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Despite knowing that there had been four arrests, neither senior officers of the Maritime Self-Defense Force nor Defense Ministry bureaucrats reported the arrests to Defense Minister Minoru Kihara. This is outrageous.
Civilian control, the very foundation of Japan’s defense policy, could be shaken. Both Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the defense minister need to recognize the gravity of the situation.
In November last year, the MSDF’s Criminal Investigation Command arrested four former MSDF members on suspicion of fraud and other charges for fraudulently receiving diving allowances by falsifying the number and duration of training sessions. But this fact was not made public until recently.
On July 12, the Defense Ministry announced disciplinary action against 74 people in connection with this duplicitous receipt of allowances, but even at that time, the ministry made no mention of the arrests. It disclosed the arrests for the first time at a hearing held by an opposition party on July 18, and Kihara said the arrests were reported to him early in the morning on July 19, after the hearing.
At a meeting of the House of Representatives National Security Committee, during deliberations held while the Diet is out of session, Kihara said the ministry bureaucrat in charge “failed to recognize the necessity of making a report” and there was “no intention to cover up the facts.”
According to the Self-Defense Forces’ internal regulations, when the Criminal Investigation Command arrests SDF members, it is required to report the arrests to the suspects’ immediate superiors in their units. However, there is no system in place to report such arrests to the defense minister. The ministry intends to establish a framework to inform the minister of arrests and other matters in the future.
While it may not be necessary for SDF members, referred to as “the uniforms,” to directly report various incidents to the defense minister, it is only natural that ministry bureaucrats — called “the suits” — who receive reports from SDF units should immediately convey them to the minister.
The senior bureaucrat in charge of the disciplinary action had informed the vice minister, the top bureaucratic official, of the arrests. The bureaucrat also met with Kihara before the announcement on July 12, but he did not report the arrests to Kihara because he “did not have enough time.”
However, considering the fact that they were discussing the disciplinary measures in the meeting, this excuse that there was not enough time makes no sense.
Kihara also bears a heavy responsibility. If this spate of scandals had come to light during the Diet session, it would have immediately become a question of whether Kihara would resign from his post. The prime minister, who is the SDF’s supreme commander, must not leave the response entirely to Kihara.
The organizational culture of cover-ups in the ministry and the SDF is a problem that has long been pointed out.
A female SDF member stationed at the Ground Self-Defense Force’s Camp Koriyama was sexually abused by several male members, but the ministry did not conduct a full investigation until the woman revealed her real name and complained about the abuse. There seems to be no change in the organizational culture of the ministry and the SDF being lenient to colleagues.
A situation must be avoided in which the ministry and the SDF lose credibility, which would affect the nation’s defense policy itself.
