Buraku Liberation News, July 1997 issue (N0.97)
4. A school vice-principal took advantage of 'Buraku Discrimination' to borrow money.
It was disclosed in September 1996 that a vice-principal of a junior high school in Nagasaki Prefecture borrowed money from several people after he sent a false letter saying that his family was demanded to pay compensation for breaking the engagement between his son and a woman from a Buraku area.
After making a direct inquiry, the Nagasaki Prefectural Federation of the Buraku Liberation League clarified that the vice-principal was the writer of the letter, and that he fabricated a story about the engagement just to borrow money. The federation sponsored on May 8 in Nagasaki City the first denunciation session for the incident, in which the BLL and the Prefectural Government participated.
At the session, Mr Nakao, Acting President of the Prefectural Federation, said, "This is a serious discriminatory incident that we cannot overlook, because a vice-principal currently in office tried to borrow money by taking advantage of discrimination consciousness against Buraku people. We are also concerned about the fact that a principal currently in office who received the false letter lent him money without any clarification. We will examine the orientation of Dowa policies of the Prefectural Government in the process of fact finding."
Mr Shigeyuki Kumisaka, Secretary General of the BLL, who attended the session, said , " We are shocked to know that school principals who are required to take the lead in eliminating Buraku discrimination are responsible for such an incident." He stressed that the BLL Headquarters is also concerned about this case.
On the other hand, Mr Tanaka, Chief of the Life and Environment Department, Nagasaki Prefectural Government, did not offer any concrete measures to prevent a recurrence of similar cases, although he showed signs of regret for this particular case.
The BLL plans to hold another session to seek effective measures that can be taken by the Prefectural government.
The vice-principal was declared bankrupt by the court in 1994. It is said he was not able to pay back his debt even after he disposed of his house and retirement allowance. It is not yet known from how many people he borrowed money by taking advantage of Buraku discrimination.
The following is an excerpt of the false letter written by the vice-principal.
To tell the truth, I was told by my eldest son, who is working for the Nagasaki Prefectural Police, that he went steady with a young woman residing in Nagasaki. When I met the woman, I was impressed that she was nice. However, her younger brother belonged to a motorcycle gang. Above all things, her parents came from Buraku areas (even though I taught in school how important Dowa education is, I cannot put the idea into practice). Please do not tell anybody about this Dowa problem. This is the reason for having broken their engagement.
Her parents who came from such areas won't keep quiet. They threatened to have my son expelled from the police by appealing to the public. Eventually we will be requested to pay 3 million yen (US$ 26,000) to them as compensation. Since we cannot meet all of the amount at this moment, we are going to pay 1 million yen in the beginning as a deposit. We will later discuss when the balance will be paid. Based on the agreement, I am planing to bring 1 million yen during the coming holidays.