Earlier this month, Gunma Prefecture removed a memorial monument in a park in the city of Takasaki. The monument had been erected in 2004 by a local citizens group to commemorate Korean laborers who had been brought to Japan during the Pacific War and died in Gunma Prefecture. In 2014, the prefectural government refused to renew the permit for the monument because it claimed the group had held a “political event,” which violated one of the conditions of the permit. Apparently, someone who attended one of the group’s public memorial ceremonies made a speech that used the phrase “forced mobilization,” meaning that some of the Korean laborers who worked in Gunma during the war did not come of their own free will. The group challenged the prefectural order and in 2022 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the prefecture on appeal, thus setting the stage for what the governor of Gunma, Ichita Yamamoto, called “administrative subrogation,” an automatic bureaucratic action triggered by a violation of an agreement. According to the Mainichi Shimbun, in response to criticism that removing the monument might “encourage hate speech and historical revisionism,” Yamamoto said the matter was essentially out of his hands.

The irony, of course, is that if using the term “forced mobilization” to describe the situation of some Korean laborers during the war—a situation most historians say existed—is political, then it would follow that removing the monument because somehow those who decide such things deem it to be so is also political. There is no reference to forced mobilization on the monument itself. 

Yamamoto has said that he tried to negotiate with the group to have it moved to a “proposed” different location, but the group said there was no other suitable place, thus suggesting that the site offered by Yamamoto was in an out-of-the-way location, which would negate the entire meaning of a memorial. In any case, the prefecture’s offer of an alternative site would seem to imply that it is only following the subrogation condition and is not banning the monument per se, so why remove it in the first place? It’s obvious that Yamamoto and other parties simply don’t want the monument in the park where visitors might see it. (Reportedly, the spot in the park where the monument stood is off the beaten track) But what mainly scares the prefecture is people of a certain political orientation complaining of the very existence of the monument, whose main stated purpose is to foster friendship with the Korean people; and, as a matter of fact, when work to remove the monument started on January 29, right wing activists showed up to cheer the work and jeer at members of the citizens group and its supporters, who came to mourn the removal. Expecting that right wingers would show up, the prefecture itself mobilized police to make sure there was no violence, so there was another layer of irony underlying the subrogation order. If the condition that the monument have no “political” aspect was included to prevent friction between groups with different attitudes, than the subrogation order was achieving exactly that unwanted outcome.

The prefecture did say the citizens group could take possession of the monument, but while the group did receive the plaque with the friendship inscription, it could do nothing with the concrete and metal monument itself, which is quite large—7.2 meters in diameter with a golden column that’s 4 meters high.

To add insult to injury, the prefecture is charging the citizens group for the cost of not only the removal of the monument but also the cost of on-site security, which was ordered by the prefecture and not the group. An article that appeared in the Feb. 20 Asahi Shimbun reported that the bill comes to ¥30 million, which the group, given its small size and simplicity of purpose, would never be able to pay on its own. Moreover, it appears the prefecture already had this sum in mind before the removal started. It told the group on Jan. 19 that it would have to pay ¥30 million. Broken down, the sum includes ¥14 million for the removal operation and ¥16 million for security. The removal operation itself would take two weeks, during which time certain heavy machinery would have to be maintained on site. The removal technicians had to erect a fence around the site and lay metal plates on the ground for the machinery being used. Then, after the monument was removed, the ground had to be returned to its original condition. In addition, the security amount covers the full two week period, since guards would need to patrol the site 24 hours a day, meaning even when work was not being carried out. The money covers 600 personnel altogether. 

However, later, after it was determined that the group could not or would not move the monument to a different location, the decision was made for the monument to be destroyed, and that the group has to pay for that as well. Consequently, Asahi had some questions. For one thing, since it was decided after the original estimate was made that the monument would be destroyed, the original time frame of two weeks could be shortened to one, and some heavy machinery, such as a crane for lifting the monument, would not be needed. The prefecture said that cancelling the order for machinery also required fees, and the fence, it was found, needed to be longer. Miraculously, the resulting bill is exactly the same amount as the original estimate. Perhaps because of the Asahi query, the prefecture says it is now recalculating, but it still says the group has to pay, even though the group didn’t want the monument removed in the first place. After all, it paid ¥5.7 million to have it erected in 2004. As it turns out, destroying things is a lot more expensive than setting them up. 

Update (March 28, 2024): https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240328/p2g/00m/0na/034000c