Japanese outraged at government silence on Obuchi's health
By Joseph Coleman, Associated Press, 04/03/00
TOKYO - It would be a national emergency in any country: The prime minister suffers a stroke and is hospitalized, while his lieutenants discuss whether someone should step in and lead.
Japan faced that emergency on Sunday -- but the government kept it a secret.
Authorities waited nearly 24 hours before announcing to the nation that Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi had been hospitalized, and then waited another 12 hours before saying today that he had suffered a stroke.
The delay has come under angry scrutiny in Japan -- and highlighted the way the government here often withholds information that is released in other advanced countries as a matter of course.
"He is prime minister. What if something happened during those 24 `vacuum' hours?" asked Shigeru Tsubaki, 49, a car company employee in Tokyo. "There is no crisis management."
Officials may have even tried to deceive reporters, initially telling them that Obuchi had gone to bed at 11:00 Saturday night and had woken up at 6:00 Sunday morning -- when he actually was in the hospital.
"That was not an official announcement," said Akitaka Saiki, Obuchi's spokesman. He said officials were checking on why such information had been given out, however.
"Why did they hide the crisis?" said a headline in the Asahi, one of Japan's major newspapers.
Mikio Aoki, who was named acting prime minister today, was apologetic about the delay, saying he and other officials probably deserved the criticism. But he defended the government's actions.
"When the prime minister went to the hospital initially, all he said was he wasn't feeling well," Aoki told reporters. "We never thought things would turn out this way."
The Japanese are largely in the dark about their leaders' medical problems. While candidates for president in the United States can expect their health to be scrutinized during the campaign, a potential prime minister's health is seldom if ever discussed in Japan.
The official silence about medical problems also fits in with broader attitudes in Japan about what should be public information.
The government, for example, only recently started announcing executions, and officials still refuse to release the names of those executed.
Obuchi's hospitalization was a model case of official reticence.
The prime minister was admitted to the hospital on 1 a.m. Sunday, complaining of fatigue. The country had no inkling that something was amiss until 11:30 that night, when Aoki made a vague, four-minute announcement.
Nothing more was said until 11 a.m. today, when Aoki made a second, 15-minute announcement, telling reporters that a stroke was suspected. He also said he had assumed the role of acting prime minister -- two hours earlier.
