The Shinto priest who added the names of Japan's top war criminals at Yasukuni shrine, which has since become a major irritant in ties with other Asian nations, has died at age 90, an associate said yesterday.
Nagayoshi Matsudaira, who served as top priest of Yasukuni from July 1978 to March 1992, died on Sunday, according to the Fukui City History Museum, which he headed since 1995. Press reports said he died of pneumonia.
Yasukuni shrine, built in 1869 in the heart of Tokyo, honors 2.5 million Japanese who died in war.
The memorial has been the source of international outrage after Matsudaira's decision in October 1978 to add the names of 14 top or Class-A war criminals from World War II.
Matsudaira had hoped to rally Japanese against the legacy of the US-led Tokyo tribunal, which had hanged seven of the 14 Class-A war criminals including militarist wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo.
"Even before I made up my mind [to become the top priest at Yasukuni], I argued so-called Class-A war criminals should also be venerated as Japan's spiritual rehabilitation would be impossible unless we rejected the Tokyo tribunal," Matsudaira told a magazine in 1989, as quoted by the Mainichi Shimbum.
Matsudaira's decision was met by criticism at home as well, with some politicians nicknaming him Khomeini after Ayatollah Khomeini, the cleric who led the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the Mainichi said.
He refused calls to enshrine war criminals outside Yasukuni shrine, a proposal that is still hotly debated.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has staunchly supported Yasukuni, making an annual pilgrimage since taking office in 2001. Each visit has triggered furious protests by China and South Korea.
Matsudaira was a grandson of prominent samurai warlord Shungaku Matsudaira who ruled the Fukui domain until the demise of the feudal system in mid-19th century and also played a key role in Japan's modernization.
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