Tanaka lauds Ehime Maru recovery effort

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka met briefly with both U.S. Navy and Japan's Sea Self-Defense Forces divers at Pearl Harbor yesterday during a whirlwind Hawai'i stopover en route to Tokyo.

Makiko Tanaka, Japan's foreign minister, received a commemorative coin from U.S. Navy diver Bob Lastimosa. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

"The effort is much appreciated — please keep it up."

Tanaka, the first woman to serve as Japan's foreign affairs minister, arrived here Saturday night from San Francisco, where she made a historic expansion of Japan's apologies for the suffering it caused during World War II.

Tanaka, heckled by protesting World War II veterans in San Francisco, specifically included American "slave labor" prisoners of war in her reaffirmation of a 1995 apology by the Japanese government.

In Hawai'i, it's the Americans who have been apologizing, ever since the U.S. Navy Submarine Greeneville accidentally rammed and sank the fisheries training vessel Ehime Maru nine miles off Diamond Head on Feb. 9.

Instead of protesters, there were the friendly faces of leaders of Japanese-American groups in Hawai'i who came to the Japanese Consulate, where Minister Tanaka herself poured the tea during a brief reception, then sped off to catch a noon flight to Tokyo.

Understands problems

Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka bows to divers Petty Officer Naoyuki Miura, left, and Petty Officer Yasuhisa Sawada, right, of the Japanese submarine rescue vessel JDS Chihaya. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

It was a symbolic gesture. Lastimosa gave her the official coin of the Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One, based at Pearl Harbor, which will lead the Ehime Maru recovery effort.

Lastimosa bowed to Tanaka, as best he could in his heavy gear.

"What do you think, Mrs. Tanaka?" a reporter called out. "Are you impressed?"

"I am impressed," she said. "But at the same time, because of the fact that the recovery of the Ehime Maru is taking more time than expected, we know that the families are very much concerned, so we sincerely hope that the recovery happens as soon as possible. And for all the involvement of the people who are concerned, we very much appreciate this."

Tanaka was referring to a series of snags that have delayed the planned lifting of the Ehime Maru from Sept. 15 to the end of the month. If the vessel can be raised a bit above the sea floor 2000 feet down, it will be moved slowly to a sea cliff off Honolulu International Airport. Once there it will be raised to a coral reef shelf about 100 feet deep where divers can begin their grisly search.

An aide said later that Tanaka was not chiding the Navy for the delays, and that she understood the problems experienced in the first known effort to lift such a large object from such a great depth.

The foreign minister was then whisked in a Lincoln limousine to the spic-and-span Japanese naval ship Chihaya, where she nodded to two suited-up divers, then hurried on to the flight deck to urge 70 crew members drawn up at attention under the Rising Sun flag to work for the recovery of the missing "as if they were your own families."

Japan-Hawai'i link strong

Crew members of the Japanese submarine rescue vessel JDS Chihaya stood at attention as Tanaka departed. The foreign minister urged divers to work hard for the recovery of victims' remains. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

Sharene Urakami of Honolulu, the chairman of the Japanese Jr. Chamber of Commerce's Cherry Blossom Festival this year, said Tanaka stood at the end of a dessert line at the consulate yesterday and poured tea for her guests.

Urakami said it was particularly gratifying to her as a first-generation young Japanese American woman to see another woman in such a lofty position in Japanese government.

Minoru Ueda of Makiki, one of about 40 invited guests at the reception and a past chairman of the Japanese-American Chamber of Commerce, said that he thought being "very outspoken" was "creating some problems" for Tanaka.

But Ueda said Tanaka was "doing very well" and had come a long way from when he met her during previous trips to Hawai'i — as the daughter of popular Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.