Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan

Recently I have read the following book. The main points in the last three chapters 7, 8 and 9 are:

Book title: George, Timothy. 2001. Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center: Distributed by Harvard University Press.

Main points:

Ch. 7. In 1968 the Minamata disease victims began to find that they were no longer alone and ignored. Patients of pollution disease elsewhere in Japan and people in the country as a whole began to show an interest in their plight.(p.179) Beginning in 1968 a new network of supports reached a new national audience, finally the 1959 settlement was replaced by another solution that was far more fair and comprehensive in 1973.(p.179).

- the moment that marked the beginning of this new and ultimately decisive round was the creation of the Citizens’ Council for Minamata Disease Countermeasures in January 1968. The immediate reason for the establishment of this council was the need for an organization to host the upcoming visit, facilitated by Ui Jun, of patients of Niigata Minamata disease who had filed a suit against Showa Denko in 1967. (p.179). Among the Citizen’s’ Council members were several Chisso employees from the no. 1 union. (p.180)

-pressure was building up in many ways. In May 1968 a national alliance for pollution countermeasures was established, with the Niigata group as its core members.(p.183) In August the no. 1 union made Japanese labor history by issuing its famous ‘declaration of shame’.(p.184)

In September a newspaper reported that Chisso’s vinyl chloride plan was also discharging waste laden with organic mercury. There was no doubt that the government would find Chisso to be the cause of Minamata disease. All parties concerned began to position themselves to what would happen. (p.186)

- the announcement was accompanied with a breakdown of Kumamoto Minamata disease patients: one patient in 1953, 12 in 1953, 14 in 1955, 51 in 1956, six in 1957, five in 1958, and the finally four in 1960. Forty two had died and 12 were hospitalized. (p.188)

- the main point of finding that organic mercury from Chisso’s factory had caused the Minamata disease was correct. Yet some conclusions were incorrect, for example it implied hat only fish and shellfish in Minamata by were dangerous. In fact the contamination had spread over a much wider area. They were discharged not only from acetaldehyde facilities, but also from vinyl chloride production process which was continued until 1971. (p.190)

- in October, the mutual aid society decided to ask Chisso for compensation for the deceased and surviving patients. (p.191). They petition to the government for the establishment of standards for compensation. (p.192) On June 14th 1969, 112 people in 28 families filed suit against Chisso in Kumamoto district court to demand compensation. (p.197)

- on May 26, a group of Ministry of Health and Welfare employees distributed flyers criticizing their Ministry. They asked why did they permitted the authorities to take negative attitude, and suggested that they should join hands to take a hard look at the irregularities occurring. (p.201)

- no one seemed to know or care how many uncertified patients were there, but one of them, Kawamoto Teruo, forced an end to this ignorance by 1971.(p.203)

- on March 24, 1968 the Kumamoto Prefecture Association of Civil Liberties Commissions announced its belief that the government had failed to clarify the cause of Minamata disease and was violating the human rights. (p.203)

- the assistance that Kawamoto and his group had received from Kumamoto and Tokyo was an indication of the broaden base of support for Minamata disease patients. Perhaps the most important new support group was the Tokyo Association to Indict. (p.211)

- Ch. 8. - the effort of patients and supporters in the second round of responses to Minamata disease led to a solution, one that represented a moral victory for the patients in contrast with the defeat of 1959. Yet it did not result in the establishment of legitimate and regularized procedures for a more democratic system of redress. The Minamata disease issue was not resolved through election or courts. The March 1973 court victory merely shifts the balance of power in that a direct negotiation would replace the 1959 solatium contract by the new July 1973 agreement. If postwar democracy was measured in terms of the success of popular action and a shift in the citizen-corporation-state power balance, then this second round certainly extended and enlarged it. (p.222)

-there were three points at issue in the trial. First, Chisso was guilty of negligence in discharging the organic mercury. Second, the 1959 agreement had prevented the victims for further compensation. Finally, if the first two clauses were favorable, what compensation should Chisso pay to the patients? (p.241)

- there was great relief but little celebration among the patients at the Kumamoto district court when they won their suit on March 20, 1973. (p.248) Chisso was ordered to make a one-time payment, the largest compensation that had ever been awarded by a Japanese court. To the patients, the victory meant a recognition that their complains were just and that they were owed restitution by a system that had no right to exclude them. (p.249)

- in a reversal of the behavior which Minamata and its citizens had been accustomed to for 65 years, during the negotiations, the executives of the company used exceptionally polite language while the patients spoke plain direct and even rude Japanese. The changed in tone of the discourse reflected a reversal rather than an elimination of the hierarchy governing the two sides. The patients were addressed as superiors and executives as inferiors. (p.251)

Ch. 9. - the 1973 settlement resolved the two most urgent issues in the Minamata disease incident: finding Chisso legally responsible and providing relatively reasonable compensation for all certified patients.(p.263) By providing financial assistance to Chisso, the government abandoned "the polluter pays principle". The system was extended in 1994 when Chisso was unable to pay the interest it owed. Even though 10,353 people were compensated under the new agreement by 1999, many victims were still left uncompensated. (p.271)