From Shock to Outrage

The people of Uwajima know the sea. Located at the western tip of rural Shikoku Island, they go out to fish in nearby waters and culture pearls in the bay. From their history they understand that the ocean can be capricious and cruel.

Yet nothing prepared them for the shock of hearing that an American submarine, nuclear-powered and laden with the world's most sophisticated electronic gear, sprang without warning out of the waters near Hawaii, smashing into and sinking the Ehime Maru, a training vessel from the Uwajima Fisheries High School. Nine local men and boys are still lost at sea. As more and more incomprehensible details about the incident became known—the surfacing exercise was for the entertainment of visitors, two civilians were at the controls, the submarine crew appeared to make no effort to take survivors aboard, the search for the missing was to be concluded—the accident moved beyond tragedy. Says an Uwajima sailor, an old timer who sailed aboard an earlier Ehime Maru training vessel in the 1960s: "It is outrageous. It is totally beyond belief."

But disbelief has turned to anger, not only in Uwajima but throughout Japan. In the first instance, the understandable object of hostility was the American military. The Japanese, transformed into pacifists by a disastrous war, are profoundly suspicious of military institutions, including their own. In 1988 when a Japanese submarine struck and sank a pleasure boat in Tokyo Bay and sailors stood by while 30 passengers drowned, a wave of resentment against the military swept the country. In recent years American service personnel in Okinawa—who make up half of the 47,000 stationed in Japan—have been similarly subjected to censure for repeated outrages such as raping a 12-year-old Okinawan and taking pictures up unsuspecting girls' skirts. Last week, four days after the sinking of the Ehime Maru, Okinawa police asked the U.S. to turn over a Marine suspected of arson attacks on several nightclubs in late January.

Law-breaking Marines are bad enough, but in Japan some American brass have fueled the ill will with an appalling lack of manners. E-mail messages from Lieut. General Earl Hailston, the Commander of U.S. forces in Okinawa, leaked a few weeks ago referred to the island's governor, Keiichi Inamine, and other local politicians as "nuts and a bunch of wimps." Says Suzuyo Takazato, a member of the Naha City Council in Okinawa, "These incidents are not isolated cases. They paint a picture of an arrogant and unruly military from the very top to the bottom."

Japanese officials at the highest level scrambled to calm the passions—but with little effect. All week long the phone lines between Tokyo and Washington buzzed with American apologies—from President George W. Bush and a host of senior officials. But the man at the other end of the line, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, himself is lacking credibility. "He is beyond contempt," says Yoshifumi Oshita, 26, a graduate of the Uwajima Fisheries High School. "I want the Japanese government to make a proper complaint to America but I don't think Mori can do it."

Mori—bumbling, indecisive and remote—has seen his approval rate drop below 16%, and that was before the notoriety he gained from his refusal to cut short a golf round to come back to Tokyo to deal with the Ehime Maru accident. Calls for his resignation are ricocheting around the Diet office buildings in Tokyo. Mori is scheduled to journey to the U.S. to meet President Bush in early March, a visit that has been hastily moved ahead because of the submarine accident. But, says Midori Matsushima, a Diet member from the Mori faction of the Liberal Democratic Party, "I'm not sure what kind of position he'll be in by that time."

Late last week, Tokyo sent a Foreign Ministry official, Seishiro Eto, to Washington to meet with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Eto persuaded the U.S. to continue the search for the missing crew members, an important gesture for Japan. The Americans assume that all nine are dead, probably trapped inside the sunken ship. But in Uwajima they are still emphatically spoken of as "missing," not "deceased."

And when hope of finding the missing finally does fade, there will be pressure to recover the bodies, even if that means raising the Ehime Maru from 530 m down on the seabed. Japanese custom requires that families bury their dead—or some artifact from them—so that their souls are not condemned to an eternity of restless roaming. For the people of Uwajima, a town that has not lost a boat at sea for more than 50 years, this is a crucial matter of closure.