He Was Playing Golf

When people in northern Hiroshima were sunk in landslides, he was playing golf under the blue sky in Yamanashi prefecture. Unprecedented heavy rain took at least thirty-nine lives with landslides. Although Prime Minister Shinzo Abe turned back from his summer recess to Tokyo for conducting disaster management, criticisms rose from opposite parties. The argument was why Abe was so lazy in dealing with crisis, while he had been stressing his responsibility for protecting people’s lives in his explanation of necessity for collective self-defense right.

It was minutes after 3:00 a.m. in Wednesday morning, when landslides occurred simultaneously in northern Hiroshima. Hiroshima prefectural government issued recommendation of evacuation to the residents around 4:30. The national government settled the situation room in the Prime Minister’s Official Residence at the same time, and Abe directed integrated response for saving lives. Abe started playing golf around 8:00 with his close friends, but stopped it about an hour later and get back to Tokyo to take conduct.

Criticism was focused on why he started golf, while disaster in Hiroshima was developing to be serious. Prime Minister is the supreme commander of Self-defense Force. Hiroshima local government asked mobilization of SDF on 6:30. Abe needed to take a close watch on the situation and decide how many troops needed to be sent. It was obvious that he would not able to do that during playing golf.

When a ship of fishery high school collided with a U.S. submarine rising to surface and took nine lives in Hawaii in 2001, then Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori, continued playing golf and harshly criticized by the public. Mori was one of the fellows playing golf with Abe on Wednesday. Why didn’t Mori persuade Abe to get back to Tokyo without starting golf?

After staying Tokyo for hours, Abe returned to his vacation in Yamanashi that evening. Rescuing process was still going on in Hiroshima, and there were nine still missing under the landslide at the time. Considering heavy rain poured on the area, there was a possibility of second disaster jeopardizing more people’s lives. Prime Minister might have to issue another mobilizing order to SDF. Abe’s response was too optimistic to be a national leader of Japan.

A lesson we learned was that this Prime Minister would save people’s lives only when he likes the cause for it. For him, people’s lives are heavy in the situation which Japan’s sovereignty is in jeopardy, for example, and light when it comes to natural disaster, which has nothing to do with his ideology.