Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima submitted a petition to the education minister on Wednesday demanding the ministry withdraw its order to modify school textbooks to delete descriptions that the Japanese army forced civilians to commit mass suicide during World War II.

Gov. Nakaima met Minister Kisaburo Tokai at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Tokyo's Chiyoda-ku on Wednesday morning. It was the first time that the education minister had met with an Okinawa Prefectural Government official regarding the textbook screening issue.

During a press conference after the meeting, Gov. Nakaima said, "I would like to highly appreciate the government's attempt to understand the delicate part of Okinawa Prefecture, where the wounds of World War II are yet to be healed," adding that he hoped the central government would move toward resolving the issue.

The move came after some 110,000 people joined a protest in Okinawa last Saturday against the ministry's order to modify the textbooks.

Toshinobu Nakazato, speaker of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, accompanied Gov. Nakaima during Wednesday's meeting with the education minister, where he read out a resolution adopted during the Sept. 29 mass protest.

"It is a fact that the mass suicides could not have happened without the involvement of the Japanese army, and the ministry's order to modify textbook descriptions denies and distorts witnesses' accounts. As residents of the nation's only prefecture that suffered ground battles, we can never tolerate the modification," Nakazato said in reading out the resolution.

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O regulador de Okinawa protesta para ministrar suicides forçados
written by sandy nakandakari , November 03, 2007

E lamentavel o governo Japones de querer modificar a historia dos seus soldados que tornaram em genocidio em massa das familias de okinawa.Perdi muitos parentes e carrego muito odio com que fizeram com meus tios que foram executados eo ministro da educacao kisaburo tokai quer negociar (Pelo jeito ele quer tampar as porcarias que o exercito assassino fez.Espero que muitos pensem o mesmo.

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