Newsletter No. 3
(Original Japanese published in May, 2014. Translated into English from
the original Japanese by Heeday, in Mayl 2014. The translation draft is
posted here, without editing or proofreading. Thus, the translator waivers
any responsibility for or related to any errors, mistranslations, etc.
that might be found in the translation below.)
Newsletter of the “NSKK No-Nuke Project” -- Part II of the “Let’s Walk
Together” Project,
http://www.nskk.org/province/genpatsugroup/english (Linked
to the Provincial Office’s website)
Rev. Kenzo Koshiyama, Member, Steering Committee of the “Project on Nuclear
Power and Radiation” (commonly known as the “NSKK No-Nuke Project”)
Time
flies. Three years have passed, since the devastation by the earthquake of
March 2011. Many are turning their eyes to the coming Tokyo Olympics, the
consumption tax hike, trends of economy, etc. – deserting the gigantic load of
Fukushima. On March 11th this year, I read six newspapers, including
both nationwide and local, to see how they report on the three years following
the devastation. To my unpleasant surprise, those papers carried words like “rebuilding,
hope, vigor” and so on. Face the plain tragedy – in reality, some 57,000 people
are still away from their homes and living in the confinement of temporary
houses that are so small that it is hard to take a deep breath. None of the
papers I read covered this obvious, deplorable reality.
They
chant “recovery, rebuilding,” yet what do these slogans stand for? As time
passes by, they create an illusion that “the ordinary” has come back to the
victims. Now, I keep my residences in Iwaki and Koriyama, both in Fukushima
Prefecture, and some people often greet me, saying, “Iwaki is just like the way
it used to be before the quake. Good!” I just don’t know how to respond. Similar
greetings meet me in Koriyama too. True, what eyes see is a townscape which
makes you believe nothing ever happened. Yet the truth is, radioactivity has no
smell, no color, and causes no immediate pain. Our senses do not catch it, yet
it is certainly there.
Three
years ago, March 12th through 14th, Fukushima I had three
hydrogen explosions, which drastically disrupted the living of Fukushima
residents. Not just their individual lives were broken, but they were torn
apart from each other. This fission in human relationships is deep and still
there. There still remain some conflicts between those who (were able to)
evacuate and those who did not (were not able to do so), and this “fission” is
beyond any words. The deeper a relationship used to be, the tougher it is to
restore it, once it is torn apart.
After
all those three years, I do not think we will ever find an answer to the
question: “which was right, to evacuate or not?” Also, after the three years, I
have an impression that staying in the heavily contaminated areas has produced
only meaningless results. Still, time is passing by in a quite ordinary manner,
as if nothing ever had happened. Yet behind people’s greetings in this “ordinariness,”
I do sense some emotional turbulence. They built up their mutual relationship
over many, many years. Then, the reactors’ explosions broke down this precious
relationship – this is an experience I had with my own senses, and this agony
will never leave me.
In
spite of all that, we humans have to live in relationships. Countless tragedies
have been and still are kept under the cover of clouds of darkness. I do
believe we are a tragic animal. Recently, decontamination work began around my
church. Most of the workers cover their faces with a mask, and their true faces
under the mask, if you look at them closely, mostly show adolescence. Some were
removing sludge out of the roadside ditches with only work gloves of cotton on
their hands. Now, Nippon Sei Ko Kai (the Anglican-Episcopal Church in Japan, “NSKK”
hereafter) has some regulations about exposure to radioactivity. These were
adopted three years ago, as part of our efforts of “Let’s Walk Together!”
Project Part I.” According to such a regulation, no woman 30 years in age or
younger, and no man 40 years in age or younger, should be allowed to be engaged
in volunteer activities in a highly radioactive area for long. We had heated
arguments over this. “There still are kindergartners and their young nurses
living in Iwaki and Koriyama.” “Should we keep the church people and volunteers
alone safer??” “The heart of the teachings of Lord Jesus is to lie down one’s
own life for friends. This is a time when our faith is put to a test.” ---
These arguments are still ringing in my head.
I
also heard a voice saying, “It is a slow murder to raise children in
April
5th, 2014
Fr.
Kenzo Koshiyama, Sts. Peter & Paul’s Church,
To
donate to us:
◆
Postal transfer
account with Japan Post: 00120-0-78536
Account holder:
Please clearly state
in the transfer slip “Donation to the Project on Nuclear Power and Radiation”
Or:
◆ Account Name；NIPPON SEI KO KAI
◆ Address;
65 Yarai-cho, Shinjuku-ku,
◆ Account Number；4515547
◆ Bank Name；The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, LTD.
Branch Name；Iidabashi
◆ Bank Address;
3-7 Kagurazaka, Shinjuku-ku,
|
Steering Committee of
the “Project on Nuclear Power and Radiation” This committee was set
up to the working principles of the “Let’s Walk Together” Project and the 2012
Resolution “In search of a world free from nuclear
plants” of NSKK. 2-9-23,
Hayama, Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture |
Today,
three years after the Fukushima I meltdown began, some complex emotional
conflicts are arising in and among people in evacuation – thanks to the
national government’s graded compensations and aids to evacuees. For instance,
to Kawauchi Village, some 20km (12.5 miles) WSW of Fukushima I, its villagers
returned already two years ago. Yet the village is divided by an arc 20km apart
from the nuclear power plant (NPP). This border marks a great discrepancy in
the compensations the national government is paying to the villagers, and this
discrepancy has created a divide in their psychology as well. The area within
20km of the NPP is an evacuation area, where decontamination work was done to
enable former residents to come home. Now, 30km apart from the NPP, it was
formerly specified as an area of emergency evacuation preparation. Between
these two areas, the compensations differ considerably. If you were a resident
30km apart from the NPP,
-
The compensation for mental agonies, JPY100,000 per capita a month, was
terminated in August 2012.
-
The compensation for those unable to be employed was also terminated in
December 2012.
-
No compensation for the residents’ housing land, houses, and farms.
-
Excluded from the JPY900,000 compensation from the government to those who
returne3d home early
In
short, residents 30km apart from the meltdown receive virtually no
compensations. Even within a single district, a road, considered by the
government to be a dividing line, can mark a discrepancy in compensations received
by the residents on the two sides of the road. And such divisions are not
limited to compensations alone. For instance, when the residents evacuated,
they left some “wastes” – for instance, furniture – in their homes. Within 20km
of the NPP, the government collects such “wastes” free of charge. However, outside
the 20km area, if you want to dispose of a, for instance, a chest of drawers,
you are asked to pay JPY1,120 for the waste processing. Also, the government
has so far exempted the former areas of emergency evacuation preparation from
the taxation of National Health Insurance premiums, Long-Term Care Insurance
premiums, and patients’ share of medical expenses, or reduced the amounts of
those payments by the citizens in such areas. Now, beginning this October, the
government plans to disqualify some residents from those exemption or
discounts. Thus, the government is intent on creating a division and
discrepancy among the residents of the same areas. This threshold of 20km is
nothing but a rough distinction in radioactivity doses. Compensations and aids,
therefore, should not be classified by this threshold. The government should
not create feelings of inequity among the residents of a same village or town.
Then,
on April 1st, 2014, for the first time with those eleven
municipalities formerly specified as the caution zone, the evacuation order was
lifted for the Miyakoji District,
It seems that some of those residents were allowed
to go home, including, among some others, those 90 people of 27 households, who
were staying long in the District. Many of them were aged people. Still, many
of the former residents, who were leading an ordinary life in the District over
the last three generations, are “determined not to go back to Miyakoji,” being
aware of what harm the radioactivity doses there can do. This fear is
especially strong among those who are raising children up. In addition, the
District today has much more inconvenience than before the evacuation in terms
of shopping, medical services, etc., which makes many evacuees reluctant to
going home. The national government, though it once tried to lift the
evacuation order on November 1st, 2013, met with powerful
oppositions from the very evacuees, who were concerned over radioactivity.
Thus, the government withdrew the lift. The national government, which directly
ran much of the decontamination work and finished it off last June, emphasizes
that the annual accumulative dose is around the same level as in the other
districts of Tamura, thus refusing to begin “two-dimensional” decontamination.
In reality, however, the District today still has some places where the annual
exposure exceeds 1 mSv (0.23 mSv an hour). Many residents are calling for additional decontamination,
including that of some forest.
The national as well as some municipal governments
are encouraging, loudly, evacuees to “go home,” claiming that it marks the
first step of Tohoku’s rebuilding. Yet, while some evacuees welcome such a
move, hoping to restore the local communities they once lived in, others are
pointing out that “the different views of the lift of the evacuation order have
resulted in new frictions among the evacuees” and worried that the sense of
solidarity within such former communities is now lost. Thus, now it is crucial
to offer sufficient help to both those going home and those not going home.
Those who do not have decided not to, not out of some personal likes and
dislikes, but out
of serious concerns over radiation. In the
coming two years or so, six other municipalities of Fukushima are to face the
tough decision of whether or not to allow their citizens in evacuation to “go
home.” In all, some 350,000 citizens are affected by this. Mayor Endoh of
(Mieko Nishimagi)
“Die
Germanyh’s
ZDF TV is producing a TV series titled “Die Fukushima Lüge” (“The Lie of
Fukushima”). It director, Johannes Hano, has directly visited Futaba Town (in
the very neighborhood of Fukushima I) and interviewed many relevant people,
including, among others, the former Mayor Katsutaka Idokawa of Futaba,
Associate Prof. Hiroaki Koide of the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto
University, and Governor Izumida of Niigata Prefecture (which hosts the
Kashiwazaki Kariwa NPP). Mr. Hano also obtained some relevant, hard-to-get
documents. The TV series reveals, since long before the meltdown began, how the
true color (dangers) of nuclear power has been concealed by some immense power
by means of cover-ups, sophistry, threats, etc. (Part of the series went online
in YouTube on March 1st, 2014.) The facts
(Margaret)
In
the summer of 2013, a joint youth seminar between the
Gyeongju,
the place I visited this time, is commonly known as a historical city, which
used to host the capital of the ancient
Among
South Korea’s reactors are, in addition to PWRs (pressurized water reactors)
that are used in Japan as well, some outdated CANDU reactors from Canada. Those
old reactors have some safety problems when they cool down, and require
considerable safety equipment to fill in cooling water, supply external power
in case of emergency, and so on. Due to some physical restrictions, however,
those CANDUs have been in operation without some of the safety equipment
required.
Yet
another major issue, shared by
Many
of the things that have taken place or can do so someday in
(Mr.
Rintaro Ukita,
Contact:
NSKK No-Nuke Project
Let us Walk Together Project Part II
NSKK Support for Victims of the Great
2-9-23, Hayama,
Tel: 81-24-953-5987
http://nskk.org/province/genpatsugroup
ikezumi-nyc.chubu@nskk.org
genpatsugroup@gmail.com
