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REFILING: FEATURE: Struggle in Minamata still continues prior to 50th anniv.+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)MINAMATA, Japan, Feb. 15_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: THREE PHOTOS ACCOMPANYING THIS STORY IS AVAILABLE VIA E-MAIL. THE PHOTO ADVISORY IS TO FOLLOW) Sumiko Kaneko, 74, hopes to live longer, even by one day, than her 50-year-old son Yuji, who has been in a wheelchair the past nine years. "His condition is getting worse, and now even we family members do not understand what he says or wants," she said of her third son, who suffers from congenital Minamata disease. "He must feel miserable that he cannot express his feelings to people, while I myself have had sleepless nights thinking about him." Her eldest son has also been diagnosed with the mercury-poisoning disease, while her second son died just 29 days after birth. She herself was recognized as a patient in 1972. Kaneko, who also lost her husband to the disease at the age of 25, has talked of her hardships to visitors, mainly children, at Minamata Disease Municipal Museum in the city of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, several times a month since 2002. "I want young people to learn something from my experiences so they can live in peace," she said. The sufferings of Kaneko and her family show that the tragedy of Minamata disease still continues at the time when it is set to mark the 50th anniversary of its official recognition in May. A local public health center received a report about four patients suffering an unexplained encephalopathy, termed merely "a strange disease," on May 1, 1956, the year when the then Economic Planning Agency proudly declared the end of the postwar reconstruction era at the dawn of high economic growth in Japan. It was later found that mercury-laced wastewater from a synthetic resin factory of Chisso Corp. in Minamata had poisoned fishes and caused the disease in humans, which damages the central nervous system. The amount of compensation the chemical maker has paid to victims came to 134 billion yen as of the end of last September. The disease was later detected in Niigata Prefecture, and 2,955 people have been recognized as patients as of the end of last year, of whom 2,002 have died, according to the Environment Ministry. In October 2004, the Supreme Court held the state and Kumamoto Prefecture responsible for the spread of the disease, and set a less rigid standard for recognizing victims than the state's standard set in 1977, prompting more than 3,500 people to apply for recognition to receive medical support. Moreover, a group of unrecognized sufferers filed a damages suit in October last year against the state, Kumamoto Prefecture and Chisso, and the number of plaintiffs is expected to reach about 900 eventually, according to Shoto Sonoda, a Kumamoto-based lawyer. The moves show the existence of many latent patients, although no one has been recognized as a patient since December 2000. "Some patients have hesitated to apply for recognition due to concerns over persistent prejudice against the disease," Sonoda said. "The central and local governments, meanwhile, have neglected to conduct group checkups on residents in the mercury-hit areas, leaving the overall figure of sufferers from the disease still unexplained." It was once believed that Minamata disease was contagious, stirring discrimination against its victims and their families as well as Minamata citizens as a whole from outside the city. Even a few years ago, a group of Minamata children were jeered at a swimming pool by children from another city, who said, "We may be infected with Minamata disease if we swim with them." "We Minamata citizens have been hesitant to reveal our native place and to face our unhappy history," Yoichi Seki, vice director of the Minamata disease museum, said. "But we are now trying to make our city environmentally-friendly." The city is attracting school excursions so young people can learn the importance of environmental preservation, with some 50,000 people, of whom 70 percent are students from elementary to senior high schools, visiting the museum annually, according to Seki. Talk sessions at the museum by nine narrators, including Kaneko, have contributed to enabling the visitors to become aware of the hardships people involved in the disease have gone through and correctly understand what Minamata disease is. Another narrator is 46-year-old congenital Minamata disease patient Kenji Nagamoto, who also visits elementary schools in the city regularly with other patients for exchanges with children. "I feel very glad when children hail me on streets, saying 'Hello, Mr. Nagamoto!'" he said, indicating that understanding of the disease and patients among children has been cultivated. The 50th anniversary of the disease's recognition is expected to be an opportunity to promote further reconciliation among Minamata people, following confrontations due to persistent prejudice against the patients and the city. The city of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture and the Environment Ministry have set up a special office in Minamata to prepare for a memorial service on May 1 and other related projects, such as symposiums and commemorative publications. "We are jointly working for these projects with the patients and local people, including Chisso employees, and each project team provides us with occasions for 'moyai-naoshi,'" Keiichiro Yamashita, a senior prefecture official who heads the office, said. "Moyai" basically means mooring a boat to a berth, and "moyai-naoshi" implies reconstruction of once damaged human relations or the creation of mutual understanding. The focus is on whether Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will attend the memorial service, with Yamashita saying, "Minamata disease patients have become victims of the prosperity of Japan. We hope Mr. Koizumi will bow his head in front of the memorial." Masazumi Harada, professor at Kumamoto Gakuen University, said, "Under the high economic growth after the war, Japan imposed the negative effects on a handful of people, who relied on fishery and never enjoyed the fruits brought about by that growth." Harada, who has been involved in the Minamata issue as a doctor for almost 50 years, has supervised a "Minamata Studies" course at the university since 2002, in which patients, researchers, lawyers and journalists have given lectures for interdisciplinary studies. The university's Center for Minamata Studies also now focuses on how to rehabilitate Minamata city. "Minamata disease is a result of criminal acts by a corporation and the government. The offenders should consider compensation, not relief," Harada said. Despite her worries over her third son, Kaneko sometimes feels her half-century of hardships has been rewarded. "I had initially been reluctant to talk about my life, but I was encouraged by my three granddaughters, the children of my eldest son," she said. The granddaughters, now in their 20s, had once turned away from news about Minamata disease by switching off the TV or tearing up newspapers because of their father's disease, but "they said to me they were sorry for that and asked me to tell my story." One of the three has now become a nurse, and Kaneko said, "She is very good at taking care of my third son Yuji." |