Mori to mull what can be done for foreign
A-bomb survivors
HIROSHIMA, Aug. 6 Kyodo - Prime Minister
Yoshiro Mori told representatives of atomic-bomb
sufferers' groups Sunday he will study what
can be done to help A-bomb survivors residing
in foreign countries.
''To be honest, I find it (the current rehabilitation
system) not helpful enough for those who
cannot come to Japan. I will study what can
be done, including medical support, to help
such people overseas,'' Mori said.
Mori made the remark during the 45-minute
meeting in reply to one of the seven representatives,
Chong Gi Hwa, a senior member of a pro-Seoul
survivors' group, who asked Mori, ''Do you
think atomic-bomb survivors (in foreign countries)
who cannot come to Japan have to be left
(without being properly rehabilitated)?''
The meeting between the prime minister and
the leaders of the seven groups is held annually
on the Aug. 6 anniversary of the atomic bombing
of Hiroshima.
However, leaders of four groups including
two mainly working for North and South Korean
survivors skipped this year's gathering to
protest Mori's remarks describing Japan as
''a divine nation,'' a term viewed as reviving
memories of Japan's wartime ideology.
In May, Mori told pro-Shinto Diet members
that ''Japan is a divine nation with the
emperor at its center. We have been working
for 30 years to get people to firmly acknowledge
this.''
Japan's postwar Constitution stipulates that
the emperor is the symbol of the state and
of the unity of the people deriving his position
from the will of the people in whom sovereign
power resides.
The previous constitution called the emperor
''sacred and inviolable,'' and the state
Shinto ideology, which declared the emperor
divine, was used to justify aggression in
Asia both before and during World War II.
Li Sil Gun, leader of a pro-Pyongyang Korean
atomic bomb survivors' group, earlier said,
''Koreans were ruled by 'kami no kuni.' I
don't want to meet a man who represents such
an ideology.''
Kami no kuni means a divine nation in Japanese.
==Kyodo
