcomings from the standpoint of law. To be sure, it is not unusual for some parts of video footage and narration to be changed at different stages of producing a program. Nor am I protesting the inclusion of objectionable views. Hata’s comments, however, were interpolated after a consensus about the program’s content had been established. Because they were added at the last minute, Takahashi and I naturally could not refer to Hata’s remarks. We thus appeared to approve of his views. We also received comments from viewers, unaware of the censorship, that the program as a whole seemed to assess the Tribunal negatively. Moreover, Hata’s interview was given disproportionate weight. Its addition made the program radically different from the one that many of the participants had originally agreed to make.

Since the incident it has been suspected by many media workers and others that intimidation from the far right and pressure from the Liberal Democratic Party led to the alterations. Reliable sources has reported that there have been a number of physical threats made by the right wing against NHK. Right-wing sources have openly admitted and even boasted about the “success” of their campaign against NHK regarding its representation of the Tribunal.3 It has also been alleged that members of the Liberal Democratic Party threatened one of NHK’s executives with budget cuts if they did not censor the program,4 despite the fact that by law the government is not allowed to interfere in NHK programming. NHK is a public broadcasting corporation that is funded by the fees it collects from viewers. The budget must be scrutinized and approved by the legislators but is not managed the government. Sakagami Kaoru, at the time a producer at Documentary Japan, had been primarily responsible for the third night; but she also became closely involved in production of the second night’s program. She resigned from DJ a few months after the program was aired. In a recent article she testifies to the details of the alteration process.5 While there is as yet no direct evidence, she writes, she is convinced that NHK was keenly aware of the threats and eventually imposed what she describes as “excessive self-censorship.” 

From Sakagami’s testimonies and numerous other sources, we know that NHK significantly altered the second night’s programming at various stages. Yoshioka Tamio, the head of the Educational Program Section, made several disparaging remarks about the versions submitted by DJ and forced major modifications. It is also known that executive members of different NHK branches previewed the program. This is considered to be highly exceptional. To be sure, it is not unusual or unacceptable to edit a studio recording and video footage for the purpose of making a program flow better or clarifying the central points. But from the extensive conversation Takahashi and I had with the former president of DJ, we know that at least until January 24 the program’s content, except for a few minor changes and editing, remained almost identical to that of the original studio recording of December. 
The first major modification, therefore, took place when Takahashi agreed to a partial re-recording on January 28. During the re-recording, Takahashi was made to speak at length on how the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be regarded as “crimes against humanity.” In his new statements, words such as prosecution, adjudication or accountability were carefully avoided. These were the key concepts that distinguished Women’s Tribunal from the ways in which various other communities throughout the world have attempted to come to terms with their pasts. Through Takahashi’s eloquence, the program devalued the Tribunal even further. Hata’s interview was also inserted at this point. Further changes were made between January 28 and the date when the final program aired, January 30. I was not informed of any of these revisions. 

PROTESTS

There have been a number of protests against NHK. Matsui Yayori, the representative of VAWW-NET, Japan, was the first to publicly denounce the program. She pointed out that the program had covered up the Tribunal’s factual details and left viewers with erroneous impressions of it (February 6).6 Takahashi, two other participants in the series (Utsumi Aiko and Ukai Satoru) and I sent a jointly signed letter of inquiry to NHK (February 16). In the letter, we pointed out how the program violated and distorted the Tribunal as well as our comments and we asked for a detailed explanation. In March, I sent an electronic message to friends and colleagues calling on them to join me in a letter of protest against NHK. The letter was mailed to NHK on March 15 with over 300 signatories. NHK (i.e. Yoshioka) refused to respond, saying that “no response should be considered a response.”

I also participated in a signature campaign that was launched by over fifty citizens and workers in the Japanese media and education. In this campaign we reasoned that as a public broadcasting corporation NHK had an obligation to respond to viewers’ inquiries and suspicions in a responsible manner, and that it should indicate the concrete measures by which it would try to redeem the Tribunal’s reputation and redress the violations it had committed against many individuals who had participated in the program. The campaign also received support from a Korean professor, Pak Yu-ha, who had called on the Korean public to lend “support to Japanese scholars in their battles against the right-wingers.” The campaign collected a total of 2,878 signatures and the letter was sent to NHK on June 9.7 

NHK has replied to these inquiries, protests and requests with perfunctory apologies. It has insisted that the broadcasting company retains its exclusive editorial rights under the principle of freedom of expression. Therefore it denies that it must disclose information regarding the production process. Because NHK refused to engage in negotiations, Matsui Yayori and VAWW-NET filed a formal lawsuit against NHK, DJ and NEP. Moreover, some of us involved in the signature campaign established an on-line group called Citizens for Responsible Media (Media no kiki o uttaeru shimin nettowaku, abbreviated as Mekiki-net). Mekiki-net has taken up two agendas thus far: to provide on-line intellectual support for VAWW-NET’s lawsuit; and to check and critique post-9/11 media coverage. Mekiki-net also publishes an online, “radical copy-left” magazine that contains various reports and analyses of current issues and events related to the media crisis.8 Apart from these, with the aid of a human-rights activist lawyer, Yamashita Yukio, I filed a complaint against NHK with the Broadcast and Human Rights/Other Related Rights Organization (BRO). BRO is the only body in Japan that formally arbitrates cases involving damages and losses caused by irresponsible media representations.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM NHK’S CENSORSHIP?

NHK’s Censorship and alteration did not only betray the trust of those who had given support to the program’s production. The most disturbing aspect of the incident is the violation it committed against the women who had survived Japanese military enslavement to testify at the Tribunal. They were not aware that their images and voices would be used by NHK in a program that, through malicious narration and untruthful comments, disparaged their existence. However, it is not they but those who lent a hand to this symbolic violence who should feel ashamed and disgraced. The flagrant self-censoring and heavy-handed modification of the program’s content may have resulted from intimidation by the far-right and the LDP, but NHK and its producers made their own decisions. They were not victims but active accomplices. At the same time, we might reflect on how, as US citizens, we also bear some responsibility. The phenomenon of self-censorship that occurs whenever the imperial household becomes the target of public criticism is often called the “chrysanthemum taboo.” When discussing this “taboo,” however, we ought to remind ourselves that we too have been implicated in its maintenance, as it was our government, beginning with Douglas MacArthur, that actively intervened to protect and sustain this institution in pursuit of US Cold War interests in the region.

I wish to close this essay with two general observations. One concerns NHK’s use of myself as a token feminist. I mentioned earlier that the program retained my statements about the critical differences among women that some feminists have been theorizing, while it deleted or obscured my assessment of the Tribunal’s accomplishments. The program also expunged all of my remarks on how the Tribunal’s verdict productively called for positive social change in Japan. Sakagami notes that after Yoshioka demanded major modifications of the program, the producers considered dropping me from the second night’s program altogether. Indeed, the two-way conversations between Takahashi and the moderator were fully sufficient for the studio scenes. Yet NHK opted to retain some of my comments, even as it made them unintelligible through deletions and fragmentation. This selective appropriation of my presence, even while carefully excising every remark that might lead to questioning existing social arrangements, was nothing less than a gesture toward liberal tokenism. Not unlike liberal multiculturalism in the US, it pretends to include minorities and invite them to speak freely, yet in effect purges any unsettling elements from their speech. As Japan’s mainstream society becomes increasingly aware of the need to rely on diverse populations, we will need to be vigilant about the media’s attempts to appropriate and coopt minorities.

Finally, Itagaki Ryuta, a historian and anthropologist of modern Korea, was the first to note that in the program Hirohito’s guilty verdict was written out only in Korean Hangul script, as had been used in the original South Korean broadcast. Viewers who did not read Hangul would not even have noticed what the sentence said. Regarding the tenacious concealment of the Tribunal’s most damning content, including its assertion of Hirohito’s guilt, Itagaki astutely observed that the situation was actually very similar to wartime conditions under Daihon’ei, the Imperial Military Headquarters. This condition is one in which, if a person were exposed only to the Japanese media and knew only Japanese, one could go on living without being aware of Japanese crimes or criticisms against the Japanese.9 

In the current moment of total mobilization for the “war against terror,” we are witnessing a failure of the US media. It is thus timely yet problematic that I write about media censorship in Japan. Problematic, because discussion on Japanese problems often obfuscates equally or sometimes more serious problems concerning the US. I hope this essay on the NHK censorship will not serve as yet another displacement, but will be read in such a way as to make us more actively critical of the conditions in the US. In this regard, Itagaki’s warning about the media’s Daihon’ei-ization, so to speak, serves as a timely observation about how we ought to be on guard about our own current situation. At the same time, the protests against NHK’s censorship demonstrates that myopic and chauvinistic attempts to purge unsettling elements from a national public sphere can never be achieved without inciting much resistance and proliferation of that which has been suppressed.


ENDNOTES

1 There are a number of publications that dealt with this issue. See especially Nishino Rumiko’s “NHK ni nani ga okita no ka: josei kokusai sanpan hotei o meguru bangumi kaihen sodo” Tsukuru (May 2001). Kitahara Megumi was first to point out the “fabricated” nature of the program. See “Chinmoku saserareta no wa dare ka: NHK bangumi kaihen mondai/terebi eizo ni okeru netsuzo” Inpakushon no.124.
2 See Lisa Yoneyama, “Media no kokyosei to hyosho no boryoku” Sekai (July 2001): 209-219 for details. 
3 Kokumin shinbun February 25, 2001.
4 See “NHK ga konwaku suru tokuban: ‘senso o do sabaku ka’ sodo” Shukan shincho (Feburary 22, 2001) and Takeuchi Kazuharu, “Katto sareta 4-punkan no nazo: NHK ‘senso o do sabaku ka’ ni nani ga okita” Shukan kin’yobi no.353 (March 2, 2001).
5 “Watashi ga mita NHK bangumi ‘kaihen’ to kajo na jishu kisei” Tsukuru (January-February 2002): 98-107.
6 The records of Matsui’s and others’ protest against NHK can be found in the following website: http://www.jca.apc.org/~itagaki/nhk/index.html
7 See http://www.jca.apc.org/~itagaki/nhk/index.html for details. 
8 See http://www.jca.apc.org/mekiki/index.html
9 Itagaki’s statement originally appeared in the VAWW-NET listserve: vaww-net-jm 1500. Quoted in Yoneyama, “Media no kokyosei to hyosho no boryoku,” p.218.