Minamata: The Story of the Poisoning of a City, and of the People Who Choose to Carry the Burden of Courage 0030136369, 9780030136368

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The

story of the

poisoning of a city

and of the people

who choose to

carry the burden of courage.

i

and AILEEN

i

i

M SMIT

ISBN: 0-03-013636-8

$20.00

MINAMATA

and farming town on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. is

a fishing

Its people joined the industrial age when the Chisso Corporation built a chemical factory there. The disaster that then befell them, and the ways in which some have managed to respond, reach far beyond Japan. Their courage is a flag of hope for all life — but it will have signaled no victory unless it awakens other people to action in every corner of this planet. An uneasiness developed in the town in the early 1950s. Many individuals fell ill with the same symptoms: limbs and lips tingled and then became numb; speech slurred; motor functions went out of control. Some died. Was this strange new disease contagious? Nobody knew. If you have heard of Minamata before this, it is because W. Eugene Smith, the photographer whose essays have been regarded as classics since he helped to invent the form over thirty years ago, focused attention on what he calls "the widening damnations of pollution'.' Minamata's disease was recognized as methyl mercury poisoning from industrial wastes. The mercury reached people through contaminated fish. Some doctors suggest that the number of persons affected might reach 10,000. So far, 103 have died and some 700 others have been veri-

fied as seriously

— and permanently — damaged.

As groups of victims pressed

a turbulent, multi-

sided crusade to force industry and government to take responsibility, Smith and his wife, Aileen,

moved

to

Minamata.

Smith, as always, is both observer and participant. During one demonstration, Chisso union men smashed him to the pavement so hard, crushing several vertebrae, that he feared he would never be able to hold another camera. Aileen Smith covered for both of them until he could raise his arm again. From the beginning,

study of Minamata possible; speaking Japanese (born in Tokyo, she divided her first twenty years equally between Japan and the U.S.), she interprets for Smith, made the notes from which much of the book is written, and took about one-fourth of the photographs published here. The Smiths eat fish in their Minamata house, not from bravado but simply because that is what one eats there, just as an American city dweller breathes the air during a smoggy spell and eats three meals a day containing chemical preservatives. The result of their collaboration is an endurshe has

made

this

work of one of the photographers. W. Eugene Smith

ing document that crowns the

world's great

(continued on back flap)

Jackc

1'^sign

by oarcle

Thomas

0575

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

MINAMATA

MINAMATA words and photographs by

W EUGENE SMITH and AILEEN M.

An

SMITH

Alskog-Sensorium Book Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1975

Rrt 1231

An

Alskog-Sensorium Book

© 1975 by W. Eugene Smith and Aileen M. Smith. Photographs copyright © 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975 by W. Eugene Smith and Aileen M. Smith. Text copyright

Medical report

text

copyright

©

1975

by Masazumi Harada and Aileen M. Smith. Executive producer: Lawrence Editorial consultant: John

J.

Schiller

Poppy

Production manager: Ira Fast Design consultant: Philip Kaplan Design assistant: Julie Asher Palladino Proofreading: Judith R. Holtzer

Production consultant: Arthur Gubernick All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,

including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Smith, W. Eugene, 1918-

Minamata.

"An Alskog book'.' 1. Mercury— Toxicology — Pictorial works.

— Pollution — Minamata,

2.

Water

Japan — Pictorial works.

Aileen Mioko, joint author.

II.

I.

Title.

362.1'9 RA1231.M5S65 ISBN (Deluxe): 0-03-013641-5 ISBN (Hardcover): 0-03-013631-8 ISBN (Paperback): 0-03-013636-9

74-15467

First edition.

Published simultaneously in Canada by Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, Limited.

Typography by Phototype House, Los Angeles Printed by Rapoport Printing Corp., New York Printed in the United States of America.

Smith,

In dedication

to those

who do

not

take the past as proof against the future.

and our deeply felt appreciation to John Poppy,

.

.

.

who

contributed so

to this

book

that

much

it is

also his book.

Prologue

This

is

not an objective book. The

first

word

I

would remove from the folklore of journalism is the word objective. That would be a giant step toward truth

two

distortions, the journalist

photographer could get to I

well

Life

remember

magazine

proper Life, a

He

in

which he said in

what

was not being

was

Life

to

change

identical to this:

my

"My

trying to do.

responsible.

In the following twenty-four years

no reason

an editor of

did not have the

I

answer.

belief

is

It

that

I

is

to

responsibility

is

to

fulfill

my my

have found

readers.

those two responsibilities

automatically have fulfilled

my

I

of

that

is

the

in

My first if I

responsibilities to

the story

we

set

our energies to the task of honestly understanding the complexities of the situation. Aileen

years.

We

between the covers of

would transmit

We have

tried to

the

life-

be honest,

fair,

The many

levels of the true situation led us to

story. Instead,

we

decided to

We

set the stage,

then

set the

place and the

move back and

stories

forth

and the happenings.

even go to Canada for an interlude, as Aileen I

was

in

New York

last

year

seeking treatment for excruciating headaches and

approaching blindness brought on by a beating

will

aside the possibility of being "objective''

and

I

more than three photographed and learned in ways that for

to

and if our understanding is great enough we may have approached the truth. and

did in fact while

Minamata, Japan. Putting

made Minamata our home

felt.

between the human

way we have approached

mercury poisoning

we had

my

the magazine'.'

And

forces

that

mood,

believe that

I

way

was nearly

My second

subjects.

in a

book

this

we began

reject a strict chronological order in telling the

responsibilities within journalism are two.

responsibility

our three years of living involvement, try to enclose our material

his real responsibilities.

a confrontation with

proper belief I

and

the proper respect for the needs of

spirit,

said

perhaps

word removed. Freed

"free" should be the second of these

And

in the "free" press.

would have been impossible if Aileen — daughter of a Japanese mother and an American father — did not speak Japanese and know the ways of a country in which she has spent half her life. After

I

had received from employees of the corporation responsible for Minamata's agony. We end with a medical report for those who want strictly technical details. This

is

a passionate book, and,

I

hope, a passionate experience for those of you

who

will live

through

it

with

us.

Obviously there is no doubt in our minds that the world has got itself into terrible trouble through pollution. Let

me amend

that; "the

world" sounds

too remote, too abstract. Persons like us and our

neighbors are right the

air,

now

being poisoned through

the water, the food

You might

ask,

why

we must

everybody already aware of it? Apparently not. Just before we went to Minamata, that? Isn't

Rochester, It's

New York,

finished in

on mercury

asked

us,

"Why

poison

is

was not

that "it"

found

in

Minamata

and stubbornness that

can encourage other threatened people not only to refuse to give

own

in,

but also to

work

at righting their

situations.

go there?

situation in

to

finished,

Minamata, we hope through to raise our small voices of words and photographs in a warning to the world.

To cause awareness

— whether the

mercury, or asbestos, or food additives,

or radiation, or something else tightly

the kind of courage

also

After reflecting on the rights and wrongs of the

find to photograph?" "it"

what we

in

Minamata. What are you going

Not only did we find that but we became convinced

conscience. But

was

have.

bother to be passionate about

a scientist at a conference

running far ahead of any anti-pollution

— is closing more

upon us each day. Pollution growth

is still

W. Eugene Smith January

7,

1975

is

our only strength.

this

book

Contents

The Strange Disease

10

Tradition and Transition

34

Circles of Life

Of Human Destruction Flags of

The

Vengeance

Trial

Face to Face

at Last

Canada: Half a World Home Again

Away

46 56 82 116 130 140 144

Shinobu: To Gather a Life

Acknowledgements and Appreciations Chronology Minamata Disease: A Medical Report

174 178

180

.

Mr. and Mrs. Egoshita were forced to

walk home from the

Minamata

10

city hospital..

They had been denied all other means of transportation. They walked the railroad tracks, avoiding the roadways— wanting no recognition.

Mr. Egoshita walked a few steps ahead. On his back he carried the autopsied body of his daughter. She had died three years after having become ill. She had died of the "strange disease

;;

in

Minamata

that

could not be explained, a disease which conjured such fears of contagion that the victims and those

them became outcasts, stigmatized and degraded, frequently

close to

even in

their

own eyes.

That was years ago. 11

BBBH

^i

"It is

I

only the sea

can

trust.

When

people

that the sea I

tell

is

me

dirty

curse them,

want to strike them. The sea 'dirty'?

I

How dare they say the sea is

dirty!

It is

not the sea that wrongs.

The sea has done nothing wrong. The sea is my life. The sea is my religion. The sea comforts me— it has given me courage and sustenance, and escape from the quarrels of shore-bound men. When I thought I was dying, and my hands were numb and wouldn't work— and my father was dying too— when the villagers turned against

was to the sea I would go to cry. The sea protected

us—

it

I talk

No

my tears.

crazy about the sea.

one can understand

why I love

the sea so

much.

The sea has never abandoned me.

The sea is

the blood of

my veins'.'

13

*«
;

CHISSO-MINAMATA DISEASE: The nervous system

begins

and growing Motor functions may become

to degenerate, to atrophy. First, a tingling

numbness

of limbs

and

lips.

severely disturbed, the speech slurred, the field of vision constricted. In early, extreme cases, victims lapsed into

unconsciousness, involuntary movements, and often uncontrolled shouting. Autopsies show the brain becomes spongelike as cells are eaten away. It is proven that mercury can penetrate the placenta to reach the fetus, even in apparently healthy mothers.

aS2

%sY,

1

20

22

-

-

i

Minamata: the edge of the factory, the dump-way, the bay, and on to the sea.

The Strange Disease

Without question! The chemical company called Chisso poisoned the fishing waters of Minamata, poisoned the aquatic food chain, and eventually poisoned a great

number of

the inhabitants. Chisso

poured industrial

poisons through waste pipes until Minamata Bay

was

dump,

a sludge

the heritage of centuries

destroyed.

may

It

be true that individual fishermen are

usually poor, but with the sea for livelihood they

seldom

starve.

with the

the

And always there

that mystic

is

bond

As poisoning continued, fishing continued, and fishermen knew only that catches were getting

most successful of the fishermen preserved pride in their skills, and bragged of knowing the sea and the ways of fish. They ate much of Still,

the

the fish they did not

sell,

or gave

member became

family

more of the

ill,

to neighbors.

it

If

a

that person received

best fish available.

"...

A sick body must

have the best food we can provide!" Many of those dependent upon the fish and the shellfish began to show symptoms of an unusual sickness.

Many became severely

sickness,

its

cause a mystery,

Some died. The became known as the ill.

was also noted that cats showed the strange symptoms, went crazy and often fell into "strange

disease'.' It

the sea as "suicides'.'

The

first

clear case

was reported

Lookdeaths and

in 1953.

becomes obvious that earlier illness were connected with the "strange disease'.' One clue comes from the Japanese mother's custom ing back,

it

— disappearing now — of preserving her baby's bilical

cord

children

protected by seawalls. Each cluster of

own village name, such as

homes has its Yudo, Tsukinoura, Modo,

Tsubotani, Detsuki.

To get there by train from Tokyo one travels through Hiroshima past Nagasaki and down the west coast of the southern island of Kyushu. The town faces the Shiranui Sea, of which Minamata Bay is a part. I have never seen the sea angry near Minamata.

Minamata

is

also a factory

town dominated by

the Chisso Corporation, once a

sea.

smaller.

indentations and curves of small natural harbors

in a

um-

box. Examination of the cords of

who had

the disease would, years later, re-

veal traces of the cause.

company

mere carbide and

means nitrogen), now a petrochemical company and a maker of plastics. The irony — devastating as a cliche

fertilizer

of world pollution

Japanese, "chisso"

(in

— is

that the village leaders felt

when in 1907 they concompany that would be-

the very winds of prosperity

vinced the founder of a

come

the Chisso Corporation to build a factory in

Minamata.

It

was perhaps only

a small irritant that

the talented founder, Jun Noguchi, displayed a cold

arrogance that led to remarks such

as:

"Treat the

cows and horses'.' And another aspect of the Chisso-Minamata relationship has been at least tolerable: managers and engineers do not come from Minamata, they are imported. Almost all have been drafted from among those who won high marks at Tokyo University, where the founder Noguchi had studied. By 1925 Chisso was paying Minamata fishermen a very small indemnity for damage to their fishing areas. Chisso didn't mind. The theory was to continue to dump and to buy off the complainers with the smallest possible payoff. Toss a few coins, it was cheaper to pay than to care. An accepted practice, therefore ethical. And the government workers

like

stood behind industry.

Minamata

is

a restful farming

sprawling out from of small 26

homes on

its

downtown

and fishing area

The

fishing continued to deteriorate.

center to clusters

the gentle hillsides

and along the

In 1932 Chisso

began the production of

acetal-

27

dehyde

(a

substance used in making plastics, drugs,

perfumes and, ironically for me, photographic chemicals). The process for the production of acetala mercury compound as a catalyst. In the 1930's Chisso also expanded into Korea. These days may have been Chisso's finest. With the collapse of Japan's empire, the company again had to depend upon Minamata. Whatever else, the products of Chisso were good, and the company had long pursued the best of new techniques. It was known as a pedigree company. The early 1950's saw a strong upward turn in its production and sales of acetaldehyde, partially because the substance was used in the manufacture

bor.

Chisso could produce. Yet

it

was about

this

time that

methods of production would eventually be outmoded. They realized they would need a new factory and new techniques, and they raced to make the most possible money from the old patchwork Minamata plant. The boom days of Minamata were 1952-1960, when population reached 50,000. The number is now Chisso's managers began to see that the old

This

was

Several days

younger

sister

number

of diagnoses: encephalitis

up with some theory or

On May

1,

too suspected

it

it

Hosokawa

Hospital reported,

clarified disease of the central

broken out'.' Since

come

failed to

other.

1956, Dr. Hajime

Company

the Chisso

Few

of

"An un-

nervous system has

had broken out endemically, he

might be infectious. Both Hosokawa

and the Public Health Department began by trying to treat

it

as such.

Hosokawa

did his best to keep

the situation calm. In the history of

Minamata

Dis-

must bear the dual role, agony and agony, of medical hero and of employee bearing the burden

ease, he

of

company

the

loyalty. (In

man and

my opinion,

the integrity of

the ethics of medicine finally

won

out.)

was over he had determined with a disease that was not con-

Before that year of 1956

was dealing

He

fish diets

also decided that the outbreaks

were directly

related,

and turned

and the

his atten-

tion in this direction.

Some

investigators began claiming that nearly

sixty poisons

were being poured into the sea by

was pointed out as the most likely cause of the sickness, and Chisso management worked overtime trying to sidestep and to Chisso. Very quickly Chisso

two-year-old

counterpunch, always denying that the factory or

entered the hospital suffering

any way. The elements manganese, thalium and selenium were each mentioned as possible causative factors. Each

later,

the

girl's

same symptoms. Before these days of illness, neighbors say, "They were the brightest, most brant, cutest kids you could imagine'.'

the

From

Disease.

fantile paralysis, cerebral palsy.

entered the pediatrics de-

in severe delirium.

what

Japonica, alcoholism, syphilis, hereditary ataxia, in-

tagious.

partment of Chisso's Minamata factory hospital. She was suffering severe symptoms of brain damage. She could not walk. Her speech was incoherent. She

disappeared.

the official recorded "discovery" of

is

doctors offered a

was in early 1956 that the "strange disease" took on the proportions of an epidemic, and finally became known as "Minamata Disease'.' In April of girl

— had

now called Minamata

that he

1956 a five-year-old

cats

all

At first, unable to connect the various symptoms to any single source, is

about 36,000. It

fear

almost

in fact,

dehyde required the use of

of D.O.P., a plasticizer (dioctyl phthalate) that only

The

soon turned neighbor against neighPeople began to notice that the "suicidal" cats —

gious.

the vi-

its

employees could be responsible

was exonerated. Always

in

a search for the cause of

was

the sickness ended in neutralized confusion. There

learned that a child next door had the same symp-

was even an unfounded theory that ammunition sunk at the end of the war was the cause.

the

mother

of these

two

girls

it

toms. The hospital investigated and found a fiveyear-old apparently suffering the same type of brain

damage. Then the mother of that child fell ill, as did her eleven-year-old son. Within five weeks an eightyear-old son

The number

Among

fell

ill.

All with the

same symptoms.

Chisso temporarily shifted their dump-

Minamata River delta on the other side town, away from the bay, where the river flows

age to the of

of patients steadily increased.

past a district called

neighbors an uneasiness developed,

into the Shiranui Sea.

then a downright fear that the disease was conta28

In 1958

lived in this area

Hachiman. There it empties In a few months, people who

began

to develop

symptoms

of the

Patients

and

relatives carrying

photographs

of their "verified" dead.

tM2£? t00T%.

**"•

tVf if

sickness. Also in 1958,

imposed of

a

Kumamoto

ban upon the

Minamata

fish.

By

selling

this

Prefecture (state)

but not the catching

device the prefecture es-

caped responsibility for the

loss of the fishermen's

group from Kumamoto University reported that organic mercury was the

By July

cause.

Many

One met

of 1959 a

independent committees were formed.

only four times, then mysteriously disap-

had been sponsored by the Japanese

livelihood.

peared.

(History does repeat. In May of 1973 the governor of the prefecture, after fifteen years of rev-

Chemical Association, of which Chisso is a member. Another committee reported bluntly that the cause

elations about the origins of the disease, declared

definitely

that

all fish

outside of

Minamata Bay, which was

then marked by buoys, were safe — overlooking the fact that fish

can swim and might not notice

the buoys.)

The

was a great subject for theories and doctorates, and by 1959 many a thesis had been developed in a scramble for recognition, and occasickness

sionally for facts. This scrambling led to further

confusion, to the advantage of Chisso and the dis-

advantage of serious researchers. 30

It

was mercury poisoning, and was

dis-

banded the next day. Confusion still reigned; Chisso shadowboxed and, suspect, paid experts to refute every report and every derogatory theory. In October 1959 a carefully concealed series of I

cat experiments

by Chisso's own

avid reader of Ibsen's

Enemy

Dr.

Hosokawa

(an

of the People) proved

management. He simply fed some acetaldehyde effluent directly to the nowfamous "cat number 400'.' He was forbidden more of the effluent and was taken off the experiments. Chisso's guilt to Chisso's

31

Chisso hid Hosokawa's proof.

fortune—a misfortune for which Chisso accepted no responsibility. This mimai contract even included a clause stipulating that if Chisso were Uler proven guilty, the company would not be liable for

demanding further indemnity and a cleanup of the bay. After a bitter flurry that produced many injuries, the fishermen gave up. They were intimidated by the threats of the company and the bland pronouncements of a cooperative government. The government warned the fishermen that they might get nothing if they didn't accept Chisso's offer promptly. The fishermen settled for meager payments and no cleanup. After 1959 the protests ceased, fishermen returned more and more to fishing, patients became quiet, and a still comfortable Chisso continued to

further compensation.

profit.

Then Chisso quickly began negotiations with the patients. Taking advantage of

its

hidden knowl-

edge and counting on the scientific and legal ignorance of the patients, the

company

negotiated

a viciously one-sided contract specifying that

pay-

ments were to be regarded not as indemnity but merely as mimai (consolation) for a victim's mis-

treat

same October of 1959 that Chisso's managers knew they were guilty of the poisoning, members of the Fishermen's Union (angered by the In the

shrinkage of their livelihood) stormed the factory,

a

Chisso did

install a "Cyclator,"

designed to

waste water, that was eventually recognized as

concernedpublic relations — and even the

token gesture as far as mercury

is

worth little except in Cyclator was frequently bypassed. In spite of its many denials, Chisso finally found itself forced into

court in 1969

— and

after a trial lasting nearly four

years, the court concluded that Chisso

ued to poison the waters

until 1968,

had contin-

when Chisso

stopped the mercury method of production because the system

had become outmoded.

Without question! Chisso raped the fishing waters of Minamata

Bay and caused great sickness — at first, perhaps, from ignorance and carelessness, but afterwards from arrogance, greed, and what could even be called industrial genocide. The "strange disease" is now irrevocably recognized by scientists, before the law, on the autopsy table, and admitted by the Japanese government to be caused by methyl-mercury poisoning from industrial wastes. And the number of recognized victims continues to grow. Still (as

I

write this in 1974) only 798 are officially

The mayor Fuke, smiling in the ancient warrior dress he has put on for a traditional Harbor Festival. He leads it each July that he is in office; the festival lasts for hours, mixing the beauty of modern majorettes with folk dancing and comic floats. It is indeed one of the bright days of Minamata, when patient and non-patient celebrate in unison. Much of the rest of the year, the slogan "Make Minamata Brighter" is heard repeatedly from a committee started by a conservative town booster. Meetings are held and programs devised for ways to brush away the dark clouds brought down on the city name by the Minamata Disease patients. The patients haunt every meeting.

how many

there are.

At any rate, 100,000 people are eating

fish

Some Kumamoto University research doctors suggest that the number of those affected may reach 10,000. Some privately believe that the more subtle forms of health dislocations may reach a great many more actual victims than the Shiranui Sea.

be

The more

recognized, with another 2,800 waiting for verifi-

will

by a board of physicians appointed by the governor of Kumamoto Prefecture. These fig-

almost impossible to detect, even though they

cation

ures can be entirely misleading.

imize the damage. There

They

certainly min-

no flawless system for finding and verifying victims, so no one truly knows is

from

officially verified.

a portion of health

subtle forms are steal

from the victim, and do not show

up on an autopsy table. That — medically — is Minamata's warning

to

the world. 33

Tradition and Transition

34

"Minamata" would have become the forgotten disease,

victims sinking into a quagmire of hopelessness. if... its

.

.

The world at large forgot the victims of Minamata after Chisso signed the meager indemnity contracts with patients and fishermen in 1959. Then,

outbreak of mercury poisoning occurred in another part the prefecture of Niigata. There, a few aroused individuals trial that unchained a people's energies.

a similar

of Japan, in

provoked

a

The pattern

of crushed resistance

had been erased.

Mercury victims of Niigata took their poisoner, the chemical company Showa Denko, to court in 1967. The victims of Minamata, aroused again, began their own trial in 1969; twenty-nine families sued Chisso for compensation. But this group included only one-third of the 1959 or too trusting to fight, managed to renegotiate quickly with Chisso, not directly but through government intermediaries. To the trial group, those quick renegotiators became known as the "leave it up to the other people" group. signers. Others, too

ill

While Minamata's trial ran its four-year course, more residents of the city were verified as victims. Some of these "new" patients settled fast on terms that Chisso set, thereby joining the "leave it up to the other people" group. But others joined a vociferous "direct negotiations" group, led by a remarkable man named Teruo Kawamoto, that insisted on battling it out not through any government agency but with Chisso

The

management

in person.

group (composed of "old" pre-1959 patients) and the explosive "direct negotiations" group (composed of more recently verified "new" patients) together shaped a magnificent, turbulent, tradition-breaking struggle. In few countries would such a challenge have been possible. In Japan, history alone should have made it unthinkable. Big business working hand in hand with government had been able to smother almost every other challenge. The press was usually uninterested, so as far back as the 1890's every uprising against the depredations of industry had faded into darkness. trial

35

"*•*

/v

p*

Two and

a half years after the

started, the "direct negotiations"

action. Following

Minamata

trial

group went into

Chisso guards posturing in front of iron bars installed at the entrance of its Tokyo headquarters to keep out patients and their supporters.

Teruo Kawamoto's deep-rooted,

almost spiritual belief that face-to-face confrontation

was

sibility,"

the only

way

"to force Chisso into respon-

they repeatedly insisted that Chisso's

managers sit down with them to

talk.

They were

just

as repeatedly rebuffed.

and supporters at the gates of the Chisso factory at Goi. Before, the Chisso management had ordered members of the anti-patient "Direct negotiations" patients

union at the Goi factory to attack the protesters. They did.

and determination, the "direct negotiations" group pitched a tent in front of Chisso's Tokyo office, and another in front of the Minamata plant. Chisso barred its doors and put up barbed wire to keep them out after early clashes. In frustration

For well over a year, they lived through a siege

filled

with quick drama, boredom and action that seemed to

go nowhere. 37

38

November

In

of 1971 several Chisso officials,

answered with warmth. The dialogue was sturdy and repetitive. The

pathetic, he

including president Kenichi Shimada, consented to

day with the patients who were suing the company. A stipulation of the visit was thai absolutely no members of Kawamoto's "direct negotiations" group be present. It was scheduled for part of one

visit for

the

home

of the

seven members

Watanabe family — a family with

by Chisso. Before the session began, the Chisso officials

prayed

to tape a significant statement

at a shrine

honoring the Watanabes' dead

grandmother. Then they turned to the patients. Shimada sat on the floor, as did the others, in Japanese style.

pain, guilt

and in and take

full responsibility.

The session became stormy. After many demands

for the president's personal declaration of

company's guilt, Shimada knelt on the floor, wrote a declaration of moral responsibility, and signed it. Almost immediately his legal staff, sitting behind him, announced that legally his statement meant nothing. the

ill.

The room was crowded with trial patients, many equipped with small recorders on which they hoped

and demanding that Chisso publicly admit

patients persisted in detailing their handicaps

He was very human. He was deeply sym-

Shimada was embarrassed when he was told his predecessor had procrastinated in the same way. A storm of emotion again rose, and then President

the meeting ended.

Chisso President Kenichi Shimada. 39

40

President Shimada of Chisso continued his

one-day odyssey of warmth by visiting the hospitallike

Minamata

center

is

Rehabilitation Center. Although the

occupied by

Minamata Disease

many

others

who

are not

patients, he spent his time with

the mercury-poisoned people.

Always he performed with kindness but with

The patients remained unconvinced and aloof. The honeyed rose so stripped of thorns offered none of the stark reality and practilittle

persuasiveness.

cality that the patients

and apologies

clarified

as long as the

yearned

for.

Chisso's regrets

nothing and changed nothing

company

still

cowered behind the

barricades of legal evasion. 41

"New"

patients could get nothing

from Chisso

except a bland insistence that they take their prob-

lems to

a third party.

We

have no yardstick for

measuring your sickness, the company told them,

and your

illness

might be entirely different from

that of the pre-1959 patients;

let

someone

else decide

about indemnities. For that job, Chisso favored the Central Pollution Board that the government had set

up

in 1970.

The board's members were quite polite. They promised to be fair. They would set up a scale of indemnities, ranking patients by age, sex, previous income and severity of illness. Their approach coincided with Chisso's thoughts on the subject. There was little trouble with most patients. As soon as a list of newly verified victims was made public, Chisso representatives would immediately visit them or their families, congratulating and apologizing, urging them to settle in an intelligent manner and place their faith in the board. After all, wouldn't they be

in the best

hands with the govern-

ment? The government would

and judge. About

a

know how

hundred and

to survey

thirty of the

newly

verified patients accepted these promises.

A

few of the patients were wary; they

felt

the

board wore the suits and the attitudes of business, and they felt the government's record in matters like this

deserved suspicion. These few asked to have

names taken off the board's list. For the most part, board members appeared to do their work methodically. They conducted interviews and compiled dossiers. They were also later to collect a few documents that turned out to have been illegally obtained, but perhaps the main fault for that was not theirs. Aileen once asked them whether their decisions would be influenced by the disclosures then emerging from the trial testimony. A member of this governmental agency replied, "Well, you are journalists, and you can obtain such their

material, but

(Left)

Members

it is

not available to the board'.'

of the Central Pollution Board.

months after dissatisfied patients removed their names from the Board lists, the Ministry of the Environment, another government agency, offered (Right) Several

to

mediate the patients' dispute with Chisso. This brought hope, but no progress.

effort

43

44

Tomoko Uemura was

taken to the Central Pollution Board

The patients demanded that the board members look, touch, hold this child, and remember

for the benefit of others.

the experience as they evaluated

and

human

beings in dollars

cents.

45

Circles of Life

Behind 46

its

fence, a portion of the Chisso factory.

things Aileen and I did when we began this project was to ask the Chisso management for an interview. They were very cordial. The chairman of the board, the managing director, and the head of the International Division invited us to a private dining room

One

of the

first

Tokyo where we talked over a pleasant dinner. Afterwards they showed us charts and pamphlets and the managing director, in

second only to the president in the Chisso hierarchy, told us, "You have to understand what pollution is. You know about ppm. You know it means parts per million —just several millionths of something. When a very, very small proportion of poison enters the environment and is concentrated in fish, but still in quantities as small as several parts per million, and this ppm level crosses a certain borderline, then an outbreak occurs. But we are talking about such a very small quantity!

"Now, looking back, the pattern of this disaster is clear, but during the period of 1956 to 1959, there were no methods of analysis refined enough to detect such small quantities of mercury. And nobody dreamed that inorganic mercury could become organic, either. Even so, we took the ultimate precaution by installing a Cyclator, the most advanced form of waste-water treatment and the

first

of

its

kind

in Japan'.'

seemed very convincing: they had been done in by history. They were gentlemen. They answered every question. They were clever but not evasive. At the end of the meeting they said very clearly that if at any time we wanted more information, they would be more than glad to provide it. They even gave us their home It

telephone numbers. 47

1

The Cyclator.

Even today, most Minamata citizens sympathize with Chisso.

Some

fervently defend the

company, others feel that Chisso — even if guilty — has taken too much of a beating. The majority seem to suffer silently in a mixture of complicated feelings. Yet the citizens

know, despite recent

cut-

Minamata has prospered because of Chisso. As the mayor said in 1973 just before he won his second term in office, "What is good for Chisso is good for Minamata'.' But no matter how much talk there is about backs

at the factory, that

Minamata, no matter how many citizens have never known any patients personally, the reminder of Minamata Disease squeezes the town a brighter

under an invisible film as subtle as barometric pressure.

One

Hachiman

day, one of the people at the

in the

people near the mouth of the Minamata River.

48

change

in

town gym-

September of 1958 Chisso quietly bay and turned their waste Hachiman. The seepage from this place poisoned "pool'.' In

stopped dumping pipes into

a

Newsmen making

company union whose founding Chisso encouraged. Just about the only thing Minamata is famous for is its Disease. Minamata is constantly on television,

between the homes of victims.

the trek

nasium, a pleasant, quiet man, turned to Aileen as

Minamata the Minamata Disease

but always as a place of terror.

they sat by the pool and said, "You know, justhasn't been the

same since

problem happened'.' Aileen was a

taken aback. She had avoid-

little

ed talking about Minamata Disease with the people

knowing Even so, she

few of them were pro-

at the pool,

that

patient.

said, "Well,

He could

not say why.

"The town — it's not

way

it

lively

I

wonder why."

He could only go any more.

It

isn't

on, the

used to be. The schools, the stores, sports,

everything has become

.

.

.

sort of drab'.'

Whether or not Minamata Disease alone did it, the factory is also worn out. Chisso's newer factories are up north in towns such as Goi, Moriyama and Noda. A year-long labor strike split the town between supporters of the "old" union, which ended up being pro-patient, and the "new" pro50

To young people growing up, hoping married,

it

certainly not helpful to have been

is

Minamata. Hardly any mention

born

in

made

out loud about

always there

in the

Minamata

is

Disease, but

ever it

is

conscience of the citizens, like

having a grotesquely

up

to be

ill

member of the family locked

in the attic.

place,

Minamata

and lovely and our relationships with the people in town

In fact,

have been

is

a rather gentle

gentle. Outsiders arriving for the first

time often remark in surprise, "Why,

town!

And Minamata

Bay, why,

it's

it's

a

nice

beautiful.

I

was a sludge dump'.' "Yes!" some townspeople have said, "The name of Minamata Disease must be changed. Take Minamata out of it'.' Citizens have even taken namethought

it

change petitions

to the national

government.

was raining the night that Keiji Higashidaira, who had been a manager at the Minamata factory, was leaving to take a more important job in Tokyo. The station was filled with well-wishers. Aileen happened to be visiting Noriyoshi Maeda, leader It

of the "leave

and

it

his wife

up

to the other people" group; he

wanted

to see Higashidaira off,

so

The train (as almost never hapJapan) was two and a half hours late. But

she had often heard from other patients: "Mr. Higa-

comes around with fruit or cookies his wife made, grinning, being charming and trying to buy us over to the 'leave it up to the other people' side. shidaira

He

tries to create the

management fight

are such

them? But

our condition.

pens

in

when

it

finally

clustered

As

wife.

and people waved goodbye, Mrs. Maeda — who lost both parents to Minamata Disease and who is the mother of a girl with congenital Minamata Disease— turned to Aileen and said, with deep sincerity, "You know, the train pulled off in the rain

everything well, she

is

I've

known about Mrs.

Higashidaira...

such a lady. So elegant and yet so human'.'

Aileen could not help remembering the stories

:

nice people, so

they don't care about

makes you

It

lose

. .-

your

faith

Mrs. Maeda's eyes looked so sincere that Aileen

had

to believe that she does feel

friendly than to be hostile.

Most

it

is

better to be

of the "leave

it

up

whatever their inner are that way. At any rate, it was

to the other people" group,

feelings

so very

may be, much like Minamata

Akio Managi,

that five of those last

lawyer for the trial group, almost always hill, from which he could explain the juxtapositions of factory, town, wastes, and patients in a

led visitors to this

Minamata.

,

-/*r

why

humanity."

came, a few loyal well-wishers were

around Higashidaira arid his The Maedas and Aileen were among them. still

humane,

in their hearts

Aileen went along. in

impression that the Chisso

^^

-^i

-

„

/

-

\

well-wishers standing in the rain were victims of

A

Minamata

demands

Disease.

"The bath

ready!" our landlady

is

would

rightist

don waitotto bail" which means, "Ofuro ga waite imasu yol" The first is Minamata the second

would be heard

in

is

standard Japanese such as

Tokyo. Aileen understood only

about a fourth of the words when we arrived

Minamata; ing in

after three years, she

Minamata

dialect. Believe

in

was even laugh-

me, there

is

a dif-

ference, even in the laughter. Because of me, Aileen

learned one

meaning

I

new word was

a

of Japanese,

"blockhead"

in

bonkura, learning

the language.

The bath was

at the

officials

and reporters

call

In

out, saying, "Furo

dialect,

surrounded by company

that Chisso take a firmer stand.

end of the dirt-floored

the

afternoons, friendly ladies from

would stop by way home from the local

the neighborhood

the Mizoguchis'

on

clinic, sit

their

tatami mats, and sort out their separating those they

new

on the

ration of

pills,

would take from those they

would discard. So many people around Detsuki, our area, had liver trouble or abnormal blood pressure that nobody there could figure out why the doctors hadn't connected the symptoms to Minamata Disease. They certainly fit within the structure of the pains and warps of methyl-mercury poisoning. The discussion of which pills were good

as cartoonists use for boiling missionaries in African

and which were not always led to gossip about home remedies — berry tea and more far-ranging medicines. think that one day they also suggested

jokes) set in concrete. Mr. Mizoguchi, being a car-

a

had plenty of wood for the fire. The flue needed repairing and I had some fun making movies of smoke swirling out of open windows. At first we could not figure out why there was an undersized round wooden "lid" for the tub, but after my first experience with the tub's hot iron bottom we got the point — the lid was a floor.

her to have a

kitchen lords.

penter,

52

It

we shared with

the Mizoguchis, our land-

consisted of a bell-shaped iron tub (such

I

home remedy

the

baby

words but

Members

for Aileen,

I

right

know

one that would cause

away.

I

didn't understand

they enjoyed their laughter

of the "new" labor union demonstrating against non-Minamata fishermen seeking a 1973 indemnity against Chisso, and asking the fishermen, "Please let us live"

and in

their

nudging.

Our relationships with some of the merchants downtown Minamata, a ten-minute drive away,

worked almost on of a

pharmacy,

have the

a

double standard.

a restaurant, a store,

friendliest of times

when we met

at

we would

often

with the owners — but

"Make Minamata

Brighter"

meetings where they were participants and reporters,

privacy

In the

we were

we might do no more than nod

to

our

and they would barely nod back. It was not quite hypocrisy, for we saw in them a kind of underground of compassion for our other friends, friends,

the patients.

We wanted

abrade the relationships

to build that

mood; so why

in public?

Tokyo pitied our "primitive" life. But we had sympathy for those living in Tokyo and found Minamata easier. For one thing, it had less Friends in

air pollution.

For another,

it

had the best bacon

I

have had since I was a child in Kansas and would sneak into my grandfather's smokehouse to cut wonderful thick slabs to cook on

Only

recently have

I

realized

how

a

wood

stove.

close the im-

on rhy grandfather's farm in Severy, Kansas, was to the way we lived in Minamata. A portable, collapsible toilet seat was my main concession to Western habits. Going to a toilet in Japan is mainly a matter of stretched ankle tendons; baseball catchers are probably the Americans best poverished

lifestyle

conditioned for this exercise.

and the other villages folded within Minamata's city limits, normal life is quiet and ingrown—a round of fishing, farming, gossip, all quite different from the experience of living downtown. In Detsuki

We moved

with village rhythms, yes, but

where many of the patients were, so the

knew

the best belonged to people

we

lived

lives

who were

we

break-

.

ing out of

who had

normal

village

life.

These were people

decided to put up a battle, people

in the

group or the "direct negotiations" group, who had added to their old world a new one of meetings

sit-in that

very night. Not a trace of the "trouble"

remained the next day.

with lawyers, departures and returns from Tokyo

At the festival, one outspoken fisherwoman in a colorful kimono remarked to us with a sarcastic smile as she danced in the parade, "See what good

and demonstrations and

brothers

trial

trial

sessions, arrivals of

and occasional parties for relief. In their new world they were trying to survive the pressures of Minamata "town" opinion.

are?"

Both bitterness and love run deep. One

out-of-town supporters, worry-filled strategy conferences,

we

man ing

told us,

"It's

strange. Eighty percent of

toward Chisso

is

hate, but the rest

is,

I

fisher-

my feelguess.

.

affection'.'

Some citizens are not so quiet. When

The Minamata Fishermen's Union negotiations

the "direct

with Chisso for indemnities also proceeded with

negotiations" patients pitched their sit-in tent at

an eye on town opinion — but with a difference.

the Chisso factory in

Indemnities for

damage

long ago became a regular

to the fishing

areas

affair, a routine. In

one

of these negotiating sessions, a fisherman turned to the

mayor,

who was

mediating, and said,

"We

fishermen and Chisso are like brothers. Mr. Mayor,

and settle this quarrel between brothers. Oh, but remember, Mr. Mayor, we fishermen are the older brother." The mayor said, "Ah, I understand. But in a quarrel sometimes the older brother, because he is

you

are like our father. Please step in

older,

must give

in to the

younger

one'.'

Whatever the real feelings of the fishermen that night, they did not want the disapproval of the town. The Harbor Festival was coming up the next day, midnight was approaching, and the mayor was saying that they should settle their indemnity and end their sit-in right away. And they did. They signed a contract and cleaned up the debris of the

Minamata, they started to get anonymous threatening phone calls and letters. The "Make Minamata Brighter" group expands whenever a

Minamata Disease upheaval

hits the

town.

Emotions have run so high that there have been marches and "leaflet wars" between patients and anti-patient citizens.

Amid the outward

tensions, inner conflicts also

Minamata, we became acquainted with a high school student who came to our house one day and introduced himself. He was interested in photography, was an aspiring journalist, and wanted to talk with me. After that, he came back many times and we put him to work reading research papers for us on Minamata Disease.

go on. Early

But he

made

he had to

our stay

in

it

in

clear early in our acquaintance that

visit us

on the

sly,

only

when he could

make up an excuse for getting home late from school. found out he had been near us, he would be thoroughly punished; his father was an employee of Chisso who belonged to the "new" If

his parents

was very much against the patients whole business of Minamata Disease'.'

labor union and

and

"this

One day we

chatted a bit too long, and

I

drove

him into town so he would not be late in getting home. As we approached the train station, which was evidently near his house, we both got apprehensive. WhaMf someone spotted him with me? When we got to the station told him to jump out. He did so in a rush, and I looked around, a bit worried, to see if anyone who might recognize our car had seen him jump out. But by that time he had moved away quickly and squared his shoulders I

54

to

make himself look

like

any other school-

boy sauntering home.

Myths run strong in Minamata: for example, the myth about the Cyclator. The president of Chisso drank water "directly" from this brand-new wastewater treatment system at its opening ceremony in December 1959, as government officials and other

And

from then on, Chisso waste water was considered clean by most important guests looked on.

so,

people.

was fooled" said Kumamoto Prefecture's former governor, Kosaku Teramoto, who had at"But

I

tended the ceremony.

"I

found out

later that that

town still believe that the Cyclator removed all the mercury from waste water, and that surely no more Minamata Disease poison was emitted after 1959.

Chisso management wasn't fooled, of course.

One day when

I

drew

Cyclator and raised

my

lips,

man down in

the

Even the patients were shocked when they found out that the Cyclator had not worked. But

myth

the

waste water from the acetaldehyde

that just being there

This

toward

water from the

showing us around the factory nearly fell his haste to stop me from drinking. They aren't using mercury any more, but something must be slipping through the system if they thought I was about to poison myself.

particular batch of Cyclator water hadn't contained process'.'

it

a glass of

of that Cyclator

is

so strong in

makes one

Minamata

half believe in

it.

the governor said under oath in court, but even

today, few

know

of the evidence

the patients' suit against Chisso.

exposed during

Most people

in

Preparations for a wedding photograph.

55

Of Human Destruction

From

top: sections oj brain from

boy who died after four years of mercury eating away

a seven-year-old

an eight-year-old girl who died years 9 months; a thirty-yearold man who did not have Minamata

cells;

attei 2

Disease.

walls of the crude isolation wards into which a frightened thrust the first sick and dying victims of Minamata Disease

The

town

—

—

are, for those of us who came later are demolished, gone. The dead as it were, forgotten. Shadows from what we have been told are our never knew the flesh of their laughter, only source of memory. or their angry shouts. And so we find nothing amiss in the silence.

We

Today,

if

you have the courage

to reach out to the child

poisoned

womb,

across the barrier of a twisted body, across the barrier of slurred or nonexistent speech, you find yourself groping towards the being that does live, somehow, behind the barrier. Envision as you may, though, you can not project the child normal and whole, you can not project the child that might have been, the child not struck by poison. The child itself, can that child ever in the

have recollections of a beginning? That child is an island, rising out of unfathomable depths. We have no way to comprehend.

The urgent

crisis

of a bedridden

man,

his loving wife caring for

him — it

becomes, with time, a boring drudgery, and when the man and his wife look into each other's eyes the healthy days together too often are forgotten. All these

memories

slip into

the dark so swiftly, so quietly, that

But we must wake up, We must miss something in what we see of the poisoned child, the couple making a last long turn. Somewhere in our minds we must feel an aching vacancy. already they are

When

lost,

or will soon be

lost, forever.

held in our hands the diminutive, exhumed skull of an eight-year-old victim who would be twenty-five if she had lived, we tried to remember as clearly as if it had been our own experience how alive this child of eight once was.

Aileen and

I

57

Toyoko Mizoguchi The second day we were

Minamata, we rented a small, primitive house. It was in the area of the largest outbreak of poisoning. This was to be our

home

for the next three years.

moving

that

in,

it

in

We

didn't realize,

contained a shrine to the young

daughter of the owners. She had been one of the recognized victims of Minamata Disease.

Our

first

land-

lord reserved the right to pray in privacy at his daughter's shrine. Separately I

am

not a religious man.

covered

sorrow

me

in

I

prayed too, although

One day

praying, and he could read the deep

my face.

With an embrace, he thanked me

for honoring his daughter with

When Chisso ing this

lost

my

feelings.

indemnity money finally came — after the lawsuit brought by families includ-

one — it was for Toyoko. Her body was un-

earthed, cremated, and a vault treasure her.

58

the father dis-

was lovingly

built to

59

The Ikedas

60

Not only did it

insinuated

itself

the poison corrode living cells, into relationships

between neigh-

was a tatami mat maker until 1958, when he became too ill to work. For years, while his health crumbled, he and especially his wife Natsue disparaged Minamata Disease patients, reflecting the general attitude that there was some-

bors. Yahei Ikeda

thing loathsome about the victims of such a trouble.

Although they live a major outbreak

away

in

Detsuki and thus saw signs of

all

around them, they pushed

their neighbors, trying desperately to disas-

sociate themselves

from the poisoning. Some have

not forgiven them.

Both Ikedas were verified as Minamata Disease victims in 1971. At about the

same

and

an interest

politicians

began

to take

time, the press in

Mina-

mata, and the Ikedas found themselves on the regular tour route of

One

those heavily afflicted.

after another,

parades of politicians and

government environmentalists would move rapidly from home to home among a select few patients, bowing, listening, looking sad and moving on. All this was dutifully and "objectively" recorded by reporters and cameramen. One group that came through included Environmental Minister Takeo Miki (above,

at left),

who became prime

minister

At other times the press came, sometimes by the busload, speaking many languages; a few came to work, but most soon left. Perhaps these people were sincere. It was difficult to tell. Some spent two hours, some a day, some as long as two or three days, to become instant experts. Whatever the length of their tour, they were satisfied that they had seen for themselves. They were prepared in 1974.

to

inform the world.

made Ikeda has become Since

no longer

I

lift

him

the

so

photograph

weak

to help

at the left,

Mr.

that his tiny wife can

him

to the toilet. 61

Bunzo Hayashida

For years, Bunzo Hayashida's wife kept at his sickbed.

He

vigil

died two weeks after these

photographs were made. An autopsy proved he was a Minamata Disease victim.

62

Takako Isayama

A

forty-five

the sea minute drive north along more beaut, u

us to a remarkably the hills counterpoising y sympnonyu symphony of sharp-etched

line led

sea than

Minamata has

driving

to otter.

flickered

u and dreams ii c Akasaki, AUacaWi anu to the village ot there. mind of buying a home

m

my

we entered the home The illusion ended when from was born wrenched who Isayama, Takako of and to help to convulsions normality, condemned fessness.

was that

people and she Her parents were lovely oo r the lying twisted on

lovely too, even parents never occurred to the For many years it had probMinamata Disease. They 1

T kako had

never seen amy ably neve

imagined that

no one a victim, and ij strike so far

would the poisoning ts

source.

When,

after urging

away from

by concerned

fripnds friends

daughter verified applied to have their th ey finally 64

65

were unsympathetically delayed — on the grounds that Takako had been born in 1961, as a patient, they

a year after the poisoning "stopped'.' It

Never mind that

was considered to have she had every symptom.

should not appear strange that the poison

had spread

The fishermen follow the fish they try to catch, and it was natural for them to drift south into Minamata Bay. Or could the sea have

to Akasaki.

moved

less

poisoned

just "feel

bad" and might never think

of mercury.

Although

helpless,

surroundings. At

first

Takako can respond

to her

she could not speak, but now,

massive injections of vitamins and other therapy for ravaged nerve fibers, she can say, "Mama!' And when someone brings her favorite after

fruit,

she says, "Strawberries!

Wow!"

the poisonous waters into the small

harbors of Akasaki?

Takako became the first of many "lost" patients in Akasaki to be verified. Again, we have to say that the true number of victims remains unknown. The 66

The continual care and attention that Takako receives is not overlooked by her younger sister, who ofteti hovers above

Takako and her mother, trying to get what she feels share of attention.

is

her

67

Isamu Nagai

who

Nagai! The irrepressible Nagai

movie camera

clings

and grabs and has acquired

and

determined to "blast Chisso out of

is

with

a

movie about

his

a

confinement

crawls and

this

world"

at the institute

and about the company that caused his confinement. The Nagai of tremulous hands who insists upon making a movie to tell of

Minamata

for

patients,

his destruction in the

womb. Who

uses friends as

no wheelchair, a backward drag along the ground for a pull-away shot. Nagai demanding to be taken out in a fishing boat to film the company and the bay. Nagai trying tripods, his wheelchair as a dolly.

to

show

If

the invasion of privacy at the institute.

Nagai showing

about displaying

his anger

his in-

firmities for visitors. Nagai, telephoning us, insist-

ing

upon talking

to me,

knowing neither

will

understand the other.

who came

our darkroom to ask questions to nourish his skills, who was not satisfied in just watching us print — who was not satisfied until he had followed our example, demanding that Nagai,

we hold him

in

to

position so that he could insert the

paper, reach the light switch for exposure, then

develop the print, and place

good

print.

that this

68

We mounted

was Nagai's

it

in the fixer.

and signed

first.

it

in

A

rather

testimony

//

I

will learn'.'

69

Masaaki on sports day 70

at the school for the deaf

and dumb he attends

in

Kumamoto

City.

The Watanabe Family

Excerpted from Mrs. Matsu Watanabe's testimony

on July

26, 1972:

"When you became pregnant with Masaaki,

My

want two children had the didn't

children,

to a healthy one.

Later,

we should give birth who else would take care

of our children?

'strange disease

said, 'Especially

If

birth to a healthy baby, that child will be a

take care of them!

Masaaki.

brother or

— and

"And prayed, 'Oh, God, God, please save this child! But when he was born, one ear was mal-

to give birth to

sister to I

if

I

had another weak child wondered what in the world could do. When talked it over with my husI

I

we have two weak

we give

were you troubled?" "I really

because

band he

formed.

I

I

couldn't take

it,

and

I

began to hemor-

rhage and almost died.

"Every day, every day, At every party his unabashed singing of old folk songs makes his friends giggle with pleasure. Through rehabilitation he was able to regain enough Eiichi

is

a born entertainer.

flexibility in his

accordion. That

hands is

his

to teach himself to play the

mother behind him.

should

I

child will

two

I

thought really what

what should I do? In the future this live disgraced, and I thought maybe the

do,

of us should die together.

"But the midwife told

me

that medicine

was

71

Tamotsu Watanabe.

now advanced. As

long as he grew up healthy, there

could surely be an operation.

when he

I

took him to the doctor,

who

said, 'This

is

weird, he's having convulsions. This looks similar to the cerebral palsy that

so

is

common now!

I

felt

hope that I had finally recovered being taken away. And I was terribly depressed. At another hos-

the

pital

they also said,

palsy! After 'All of

I

was

But

when

could not

does look

it

told that,

our children ended

all die?'

dren

I

'Yes,

I

this

looked

kill

them.

I

— but

I'm glad

recalling the years he

"After two or three months, since he got sick so often,

cried

said to

I

did'.'

Mr. Watanabe

took to teach Masaaki to walk.

"All this idealism about crusading 'for the

world! and so on

cause

Hell,

this disease

I

wrecked

fighting against pollution.

Japan and the it

'for the

rest of the

took Chisso to court be-

my

family. I'm glad I'm

One

has to do that

world. But to say I'm doing

world'? That's phony."

my

husband,

way. Should we

just

at the faces of the chil-

get ing,

Watanabe had been the first one in the area to nylon fishing nets. As an expert on shrimp fishhe

commanded

a great deal of respect. In late

.

1971 he sold his boats and gear, and quit. "The day

'.' .

I

was

verified,

it

was

like receiving a

But I'm going to try to enjoy what's

death sentence. left

of

my

are verified patients.

To the workaday world, he has pretty much

Tamotsu Watanabe: "My wife and I fought about it. God, did we fight. She said was cruel to make Masaaki do it over and over even

the hell with

father,

I

72

in

like cerebral

Masaaki was later found to be a congenital Minamata Disease victim. All five of the Watanabes The

is

tric trains,

it.

He has become

life'.'

said

infatuated with elec-

video playbacks, and the fine house he

has built with his indemnity money.

Iwazo Funaba

Iwazo Funaba's wife was standing right there telling us, "It's all right, you might as well photo-

graph him)' but the doctor

at the

know him personally and also because was no way for him to give us permission. not

Rehabilitation

Center kept insisting that she was simply too nice to say

no and that we could not go

in.

Mr. Funaba

he was dying.

We

had known for some time that he came down with Minamata Disease in 1959, and that his son had died of the poison, but we hadn't wanted to photograph him when we saw him at the Center because we did had no say

in the matter:

there

But now,

in 1971,

he was almost gone. All the

other patients whose hands became so terribly twisted had died years ago. Finally the doctor said,

"Okay, three minutes. pictures for TV'.'

pictures of his face,

that

no

took the only picture of Mr.

made sense to me, recording the fact hands, and we left. He died two days later.

Funaba his

I

No

of

73

Jitsuko-chan:

A

A

vibrant child

human

loved beautiful

who

has become a still-born adult.

being aborted from useful

life

by the waste

products of industrial progress. A breathing, haunting, beautiful nineteen-year-old young lady who will never know a lover. A still complex

and remarkable human being unable

to function in

normalities. She cannot walk. She cannot talk.

she were to

fall into a fire

Jitsuko-chan:

No

said that

if

she would not realize her pain.

involvement with

me

It is

any of our accepted

a

human

being reacting to her world

do you. Trying to photograph you, Jitsukochan, is to reach towards a mind that shades its passages so rapidly, I am frightened I am making grievous mistakes of perception. I do know that to me, every photograph I have made of you is a failure. ever has disturbed

74

as

The Tanaka Family Tanaka children were in elementary school. The Tanakas lived, and still live, just yards from the seashore

was

It

the spring of 1956. Four of the six

until

Shizuko died.

a hill to the little

At home, Ayako, a fifth grader, became the head of a family. Her mother was away nursing her sisters, and her father was seldom home, piling shift upon shift of work, trying to pay hospital bills. Sani-

harbor opening into Minamata Bay). Shizuko, the

tation officials, pursuing a disease they believed to

among

a

huddle of houses called Tsubotani

abyss'' for the

fifth child,

sudden plunge of

was

("jar-

to enter first grade the next year.

Jitsuko, the youngest,

was

three.

The seashore was Shizuko's and

Jitsuko's

back

yard, their playground, their land of adventure.

They loved sures

it

to follow the tide out, seeing

had

left

for

them

to discover.

what treaThey were

exuberant and devilish children, and they would shellfish that

when they could gather some edible they knew would bring praise from

their parents.

They

shout

in glee

just

vibrated with

life,

and they

would often shout to others to come home with them — have some tea, have some shellfish, "Come home with us, it will be fun!" Mrs. Tanaka cherished their

energy with a friendly heart.

would not keep other

and the children. When Ayako shopped, storekeepers would accept her money only with chopsticks. Mr. Tanaka would find vacant seats around him even in a crowded bus. Former friends ran by the house, holding their noses.

screams

patients awake. She did this

now

and the other Tanaka children wear soul-numbed masks that vanish only when someone can ease them into smiling. Strangely, somehow, it is in Jitsuko — rocking back and forth, slowly twisting finger against finger — that, for brief shadows of moments, we can see the charm that this family once had. I love the Today, Ayako,

family, but

Then on April 12, Shizuko fell ill. On the 28th it was Jitsuko. Mrs. Tanaka would spend the next seven years nursing Shizuko and Jitsuko in hospitals. Shizuko was in such convulsive agony that her mother carried her, night after night, back and forth in the corridors of the hospital, so that her

be contagious, came to spray the house, the clothing

it is

through

29,

many

layers of scar tissue

that they can be seen.

Neighbors, the curious and newspeople overflowed the Tanaka home when the trial judge and his associates came to Minamata to take direct testimony from the patients or their relatives.

75

"I

would ask for nothing

if

76

only

I

could return to

else

my former body'.

The Hamamoto Family Fumiyo are the last of Minamata. There will be

Tsuginori and his sister the

Hamamotos

no children

Minamata

living in

to follow them. Their parents died of

Another brother and two sisters have moved away. Tsuginori is crippled and Fumiyo Disease.

sacrificed several chances for marriage while tak-

ing care of her mother,

who

lived

on for nine bed-

ridden years after their father had died. "In a word, I'd say In fishing

my father was self-confident.

he was a professional, and he was not

about to be outdone by others. His personality was outgoing. His

body was

sturdy, his voice

was

big,

and he was brusque and plain-spoken'.' So spoke their older brother at the trial for compensation for their father's death.

"He always believed in the power of his way of life, that if he went out to sea he could always sustain his family well. One might say he had the guts to fit the sturdiness of his body. Anyway, he was a father we could depend on.

"He would say of the day's catch that the fisherman must eat the biggest, finest fish. 'Hell, people put out money to buy fish — but this kind of large, good fish has got to be eaten by the fisherman. If he 17

lets

others eat 'em

he'll get

jinxed!"

Tottering to the boat, he had to be helped On,

mid-September of 1956 Sohachi Hamamoto drank with house guests and then went to bed. When he went to sleep he was his normal self — but the

and then he

when Tsuginori awakened him, he was "crazy." He swung slowly up, and then he stared all the way around him. He could not hear very well. Even when Tsuginori told him the time, he could

his father, "I told

In

next morning

not understand.

When

he tried to get up and go to

the toilet his feet did not

work

not get his zon's on correctly.

him he'd

"What

better not

in the hell

without me?"

When

Tsuginori told

all

ever been able to do

him out

leaves,

is

a tough,

wake

the

of an-

ing in

water and found himself shouting

of the

your

you

state.

at

you shouldn't come fishYou just keep still!" They that

quarreled.

And

so

it

happened, so suddenly, that within

a

was reduced to helplessness. Each day the family took him to the hospital in Minamata, and each day he got worse. His wife could no longer hold him down by herself. On the fourth day, they finally hospitalized him at

few days

his father's sturdy confidence

University.

(Right) Tsuginori

(Below)

when

other boat passing by rocked theirs. Tsuginori pulled

Kumamoto

so he went.

Fumiyo Hamamoto, roasting tea blunt protester and negotiator.

78

he could

go fishing that day, he got angry:

have you

And

right. Also,

into the sea

fell

few condition seemed to cultivate a

moves

his legs with difficulty, yet

tangerine-like to

mikan

improve, but

it is

trees.

manages

For a while

now growing

his

worse.

Tsuginori moving insecticide spraying equipment into his small mikan groves. If unaided, he falls many times.

developing "I

in

don't

Mother.

know how many

separate

room and

They moved him

tied his limbs

down

dages. Even so, he craze danced, he said

did not

come out

as

to a

with ban-

words

that

words, he salivated, he

convulsed.

Three of

his children

took care of him. He did

not sleep, and was given sleeping shots. tried to tube-feed him, he

When nurses

would often vomit

tube. His periods of convulsion, short at

the

first,

lengthened as the days passed. "Mother would look at Dad'' Tsuginori

— tears

remembers, "and

just

stand there

dropping from her eyes — looking dazed. Then we realized that the same symptoms were 80

the

kill

him.

It

him like that. and over from within her own increasing daze, that she wanted death to come to him quickly." Death did not come quickly, nor was it given. The convulsions became more frequent. Even unconscious, he would tear at the walls and at his own body — feet, head, hands — with his fingernails until the nails were torn and his body bled. Two or three days before he did die, his eyes no longer moved. Seven weeks after the day he fell ill, he was dead. Doctors at Kumamoto University made an to see

kept getting worse.

we asked

was unbearable And Mother would say, over

doctors to please, please

He

times

8

mm film of Sohachi Hamamoto shortly who have seen it say the study of human destruction.

death. Those

agonizing

before his film

is

an

The children did riot tell their mother when the father died. By that time she was already bedridden in .mother ward. "So we lied to her and tried to keep the shock from her," Tsuginori says. "It was now we children

who were

marriage

in the

year she was twenty-five.

Nine years passed. The mother died. And Fumiyo knew she had lost so many chances for her

own

life.

the family."

For Fumiyo, taking care of her mother was a crusade, thankless though believed utterly that

it

may have

somehow,

if

been. She

she loved enough,

gave care enough, trusted the doctors enough, that her mother would become well again. She believed this so

strongly that she turned

down

ttvo offers of

An

eloquent speaker in spite of speech impediments, Tsuginori has gathered sympathy and money from many

crowds

support of the patients, rallied many a meeting of from discouragement. Here (center, with cane) he walks out of the courthouse in Kumamoto City, flanked by a sympathizer at left and a Chisso lawyer at right. in

patients back

81

* mM r->.(.

82

Flags of Vengeance

Er>£H after death,

we

what you have done

84

will

to

remember

us'.'

The rage

had to be felt, not only whole nation. They needed

of the patients

by patients but by

the

the notoriety that their supporters brought them, as

well as sympathy, to keep a spotlight

keep their uprising

alive.

on Chisso and

The snapping

of flags in

the wind, the chants of marching supporters, the

smothered.

"Vengeance'' the closest translation of the Japanese character on these revenge. mystical:

flags,

does not

mean

means something more intense, almost that we shall pursue you to justice, and

It

even then we

shall not forget.

sometimes outrageous demonstrations, these finally, truly, crept into the

a cry

conscience of a nation. This was

from the wounded that was not

to be

The most courageous, the most rebellious, the most flamboyant of all was Teruo Kawamoto. have I

85

mentioned him before and

mention him many times again. He was in the "new" generation of patients verified in 1971, from which eighteen rose up and tried to negotiate directly with Chisso. Kawamoto and his group said to the company, we must look each other in the eye. will

Kawamoto, his closest associate, Takeharu Sato, and a few followers caused a storm that changed the awareness of influenced

all

decisions

ease from then on.

The

That awareness

a nation.

made about Minamata

Dis-

"direct negotiations" group,

more than any other single force, took the issue out of a closed power system and put it into public domain. This, even as desertions reduced the group

band of twelve. The story of earlier failures to force Chisso to negotiate were a part of Kawamoto, since many to a

"old" patients were his neighbors and friends.

was determined

that this time

no

He

patient, in or out

of his group, should be bullied or fooled. For the

young sympathizers rallied to the support of a Minamata Disease group. In December 1971 months of fruitless effort to negotiate with Chisso in Minamata drove Kawamoto and first

time, hundreds of

his supporters to pitch a scraggly tent in front of the

dignified office building that contained Chisso's

Tokyo headquarters. It was comparable to a rag-tag army pitching its headquarters in Rockefeller Center. They placed huge photographs of patients along the walls, displayed books, frequently had a cooking or a warming fire smoking near the curb, and hung their laundry and bedclothes between the trees that separated the sidewalk from the street.

The camp was meant

a terrible eyesore, as

it

was

and if patients did not often stay there, supporters were always there to guard it. It seemed always in jeopardy. Rightists or police seemed always on the verge of tearing it down. But no matter

to be,

how much

the tent

gnawed on

the nerves of

management, they did not want the additional exposure they would get by destroying this symbol of defiance. At one time, the mayor of Minamata came into Chisso's

the tent to "reason" with

him

to return to

Kawamoto 86

felt

Kawamoto,

Minamata and

to persuade

negotiate there. But

that in the hostility of that Chisso

87

trial group and members of a Minamata committee rally in support of the "direct negotiations" group on the steps of the Tokyo building that housed Chisso. Fumiko Hiyoshi, the speaker, we

Patients of the citizens'

privately

88

and

affectionately called "Fireball"

domain, where so

many

people wanted the problem

would also be Minamata had been

ignored, the rights of the patients

ignored. All

who had

tried in

smothered.

The "direct negotiations" group kept the pressure on and the news media reported the noise and showmanship, the walk-ins, sit-ins, hunger strikes and sieges. Platoons of supporters gave weight and sound with their presence; "name" backers began coming to the tent to sit in for stretches of time. Chisso was becoming jumpy, especially when its managers locked the group out only to find they were locked in by the mob outside. Finally management came to Kawamoto, and said all right,, we'll talk and try to get this straightened out — but only, it turned out, to insist as usual that "new" patients were not equivalent to "old" ones; they would have to seek their satisfaction from the same third party as always, the Central Pollution Board.

Tactics reverted, again, to guerilla war.

89

Teruo Kawamoto's

rise to

infamy

in

minds

like

those of Chisso's managers, and to a status not unlike folk

hero to

many

when he launched

others, started in late 1971

the frontal attack of the "direct

negotiations" group. But for

many

years this slight,

ordinarily quiet, rather shuffling stranger

had been

dedicated to a search and a crusade.

He

lives, as

he did

in

childhood,

in the

Detsuki

area of Minamata. His father, a fisherman, began to

numbness in the fingertips, staggered gait, and crazed ways about 1959. This convinced the son that the father had the disease. The son also began to feel the symptoms. The indemnity contract of 1959 between Chisso and the Fishermen's Union contained a clause that any union members who quit fishing could join Chisso as employees and their children could be temporary workers. The young Kawamoto became a probationer in the carbide plant. He was kicked out of the company during the long strike in which he sided with an embittered minority, the "old" suffer

union.

He

then went to a nursing school, and in 1962

took a job

in a small

mental hospital which also

served as a clinic for Detsuki. There served

many

Kawamoto

ob-

people with physical troubles and he

became aware that many of them showed symptoms of Minamata Disease. The implication was that the sickness was affecting far more than just the critically

He

ill.

critically

ill

also concluded that

many who were

with Minamata Disease were not veri-

Minamata

to "hide"

the disease; doctors, government, Chisso,

and even

fied

because of the pressures

victims themselves hid

He

in

applied for the verification of his father, but

was passed. mind that his

the father died before judgment

It

con-

father

had Minamata Disease, until finally he dug up the body and carried it to Kumamoto University to ask for an autopsy. The university never replied. Kawamoto began to write letters, demanding responses to his suspicions. He wrote to the university, the mayor, the city hospital, the Minamata Human Rights Protection Bureau. "What happened to my father, what happened to my father's human surely

rights?

do 90

I

I

know

lage writing letters

he died of Minamata Disease,

not receive confirmation?"

why

A little man in a

vil-

and getting no answers. He

much was

deeply and angrily that

He

applied for his

own

still

felt

being hidden.

verification in 1968,

gan to encourage others

and be-

to apply.

During that time, he also began bicycle, after

it.

tinued to prey on the son's

Teruo Kawamoto.

to ride his

work, often without eating supper,

to

destinations and for reasons that his wife did not quite understand.

He was gone

for long hours, fre-

quently returning after midnight even though he had to get affair.

up early

for

He was

work.

It

became an almost nightly

bicycling to places half an hour to

two hours away.

Kawamoto — this

frail

man

in his light

breaker, pedaling alone with his thoughts,

wind-

pumping

and the often poor roads in the dark — was going from home to home, visiting those who were sick, especially those who were chronically ill. He became more than ever convinced that he knew enough of the symptoms to determine those who against the

hills

should be checked further, or

who

should apply for

verification.

He began

and urgently to those him, tugging on coatsleeves,

to talk long

who would listen to demanding of even such doctors Harada

(see

as

Masazumi

medical report) that they must pay heed

to his findings.

Minamata

Disease, he told them,

much more widespread than they had Mostly they paid perhaps a

little

came around

little

crazed.

to his

way

attention; this

Some,

like

of thinking

was

thought.

Verification

had urged many other suspected victims to file. They were rejected again in 1970. Kawamoto searched out a

way

when

to appeal to the national Ministry of Health

and Welfare, charging- improper research and neglect

With

on the part

this appeal,

he

Kumamoto and the others won of the

committee. verification

So began the "direct negotiations" group. And so began the crusade. Kawamoto had no no one in the group had money.

in 1971.

layman was

Harada, finally

Committee, along with applications he

job,

they saw

the undeniable evidence before them.

Meanwhile, Kawamoto's application was turned down by the Kumamoto Minamata Disease

After jamming the iron gates of the Chisso offices with his body for five hours, Kawamoto was helped to the tent

by supporters.

91

92

Although Kawamoto and

his co-leader

Sato

kept the voice of their negotiating crusade at high

volume, few patients had the stamina to keep it up day after day. As hard as these patients fought, the

company and to

keep their

government might have been able flame from igniting public opinion — if the

had not been for the oft-shrill, oft-vulgar chorus of supporters, mostly young people, who formed a it

and fluid mob, giving weight to the sitins, manning the tents, collecting money, publishing handbills, crowding the negotiation rooms, disciplined

adding psychological tensions.

At times, it appeared to me that they could be doing more harm than good, might be alienating the public by behaving as "irresponsible radicals)' a favorite line of Chisso's.

One

day, embarrassed

by the words being

shouted during a demonstration,

"When you go

I

on

scribbled

a

young students, shouting 'kill Chisso, kill Chisso) you are neither practical nor wise — and it should come as no surprise if you are repulsed with the same vigorous physical indignation that you project. In grouping together to force an issue, you should not pretend innocence when you are answered in kind. Yet the world needs such as you, young students, for it is difficult for the few and the poor to keep such issues card:

to the gates,

alive'.'

Kawamoto, who must have been embarrassed at times, was stuck with them, and he stuck by them, and they stuck with Kawamoto even after the press had left — and it apparently paid off. The workhorse group of militants belonged to an organization called Kokuhatsu (To Accuse) ated solely to aid

Minamata

cre-

victims. But the sup-

porters in general were students, dropouts and

various other people.

When supporters were needed,

they would just materialize.

could and

whole

left

when

Some came when

they had

to.

they

Others stayed the

time.

Which reminds me

of

one supporter

who

often

appeared, a dungareed, harsh-voiced, militant protester.

Frequently, that

at his job

same night we could

— as an immaculately dressed,

see

him

melodiously

calm newscaster on national TV. The government's own. Yet he never mixed his roles. 93

The Goi

Incident

January in

my

7,

1972,

is

a

day that

will long

endure

mind.

It

started with

hour and

a half to Chisso's plant at

traveling an

Goi

to keep

an

ended with patients being mauled being seriously injured. My equipment was

appointment.

and me

Kawamoto's group

It

destroyed.

Chisso had ordered union members from Goi to

Tokyo offices. wrong and made an

serve strong-arm duty in front of their

Kawamoto

considered this

appointment with the head of the labor union to discuss

why a supposedly

manpower

for this

free

union was providing

A

runaround began. The union's Mr. Natsume was "in conference'.' The appointment had been with "one person, not a mob'.' Kawamoto: "I will go in alone'.' He said he would wait as long as necessary. The messenger walked away without answering. A newsman demanding to use a telephone to meet a deadline suddenly vaulted the iron gate. The patients' supporters, triggered by this, rushed forward. The guards, I believe, suddenly opened the gate, and the heat cooled. I photographed Kawa-

moto through

the open gate; he

slightly, as usual, talking to the

was hunched

guards, his hands

company-ordered anti-patient

action. Patients, supporters,

and newsmen arrived

at

the gates of the Goi factory at the appointed hour.

94

The

last

being

photograph

hit.

I

made

of the Goi incident just as

I

was

pockets, and

In his

He and

a

laughed

I

few followers took

When

the gatehouse.

a chair.

More

a leisurely

into

A

me

guard invited

to

thanked him.

I

waiting.

More bad

claimed the labor leader had

faith.

it

was

by another enTokyo. Kawamoto

his

asked the guards to

Now

left

way to make a number

was on

trance and

walk

followed them, nothing was

I

happening but conversation. have

at this "riot" scene.

of calls; finally

he got a promise that Natsume would telephone

upon

Tokyo,

his arrival in

at 3 o'clock.

some of us to leave, as they hadn't eaten and wanted room and a moment of privacy. The supporters complied, askShortly after 1:30, the guards asked

ing only that in the

Kawamoto

be allowed to

rest

on

a cot

back with folded arms, laughing.

back room.

was relieved and pleased that a dangerous situation seemed to be under control. A single phone call setting up another appointment would lead to I

a trouble-free departure.

had been aware of the black company cars moving slowly by, surveying the scene, and of guards making frequent trips deeper into the facYet

I

men

tory for exchanges with I

in

work uniforms.

was uneasy.

mob

workers rounded a factory building to converge on the gatehouse. I made a Suddenly,

a

of

dash for the building, thinking of news. The orders.

I

mob

pinned us

in.

my

wife, not of

guessed (correctly) that he had been a ser-

— every

exit

blocked.

Aileen screamed, "They aren't going to

Kawamoto They After

hit.

They

hit

me

hardest,

perhaps.

shows

man on

the

The the

among

last

left,

the

first.

exposure, bad, his foot at that

moment finishing with my groin, reaching my cameras. The man on the right was aiming for my stomach. Then four men raked me across an upturned chair and thrust me into the hands of six who lifted me and slammed my head against the concrete outside, the way you would kill a rattlesnake if you had him by the Dazed, to

kill.

The

I

tail.

Then

rolled to

my

it

a toss outside the gate. feet,

mob

stood

took consolation

sympathy

in the fact that

for the patients.

Chisso issued a written statement immediately after the incident:

I

had become

hysterical

and

in-

made me more furious than did the actual beating. We demanded open meetings with the assailants, and we demanded retractions. jured myself. This

several times; Chisso offered a statement of

and offered

pay medical fees without admitting responsibility, if we would withdraw legal charges filed with police. I said I wanted their lies corrected publicly. They had vandalized private "regret^'

to

property — my reputation. Chisso's legal representative privately said

if

they were to

tell

the truth

it

would be used against them. said, "Of course'.' They retracted nothing, they admitted nothing. The company's behavior gave me an intimate look at the frustration the patients had endured for years. I

shaking with a fury

gates rolled shut and the

I

increased nationwide

We met

get the 3 o'clock call!"

my cameras,

blurred,

let

set us

to suffer the injury,

A man started barking

geant in the Imperial Army. Three minutes to get out

up — they, by damn, were going to intimidate the patients and take care of that foreign journalist. I'll stake my life that no 3 o'clock call was intended. They had made a serious mistake. The beating of a respected American journalist loosed an avalanche of unfavorable publicity upon Chisso, and it gave increased respectability to Kawamoto and the Minamata cause: if Chisso were really like this, people said, maybe the patients were right. If I had Chisso had

I

and

decided not to sue.

I

could not be both plaintiff

journalist.

95

In January, after the

4

the bars that

moto and

made

the

Goi

incident, Chisso put

up

KawaKokuhatsu group invented ways of a fortress of their office.

rattling the gates, so to speak, such as bringing in a

J

makeshift altar and

1

i

K k

96

"

;

*

*s f

Buddhist priest to intone prayers for the victims, or gathering victims and supporters to bullhorn demands and pleas through the corridors. Occasionally there would be a brief dialogue with a Chisso manager on the other side of the bars. Once, the patients sawed for hours, cutting two or three small bars by hand. They knew, of course, that it would get them nowhere. It was strictly psychological, just to say, "Remember, we are

still here'.'

a

The

protesters never

seemed

to

clusive battles, yet they remained a

win any conmost powerful

force in shaping the battle for the patients' future.

Their tactics — Kawamoto's catalytic, spiritualistic

campaigns — changed Minamata history. At the same time there were middle-class and upper-class city business people who began to feel that Chisso was being badgered by wild, irresponsible radicals and perhaps even illiterates. Many found themselves pitying the company.

To those who read headline

stories only, tactics

can often obscure the issues; watching what was happening, I found myself wondering how often the impressions of issues become so obscured as to reverse identifications.

When victims a desperate

move

daily status quo,

it

sue,

when

victims protest,

causes public disruption of the

becomes

terribly easy to reverse

the roles of the protagonists.

Too

how quite easy to believe that

those

often,

who

after being injured are the attackers,

who have

when

it

is

some-

seek justice

and that those

caused the injury are the victims.

Frustrated patients circle behind Chisso's Keiji Higashidaira as they leave another unsuccessful meeting.

98

99

Patients holding that he look

100

down

them

a Chisso official,

in the face.

demanding angrily

101

.

Sketches From the Days of Protest

A

couple of days after the Tokyo tent was pitched, the "direct negotiations" group met with Chisso's president Shimada at the company's headquarters. By the thirteenth hour of the session, the

was slumping in his chair. Kawamoto was nestled close to him. The two seemed almost in a trance. Kawamoto began to talk. It was hard to determine if he was talking to himself or the president. "My father. he had Minamata Disease too

president

.

and died — died

all

.

.

alone, his throat blocked up, in a

mental hospital ward. You're lucky. You're

Kawamoto was

.

crying.

On

alive'.'

impulse, he reached for

hug him. The president bolted up in surprise. That night Shimada was carried off on a stretcher with high blood pressure. The patients and supporters then settled down in an alcove extension of the president's office and continued to insist on talking to someone equivalent to the president. Managers not only left the area, they disappeared; the protesters took to calling on the inter-office phones, trying to track down some executives, but were told by the employees that no responsible person could be found. Soon the police arrived and evicted the supporters, leaving Kawamoto and a few other patients in the room. Many people, hearing the news on television, came to offer encouragement. Food also appeared from unknown places, and contributions and telegrams of support arrived from all over town. Two weeks passed. The patients occupying the Chisso offices felt that something was going to hap-

Shimada

It

Kuga, head of Minamata

did. Shoichi

Disease Relations, arrived with money. "Mr.

moto, Mr. Kawamoto'' he a

go to a hotel and

little

left,

talk

startled, refused.

only to appear a

tion notice

Silence

was

Minamata

in

fell.

said,

man

Kuga

little

coaxing nervously,

to man'.' finally

while

Kawa-

later,

Kawamoto,

gave up and serve an evic-

and quickly leave again. Then the police arrived and removed all

on the

patients,

Union

two fishermen in the "direct negotiations" group. The group was drawing too much public attention to Minamata Disease. The union clearly indicated that it would expel the fishermen if they did not come home and give up insisting on direct negotiations. Being expelled from the union meant being destroyed professionally; it meant losing your fishing license. One of the fishermen left for home immediately. The getting very upset about the

other stuck

it

out until direct negotiations began to

seem absolutely hopeless. Then he too dropped

out.

One day

woman

came to the tent in Tokyo. She was dressed in a kimono and wore her hair in a bun. She had read about the Minamata patients' sit-in and had come to give a contribution. She became enthralled with what she saw, sold the sushi restaurant she owned and managed in Yokohama, cut her

a

hair,

in

changed

to slacks

went

sessions with the patients,

to a

— and between

massage school.

Even while learning her new profession, she would tirelessly massage anyone who needed it during the long days and the all night sit-ins. She now lives in Minamata, helping the patients in any way she can, often going from

home

to

home giving

massages.

There were occasional accusations of

One day Chisso claimed their

guards

in the shins

that

injuries.

Kawamoto had

kicked

— with a splint he was wear-

broken toe he sustained when, Kawamoto claimed, Chisso guards had stomped on ing to protect a

his zon'-clad feet.

On

other days, after the routine failure to open

negotiations, supporters

often clash.

The

battles

and Chisso guards would took place on the fourth-

floor stairwell in Chisso's building, or near the iron bars, or at elevator entrances, or street in front of the tent.

pressed charges against

While the

her thirties

sometimes on the

Chisso

made numerous

complaints to the police and Chisso employees even

the intruders.

102

the Fishermen's

to

pen soon.

"let's

Tokyo, back

sieges

and

sit-ins

were going on

in

injuries they said he

had

Kawamoto inflicted

personally for

on them.

All these tactics offended Chisso's sense of

company

got neuralgia, infantile paralysis or are alcoholics,

at least

or what? I've sent a letter to that idiot Kawamoto'.'

followed sensible procedures, but the fighting and

And, "Those patients just talk about themselves and don't examine themselves in the least. There's absolutely no necessity to feel compassion towards

logic.

The lawsuit

filed against the

the attempts at direct negotiation did not

fit its

idea

of order. In the a

middle of the whole

pamphlet

in the

subtitled,

Name

Chisso put out

affair,

"Can Violence Be Permitted

of the Pursuit of Responsibility?" In

it

them'.'

And, "Besides, they because they

felt like

ate

weak

fish

and got

sick

it'.'

they stated, "The direct negotiations patients refuse

enumerate the damages they have sustained, and instead they demand a blanket answer to their

to

And when we do

indemnity claims.

they continuously press

in

not comply,

on the main

office with

their violent student supporters assaulting

ployees, demolishing furniture,

pany business. One would have

obstructing

demands by

use of this type of violent conduct In order to

com-

to say that trying to

force agreement to their excessive

extreme degree

our em-

is

make

the

lawless to an

progress in

It

was

difficult to

group member

be a "direct negotiations"

Minamata during this time. The situation in Tokyo was dramatic, but in Minamata it was forlorn, and some began to have doubts about the whole thing. One day a doubter came to living in

committed woman and suggested that they meet in Yunoko, a nearby hot-springs resort, to discuss things. When the committed woman arrived there, she was surprised to see not only some other a firmly

in-

"direct negotiations" patients but Mr. Higashidaira

be necessary to research

have the aid of a public agency. Therefore, we have suggested to the patients that the question

from Chisso. What surprised her even more was the comment, "This time there are nicer tea cookies than there were the last time'.' How many times had they met privately like this? She found it a rather

indemnity be settled by the Central Pollu-

unsettling affair, distastefully pleasant, but got the

demnity negotiations,

it

will

the facts of the matter, laying a base for a decision,

and of

to

tion Board'.'

A

was a rendezvous for "friendly mind changing'.' Rather uncomfortable, she left. The patient who had invited her soon left the "direct point that

number

of

by the behavior

Minamata

citizens

were alarmed

of the "direct negotiations" group.

it

negotiations" group.

Their feelings led to leaflet wars; one day the pro-

would

patient side

insert a sheet of

comments

into

the daily newspaper, the next side

would insert

its

sheet,

day the pro-Chisso and so on back and forth.

Supporters of Chisso said:

What will remain in Minamata if you company? Who will guarantee our

"Patients!

crush the

livelihood?"

And, "Because you despise the company and because of your greed for compensation money, you make it sound as if Minamata Disease is still going on right now."

And, given to

"Why

money such people when one should

or jobs have to be can't

tell if

they've 103

Teruo 104

Kawamoto

as he challenges the Central Pollution Board.

Kawamoto:

"I really feel

sorry for them. By the time they find out what's happening, it will be too late'.'

Then twelve

the patients

had

a close call

— not

pushing for direct negotiations, but the

still

other hundred and thirty newly verified victims

who

hands of the

to put themselves in the

had decided

On January 10, Kawamoto's people startled the

just the

board by making

room. One

mean

The Board had been making some seductive promises: Decisions on indemnities would be fast, fair, easy — no need to march like the "direct negotia-

you have

best of

you

all,

get,

no need

to scuffle in the streets

not even binding.

you can appeal or

Kawamoto

But,

porters, things can't

suspicious. Stay

If

you don't

like

— and what

in the

after another, they needled,

meeting

harangued,

it"

to

me" Kawamoto would demand, "that document here with this man's name on

tell

a

— pointing

to

one of the "leave

it

up

to the other

patients — "and

you won't let him see it? Come on!" After hours of this, a board member put on the table the thing Kawamoto was after, a fascipeople"

sue.

kept telling his closest sup-

have improved so suddenly. Be

away from

the board. Yet there

seemed nothing he could do about low in the summer and fall of 1972;

it;

spirits

and

a cold,

miserable winter lay ahead.

some hope

invest

of the illegal documents.

direct negotia-

were stalemated, public support was slipping,

weary victim

One

were

tions

shouldn't a

appearance

coaxed, rested, then started pushing again. "You

Central Pollution Board.

tions" group,

a rare

Why in

an

agency that looked so benign?

The

hope was the trial verdict, expected in March 1973. The Central Pollution Board, however, was going to announce its own decisions before then. What if, as "direct negotiations" group's only

rumored, to

all

it

wouldgivedisappointingly small awards

but the most seriously

patients?

Would

make

of the

newly

verified

that not hurt everybody's chances?

Could anyone possibly to

ill

stall

the board long

sure the trial verdict

came

enough

first?

On the night of January 8, Kawamoto

appeared

Minamata, looking vibrant for the first time in weeks. "We may have discovered something pretty awesome" he said. "If you want to see it, be sure you're in Tokyo on the tenth. We're going to at

our door

in

the Central Pollution Board.

going to be explosive.

If it

If

this

doesn't,

I

goes well,

it's

could end up in

jail'.'

105

nating document signed by

many

patients

who

of attorney

— in-

cluding their right to accept or reject their

own

seemed

to be turning over

power

exactly, but

lines

roughly crossed

was

minute!" someone shouted, "That guy's dead! How could he have pressed his chop to this?"

it

a step in that direction.

however, was amazed to see himself

Accusations.

106

over unusual deletions — entire

out by a Magic Marker — and strange discrepancies.

These

representatives were patients themselves; one patient,

Other patients crowded around, exclaiming

— to a small

group of representatives. It would not make the decisions of the board binding, indemnities

part of the group.

listed as a

"Wait

a

(The chop, a personal stamp ber,

is

as binding in

Japan as

made

of

wood

or rub-

a signature in the U.S.)

1

1.

Her adwrong. She'd never have pressed her chop to ley! That's my name, but it's not my chop.

mils grabbed for the document. "Look!

dress that

is

1

What

the hell!"

In the

melee that followed, a number of sup-

by the police. Board members stoically denied charges that they had encouraged forgery. Suspicion turned to some of the porters were dragged out

leading patients

who might have wanted

to settle

problems harmoniously for other patients and for

Minamata so much that they saw no harm in shading thingsabit. Who knows? At any rate Kawamoto had achieved his purpose. The-scandal over the forgeries stalled the Central Pollution

as

Board. Their decisions,

Kawamoto had hoped, would

not be announced

until after the trial verdict.

Denials.

107

108

109

Waiting for Government

Points gained did not

mean

victory.

The government

ponderous. Officials would usually the patients in, but then it sometimes took hours to get ati answer to one question. Politely, tenaciously, the

bureaucracy was

patients sat

no

it

still

out.

let

Ill

i

The patients have never signed away their spirit of fun. At their parties, they turned free and easy and natural. They found natural therapy without thought of therapy oranyneed for labels. liked these parties. liked them because of their sheer exuberance. I liked them because no one cared how much I was drinking — the glass was always full. liked them for the love I

I

I

I

have of folk dancing, folk singing. I shall cherish always such moments as

ing Mrs.

Sugimoto dance,

flirtatious that

I

could

feel

a

first see-

dance so coquettish, so

only the smile of romance

and warmth. Her dance was very

stylized

much

and

I

as-

was to learn that the lovely dance was stylized somewhat by tradition, but more by hands that were nearly inflexible and by a body that she had to overcome. She had improvised on her handicaps and she was

sumed

it

was

triumphant. 112

traditional. Later,

later,

I

113

Waiting for Chisso

Patients penetrated as far as they could, then held their nights sleeping wherever they could.

ground— on many

114

v m ^ m