Fumio Kyūma

Fumio Kyūma during a visit to Washington, DC on April 30, 2007

Fumio Kyūma ( Japanese 久 間 章 生 , Kyūma Fumio ; born December 4, 1940 in Minami-Shimabara ) is a Japanese politician and was represented in the Japanese parliament from 1980 to 2009 . In 2007 he served as the country's first official defense minister.

Kyūma graduated from Tokyo University in 1964 with a law degree . In 1971 he was elected to the Nagasaki Prefecture Parliament. He was also responsible for national defense between 1996 and 1998 , but this policy area was only raised to the cabinet rank of the ministry in 2007.

Kyūma's tenure as defense minister came to a quick end with statements about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki . On June 30, 2007, in a speech at Reitaku University , he stated that in the course of his life he had accepted that the atomic bombing was necessary to end the war. Although he had already challenged the Japanese taboo about the atomic bombs with this statement, he adopted a mainly fatalistic attitude that was widespread in Japanese society and is known as Shikata ga nai (“It cannot be changed.”, “Da you can't do anything. ”) is known. This acceptance of socially relevant events is present in the public discussion as a possible obstacle to the development and maintenance of general civil society engagement.

Kyūma did not consider an apology necessary despite protests from many quarters and first tried to relativize and classify his statements. His apology pronounced on July 1 was therefore barely noticed, so that he decided to resign on July 3, in order not to damage the reputation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe according to his own statement . On July 4, Abe named Yuriko Koike as Kyūma's successor. Kyūma, like Prime Minister Abe and other cabinet and LDP party members, is close to Nippon Kaigi , who is considered revisionist .

Web links

• Online biography Kyumas the Japanese Ministry of Defense (Engl.)
• Account of the scandal surrounding Kyūmas statements until his resignation (Engl.)

predecessor	Office	successor
Fukushirō Nukaga (Defense Authority )	Defense Minister 2007	Yuriko Koike