Japan reels in shock after Abe killed
Former PM shot in the back in attack branded ‘dastardly and barbaric’
My thoughts are with his wife and the people of Japan. Events like this shake us all to the core. Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand Prime Minister
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an arch-conservative and one of the country’s most divisive figures, has died after being shot during a campaign speech yesterday in western Japan, according to public broadcaster NHK.
Abe, 67, was shot from behind minutes after he started his speech in Nara, near Osaka on Honshu island. He was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was pronounced dead later at the hospital, NHK said.
Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of the shocking attack in a country that’s one of the world’s safest and has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida yesterday called the attack “dastardly and barbaric” and added that the crime occurring during the election campaign, which was the foundation of democracy, was absolutely unforgivable.
He and his Cabinet ministers hastily returned to Tokyo from other campaign events around the country after the shooting.
NHK aired dramatic footage of Abe’s assassination while he was giving the speech outside a main train station in Nara.
In the footage, he is standing, dressed in a navy blue suit, raising his fist, when a gunshot can be heard. Footage then shows Abe collapsed on the street, with several security guards running toward him.
He is holding his chest, his shirt smeared with blood.
In the next moment, security guards leap on top of a man in a grey shirt, who lies face down on the pavement. A double-barrelled device which appeared to be a handmade gun, could be seen on the ground.
Nara prefectural police confirmed the arrest of a suspect and identified him as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41.
NHK reported that the suspect served in the Maritime Self-Defence Force for three years in the 2000s.
Abe, who was Japan’s longestserving leader before stepping down for health reasons in 2020, was still influential in the governing Liberal Democratic Party and headed its largest faction, Seiwakai.
Elections for Japan’s upper house, the less powerful chamber of its parliament, are tomorrow.
“A barbaric act like this is absolutely unforgivable, no matter what the reasons are, and we condemn it strongly,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said.
The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper printed extra editions, which were quickly grabbed by people on the street to read about the shooting.
Many foreign officials expressed shock over the shooting.
“Our thoughts, our prayers are with him, with his family, with the people of Japan,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said while attending a Group of 20 foreign ministers meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
Former US President Donald Trump said it was “absolutely devastating news” that Abe was shot.
He said on his social media app that Abe “was a true friend of mine and, much more importantly, America. This is a tremendous blow to the wonderful people of Japan, who loved and admired him so much.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese echoed the sentiments.
“Shocking news from Japan that former PM Shinzo Abe has been shot. Our thoughts are with his family and the people of Japan at this time,” Albanese tweeted.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was in Sydney meeting Albanese yesterday, said she was “deeply shocked”.
“He was one of the first leaders I formally met when I became Prime Minister.
“He was deeply committed to his role, and also generous and kind. I recall him asking after the recent loss of our pet when I met him, a small gesture but one that speaks to the kind of person he is,” Ardern said.
“My thoughts are with his wife and the people of Japan. Events like this shake us all to the core.”
Abe cited a chronic health problem when he resigned as prime minister in 2020. He has had ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager and has said the condition was controlled with treatment.
Abe told reporters at the time that it was “gut wrenching” to leave many of his goals unfinished.
He spoke of his failure to resolve the issue of Japanese abducted years ago by North Korea, a territorial dispute with Russia and a revision of Japan’s war-renouncing constitution.
That last goal was a big reason he was such a divisive figure.
His ultra-nationalism riled the Koreas and China, and his push to create what he saw as a more normal defence posture angered many Japanese.
Abe failed to achieve his cherished goal of formally rewriting the USdrafted pacifist constitution because of poor public support.
Loyalists said that his legacy was a stronger US-Japan relationship that was meant to bolster Japan’s defence capability.
But Abe made enemies by forcing his defence goals and other contentious issues through parliament, despite strong public opposition.
Abe was a political blue blood groomed to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.
His political rhetoric often focused on making Japan a “normal” and “beautiful” nation with a stronger military and bigger role in international affairs.
He was proud of working for a stronger Japan-US security alliance and shepherding the first visit by a serving US president in Barack Obama to the atom-bombed city of Hiroshima, in 2016.
He also helped Tokyo gain the right to host the 2020 Olympics by pledging that a disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant was “under control” when it was not.
Abe became Japan’s youngest prime minister in 2006, at age 52, but his overly nationalistic first stint abruptly ended a year later, also because of his health.
The end of Abe’s scandal-laden first stint as prime minister was the beginning of six years of annual leadership change, remembered as an era of “revolving door” politics that lacked stability and long-term policies.
When he returned to office in 2012, Abe vowed to revitalise the nation and get its economy out of its deflationary doldrums with his “Abenomics” formula, which combines fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms.
He won six national elections and built a rock-solid grip on power, bolstering Japan’s defence role and capability and its security alliance with the US.
He also stepped up patriotic education at schools and raised Japan’s international profile.