Former Japan Socialist Party Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who led a coalition government with longtime rival the Liberal Democratic Party in the mid-1990s and delivered a key statement apologizing for Japan’s World War II aggression, died Friday morning in the city of Oita. He was 101.
Born on March 3, 1924, in Oita Prefecture, Murayama moved to Tokyo in 1938 but was later drafted into the armed forces and was stationed in Kumamoto at the end of World War II. He won his first Lower House election in 1972. In 1993, he became chairman of the Japan Socialist Party.
“Mr. Murayama bore the heavy responsibility of serving as prime minister, devoting himself to tackling numerous challenges. He championed 'people-centered politics,'" Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in a statement Friday. He noted Murayama’s leadership following the Great Hanshin Earthquake and the sarin gas attack in Tokyo by the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, as well as his attempts to resolve the issue of Minamata disease, which involved large-scale mercury poisoning in the town of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture.
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