Eight Japanese cabinet ministers risked international protest by praying yesterday at a shrine that venerates war criminals on the 54th anniversary of Japan's surrender at the end of the second World War.
Ageing uniformed veterans, armed with swords and rifles symbolising Japan's militarist past, marched to the inner square of the Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo as the cabinet ministers paid their respects.
The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Keizo Obuchi, skipped the annual pilgrimage to the shrine set up in 1869 for fallen soldiers. Among those honoured now are 1,067 convicted war criminals from the second World War, most sentenced to death by the Allies.
The prime minister, who once headed a group of 230 Diet members campaigning for official visits to the shrine, did not stop his cabinet members from paying homage.
Hundreds of police were stationed on roads surrounding the shrine, a gathering place for right-wing militarists who marked the day by flying huge Rising Sun flags and blared the imperial anthem from loudspeakers.
Right-wing activists welcomed the government's passage of divisive legislation last Monday to enshrine the Hinomaru flag and Kimigayo anthem in law. Liberals dislike their connection with war and Japanese nationalism.
Many old soldiers were dressed up in full desert warfare gear. A bugler led a group of about two dozen imperial navy and army veterans in full uniform marching through the shrine grounds to the inner square.
In a separate cermony, Mr Obuchi joined Emperor Akihito in attending a separate ceremony at a vast sports hall on the edge of the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, not far from the Yasukuni Shrine.
"The war inflicted great suffering and sorrow not only on our country but also on many other countries, particularly in Asia," the prime minister told 7,000 war-bereaved and veterans.
"I take this fact humbly and express my deep sorrow and regret. I am still overcome by painful emotions when I think about some three million people who died in that hard-fought war and died on foreign soil hoping for the peace of their country and families . . ."
Silence fell for one minute at midday in memory of the victims.
At the start of the ceremony, attendants sang the anthem for the first time. Until last year the ceremony attendants stood up while the anthem was played.
The emperor and his wife Empress Michiko bowed before a central post where a sign read: "The souls of the war dead throughout the nation."
"Today . . . I renew my deep sorrow for many of those who lost their precious lives during the world war and their bereaved families," the emperor said.
At the Yasukuni Shrine, many members of the Diet joined the government ministers in ignoring Asian objections to their visits.
Asian countries invaded by Japan have annually condemned the visit because it involves the veneration of war criminals. Millions of Asians died under Japanese occupation during the second World War, many of them as slaves.
Some have called on Japan to fully apologise for its war-time atrocities and pay compensation, in particular for the estimated 200,000 women forced to act as sex slaves for imperial troops.
Japanese ruling party officials say they are considering plans to remove from the shrine tablets for the 14 "Class A" war criminals but leaving in place those for the "Class B" and "Class C" criminals.
The chairman of the Financial Reconstruction Commission, Mr Hakuo Yanagisawa, one of the cabinet ministers who visited the shrine, said such a plan was "one option worth considering given the present situation that [government officials] cannot grandly visit the shrine."
However, the Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka, who skipped the annual pilgrimage to a shrine, said the government should not be directly involved with the issue.