On July 2, DP President Katsuya Okada made the following statement.
The Government recently announced that seven Japanese nationals had lost their lives in an attack at a café in Bangladesh. I wish to express my extreme sorrow at the violent deaths suffered by these individuals, who had been striving for Bangladesh’s development. I extend my sincere condolences to the victims, and express my sympathy to all of those caught up in this incident and the related individuals.
Inhuman acts of barbarity such as this cannot be forgiven, and acts of terrorism of any kind cannot be tolerated. With extreme outrage, I condemn and object to this terrorist group that resorted to violence.
In order to deal with the spread of terrorist forces that pose a grave threat to the international community, I call on the Government of Japan to expend all possible means to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals living abroad, and to strengthen efforts to eradicate terrorism, including immigration controls and regulations, and regulating funding for terrorism purposes. I also ask the Government to provide support for the victims and their families in line with their feelings and wishes.
In addition, I will point out the Government’s response to this incident. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced at his own press conference that it was highly likely Japanese nationals were caught up in this incident, yet he subsequently went out electioneering in the regions. While he was en route, the security forces stormed the café and a large number of casualties surfaced, but he failed to turn back nevertheless, and was also absent from a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC), which it was his official duty to attend. Mr. Suga returned to the Prime Minister’s Office once he had completed a scheduled public electioneering speech, after everything was over.
As I have pointed out repeatedly up to now also, the Abe administration has been using the election as an excuse for neglecting crisis management, including instances where the Prime Minister and Chief Cabinet Secretary are away from Tokyo at the same time, but fortunately this has not developed into a serious incident. The latest incident did not involve preventative crisis management, however. Rather, Mr. Suga undertook electioneering while fully aware that a contingency had actually occurred and Japanese nationals were in a critical situation. Mr. Suga’s conduct today is behavior that can only be described as prioritizing the election over the lives and safety of citizens, and is inexcusable. In the future also, the Democratic Party will continue to rigorously identify conduct by Mr. Suga that shows disdain for citizens, and sloppy crisis management by the Abe Cabinet.