Participants of protest rally against the TPP negotiations yell a slogan in chorus.
Some 3,500 people held a protest rally in Tokyo on Wednesday, October 2, to call on the Japanese government to protect national interests in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks.
The rally, sponsored by nine groups representing farmers and consumers, urged the government to retain tariffs on key agricultural products and to disclose information concerning the TPP negotiations.
Toshie Yoshida, managing director of Iwate Prefectural Consumers’ Co-operative Union, expressed fear that tariff cuts would lead to a decline in Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate. “There is no way that a nation which cannot produce its own food asks (other countries) to offer safe food to eat,” Yoshida said.
Yoshitsugu Kuroda, director of Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA)’ youth association, asked the government to make its negotiation policy clear and disclose information concerning the TPP negotiations. “We cannot accept the TPP talks because we don’t even know under what policies the government is negotiating,” Kuroda said.
Rumiko Miyamoto, head nurse of Ibaraki Seinan Medical Center Hospital run by an agricultural cooperative in Ibaraki, said she is concerned about the possibility that if market principles are introduced into medical services as a result of the TPP pact, it would lead to gaps between medical services for the rich and those for the poor. “We nurses always think of treating all patients equally,” Miyamoto said. “We definitely cannot accept weighing life and health by money.”
Shigeru Ishiba, secretary general of the leading Liberal Democratic Party’s Policy Affairs Research Council, stressed the party’s stance of protecting national interests. “We declare that we will definitely protect the five key agricultural products and the national health insurance system,” Ishiba said.
Noritoshi Ishida, a lower house member and head of the LDP’s coalition ally New Komeito’s agricultural section, said it is vital to meet the resolutions adopted by the agricultural committees of the upper and lower houses of the Diet which include protecting five key agricultural products.
Representatives of opposition parties, including the Democratic Party of Japan, the Japanese Communist Party, People’s Life Party and the Social Democratic Party, expressed opposition to the government participating in the TPP talks. Katsuya Ogawa, an upper house member and agricultural minister of the DPJ’s shadow cabinet, said if the resolutions are ignored and when the timing comes to call on the government to withdraw from the TPP negotiations immediately, the DPJ also wants to play a major role in campaigning.
The participants of the rally shouted “Let’s go for it!” three times, led by Hidetoshi Yamashita, chairman of the JA’s youth association.
The rally, headed by Akira Banzai who leads the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives (JA Zenchu), was sponsored by the JA group, the National Chamber of Agriculture, the National Federation of Fisheries Co-operative Associations, the National Federation of Forest Owners’ Co-operative Associations, Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative Union, Daichi Wo Mamoru Kai Co. Ltd., Pal-System Consumers’ Co-operative Union, Japan Dairy Council and the Housewives’ Federation.
(Oct. 3, 2013)