The government has designated, at this moment after the nuclear disaster, areas in which people could not live. The decision is too cruel to evacuees. Though some ex-inhabitants anticipate that they could not return home, their hope is completely frustrated. Meanwhile, TEPCO, or Tokyo Electric Power Co., will survive with money from the government. Such illegitimacy cannot be accepted.



FUKUSHIMA PEOPLE ARE ABANDONED, WHILE TEPCO SURVIVES


The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and New Komeito jointly raised a proposal, called a program to speed up a rehabilitation process at Fukushima. The Abe government makes certain efforts, reacting to the plan, but it suggested today that some of the Fukushima evacuees cannot return home. Based on this notion, the government has changed policies; 1) to abandon a plan that all the evacuees may return home, and, subsequently, to split evacuees, and 2) to exempt TEPCO of responsibilities to owe costs of the disaster and to let the government pay for the expenses. Big problems are seen in the policy change.


Deregulate tolerable radiation exposure criteria


Firstly, the government is to divide affected areas in two categories; a district in which people can live and cannot. De-contamination works will be done intensively only in the former category areas for a time being. The state will help residents who used to live in the second category areas when they move to a new place and look for a house to live in.


The government has employed a new radiation exposure norm for a resident to back home; from a measurement at locality to a total dose of exposure of individuals. Currently 1 mili-meter sievert is the admitted maximum dose a year a person. But this limit will be heightened to surge the tolerable dose. That means deregulation of a radiation level in order to shrink government's expenditure on decontamination works as well as to urge evacuees to return home (an enforced return).


As far as content is concerned, the government services for emigration begin now. A new service will produce another split among the evacuees whether they decide on returning or emigrating. De-contamination works are uncertain. Some municipalities will face difficulties for survival. In the name of a program to speed up rehabilitation, Fukushima residents will be abandoned.


Government saves TEPCO - What is real intention?


Secondly, the government says it is impossible for TEPCO, solely, to tackle the situation. That is true, but the government's action is too late to be responsible. Secretary General of the LDP Ishiba told without shame: 'somebody, at a certain time, will be obliged to tell evacuees that they cannot live in this or that area'. The LDP must fulfill duties, because it has encouraged the nuclear industries.


What is known now is a collapse of safety myth and a fact that radiation control is impossible if an accident happens at the plant.


A nuclear power plant has been compared to a mansion without a toilet. As former Premier Koizumi told recently, an urgent task is to settle the uncontrollable situation with an initiative of the government. If it decides to end the nuclear power, naturally, measures will be definitely taken for TEPCO. But the government says that TEPCO cannot be made bankrupted on the ground to keep stable supply of electricity and settle the disaster.


A real intention of the government lies in the gigantic sum of corporate bonds and bank support to guarantee extraordinary investment money spent on the nuclear industry. If TEPCO gets bankrupted, creditors and banks must be given priority by the Electricity Industry Act. Indemnification and decontamination efforts will be secondary. Will an estimated sum of 10 trillion Yen necessary to cope with the disaster be covered by tax money? That is outrageous.


A proposal was raised by Professor Kaneko Masaru of Keio University, according to the Tokyo Shinbum newspaper dated November 6; the government should decide to go without nuclear generation, take an initiative to bankrupt TEPCO, establish a company to decommission reactors and decontaminate disaster areas and use money from the TEPCO's fund prepared for nuclear fuel cycle and budgets ready for the prototype fusion reactor Monju and recycling of spent fuel.


Rehabilitation efforts at Fukushima represent democracy of Japan; is the country a state for people?


November 26, 2103