As reported by Martin Fackler of the New York Times, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese national government under Prime Minister Abe's pro-nuclear Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) administration are pressuring nuclear evacuees from around Fukushima Daiichi to move back to their radioactively contaminated homes.
The pressure comes in the form of an end to meager yet essential compenstation payments worth $1,000 per month or less, as well the closing of barracks-like emergency shelters where families have had to live for over three years now. TEPCO, forced to pay such meager compensation by the Japanese government, often offers at most half the value of a family's unrecoverable home, or even as little at $3,000.
Such terms have left penniless nuclear evacuees with little choice but to return to their radioactively contaminated homes, like it or not.
“This is inhumane and irresponsible,” said Teruhisa Maruyama, a lawyer who leads the Support Group for Victims of the Nuclear Accident, a Tokyo-based legal organization that helps residents seek increased compensation.
“The national government knows that full compensation could add up to big money, enough to raise public doubts about the wisdom of using nuclear power in Japan.”
“They want to say that everything is back to normal so they can keep their nuclear plants,” said Mr. Satoshi Mizuochi, 57, a nuclear evacuee. “Failing to compensate us for our losses is a way of pressuring us to go back.”