TOKYO, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada on Wednesday denied media reports alleging that she was directly involved in a scandal deliberately concealing controversial mission logs of the Ground Self-Defense Force's (GSDF) peacekeeping activities in South Sudan.
The embattled defense minister said she had not authorized the concealment of the logs nor had she agreed to a plan to try and attempt to not disclose the fact that the logs existed.
Her remarks were reiterated by Japan's top government spokesperson Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who maintained that Inada had denied the claims but that no further comments would be made as an internal investigation has been launched.
The Defense Ministry had stated that logs recorded by GSDF personnel taking part in a UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan had been discarded and could not be found.
The logs were subsequently found in digital form, but government sources close to the matter said that it was decided by top officials at a meeting on Feb. 15 that this fact should be concealed. Inada, the sources said, agreed to the plan to conceal the logs.
Local media sources have also reported that Inada had been appraised of the situation regarding the discovery of the controversial logs by a senior GSDF official, and had knowledge of their existence, two days prior to the government meeting on Feb. 15.
Administrative Vice Defense Minister Tetsuro Kuroe is believed to have also attended the meeting, although has refuted being there, stating he has no recollection of it taking place. He has also stated that he believes Inada had not approved any form of cover-up conspiracy.
Inada was slammed by the main opposition Democratic Party just days prior to the alleged cover-up meetings, with her resignation being demanded for possibly diluting the severity of the security situation in the South Sudan, and in doing so, allowing Japan's GSDF troops to not be withdrawn.
Democratic Party lawmaker Yuichi Goto lambasted the government for attempting to hide the real situation in South Sudan and accused Inada of not using the term "fighting" as that would have required Japanese troops deployed to the area on UN peacekeeping missions to be withdrawn.
According to Japan's pacifist, war-renouncing Constitution and in line with rules governing Japan's GSDF's role in UN peacekeeping missions, troops must be withdrawn from conflict zones if exchanges specifically described as "fighting" occur.
The daily activity logs of the GSDF troops, that were previously deemed "lost," stated that troops in South Sudan should be careful of being drawn into "sudden fighting" in the city of Juba.
The logs were retrieved, however, from July last year when the security situation deteriorated in South Sudan, yet the situation was described then by the government not as "fighting" but as "armed clashes."
Inada and the Defense Ministry have been accused of trying to intentionally conceal the potentially damaging records of the troop's activities during a time when 270 people died in fighting between government forces and rebels in Juba on July 7-12, 2016.
In the recovered logs, the troops said they must be "careful about getting drawn into sudden fighting in the city." The record also refers to the possible "suspension of UN activities amid intensifying clashes in Juba."
Inada, a lawyer-turned-politician, according to claims by opposition party members who are again calling for her resignation and for Abe to also bear the responsibility for appointing her to the position in the first place, was seeking to conceal the logs so that the GSDF troops could remain in South Sudan, despite the deteriorating situation there and potentially imminent physical danger to the GSDF troops and in contravention to Japan's war-renouncing Constitution.
The latest scandal involving Inada will deal a massive blow to the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who has recently seen the support rate for his Cabinet plummet to its lowest level since he took office in 2012.
Numerous media polls have revealed that the Japanese public's mistrust in the prime minister himself is rising for failing to properly account for himself in matters regarding an influence-peddling scandal that alleges Abe showed favoritism to a personal friend in the the government's selection of a new school to be opened in a special deregulated zone in Japan.
While it's likely Abe will make sweeping changes to his Cabinet lineup next month in an attempt to win back some public faith, and despite the fact that he has said he wants to keep Inada on, the defense minister's scandals and gaffes are stacking up.
Inada has been implicated in a wide-reaching governmental scandal involving her association with nationalist school operator Moritomo Gakuen, the alleged GSDF South Sudan log cover-up and, more recently, for remarks she made during campaigning for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly which violated Japan's Self-Defense Forces law.
With the future course of the prime minister and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party now looking a lot less certain than a few months ago, as public disapproval mounts and dissension within the party's different factions grow, Inada and Abe may be called to account for themselves in parliament, Kazunori Yamanoi, a Diet affairs chief of the main opposition Democratic Party said.
Meanwhile, as Inada may be serving out her final days as defense minister, the Inspector General's Office of Legal Compliance under the auspices of the Defense Ministry is now investigating whether Inada and the ministry did indeed deliberately try to conceal the controversial GSDF logs.
