OKINAWA (TR) – The captain of a small boat involved in a fatal capsizing off the coast of Henoko last month has broken his silence, shifting the blame for the tragedy onto a deceased colleague while heavily intoxicated at a local bar.
On March 16, two small vessels — the Heiwa Maru and the Fukutsu — carrying 21 people, including students from Doshisha International High School, capsized off Nago City. The disaster claimed the lives of 17-year-old student Tomoka Takeishi and the 71-year-old captain of the Fukutsu, Hajime Kanai. The vessels were being operated by a group protesting the relocation of U.S. military bases to Henoko.
The Japan Coast Guard is currently investigating the incident under suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death and injury. Focus has heavily centered on the surviving captain of the Heiwa Maru, the boat the teenage victim had boarded.
The surviving captain, a man in his late 40s from Nakijin Village and a former village assembly candidate for the Japanese Communist Party who has participated in the protests for a decade, ignored reporters during a police site inspection on March 22. However, he was tracked down to a local “snack” bar that same night.
According to Shukan Shincho (Apr. 2), the intoxicated captain emerged from the establishment and immediately grew belligerent.
“Stop it. I’m drinking,” he yelled at reporters.
When pressed on why the boats set sail despite an active wave advisory, the captain grew defensive. “The wave advisory has been out all the time. For three months. Does this mean we can’t take the boat out?” he retorted. “It was calm. I wasn’t the one who decided it.”
Instead, he firmly pinned the responsibility on the deceased captain, Kanai.
“It was his decision. It’s not up to me,” he said. “I don’t have the right to decide. If it was a maritime action [by the protest group], I might be able to say, ‘Isn’t this a bit dangerous?’ But it was Kanai’s decision.”
The captain also slammed a recent press conference held by the Anti-Helicopter Base Council, which claimed the decision to sail was made by the group’s “maritime team.”
“That’s why I’m saying it wasn’t the maritime team. Did you hear that from Kanai? From a dead person?” he sneered. “You better wake up the dead and ask him. You better wake up Kanai and ask him.”
Dismissing the protest group’s public statements as “wrong” and “ambiguous,” the captain’s anger eventually gave way to tears.
“I thought about dying at that time,” he shouted before concluding the exchange. “I can’t tell you any more. Leave me alone. I’ll talk when the time comes.”
The Coast Guard’s investigation into the operational protocols and safety failures of the anti-base protest group remains ongoing.
