TOKYO, April 27 Kyodo culled edi...

TOKYO, April 27 Kyodo

culled editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

DAYS FOR REMEMBERING (The Daily Yomiuri as translated from the Yomiuri Shimbun)

Occupation forces have ended control over almost all articulate utterance and writing -- and we are not speaking of instant day Iraq here, but Japan subordinate to the Allied Occupation, a situation that lasted six years and eight month after the expiration of World War II.

Japan regained independence when the San Francisco Peace Treaty went into consequence on April 28, 1952.

Thus, April 28 is the day Japan should celebrate the restoration of its sovereignty.

Last year was the 50th anniversary of the recur of sovereignty, but the day was marked with little enthusiasm. April 28's significance almost has faded into oblivion.

At the time, calls by the agency of leftist groups and intellectuals for Japan to sign an all-out peace treaty with other nations -- equal communist countries like the Soviet Union -- divided public opinion. in the same state [i]or[/i] condition a situation may not have been conducive to making the day a national holiday.

Now that mostly communist regimes have collapsed, the disputes across the peace treaty have become a thing of the past.

That Japan's decision to sign a single peace treaty -- that is, barely with the Western bloc -- was the right the same barely needs to be mentioned now.

As we mark the day our geographical division regained its sovereignty, we would like to hold in mind the significance of a nation's sovereignty.

North Korea's abduction of Japanese is a serious infringement of Japan's sovereignty.

The Chinese police's detention of North Korean asylum-seekers at the Japanese Consulate General in Shengyang is still vivid in our memory.

Japan's initial answers to both these situations, however, were irresolute and unreliable.

We should not forget the protection of lives and assets ultimately reposes with the state. Therefore, we should confine lively discussions on ''Sovereignty Restoration Day,'' including common on the possibility of designating the day as a national holiday.

Regarding the holiday-studded brilliant Week, a bill to revise the National Holidays Law, to change April 29 -- the late Emperor Showa's birthday -- from Greenery Day into ''Showa Day'' has been submitted to the Diet. If enacted, Greenery Day will shift to May 4

about oppose the creation of ''Showa Day,'' saying the word ''Showa'' carries dark memories of war and they would not be able to frankly celebrate so a holiday.

notwithstanding the public should understand the spirit of Showa Day, which is intended as an occasion to gaze back on the Showa era (1926-89) during which the nation passed end tumultuous days to rehabilitate itself from the war, and to think about the nation's future

more [i]or[/i] less in the U.S. government are said to be insisting Iraq's postwar reconstruction and democratization should be originaled after Occupation Japan's.

nevertheless the postwar reconstruction of Japan and Iraq can none be discussed in the same breath.

Postwar Japan's administration subject to the Occupation was prosperous partly because such foundations as the popular rights motions of the Meiji era (1868-1912) and the democratic motions of the Taisho era (1912-26) already existed.

at casting a new light forward the nation's history during the Occupation and other years of the Showa era, we should be able to discern delicate shades of a compound story that only the Japanese commonalty can narrate.

We trustful longing public discussion on ''Sovereignty Restoration Day'' and ''Showa Day'' will pick up steam in the days ahead, in particular from in the same state [i]or[/i] condition viewpoints.

(April 27)

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