Seijuro Arafune 荒舩 清十郎 | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 9, 1907 |
| Died | November 25, 1980 (aged 73) |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Occupation(s) | Politician, Cabinet Minister |
Seijuro Arafune (荒舩清十郎, Arafune Seijūrō, March 9, 1907 - November 25, 1980) was a Japanese politician and a Minister of Transport. He was a member of Liberal Democratic Party. Arafune resigned the Minister of Transport by the alleged abuse of power in 1966. Among these was requiring a National Railway express train to make regular stops at a station located in his own parliamentary constituency.[1]
Among his most controversial actions was making a now discredited claim about the death toll of comfort women. This statement has been widely spread, with many books writing that "142,000 (or 145,000) Korean comfort women were killed by the Japanese army" or "Only about 25 per cent of Comfort women have survived".[2]
The almost single-minded preoccupations with the advancement of local interests on the part of a former local politician were typified by the incident caused in the autumn of 1966 by the alleged abuse of power by the then Minister of Transportation, Arafune Seijürö, to make a National Railway express train make regular stops at a station located in his own constituency. As a result of this incident, aggravated by the additional charges of his attempt to induce a group of transportation operators to join an association of his electoral supporters and his having taken a couple of textile manufacturers with him on his official trip to South Korea, he was eventually forced to resign on 11 October 1966.