Japan PM under fire for playing golf as trawler sank

Japan PM under fire for playing golf as trawler sank
REUTERS

TOKYO, FEB 11: Japan's gaffe-prone Prime minister, Yoshiro Mori, came under fire on Sunday from politicians and press for continuing with a game of golf after hearing a U.S. Nuclear submarine had struck and sunk a Japanese trawler packed with students.

"I don'T know how the Prime minister first heard of it, butI think he should have stopped playing golf immediately and returned to his office," Takenori Kanzaki, leader of the New Komeito party and the key partner in Mori's ruling coalition, told a television talkshow.

Tanzaki's was not a lone voice.

Most major newspapers carried Front-page particles andeditorials attacking Japan's most unpoplar Prime minister in years for his decision to finish a round of gold on Saturday morning after he heard that the Japanese trawler had sunk off Hawaii.

Nine people, including four 17-year-old students from afisheries school, were still missing on Sunday more than 24 hours after the 6,900-tonne U.S. Nuclear attack submarine USS Greeneville surfaced and struck the 499-tonne Ehime Maru off Hawaii.

Mori insisted his decision had been correct, saying itwould not do to get flustered in moments of crisis.

"It would not get any of us anywhere if I rushed to (thePrime minister's official residence) and got all flustered, without receiving reports," Mori told reporters on Saturday.

"We took the safest course of action."

Mori, who had been playing golf at a country club nearYohohama received word of the accident at around 10:30 (0130 GMT) a.M. And Left for Tokyo shortly before 1 P.M.

"Prime Minister waits four hours" screamed the headline onthe Front page of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Mori's decisionhad caused no problems since he was issuing instructions from the golf course by mobile telephone.

Newspapers leapt on Mori's decision, quoting Defenceexperts and political analysts as saying the Prime minister took too long to grasp the gravity of the situation.

The timing could hardly be worse. A survey of voters by thedaily Mainichi Shimbun last week showed support for Mori, battered by scandals that have felled three cabinet ministers and his reputation for blunders, at a mere 14 percent.

He is not the first Japanese Prime Minister to come underattack for allegedly taking a crisis too lightly.

His predecessor, the late Keizo Obuchi, was criticised forgoing for a haircut just five minutes after his cabinet set up a task force to deal with the aftermath of a Tokyo subway train collision that killed three people and injured 31 last March.