The crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant should be placed in government hands to ensure a proper account of the disaster is given, says former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
Hatoyama made the call in a statement co-authored with fellow Lower House member Tomoyuki Taira and published in the British scientific journal Nature on Dec. 15.
Hatoyama and Taira argued that only by taking control of the stricken plant can the government determine the causes of the accident set off by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11.
They reached this conclusion because Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator, has been unwilling to disclose information.
In August, a special Diet committee called on TEPCO to submit its emergency operation manual, but TEPCO censored most of the document, citing intellectual property rights and other reasons. It took months before the manual was disclosed in its entirety.
The authors pointed out that the current setup makes it difficult to obtain information on the nuclear accident. Nationalization of the stricken plant would allow the government to disclose basically all the data, they argued.
The journal printed the censored manual and Japan's Hinomaru national flag on its cover.
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