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Prime Minister of Japan from 1994 to 1996 (born 1924)

Tomiichi Murayama (村山 富市) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1994 to 1996. He led the Japan Socialist Party, and was responsible for changing its name to the Social Democratic Party of Japan in 1996. Upon becoming Prime Minister, he was Japan's first socialist leader in nearly fifty years. He is most remembered today for his speech "On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the War's end", in which he publicly apologised for Japan's past colonial rule and aggression. Of the ten living former prime ministers of Japan, he is currently the oldest living prime minister, following the death of Yasuhiro Nakasone on 29 November 2019. Murayama is also the only living former Japanese prime minister who was born in the Taishō era.

Murayama was born in Ōita Prefecture on 3 March 1924; his father was a fisherman. He was the sixth son of eleven children. His father passed away when he was fourteen, forcing him to deliver newspapers and work small jobs to help make a living. After graduating from Oita Municipal High School in 1938, he moved to Tokyo, and began working at a printing factory during the day, and studied at the Tokyo Municipal School of Commerce at night. He entered Meiji University in 1943 as a philosophy student, but was mobilised in 1944 and assigned to work in the Ishikawajima shipyards. Later that year, he was drafted into the Imperial Army and assigned to the 72nd Infantry of the 23rd Brigade of the 23rd Division as a private second class. He was demobilised following Japan's surrender with the rank of officer candidate, and finished the war as a cadet with the rank of sergeant. Following the death of Yasuhiro Nakasone in 2019 and of Giorgio Napolitano in 2023, Murayama is the only living former prime minister with military service connected to the war. He graduated from Meiji University in 1946, and in 1948, he became the general secretary of the Oita Prefecture Fishing Village Youth League. After the Fishing Village Youth Alliance was disbanded after achieving successes such as establishing a fisheries cooperative, he subsequently worked as the secretary of the Oita Prefectural Employees' Labor Union.

In 1951, he ran for election as a member of the Oita City Council, but was defeated as runner up. In 1953, he married his wife, Yoshie Murayama. In 1955, he ran for the Oita City Council again, and was elected as a member of the Japan Socialist Party, being elected twice after. After serving for eight years, he ran for the Prefectural Assembly of Oita in 1963, and was elected, there serving for nine years. He then ran in the 1972 Japanese general election for the former Oita's 1st, being placed at the top of the list and winning. He was then elected nine more times in the district. In 1973, he joined the "New Flow Association" with Takahiro Yokomichi and Hideo Den.

When Makoto Tanabe replaced Takako Doi as Chairman of the JSP, Murayama became chairman of the National Diet Committee. At the so called "Peacekeeping session" in 1992, where it was debated if the Japan Self Defense Forces should participate in United Nations peacekeeping work, Murayama took the role of the primary opposition leader to the bill. Nevertheless, it passed with the support of the LDP and other liberal parties. As he was involved with other parties due to his role as Chair of Diet Affairs, he had connections with several other party higher ups, including Seiroku Kajiyama of the LDP and Takeho Kanzaki of Komeito. In January 1993, Sadao Yamahana replaced Makoto Tanabe as chairman of the Socialist Party, but Murayama remained as chairman of the National Diet Committee. In July, later that year, the 1993 election saw the LDP lose over 50 seats, and the JSP under Sadao Yamahana took a similar tumble, losing seats to new opposition parties such as the Japan Renewal Party or the Japan New Party, both under LDP defectors Tsutomu Hata and Morihiro Hosokawa respectively. In August, the Hosokawa Cabinet the first non LDP cabinet since the party's formation was established. The JSP, despite being the biggest party, was not given the Prime Minister spot. Instead, Sadao Yamahana was named Minister in Charge of Political Reform. Yamahana resigned from JSP leadership to take responsibility for the poor showing in the 1993 election. Murayama was elected as leader without much in the way of opposition, appointing Wataru Kubo as General Secretary. The Hosokawa cabinet survived for a year it managed to pass the 1994 Japanese electoral reform, before Hosokawa resigned following revelations of a campaign finance scandal. Following Hosokawa's resignation, bickering began over who would succeed him, with every party from the Hosokawa Cabinet eventually picking Tsutomu Hata. The Hata Cabinet was soon after sworn in with a confidence vote; however, just a few days after, the combined forces of the Japan Renewal Party, Kōmeitō, Democratic Socialist Party, Liberal Reform Federation, Japan New Party would form a unified parliamentary group, the "Kaishin", with the goal of undercutting JSP influence in the Hata Cabinet. The group would go on to form the New Frontier Party soon after. Murayama felt betrayed by the announcement he announced the JSP would withdrawal from the coalition, leaving it with minority status. An internal battle waged in the JSP, with other leaders, such as Wataru Kubo, believing they should return to the Hata Cabinet. On June 25, the Hata Cabinet resigned en masse, believing they would not survive a confidence vote. Yōhei Kōno soon after entered talks with Murayama on the possibility of a grand coalition; they came to an agreement where Murayama would inherit the Prime Ministership from Hata soon after. However, several LDP heavyweights disagreed with the idea, including Yasuhiro Nakasone and Toshiki Kaifu, who stated that "We cannot support the chairman of the Socialist Party as the leader." A challenged to Murayama then emerged from Kaifu, who was nominated by rebel LDP members for Prime Minister. With no majority in the Japanese House of Representatives, a run off was held between Kaifu and Murayama, which Murayama then won, making him the first Socialist Prime Minister since the LDP had formed in 1955.

The Murayama Cabinet was a coalition government, sometimes described as a grand coalition, which played a significant part in ending the often explosive LDP JSP conflict which had dominated every election prior, even with third parties beginning to form in the seventies and eighties. Tsuneo Watanabe praised Murayama in 2000, stating that "His greatest achievement was that he was a progressive cabinet in the best sense of the word, crushing the Socialist Party's anti security, anti American, opposition to the national anthem and flag, and greatly expanding the scope of unification of national opinion."

At a ceremony commemorating the 50th end of the Pacific War, Murayama announced the "Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the War's End", an official apology for the "invasion" and "colonial domination" of Asia that Japan undertook before and during the Pacific War and Second Sino Japanese War. The Prime Minister issued a statement entitled "On the Commemoration of the End of World War II" after a unified Cabinet meeting. All successive cabinets since Murayama have clearly stated that they will follow the statement. The aptly name "Murayama Statement" has become established, and it is treated as the official position of the Japanese government.

It had been agreed upon by all three parties that with the war's end approaching it's 50th anniversary, some sort of statement would have to be issued. Shortly After taking office as prime minister, Murayama toured ASEAN countries and said, "Although Asian countries outwardly look nice towards Japan, in reality, countries that have become economic powers may become military powers again. I felt that they hadn't cleaned up after themselves, and that I hope they don't make the same mistake again." Later, on June 9, 1995, a plenary session of the House of Representatives agreed to pass the Fusen Ketsugi statement. The struggle of finding a perfect middle ground was difficult, but the results were still promising; while a significant number of members of all parties abstained either out of a wish for a stronger or weaker statement, only 50 members of the LDP had abstained, wishing for a weaker statement. Somewhat frustrated by being unable to find the votes necessary to pass it unanimously, Murayama turned towards drawing up a separate statement. Several scholars, led by Chief Cabinet Secretary Kozo Igarashi drafted the statement by incorporating things that Murayama had said in past speeches. After Murayama completed the text of the statement, he showed it to Ryutaro Hashimoto and the Chairman of the Japan War Bereaved Families Association. They had initial conflict over the "end of the war" and "defeat" in the text, but came to the agreement that defeat was the basis of the unification that came after of the people. On August 15, 1995, the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, Murayama declared, "Now that the chairman of the Socialist Party has become prime minister, it is meaningless if he cannot issue a statement of this level." If there are any objections, Murayama swore to resign as prime minister. Koken Nosaka, who was appointed as the new Chief Cabinet Secretary in the cabinet reshuffle, was prepared to immediately dismiss any cabinet member who objected to the statement. At the cabinet meeting, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Teijirō Furukawa read out the statement, and Nosaka asked, "Do you have any objections?" All the cabinet members (including Murayama's reshuffle) signed the statement without raising a single objection, and it was unanimously approved by the Cabinet, the Murayama Statement being released soon after.

At the time of his statement, Murayama said he was just "stating the obvious thing". He did not expect that his successor, Ryutaro Hashimoto, would fully respect the statement. All cabinets since have clearly stated their intention to respect the statement. The Murayama Statement is considered to be the official historical understanding taken by the Japanese government. Conservative politicians and others have made comments which often differ from the Statement with denial for crimes committed by Japan, and for this, they are usually criticized heavily by the governments of China and South Korea. Most undertake the purview that "Japan has officially apologized and compensated the countries concerned for the acts of aggression it allegedly committed during the war, there is no need for further apologies." Others have also stated that the Murayama Statement was pointless, with the fact that Japan committed the acts being something that can not be helped. In November 2008, Chief of the Air Staff Toshio Tamogami published a paper titled "Was Japan an aggressive nation?". He was heavily criticized by incumbent Prime Minister Tarō Asō for straying from the view established by the Murayama Statement, and was fired, with Tamogami going on to become a significant figure for the far right in Japan, as displayed by his run in the 2014 Tokyo gubernatorial election. Before taking office as prime minister, Shinzo Abe had made statements critical of the Murayama Statement, and attention was being drawn both domestically and internationally to see what kind of statement Shinzo Abe will issue in 2015 on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of the war. But on January 5 of the same year, At the New Year's press conference, he stated, "The Abe Cabinet has inherited the positions of previous cabinets, including the Murayama Statement. On that basis, I would like to announce a new, future oriented statement", making it clear that the Abe Cabinet would at least somewhat respect the Murayama Statement.

In August 1994, a plan was announced to provide condolence money through private funds to women and families who were forced by Japanese soldiers in World War 2 to work as comfort women. In July 1995, the Asian Women's Fund was established under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Murayama encouraged this. In January 1997, the fund began distributing yen to former Korean comfort women. Before the establishment of the Murayama Cabinet, lawsuits were filed by former comfort women in various locations demanding state funded damage compensation and an apology from the Japanese government for its actions. However, the Japanese government took the position that these issues had been resolved when treaties were concluded with other countries, and it was considered impossible to compensate former comfort women through the use of state funds. Under the concept presented by Murayama, the government would establish a fund and the funds would be donated by the private sector, thereby avoiding direct investment of national funds and conveying the sincere feelings of the people who responded to the donations. The aim was to solve the problem, not through the government, but through private organizations. Regarding the background to its establishment, Murayama himself said, "There are those who say, 'There should be government compensation', while others say, 'All wartime reparations have been legally resolved. There is no need to revisit them now.' There is a wide gap in opinion both domestically and internationally, with some saying, 'I paid my dues properly.' we found common ground and managed to launch the fund. As the former comfort women continue to age, we have managed to convey the feelings of apology from the Japanese people while they were still alive, and those who went through heartbreaking experiences. Despite various criticisms, this was the only option available under the pressing circumstances of the time." Eventually, as the full extent of the delayed response became clear, the inadequacies of the Japanese government's crisis management system at the time, including the legal system, were exposed. The earthquake occurred at around 5:46 a. m., but there was no crisis management employee at the Prime Minister's Office at the time. Furthermore, the 国土庁, which had jurisdiction over disaster countermeasures, did not have a person on duty. The low loyalty of the Cabinet Secretariat and bureaucrats to the coalition cabinet was pointed out as a problem. After the earthquake, 佐々淳行, instructed by Masaharu Gotōda, gave a lecture on crisis management to the cabinet. Sasa wrote that Murayama was the only one of the cabinet members who paid attention the entire time, and Sasa reprimanded the cabinet for its distracted behavior. Sasa also wrote about an anecdote where Murayama attempted to hold a press conference immediately after the earthquake, but was halted by Cabinet Secretariat bureaucrats. Murayama himself said "I think the initial response could have been done more quickly if we had the current crisis management system in place. I cannot bear the shame that so many people died. Every year on the morning of the 7th, I hold a silent prayer at my home." He also said that "There was no crisis management response function at all. There is no excuse for the delay in launching the initial response. Yes, I am truly sorry." He stated further that there was no argument or excuse for the failure in response. At the time, 石原信雄, who held a role in the Prime Minister's Office as the longest serving Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary in Japanese history, said "In this unprecedented and unprecedented disaster, and with an underdeveloped legal system, who else but Murayama could become the Prime Minister? Even so, it was impossible to respond quickly." On the other hand, he also said that "If you look far enough, the cause (of the lack of a system in which the Cabinet could take immediate action) was the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party continued to oppose strengthening the Cabinet's authority." Ironically, when a Prime Minister finally originated from the Socialist Party, a situation occurred where they had to manage the crisis. This was a very difficult situation. It's a story."

Due to the legal system, the Japan Self Defense Forces could not be dispatched without a local request from the Governor of Hyōgo Prefecture, Toshitami Kaihara. At 8:10 AM that day, the Ministry of Defense and Ground Self Defense Force Himeji Garrison contacted the Hyogo Prefectural Office to request dispatch. Before 10 A. M, JSDF helicopters were sent out to collect information from the disaster area. However, Kaihara only joined the Defense Agency after that, and more time was wasted trying to understand the current situation. Finally, without waiting for Kaihara's orders, the Hyogo Prefectural Counselor (in charge of disaster prevention) issued a dispatch request at 10:10 AM, and the Self Defense Forces were dispatched four minutes later at 10:14 AM. In 2007, Governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara claimed that "During the [Hanshin] earthquake, an additional 2,000 people died because leaders were slow in making decisions (about JSDF deployment)." In response, Kaihara said "Mr. Ishihara misunderstood. There is certainly some remorse in terms of crisis management, but the death toll did not increase because the request was delayed. More than 80% of victims were crushed to death near immediately." He argued there was no immediate relation between wait in dispatch and increase in the number of victims. Additionally, Tomio Saito, who took office as the Hyogo Prefectural Disaster Prevention Supervisor after the earthquake, claims that Ishihara's comments are "totally baseless statements and are truly regrettable."

The coalition formed by Murayama was intensely controversial. A movement began inside the party urging supporters of the Hata Cabinet, including former Chairman Sadao Yamahana. At a meeting on January 16, Banri Kaieda and others from the splinter Democratic New Party Club joined the promoters to form a new party. He was scheduled to submit a notification of withdrawal from the group on January 17. It was thought that the event would be canceled due to the earthquake that occurred that early morning, but Yamahana and others submitted a notice of withdrawal from the group in the morning of the same day. The following day, January 18th, the formation of a new party was postponed, and Yamaka left the Socialist Party on May 10.

On March 20, 1995, the Tokyo subway sarin attack occurred, the deadliest terrorist attack in Japan as defined by modern standards. Murayama directed an investigation through relevant ministers, including Minister of Justice Isao Maeda, Chair of the National Public Safety Commission Hiromu Nonaka, Commissioner of the National Police Agency Koji Kunimatsu, and Cabinet Secretary Kozo Igarashi. Murayama himself took the lead in the investigation. Aum Shinrikyo, which had been responsible for a series of incidents including the Tokyo subway sarin attack, was considered to be subject to the Subversive Activities Prevention Act, and the Public Security Intelligence Agency filed a request for disciplinary action against the doomsday cult. The Public Safety Review Committee judged that the requirements for applying the Subversive Activities Prevention Act were not met, and the application was postponed. The Subversive Activities Prevention Act, promulgated in 1952, stipulates regulatory measures against organizations that engage in violent subversive activities. Initially, the purpose of the act was to prevent far left forces such as the Japanese Communist Party and Japanese Red Army from continuing to attempt to overthrow the liberal democratic norm through proletarian revolution. The Socialist Party and other opposition parties instead emerged as the biggest opposition under the 1955 System, so the government took a cautious stance in applying the law. The application of the Subversive Activities Prevention Law to Aum Shinrikyo was controversial, with opposition from Masaharu Gotōda, a former police bureaucrat, and other influential law enforcement figures. Murayama met with Minister of Justice Hiroshi Miyazawa and Hiromu Nanaka again, who both decided decided to respect the investigation by the Public Security Intelligence Agency, paving the way for a request for punishment to the Public Safety Review Commission. Regarding the investigation into the subway sarin gas attack, his comments encouraging arrests via separate cases received mixed reviews, including a strong backlash from human rights lawyers. On March 12, 2007, he contributed a memo to "My Story of the Subway Sarin Incident", which was compiled by the "Subway Sarin Incident Victims Association". Haruki Murakami, who wrote a book about the attack named Underground, also contributed to the book.

On June 21, 1995, the All Nippon Airways Flight 857 from Haneda to Hakodate was hijacked. The culprit demanded that the government release Aum Shinrikyo cult leader Shoko Asahara, who had been arrested and detained the month before. Murayama consulted with Chair of the National Public Safety Commission Hiromu Nonaka and Minister of Transport Shizuka Kamei, and decided that he would not engage in any negotiations with the hijacker. He then decided to call the Special Armed Police of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's 6th Riot Police Department, instructing they take the plane by force. Murayama said after the order that
If there are any casualties, I am prepared to go to the bereaved family in white clothes to apologize." Nonaka responded that "In that case, I will accompany you." However, based on information gathered about the stiuation of the place, the culprit was not an actual Aum Shinrikyo follower. The Riot Police, deployed by the TMPD, did not participate in the invasion of the plane; instead, it provided logistical support to Hokkaido Riot Police. The culprit was arrested; one person had minor injuries. The substance believed to be sarin was just water, and the hijacker was an employee of Toyo Trust and Banking (currently Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking) who was on leave due to mental illness that had nothing to do with Aum Shinrikyo. At the time, the National Police Agency kept the very existence of the Special Armed Police, and its existence was not revealed even after it was put into action. In 1996, National Police Agency established additional units in Hokkaido, Chiba, Kanagawa, Aichi, and Fukuoka, and together with the SAP in Tokyo and Osaka, established the Special Assault Team, officially announcing the existence of the unit.

Although the transition from the Hata Cabinet to the Murayama Cabinet was a change of government, the foreign policy was essentially inherited that of the previous Japanese government, maintaining administrative continuity.

When the Murayama Cabinet was formed, then President of the United States Bill Clinton was wary of a Prime Minister from the Socialist Party. However, at a meeting before the 20th G7 summit in 1994, Murayama spoke in ambiguous terms about his upbringing in a poor fishing village and the process that led him to aspire to become a politician. When Clinton heard this, he was deeply moved, and even at subsequent summits, he supported Murayama even though Murayama was near entirely unfamiliar with state visits beforehand. Murayama had only traveled overseas four times before, and although he was nervous about participating, he was able to get through the event without major incident. This attracted attention. This was a hard turn for Murayama's party, the Socialist Party. Although the decision was criticized as being arbitrary because it was decided from the top down, the party has endorsed it, and the modern day SDP maintains the more moderate outlook than the JSP held.

Nobuo Ishihara , who served as Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, said of the Murayama Cabinet, "It dealt with most of the long pending issues in national politics. It did a great job. Reform, revision of the Self Defense Forces Act to rescue Japanese nationals, enactment of Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Act,and enactment of Administrative Reform Act."

By the time the Murayama Cabinet took office, the Sanrizuka Struggle had transitioned from violent to more non violent resistance, although debate was still fierce on both sides. In response to the conclusions of the "Narita Airport Problem Symposium" held 15 times from November 1991 and the "Narita Airport Problem Round Table Conference" held 12 times from September 1993, Murayama decided on this issue in 1995. He apologized fully to the local community for the circumstances surrounding the airport issue. As a result, some landowners appeared willing to acquire land for the second phase of construction. Later, in 1996, a plan was developed to construct a temporary runway avoiding unpurchased land. In addition to the apology from Murayama and other government officials, the hard line stance of residents opposed to Narita International Airport gradually softened due to repeated efforts by neutral committee members.

Murayama was a strong supporter of the introduction of the selective surname system for married couples, allowing them to keep their surnames from before marriage.

In response to the Aum Shinrikyo Tokyo subway sarin attack, Murayama instructed Minister of Education Yoshinobu Shimamura to submit a bill to revise the 宗教法人法. During the deliberations, the three ruling parties (LDP, JSP, and NPS) demanded that Soka Gakkai Honorary President Daisaku Ikeda and Soka Gakkai President Einosuke Akiya be subpoenaed as witnesses, leading to opposition from the New Frontier Party and ex members of Kōmeitō who had merged into the NFP. The Diet came to a standstill as Komeito affiliated members and members of the NFP attempted to block the vote from occurring by locking out Man Sasaki, chairman of the Special Committee on Religious Corporations in the House of Councilors, and picketing in and outside of the National Diet Building. In the end, Akiya was summoned to the Diet as an expert witness, and the revised Religious Corporations Law was enacted. Furthermore, Murayama was known to be critical of the Soka Gakkai movement as a whole. When Kotaro Tawara launched the "Shigatsu kai", which was heavily critical of the Soka Gakkai's political activities, Murayama attended with the title of General Secretary of the Japan Socialist Party. When he retired as Prime Minister in January 1996, he told executives of the three ruling parties that "I want the three party coalition to be preserved. That is my wish. I do not want this country to be under the control of Soka Gakkai. We cannot leave it to one political party to decide." In addition, the Murayama cabinet contained a significant number of figures who were heavily critical of Komeito and the Soka Gakkai's movements goals, including those who advocated to strengthen Article 20 of the Constitution, which maintains strict separation of church and state.

Upon entering the Prime Minister's Office, Murayama felt a sense of crisis because, with the exception of the Prime Minister, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, and the Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, all staff at the Prime Minister's Office were career bureaucrats. "The Prime Minister's Office is not just an office that conducts administration , but also an office that makes political decisions." The post of "Assistant to the Prime Minister" was created for this reason. The Prime Minister's assistants were chosen from among the Diet members belonging to the three ruling parties, with Hidenao Nakagawa, Masaru Hayakawa, Jun Nishikori, and Saburo Toida all being appointed to the office. The appointed assistant to the Prime Minister was in charge of providing opinions on the Prime Minister's speeches and answers, as well as gathering information on political issues. The post of "Aide to the Prime Minister" was considered a personal advisor to the Prime Minister, but the Cabinet Act was later amended and the post of "Aide to the Prime Minister" was legislated to be more political in nature.

In 2000, Murayama retired from politics. He and Mutsuko Miki traveled to North Korea in 2000 to promote better bilateral relations between the two countries. Murayama became the president of the Asian Women's Fund, a quasi government body that was set up to provide compensation for former comfort women. After providing compensation and working on various projects, the fund was dissolved on 31 March 2007. Murayama turned 100 on 3 March 2024.