The Defense Ministry’s top bureaucrat decided to conceal the existence at the Ground Self-Defense Force of controversial logs detailing the daily activities of Japanese peacekeepers in South Sudan to maintain the ministry’s position that the records had been discarded, government sources said Wednesday. Tetsuro Kuroe…
The Defense Ministry’s top bureaucrat decided to conceal the existence at the Ground Self-Defense Force of controversial logs detailing the daily activities of Japanese peacekeepers in South Sudan to maintain the ministry’s position that the records had been discarded, government sources said Wednesday.
Tetsuro Kuroe, vice minister of the Defense Ministry, told Gen. Toshiya Okabe, GSDF chief of staff, in February there was no need to reveal the logs as they were kept personally by a GSDF member and were not official documents, the sources said.
The decision not to reveal the logs was endorsed at a meeting involving Kuroe, Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and other senior officials of the ministry and the SDF on Feb. 15, other government sources have said Tuesday.
The activity logs contained controversial information pertaining to the security situation in South Sudan.
