The descendants of fishermen and farmers evacuated from Iwo Jima shortly before it became the site of a key battle during World War II have stepped up their campaign to be permitted to live on the island.
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Members of the 120-strong Iwo Jima Return Promotion Council submitted a new request to the land ministry in Tokyo on February 19, with the chairman of the council telling This Week in Asia that he was “not convinced” by the reasons the government had given previously for denying the council’s request.
“We have been lobbying to be permitted to return to the island since our organisation was first established in 1969 but, sadly, the issue has not attracted much attention in the Japanese media and there has been little support for our campaign,” said Kenji Aso, chairman of the council.
“In the past, the government has given us several reasons why it is not possible to return to the island permanently, including volcanic activity and other tectonic movements across the island, the difficulty of developing industries for settlers to make a living there, the continuing need to recover the remains of soldiers killed in the fighting for the island in 1945 and the large amounts of unexploded munitions that are still there.
“But we are not at all convinced by what the government is telling us,” he said.
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“The island was an active volcano when our ancestors first began to settle there, around 1900,” he added. Pointing out that there had not been a major volcanic eruption of the 169-metre Mount Suribachi, on the southwestern tip of the island, since 1957, Aso said: “We deny there is any danger.”