Library that keeps a nation's conscience

By F. J. Khergamvala

TOKYO, AUG. 29. Perhaps the facts behind the cricket match fixing allegations in India would have seen early closure had we had something like a fairly new Japanese institution that allows conscientious objectors to complain against their own corporation's malfeasance.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun has outlined the workings of a fascinating institutional receptacle, called the Rokkaku Library. Known to Tokyo residents as the Mysterious Documents Library, it is literally a library but of a special kind. It contains hundreds of thousands of documents given by disgruntled or aggrieved elements within the corporate sector so that alleged wrongdoings may be brought to light.

In Japan, unlike other free market economies where shareholders' meetings are a gathering where management is ready to face some inconvenient questions, such meetings are a tame affair because of the role of the ``sokaiya'', or underworld figures who ensure the smooth running of such events. The Rokkaku Library fulfills the need for redress by accepting documents which are highly embarrassing to companies. Open to members only, the documents range from minutes of executive meetings, secret ledgers and files about personal scandals, according to the Nikkei.

Not being an officially authorised channel for complaint, those who submit evidence of malfeasance, corruption or abuse are not entitled to a percentage of the loot where money has been embezzled. Unlike many other democracies, Japan has no Government-sponsored mechanism to offer inducements to whistleblowers.

In Japan, any form of complaint against one's corporate employer, Ministry or Government department has always been frowned upon. Life time employment meant life time job security, in return for absolute loyalty. All this has been crumbling. The Rokkaku may carry first hand documentation but people have found other ways to tell tales.

Some weeks ago, Mr Hironari Noda, a former member of the Japanese Public Safety Information Agency (a branch of the internal security apparatus) made a posting on a U.S.-based Internet web site. The posting carried the names of about 1,000 employees of the agency, most with their home addresses and phone numbers. Mr Noda detailed which of them had received training from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, illegal or hidden accounting by his former department and even the agency's role in predicting the outcome of national elections. The Japanese Government worked through the U.S. to have the site suppressed, apparently successfully, but Mr Noda found an alternative web site where the information is available. In South Korea, from where Japan too picked up the methodology, ordinary individuals have played a role in cleaning up politics by enlivening web sites just before elections to publish the shadowy pasts of some politicians. Such sites have become wildly popular in both nations. The owner of Tokyo's Rokkaku Library, Mr Hiroshi Rokkaku told the Nikkei that the ``volume (of documented complaints) has doubled compared with last year, and accurate information such as accounting figures before they are doctored are leaking out.''

Some analysts trace this unprecedented outburst of conscience, after years of silence to corporate managers being unable or untrained in handling the communication of difficult decisions. Seldom having had to make, let alone convey decisions now necessitated by ``restructuring'', orders regarding transfers to inconvenient positions, or demotions or plain retrenchment have been without any sweeteners.

It is not as if the entire corporate culture of cover- ups and protection in Japan is crumbling, but it is obvious that in the absence of successful in-house redressal mechanisms, employees are breaking out. Reports suggest that the latest major cover-up, regarding the recall and repair of faulty vehicles by Mitsubishi Motors, came from a tip-off by an employee.

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