1,000 protest in Okinawa at gov't view on military role in war suicide

Some 1,000 people staged a rally in Okinawa on Saturday demanding the education ministry retract its contentious instruction to history textbook publishers to play down the Japanese military's role in mass suicides by civilians during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa.

Participants including members of local teachers unions took to Kokusaidori Street in downtown Naha, chanting, "Don't distort the reality of the Battle of Okinawa." In March, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology advised publishers of new high school history textbooks to reword descriptions in the current versions that the embattled Imperial Japanese Army forced civilians to kill themselves in the war so as not to be taken prisoner by the United States.