Japan Guards N.Z. Embassy After Comment on Hirohito

Police have put a 24-hour guard on the New Zealand Embassy after comments by the New Zealand defense minister that Emperor Hirohito should have been executed, an embassy spokesman said today.

Defense Minister Bob Tizard said Monday that Hirohito, who died last week at the age of 87, “should have been shot or publicly chopped up at the end of the war.”

Prime Minister David Lange later issued a statement saying Tizard’s comments did not reflect the views of the government.

Right-wing extremists in Japan have been known to react violently to perceived insults to Hirohito, the object of veneration by many traditionalists.

Meanwhile today, police said a 38-year-old cook has become the first person to commit hara-kiri, or ritual suicide by knife, out of devotion to Hirohito.

Tadao Tanaka was found with gashes in his stomach and heart, bowed down on a white sheet before the grave of an ancestor in Hakata, southwestern Japan. He left a note that said: “Because the emperor died, now I cannot live any more.”