Peace Boat cruise departs for Kunashiri

Peace Boat cruise departs for Kunashiri

KOBE (Kyodo) Some 570 participants in the latest cruise run by the nongovernmental organization Peace Boat departed here Thursday on a voyage that will take in Kunashiri Island, snubbing a Foreign Ministry request to stay away from the disputed Russian-held territory.
With permission from the Sakhalin provincial government, tour participants will make a special visa-free trip to Kunashiri, which is controlled by Russia but claimed by Japan, after visiting North Korea, South Korea and Sakhalin, Peace Boat officials said.

Cruise participants will stay at a Japan-funded facility on Kunashiri dubbed "Muneo House," which entered the limelight in connection with Foreign Ministry-meddling and bidding scandals involving lawmaker Muneo Suzuki, who has been arrested and charged with bribery. They will also visit a Japan-funded diesel power plant that likewise has dubious links to Suzuki.

In 1991, the NGO sponsored a goodwill cruise to Kunashiri and Shikotan islands with 116 passengers under a similar visa-free arrangement. The latest voyage will bring the largest number of Japanese to the disputed island at one time since the end of World War II.

The tour is intended to enhance grassroots-level mutual understanding, Peace Boat officials said, adding they hope participants will help to work out measures to settle the decades-old territorial row.

The Foreign Ministry opposes the trip and in April sent a letter from Russian Division Director Toyohisa Kozuki to the group, urging it to cancel the cruise. The voyage goes against the government's stance that Russia is illegally occupying the islands of Kunashiri, Shikotan and Etorofu and the Habomai islets off Hokkaido, the ministry said.

The isles were seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War II. The long-standing territorial dispute has prevented Japan and Russia from concluding a postwar peace treaty.

In a Cabinet decision in 1989, the government decided to urge Japanese not to seek visas from Soviet authorities to visit the islands, as it believed such action could be taken as an endorsement of Moscow's sovereignty over the territories.

As an exception, Japan and Russia agreed to launch in 1992 a visa-free exchange program aimed at promoting good relations between Japanese -- mainly former residents of the islands -- and the Russian inhabitants of the islands.

"If we leave matters to a Foreign Ministry that tells citizens 'don't go, don't see, don't ask and don't listen,' it is clear that negotiations for the return of the islands will never proceed," Peace Boat representative Tatsuya Yoshioka said.

To promote what it calls "NGO diplomacy," the Peace Boat tour will visit Wonsan and other places in North Korea, where participants will meet with Korean survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

They will also meet with women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese forces during the war, euphemistically known as "comfort women."

The group will later stop at Pusan, South Korea, and travel to Korsakov in southern Sakhalin to meet with Koreans who were left behind there after the war. Korsakov was formerly under Japanese colonial rule.

The organizers said about 10 Korean permanent residents of Japan are participating in the tour, and they have received special entry permits from the North and South Korean governments.

The Tokyo-based Peace Boat, established in 1983, has sponsored 36 global cruises on chartered passenger liners to promote peace, human rights and environmental issues.

The Japan Times: Aug. 16, 2002
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