Former prime minister of Japan Murayama Tomiichi.

Murayama Tomiichi

Murayama Tomiichi began his career in politics as an activist in his local fisherman’s union in Ōita in the 1940s; in 1994, after decades spent in Japan’s floundering socialist party, he was elected to prime minister. The next year, following the “Resolution to Renew the Determination for Peace on the Basis of Lessons Learned from History” passed by the National Diet, Murayama gave a public apology, on the fiftieth anniversary of the war’s end, for the atrocities committed by Japan during World War II.

All Writing