A POLITICAL storm erupted last night after it was announced that the
Duke of Edinburgh is to represent the Queen at next month's funeral of
Emperor Hirohito of Japan.
Angry protests came from both Labour and Tory MPs over the choice of
the Duke, who is president of the Burma Star Association, the
organisation of Far East war veterans.
Many ex-servicemen regard Hirohito as a war criminal, and one back
bench MP said bitterly: ''We should not be worshipping at the shrine of
the Adolf Hitler of the Far East.''
Another said that whoever advised Buckingham Palace on the choice of
the royal representative at the February 24 funeral ''should be shot''.
Mr Harold Payne, president of the National Federation of Far Eastern
Prisoners of War Associations, said he was deeply saddened by the
decision.
The announcement, and the disclosure that Foreign Secretary Sir
Geoffrey Howe would represent the Government at the funeral, will almost
certainly provoke a row in Parliament today when the Prime Minister
answers Commons questions on the first day after the Christmas recess.
But Tory MP Mr Ivor Stanbrook, a constitutional expert, applauded the
decision to send Prince Philip.
Mr Stanbrook, chairman of the Conservative back bench Constitutional
Committee, said: ''The proper time to consider relations with the
Emperor of Japan was when we invited him here in 1971 as an honoured
guest on a state visit. That means that we have a duty now to honour
that commitment and to respect him on his death.''
He added: ''I agree the Queen should not go -- she never does. But it
is quite appropriate that her Consort should.''
However, Mr Ron Brown, Labour MP for Leith, who has described Hirohito
as a war criminal of the worst kind, called for a nationwide campaign to
change the decision.
Mr Brown said: ''The wisest course would have been to ignore this
event altogether, just as the royal family ignored Lockerbie.
''Clearly, the royal family operate double standards. They should have
been at Lockerbie and they were not. This decision is unacceptable to
the majority of British people whatever their political views.
''It is a grave insult to many people who were enslaved, tortured and
killed by the Japanese during the last war.''
Mr Brown said he was not against the Japanese people. ''I am simply
against the outrage that is about to be perpetrated unless we can stop
it.''
Mr Terry Dicks, Conservative MP for Hayes and Harlington, said the
Duke should now resign from the presidency of the Burma Star
Association.
He went on: ''I am appalled to hear this news, and that the Foreign
Secretary is going as well.
''It is the most disgraceful and disgusting decision I have ever heard
of and whoever tendered this shameful advice -- whether from 10 Downing
Street or anywhere else -- should be shot.''
Mr Dicks said that if anybody had to go to the funeral, it should be a
''very junior civil servant''.
For the ex-PoW associations, Mr Payne called on the Duke, ''as a mark
of respect'', to lay a commemorative wreath at the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission cemetery in Yokohama to the memory of those who died
in prisoner-of-war camps.
The cemetery contains the graves of 1800 British, Australian,
Canadian, Indian and New Zealand servicemen, who died as prisoners of
the Japanese.
''We feel, given the fact the Duke is now going, that this is the most
sincere thing we can ask him to do,'' said Mr Payne.
Buckingham Palace would not comment on the Duke's programme. A
spokesman said: ''We have no further details.''
The Japanese Embassy had no comment on the announcement. A Embassy
spokesman said: ''We are not in a position to make any comment.''
Prince Philip followed his uncle, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, as head
of the 175,000-strong Burma Star Association. The former Supreme Allied
Commander South East Asia, accepted the Japanese surrender in 1945.
Dr David Owen, the SDP leader, described the choice of the Duke of
Edinburgh as ''imaginative, correct and courageous''.
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