Invoking the Freedom of Information Law, 63 citizens, including researchers, authors and journalists, have asked the Foreign Ministry and the Finance Ministry to disclose three secret diplomatic documents related to the 1971 reversion of Okinawa to Japanese rule from the United States. The government has been denying the existence of the documents and will likely quash the citizens' request. Oddly, the documents have already been disclosed by the U.S. A failure on the part of the Japanese government to comply with the request would violate the spirit of the law.
The documents concern financial concessions Tokyo made to Washington in connection with Okinawa's reversion: shouldering $4 million in costs to convert areas used by the U.S. military back to farmland, and paying $200 million mainly for transfer of U.S. military bases and $65 million for maintaining and improving the conditions of U.S. military bases.
Mr. Takichi Nishiyama, formerly a Mainichi Shimbun reporter, was covering the Japan-U.S. negotiations on the reversion when he obtained photocopies of the document related to the $4 million in secret payments by persuading a Foreign Ministry worker to pass them to him. Both were later indicted and found guilty of violating the National Public Service Law. On the same day last week when the Supreme Court turned down a civil lawsuit filed in 2005 by Mr. Nishiyama calling for damages from the state for ruining his reputation through the indictment, the 63 citizens, including Mr. Nishiyama, filed the request.