Huge Number of JSDF Members Punished

Ministry of Defense announced unprecedentedly great amount of penalties on the members of Japan Self-defense Force and the ministry on July 12. 218 were punished with illegal managing of specially designated secrets, fake allowances for diving works, dining without payment or power harassment. This comprehensive lack of compliance causes not only losing credibility of the people in Japan, but foreign forces that would share security information.

In Maritime Self-defense Force, it was found that specially designated secrets had been shared by the crew members of their ships who had not been qualified to access the secrets. They displayed on the monitors of location of ships or other secret information in the bridge or combat information center of thirty-five vessels including destroyers, while those unqualified members were there. Some unqualified members actually handled the information in three vessels.

 

After Specially Designated Secrets Protection Act was enacted in 2014, MSDF has been increased the members who could handle those secrets, but the process to qualify each members made a slow progress. The force could not secure necessary number of the qualified members.

 

113 members were punished for the management of specially designated secrets, most of whom were with MSDF. 15 members were suspended their work, 5 were reduced their salary and rest of them were reprimanded. Seriously enough, the MSDF Chief of Staff stepped down. Concerning growing interoperability with foreign forces such as the United States, careless treatment of confidential information may erode credibility of Japan’s force.

 

Other scandals were betrayals against the taxpayers. MSDF has a system of allowance for divers based on how long or how deep they dived. Some crew members of vessels for rescuing submarine created record of fictional diving to pay the members that allowance. That wrong recordings were succeeded every time the officers were replaced. 74 officers were punished for those wrongdoings.

 

In some MSDF bases, its members had meals without paying money. The members who live in MSDF facility do not have to pay for it. However, some members did not live in MSDF facility ate the meal for the residents. They have eaten meals worth 1.6 million yen for free between April, 2020, and February, 2022. 22 people were punished for the free dining.

 

Three officers in civilian section of Ministry of Defense were punished with power harassment. They sent an email describing that their subordinates had been doing something hardly understandable, or scolded their subordinates as highly unmature as public office workers. Some of those subordinates suffered from mental break down.

 

Not only MSDF, the Chiefs of Staff of Joint Staff, Ground Self-defense Force and Air Self-defense Force were also punished as failure in supervising.

 

“I have to apologize to the people in Japan who are worried about it,” said Kishida in Washington, DC, where he joined the summit of NATO. But he insisted that Minister of Defense, Minoru Kihara, should stay in his seat to restore credibility on the ministry and JSDF. What Kishida focused on was to avoid negative impact on his Cabinet.