Unit 731 - Research and Bump List. Gets Disturbing, Read at Your Own Risk

Unit 731 - Research and Bump List. Gets Disturbing, Read at Your Own Risk
various ^ | various | Various
Posted on 2005/11/13 12:48:51 by Calpernia

http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/japdeny/tokyo_trial.html

The Failure of the Tokyo Trial

Wu Tianwei

"No. One War Criminal" Not Brought to Trial. "

"The Majority of Class A War Criminals Not Tried but Released."

"all the uncondemned Class A war criminals were set free by Gen. MacArthur in 1947 and 1948. Most of them immediately returned to the Japanese political arena, which was again dominated by the same Fascists and militarists though clad in democratic cloak in disguise."

"All Killers of "Human Experimentation" At Large. "

"Hundreds of doctors of the former Unit 731 are still practicing or living in retirement in Japan today. "

The Beginning, of the Tokyo Trial. About half a year after the opening of the Nuremberg Trail, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East began its trial of 28 Class A Japanese war criminals at Tokyo on May 3, 1946, which is known as the "Tokyo Trial." The hearings of the Trial dated back to 1928, when Marshal Chang Tsolin, warlord of Manchuria, was assassinated, and extended right to the Japanese surrender.

The background of the Tokyo Trial was somewhat different from that of the Nuremberg Trial. At the Cairo Conference, the three Allies, Britain, China, and the United States, issued a declaration on December 1, 1943, which spelled out that "the purpose of this war is to stop and punish Japanese aggression." The 5th article of the Potsdam Declaration of July 1945 issued by the same three Allies enunciated that "stem justice shall be meted out to all war criminals including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners." In the Instrument of Japanese Surrender of September 2, 1945, all matters related to the arrest and treatment of war criminals were specifically stipulated. In the meantime, the Commission of Crimes of the United Nations (established at London in the summer of 1943) made recommendation on the establishment of an international n-military tribunal for Japanese crimes and atrocities. U.S. State Department adopted the "Policy of Arrest and Punishment of War Criminals in the Far East," with which it notified the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP) and 8 nations (Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Netherlands, New Zealand, the Soviet Union, and the United States) to organize the tribunal. The Moscow Conference of foreign ministers of the big four, Britain, China, the Soviet Union and U.S. decided the tribunal would be established at Tokyo. In January 1946, General Douglas MacArthur approved its charter to formally inaugurate the Tribunal. Although the United States played a major role in both the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, having had her legal views and opinions well pronounced, she virtually dominated the latter, in which her policy toward Japan took precedence. The Tokyo Trial also was overshadowed by the Chinese civil war and the imminent Cold War that engulfed the American-Soviet relations. All this led to the Trial of the Class A war criminals unfinished and a hasty close of the Trial.

Nevertheless, the Tokyo Trial was based upon the concepts of war crimes initiated at the Nuremberg Trial, i.e., Crimes against Peace, Crimes against Humanity, and War Crimes and Aggressive War--but without the "collective guilt" as with the crimes of the Nazis. Each member of the I 1 -nation Far East Council, supposed to be a guiding and policy-making organ for the SCAP, appointed a judge each, with Sir William F. Webb of Australia as presiding judge, the other judges being E. Stuart McDougall for Canada, Ju-ao Mei for China, Henri Bernard for France, Delfin Jaranilla for the Philippines, Bernard Victor A. Roling for the Netherlands, Erima Harvey Northeroft for New Zealand, I.M. Zaryanov for the Soviet Union, Lord Patrick for Great Britain, and John P. Higgins for the U.S. (later replaced by Maj. Gen. Myron C. Gramer), and R.M. Pal for India. The chief prosecutor was American Joseph B. Keenan, each of the I 11 nations appointed an associate prosecutor, the Chinese prosecutor being che-chun Hsiang.

Japan then was under U.S. occupation and the U.S. provided for funds and manpower for the Trial; as a result, the U.S. assumed the entire work of prosecution. Still the biggest problem was that the Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur had the authority not only to select judges but "to reduce, but not to increase the sentences." Chief Prosecutor Keenan, a politician from the State of Ohio, cooperated slavishly with the Supreme Commander; under such circumstances, the Tokyo Trail dragged for two and a half years and closed on November 4, 1948, with its sentences meted out to the 28 Class A war criminals as tabulated below.

Seven death sentences:

Hideki Tojo: Gendarme Commander and Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army; Minister of the Army and Prime Minister (October 1941 to July 1944), launching the Pearl Harbor attack.

Kenji Doihara: Chief of Special Service of the Kwantung Army; one of the conspirators engineering the "September 18, 193 1 " Incident and kidnapping the "last emperor" of the Manchu dynasty with whom to inaugurate Manchukuo.

Seishiro Itagaki: One of the conspirators to engineer the "September 18, 193 1 " Incident, Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, and Minister of the Army.

lwane Matsui: Chief of Special Service of the Kwantung Army at Harbin, Commander-in-Chief of Japanese Central China Army, chief culprit of the Rape of Nanking.

Akira Muto: Deputy Chief of Staff of Japanese Central China Army, responsible for the Rape of Nanking and atrocities in Indonesia.

Heitaro Kimura: Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, deputy minister of the Army, army commander in Bunna, where he was responsible for the brutalization of Allied POWs especially to build the Siain-Bunna Railway.

Koki Hirota: As Foreign Minster, he introduced the "three principles" in dealing with China in 1935. Next year he became Prime Minister; he was the only civilian to receive death sentence.

Sixteen defendants sentenced to life imprisonment: Sadao Araki: Minister of the Army, Minister of Education, and leader of the "Imperial Way Faction."

Kingoro Hashimoto: As an artillery regiment commander, Colonel Hashimoto was a major culprit in

the Rape of Nanking,. He was behind assassinations and coups d'etat and published books for racist propaganda.

Shunroku Hata: Field Marshal, Commander-in-Chief of Japanese expeditionary army in China, Minister of the Army.

Yoshijlro Umezu: Commander-in-Chief of Japanese Army stationed in North China and later of the

Kwantung Army; Chief of General Staff representing Japan to sign the Instrument of Surrender on the USS Missouri.

Teiichi Suzuki: Expert on China masterminded Japan's wartime economy and was involved in drug trafficking in China.

Koichi Kido, Marquis: Minister of Education, Welfare, Home Affairs in various periods, and Lord Keeper of the Privy Council.

Kuniaki Koiso: Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, Governor of Korea then known as "Tiger of Korea," and Prime Minister.

Kichiro Hiranuma: Founder of the Kokuhonsha (society for national quintessence), Prime Minister, and President of the Privy Council.

Jiro Minanii: Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army, Minister of the Army, Governor of Korea, and an early leader advocating the "Holy War" against China.

Takasumi Oka: Chief of Bureau of Military Affairs; Deputy Minister of the Navy; he was most responsible for the mistreatment of Allied POWs especially the "hellships."

Okinori Kaya: President of North China Development Company, plundering China's industry and resources; Minister of Finance with the knowledge of building the Siam-Burma Railway with POWs as slave laborers.

Naoki Hoshino: Chief of financial affairs in Manchuria; as chief cabinet secretary, being the war's most enthusiastic supporter in the cabinet, drafted the declarations of war against Britain and the United States.

Hiroshi Oshima: Lt. Gen. and Ambassador to Germany being considered "more Nazi than the Nazis" forged the Axis Pact with Germany and Italy.

Kenryo Sato: A confidant of Premiere Tojo, serving as Chief of the Bureau of Military Affairs and divisional commander in Indonesia and Burma, persecuting the Allied POWs.

Shigetaro Shimada: Vice Chief of Naval General Staff-, as Minister of Navy, he authorized the Pearl Harbor attack.

Toshio Shiratofi: Ambassador to Italy, a rabid supporter of military expansion, being a confidant of Mussolini and having forged the Axis Pact.

Two defendants received prison terms:

Shigenori Togo: Ambassador to Germany and Italy; Foreign Minister, 1941-42, 1945, being responsible for negotiations with the U.S. before the Pearl Harbor attack, but inimical to Nazi Germany. He was sentenced 20 years of imprisonment.

Mamoru Shigemitsu: Ambassador to China, Britain, and the Soviet Union; Forel-n Minister, 1943- 45, representing Japan to sign the Instrument of Surrender on the USS Missouri.

As to the other three defendants, Matsuoka died in 1946, Nagano died in 1947, and Okawa was set free because of insanity. Shumei Okawa, a staunch nationalist devoted to militarism, had been Chief of East Asian Economic Survey Bureau and participated in the March and October coups of 193 1, and the "September 18" Incident. He was jailed for the assassination of Premiere Tsuyoshi Inukai in 1932. In the first day of the Tokyo Trial, when the indictments to the war criminals were announced, he beat the head of Tojo. All charged against him were dropped after the conclusion of the Tokyo Trial and he was discharged from the mental hospital as mentally fit; he died nine years later.

Field Marshal Osarni Nagano served as deputy naval attach‚ in the Japanese Embassy at Washington, 1912-14 and became Minister of Navy in 1936. He was Chief of Naval General Staff from 1941 to 1944, planning the Pearl Harbor attack; died of natural cause during the Trial.

Yosuke Matsuoka came to America for study at the age of 14 and was graduated from Oregon University in 1900. He began his diplomatic career in 1904, first serving as consul at Shanghai. In 1927, he became Vice-President of the Southern Manchuria Railway Company and a rabid supporter for the annexation of Manchuria to Japan, by initiating the theory that "Man (Manchuria)-Mon (Inner Mongolia) is the Lifeline of Japan." In 1932, he became Chief of the Japanese Delegation to the League of Nations and in March of next year, he led the Japanese Delegation to withdraw from the League on account of the League's resolution that Japan was an aggressor for invading Manchuria. Upon returning to Japan, he was hailed as a hero for his defiance to the League and soon rewarded with the presidency of the Southern Manchurian Railway Company. In 1940, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs championing the Japanese-German alliance and the "Greater East-Asian Co-prosperity Order." Having reached a Rapprochement with Moscow by signing the treaty of neutrality in April 194 1, he advocated joining forces with Germany to attack the Soviet Union two months later, when Hitler launched the Barbarossa campaign to invade Russia. He died in a Tokyo hospital in 1946.

The Majority of Class A War Criminals Not Tried but Released. Most regrettably was the fact that, of the 70 Japanese apprehended for Class A war criminals, only the first group of 28 people were brought to trial, the rest which was divided into the 2nd and 3rd groups awaited to be tried in Sugamo prison of Tokyo. The International Prosecution Section of the SCAP, then realizing the magnitude of their crimes and the multitude of cases, decided to try the apprehended seventy in three groups, the first group of 28 war criminals all being major leaders in military, political, and diplomatic sphere. The 2nd group of 23 war criminals and the 3rd group of 19 war criminals were notorious, industrial and financial magnates, warmongers engaged in ammunition trade and trafficking in drugs, as well as some less known, but equally rabid, barbaric leaders in military, political, and diplomatic spheres. Notably among them were:

Nobusuke Kishi: Taking charge of industry and commerce of Manchukuo, 1936-40; Minister of Industry and Commerce under Tojo administration; and Prime Minister of Japan, 1957-60, having advocated revision of the new constitution to enlarge the Emperor's authority and curb the Diet's power.

Fusanosuke Kuhara: Leader of the newly-emerging Zaibatsu faction of Seiyukal (Political Friends Society).

Yoshisuke Ayukawa: Sworn-brother of Fusanosuke Kuhara, founder of Japan Industrial Corporation; having gone to Manchuria after the "September 18" Incident, where he founded the Manchurian Heavy Industry Development Company to dominate industry and mining of Manchuria.

Toshizo Nishio: Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, Commander-in-Chief of China Expeditionary Army, 1939-41; and Minister of Education.

Kichiburo Ando: Garrison Commander of Port Arthur and Minister of Interior in Tojo's cabinet.

Yoshio Kodama: Radical nationalist behind many coups and assassinations in the 1930s; setting up the Kodama special organ in occupied China engaged in exploiting Chinese resources- and after the war, remaining a major leader of Japanese underworld society.

Kazuo Aoki: Administrator of Manchurian affairs; Minister of Treasury in Nobuyoki Abe's cabinet and then following Abe to China as advisor; Minister of Greater East-Asian Ministry under Tojo.

Masayoki Tani: Ambassador to Manchukuo, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Concurrently Director of Intelligence Bureau; Ambassador to the Nanking puppet government; and after the war Ambassador to the United States.

Eiji Amo: As Chief of Intelligence Section of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Amo issued the "Amo Statement" in 1934, calling upon Western powers not to render assistance to China as the East Asian order was very much the Japanese responsibility; Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Director of Intelligence Bureau in Tojo's cabinet.

Yakijiro Suma: As Consul General at Nanking, Suma was well known to the Chinese owing to his concocting many intrigue, particularly on the eve of the war; in 1938, he served at counselor at the Japanese Embassy at Washington; and after 1941, Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain.

Ryoichi Sasakawa: One of the leading Fascists and Militarists of Japan organized his private army of 15,000 men equipped with 20 warplanes and dressed in black shirt to emulate that of Mussolini, his idol after "September 18, 193 1 " Incident. Following the outbreak of the Pacific War, his army massacred thousands of innocent Chinese and Malayans for which he earned the name of "Tiger of Malaya." After the war, he kept his Mafia business in Japan involving drug trafficking, pornographic enterprises, gambling, and usury that made him the super rich, with which he had become the leading philanthropist of the world; he showered handsome donations to the United Nations, President Carter's Library, and one million dollars each to the leading universities of America.

Moreover all the uncondemned Class A war criminals were set free by Gen. MacArthur in 1947 and 1948. Most of them immediately returned to the Japanese political arena, which was again dominated by the same Fascists and militarists though clad in democratic cloak in disguise. Despite a western-style, democratic Japanese Constitution which MacArthur helped to adopt, Japanese political leaders, unlike their counterparts of West Germany, have run counter to the original promises and inclinations. totally ignoring their legal and moral obligations and responsibilities as a defeated nation, as they have pursued the policy of "Three Nos," no admission of aggression, no repentance and apology, and no compensations to their victims.

"No. One War Criminal" Not Brought to Trial. In both Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, No. One war criminal was not brought to trial. Undoubtedly, had Hitler lived, he would have been brought to Trial, condemned and hanged as had other eleven Nazi leaders. Ironically, the Emperor's palace was just nearby the site where the Trial took place, but Hirohito, the No. One war criminal was free from being tried, a fact that has intolerably reduced the value of the Tokyo Trial. Before the end of the war, Australia and China had accentuated the necessity of trying the chief culprit Emperor Hirohito, but for the sake of expediency of governing Japan under occupation, the U.S. eventually took off Hirohito from the list of war criminals. Throughout the Trial, the issue of bringing Hirohito to Trial had frequently loomed up. While the debate over whether he should have stood to defend himself or as witness for other defendants had annoyed the postwar Japanese society.

Concerning the issue of the stealthy attack on Pearl Harbor, both Naval Chief of General Staff and Prime Minister Tojo admitted having consulted with Emperor Hirohito, at which Tojo expressed confidence in the result. Then the Presiding Judge Webb commented: "The Emperor then directed that the program be carried out. . . It will remain that the men who advised the commission of a crime, if it be one, are in no worse position than the man who directs the crime be committed." In spite of much he tried to defend Hirohito's innocence, Tojo was obliged to confess that "the Emperor had consented, though reluctantly, to the war" and that "none of us would dare act against the Emperor's will."

From the documents of the General Headquarters of the Army and Navy released by the Japan Defense Administration after the war, some logical conclusions can be easily drawn as follows: (1) All major campaigns, such as those of "August 13" of Shanghai, Wuhan, Changsha, Burma, and "Ichigo" had been meticulously studied by Hirohito before he ordered them to be carried out with his blessings; (2) the appointment or dismissal of a division commander (a division usually having the strength of 16,000 to 22,500 men) must have had the approval of Emperor Hirohito and, more often than not, he would have an audience with the appointee before being announced; and (3) any maneuver of troops above the divisional level and a new division being established had to have his approval. By all accounts, his authority over the army and navy was doubtless greater than Hitler's.

Hirohito's authority was clearly instanced by the following episode. After the Midway debacle on June 5, 1942 (the great loss of the Japanese navy has not been quite appreciated by Western scholars), Japan immediately shifted its strategy in the Pacific from offensive to defensive. In August 1942, U.S. forces launched an offensive, thus unfolding the four-month sanguinary jungle battle for Guadalcanal. For lack of coordination and deficient estimate of U.S. strength, the lives of over 20,000 Japanese soldiers were in jeopardy. Then the Japanese General Headquarters sent its chief of war operation section, Colonel Hattori, to Guadalcanal for an on-the-spot investigation. Hattori flew back to Tokyo on November 1 1, and was received by Emperor Hirohito the next day to present his detailed written report, during which Hirohito said: "As a large U.S. fleet was pressing on Guadalcanal, whether the Army should send reinforcement of its own air force without delay." Afterwards, the Army dispatched its air force to the Southeast Pacific theater but it was too late to save the Japanese army on Guadalcanal. As for the withdrawal of Japanese army from Quadalcanal, Emperor Hirohito on November 28, 1942 issued Ns order saying:

Today the Chief of General Headquarters said that whether or not we withdraw from Guadalcanal will be reported to me on the 30th. I am not satisfied with this kind of as a matter of factly report, but rather I wish to know what is the plan for defeating the enemy. The situation is so serious that the General Hqs. conference should be summoned to discuss the issue. Regardless of the date whether it be the end or the beginning of the year, I will be there. (Important Records of the Japanese Army Warring in China, Tr. Taipei, Bureau of Military History, Defense Ministry, 1992, Vol. 23).

The Imperial Conference was held in Emperor's palace on December 31 to decide the withdrawal from Guadalcanal with Emperor Hirohito presiding. From this, one should not fail to see that Emperor Hirohito was indeed the Conirnander-in-Chief of the Japanese Armed Forces. In fact, why the Japanese surrender procrastinated so long as it did until August 15, 1945, it was chiefly due to Hirohito's dictatorship. A few years ago, a courageous Japanese writer Hisashi Inoue wrote:

In February 1945, for example, as Japan was losing on Asian and Pacific battlefields, Prince Fumimaro Konoe, former prime minister and Imperial counselor, wrote the ruler: 'I believe that defeat, although tragic and regrettable, is inevitable' and urged him to accept the premise of defeat.

Ignoring this plea, Emperor Showa made a tragic mistake. Had he agreed then to a ceasefire, Tokyo would have been spared the air raid of March 10, 1945, when incendiary bombs leveled much of the capital, killing 100,000 people. The U.S. invasion of Okinawa which cost about 260,000 Japanese lives and 50,000 American casualties, would have been avoided. Atomic bombs would not have obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sparing another 200,000 lives. (The Japan Times Weekly, September 24-30, 1990.)

So that Emperor Hirohito must be held responsible for the deaths of 3 million Japanese, 35 million Chinese, 109,656 Americans, and many million Asian, his guilt was apparently greater than that of Hitler. How can one imagine that this No. One war criminal Kirohito was not brought to justice, as he was allowed to live a full life; when he died in 1989, he was buried with the most pompous funeral of the century. This alone showed the grave failure of the Tokyo Trial and that the sacrifices of Chinese, Japanese, Americans, and Asians were nearly in vain; for this, their souls cannot rest in peace!

All Killers of "Human Experimentation" At Large. Another colossal mistake the Tokyo Trial made was that the U.S. government and Supreme Commander MacArthur struck a deal with Lt. Gen. Ishii Shiro, former commander of Japanese biological warfare Unit 73 1, that he and all members of Unit 731 were to be exonerated from war crimes in exchange for data they had acquired through human experimentation of many thousands of Chinese, Koreans, Soviets, and even U.S. POWs. Without a shadow of doubt, Ishii's crimes had far exceeded those committed by the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele for conducting human experiments, while Unit 731 had murdered the people many times the number of Jews, Gypsies, Polish, and Russians killed by the Nazi doctors!

Before the "Doctors' Trial" at Nuremberg formally began on December 9, 1946, there were 31 secondary war criminals for having conducted human experimentation that were tried at Buchwald, Germany, where many kinds of human experiments took place, and 22 of them were sentenced to death. The "Doctors' Trial" had convicted 16 out of 23 war criminals originally indicted: death sentences to 7 people including Hitler's personal doctor Karl Brandt; 5 life imprisonment; 2 twenty years term-n imprisonment; I twenty and ten years' term each.

Importantly, the I 0-article Nuremberg Code adopted by the "Doctors' Trial has been taken in total by the United Nations and Western countries. Its first article reads: "The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential"; article 4: "The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury"; article 9: "During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible." Hence members of Unit 731 violated not only the Nuremberg code but also the 1925 Geneva Convention which outlaws the use of chemical and biological warfares and of which Japan is a signatory country.

Hundreds of doctors of the former Unit 731 are still practicing or living in retirement in Japan today. We earnestly hope that in their lifetime they could come to terms with the horrendous atrocities they had continued by pleading for forgiveness and making apology to their victims and their bereaved families as well as preparing to pay them fair monetary compensations. In so doing, not only can their souls be saved; in the meantime, they make the least contributions to their posterity and human society, while preserving history and maintaining truth and justice. Otherwise, their victims and families, basing on international laws and resolutions of the United Nations and backed up by millions of Chinese, Asians, and peace-loving people of the world, would take their case to the Japanese and international courts so as to attest that law and morality does exist in the human world.

TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: atrocities; bumplist; japan; manchuria; manchurianborder; unit731; warcrimes; ww2
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-50, 51-97 next last
The Manchurian Border








1 posted on 2005/11/13 12:48:55 by Calpernia
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

The following material is provided by Dr. Dongxiao Yue.

Japan Admits Dissecting WW II POWs

Live dissection of American POWs
When and where
How they died
The sentence
MacArthur let the mudrerers go free
UKUOKA, Japan "I could never again wear a white smock," says Dr. Toshio Tono, dressed in a white running jacket at his hospital and recalling events of 50 years ago. "It's because the prisoners thought that we were doctors, since they could see the white smocks, that they didn't struggle. They never dreamed they would be dissected."

The prisoners were eight American airmen, knocked out of the sky over southern Japan during the waning months of World War U, and then torn apart organ by organ while they were still alive.

What occurred here 50 years ago this month, at the anatomy department of Kyushu University, has been largely forgotten in Japan and is virtually unknown in the United States. American prisoners of war were subjected to horrific medical experiments. All of the prisoners died. Most of the physicians and asistants then did their best to hide the evidence of what they had done.

Fukuoka is midway between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities that are planning elaborate ceremonies to mark the devastation caused by the United States'dropping the first atomic bombs. But neither Fukuoka nor the university plans to mark its own moment of infamy.

The gruesome experiments performed at the university were variations on research programs Japan conducted in territories it occupied during the war. In the most notorious of these efforts, the Japanese Imperial Army's Unit 731 killed thousands of Chinese and Russians held prisoner in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, in experiments to develop chemical and biological weapons.

Ken Yuasa, now a frail, 70-year-old physician in Tokyo, belonged to a military company stationed just south of Unit 731's base at Harbin, Manchuria. He recalls joining other doctors to watch as a prisoner was shot in the stomach, to give Japanese surgeons practice at extracting bullets.

While the victim was still alive, the doctors also practiced amputations.

"It wasn't just my experience," Yuasa says. "It was done everywhere."

Kyushu University stands out as the only site where Americans were incontrovertibly used in dissections and the only known site where experiments were done in Japan.

On May 5, 1945, an American B-29 bomber was flying with a dozen other aircraft after bombing Tachiaral Air Base in southwestern Japan and beginning the return flight to the island fortress of Guam.

Kinzou Kasuya, a 19-year-old Japanese pilot flying one of the Japanese fighters in pursuit of the Americans, rammed his aircraft into the fuselage of the B-29, destroying both planes.

No one knows for certain how many Americans were in the B-29; its crew had been hastily assembled on Guam. But villagers in Japan who witnessed the collision in the air saw about a dozen parachutes blossom.

One of the Americans died when the cords of his, parachute were severed by another Japanese plane. A second was alive when he reached the ground. He shot all but his last bullet at the villagers coming toward him, then used the last on himself.

Two others were quickly stabbed or shot to death.

At least nine were taken into custody.

B-29 crews were despised for the grim results of their raids. So some of the captives were beaten.

The local authorities assumed that the most knowledgeable was the captain, Marvin Watkins. He was sent to Tokyo for interrogation, where was tortured but nonetheless survived the war.

Every available account asserts that a military physician and a colonel in a local regiment were the two key figures in what happened next. What happened cannot be easily explained. Perhaps caring for the Americans was an impossible burden, especially because some were injured. Perhaps food was scarce.

Whatever the reason, the colonel and doctor decided to make the prisoners available for medical experiments, and Kyushu University became a willing participant.

Teddy Ponczka was the first to be handed over to the doctors and their assistants. He had already been stabbed, in either his right shoulder or his chest. According to Tono, the American assumed he was about to be treated for the wound when he was taken to an operating room.

But the incision went far deeper. A doctor wanted to test surgery's effects on the respiratory system, so one lung was removed. The wound was stitched closed.

How Teddy Ponczka died is in dispute. According to U.S. military records, he was anesthetized during the operation, and then the gas mask was removed from his face. A surgeon, Taro Torisu, reopened the incision and reached into Ponczka's chest. In the bland words of the military report, Torisu "stopped the heart action."

Tono remembers events differently. The first experiment was followed by a second, he says. Ponczka was given intravenous injections of sea water, to determine if sea water could be used as a substitute for sterile saline solution, used to increase blood volume in the wounded or those in'shock. Tono held the bottle of sea water. He says Ponczka bled to death.

Then it was the turn of the others.

The Japanese wanted to learn whether a patient could survive the partial loss of his liver. They wanted to learn if epilepsy could be controlled by removing part of the brain. According to U.S. military records, physicians also operated on -the prisoners' stomachs and necks.

All the Americans died.

"There was no debate among the doctors about whether to do the operations - that is what made it so strange," Tono says.

Word of the experiments eventually leaked out.

Thirty people were brought to trial by an Allied war crimes tribunal in Yokohama, Japan, on March 11, 1948. Charges included vivisection, wrongful removal of body parts and cannibalism - based on reports that the experimenters had eaten the livers of the Americans.

Of the 30 defendants, 23 were found guilty of various charges. (For lack of proof, the charges of cannibalism had been dismissed.) Five of the guilty were sentenced to death, four to life imprisonment. The other 14 were sentenced to shorter terms.

But the attitude of the American occupation forces began to change largely because of the start of the Korean War in June 1950. The United States had less interest in punishing Japan, an enemy-turned-ally.

In September 1950, U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, as supreme commander for Allied Forces, reduced most of the sentences. By 1958, all those convicted were free. None of the death sentences was carried out.

2 posted on 2005/11/13 12:53:12 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
Unlocking A Deadly Secret

Vivisection of humans without anesthetic
The reason for the vivisection
Who did the experiments
Why none of them was prosecuted
The origin of the germ war experiments
Japanese germ war against China
Knowledge gained at the cost of human lives
Experiments on infants
The scope of human experimantation
Plans to take the germ war to US
Plans dropped in fear of US revengence
The murders show little remorse today
Will it happen again?

Morioka, Japan
He is a cheerful old farmer who jokes as he serves rice cakes made by his wife and then he switches easily to explaining what it is like to cut open a 30-year-old man who is tied naked to abed and dissect him alive, without anesthetic.

"The fellow knew that it was over for him and so he didn't struggle when they led him into the room and tied, him down," recalled the 72-year-old farmer, then a medical assistant in a Japanese army unit in China in World War II. "But when I picked up the scalpel, that's when he began screaming.

"I cut him open from the chest to the stomach and he screamed terribly and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped. This was all in a day's work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time."

Finally, the old man, who insisted on anonymity, explained the reason for the vivisection: The prisoner, who was Chinese, had been deliberately infected with the plague, as part of a research project, the full horror of which is only now emerging, to develop plague bombs for use in World War II. After infecting him, the researchers decided to cut him open to see what the disease does to a man's inside.

"That research program was one of the great secrets of Japan during and after World War II: a vast project to develop weapons of biological warfare, including plague, anthrax, cholera and a dozen other pathogens. unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army conducted research by experimenting on humans and by "field testing" plague bombs by dropping them on Chinese cities to see whether they could start plague outbreaks. They could.

A trickle of information about the germ warfare program has turned into a stream and now a torrent. Half a century after the end of the war, a rush of books, documentaries and exhibitions are unlocking the past and helping arouse interest in Japan in the atrocities committed by some of Japan's most distinguished doctors.

Scholars and former members of the unit say that at least 3000 people and by some accounts several times that number were killed in the medical experiments; none survived. No one knows how many died in the "field testing"

It is becoming evident that the Japanese officers in charge of the program hoped to use their weapons against the United States. They proposed using balloon bombs to carry disease to America and they had a plan in the summer of 1945 to use kamikaze pilots to dump plague infected fleas on San Diego.

The research was kept secret after the end of World War II in part because the U.S. Army granted immunity from war crimes prosecution to the doctors in exchange for their research data. Japanese and U.S. documents show that the United States helped cover up the human experimentation and instead of putting the ringleaders on trial, it gave them stipends.

The accounts now emerging are wrenching to read even after so much time has passed: a Russian mother and daughter reportedly left in a gas chamber, for example, as doctors peer through the thick glass and time their convulsions, watching as the woman sprawls over her child in a futile effort to save her from the gas.

The origin of Germ warfare

Japan's biological weapons program was born in the 1930s, in part because Japanese officials were impressed that germ warfare had been banned by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. If it was so awful that it had to be banned under international law, the officers reasoned, it must make a great weapon.

The Japanese army, which was then occupying a large chunk of China, evicted the residents of eight villages near the city of Harbin in Manchuria to make way for the headquarters of Unit 731. One advantage of China, from the Japanese point of view, was the availability of research subjects on whom germs could be tested. The subjects were called marutas. or logs, and most were Communist sympathizers or ordinary criminals. The majority were Chinese, but there were also many Russian expatriates living in China.

Takeo Wane, 71, a former medical worker in Unit 731 who now lives in the northern Japanese city of Morioka, said he once saw a 6-foot high glass jar in which 3 Western man was pickled in formaldehyde. The man had been cut into two pieces, vertically, and Wane guesses that he was a Russian because there were many Russians then living in the area.

The Unit 731 headquarters contained many other such jars with specimens. They contained feet, heads, internal organs, all neatly labeled.

"I saw samples with labels saying 'American,' 'English' and 'Frenchman,' but most were Chinese, Koreans and Mongolians" said a Unit 731 veteran who insisted on anonymity.

Medical researchers also locked up diseased prisoners with healthy ones, to see how readily various ailments would spread. The doctors locked others inside a pressure chamber to see how much the body can withstand before the eyes pop from their sockets.

Victims were often taken to a proving ground called Anda, where they were tied to stakes in a pattern and then bombarded with test weapons to see how effective the new technologies were. Planes sprayed the zone with a plague culture or dropped bombs with plague-infested fleas to see how many people and at what distance from the center would die.

The Japanese army regularly conducted field tests to see whether biological warfare would work outside the laboratory. Planes dropped plague-infected fleas over Ningbo in eastern China and over Changde in north-central China and plague outbreaks were later reported.

Japanese troops also dropped cholera and typhoid cultures in wells and ponds, but the results were often counterproductive. In 1942, germ warfare specialists distributed dysentery, cholera and typhoid in Zhejiang Province in China. but Japanese soldiers themselves became ill and 1,700 died of the diseases, scholars say.

Sheldon Harris, a historian at California State University, in Northridge, estimates that more than 200,000 Chinese were killed in germ warfare field experiments. Hams -author ofa book on Unit 731, "Factories of Death" also says that plague-infected animals were released as the war was ending and caused outbreaks of the plague that killed at least 30,000 people in the Harbin area from 1946 through 1948.

The leading scholar of Unit 731 in Japan, Keiichi Tsuneishi, is skeptical of such numbers. Tsuneishi, who has led the efforts in Japan to uncover atrocities by Unit 731, says that the attack on Ningbo killed about 100 people and that there is no evidence for huge outbreaks of disease set off by field trials.

Knowledge gained at the cost of human lives

Many of the human experiments were intended to develop new vaccines or treatments for medical problems the Japanese army faced. Many experiments remain secret, but an 18-page report prepared in 1945--and kept by a senior Japanese military officer until now--includes a summary of the unit's research. The report was prepared in English for U.S. intelligence officials and it shows the extraordinary range of the unit's work.

There are scores of categories that describe research about which nothing is known. It is unclear what the prisoners had to endure for entries like "studies of burn scar" and "study of bullets lodged in the brains."

Scholars say that the research was not contrived by mad scientists and that it was intelligently designed and' carried out. The medical findings saved many Japanese lives.

For example, Unit 731 proved that the best treatment for frostbite was not rubbing the Limb, which had been the traditional method but immersion in water a bit warmer than 100 degrees, but never more than 122 degrees.

The cost of this scientific breakthrough was borne by those seized for medical experiments. They were taken outside and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water, until a guard decided that frostbite had set in. Testimony From a Japanese officer said this was determined after the "frozen arms, when struck with a short stick, emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck."

A booklet just published in Japan after a major exhibition about Unit 731 shows how doctors even experimented on a three-day-old baby, measuring the temperature with a needle stuck inside the infant's middle finger.

"Usually a hand of a three-day-old infant is clenched into a fist", the booklet says, "but by sticking the needle in, the middle finger could be kept straight to make the experiment easier".

The Scope of Human experimentation

The human experimentation did not take place just in Unit 731, nor was it a rogue unit acting on its own. While it is unclear whether Emperor Hirohito knew of the atrocities, his younger brother, Prince Mikasa, toured Unit 731's headquarters in China and wrote in his memoirs that he was shown films showing how Chinese prisoners were "made to march on the plains of Manchuria for poison gas experiments on humans."

In addition, the recollections of Dr. Ken Yuasa, 78, who still practices in a clinic in Tokyo, suggest that human experimentation may have been routine even outside Unit 731. Dr. Yuasa was an army medic in China, but he says he was never in Unit 731 and never had contact with it.

Nevertheless. Dr. Yuasa says that when he was still in medical school In Japan, the students heard that ordinary doctors who went to China were allowed to vivisect patients. And sure enough, when Dr. Yuasa arrived in Shanxi Province in northcentral China in 1942, he was soon asked to attend a "practice surgery."

Two Chinese men were brought in, stripped naked and given general anesthetic. Then Dr. Yuasa and the others began practicing various kinds of surgery: first an appendectomy, then an amputation of an arm and finally a tracheotomy. After 90 minutes, they were finished, so they killed the patient with an injection.

When Dr. Yuasa was put in charge of a clinic, he said, he periodically asked the police for a Communist to dissect, and they sent one over. The vivisection was all for practice rather than for research, and Dr. Yuasa says they were routine among Japanese doctors working in China in the war.

In addition, Dr. Yuasa - who is now deeply apologetic about what he did said he cultivated typhoid germs in test tubes and passed them on, as he had been instructed to do, to another army unit. Someone from that unit, which also had no connection with Unit 731, later told him that the troops would use the test tubes to infect the wells of villages in Communist-held territory.

Plans to take the germ war to the US homeland

In 1944, when Japan was nearing defeat, Tokyo's military planners seized on a remarkable way to hit back at the American heartland: they launched huge balloons that rode the prevailing winds to the continental United States. Although the American Government censored reports at the time, some 200 balloons landed in Western states, and bombs carried by the balloons killed a woman in Montana and six people in Oregon.

Half a century later, there is evidence that it could have been far worse; some Japanese generals proposed loading the balloons with weapons of biological warfare, to create epidemics of plague or anthrax In the United States. Other army units wanted to send cattleplague virus to wipe out the American livestock industry or grain smut to wipe out the crops.

There was a fierce debate in Tokyo, and a document discovered recently suggests that at a crucial meeting in late July 1944 it was Hideki Tojo - whom the United States later hanged for war crimes - who rejected the proposal to use germ warfare against the United States.

At the time of the meeting, Tojo had just been ousted as Prime Minister and chief of the General Staff, but he retained enough authority to veto the proposal. He knew by then that Japan was likely to lose the war, and he feared that biological assaults on the United States would invite retaliation with germ or chemical weapons being developed by America.

Yet the Japanese Army was apparently willing to use biological weapons against the Allies in some circumstances. When the United States prepared to attack the Pacific island of Saipan in the late spring of 1944, a submarine was sent from Japan to carry biological weapons it is unclear what kind - to the defenders.

The submarine was sunk, Professor Tsuneishi says, and the Japanese troops had to rely on conventional weapons alone.

As the end of the war approached In 1945, Unit 731 embarked on its wildest scheme of all. Codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night, the plan was to use kamikaze pilots to infest California with the plague.

Toshimi Mizobuchi, who was an instructor for new recruits in Unit 731, said the idea was to use 20 of the 500 new troops who arrived in Harbin in July 1945. A submarine was to take a few of them to the seas off Southern California, and then they were to fly -in a plane carried on board the submarine and contaminate San Diego with plague-infected fleas. The target date was to be Sept. 22, 1945.

Ishio Obata, 73, who now lives in Ehime prefecture, acknowledged that he had been a chief of the Cherry Blossoms at Night attack force against San Diego, but he declined to discuss details. "It is such a terrible memory that I don't want to recall it," he said.

Tadao Ishimaru, also 73, said he had learned only after returning to Japan that he had been a candidate for the strike force against San Diego. "I don't want to think about Unit 731," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Fifty years have passed since the war. Please let me remain silent."

It Is unclear whether Cherry Blossoms at Night ever had a chance of being carried out. Japan did indeed have at least five submarines that carried two or three planes each, their wings folded against the fuselage like a bird.

But a Japanese Navy specialist said the navy would have never allowed Its finest equipment to be used for an army plan like Cherry Blossoms at Night, partly because the highest priority in the summer of 1945 was to defend the main Japanese islands, not to launch attacks on the United States mainland.

If the Cherry Blossoms at Night plan was ever serious, it became irrelevant as Japan prepared to sur-render in early August 1945. In the last days of the war, beginning on Aug. 9, Unit 731 used dynamite to try to destroy all evidence of its germ warfare program, scholars say.

No Punishment, Little Remorse

Partly because the Americans helped cover up the biological warfare program in exchange for its data, Gen. Shiro Ishii, the head of Unit 731, was allowed to live peacefully until his death from throat cancer in 1959. Those around him in Unit 731 saw their careers flourish in the postwar period, rising to positions that included Governor of Tokyo, president of the Japan Medical Association and head of the Japan Olympic Committee.

By conventional standards, few people were more cruel than the farmer who as a Unit 731 member carved up a Chinese prisoner without anesthetic, and who also acknowledged that he had helped poison rivers and wells. Yet his main intention in agreeing to an interview seemed to be to explain that Unit 731 was not really so brutal after all.

Asked why he had not anesthetized the prisoner before dissecting him, the farmer explained: "Vivisection should be done under normal circumstances. If we'd used anesthesia, that might have affected the body organs and blood vessels that we were examining. So we couldn't have used anesthetic."

When the topic of children came up, the farmer offered another justification: "Of course there were experiments on children. But probably their fathers were spies."

"There's a possibility this could happen again," the old man said, smiling genially. "Because in a war, you have to win."


3 posted on 2005/11/13 12:54:29 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]
A Preliminary Review of Studies of Japanese Biological Warfare Unit 731 in the United States

Introduction

In the midst of continuous denial by important members of the Japanese government individually or collectively that Japan was an aggressor in World War II, the planned exhibition of the Smithsonian Institute to commemorate the end of WWII in Asia has turned into an unusually fervid debate, with which an interest in discussing and writing on Japan's wartime atrocities has been aroused. Most prominent among numerous writings on the subject is "Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity" penned by Nicholas D. Kristof and published in New York Times on March 17, 1995. The article has given us a detailed account of the most shocking, heinous, cruel crime the civilized world has ever known: Japanese Unit 731 used human beings for vivisection in order to develop biological weapons. Equally unbelievable is that the United States has covered up the crime in exchange for the data on human experiments, an act utterly ignoring international laws and human justice. What a great irony to the lofty ideal of democracy and the so-called "American civilization" of the 20th century!

The shock created by Kristof's article has been felt primarily in the U.S. and a few Western countries. However, as early as 1949, the Soviet Union held a week long trial at Khabarovsk of the Japanese war criminals for biological warfare. Among those tried, 12 people were associated with 731, including General Yamada Otozo, Commander-in-Chief of the Kuantung Army, Lt. Gen. Ryuiji Kajitsuka, Chief of the Medical Administration, and Lt. Gen. Takaatsu Takahashi, Chief of the Veterinary Division, both in the Kuantung Army; Maj. Gen. Kiyoshi Kawashima, longtime head of Unit 731's production department; Maj. Gen. Shunji Sato, head of Unit 731's Canton branch; and Lt. Col. Toshihide Nishi, Major Tomio Karasawa, Maj. Maso Onoue, Lt. Zensaku Hirazakura, Senior Sergeant Kazuo Mitomo, Corporal Norimitsu Kikuchi, and Private Yuji Kurushima, all of Unit 731. The entire proceedings of the trial were published under the title "The Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons" by Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow, 1950.

Since 1940, in Chinese theater, Ishii Shiro had led his Unit 731 to engage in biological warfare by attacking Ningpo, Chinhua, Chuchou of Chechiang province (during the Japanese-Soviet war at Nomonhan, Mongolia in the summer of 1939, Unit 731 was dispatched to the front to make bacterial assault). To retaliate the U.S. air raid of Tokyo led by Col. Doolittle in April 1942, from which over 60 U.S. airmen were rescued in Chechiang area, Japan launched a largescale mopping-up campaign, in which several hundred men from Unit 731 and its subsidiary Unit 1644 of Nanking took part. Early in November 1941, Unit 731 dispatched an airplane to spread bubonic plague at Changte, Hunan, which was verified by Dr. E. J. Bannon of American Presbyterian Church hospital at Changte. The event was well known to American and British intelligence agencies at Chungking and besides the Chinese government had fully informed the American and British government of it through its ambassadors Wellington Koo at London and Hu Shih at Washington.

Chinese authorities had long learned that Japan used biological warfare against China and had repeatedly appealed to international communities for help. Before making their escape at the time of Japanese surrender, Japanese in Unit 731 set free scores of thousands of infected rats that caused widespread plague in 22 counties of Heilungchiang and Kirin provinces that took more than 20,000 Chinese lives. As the plague was well publicized in newspapers and periodicals, many Chinese became aware of Japan's employing biological warfare in China during the war. While the Korean was raging, North Korea and China accused the United States of using biological warfare that rekindled the public interest in probing Unit 731. Among thousands of Japanese prisoners of war (POW) repatriated from Siberia, some belonged to Unit 73 1. Together with those Japanese POWs then detained in China, they were tried in a special court at Shenyang (Mukden) in June 1956. Strikingly one of them was Ken Yuasa, the doctor mentioned in Kristof's article in the New York Times. Some others under trial included important members of Unit 73 1: Major Hideo Sakakihara who was in charge of Hailar branch of Unit 731 (there were four branches under Unit 731: Hailer, Sunwu, Linkou, and Mutanchiang), Dr. Yataro Ueda, Yukio Yoshizawa, Masauji Hata, etc. and also police affairs chief of the Kuantung Army Mibu Saito as well as many captains of Kempeitai (military police) who were responsible for providing Unit 731 with victims for vivisection (their oral and written testimonies were reprinted in a book entitled Chemical and Biological Warfares published by Chunghua Book Company in 1989).

Both chemical and biological warfares were banned by the Geneva Convention of 1925. Totally disregarding international laws and human morality, Japan employed poison gas bombs in the Wusung-Shanghai campaign at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese war in August 1937. But not until Japan dropped bacterial bombs at Changte, did President Roosevelt issue a strong statement of protest on June 5, 1942, warning against Japan by saying that if Japan continued to use poison gases or other forms of inhuman warfare, it would invite U.S. retaliation in full measure. It was about this time, U.S. started its own biological warfare research with the approval of Roosevelt, but that ever since has been kept secret from the public. Also kept from the public is the U.S. role in suppressing all efforts to put Unit 731 on trial in the Tokyo Trial and its subsequent cover-up. As a result, unlike hundreds of Nazi doctors who were duly tried and sentenced in accordance with the "crime against humanity," Ishii and members of Unit 731 have not been brought to justice.

In the United States, the first person who uncovered serious atrocities committed by Unit 731 and raised the issue of possible U.S. cover-up was John W. Powell, Jr. (who took over his father's publication, The China Weekly, at Shanghai, which was suspended in June 1953, followed by his return to America. After his return, he had suffered from inexorable persecution). In the October 1981 issue of Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, jointly with Gomer and Rolling, he published "Japan's Biological Weapons, 1930-1945." However, a detailed, book-length account of the Japanese biological warfare Unit 731 and U.S. cover-up had not been available until Peter Williams and David Wallace, two British journalists, published their book, Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1989; a translation was made by Tien-wei Wu and published by Academia Historica, Taipei, 1992).

On the foundation of the joint work of Williams and Wallace, Professor Sheldon Harris completed his monumental book, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and The American Cover-up (New York: Routledge, 1994). This article will try to compare Harris's work with that of Williams and Wallace and see whether Harris has succeeded in solving those questions first raised by Williams and Wallace and what remains for further academic inquiries. Before making the comparison between the two works, this writer will first report on what has been regarded as new or unheard-of in Kristofs article. So far as atrocities committed by Unit 731 are concerned, the most shocking revelation made by Kristof may be: (1) without giving anesthetic to the victim, vivisection was performed by Unit 731 doctors; (2) even three-day old baby was used for experimentation; and (3) Japan planned to use biological warfare against the United States.

In December 1944, Japan started a balloon assault on the U.S. by sending about 200 balloon bombs, but not germ bombs, to the west coast, each 30 feet in diameter and 91 feet round. They caused the deaths of 7 people. The person taking charge of the investigation of the balloons was none other than Murry Sanders, the man who was first sent to Japan to investigate Unit 731. Forty years later, Sanders recalled:

The only explanation I had, and still have, is that Ishii wasn't ready to deliver what he was making in Pingfang; that he hadn't worked out the technology. If they had been, we were at Ishii's mercy.

Moreover, Tojo had been the staunch supporter of Ishii and biological warfare. Dating back to his days as commander of Kempeitai of the Kuantung Army, Tojo was responsible for supplying Unit 731 with live experiment victims. Upon assumming premiereship in October 1941, Tojo personally presented an award to Ishii for his contribution to developing biological weapons and had a picture taken with him, which appeared in major newspapers. Unfortunately Tojo's responsibility for making biological weapons and using them was not charged at the Tokyo Trial. If Tojo indeed was opposed to using biological assault on the U.S. as Kristof believes, he did it probably not out of fear of U.S. retaliation rather than Japan's inability to deliver biological weapons.

Finally Kristof reports that one month before Japan surrendered, it still tried to send the "Kami kazi" suicide airplane with plague bombs carried by a submarine to attack San Diego on the west coast. Undoubtedly this is a piece of new information to fortify the belief that Japan on the eve of surrender still clung to a hope that the wheel of fortune might turn to its favor so as to escape the fate of unconditional surrender. The rest of Kristof s report was largely borrowed from the two books in question, which will be discussed in the ensuing pages.

I. The Origin of Unit 731

At the conclusion of World War I in 1918, the medical bureau of Japanese army set out to study biological warfare and assigned Major Terunobu Hasebe to head the research team, who was soon succeeded by Dr. Ito with a team of 40 scientists. This lasted a few years. However, the real beginning of Japan's biological warfare came only with the rise of Ishii Shiro. Ishii was graduated from the medical department of Kyoto University in 1920, and immediately joined the army. In 1924, he returned to Kyoto University for graduate studies, during which he married the daughter of President Torasaburo Akira of the University. He was awarded with Ph.D. in 1927. He rejoined the army and began to propagate biological warfare.

Harnessing the rising tide of Japanese militarism, Ishii rose to power which was redounded to three elements. First, in the name of a military attache, Ishii was sent to Europe in 1928. He pent the next two years in Europe and America to survey biological research in Western countries. After his return, he was promoted to major, and devoted himself to promoting research and manufacturing of biological weapons buttressed up by a theory that modem war could only be won by science and technology and that manufacturing biological weapons is most economical, particularly suitable for a country like Japan who is poor in natural resources. Second, Ishii found willing, powerful supporters in the army: Col. Tetsuzan Nagata, chief of military affairs; Col. Yoriniichi Suzuki, chief of lst tactical section of Army General Staff Headquarters; Col. Ryuiji Kajitsuka of medical bureau of the army; and Col. Chikahiko Koizumi, the Army's surgeon general (at the end of the war, he served as Minister of Public Health and comniitted suicide for fear of being prosecuted on war crimes), known as "father of Japanese chemical warfare; and the Minister of the Army and later as Education Minister Sadao Araki, leader of the "imperial way" faction in the Japanese army. Third, shortly after Ishii's return from Europe, a kind of meningitis erupted in Shikoku, for which Ishii designed his water filter which helped stop the spread of the disease, thereby making his name known, especially in the army where he became the most famous bacteriologist. In spite of all this, Ishii's greatest asset to his success probably lies in his lack of morality strongly required for a physician. He apparently excelled others in being sycophantic to his peers, while oppressive to his subordinates. Finally he was so lavish with money as he became a frequent, valuable customer of geisha houses.

Less than half a year after Japan launched the September 18 Mukden Incident in 1931, Japan occupied the whole of China's northeast or Manchuria. Ishii and Japanese military seized the opportunity to move the center for bacteriological research at the Army's Medical College established in 1930 to northern Manchuria for expansion with a view to making the Soviet Union the hypothetic enemy. A special advantage for this move was that the Kuantung Army could kill Chinese at will and provide for unlimited supply of human experiment materials. With Chinese lives at no cost, Japan could lead the world in biological warfare.

At the end of August, 1932, Ishii led a group of 10 scientists from the Army's Medical College to make a tour of Manchuria and came back with the decision to make Harbin the center biological research, while choosing a site at Peiyin River, 20 kilometers south of Harbin. to build a factory for human experiments. To confuse the public, Ishii's center inaugurated at the end of 1932 was sometimes called Kamo Unit and other times Togo Unit. Then Ishii was promoted to lieutenant colonel and the 1933 budget of Kamo Unit was a staggering some of 200,000 yen.

The year 1936 marked the establishment of two units by order of Emperor Hirohito: one was Ishii's unit (to the outside it was called "Epidemic Prevention and Water purification Department of the Kuantung Army," whose name was not changed to Unit 731 until 1941), which was to be relocated to a new base at Pingfan, 20 kilometers southwest of Harbin. The other was the Wakamatsu Unit (after the name of its commander Yujiro Wakamatsu, later changed to Unit 100) to be built at Mengchiatun, near Changchun; to the outside it was called Department of Veterinary Disease Prevention of the Kuantung Army. In June 1938, Unit 731 moved to its new location at Pingfang occupying an area of 32 sq. kilometers which was marked off as "no man's land." In the meantime, Ishii had a promotion to full colonel with 3,000 Japanese working under him.

Both the joint work of Williams and Wallace and Harris's new book based their accounts of the early history of Unit 731 upon the Fifty Year History of the Tokyo Amy Medical College (Tokyo, 1988); Seiichi Morimura, The Devil's Gluttony. 3 volumes (Tokyo, 1982-85); and Kei'ichi Tsuneishi's two books, The Germ Warfare Unit That Disappeared (Tokyo, 198 1) and with Tomizo Asano, The Bacteriological Warfare Unit and the Suicide of Two Physicians (Tokyo 1982). Both works made a thorough use of the Khabarovsk Trial, particularly the testimony give by Ryuiji Kajitsuka who himself was a physician and a bacteriologist. Also both were consulted with a posthumous work by Saburo Endo who was a colonel in the general staff of the Kuantung Army and made an inspection tour of Unit 731 in 1933. Harris's work had even consulted Endo's diary which was published in 1985. Both works confirm the amount of Unit 731's 1933 budget as 200,000 yen and that Emperor Hirohito decreed the establishment of the two biological warfare Units 731 and 100 in Manchuria.

II. U.S. Authorities Well Aware of Japan's Using Biological Warfare in China

As mentioned earlier, at the outbreak of the Wusung-shanghai campaign on August 13, 1937 and in front of the watching eyes of the American and British navies and many Europeans and Americans, the Japanese army used poison gas against Chinese troops. In the succeeding eight years of war, Japan in 14 Chinese provinces had used poison gases for 1, 131 times.

In the book by Williams and Wallace, there is a translation of Chinese accusation of Japan's dropping from airplane plague bacteria at Changte, Hunan, submitted by Chinese Ambassador to London Wellington Koo to the British government and the Conunittee for the Pacific War which reads:

On at least five occasions during the first two years the Japanese armed forces have tried to employ bacteriological warfare in China. They have tried to produce epidemics of plague in Free China by scattering plague-infected materials with airplanes.

These five times are: October 4, 1940, when Japanese airplane dropped plague bacteria at Chuhsien in Chechiang province which caused the deaths of 21 people. On the 29th of the same month, Japanese airplane spread plague bacteria at Ningpo, Chechiang which caused the deaths of 99 people. On November 28 of the same year, Japanese airplanes dropped a large quantity of germs at Chinhua but no death was reported. In January 1941 Japan spread plague germs in Suiyuan and Ninghsia provinces and again in Shansi that caused serious epidemic outbreaks of plague in these areas.

Not that the U.S. was not aware of the fruitful research on biological warfare the Japanese had accomplished. However, she did not take the Japanese biological program seriously, Harris believes, simply because Japan was far away from U.S. homeland and could not launch a massive attack on America and also because Japanese being Asian were incapable of developing sophisticated biological weapons without the help of white men. In the August 1942 Rocky Mountain Medical Journal , there appeared a lengthy article under the heading "Japanese Use the Chinese as 'Guinea Pigs' to Test Germ Warfare."

With increasing number of Japanese prisoners of war captured in the South Pacific, the U.S. found out that not only was Japan engaged in significant Biological research; its program was on a far larger scale than previously suspected. Americans then knew that Tokyo was the center for biological experimentation and that Ishii was the forerunner of Japanese biological warfare with his epidemic prevention and water purification headquarters at Harbin. Also known to the Americans, mainly from Japanese naval sources, were the size of Unit 731 and germ bombs being manufactured.

Not until September 1943, did the U.S. begin its own research on biological weapons with Lt. Col. Murry Sanders, a young bacteriologist, heading the program and with Camp Detrick in Maryland as its base. Although the United States was almost four years behind England in biological warfare research, its program grew rapidly and was capable of mass production. For instance, a spoonful botulinus toxin multiplied to fill the vat in 72 hours, to produce enough poison to destroy 50,000 or more men. The most successful experimentation achieved by Detrick was the virus being freeze-dried that could be delivered to the enemy's territory. It is natural that American scientists wished to acquire the fruits of Unit 731's research.

III. The Deal Between the United States and Former Members of Unit 731

Only one week after Japan surrendered, Col. Sanders was among the first group of Americans to land in Japan. His mission was to locate as soon as possible the Japanese biological warfare machine and Ishii himself. In the next three months, Sanders had interrogated many important military leaders and Scientists of Unit 731, notably Yoshijiro Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff and erstwhile Kuantung Army Commander-in-Chief, Ishii's deputy Col. Tomosa Masuda, germ bomb expert Major Jun'ichi Kaneko, but not Ishii himself.

Upon his arrival in Japan, Sanders was immediately under the deception of his interprete Lt. Col. Ryoichi Naito. He was a student of Ishii at the Tokyo Army Medical College. When serving as assistant professor at the college in 1939, Naito was sent to America. His mission was to get yellow fever strain from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, which was refused. Later at Pingfang, he became the right-hand man of Ishii. Eager to secure the experiment data of Unit 73 1, Sanders approached General Douglas MacArthur saying: "My recommendation is that we promise Naito that no one involved in BW will be prosecuted as war criminal." The recommendation was readily accepted by MacArthur. By September, Sanders discovered that Unit 731 was involved in human experiments and he took the issue to MacArthur whose response was, "We need more evidence. We can't simply act on that. Keep going. Ask more questions. And keep quiet about it."

Sanders spent only ten weeks in Japan and was ordered home. The second stage of investigation was taken over by his Detrick colleague Lt. Col. Arvo T. Thompson, a veterinarian. After his return, Sanders was protracted to tuberculosis and invalid for the next two years, having forever lost the chance to come back to Japan to renew the investigation of Unit 731. Forty year later, he told Williams and Wallace:

I talked to Arvo Thompson [who committed suicide in 1948] who was to carry of the next stage of the investigations. And I remember telling "Tommy" Thompson about the anthrax bomb and the experiments on the human beings. I told him specifically to look the anthrax experiments and the Uji bomb.

When Col. Thompson arrived in Japan, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East just began the trial of Japanese Class A war criminals. In the meantime, Maj. Gen. Kitano, Commander of Unit 731 from August 1942 to March 1944, was brought back to Japan from China to face interrogation. Though Ishii was declared dead in newspapers and a mock funeral was held in Ishii's home town, he was available for Thompson's interrogation which was to last from January 17 to February 25, 1946. Ishii's tactics of resistance was to speak as little as he could and minimize the magnitude of biological warfare research as much as possible. He admitted neither human experiments nor Emperor Hirohito's involvement and instead took the entire responsibility upon himself. Yet sometimes he boasted of his knowledge of biological warfare, for which he could have written many volumes. Like Sanders before him, Thompson was fooled. He finished his investigation report at the end of May 1946, augmenting knowledge on manufacturing germ bombs and technique of mass production of germs achieved by Unit 731.

Taking a hint from MacArthur, Chief Prosecutor of the Tokyo Trial Joseph B. Keenan (a Democrat politician from Ohio) suppressed the Soviet accusation against Japanese biological warfare criminals. Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, MacArthur's intelligence chief, was in charge of the whole affair of Unit 731, shielding its former members from any outside contact in order to avoid any research data on biological warfare fallen into the Soviet hands. Despite the fact that Lt. Col. Thomas H. Morrow (a lawyer from Ohio) of International Prosecution Section of the Tokyo Trial and David N. Sutton, head of its Document Division, made a trip to China to collect evidenc on Japanese waging biological warfare in China, during the afternoon of August 29, 1946 no sooner was the Unit 731 case raised than it was dropped. MacArthur was empowered "to approve, reduce or otherwise alter any sentence imposed by "the International Military 'Tribunal the Far East." Chief Prosecutor Keenan, though deriving his powers from the US government, handed control of the whole International Prosecution Section to MacArthur.

Williams and Wallace have ascribed the whole deal--that Ishii and members of Unit 731 were exonerated from being sued for war crimes in exchange for their human experiment data, a price paid by several thousand lives, most Chinese but some Soviets, Koreans, and Mongolians-largely to MacArthur. This is not quite true. Harris's new book has proved that U.S. scientists, mainly those from Detrick, were equally willing to make the deal, therefore bearing considerable responsibility.

In April 1947, General Allen Waitt, Commander of U.S. Chemical Corps, sent Camp Detrick bacteriologist Norbert Fell to Japan for investigation to assess the progress and level of achievement in biological warfare. To Fell, Ishii, Maj. Gen. Hitoshi Kikuchi, Col. Tomosada Masuda and Dr. Kan'ichiro Kamei, particularly the last mentioned, who earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University, had repeatedly expressed that more valuable data were forthcoming on condition of their immunity from war crimes. They insisted that verbal promise would not do. On May 5, 1947, MacArthur sent a radio message to Washington making the following recommendation:

Ishii states that if guaranteed inmmunity from "war crimes" in documentary form for himself, superiors and subordinates, he can describe program in detail ... Complete story, to include plans and theories of Ishii and superiors, probably can be obtained by document immunity to Ishii and associates.

The above message put the State-War-Navy Co-ordinating Conunittee at Washington into crucial dilemma. Its sub-committee for the Far East did not complete its report on MacArthur's May 6 recommendation until August 1, and in the report a comparison of Nazi scientists and doctors as war criminals was drawn:

Experiments on human beings similar to those conducted by the Ishii group have been condemned as war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the trial of major Nazi war criminals in its decision handed down at Nuremberg on September 30, 1946. This Government is at present prosecuting leading German Scientists and medical doctors at Nuremberg for offenses which included experiments on human beings which resulted in the suffering and death of most of those experimented on.

Ironically, the conclusion the Committee for the Far East reached was: "The value to the U.S. of Japanese BW data is of such importance to national security as to far outweigh the value accruing from war crimes' prosecution." In spite of the State Department strongly dissenting as such a course would be a violation of international laws and detrimental to human morality and once revealed, it would be a source of serious embarrassment to the United States, the SWNCC accepted MacArthur's recommendation and decided that "the BW information obtained from Japanese sources should be retained in 'top secret' intelligence channels and not be employed as war crimes evidence" and not be fallen into the Soviet hands. However, the formal reply to MacArthur's recommendation had dragged on until March 13, 1948, when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent his cable of approval to Tokyo.

From Sanders's first investigation in the autumn of 1945, MacArthur acceded to granting immunity to members of Unit 731 in exchange for data of research on biological warfare. He also inculcated on Sanders to keep silence on "human experiments." And the belated reply from the Joint Chiefs to MacArthur's May 6, 1947 recommendation can only be construed on broad background. First, the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union began with Winston Churchill's March 1946 speech that the "iron curtain" was lowered in Eastern Europe, followed by Marshall's commencement speech at Harvard University next June which promised U.S. aids for rehabilitation of Western Europe. Then there was the Berlin blockade by the Soviet Union in June 1948, thus having constituted nearly 40 years of Cold War. Only viewed against this background, an we understand why the United States tried its utmost to get ahead in the biological warfare.

The second element which is also related to the first is that the granting of immunity from war crimes of Unit 731 fell in the province of MacArthur's authority. Then he was virtually a "super emperor of Japan." For the expediency of his rule in Japan or for his love for the Japanese that had been generated, by 1947 MacArthur had lost his interest in pursuing the issue of war criminals and in making Japan to pay war reparations to the victimized nations, particularly China. Just as Fell once said in connection with MacArthur Headquarter's secret funding for Unit 731: "The feeling of several staff groups in Washington, including G-2, is that this problem is more or less a 'family' affair in FEC [Far East Command]." Hence that Washington respected MacArthur's opinion was rather natural.

IV. U.S. Prisoners of War Used for Experiment by Unit 731 and the Issue of
American Use of Biological Warfare in Korean War

As early as January 6, 1946, the Pacific Stars and Stripes, an official organ of the U.S. Army, reported that Americans were among the victims of Ishii's human experiments. A week later, similar reports was ensued in New York Times, hence news about Allied prisoners of war to have been used as human guinea pigs were sporadically divulged. An U.S. government document dated August 1947 has this to say:

It should be kept in mind that there is a remote-possibility that independent investigation conducted by the Soviets in the Mukden area may have disclosed evidence that American prisoners of war were used for experimental purposes of a BW nature and that they lost their lives as a result of these experiments.

Until 1956, the Federal Bureau of Investigation continued to accept as fact that U.S. prisoners of war were used in human experiments. In the 1960s, the issue no longer riveted the public interest. In 1976, Japanese television broadcast a documentary entitled "A Bruise-Terrors of the 731 corps," which rekindled the public interest which grew apace in America in the 1980s. Out of 1,485 Allied white prisoners of war taken to Mukden, 1, 174 were Americans. In their first winter (1942-43) at Mukden, 430 perished, most Americans. No matter how desperate American survivors from Mukden, like Gregory Rodriquez of Oklahoma, tried to tell how they were used by Unit 731 for human experiments, an accusation verified by Naoji Uezono, former member of Unit 731, U.S. Congress turned a deaf ear , thereby being irresponsible for paying their medical benefits and compensations. A British Major Robert Peaty kept a diary while detained in Mukden that gives sufficient evidence of Unit 731's using Allied prisoners of war as guinea pigs. Another Australian doctor R. J. Brennan also kept a diary, indicating that how the prisoners of war underwent experimentation. What bothered him most was one day 150 American prisoners were forced to march out of the camp, from which they never returned.

For over ten years, Rodriquez's son has persistently lobbied in Washington on behalf of his father and other survivors from Mukden. Not only does he ask for compensations to the victims; moreover he wants that the crimes of Japan using the prisoners of war for human experiments be known to the world. He told this writer that there is a former Mukden prisoner now living in Oklahoma who was taken to Pingfang, Harbin. The chapter "BW Experiments on Prisoners of War?" of Harris's new book has given great details, but had some discrepancies in figures. Also it is hard to accept his conclusion. He says that death rate at Mukden Camp was about 12 percent, almost all being Americans. Both Jack-Roberts of the royal Army Medical Corps and Frank James, a sergeant in the U.S. signal Company, confirmed that in that first winter, 430 men died. In the August 6, 1943 entry of Major Peaty's diary, "there are now 208 dead"; in the November 21, 1943 entry, "there are now over 230 dead." 430 plus 230 have made 44 percent of the Mukden POW population. Further, how many more deaths would have been in the next two years!

According to Harris's tally, there were only 238 POW dead at Mukden Camp and 1,617 survivors, figures which are far apart from those given by former British and American POWs at Mukden. His conclusion is that "American POWs may have been victims of BW tests, but there is no substantive evidence to prove that the experiments took place at Camp Mukden."

It is unthinkable that Harris wrote only two pages on the issue of U.S. using biological warfare in the Korean War, which he apparently did not want to talk about; in contrast, Williams and Wallace used 51 pages, one-sixth of the whole book dealing with the subject. China and North Korean began to accuse the United States of using CW and BW on March 5, 1951, a campaign which was stopped only with the conclusion of the war in 1953. Most importantly, International Science Committee composed of renown "Leftist" scientists sent a delegation to China and North Korea, whose investigation lent support to the accusation. This writer would take issue with Professor Harris for his using the term "Leftist." Could we ask: Is J. Robert Oppenheimer, "father of atomic bomb" also labeled Leftist scientist? Does being Leftist make one non-scientific? And then how about "Rightist" scientist? The six that came to China and North Korea included Dr. Joseph Needham who just died last March. Needham's studies of Chinese culture (he had studied the history of Chinese science and technology for over fifty years) and his concern for China had won esteem of Chinese intellectuals both in Taiwan and the Mainland, who would not question the results of his investigation and regard them as propaganda. Harris believes that the issue of American use of biological warfare cannot be clarified until archives of all countries concerned are open. Surely we hope this can be realized soon, but at the same time should point out that the release of more archival materials cannot overthrow a scientific investigation already made.

Also, Harris tried to water down the issue of confession given by U.S. airmen under captivity. Col. Frank H. Schwable was the chief of the First Marine Air Wing. After having been captured, Schwable and Major Roy Bley made "confessions" stating that "the joint Chiefs of Staff had directed U.S. forces to carry out planned germ warfare and that the order was part of a directive given to General Ridgway in October 1951" (New York Times, February 23, 1953).

At least as important as Schwable were Col. Walker F. Mahurin, World War II fighter ace and an assistant executive to US Secretary for Air Finletter, and Col. Andrew J. Evans, a former secretary to Air Chief of Staff Vandenberg. Before coming to Korea, Mahurin was commander of the First Fighter Interceptor Group in California which supplied men and equipment to the 51st and 4th fighter wings near Seoul. After being released, Mahurin was elected as spokesman for all POW fliers. All the 25 airmen who made confession under captivity had repudiated their confessions and denied BW charges. But Mahurin wrote his memoirs (Honest John published by Putnam of New York without date) which reveals and contradicts some of his sworn repudiation to his confession.

Any fair-minded person would not believe that the United States had tried to unleash a large-scale biological warfare in the Korean war. Needham said in reminiscence:

I felt then, and still feel, that attacks using toxic aerosols would have been far more dangerous, but I think the Americans just wanted to see what degree of success could be obtained with the essentially Japanese methods. My judgment was never based on anything which the downed airmen had said, but rather entirely on the circumstantial evidence.

As a matter of fact, over the issue of whether or not the United States was engaged in biological warfare, irrefutable evidence is still lacking; hopefully it could be resolved in the near future. Should it then prove that the U.S. indeed used biological warfare, one would not be surprised. Let us bear in mind that at his November 30, 1950 news conference, when asked "Does mean that there is active consideration of the use of the atomic bomb?" President Truman said: "There has always been active consideration of its use. I don't want to see it used. It is a terrible weapon."

V. Conclusion

The new work on Unit 731 by Harris as the joint work by Williams and Wallace certainly reflects years of studies, traveling for collecting archival materials which had long been closed and conducting interviews with former members of Unit 731 and others involved who otherwise would have kept silence on the sensitive issues of Japanese biological warfare and American cover-up. Despite the fact that the two works have not solved all the questions such as Japan's plan for using biological weapons to stop the invading Soviet army north of the Yalu River and to repel the landing of U.S. forces in Kyushu in the south, they together have given us a thorough understanding of the developments of Japanese and American biological warfare and how the immunity from war criminal charges granted to Ishii and members of Unit 731 had been done. Undoubtedly the two books combined represent a breakthrough in scholarship and have made a great contribution to the general public.

As in any excellent work, it is easy to carp some criticism, both works have made insufficient references to Chinese sources. Since Unit 731 caused a terrible havoc to the Chinese people, information about which has largely been found in Chinese materials. For instance, in the collection entitled Selected Archival Meterials of Japanese Imperialist Aggression against China: Biological Warfare and Poison Gas Warfare (Beijing: Chunghua Book Company, 1989), there are testimonies given by scores of members of Unit 731 and people aasociated with it are invaluable source materials. For the celebration of the 50th anniversary of China's victory in the War of Resistance against Japan, a comprehensive work treating the subject of Japanese biological warfare against China will make its appearance. Still, crucial to our knowledge of Unit 731 are Japanese sources. Recently a few former members of Unit 731, regardless of the pressure from the Japanese government, resolutely came out and gave their witnesses to truth and history and for their posterity. It is anticipated that what remain to be riddles of Unit 731 will soon be revealed to the world.


4 posted on 2005/11/13 12:56:28 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]
Deadly Knowledge

Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare,
1932-45, and the American Coverup
By Sheldon H. Harris
Routledge

Decades before the Aum Shinri Kyo religious sect began gassing subways, the Japanese government funded another horror: the world's most brutal biological warfare (BW) experiments on human subjects. According to writer Sheldon Harris, all of this was delicately covered up for years by the United States in return for the valuable test data.

From the time Japan occupied all of Manchuria in 1931-1932 until the 1945 surrender to Allied forces, the Manchurian countryside became pockmarked with ugly scientific buildings known to locals only as "lumber mills," surrounded by moats and patrolled by aircraft. In these macabre fortresses, deadly microbes - such as anthrax, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery - were tested on live human subjects, who were either kidnapped from neighboring villages or shipped in via POW boats. Once the subjects - or "material" - had exhausted their usefulness and died, the corpses were cremated on-site or dumped in mass graves. Occasionally a nearby town was surreptitiously infected with plague germs. After inhabitants showed terminal symptoms, the test was deemed successful, and the community burned to destroy all evidence.

Sheldon Harris has spent the past 10 years compiling the definitive tome on the subject. One chilling account describes an outdoor test performed on Chinese prisoners:

"The subjects were bound to stakes some 10 to 20 meters away from a shrapnel bomb that was loaded with gas gangrene. The object was not to kill the men by exploding the bomb, but to test the effectiveness of gas gangrene as a BW weapon in below zero temperatures. Consequently, 'their heads and backs were protected with special metal shields and thick quilted blankets, but their legs and buttocks were left unprotected.' Using a remote-control device, the researchers exploded the bomb, and 'the shrapnel, bearing gas gangrene germs, scattered all over the spot where the experimentees were bound. All the experimentees were wounded in the legs or buttocks, and seven days later they died in great torment.'"

According to Harris's exhaustive research, three principal leaders of the BW program - Ishii Shiro, Kitano Masaji, and Wakamatsu Yujiro - were responsible for camps with ominously nondescript names like Unit 731 or Unit Ei1644. Once the war ended, all three men escaped prosecution. United States investigators reportedly cut a deal with them, promising complete immunity in exchange for their data, which was hidden from the War Crimes Tribunal and confined solely to the intelligence community. Thus, when the trials ended in 1948, Soviet and United States intelligence agents swarmed over Japan in a Cold War panic, hurriedly interviewing all known participants. The same questions were on all of their minds:

How did the Japanese do it? What were the results?

The American coverup was kept secret until a 1981 article in the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" by John W. Powell Jr., which eventually led to investigative segments on 60 Minutes and 20/20. Even today, 50 years after the Japanese death factories, United States intelligence still refuses to make public certain related information.

Harris's conclusion is open-ended. The reader is invited to ponder: What does the government have to hide? If the United States claims its own BW experiments ended in 1945, why were Persian Gulf soldiers inoculated with unproven vaccines, including anthrax, and why are 67 percent of their children born with severe illnesses or birth defects? When Factories of Death starts raising questions, they reach uncomfortably close to home.


5 posted on 2005/11/13 12:58:07 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]
A Preliminary Review of Studies
of Japanese Biological Warfare Unit 731
in the United States

Angry at the Japanese atrocities in Nanjing during WWII, German diplomat John Rosen sent Magee's film to Nazi government and requested film be shown to Hilter and claimed Japanese army was a "Violent Killing Machine".
At a time when Japan is seeking permanent status in the United Nations Security Council, Mr. Chan's death serves as warning that a nation with a history of aggression, crimes against humanity, and with no signs of remorse, is not worthy of occupying a seat in the UN Security Council.

"The fellow knew that it was over for him, and so he didn't struggle." recalled the old former medical assistant of a Japanese Army unit in China in World War II, "But when I picked up the scalpel that's when he began screaming. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped." The former medical assistant who insisted on anonymity, explained the reason for the vivisection. The Chinese prisoner had been deliberately infected with the plague as part of a research project - the full horror of which is only now emerging - Japanese Army set up Headquarters of Unit 731 near Harbin, China to develope plague bombs for use in World War II. After infecting him, the researchers decided to cut him open to see what the disease does to a man's inside. NO anesthetic was used, he said, out of concern that it might have an effect on the results.

The research program was one of the great secrets of Japan during and after World War II : a vast project to develope weapons of biological warfare, including plague, anthrax, cholera and a dozen other pathogens. Unit 731 was comprised of over three thousand researchers and technicains. It was a gigantic research center focused on biological weapons. The vivisection was also routinely used for practicing various kinds of surgery says Dr. Ken Yuasa, a former Japanese doctor working in China during the War. First an appendectomy, then an amputation of an arm and finally a tracheotomy. When they finished practcing, they killed the patient with an injection.

Medical researchers also locked up diseased prisoners with healthy ones, to see how readily various ailments would spread. The doctors put others inside a pressure chamber to see how much the body can withstand before the eyes pop from their sockets. To determine the treatment of frostbite, prisoners were taken outside in freezing weather and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water, until the frozen arm emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck.

The doctors even experimented on a three-day-old baby, measuring the temperature with a needle stuck inside the infant's middle finger to keep it straight to prevent the baby's hand clenching into a fist. Victims were often taken to a proving ground called Anda, where they were tied to stakes and bombarded with test weapons to see how effective the new technologies were. Planes sprayed the zone with a plague culture or dropped bombs with plague-infected fleas to see how many people would die.

The Japanese Army regularly conducted "Field Tests". Planes dropped plague-infected fleas over Ningbo in eastern China and over Changde in north-central China, Japanese troops also dropped cholera and typhnid cultures in wells and ponds.

Sheldon H. Harris, a historian at California State University in Northridge and author of a book on Unit 731, "Factories of Death" estimates that more than 200,000 Chinese were killed in germ warfare field experiments. Professor Harris also says plague-infected animals were released as the war was ending and caused outbreaks of the plague that killed at least 30,000 people in the Harbin area form 1946 through 1948.

In what Harris describes as a "Faustian bargain", the research was kept secret after the war in part because the U.S. granted immunity from war crimes prosecution to the Japanese doctors in EXCHANGE for their data. Japanese and American documents show that the United States helped cover up the human experimentation. Instead of putting the ringleaders on trial, U.S. gave them stipends.

When Japan launched its full scale invasion into China, Japan claimed that it would take only three months for them to conquer the whole China. Yet they had to spent three months just to capture Shanghai with great casualties to Japanese army. In December 13th 1937, Nanjing, the capital of China during the war, finally fell to the Japanese. Japanese military force immediately systematically start murdering Chinese civilian under the 'Take all, Kill all, Burn all' military policy. It was a well planned, full scale revenge designed to intimidate and crush the spirit of China. In the next six weeks, the Japanese committed the infamous Nanjing Massacre, or the Rape of Nanjing. The brutalities included shooting, stabbing, cutting open the abdomen, excavating the heart, decapitation, drowning, punching the body and eye with an awl. Thousands of civilians were buried or burn alive, or used as targets for bayonet practice, shot in large groups and thrown into Yangtze River. Soldiers competed in all kinds of "KILLING CONTEST" and sent the number of murders back to newspaper in Japan to publish.

"I have never been to hell, but there is a hell, it was in this city," reporter for the Tokyo Times told the killing in Nanjing. "At one time, after Nanking was captured, more than 30,000 Chinese were driven to the foot of the city wall. Machine guns then swept the crowd and grenades were thrown from atop the wall. The 30,000 people were all killed, most of them were women, children, and elderly." reported Toyoko Asahi Shimbun correspondent Yoshio Moriyama on December 14, 1937. A Dec. 15, 1937 entry to the diary of a Japanese soldier in the 23rd Regiment of the 18th Division, published in Tokyo Asahi Shimbun on August 4, 1984: "When we were bored, we had some fun killing Chinese. Buried them alive, or push them into a fire, or beat them to death with clubs, or kill them by other cruel means."

Witnessed the atrocities, Reverend John Magee used his camera and recorded the Massacre in a 16mm film. It is believed to be the only documentary about this infamous incident. He was an Episcopal pastor in charge of the so-called Nanjing Inernational Safety Zone created when Japanese army captured Nanjing in 1937.

Angry at the Japanese atrocities, German diplomat Mr. John Rosen sent a copy of Magee's film to the Nazi government. He also included a long report which claimed that the whole Japanese army was a "Violent Killing Machine". In it, he requested that the film be shown to Hitler.

Chinese and Japanese scholars were aware of the film but were unable to locate it. Japanese then said that since there was no proof, the Nanjing Massacre never occurred.

When the German Archive at Botsdam was opened in 1990 after collapsing of the Berlin Wall, the Rosen report surfaced, but the film's whereabouts were still unknown. After a long search, the four rolls of the film and the diaries were finally found in Yale University Library and in the house of Mr. David Magee, Reverend Magee's son. According to Magee's dairy, he could only record a very small part of what he witnessed since he was too busy to save lives.

Brackman, a reporter at the Tokyo Trial and author of the book "The Other Nuremberg" commented "The Nanjing Massacre was not the kind of isolated incident common to wars. It was deliberate. It was policy. It was known in Tokyo." Yet it was allowed to continue for over six weeks.

"In terms of measures and cruelty of the genocide, its duration and large numbers of people killed," says professor of history of Southern Illinois University "Neither Hiroshima nor Jewish Holocaust can rival the Nanjing Massacre." The international community estimated that more than 300,000 Chinese were killed, and 20,000 women were raped within six weeks of continuous Massacre.

Yet Japan often said that Japan's aim in World War II was simply to liberate Asia from Western colonialism and project themselves as the victims instead of perpetrators of World War II because atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ignoring all the facts that Nanjing Masscare and infamous Unit 731 were one of the Ugliest chapters against Humanity in the 20th century. Japan is responsible for the deaths of more than 20 million Chinese during the 14 years of invason, not to mention large numbers of Koreans, Indonesia (4 million), Vietnam (2 million), India (1.5 million), Filipions (1 million) and other Asian countries. It was a Holocaust committed by Japan in World War II and not yet confessed.

The debate has been smouldering in Japan for the past 40 years. History professor Saburo Lenaga, who has now become for many the living *conscience of Japan, has launched no less than three highly publicized lawsuits against the Department of Education. Based on his own research, he wrote a high school textbook which included Japan's terrible War crimes : Nanjing Massacre and infamous Unit 731. Time after time again, his manuscripts were sent back from the Education Department. He was asked to delete a reference to the Japanese "aggression" in China and told to use the words "military advance" instead. Regarding the Nanjing massacre, he had to haggle with education officials over the number of Chinese civilians killed. As for the infamous Unit 731, it was made clear that any mention of its existence would quite simply bar the book from publication. Finally Mr. Lenaga got angry and sued the Education Department.

The Lenaga's cases have encouraged testimonies and historical research. In view of the evidence being unveiled everywhere, the Education Department examiners have had no choice but to relax their criteria even before the final decision of the Supreme Court is handed down. It has now been 12 years since he launched his third lawsuit against the Education Department and there is no telling when the Supreme Court will deliver its final decision. He has lost all his cases before.

"Japan is a very strange country, truth cannot prevail," Nagase Takashi another former imperial solder, says in a mock incredulous voice. "So I am a citizen of the world and NOT a Japanese." Mr. Nagase is also a devoted crusader for a just cause. He dares to do the unthinkable in Japan. He calls the Japanese royal family the war criminal family, saying the Emperor should either commit harikiri or become a Shinto priest. Herohito could have stopped the war at any time. And he never took any responsibility.

Japan has successfully brainwashed its own people by glorifying Convicted CLASS A War Criminals As National Heroes and publicly denied the atrocities - Nanjing Massacre and Unit 731. In August this year, the Japanese Prime Minister and many officials even paid their respect at the shrine honouring their War Criminals. 80 % of the Japanese now do not know that Japan had ever invaded another country, he says. "They only know the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima and we lost the war." Mr. Nagase believes Japan DESERVED the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the atomic bombs immediately stopped the war, saving numerous lives of Japanese, PoWs, and civilians in Asian countries.

Japan, driven by the frenzy of militarism, committed unspeakable war crimes and atrocities of such great magnitude unmatched even by the Fascism and Nazism that most people have termed it "The Forgotten Holocaust in Asia". Following table is a comparison of the war atrocities :


----- By Nazis By Japan
US POWs captured & interned in WWII 96,614 33,021
US POWs died while interned 1,121 (1.1 %) 12,526 (37%)
US civilians captured & interned in WWII 4,749 13,996
US civilians died while interned 168 (3.5 %) 1,536 (11%)
(source: The Center for Civilian Internee Right, Inc.)

Germany has now regained the trust of her neighbours while Japan continues to invite suspicion from Asia.

In 1987, Japan shamelessly moved their war criminals' momorials into Yasukuni Shinto shrine to be worshipped as national heros. In July 1996, the Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto broke a decade long taboo by visiting shrine honoring these war criminals. The Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic party and right wingers even incorporated the worship as the national policy that the cabinet ministers should officially pay tribute to the shrine.

The Japanese constitution bans "land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential." Yet, because of the wonders of constitutional interpretation and encouraged by United State, Japan has now built its self-defense forces into one of the most powerful armies in Asia, supported by the equivalent of US $50 billion military budget, second or third largest in the world only after that of the United States, and probably Russia. From 1985 to 1994 Japan's military spending increased 58 % as Europe and US decreased theirs. For example, Germany decreased their military spending by 24.7 %. In contrast, Japanese military spending in 1994 was 44.6 billions in exceess of 61.1 % compared to China's spending of only 27.68 billions. Japan was the number 1 in the world spent $76,500 per military personnel which was 4.4% more than U.S.

German leaders consistantly apologize for their past aggression in the clearest possible terms. Former Chancellor Willy Brandt once even fell to his knees at the site of the Warsaw Ghetto in the tribute with the utmost sincerity to those who died there at the Nazi hands.

In Germany, it is a Crime to utter what is called "the Auschwitz lie" - denial of the death camps. For more than five decades, the Japanese have danced and dodged around the edges of their war Crimes and atrocities.

Germany has made generous acts of atonement and has paid 88 billions Mark in compensation and reparations to Jewish Holocaust victums and will spend another 20 billions Mark by 2005. Yet, Japan has virtually paid nothing and continues to maintain an innocence that contracts vividly with Germany's profound self-examination.

Also in contrast, the United States has compensated Japanese held in WWII internment camps with $20,000 each. Similar compensation was also given to the Candian Japanese by the Canadian government few years ago.

The constant reminders of the atrocities of Germany's Nazi regime is now recognized as a major preventive measure against the revival of Nazism in Germany. The annual commemoration of the victims of Hiroshima provides a strong basis for the resistance to the dangerous of nuclear wars. To bring attention to the Ugliest War Crimes against Humanity in 20th century committed by Japan can prevent the current resurgence of Militarism in Japan and anywhere in the world as well.

If Japan wants to play a larger political role in the World or to secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Concil, Japan MUST settle its past. Simply adopting a "No War Resolution" after half century denial without a formal sincere apology to the victims during the War, Japan missed again a golden opportunity to reconcil with its neighbours. Denial will not make the past go away. Only by facing the truth of history with courage as Germany, can Japan bring the wounds of war to a final closure. Until this is done, Japan remains as a country without SOUL.



6 posted on 2005/11/13 13:00:15 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]
Unit 731 Timeline

Timeline -

1925 -- Geneva Convention governing wartime conduct bans biological weapons. Japan refuses to approve treaty.

1932 -- Japanese troops invade Manchuria. Shiro Ishii, a physician and army officer who was intrigued by germ warfare, begins preliminary experiments.

1936 -- Unit 731, a biological-warfare unit disguised as a water-purification unit, is formed. Ishii builds huge compound -- more than 150 buildings over six square kilometers -- outside the city of Harbin. Some 9,000 test subjects, which Ishii and his peers called "logs," eventually die at the compound.

1942 -- Ishii begins field tests of germ warfare on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Tens of thousands die of bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases. U.S. soldiers captured in Philippines are sent to Manchuria.

1945 -- Japanese troops blow up the headquarters of Unit 731 in final days of Pacific war. Ishii orders 150 remaining ''logs'' killed to cover up their experimentation. Gen. Douglas MacArthur is named commander of the Allied powers in Japan.

1946 -- U.S. coverup of secret deal with Ishii and Unit 731 leaders -- germ warfare data based on human experimentation in exchange for immunity from war-crimes prosecution -- begins in earnest. Deal is concluded two years later.

1981 -- John Powell, a former publisher of a Shanghai magazine who was unsuccessfully tried for sedition in the early 1950s after accusing the United States of using germ warfare in Korea, exposes immunity deal in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

1985 -- Dr. Murray Sanders, a former lieutenant colonel who was a U.S. adviser on biological warfare, claims that he persuaded MacArthur to approve the immunity deal in the fall of 1945.

1986 -- Congressional subcommittee holds one-day hearing in Washington, called by Rep. Pat Williams of Montana, aimed at determining whether U.S. prisoners of war in Manchuria were victims of germ-warfare experimentation. Hearing is inconclusive.


7 posted on 2005/11/13 13:03:51 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]
Beheading of an Australian POW


8 posted on 2005/11/13 13:05:10 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]
Vivisection of a Man by Unit 731 Doctors


9 posted on 2005/11/13 13:06:00 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]
Vivisection of Girl Made Pregnant by the Operating Japanese Doctor


10 posted on 2005/11/13 13:06:52 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]
Bodies of the Experimentation Victims


11 posted on 2005/11/13 13:08:21 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]
Child Experimental Victim


12 posted on 2005/11/13 13:09:07 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]
Gas Testing


13 posted on 2005/11/13 13:09:56 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]
Live Burial


14 posted on 2005/11/13 13:10:47 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]
Ruins of Crematorium


15 posted on 2005/11/13 13:11:25 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]
Memorial Tower for Unit 731 in Tokyo


16 posted on 2005/11/13 13:12:12 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]
To: Calpernia
bump for later read


17 posted on 2005/11/13 13:12:24 by evolved_rage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
General Shiro Ishii, Head of Unit 731


18 posted on 2005/11/13 13:12:58 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]
http://centurychina.com


Army Doctor
YUASA KEN

He was imprisoned in China for crimes to which he confessed after the war, and returned to Japan after his release in 1956.

He now works in a clinic and lives near Ogikubo in Tokyo.

My father had his own practice in Shitamachi, the old district of Tokyo. I became a doctor myself in March 1941. I took the exam to become a short-term army doctor in the fall. Everyone passed. You can't fight a war without doctors. In December 1941, I entered the Twenty-Sixth Regiment in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, and within two months was promoted to first lieutenant. We were a privileged elite, treated as if we were different from the rest of the people.

I was soon dispatched to a city hospital in the southern part of Shansi province in China. I arrived there January 1, 1942. It was still bitterly cold that day in the middle of March when, just after lunch, the director of the hospital, Lieutenant Colonel Nishimura, summoned everyone together. Seven or eight MDs, an accounting officer, a pharmacist, and a dentist. All officers. He excused the housekeeper and other women. After they'd left, he said, "We'll be carrying out an operation exercise. Assemble again at one o'clock." I was chilled to the bone, but it wasn't the weather. I'd heard in before I went that they did vivisections there.

The hospital building adjoined a courtyard and a requisitioned middle-school building. Our patients were in there. There were nearly a hundred employees. Ten nurses, fifty to sixty technicians, some noncoms, too. I'm the kind of man who usually agrees to whatever I'm told to do. A "yes man," you could say. I remember that first time clearly. I arrived a little late; my excuse was that I had some other duties. ...

A solitary sentry stood guard. He saluted me the moment I opened the door. I then saw Medical Service Colonel Kotake and Hospital Director Nishimura, so I snapped to attention and saluted. They returned my salute calmly. I approached Hirano, my direct superior. That's when I noticed two Chinese close to the director. One was a sturdy, broadchecked man, about thirty, calm and apparently fearless, standing immobile. I thought immediately, that man's a Communist. Next to him was a farmer about forty years old. He was dressed as if he had just been dragged in from his field. His eyes raced desperately about the room. Three medics were there, holding rifles. Nurses were adjusting the surgical instruments by the autopsy tables. There were some fifteen or sixteen doctors present.

You might imagine this as a ghastly or gruesome scene, but that's not how it was. It was just the same as any other routine operation. I was still new to it. I thought there must be a reason for killing those people. I asked Hirano, but he just answered, "We're going to kill the whole Eighth Route Army."' I pretended to know what he meant. The nurses were all smiling. They were from the Japanese Red Cross.

The director said, "Let's begin." A medic pushed the steadfast man forward. He lay down calmly. I thoulyht he'd resigned himself to it. That was completely wrong. As a rule, Chinese don't glare at you. He had come prepared to die, confident in China's ultimate victory and revenge over a cruel, unjust Japan. He didn't say that aloud, but going to his death as he did spoke for itself. I didn't see that back then.

I was in the group assigned to the other fellow. A medic ordered him forward. He shouted, "No! No!" and tried to flee. The medic, who was holding a rifle, couldn't move as fast as the farmer, and I was a new officer, just arrived in the command. I was very conscious of my dignity as a military man. The hospital director was watching. I never really thought, if this man dies, what will happen to his family? All I thought was, it will be terribly embarrassing if I end up in a brawl, this man in farmer's rags and me dressed so correctly. I wanted to show off. I pushed that farmer and said, "Go fonvard!" He seemed to lose heart, maybe because I'd spoken up. I was very proud of myself. Yet when he sat on the table, he refused to lie down. He shouted "Ai-ya-a! Ai-ya-a!" as if he knew that if he lay down he was going to be murdered. But a nurse then said, in Chinese, "Sleep, sleep." She went on, "Sleep, sleep. Drug give" -Japanese-style Chinese. The Chinese of the oppressor always bears that tone, as if to say, "There's no possibility you will fail to understand what I'm saying." He lay down. She was even prouder than me. She giggled. The demon's face is not a fearful face. It's a face wreathed in smiles.

I asked the doctor who was about to administer lumbar anesthesia if he wasn't going to disinfect the point of injection. "What are you talking about? We're going to kill him," he replied. After a while, a nurse struck the man's legs and asked him if it hurt. He said it didn't, but when they tried to get him to inhale chloroform, he began to struggle. We all had to hold him down.

First, was practice in removing an appendix. That was carried out by two doctors. When a man has appendicitis, his appendix swells and grows very hard. But there was nothing wrong with this man, so it was hard to locate. They made an incision, but had to cut in another place and search until they finally found it. I remember that.

Next a doctor removed one of his arms. You must know how to do this when a man has shrapnel imbedded in his arm. You have to apply a tourniquet, to stanch the flow of blood. Then two doctors practiced sewing the intestines. If the intestine or stomach is pierced by bullets, that kind of surgery is a necessity. Next was the opening of the pharynx. When soldiers are wounded in the throat, blood gathers there and blocks the trachea, so you need to open it up. There is a special hook-shaped instrument for field use for cutting into the trachea. You drive it in, hook it open, then remove it, leaving only a tube behind. The blood drains out. It all took almost two hours. You remember the first time.

Eventually, all the doctors from the divisions left. Then the nurses departed. Only the director, the medics, and those of us from the hospital remained. The one I did, small-framed and old, was already dead. But from the sturdy man's mouth came, "Heh. Heh. Heh." One's last gasps are still strong. It gave us pause to think of throwing him, still breathing, into the hole out back, so the director injected air into his heart with a syringe. Another doctor-he's alive today-and I then had to try to strangle him with string. Still he wouldn't die. Finally, an old noncom said, "Honorable Doctor, he'll die if you give him a shot of anesthesia." Afterwards we threw him into the hole. This was the first time.

Japan's occupation of China was no more than a collection of dots and lines in a vast theater of operations. When a man suffered from appendicitis, you couldn't bring him to a hospital. His appendix had to be removed right there at the front line. But there weren't enough surgeons available. Even ophthalmologists or pediatricians had to be able to do it, and they didn't know how, so they practiced. Doctors weren't in China piimarily to cure illness. No, we were there so that when units clashed, the leaders could give orders to the soldiers and say, "We have doctors to take care of you. Charge on!" We were part of the military's fighting capability. It was easier to get men to fight if they thought there was a doctor to treat them when they were hit.

The next time we did it, we were practicing sewing up intestines for bullet wounds that had passed through the stomach. I remember the dentist was there, too, saying, "Oh, I've got his teeth!" The urologist removed the testicles. The hospital director said, "I will instruct you myself in this technique." He cut into the intestine and then sewed it back up. At that moment a phone call came for him, and he left the room to take it. One doctor observed the director's work and noticed something wrong: "It's sewed up backwards!" We all laughed. When the director returned, we were still snickering, but when he asked "What is it? What's the matter?" we just couldn't tell him. I remember fragments like this.

Orders for such exercises went from First Army headquarters, through the army hospital, and out to the divisions and brigades. in the beginning, exercises were conducted only twice, in the spying and the autumn. But by the end, we were getting doctors who couldn't do a thing, couldn't even handle instruments. Old men. I felt, we have to do this much more often. We should do it six times a year. I took the initiative and sought permission from the hospital. It was necessary to improve the technique of the army doctors. I did that as a loyal servant of the Japanese military. I felt I was willing to do anything to win. Doctor Ishii Shiro, the director of Unit 731, came to our hospital many times for education. "If the only way to win a war against America is bacterial warfare, I am ready. I will do anything," I thought. "This is war."

Besides training, I also treated patients. Sometimes they were wounded soldiers, but half suffered from tuberculosis. Infectious diseases, malaria, typhoid, dysentery, and liver diseases were common. I really enjoyed my work. When I went out to town, I could swagger, you know, swing my shoulders as a Japanese officer, feeling I was serving the nation, and watch people treat me well because they were afraid of me. Everybody saluted an officer. All the girls addressed me as "Honorable Military Doctor." If anybody showed even a trace of resistance, we could send him directly to the front. It was easy at the hospital. We had no worries about being killed. We had plenty of sakee. Anything we wanted. I felt I ruled the whole country. At morning roll call, they saluted me. I had only to say, straighten up that line, and they'd do it. They'd move back and forth until I told them to stop. I did it only for the sake of my own ego.

In late 1942, at the time of the battle for Guadalcanal, we realized things weren't going to be too easy. About forty doctors were gathered in the city of Taiyuan for a meeting. We were told to assemble at Taiyuan Prison, where I ended up myself a few years later. There, two men from the judicial corps brought out a couple of blindfolded Chinese. They then asked the doctor in charge of the meeting if everything was set. At his nod, they suddenly shot the Chinese, right in their stomachs, four or five times each. We then had to remove the bullets. That was our challenge. Could we remove them while they were still alive? That was how they measured the success or failure of the operation. When asked, "Want to do it?" I said, "No. I do this all the time." But eventually everyone got in on it, helping to control the bleeding or whatever. They both died.

We also carried out medic training. It was in 1944, at a time when we already knew we were going to lose. Those soldiers! Skinny and hardly able to write at all. I was in charge of education by then. I decided there was no way to teach them except by practical experience. I went to the Kempeitai and asked them to give us one of their prisoners. We practiced leg amputation. The one I got bore no traces of torture. I remember how surprised I was. "This one's real clean," I thought. I remember one soldier fainted.

Another time they sent us two for educational purposes. We didn't have many doctors at the time, so we were able to do all we had to do on just one of them. But we really couldn't send the other one back. So the director chopped his head off. He wanted to test the strength of his sword.

We received requests from a Japanese pharmaceutical company for brain-cortex tissue. They were making adrenocortical hormones. We cut tissue from the brains and sent it along. We sent one bottle. Then a second request came from the company for ten bottles, which we filled. This was a "private route." Everybody was involved.

....

I was imprisoned until 1956. That's when I returned to Japan.

All the doctors and the nurses who had been with me at that hospital in Shansi came to Shinagawa station to welcome me when I returned to Tokyo. The nurses said to me, "Doctor, you had such a hard time. We're so sorry for you." One man said, "Doctor Yuasa, I hope you did your best to assert your Emperor's policy was just and Communism was wrong." That's what they said! I told them, "Don't you remember? I did those things with you. You did them, too." The man I said that to seemed to shudder. Suddenly, for the first time, he recalled that he was a murderer!

It is scary. It's outrageous to murder a person. Yet it's far worse to forget that you've done it. That's the most horrible thing imaginable!

I did about ten men in three and a half years. Six times, all together, I took part in exercises to improve the technique of medical doctors. Removed brains, testicles. Most doctors did that, in the divisions, or in hospitals, all over China. Yet all keep quiet! Why do they forget? Every body did it. At that time we were doing something good. That's what we let ourselves believe. But they still keep their mouths shut. If they were to recall it, it would be unbearable. That's why they are silent. It was "because of the war." That's enough for them.


19 posted on 2005/11/13 13:23:02 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]
Japanese medical experiments during world war 2
20 posted on 2005/11/13 13:34:59 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]
To: Calpernia
lots of great material here ...


21 posted on 2005/11/13 14:38:22 by fnord (497 1/2 feet of rope ... I just carry it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]
Japan’s Role in Developing Biological Weapons in World War II
and its Effect on Contemporary Relations between Asian Countries


Most people have heard of the atrocities the Nazi’s committed against the Jewish people during World War II, but few have heard of the horrible treatments the Japanese inflicted on the Chinese, Koreans, Russians, and Americans in Manchuria China from 1932-1945. Unlike the Nazi trials, there has been no punishment enforced on the Japanese who participated in the mistreatment of humans in Manchuria.

The use of bubonic plague bombs and, subsequently, the release of plague on Chinese villages by the Japanese have had an impact on relations between the people of Japan and China today. The atrocities that took place in Manchuria are not the only events in history that have caused tensions between the two countries, but this paper’s focus is to address the impact that plague has had on their relations since World War II and how it has affected what has been allowed to be published in textbooks used in Japanese schools.

During WWII, the Japanese army had a secret biological warfare research unit in Manchuria called Unit 731. General Shiro Ishii was the lead physician of Unit 731; he reasoned that biological warfare must be dangerous and effective if it was banned by the Geneva protocol of 1925. He also tried to justify his research by noticing that the United States did not immediately sign the protocol; therefore, they must have biological weapons and were prepared to use them. A biological weapons research center was set up in 1933 with the help of General Ishii and many other workers in Manchuria rather than in Japan. Researching offensive biological weapons was deemed too for Japan proper. Japanese occupancy of Manchuria began in 1931. The occupancy not only gave the Japanese an advantage of separating the research station from their island, but also gave them access to as many Chinese individuals as they wanted for use as human experimental subjects. With Chinese lives for use at no cost, it was hoped by the Japanese that they could eventually lead the world in biological warfare (Wu 2002).

Years later, in 1938, the Manchurian research station moved to Pingfan, a town 20 kilometers southwest of Harbin. This new research station was called Unit 731 and was disguised as a water-purification facility named, “Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Unit of the Kwantung Army.” Unit 731 was comprised of 150 buildings surrounded by a wall and a dry moat, as well as high voltage wires, which did not resemble a water-purification facility. The buildings included accommodations for thousands of people, a railway siding, an incinerator, a power house with cooling towers, an animal house, an airfield, an insectarium, an administration building, an exercise yard, and a square-shaped building called Ro block. Blocks 7 and 8 were two other buildings hidden in the center of Ro block in which human experimentation took place (Williams and Wallace 1989).

Many bacterial diseases were studied to determine their warfare potential. The bacterial diseases included plague, anthrax, dysentery, typhoid, paratyphoid, cholera, in addition to many others. Disease vectors (mainly insects), new drugs, chemical toxins, and frostbite were also studied. The bacterial production area was designed to produce large quantities of bacteria and eventually use them as biological weapons. Before they could be used as weapons, they were tested for their virulence on potential enemies and for protective measures in case enemy countries used the biological weapons on them. To test the virulence of the bacteria, human subjects were deliberately infected and vivisected to determine the disease course inside the body. The Japanese claimed they did not want to use anesthesia or dead patients because they felt they would not obtain accurate information on what was happening to the human body. As one can imagine, to deliberately infect or harm an individual with the intent of fatality just to observe the course of the disease in the human body is terrifying in itself, but to perform a vivisection on a living human with no anesthesia for a “clearer” picture is unthinkable. By being able to experiment on humans, the Japanese scientists obtained great detail on the progression of a disease inside the body. The Japanese learned how to protect themselves against the disease. This information helped make their biological weapons program strong from both an offensive and defensive perspective (Williams and Wallace 1989).

The mechanism for transmission of infection was not well known at the time and Ishii wondered what could be used as the perfect biological weapon. He became interested in the plague bacterium as a candidate for a biological weapon because its casualties are higher than other diseases in proportion to the number of bacteria disseminated (Williams and Wallace 1989). Through many attempts, Ishii was able to construct a clay bomb filled with oxygen and plague-infected fleas that could drop from aircraft at a height of 200-300 meters and explode leaving no trace. Clay was used because it explodes quite easily without producing much heat, which destroyed the fleas in previous bomb attempts. The fleas were packaged inside the bomb along with oxygen to help them survive the high altitudes, and this allowed the planes to escape any enemy planes if they had to. Each bomb contained 30,000 fleas (Pulex irritans). Fleas have sturdy bodies and are small enough that they are resistant to air drag and because of their small mass, gravity also does not have much of an effect (Williams and Wallace 1989). These characteristics made it possible for the flea to jump from the broken clay bombs without many casualties and subsequently target the human population.

Plague bombs were not the only way bacteria were spread on the Chinese villages. Wheat and rice particles covered in Y. pestis as well as cotton wadding and pieces of paper carrying the bacteria were dropped from planes to infect and destroy food supplies with the bacteria by landing and contaminating maturing crops. People were infected if they came into contact with any infected rat, or flea, or by harvesting the food that was contaminated (Harris and Paxman 1982). Rats were the first victims of weaponized plague, and people eventually began to succumb to the disease. Many of the Chinese called it the rat plague because of the rapid deaths of rats in their villages, and their lack of knowledge of what it truly was. The Japanese army entered some of the villages after the bombs were dropped and set up “help” stations in public buildings like a church, and would coerce victims seeking help for their illness to come in. Instead of receiving medical attention, they were vivisected.

The growth and care of rats was an important part of the biological weapons research at Unit 731 because they were needed to keep the fleas alive for the plague bombs. It is estimated that 3 million rats lived within the walls of Unit 731. Many of these rats were infected with bubonic plague, and when Unit 731 was destroyed at the end of the war, these rats escaped into the countryside and caused epidemics of plague over several years (Daniels 2001). The free and infected rats produced epidemics of plague in 22 counties in China, costing more than 20,000 lives (Wu 2002).

Experiments performed by the Japanese occurred over 13 years, ending in 1945 when the Russians invaded Manchuria in August. Unit 731 was deliberately burned and all evidence destroyed including the study subjects called Marutas, which translates as logs of wood, all in the attempt to hide what they had done. (Williams and Wallace 1989) Approximately 3,000 to 12,000 people died at Unit 731. Ishii and the other workers were never punished for their war crimes on the condition that they offered the United States all of the information they gained on biological weapons. The United States government was interested in the test results for their own research in biological weapons. Many of the Japanese biowarfare leaders went on to become prominent figures in their research communities (Harbin and Kattoulas 2002).

Years later, in 1965, the failure of the Japanese to address these war crimes in their history textbooks caused some Chinese citizens to take the Japanese government to court. The first lawsuit was filed in 1965 by Saburo Ienaga, a prominent historian, against the Japanese Ministry of Education (MOE). The MOE requires that manuscripts of the textbooks be reviewed before they are allowed to be published. The purpose of the lawsuit was to compel the Japanese government to publish the textbooks with accurate information. Before the lawsuits were filed, the minister of education asked that textbook writers “soften their approach to Japan’s excesses during World War II… (Ienaga 1994).” This spurred Koreans, Chinese and Taiwanese people to attack the Japanese leaders, arguing that it is insensitive to the memories of East Asians and dishonest to Japanese children to withhold historical facts.

Ienaga (1994) argued that the government’s goal was to exclude many of the descriptions of the horrors of war, and Japan’s participation in crimes against humanity to glorify war and the military. The argument follows that textbooks are strong instructional tools in classrooms and what is taught to the children from these textbooks is highly believable and carried on into the future of Japan. It is obviously very dangerous to present untruthful information to children because they believe so strongly what they are taught in schools.

Ienaga filed a lawsuit because the MOE rejected his history textbook on the grounds that it revealed too much of the bad side of war. An example of the language that Ienaga had to delete to publish his textbook reads as follows. “A biological warfare detachment, the 731 Unit, was set up in the suburbs of Harbin and for several years conducted experiments on foreign prisoners, including thousands of Chinese. These cruel experiments, which continued until the Soviet Union entered the war, were murder.” The MOE required this paragraph to be deleted because “No credible scholarly research articles or books have yet been published on this issue; it is premature to discuss it in a textbook” (Ienaga 1994). In 1997, Japan’s Supreme Court finally sided with Ienaga that the MOE illegally removed references to biological warfare experiments from manuscripts proposed to become textbooks, but the MOE is still allowed to censor information in the manuscripts before publication is allowed (CNN 1997). The debate continued until 1993 ending the Ministry of Education’s censorship of the war crimes that were committed by the Japanese during WWII.

The Japanese denial over the war crimes has resulted in Chinese victims of plague outbreaks to seek compensation for their suffering. This shows that not only are future generations affected by this denial of the truth, but victims of the plague and other bacterial diseases who are alive today are still being affected by what happened. Plague, alone, has not contributed to the tensions between the countries of Japan and China, but instead was a part of the whole that caused hurt and misery among the people that endured it. The tensions between these countries are not all about history. Ultimately, the balance of power in Asia is at stake. Japan has been used to having a larger economic power over China and since the 1980’s, China’s economic power has grown and is now a key competitor. Since World War II, the Japanese government has apologized numerous times to the people of China, but the new history books, with jaded words about what truly happened in the history between the two countries, has caused tensions to remain high.


CNN. 1997. Japan court rules against atrocity cover-up: but continues to allow textbook censorship. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/29/japan/index.html

Daniels, A. 2001. Germs against man: bioterror: a brief history. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_23_53/ai_80099514/print

Harbin, M. F. and Kattoulas, V. 2002. Black Death. Time Asia. http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/printout/0,13675,501020909-346284,00.html

Harris, R. and Paxman, J. 1982. A higher form of killing: the secret story of chemical and biological warfare. Hill and Wang, New York.

Ienaga S. 1994. The glorification of war in Japanese education. International Security 18:113-133.

McCurry, J. 2004. Japan’s sins of the past. Guardian Unlimited. http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1338296,00.html

Williams, P. and Wallace, D. 1989. Unit 731: Japan’s secret biological warfare in World War II. Hodder and Sioughton, London.

Wu, T. 2002. A Preliminary Review of Studies of Japanese Biological Warfare and Unit 731 in the United States. http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/germwar/731rev.htm


22 posted on 2005/11/14 11:08:20 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]
To: fnord
I was trying to look something up I was reading about. I noticed an awful lot of 'page cannot be displayed'. I checked my library and it was pretty scrubbed too.

So everything I'm finding I'm posting here. For reference.


23 posted on 2005/11/14 11:09:53 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]
In 1989 an appalling discovery swept across Tokyo. A construction crew working st Shinjuku found beneath a pavement, a massive cache of human remains. The horrific news spread quickly around Tokyo and the Japanese government decided to make a statement which would lead to the revelation of the most terrible secret of World War II. Some meters away from the construction site lay the wartime laboratory of Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii, father of Japan's top-secret biological warfare program; Unit 731.

Unit 731 was acquiring human guinea pigs from the Manchuria base to Tokyo. After the end of WWII, the bodies were disposed in a massive grave and Unit 731' s activities remained Japan's most closely guarded secret.

Unit 731 would be unknown today to the mass public unless in 1984 a student, had not made a weird discovery in a second-hand bookshop; notes by a military officer. The officer was stationed in Unit 731 and his notes were concisely detailed and described the biological experiments which he clearly points out that they were using humans for the purposes of Shiro Ihii and his team.

Shiro Ishii was an intelligent Army microbiologist whose flamboyant personality soon attracted attention from his senior officers. He was clearly aligned with the unltra-nationalists in the War Ministry and lobbied for biological weapons development. Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 gave Ishii the opportunity to begin his horrific expreriments on human subjects. His first command, code named "Tongo Unit" was enforced by a large budget and 300 men.

The Unit 731 facility was built by Chinese forced labour and was locally known as the Zhong Ma Prison . In the facility, there were more than 500 people (mostly criminals and suspicious persons) detained in the Zhong Ma Castle and were called marutas. All the prisoners were well-fed and exercised regularly as healthy specimens were vital for good scientific results.

When Ishii wanted a human brain, the soldiers would get a prisoners, open his skull with an axe and get the human organ as soon as possible to the inhumane scientist. Ishii's first bio-warfare experiments were concentrated on diseases such as anthrax and the plague. In one test, Chinese guerrillas were injected with plague bacteria and twelve day later the infected prisoners would have temperatures of 40°C. Miraculously, one infected victim survived for 19 days before he was dissected alive.

Prisoners were poisoned with phosgene gas while others were injected with potassium cyanide. Some subjects were exposed to 20,000 volts of electricity. The death of all subjects was closely documented and observe by staff of Unit 731. Those who survived were later disposed of by lethal injections or dissected while alive.

Ishii's work ensured a growing empire and by 1939 he was able to relocate a massive, dedicated facility to new headquarters at Pingfan, Manchuria which rivalled in size Nazi Germany's Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The new facility was comprised of administrative buildings, laboratories, barracks, a prison, an autopsy-dissecting building and three giant furnaces which handled the disposal of bodies.

One important part of experimentation was testing frostbite for military purposes. Similar experiments were conducted by the Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious Nazi who placed naked prisoners in sub-freezing temperatures and have their limbs beaten with sticks so that they would understand when the freezing process was over. Later, the bodies were defrosted using a wide range of experimental techniques.

Sheldon Harris (California State University history professor) in his book Factories of Death, details many other experiments including suspending subjects upside d own to determine how long it took for them to choke to death. Others had air injected into them to test for the onset of embolisms and others had horse urine injected into their kidneys.

Ishii, at the time, produced scientific papers giving the results of his ghoulish experiments to the Japanese medical and scientific community. Still, the papers claimed that the experiments were carried out on monkeys.

The end of WWII found Ishii at the rank of Lieutenant General and he took the precaution to bound his subordinates to an oath of secrecy. The sites were destroyed and everybody working at them returned home in obscurity. The ghoulish experiments which took place in Unit 731 remained hidden from public scrutiny, but the military and intelligence community forgets nothing.

Allied Intelligence had conclusive files on the leading Japanese microbiologists and the US believed that the Japanese were much more advanced in biological warfare and strategists appreciated the tactical benefits of biological agents introduced covertly into a war zone. In fact, Ishii had done this on a number of occasions in China and elsewhere. The Allies were interested in the acquisition of detailed record on human experimentation and wanted to get hold of the expertise and know-how of Ishii's research.

The US feared that the Soviet Union might acquire Ishii's expertise and records and thus discussed a secret deal. Allied POWs had a lot of stories to tell about biological experimentation on humans. The US government successfully covered-up this and had the Allied POWs sworn to secrecy. Furthermore, prosecutors at the Tokyo War Crimes trials were warned not to investigate the specific crimes and by 1948 all Unit 731 members were offered immunity in exchange for data and co-operation.

The discovery of the bodies beneath Tokyo , broke a cover-up which lasted for more than four decades and Allied servicemen started telling about their ordeals. Joseph Gozzo, a former aviation engineer, had glass rods inserted in his rectum during his internment. He said "Damn right I remember; I can't believe our government let them get away with it".

Ex-POW, Frank James, shared his memories with a US House of Representatives sub-committee in 1986: "We were just pawns. We Always knew there was a cover-up". The House of Representatives hearing lasted just half a day and only one of 200 US survivors was permitted to testify and the chief archivist for the US Army. The latter said that files provided by Ishii were returned to Japan in the 1950s and copies had not been made.

Initially, the US and Japanese governments denied that atrocities had occurred but a body of official information was made public. A file from General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters states that the investigation of Unit 731 was "under direct Joint Chiefs of Staff order.......the utmost secrecy is essential in order to protect the interests of the United States and to guard against embarrassment." Finally, in 1993, US Defence Secretary William Perry promised to declassify record of WWII biological experiments so as to calm down the intense public pressure.

The key figures in Unit 731 became rather successful after the war. A number held senior university posts in the field of medicine. One headed up a leading Japanese pharmaceutical company while others gained positions such as President of the Japan Medical Association or Vice President if the Green Cross Corporation.

Shiro Ishii died unrepentant in 1959.


24 posted on 2005/11/14 11:28:59 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]
Opium, Heroin, Morphia - Inhuman WMD Drug Warfare

This WMD Drug Warfare is definitely the worst and only known war crime case of systematic massive drug doping of civilian against Humanity committed by a country in our Human History.


During the war, Japan made arrangement between the Yakuza (Japanese organized criminal organization), industrialists (including household names such as Mitsui and Suzuki) and the military produced the profitable Opium Monopoly Bureau, a legalized dope peddling business between the military government and the hoods. Japan used opiates to weaken Chinese resistance, and deliberately fostered drug addiction in the occupied areas of China.


Japan was aware of the social destruction that drugs cause, as well as the devastating role that British Opium had brought onto China. Therefore, following British Opium footstep, the Japanese distributed Opium, heroin and cocaine along the Chinese coast when they took control of Manchuria in 1931.


Japan transformed Manchuria into a vast poppy field. Mitsui then processed Manchurian opium into heroin. Japan was by far the largest Opium producer throughout the first half of the 20th century, initially in Korea and then in Manchuria.


By 1937, Japan and its gangster operated world's largest drug trafficking system and were responsible for 90 % of the world's illicit narcotics.


The WMD Drug Warefare earned Japan $300 million (equivalent of $3.5 billion in 2001) per year from the bankrupt China with its Drug strategy of nation against nation.


To encourage addiction and further enslave the Chinese people in the occupied area, Japanese wartime occupation authorities distributed as much Opium, heroin, and cocaine as possible. Japanese routinely used narcotics as payment for the labor. Heroin cigarettes were offered to children as young as ten. History professor Minser Searle Bates concluded that in Nanjing alone has about 50,000 drug addicted people, 1/8 of city population were using Opium and heroin.


Japan reinstated poppy farms. Koreans were put in charge of the illegal drug operations to ensure that no Japanese agents risked addiction.


During Japanese 36 years of brutal colonial governance of Korea, the Korean farmers were forced to grow opium for Japan's opium operations in China.


Since 1773, British Opium had brought onto China More than a century of devastating social destruction and economic disasters, contributed to the ruin of a once-great nation.


In the early 18th century, Britain was pushing Opium into China at an ever-increasing rate. By the early 19th century, Opium infected China so badly that addicts were found among the king's court, and by 1832 even the military was partially debilitated by Opium addiction. One city of Soochow alone had already 100,000 addicts.


In 1793, China's silver reserve was estimated at 70 million taels of silver (approximately 2.6 million kilograms), but by 1820 this had been reduced to only about 10 million taels.


Alarmed, Emperor of China declares war on Drugs. Emperor appointed Lin Tse-Hsu to suppress the Opium traffic. Twice Lin wrote Letter to Queen Victoria to seek her intercession, but to no avail. Finally resulted in 2 Opium Wars with Britain.


It was the First 2 Wars on drugs in our Human Histroy.


Weakened and corrupted by Opium, China was no match and defeated. China was forced to legalize the importation and sale of Opium by Britain.

For details, refer to History of the Opium Trade in China


Immediately, other Western countries, e.g. American and French traders followed to grab their share of fortune.


Nearly All American company followed to push Opium into China.


Writing home, an American named Warren Delano of Russell & Company, said he could not pretend to justify the opium trade on moral grounds, "but as a merchant I insist it has been fair, honorable and legitimate".


Warren Delano returned to America rich. He gave his daughter Sara in marriage to a wellborn neighbor, James Roosevelt, the father of Franklin Roosevelt.


To preserve the Truth of History, the U.S. President's biographer Geoffrey Ward rejects efforts of the Delano family to minimize Warren's Opium dark secret.


According to Gabriel G. Nahas "The Decline of Drugged Nations" By 1900, China had 90 Million addicts caused by British Opium.


China had become known as the "Sickman of the East".


17 Millions Chinese addicts died directly as a result of the British Opium.


In 1905, with the creation of lagest drug case in Human History, British finally realized that their More than a century India-China Opium Traffic is morally indefensible and proposed to control it. The Chinese unhesitatingly accepted. "It is hereby commanded," the emperial edict ran, "that within a period of ten years the evils arising from foreign and native opium be equally and completely eradicated."


In 1909, an International Conference was convened in Shanghai. All the major countries were invited. 13 states agreed to control the traffic in opium and its derivatives, particularly morphine. In 1911, they met again at the Hague. In 1920, the League of Nations had been established. In 1931, at the Geneva Convention, the Opium Advisory Committee also tried to regulate all production of dangerous drugs.


However, gradually it became clear, it was the great depression that had drastically reduced opium demand; and pushed down the price; and many governments were restricting the production of narcotics mainly in the hope of keeping the drug prices from falling further. When the drug traffic began to recover, the Convention was of little help in controlling it due to the huge profit from the illegal drugs.


Opium of illegal trade by the Britain, U.S., Japan and other Western countries, became one of the world's most valuable commodity at the expense of China.


The eminent Harvard historian J.K Fairbank described it as "The most long continued and systematic International Crime of modern times" - 150 years of crime against China.


With Mussolini leaving the League, Hitler ignoring it, the Japanese defied it by occupying northern China in 1931 and declared Manchuria was to be independent from China as "Manchukuo" puppet state in 1932, then set up its Manchukuo Opium Monopoly only to follow the British Opium pattern.


Although Japan is a signatory to the agreement which forbids the import into China of morphia or of any appliances used in its manufacture or application. Since Morphia no longer can be purchased in Europe, the seat of industry has been transferred to Japan, and morphia is now manufactured by the Japanese themselves. Literally, tens of millions of yen are transferred annually from China to Japan for the payment of Japanese morphia.


Through Dairen, morphia circulates throughout Manchuria and the province adjoining; through Tsingtao, morphia is distributed over Shantung province, Anhui, and Kiangsu, while from Taiwan morphia is carried with opium and other contraband by motor-driven fishing boats to some point on the mainland China, from which it is distributed throughout the province of Fukien and the north of Kuangtung. Everywhere it is sold by Japanese under the extra-territorial protection."


For details, refer to Japan's Opium Monopoly - Japan as an Opium Distributor in China.


In 1935, Peter Fleming visited Manchukuo for The Times to determine the question, "Is the monopoly a crusade or a racket ?". On the evidence, he decided, it was clearly a racket. In Manchukuo, Japanese open the "Opium Dens" or "Opium Divans" to all, even teenagers; consumption was increasing; and the monopoly was already making huge profits as the Japanese authorities cynically acknowledged, by imprinting a flowering poppy on their Manchukuo coins.


The WMD Opium Warfare was conducted with full approval from Tokyo as a state policy, under the directives of an official Japanese umbrella organization, the China Affairs Board, run by Prince Konoye.


The huge profit from the addictive WMD Drug Warfare were used to finance Japanese war machine with the creation of millions of Chinese drug addicts.


25 posted on 2005/11/14 12:00:14 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]
Unit 731, 100 - Inhuman WMD Biological Warfare

This WMD Biological Warfare is definitely the worst crime case of systematic biological massacre against Humanity committed by a country in our Human History.

"The fellow knew that it was over for him, and so he didn't struggle." recalled the old former medical assistant of a Japanese Army unit in China in World War II, "But when I picked up the scalpel that's when he began screaming. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped." The former medical assistant who insisted on anonymity, explained the reason for the vivisection. The Chinese prisoner had been deliberately infected with the plague as part of a research project.

Imperial Japan's biological killing fields are a lost chapter of history that the full horror of which is only recently been exposed and understood in all its enormity.

Japan set up Headquarters of Unit 731 in Ping Fan near Harbin and Unit 100 in ChangChun, and Mukden, now called SunYang, in China to develop plague bombs for use in WWII. The base was disguised as Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Unit. The complex in Ping Fan was completed in 1939, contained more than 150 buildings, including 2 secret prisons and 3 crematoria, and was the largest WMD Biological Weapon research center in the world.

After infecting him, the researchers decided to cut him open alive, tear him apart, organ by organ, to see what the disease does to a man's inside. Often no anesthetic was used, he said, out of concern that it might have an effect on the results.

From July 1993 to Dec. 1994, the "Unit 731 Exhibition" toured Japan and presented at 61 locations over the course of one and half year. It had sent shockwaves throughout Japan. Hal Gold had collected many testimonies in his book "Unit 731: Testimony; Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation and the Post-War Cover-Up". One of the testimonies was provided by an aged former Japanese doctor Kurumizawa Masakuni :

The Chinese woman victim had regained her consciousness while being vivisected alive.
" She opened her eyes. "
" And then ? "
" She hollered. "
" What did she say ? "
Kurumizawa could not answer, then began weeping feebly and murmured,
" I don't want to think about it again. "
The interviewee apologized, waited a few seconds, and tried again for an answer.
He gave it through sobs.
" She said, "It's all right to kill me, but please spare my child's life."

Japanese Dr. Kanisawa testified in NBC Dateline "Factory of Death: Unit 731" on Aug. 15, 1995, the live un-anesthetized dissection was a routine common practice in all units.

"The 1st time, I was very hesitant to do what I was told to do. The 2nd time, you get used to it. The 3rd time, you more or less volunteered."

Yoshio Shinozuka, a former member of Unit 731 said "The first time, my legs were shaking so badly I could hardly stand up". He knew the person on the operating table, " At the vivisection, I could not meet his eyes because of the hate he had in his glare at me."

"We called the victims ‘logs’," he said, "We didn’t want to think of them as people. We didn’t want to admit that we were taking lives. So we convinced ourselves that what we were doing was like cutting down a tree. When you see someone in that state, you just can’t move. Your mind goes blank. The fear is overwhelming." said Yoshio.

The research program was one of the great secrets of Japan during and after World War II : a vast project to develop weapons of WMD Biological Warfare including following deadly diseases :

Bubonic Plague, Anthrax (including inhalation, skin and gastrointestinal types), Smallpox, Typhoid, Paratyphoid A and B, Tularemia, Cholera, Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever, Syphilis, Aerosols, Botulism, Brucellosis, Dysentery, Tetanus, Glanders, Tuberculosis, Yellow fever, Typhus, Tularemia, Gas Gangrene, Scarlet fever, Songo, Diphtheria, Brysipelas, Selmonella, Venereal Diseases, Infectious Jaundice, Undulant Fever, Epidemic Cerebrospinal Meningitis, Tick Encephalitis, Plant diseases for crop destruction, and a Dozen other pathogens

Unit 731 & Unit 100 were comprised of over 3,000 researchers and technicians. It was a gigantic research center focused on WMD Biological Weapons - the world's most technically advanced at the time, used human as the guinea pigs, known as marutas (logs). The Japanese told the locals that the facilities were lumber mills.

The Ping Fan facility alone could monthly "manufacture as much as 300 kg of plague bacteria... 500-600 kg of anthrax germs, 800-900 kg typhoid, paratyphoid, or dysentery germs, or as much as 1000 kg of cholera germs." If several different diseases were manufactured simultaneously, then the total production of pathogens could be many times higher.

A former member of Unit 731 testified that "to eliminate any chance of leaking out the secret of construction of the 'Square Buildings' by the laborers, they are all sent to special prison and used as the first batch of test objects."

More than 10,000 Chinese, Korean and Russian PoWs were slaughtered in these biological experiments.

The vivisection was routinely used for practicing various kinds of surgery says Dr. Ken Yuasa, a former Japanese doctor working in China during the War. First an appendectomy, then an amputation of an arm and finally a tracheotomy. When they finished practicing, they killed the victim with an injection. "I was evil. I was a devil," Dr. Ken Yuasa says sadly. "We all were." Morimura Seiichi describes in explicit details of vivisection in his book "The Devouring Monster".

Medical researchers also locked up diseased prisoners with healthy ones, to see how readily various diseases would spread.

To determine how much pressure the body can withstand, some were put inside a pressure chamber would suffer terrible agony before their eyes pop out from their sockets and blood forced out through their skin.

Marutas were denied food or water to determine the maximum length of survival, or mummified alive in total dehydration experiments. Some were put into hot water and gradually increase the temperature to study degree of burns and the relationship between temperature and survival.

To determine the treatment of frostbite, prisoners were taken outside in freezing weather and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water until frozen solid. The arm was later amputated, the doctors would repeat the process on the victim's upper arm to the shoulder. After both arms were gone, the doctors moved on to the legs until only a head and torso remained. The victim was then used for plague and pathogens experiments.

Victims were burned with flamethrowers, blown up with shrapnel, bombarded with lethal doses of X-ray, spun to death in centriguges, injected with animal blood, air bubbles, exposure to syphilis, surgical removal of stomachs with the esophagus then attached to the intestines, amputation of arms and reattachment on the opposite side, gassed to death in chambers .......

The doctors experimented on children and babies, even three-day-old baby measuring the temperature with a needle stuck inside the infant's middle finger to keep it straight to prevent the baby's hand clenching into a fist.

Victims were often taken to a proving ground called Anda, where they were tied to stakes and bombarded with test weapons to see how effective the new technologies were. Planes sprayed the zone with a plague culture or dropped bombs with plague-infected fleas to see how many people would die.

White-coated Japanese medics claiming to be from a government epidemic-prevention unit would arrive saying that they were there to implement hygiene measures or to administer vaccinations. After they left, the villages would become sick.

The Japanese army regularly conducted "Field Tests". Planes dropped plague-infected fleas over Ningbo in eastern China and over Changde in north-central China.

Japanese troops dropped cholera and typhoid cultures in water reservoirs, wells and ponds.

Cottony material and feathers coated with anthrax bacteria were used to spread the disease in an airborne manner, as such fibers had been found to be effective in keeping the bacteria alive long enough to reach the intended human victims.

Witnesses recall watching Japanese airplanes dropping a mixture of wheat, millet, soy beans, rice, cotton fibers, paper and fabric cuttings, aerial spraying pathogens over the cities . They all had been coated with the biological organism or with fleas and brought the germs to people.

Japanese distributed infected food, cakes, drink, clothes and children's candies to the locals.

The same mass infections were being repeated all over China, except in Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang.

"Glanders was a disease first found in horses, and it could attack human beings," said Furmanski. Human beings' legs are most affected by the disease. "Only one out of 20 people with the disease could survive.

Medical records showed that glanders had virtually been wiped out in 1906, but new cases suddently broke out in the 1940s during WWII in China."

Apr 18, 1942 U.S. shocked Japan with its daring Tokyo Raid or the Doolittle Raid. Led by Jimmy Doolittle, 16 B-25 bombers broke through Japanese defenses and dropped bombs in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka-Kobe, and Nagoya. It was a one-way mission. The planes continued west to the airfield at Chuchow, China. Short of the fuel, most of planes crashed or were ditched over China. Local Chinese hid U.S. survivors and escorted them to safety.


The dramatic Tokyo Raid stunned Japan with the -- True meaning of War.


Enraged Japanese army launched Operation Sei-Go to secure airfields and punish Chinese villager for helping US airmen.

Japanese planes had more than 600 air raids on towns and villages of East China. Japanese burnt to the ground those villages through which the airmen had passed.

"They killed my 3 sons," related one aged Chinese man. "They killed my wife. They drowned my grandchildren in the well."

Catching a villager who had sheltered an American pilot, Japanese soldiers wrapped him in a kerosene-soaked blanket, then forced his wife to set it afire.


It was estimated about 250,000 Chinese civilians were murdered in the revenge.


Japanese showered 7 WMD Biological pathogens on Zhejiang province to retaliate the Doolittle Tokyo Raid.


Even today, one hard-hit village in Zhejiang still bears the nickname "Rotten-Leg Village" because so many older residents are scarred by glanders from the 1942 attacks. Their flesh are still rotten and have not been healed since they were attacked - they have been suffering for more than 60 years now.

Sheldon H. Harris, a historian at California State University and author of the book, "Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-up" stressed that "My calculation, which is very conservative, and based on incomplete sources as the major archives are still closed, is that 10,000 to 12,000 human beings were exterminated in lab experiments".

Outside the 731 prisons, the "Field Tests" were carried out all over China except in Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang.

Scholars believe that the toll from Japanese-seeded cholera epidemics in the southern province of Yunnan alone may reach the staggering figure of 200,000 killed in May 1942.

3 months later, another 200,000 die in Shandong province as a result of Unit 731’s germ warfare.

In the Zhejiang province city of Quzhou alone, over 50,000 perished from bubonic plague and cholera .............

As the war was ending, Japanese purposely released all the plague-infected animals. The Northeastern China immediately became a disaster area and caused outbreaks of plague that killed at least another 30,000 people from 1946 - 1948.

It is also called by some as the Asian Auschwitz of Unit 731.

In 1987, based on first-hand reports of the atrocities, filmmaker T.F. Mou (sometimes referred to as T.F. Mous) is probably best known as the director of the Man Behind the Sun (or Black Sun 731). He followed up later with another travelogue of Japanese war atrocities: Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre.

"There could be over 700,000 or even 1,000,000" lives lost to Japan's biowarfare program" said Daniel Barenblatt, author of new book A Plague Upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation.

These crimes are more than parallel to the coeval work of Joseph Mengele and the Nazi doctors.

Japanese military scientists killed 12 times the number of civilians as did the Nazi's Angel of Death - Dr. Josef Mengele.

Nazi doctors were held accountable for their crimes in the famous 1947 "Nuremberg Doctors Trials", but there were NO comparable "Japanese Doctors Trials".

The research was kept secret after the war in part because the U.S. granted immunity from war crimes prosecution to the Japanese doctors in exchange for their data and helped covering up the human experiment - An act utterly ignoring international laws and against Humanity.

On May 6 1947, in a radio message to Washington, MacArthur urged the combined US military and State Department group which supervised occupation policy in Japan to give "In Writing" immunity to Ishii and all others involved in the Japanese Germ Warfare and Human experiments.

On Dec 27 1949, MacArthur’s Headquarters announced to the world "that the Japanese had done some experimentation with animals, but that there was no evidence they ever had used human beings."

NGO The Sunshine Project has discovered that even today US is still actively developing Biological and Chemical Weapon. On 24 Sept. 2002 Sunshine Project provided evidence for US Military Secret Chemical Weapons Program violating international law.

U.S. itself in 1943 also set up a major Biological Warfare program with 3,500 people at Camp Detrick, now Fort Detrick, in Frederic, MD. Instead of putting the ringleaders on trial, U.S. gave them stipends to gain some advantages in the WMD Biological Weapon.

On Aug. 13, 1985, British Independent Televison broadcast a documentary "Unit 731 - Did the Emperor Know ? ". It was producted by Peter Williams and David Wallace after years research, hinted broadly that Emperor Hirohito was aware of the human experiments. There was also an interview with retired Lt. Col. Murray Sanders, the first US investigator into Unit 731. Sanders claimed that Gen. Douglas MacArthur authorized him to make a deal with the Japanese if they cooperated with US Biological Warfare scientists.

The producers even sent a copy of the documentary film to the Japanese officials in London.

Murray Sanders was also interviewed by NBC Dateline "Factory of Death: Unit 731" on Aug. 15, 1995 said "It was a mistake for the criminal Japanese to have been pardoned."

William and Wallace also published the book " Unit 731: The Japanese Army's Secret of Secrets". For some reason, a chapter was omitted from the American edition. The chapter was titled " Korea War". They examined evidences from the International Scientific Commission for the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and supported the theory of US-Japanese culpability of using Unit 731's germ techniques in Korean War.

The same conclusion was also reached by Professor Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, author of 1998 book "The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the early cold war and Korea", that "United States had an operational biological weapons system, and that it was employed in the Korea War."

Takai Matsumura, Japanese historian and economist at Tokyo's Keio University, said Japanese WMD Biological Warfare experiments were conducted in at least 10 other cities in China, including Hailar, Harbin, ChangChun, SunYang, Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, as well as Singapore, Burma, Rangoon, Bangkok, possibly in Manila, East Indies.

Bio-Warfare Killing Place - Japanese WMD Bio-Warfare Unit:

Beijing - Unit 1855, Nanjing - Tama Unit 1644, Harbin - Unit 731, ChangChun - Unit 100, SunYang (Mukden) - Unit 100, Hailar - Unit 2646 (Unit 80), Shanghai - Unit ?, Guangzhou (Canton) - Nami Unit 8604, Singapore - Oka Unit 9420, Burma - Unit ?, Rangoon - Unit ?, Bangkok - Unit ?, Manila - Unit ?, East Indies - Unit ?


There were minimum 26 known Japan's killing laboratories in China.


U.S. thundering silence on this issue has allowed the Japanese Government to maintain that there is not enough evidence to prove that the Chinese are telling the truth. When Japanese journalists and academics have stumbled over crucial validating evidence in government archives, the material has been confiscated and re-classified.


However, 2 declassified U.S. government documents, recently found in the U.S. National Archives by professor Keiichi Tsuneishi at Kanagawa University and an expert on WMD Biological and Chemical Weapons, have clearly showed that the U.S. provided money, food, gifts, entertainment and other kinds of rewards to the former Unit 731 members, even 2 years after the end of WWII to obtain data on human experiments conducted in China, according to the report.


When neither Japan nor U.S. are prepared to admit to either the crimes or cover-up, a small group of conscientious Japanese human rights activists, doctors, lawyers and former soldiers formed an un-precedented alliance with the Chinese.


Senior Japanese lawyers are acting for the Chinese, among them Tsuchiya Koken, the former president of the Japanese Lawyers Association. Few old Japanese soldiers who worked on the biological warfare programme have also come forward to give evidence. Their stance exposes themselves to abuse at home and accusations from ultra-nationalists that they are traitors.


"The brutality my parents generation committed in the name of war has to be resolved and addressed by my generation" said Keichiro Ichinose, one of the Japanese lawyers.


In June 1996, they formed the Association to Reveal the Historical Fact of Germ Warfare by the Japanese Armed Forces.


In 1997, 108 survivors and family members, including Wu Shi-Gen, filed a lawsuit against the Japanese Government demanding apology and 10 million yen compensation per victim of biological weapons and acts of brutality. The thousands of victims included 2,100 civilians, whose personal details have been verified in China.


In October 1940, Japanese warplanes that had passed over Wu Shi-Gen's village in Quzhou, southern China, but the bombs dropped did not explode. From them poured a mixture of rice and wheat covered with fleas. Few days later, many villagers were struck down by sickness. His 9 year old brother had bubonic plague.


It is an agonising disease glands swell to the size of grapefruit, limbs fill with fluid and whole areas of flesh turn deep purple. Eventually, his brother died screaming. The plague also killed his 2-year-old sister. His father was also bayoneted to death by a Japanese soldier.


Wang Xuan, whose uncle was killed by the plague, after 8 years relentless fight with the Japanese Government has finally succeeded in making her voice heard around the world. Without any government support, she had to pay out of her own pocket for the investigation. Her endeavours have drawn attention from media and experts both at home and abroad.


Her devotion to Exposing Japan's Germ Warfare, is described by some as the Portrait of a Heroine: Shouting the pain from Japan's Germ Attacks, "If we wait for governments to settle this matter, we will die and the Truth will never come out." She was interviewed by PBS and BBC for their documentary films, including: " Unit 731: Nightmare in Manchuria " , " Rotten Foot Village " and the most recent " Avoiding Armageddon".


She used to live in rural village called Yiwu on China's east coast. She shows visitors the Tragedy Pavilion which lists 1,500 plague victims, and describes how Unit 731 dropped plague-infected fleas from aircraft and killed 20 villagers a day at one point in 1942. She then leads visitors through the gray-brick Buddhist temple where the Japanese performed autopsies to gauge the impact of their biological tests.


Wang Xuan wants Japan to apologise and make a compensatory payment to the victims. " Sorry is Not Enough", she says.


For 63 years, Mr. Chen Chong Wen has had to change the bandages daily on his leg infected by “rotten leg disease" known as glanders. His mother was also infected. And not too long after her heel rotted off, and died in terrible pain. With a pained expression on his face, he sobbed loudly, "I don't want anything else. I just want the wound to close. That’s the only thing I want."


Wang Xuan has assembled 180 Chinese victims and is now suing Japan, charging that Japan had spread bubonic plague and other diseases in China during WWII. However, in 2002, Tokyo District Court rejected their claim for an apology and compensation.


Eisuke Matsui, Japanese Professor of radiology at Gifu University school of Medicine, said he was compelled to uncover Japan's germ warfare in order to educate the young generation of Japan.


Japanese military training leader of Unit 731, Tomobuchi testifed in NBC Dateline Aug. 15, 1995 "Factory of Death: Unit 731" that he participated in July 1945, in training kamikaze pilots for "Sakura at Night" (flowers at night), a secret military plan to use five submarines, each carrying few small aircraft to the California coast where they would attack San Diego with "plague bombs" full of infected fleas.


"They were logs to me," said Toshimi Mizobuchi remorselessly, former Unit 731 member and now a real estate manager living outside the Japanese city of Kobe, "Logs were not considered to be human. They were either spies or conspirators." As such, he said, "they were already dead. So now they die a second time. We just executed a death sentence." He said reunion for the several hundred veterans of Unit 731 was held almost every year. He had organized one of the reunion.


As the war was ending, Japan waited and intended to use plague germs if American had landed on Okinawa. Ironically, Okinawa themselves never knew the plan until Jan. 1994 when the Unit 731 Exhibition opened there. Ito Kageaki recalled, " Okinawa could be thrown away if Japan could gain some military advantage." One local said, "This makes the sacrifices in the Okinawa Battle even more pitiful."


Okinawa Battle had killed approx. 100,000 Japanese soldiers (including local Okinawa conscripts), 12,000 US soldiers, and 100,000 - 150,000 Okinawans civilians. About 1/3 of the population of island were killed. Total death in the Battle of Okinawa is more than the Atomic Bombs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined.


An military order was also issued by the Japanese commander of the 32nd Army Headquarters: "Only standard Japanese is to be spoken. Anyone speaking the Okinawan dialect is to be executed as a spy." The Okinawan culture were oppressed and people were forced into the war by Japan.


Japanese historian Ishihara Masaie has pointed out the following factors contributing to the unusual high Okinawa civilian deaths by Japanese Army :

1. Okinawa civilians were tortured and killed as spies by Japanese.

2. Okinawa civilians were forced or made believed into "Group Suicides" (shûdan jiketsu). They were brain-washed and believed they would be tortured, raped and killed if fall into the hands of enemy. They either took their own lives directly with the distributed hand grenades, cyanide, jumped off the Suicide Cliff, or were killed by family member, close relative or friend as part of "Group Suicides".

It was for this reason that Japanese historian Ienaga Saburo argued that the large number of "Group Suicides" should also be included in the number of Okinawa civilians killed by the Japanese Army.

Kinjo Shigeaki, an Okinawa boy who had just turned 16 at war time, describes a typical scene in the book "Japan at War: An Oral History". He described a man "had that stick in his hands, he turned into a madman. Striking his wife and children over and over again, bludgeoning them to death. That was the beginning of the tragedy I saw. As if by a chain reaction, it spread from one family to the next. We all must die that way. Everyone seemed to think so. People began to raise their hands against their loved ones......."

"My memory tells me the first one we laid hands on was Mother. Those who had blades, or scythes, cut their wrists or severed arteries in their necks. Be we didn't do it that way. We might have used a string. When we raised our hands against the mother who bore us, we wailed in our grief. I remember that. In the end we must have used stones. To the head. We took care of mother that way. Then my brother and I turned on our younger sister. Hell engulfed us there........"

When the Battle of Okinawa was ending, no wonder the surrender of large numbers of Japanese soldiers was so shocking to the Okinawa civilians in disbelief.

3. Okinawa civilians were driven out of their shelters by Japanese army.

4. Okinawa civilians were robbed of their food by Japanese army.

5. Japanese soldiers poisoned, stabbed, or strangled many small Okinawa children to death to prevent their noise of alerting US forces to their locations. Japanese soldier often pointed rifle at Okinawan mother and ordered her to kill her baby.

6. Okinawa civilians were forced evacuations to malaria-infested areas by Japanese.

7. Japanese moved their military command posts to areas occupied by the Okinawa civilian evacuees.



In 1981, an article Japan's Biological Weapons: 1930-1945 A Hidden Chapter in History published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists had drawn much wider public attention to the Japanese inhuman atrocities. In the beginning of the article, it said,


"When this story first reached the Bulletin, our reaction was horrified disbelief. I think all of us hoped that it was not true. Unfortunately, subsequent research shows that it is all too true. In order to verify the facts set forth here we enlisted the help of a number of distinguished scientists and historians......."


The article continues, ""Any reader with a sense of justice and decency will be nauseated, not only by these atrocities, but equally so by the reaction of the U.S...... By acquiring "at a fraction of the original cost" the "invaluable" results of the Japanese experiments, have we not put ourselves on the same level as the Japanese experimenters ?......."


In Oct. 1999, in a Letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein for the Bill S.9102 , i.e. the Disclosure Act of Japanese War Crime Documents, History Professor Sheldon H. Harris of California State University emphatically stated in his letter that :

The ""sensitive" documents as defined by archivists and FOIA officers are at the moment being destroyed...... Three examples of this wanton destruction......" by U.S.

1. "In 1991, the Librarian at Dugway Proving Grounds, Dugway, Utah, denied me access to the archives at the facility. It was only through the intervention of then U.S. Representative Wayne Owens, Dem., Utah, that I was given permission to visit the facility. I was not shown all the holdings relating to Japanese medical experiments, but the little I was permitted to examine revealed a great deal of information about medical war crimes. Sometimes after my visit, a person with intimate knowledge of Dugway's operations, "informed me that "sensitive" documents were destroyed there as a direct result of my research in their library."

2. "I conducted much of my American research at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md. The Public Information Officer there was extremely helpful to me. Two weeks ago I telephoned Detrick, was informed that the PIO had retired last May. I spoke with the new PIO, who told me that Detrick no longer would discuss past research activities, but would disclose information only on current projects. Later that day I telephoned the retired PIO at his home. He "informed me that upon retiring he was told to "get rid of that stuff", meaning incriminating documents relating to Japanese medical war crimes. Detrick no longer is a viable research center for historians."

3. "Within the past 2 weeks, "I was informed that the Pentagon, for "space reasons", decided to rid itself of all biological warfare documents in its holdings prior to 1949. The date is important, because all war crimes trials against accused Japanese war criminals were terminated by 1949. Thus, current Pentagon materials could not implicate alleged Japanese war criminals. Fortunately, a private research facility in Washington volunteered to retrieve the documents in question. This research facility now holds the documents, is currently cataloguing them (estimated completion time, at least twelve months), and is guarding the documents under "tight security".


"After 60 years, we are still finding positive antibodies of bubonic plague in rats, dogs, cats and other animals. Every year a certain number of healthy people develop typhoid. Japan's Germ Warfare has left behind problems that still threaten our lives." said Qiu Mingxuan, a Chinese doctor, "Environmental pollution and damage to the ecosystem are very serious. The issue is still threatening people in China."


Fears of another outbreak still haunt the Chinese cities.


Daniel Barenblatt, author of new book "A Plague Upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation", said in a recent interview, "There could be over 700,000 or even 1,000,000 lives lost to Japan’s Bio-Warfare programme.... The plague bacteria released then still lingers on in some animal populations today. It is still there.... rodents still test positive for antibodies to the bubonic plague .... What the US did in making the deal with top doctors is unconscionable. As far as we know, no one in the US government raised any more objection to it."


In Aug. 2002, after 27 court hearings since 1998, and with former Unit 731 Japanese soldiers including Yoshio Shinozuka, came forward as witnesses, Japanese court had no choice and finally recognized for the FIRST TIME that Japan had conducted WMD Biological Warfare in China. But the court rejected the demand for apology and compensation.


However, the Japanese government still refuses to recognize that its army ever waged WMD Biological Warfare saying lack of evidence.


Apr 19, 2005 Pointing to the Nazi Concentration Camp of Auschwitz in Poland and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan as precedents for UNESCO protection of war ruins, China would seek UNESCO World Heritage protection for the ruins of a Japanese WMD Biological Warfare center of Unit 731 in Harbin, including its laboratories, prisons and crematoria used for experiments on humans to develop WMD Biological Weapons.


Jul 10, 2005 Evidence of vast plant that Japan used PoWs as human guinea pigs in WMD Chemical and Biological Warfare found in remote grasslands of Inner Mongolia, China. "It covers an area of 40 square miles. It may be the largest and best-preserved gas experiment site in the world ..... Japan conducted WMD Chemical and WMD Germ Warfare in 2/3 of the country, but especially in the north, north-east and south of China," said Mr Jin Chengmin. "It should be qualified for World Heritage status. The ruins serve as a permanent reminder of the atrocities Japanese troops committed in China."


26 posted on 2005/11/14 12:22:08 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]
Unit 516 - Inhuman WMD Chemical Warfare

This WMD Chemical Warfare is definitely the worst crime case of systematic chemical massacre against Humanity committed by a country in our Human History.


Japan refused to acknowledge formally that WMD Chemical Weapon were used, despite the discovery of huge quantity left behind.


In Feb. 2000, a road construction team discovered about 20,000 WMD Chemical Weapon metal canisters lay buried atop the Yellow Beard Mountain, Nanjing, showing for the first time that Japanese forces deployed WMD Chemical Weapon during their invasion of the Chinese capital where Japan committed its infamous Nanjing Massacre in 1937.


The size of the WMD Chemical Weapon, experts say, is enough to put Yellow Beard Mountain near the top of the list of places around the world.


Most startling is the fact that the stockpile in Nanjing represents just a tiny fraction of the WMD Chemical Weapon in China left behind by Japanese army.


Only in November 1995, after US declassified documents pertaining to the weapons, did the Japanese government admit that it had used "lethal gases". according to a report in 2001 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.


During the final weeks of WWII, Japanese lmperial Army truckloaded thousands of WMD Chemical Weapons, including mustard gas and another lethal toxin and dumped them into the Nen River, northeast China. The dumping was part of a secret campaign to erase evidence of Japan's Chemical War against China.


Only recently the Japanese government begun to admit to their work on these weapons of mass destruction by Unit 516, Japan's top-secret WMD Chemical Weapons research facility in Qiqihar, China.


On Aug. 12, 1945 former soldier Masaji Takahashi, now a 77-year-old retired barber, supervised the disposal of WMD chemicals in the Nen River. The order, recalled Takahashi in 1998, "was to throw them from the bridge" into Nen River.


Japanese WMD dumping was much worse and harmful than the U.S. dumped WMD Chemical Weapons off foreign countries' shores.


In 1929, in defiance of the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning WMD Chemical Weapons, Japan seceretly began building a production facility so secret that its location, Okunoshima Island in Takehara, Hiroshima Prefecture, was erased from unclassified Japanese maps. Dubbed "Island of Great Hardships".


The facility had 6,000 workers and produced toxins 1,200 tons annually for 7.5 million weapons. Gases were also injected into shells and bomb casings at the Sone Armory in Fukuoka Prefecture; and the navy's WMD chemical weapons plant was located in Samukawa, Kanagawa Prefecture.


Prior to 1945, Japan produced an estimated 7,000,000 chemical munitions, for which 4,000,000 are currently unaccounted.


Yoshiaki Yoshimi, professor of modern and contemporary Japanese history at Chuo University, based on the incomplete declassified U.S. Army documents at the National Archives in Washington D.C. and a six-volume intelligence report on Japanese chemical warfare, compiled by the General Headquarters of the U.S. Army Forces Pacific in May 1946, he has estimated Japan had produced 1,646,326 units of WMD chemical weapons from 1938 through 1943.


Keiichi Tsuneishi, professor at Kanagawa University, obtained a copy of 10 papers from a former Imperial Army officer. The documents indicate that Japan had produced 5.18 million poison gas shells (6.100 tons of poison gas) between 1931 and 1945 on Okuno Island in Hiroshima Prefecture.


In 1931, the "Hardships" spread to China. Japan invaded Manchuria, a resource-rich industrial region, and established Unit 516 staffed with 3,000 personnel in Qiqihar to develop and test a modern chemical arsenal. The facility perfected a variety of chemical weapons, from deadly smoke "candles" to chemical grenades, mortars and heavy artillery - all manufactured with Okunoshima's poisons.


Japanese troops used these WMD chemical weapons almost from the day they started full invasion in China 1937. They launched 375 separate chemical attacks in a four-month campaign to conquer Wuhan.


Benjamin C. Garrett, one of the world's leading experts in Chemical Weapons, has visited China. He has found 6 types of gases the Japanese used in WMD Chemical Weapons against Chinese:
1. Phosgene
2. Hydrogen Cyanide
3. Bromobenzyl Cyanide and Chloroacetophenon
4. Diphenyl-cyanoarsine and Diphenylchloroarsine
5. Arsenic Trichloride
6. Sulfur Mustard and Lewisite

According to Peter O'Meara Evans author of BICC Paper13: Destruction of Abandoned Chemical Weapons in China, estimated that Japan during its 14 years brutal WWII invasion in China, had used Chemical Weapons in China more than in any other country and
Japan had used WMD Chemical Weapons in 889 - 2,900 battles in China.


After the war, China began gathering Japanese abandoned WMD chemical weapons (for details, see Abandoned Chemical Weapons in China and also
Abandoned and Old Japanese Chemical Weapons) and burying them in remote Dunhua County, in Haerbaling, Jilin province. The 2 large pits, interred a vast stockpile of munitions: 670,000 artillery and mortar shells, smoke canisters, huge drums of chemicals.


It is now Asia's most dangerous dump. The two massive pits contain more than half a million munitions shells. Official warned that an accidental explosion in Dunhua would kill everything, even grass, within a 200 kilometer radius.


According to a Chinese report : Some information on discovered chemical weapons abandoned in China by a foreign state, chemical ordnance in varying amounts has been found in few other provinces (Jilin, Sangdon, Hebei, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia etc).


It has been estimated that 700,000 - 2,000,000 Chemical Bombs most of them loaded with mustard gas and many of them corroded and leaking, are still scattered in China.


Japan has an obligation to remove these weapons within 10 years, under the terms of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which came into effect in April 1997.


OPCW reaffirmed in May 2000 that it held Japan responsible for destroying all these abandoned deadly WMD chemical weapons and Abandoned and Old Japanese Chemical Weapons.


The chemical warheads have continued to injure and kill, harming as many as 2,000 Chinese and damaging the environment. The rotten chemicals leaked from these munitions are continuing to pollute people's health, rivers and underground waters.


China is now home to the world's largest chemical weapons cleanup campaign for 700,000 - 2,000,000 Chemical Bombs.


" This is something that has been done before, but NOT on that scale," said Abu Talib, a chemical weapons expert from Mitretek Systems in Falls Church, Va. in U.S., " Most of the Chemical Weapons around the world, you're talking hundreds and thousands -- NOT such a huge pile."


Whether such a monumental task can be completed by 2007, the deadline imposed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, remains to be seen because Japan has been slow in this chemicals cleanup despite its promise.


Japan's agreement to clean up the arms also came after years of contention and negotiation hampered by Tokyo's long refusal to acknowledge formally that such munitions were used, despite the discovery of so many left behind. The difficulty of the decommissioning project in China is compounded by the leftover weapons' age, condition, mixed content and sheer quantity.


However, some progress has been made. For details, refer to October 2002 report by the Abandoned Chemical Weapons (ACW) Office : Outline of the Project for the Destruction of Abandoned Chemical Weapons (ACW) in China (ACW Destruction Project).


Jun 6, 2005 Japan finally decided to spend US$1.9 billion to build a factory in China to dispose its WMD Chemical Weapons abandoned in WWII.


Japanese freelance director Tomoko Kana, who recently completed a doucmentary film From the Land of Bitter Tears said, "The abandoned weapons issue is little known in Japan," she said, "The way Chinese people feel about this issue is very similar to how Japanese feel about North Korea's abductions of Japanese."


In 1995, road workers accidentally set off an abandoned WMD Chemical Weapon, killing 2 people and injuring several others.


Min Liu whose father was killed in 1995 by Japanese abandoned artillery shell, was hoping of becoming a school teacher, but instead she has since been working at her relative's cafeteria to pay off her father's medical bills.


The film captured the emotional Liu and 3 other victims from separate incidents has been on, including the scene of Liu giving a tearful hug to her mother while the mother burst into tears, confessing that she pulled the plug on her injured husband because family could not pay the medical bills and thus took him out of the hospital. He died the following day.


Aug 13, 2003 A scrap metal collector in Northeastern China, Qiqihar had mistakenly uncovered 5 drums filled with mustard gas by the Japanese Army in WWII, harmed more than 40 people. One man had chemical burns over 95% of his body and died later. Others had suffered from vomiting to severe burns. Pictures of Qiqihar WMD Chemical victims.


In Oct. 2003, In an ironical denial, Japan agreed to pay 300 million yen over mustard gas, but NOT as Compensation, insisting ONLY as "Fees for operations to dispose of abandoned WMD Chemical Weapons".


Japan has apologized to China for the incident. Japanese and Chinese working team recently completed sealing up 724 pieces of WMD Chemical Weapons along with five barrels of mustard gas and interview with Japanese official.


China displays WMD Chemical Weapons dug up jointly with Japan.


This is the FIRST official acknowledgement by the Japanese Government that Japan during WWII used WMD Chemical Weapon (mustard gas).


The next step should be the official acknowledgement of the use of the WMD Biological Weapon by the infamous Unit 731.


Jul 23, 2004 Two Chinese children playing near a river in Dunhua, Jilin Province, injured by mustard gas leaked from the Japanese WMD Chemical Weapon.



After the war, China has repeatedly demanded Japan to provide all WMD burial sites information of these deadly WMD Chemical Weapons. Unfortunately, Japan has flatly refused to cooperate. As a result of Japan's WMD refusal, WMD Chemical Weapons continue to threaten everyday people at 40 sites in 15 provinces and autonomous regions.



At least 2,000 Chinese have so far become victims of the discarded 700,000 - 2,000,000 Japanese WMD Chemical Weapons since the war ended.



Jun 27 2005 Another 3 Chinese injured by Japanese WMD Chemical Weapons.


Jul 10, 2005 Evidence of vast plant that Japan used PoWs as human guinea pigs in WMD Chemical and Biological Warfare found in remote grasslands of Inner Mongolia, China. "It covers an area of 40 square miles. It may be the largest and best-preserved gas experiment site in the world ..... Japan conducted WMD Chemical and WMD Germ Warfare in 2/3 of the country, but especially in the north, north-east and south of China," said Mr Jin Chengmin. "It should be qualified for World Heritage status. The ruins serve as a permanent reminder of the atrocities Japanese troops committed in China."


27 posted on 2005/11/14 12:27:34 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]
Extortion & Looting of Asia
Unjust Enrichment against Humanity

This mass scale of extortion & looting of Asia is definitely the worst case of war criminal unjust enrichment against Humanity committed by a country in our modern History.


Back in Sept 1999, two federal courts in New Jersey ruled in favor of a German company barring claims of a Slave laborer. Nonetheless, Germany and its industry recognized their responsibility and continued to negotiate.


Though the Nazi regime lost the war, German companies profited from Slave labor. German industrial wealth was 17 times larger After the war than in 1939 by using Slave laborers according to economic historian Dietrich Eichholz.


"We were treated worse than Slaves, you try to keep Slaves alive. We were like sandpaper: used, thrown away and burnt with the garbage."


In August 2000, the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future" was created by the German Government and German companies in recognition of Germany's moral responsibility towards those subjected to slave labour during the WWII. The Foundation was endowed with Slave Funds of $5.11 Billion Euros, provided in equal parts by the German government and about 6,000 companies of German Industry.


"I pay tribute to all those who were subjected to slave and forced labor under German rule, and in the name of the German people beg forgiveness," said Johannes Rau, German president in 2000, "We will not forget their suffering."


To date, Over 1.63 Million Slave victims have received compensation from Germany.


Even professed Neutral Nations like Sweden and Switzerland have had the courage to take a painful look back at their WWII record; 1.25 Billion Swiss Banks Settlement signed in 1999 by the Swiss banks.


Germany has made generous acts of atonement and has paid 88 Billions Mark in compensation and reparations to Jewish Holocaust victims and will spend another 20 Billions Mark by 2005.


Germany has also paid pensions to the Jews in Israel and U.S. who were living in Eastern Europe during WWII since 1995, and German-speaking Canadian Jews since 2003.


Can Japan be allowed to do any less ?


Exactly like the Western colonial countries, Japan also became a rich country mainly through brutal colonial crimes.


One would truly become speechless, if recalls the fact that Japan extorted a phenomenal huge sum of JiaWu War reparation - Treaty of Maguan in 1895 from China, i.e. 231 million taels of silver on top of Taiwan, the Pescadores and Liaotung peninsula etc .......


And later in year 1901, nearly bankrupt China also had to pay 450 million taels of silver in 39 years with 4% yearly interest for the Boxer Rebellion War indemnity to eight foreign countries ( G8 - Canada + Austria ), i.e. U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Japan.


So great vast sum of money for any wealthy nation let alone one as poor as China. Fortunately, a Chinese ambassador in US discovered that U.S. had "mis-calculated" its demand of the Boxer Indemnity, i.e. over-charged 2.5 times more than should be. The "mis-calculated Chinese money" was later earmarked by U.S. and later Britain, for overseas education of Chinese students as Boxer Fellowship, e.g. Chen Ning Yang, a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and also famous for the Yang-Mills Theory, for our current understanding of subatomic particles. The "mis-calculated Chinese money" later formed basis of the famous China's MIT, Tsinghua University.


Of which Japan got 34.7 million plus interest of 41 million taels of silver.


Total War Indemnity paid to Japan alone was a staggering capital 265 million plus interest 321 million taels of silver (i.e. Total 586 million taels of silver in 1895, about 7 times China's annual revenue).


China could not pay Japan the phenomenal huge war indemnity and had to borrow money from several Western countries and paid heavy interest.


In fact, China continued to pay Japan the past War Indemnity up to WWII.


Before the War, Japan colonized and exploited Korea. Japan was unjustly enriched from extortion of many hundreds of million dollars of war indemnity from China. In fact, China continued to pay Japan the past war indemnity up to WWII.


During the War of 14 years of brutal WWII, Japan robbed other Asian country's wealth, treasures and natural resources, unjustly enriched with hundreds of millions by acting as an Opium Drug Distributor.


Japan transformed the occupied Manchuria into a vast poppy field. Mitsui then processed Manchurian opium into heroin. Japan was by far the largest Opium producer throughout the first half of the 20th century, initially in Korea and then in Manchuria.


In Manchuria, Japanese open the "Opium Dens" or "Opium Divans" to all, even teenagers; consumption was increasing; and Japanese Opium made huge unjust enrichment as the Japanese authorities cynically acknowledged, by imprinting a flowering poppy on their Manchukuo coins.


By 1937, Japan and its gangster operated world's largest drug trafficking system and were responsible for 90 % of the world's illicit narcotics.


The WMD Opium Drug Warefare unjustly enriched Japan $300 million (equivalent of $3.5 billion in 2001) per year from the bankrupt China with its Drug strategy of nation against nation.


Though the Nazi regime lost the war, German companies profited from Slave labor. German Industrial Wealth was 17 times larger After the war than in 1939 by using Slave laborers according to economic historian Dietrich Eichholz.


Linda Goetz Holmes detailed in her book Unjust Enrichment: How Japan's companies built postwar fortunes using American PoWs.


Similar to the Nazi, Japan kidnapped and forced Millions of labor Slaves to unjustly enrich its fortune.


At least 2,700 American PoW as Slave labored in the factories, mines and shipyards of Mitsubishi subsidiaries.


Japan also unjustly enriched with hundreds of millions by abducting and forcing hundreds of thousands of girls and women into Sex Slaves as pay service to its soldiers.


Using the Sex Slaves, Japanese also extorted large sums of money from the women's families in exchange for their Sex Slavery.


In Hong Kong, Mr. Ng Yat-Hing, the chairperson of the Hong Kong Reparation Association, tells another fact that from 1941 to 1945, HK was under the control of Japanese Imperial Army. During this dark period, all other currencies were forbidden except the Japanese Military Yen, called Gunpyo. HK residents were forced to hand out their HK and foreign currency, gold, jewelry etc to exchange the Military Yen. Whoever disobeyed were executed. All the gold and valuables were either shipped back to Japan or used to buy military materials, foreign currencies, precious metals, and other coins. The exchange rate at that time was 2 to 4 HK dollars for 1 Military Yen.


After the war, the Military Yen immediately became worthless paper. Many families had become broke over night. For decades, the Association has been unsuccessfully demanding the Japanese government to take the responsibility of exchanging the Military Yen which totals 540 million, now valued at about US $1.28 Billion, back to HK dollars. In August 1993, they filed a law suit with the Tokyo District Court. There has been 28 hearings in the Japanese court.


On June 17, 1999 the Tokyo District Court rejected their request. Presiding Judge Seiichiro Nishioka acknowledged that the exchange of HK dollars with Military Yen, was compulsory. He said, "Whether the plaintiffs should be compensated is not a matter to be decided by the courts but one to be decided by the Diet."


"We are not demanding for war compensation, we are demanding Japan to pay back their legal debt", said Mr. Ng. "The Japanese government's fraudulent act of reneging on its debts will remain in History."


Japanese courts rejected a similar claim filed by a Taiwanese woman on her military yen in the early 1980s.


For 45 years, starting from Korea, Japanese gold hunting expert teams accompanying Japan's armed forces had systematically emptied treasuries, banks, factories, private homes, pawn shops, art galleries, and stripped ordinary people, while Japan's top gangsters looted Asia's underworld and black economy.


Japan flooded China with narcotics, giving gangsters drugs in exchange for gold and valuables. Extortion was used to terrorize wealthy individuals, tycoons, clan elders, bankers and businessmen.


Special attention were given to the theft of valuable ancient books, priceless manuscripts and cultural assets.


Among the most valuable articles taken back to Japan were the Asian cultural artworks and historic artifacts.


The commander of the 16th Division, Lieutenant General Nakajima Kesago was found looting Chiang Kai-shek's treasures such as rugs and paintings and sending them to Kyoto in 23 boxes.


Japanese out-performed and were far more thorough than the Nazis in looting and plundering.


The plunder was the wealth and properties of 12 Asian countries, accumulated over thousands of years. Japan systematically searched and looted Asia with plundering enrichment and greediness un-precedented in modern History.


More shocking details of the Japanese unjust enrichment could be found in the controversial book Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold, backed up by massive amounts of the author's raw research material, which is available in 2 CD-ROMs containing more than 900 megabytes of documents, interviews, maps and photographs assembled during their meticulous research for independent verification.


According to their research, the Emperor Hirohito appointed his brother Prince Chichibu to head a top-secret operation codenamed "kin no yuri", i.e. "Golden Lily" to supervise looting of Asia, mainly from China, Taiwan, Korea and Philippines, then shipped all looted treasures to Japan.


Over 45 years, Japan systematically looted wealth of 12 Asian countries accumulated over thousands of years: currency, gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, gemstones, jewelry, cultural treasures, religious artifacts, art and antiques including more than a dozen solid gold Buddhas, each weighing more than a ton.


The looting and plundering, which was far more thorough than the Nazis, became the Japanese way to finance its brutal war. In China alone, Japan looted 6,000 tonnes of gold from Chinese capital Nanjing in 1938.


From 1942, Chichibu supervised the building of 175 Imperial storage sites to hide the treasure of Golden Lily. When the plunder was unable to ship to Japan due to US submarine blockade, most was buried by Japanese wartime commander General Yamashita, known as the "Yamashita's Gold", estimated US$ 500 Billion-plus of wealth looted from 12 Asian countries accumulated over thousands of years.


Hiding the treasure was crucial, so that if Japan lost the war militarily, it would not lose financially. Far from being bankrupted by the war, Japan had been greatly enriched. In an effort to keep the burial locations secret, thousands of Slave laborers, soldiers, and engineers were buried alive with the treasure. After the war, U.S. and former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos recovered some of them. But substantial portion of the treasure stolen by Japan still remains buried in the Philippines.


For decades, the existence of this hidden treasure was regarded as sheer fantasy. But in the 1990’s, courts in America and Switzerland concluded that billions of dollars in gold were looted by Japan and hidden in the Philippines.


A Swiss court disclosed in 1997 that one of the solid gold Buddhas is now in a bank vault beneath Zurich’s Kloten Airport, along with a large quantity of other gold bullion recovered by former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and held in Marcos family accounts.


In 1997, a team from Japan’s Asahi television was led to a mountain cave in the Philippines, where they filmed and examined 1,800 of these bars, worth $150 million, and drilled core samples that confirmed their province.


After Japan's surrender, some golds were recovered by US. But US decided to steal and unjustly enrich itself instead of returning to its rightful Asian owner for their recovery after War.


According to the Seagraves, US financial experts from CIA instructed Santa Romana to deposit the gold in 176 reliable banks in 42 different countries. Instead of returning these looted gold to the rightful owners of Asian countries to recover in the aftermath of WWII, U.S. unjustly enriched itself by stealing these looted gold and set up Slush Funds to finance and influence politics around the world for its own interests. The slush funds became US political worldwide action fund to fight communism. The most famous one is known as the Black Eagle Trust, or the M-Fund to reinforce the treasuries of its allies, bribe political leaders, manipulate politics, military, economics and elections around the world.


After the War, according to Segraves, US used the looted treasure from Asia as sort of Japanese Marshall Plan to re-build Japan, and develop Japanese key industries such as coal, iron, shipbuilding and electric power for Japan's "Economic Miracle Recovery" and as bulwark against communism.


Far from being bankrupted by the War, Japan had been greatly and unjustly enriched by the Plunder of Asia after the War.


"Truth is something governments do not wish to be known. Big corporate media and bootlicking academics have tried to undermine our books by pretending they don't exist or saying that the M-Fund is imaginary. But look at the CD-ROMs. Secrecy, lying and corruption have become the official seal of Tokyo and Washington" says Peggy Seagrave.


The fact that the U.S. still refuses to declassify relevant OSS/CIA materials, in blatant contravention of U.S. Freedom of Information laws, strongly suggests to many scholars and historians that there is something serious to Cover-Up.


Japan also unjustly enriched by the U.S. Cover-up of State-Terrorism without taking any legal and moral responsibilities and pay compensation to the victims after the War, instead Japan profited and increased its wealth extensively from the Cold War between U.S. and Soviet, China.


But in vivid contrast, San Francisco Peace Treaty reveals that the reparations matter was merely postponed until Japan has the financial means to pay.


To cover-up, U.S. insisted that Japan was badly damaged and bankrupt when the war ended. In fact, few factories and mansions were destroyed or even seriously damaged, and there was little damage to the infrastructure.


According to Segraves, far from being bankrupted by the War, Japan had been greatly and unjustly enriched by the Plunder of Asia after the War.


Japan has been maintaining that no single yen should be compensated to any Chinese victim after its own defeat.


So far, Japan has refused to willingly and honourably follow the great example set by the courageous Germany.


As David Harris has said "Those nations who hide behind the legal technicality will ultimately find that the wall comes tumbling down."


Sooner or later, Japan will be forced to dis-honourably follow the courageous Germany.


28 posted on 2005/11/14 12:28:43 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]
Nanjing Massacre - Inhuman Civilian PoW Massacre

The Nanjing Massacre is one of the worst crime cases of systematic mass murder and rape of civilian and PoW against Humanity committed by a country in our modern History.

After losing the 2 infamous Opium War to Britain (For details, click Hong Kong - From Opium War to 1997 and Beyond) in 1841 and 1856, China had become the world's largest worst drug case in Human History. The Opium drug caused a disastrous outflow of China's wealth.

China, a rich country greatly admired by Marco Polo, quickly became a poor country and started to disintegrate.

By the early of this century, China was long since carved into leased colonial chunks belonging to Britain, France, U.S., Russia, Germany, other European countries, and then came the Japan. Foreign countries established their own Spheres of Influence within China

Foreign powers introduced a whole century of humiliation and many humiliating Unequal Treaties (more than 1,100 treaties) onto China. China had become a semi-colony country.

China was not freed from this Unequal Treaty System and the addictive Opium drug until 1943.


The Meiji Restoration had successfully changed Japan from a feudal state to a modern state. Unfortunately, it also transformed Japan from a previous Western Colonial Victim to a Eastern Colonial Aggressor.


In 1872, Japanese Tenno government forcibly carried out the so-called "Ryukyu Disposal" and invaded the centuries old Ryukyu Kingdom.


In 1874, Japan invaded Taiwan, China with the pretext of settling the issue of Ryukyu fishermen killed 3 years earlier. The Qing government accepted the mediation brokered by Britain, but the U.S. and France took side with the Japanese. As a result, the Qing court was forced to sign with Japan the "Special Treaty on Taiwan Affairs", which obligated China to pay Japan an indemnity of $500,000 taels of silver and recognized Ryukyu as part of Japanese territory.


In 1879, Japan forced the annexation of the ancient Ryukyu Kingdom and turned it a colony of the Tenno system under the name "Okinawa Prefecture". Okinawans were subjected to ferocious indoctrination and re-cast into subjects of the Japanese emperor. In the course of becoming Japanese, Okinawans suffered indignities and discrimination in civil rights, economic opportunities, culture and social standing. Japan’s minorities' place in the sun.


In 1887, the director of Japanese Second Bureau of the General Staff, drafted the famous "General Plan for a Military Expedition into the Qing State" which contemplated attacks in Beijing, occupations in the Yangtze River area, annexation of the Eastern Liaoning Peninsula, Taiwan, the Pescadores, etc, and in the meantime divided other parts of China into small countries such as Northeast, North China, Jiangnan, Qing Hai and Tibet, Mongolia, Gansu and Zunhgar, which would be all under the control of Japan.

Japanese Commerce and Agriculture Minister Tani Tateki, after returning from a trip to Europe, sent a memorandum to the Japanese Emperor, "..... as far as Europe is concerned, although we will not be directly involved, we can take advantage of such a European turmoil, and become the master of the East in one big leap ....."


For a very long time, Korea had been China’s traditional tributary state. To assert the control of Korea, Japan had actively penetrated Korea’s political, economic and military affairs. Chinese Qing government was too weak and afraid of getting involved with confrontations with the Western and Japan colonial powers.


In 1894, War of JiaWu finally began in July between China and Japan to assert influences over Korea.


The War of JiaWu ended with signing the Treaty of Maguan (Shimonoseki) on April 17, 1895. Defeated, China was forced to pay a phenomenal huge indemnity 231 million taels of silver, cession of Taiwan, the Pescadores and Liaotung peninsula etc .....


In 1904, Russian-Japanese fought a war inside China to determine who had more "Rights" to colonize China, ended with Treaty of Portsmouth.


In 1910,Japan brutally annexed Korea and started 36 years of brutal colonial governance. Korean culture was suppressed. Newspapers were prohibited from publishing in Korean and the study of Korean history was banned at university. School children were forbidden to speak Korean. Japanese tried to force Koreans to adopt Japanese names, Shinto religion but without much success. 100s of thousands of Koreans were sent to Japan as Slave Labor and more than 100 thousand women were used as Sex Slaves.


With the phenomenal huge Chinese money, Japan's economic took off immediately and was soon ready for the WWII.


In 1915, seizing the opportunity of W.W.I. in Europe, Japan demanded China to surrender her sovereignty with a secret ultimatum comprising 21 Humiliating Demands and backed up by the threat of war.


Although still suffering as a Western colonial victim, during W.W.I, China sent 100,000 laborers to help the allies in France; about 2,500 died. At end of W.W.I. at the peace conference in Paris, China requested: do away with the privileges of the imperialist foreign countries in China, cancel the Japanese "21 Humiliating Demands", take back the privileges in Shandong that Japan had taken from Germany.


However, not willing to give up their forced colonial privileges, U.S., Britain and France rejected China's demands. Instead, Article 156 of Treaty of Versailles transferred German concessions in Shandong, China to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China.


China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, compounded with the Japanese 21 Humiliating Demands led directly to the first mass movement in modern Chinese history, i.e. the famous First Chinese university student movement : May 4th Movement in Beijing in 1919 and triggered a nationwide Boycott of Japanese Goods. The movement also ignited a wave of searching efforts by the intellectuals for a solution to save China from foreign colonial powers. Some advocated gradual cultural reform, while others introduced Marxism and led to the birth of the Communist Party.

Worried about losing their own established forced colonial privileges in China to Japan, Western countries intervened and later at the Washington Conference, Japan reluctantly agreed to withdraw its troops from Shandong and restore full sovereignty to China.


In 1928, China was still divided by the warlords. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's government appointed Chiang Kai-shek as the commander-in-chief of the army to unite China. Japan wanted to provoke war while China was still divided, thus dispatched 3,000 soldiers to the Jinan city under the pretext of protecting Japanese residents and killed the Chinese negotiator Tsai Kung-Shi, and massacred several thousands of Chinese civilians and soldiers in Jinan city, known as the "May 3rd Jinan Massacre". Japanese then assassinated the Chinese warlord Chang Tso-lin after he had expressed his intention to surrender Manchuria to the Chinese government that would threaten Japan's economic privileges and its domination in Manchuria.


Chinese government realized the "May 3rd Jinan Massacre" and the assassination were designed by Japan to provoke war while China was still divided. Chiang Kai-shek ordered the his army to avoid Japanese controlled areas, and later effectively unified China under the government based in Nanjing.


Most American think of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as the beginning of WWII. But in fact, the brutal WWII was already raging in China since 1931, and nowhere was it more brutal than in Nanking (Nanjing), the capital of China at that time.


1931 Sept 18, when China was still engaging in its Civil War, Japan carried out a coup known as the "Mukden Incident" or "918 Invasion" or "Manchurian Incident" and resumed its invasion and occupied much of the Northeastern part of China.


In Nov. 1931, the Chinese communists who had rebelled the ROC government, established a provisional Soviet "government" in Jiangxi Province. Chiang Kai-Shek believed that the Communists must be eliminated before China could effectively repel Japanese invasion. He was determined to carry on the Anti-Communist campaign and ordered the armies to continue to attack. But one army commanded by Chang Hsueh-Liang disobeyed. He flew to Xian on Dec 12, 1936, to confront the general and was arrested by Chang. After a series of negotiations, Chiang Kai-Shek agreed to halt the Civil War and united with the Communist army and fought together against the Japanese invasion, known as the famous "Xian Incident".


1932 Feb 18, Japan declared Manchuria was to be independent from China as "Manchukuo" and set up a puppet state in the name of Puyi who was the last emperor of China.


Japan then moved as many as 2.5 million of Japanese into China over the next few years to prepare for the full invasion.


1937 July 7, Japan fabricated the " China Incident - 77 Marco Polo Bridge Invasion" and launched its full scale invasion into China under the "Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere" banner that paved the way for the bloody colonization of China, the Korean Peninsula and most of Southeast Asia.


Japan claimed that it would take only 3 months for them to conquer the whole China. Yet, not only they had to spend 3 months just to capture Shanghai city, but also suffered great casualties.


The bloody Battle of Shanghai lasted 3 months and involved nearly one million troops. Approx. 200,000 died on both sides.


When the prolonged Battle of Shanghai was finally over in mid-November, in vengeance, Japanese soldiers began wreaking their inflamed animosities on Chinese soldiers and civilians throughout their march to Nanjing, the Chinese capital.


Feeling humiliated for not capturing China within 3 months and suffered huge loss, desperately wanted to break the unexpected Chinese strong will of resistance, Japan turned to extreme State-Terriorism, employed official government policy of Massacre and Rape, developed WMD Biological, WMD Chemical and addictive WMD Drug Warefares.


In Feb. 2000, a road construction team discovered about 20,000 WMD Chemical Weapon metal canisters lay buried atop the Yellow Beard Mountain, Nanjing, showing for the first time that Japanese forces deployed WMD Chemical Weapon during their invasion of the Chinese capital Nanjing.


The size of the WMD Chemical Weapon, experts say, is enough to put Yellow Beard Mountain near the top of the list of places around the world.


Most startling is the fact that the stockpile in Nanjing represents just a tiny fraction of the WMD Chemical Weapon in China left behind by Japanese army.


1937 Dec. 13, Nanjing, the capital of China during the war, finally fell to the Japanese.


The Chinese government had to move its capital to the city of ChongQing. Later in 1940, Japan set up a Chinese puppet government in the conquered capital Nanjing under Wang Jing-Wei.


The retreating Chinese troops started setting fire on some of the buildings as part of their Scorched Earth policy as not to leave anything useful to the enemy. Some of the demoralized Chinese soldiers also started looting.

Archibald Steele of the Chicago Daily News wrote, "feeling that the behavior of the Japanese could not possibly be worse than that of their own defeated army, they were quickly disillusioned."


1937 Dec. 14, Commander of the Sasaki Detachment of the 16th division of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force, Major General Sasaki Touichi under Commander-in-Chief Prince Asaka Yasuhiko issued the official military order - " Kill ALL Captives ".


Japanese military force immediately systematically started murdering civilians and PoWs in China under the military "Three All Policy" -- "Kill All, Loot All, Burn All".


It was a well planned, full scale revenge designed to intimidate and crush the spirit of China. Japanese soldier began an orgy of cruelty seldom, if ever, matched in modern History.


Japanese soldiers under commander-in-chief Prince Asaka Yasuhiko of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force and uncle of Japanese Empress Nagako, looted all the precious Chinese golds and silver, national treasures, ancient artifacts, jades, rugs, porcelain artworks, paintings, antiques and books in the former Chinese capital, for transport to Japan.


In the next 2 - 3 months, Japan committed the infamous "Nanjing Datusha" or "Great Nanjing Massacre", or "Rape of Nanjing".


Frank Tillman Durdin of the New York Times wrote, "I saw the Japanese troops outdo them in a campaign of plunder which the Japanese carried out not only in the shops but in homes, hospitals, and refugee camps."


The sense of end-of-battle relief quickly turned into an immense fear of Death, Rape and Robbery.


C. Yates McDaniel of Chicago Daily Tribune wrote in his "Nanking Horror Described in Diary of War Reporter" :

"My last remembrance of Nanking : Dead Chinese, Dead Chinese, Dead Chinese. "


The New York Times reporter F. Tillman filed his report, "All Captives Slain" on Dec. 18, 1937 :

"The Japanese looting amounted almost to plundering of the entire city. Nearly every building was entered by Japanese soldiers, often under the eyes of their officers, and the men took whatever they wanted. The Japanese soldiers often impressed Chinese to carry their loot ....... The mass executions of war prisoners added to the horrors the Japanese brought to Nanking."

"The army men performing the gruesome job had invited navy men from the warships anchored off the Bund to view the scene. A large group of military spectators apparently greatly enjoyed the spectacle."

"Most of the Chinese soldiers who had been interned in the safety zone were shot in masses. The city was combed in a systematic house ­to house search for men having knapsack marks on their shoulders or other signs of having been soldiers. They were herded together and executed."


Other atrocities were vividly described by Iris Chang with Nightmare in Nanking in her best selling book "Rape of Nanking - The Forgotten Holocaust" :


"The brutalities included shooting, stabbing, cutting open the abdomen, excavating the heart, decapitation, drowning, punching the body and eye with an awl. Thousands of civilians were buried or burn alive, or used as targets for bayonet practice, shot in large groups and thrown into Yangtze River."


"Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs and the roasting of people become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced, such as hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them torn apart by dogs."


"An estimated 20,000 - 80,000 Chinese women were raped. Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched."



Japanese invented Games of Rape and Massacre, turned Murder into Sport.



"The manner in which these victims met their death was extremely cruel with atrocities of such great magnitude and diversities, so ghastly that it made Nazi's Auschwitz Gas Chamber appear Humane."



In fact, mass murder was carried out systematically by the Japan long before the first Nazi's Auschwitz Gas Chamber were even built.



Soldiers competed in " Bushido - Killing Contest Game" and sent the number of murders back to Nichi-Nichi Shimbun national newspaper in Japan to publish.


" I have never been to Hell , but there is a Hell , it was in this city , " reporter for the Tokyo Times told the killing in Nanjing.


The captured or surrendered Chinese soldiers were all mercilessly killed. Japanese inspected every men in the city to check for any sign of have been a soldier with helmet mark on forehead, calluses on hands or strap mark on shoulders. All suspects regardless were rounded up and immediately executed.


"At one time, after Nanking was captured, more than 30,000 Chinese were driven to the foot of the city wall. Machine guns then swept the crowd and grenades were thrown from atop the wall. The 30,000 people were all killed, most of them were women, children, and elderly." reported Tokyo Asahi Shimbun correspondent Yoshio Moriyama on December 14, 1937.


"Those in the second row were forced to dump the severed bodies into the river before they themselves were beheaded," The Japanese military correspondent, Yukio Omata, wrote, "The killing went on non-stop from morning until night ........".


Okumiya Masatake, was a former Imperial navy pilot and author of "The Nanjing Incident that I Saw". After having taken part in the Dec. 12 bombing and sinking of the USS Panay in the Yangtze River, Okumiya traveled in a chauffeur driven car for several days with an interpreter and a bodyguard to search for downed Japanese aircraft and the bodies and belongings of pilots killed during air raids over the city. "I believe that no other people went around inside and outside the walled city, combing the area like me at that time," Okumiya said.

He remembers a scene at Lake Xuanwu on Dec. 25. "There I saw numerous bodies in the lake and on its shore. They were so many that I could not count them. They were both young and old, and both men and women," Okumiya told The Japan Times. "The Chinese were bound with their hands behind their backs. About 20 soldiers were beheading the Chinese with their Japanese swords, the beheading task successively taken over by other groups of soldiers. The Chinese were forced to sit on the square so their heads would drop into the river..... The execution was like assembly line work. Some people say that in Nanjing, there were no organized or systematic killings by the Japanese army. But what I saw was nothing other than organized and systematic killings."


A December 15, 1937 entry to the diary of a Japanese soldier in the 23rd Regiment of the 18th Division, published in Tokyo Asahi Shimbun on August 4, 1984: "When we were bored, we had some fun killing Chinese. Buried them alive, or push them into a fire, or beat them to death with clubs, or kill them by other cruel means."


"Once you've killed your second or third, you stop thinking about it," Yasuji Kaneko describes how he grew numb to slaughter after bayonet drills using live Chinese prisoners tied to stakes.


"It was ultimately about competition," another interviewed veteran describes throwing babies onto camp fires just for laughs, "how many you killed becomes a standard of achievement."


Former Japanese sergeant major, Masayo Enomoto, says he became so inured to murder that he thought nothing of chopping up a rape victim, cooking her flesh and serving it to his hungry troops.


"Some Japanese soldiers who were hungry had killed the 16 years old Chinese boy and eaten some of his meat and sold the rest to the merchant, and we bought it from that merchant," Shinzaburo Horie said. The 79 year old former Japanese soldier trembled as he excavated his war memories. "I can't forget the fact that I ate a human being," "We should absolutely apologize to China and Korea," Horie said without hesitation. "Absolutely."


"Soldiers impaled babies on bayonets and tossed them still alive into pots of boiling water," Nagatomi Hakudo said with deepest remorse. Nagatomi is now now an acupuncturist in Japan and has built a shrine of remorse in his waiting room. "They gang-raped women from the ages of 12 to 80 and then killed them when they could no longer satisfy sexual requirements. I beheaded people, starved them to death, burned them, and buried them alive, over two hundred in all. It is terrible that I could turn into an animal and do these things. There are really no words to explain what I was doing. I was truly a devil."


Private Tadokoro Kozo of the 114th division said in 1971 interview, " There wasn't . ANY . soldier who didn't Rape. After things were done, usually we killed them ..... We didn't want to leave any trouble behind ....."


Another Japanese army veteran told reporter, "No matter how young or old, none of the women we rounded up could escape being Raped. Each one was allocated to 15 or 20 soldiers for sexual intercourse and abuse. After the Rapes, "we always stabbed them and killed them. Because dead bodies don't talk."


" The women were always killed. When they were being Raped, the women were human. But once the Rape was finished, they became pig's flesh," said Shiro Azuma remosely, "We were taught that we were a superior race since we lived only for the sake of a human god -- our emperor. But the Chinese were not. So we held nothing but contempt for them." Azuma is the first Japanese soldier to publicly admit and apologize for what he did. He told his story by publishing his diaries "My Nanking Platoon" and was sued for libel. But Azuma vows to keep fighting in courts for the right to speak truth, "I am 86 year old now, but I will fight to death like a young man, but this time is not for the Emperor but for the Justice and the History."


Azuma compared the Nanjing Massacre to the Holocaust. " These two were the most inhuman tragedies during the Second World War," said Azuma.


Teruichi Ukita, now 71 years old served in China in the Japanese kenpeitai, the dreaded military police, said in a tremulous voice, "It was when I had two daughters myself, I started to realize what I had done."

He was captured by Russians at the end of the war and sent to Siberia. It was when he saw fellow Japanese being killed, he said, that he belatedly realized the universal value of human life. "Watching Chinese being killed, I had no emotions," Ukita said. "It was like a game. But when I saw Japanese being executed in Siberia for stealing things, I got so angry and emotional."


Witnessed the atrocities, Reverend John Magee used his camera and recorded the Massacre in a 16mm film. It is believed to be the only documentary about this infamous massacre. He was an Episcopal pastor in charge of the so-called Nanjing International Safety Zone created when Japanese army captured Nanjing in 1937.


Angry at the Japanese atrocities, German diplomat Mr. George Rosen sent a copy of Magee's film to the Nazi government. He also included a long report which claimed that the whole Japanese army was a "Violent Killing Machine". In it, he requested that the film be shown to Hitler.


Chinese and Japanese scholars were aware of the film but were unable to locate it. Japanese then said that since there was no proof, the Nanjing Massacre never occurred.


When the German Archive at Botsdam was opened in 1990 after collapsing of the Berlin Wall, the Rosen report surfaced.


After a long search, the four rolls of the film and the diaries were finally found in Yale University Library and in the house of Mr. David Magee, Reverend Magee's son.


According to Magee's dairy, he could only record a very small part of what he witnessed since he was too busy to save lives.


John H. Rabe, top representative of Siemens company, was also the chairman of International Safety Zone (3.3 square miles), recorded this unspeakable Japanese atrocities in his 2,117 pages Diary of War.


Like Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who protected Jews, Mr. Rabe and few other western foreigners risked their life and helped to save 250,000 Chinese refugees from being killed. Chinese called him " The Living Buddha of Nanking".


When the people of Nanjing learned that he was near starvation in postwar Berlin, they immediately collected equivalent US $2,000 in 1948 and the city mayor of Nanking even flew to Switzerland to deliver money and food to Mr. Rabe. They kept sending food every month until China fell to communists in 1949.


As the leader of local Nazi Party and Safety Zone Chairman in Nanjing, Rabe wrote a letter to Hitler about the Japanese War Crimes and asked Hitler to persuade Japan to stop the atrocities.


On Dec. 12, 1996, Ursula Reinhardt, his granddaughter from Berlin, showed the 8 volumes of diary the very first time to the public in New York. It was Iris Chang with Nightmare in Nanking, author of the "Rape of Nanking - The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII, brought the attention of the whole world to this diary.

The English version of his complete diaries of war, is available The Good Man of Nanking - The Diaries of John Rabe


In April 1997, Mr. Rabe's tombstone was moved from Berlin and rested in the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre, Nanjing, China.


"This escapades were quite dangerous," Mr. Rabe wrote in his diary. "The Japanese had pistols and bayonets and I -- as mentioned before -- had only party symbols and my Swastika armband." He also wrote about the retreating Chinese troops, "I then had a humanitarian impulse that I later came to regret .... I advise them that they should drop their weapons and let me take them to the barracks in the safety zone .... I hope these disarmed troops would face no worse fate than being taken prisoner by the Japanese .... every one of these disarmed troops, and thousands more later seeking refuge in the safety zone were singled out .... and immediately taken to be executed. Thousands and thousands were executed by machine gun fire or hand grenades ........"


George A. Fitch was the head of the YMCA, director of Safety Zone and acting Mayor in Nanjing during war. He had also smuggled out the Magee footage and travelled throughout US to give his witness speeches about the horrific Nanjing Massacre. In his book "My Eighty Years in China", he wrote on Dec. 24, 1937 the following diary entry:


"But to have to stand by while even the very poor are having their last possessions taken from them - their last coin, their last bit of bedding (and it is freezing weather), the poor ricksha man his ricksha; while thousands of disarmed soldiers who had sought sactuary with you, together with many hundreds of innocent civilians are taken out before your eyes to be shot, or used for bayonet practice, and to listen to the sound of the guns that are killing them; to have over a thousand women kneel before you crying hysterically, begging you to save them from the beasts who are preying on them ........"


"To commit acts of unbelievable brutality and savagery on the very people they have come to protect and befriend, as they have so loudly proclaimed to the world. In all modern history surely there is no page that will stand so black as that of the Rape of Nanjing ........"


Minnie Vautrin, was an American missionary from a little town of Michigan. She helped found Ginling College in Nanjing. As dean of studies at Ginling College, she shielded the desperate Chinese who sought asylum behind the gates of the college. In unswerving defiance of the Japanese, she turned Ginling into a sanctuary for 10,000 women and girls, who honored her as their "Goddess of Mercy", a "Living Goddess".


"How many thousands were mowed down by guns or bayoneted we shall probably never know," wrote Vautrin in her diary, "For in many cases oil was thrown over their bodies and then they were burned."


When the Japanese soldiers ordered Minnie to leave the campus, she replied: "This is my home. I cannot leave." She spent 21 years of invaluable service as teacher, education department chair and acting president of Ginling. Minnie saved thousands of Chinese through heroic acts but becoming too traumatized to save her own life. She suffered a nervous breakdown in 1940 and returned to the US. She committed suicide in 1941.


Her tombstone bears the words "Ginling Forever". A bronze monument to Vautrin was established at Ginling college in 2002. In Illinois, Governer Rod Blagojevich has declared Sept. 27, "Minnie Vautrin Day".


A book based on her diary, maintained during the entire siege, correspondences, eyewitness, government documents, and interviews with Vautrin's family is available American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin.


Arnold Brackman, a reporter at the Tokyo Trial and author of the book The Other Nuremberg, commented " The Nanjing Massacre was not the kind of isolated incident common to wars. It was deliberate. It was policy. It was known in Tokyo."



"In terms of measures and cruelty of the genocide, its duration and large numbers of people killed," says professor Wu of history of Southern Illinois University "Neither Hiroshima nor Jewish Holocaust can rival the Nanjing Massacre."



Japanese invented Games of Rape and Massacre, turned Murder into Sport.



"The manner in which these victims met their death was extremely cruel with atrocities of such great magnitude and diversities, so ghastly that it made Nazi's Auschwitz Gas Chamber appear Humane."



In fact, mass murder was carried out systematically by the Japan long before the first Nazi's Auschwitz Gas Chamber were even built.


In 1937, Chang Zhiqiang, 10 years old, watched his father and other able-bodied men form a human wall in an attempt to keep Japanese soldiers from getting close to their elders, women and children. He saw his mother bayoneted twice in an attempt to protect her 6 children, and watched his 2 younger brothers suffer a similar death. His 2-year-old youngest brother froze to death over the dead body of his mother, and his elder sister died after being Raped and bayoneted.


Like many other survivors, Mr. Chang rarely speaks of the massacre, not even to his children and grandchildren. "I cannot bear to think of it," and silently weeps. Mr. Chang had never been to the Memorial Hall. On 2 occasions he got as far as the entrance, but was overwhelmed with such sorrow that he had to turn away.


Then, in 1997 he saw on TV that the right-wing Japanese were denying the Nanjing Massacre. Anger motivated him to write down exactly what he saw and experienced. He started to volunteer as guide for the Memorial Hall. "At the beginning, hatred and pain would swell in my heart when I saw Japanese visitors. After they listened to my account of what happened, they just broke down and cried. Some knelt before me and some bowed. At first I was taken aback and felt uneasy. Gradually, as my hatred ebbed, I was able to face them with an eased heart."



On the 3rd day of Japanese occupation of Singapore, the Japanese General ordered all those Chinese, age from 18 to 55, who fought against the Japanese invading force to be interned and then were truck away and never to be heard from since. It was reported in the Japan East Asia Annual published in 1942, that over 70,000 anti-Japanese Chinese in Singapore were interned and killed eventually. A Monument was built and dedicated on February 15, 1967 by then Singapore Premier Lee Kwonyu.


It should be of no surprise that many similar Japanese atrocities occurred elsewhere in thoughout South East Asia.


29 posted on 2005/11/14 12:30:18 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]
Sex Slaves - Inhuman Sexual Crime

This military Sex Slaves is definitely the worst and only known war crime case of systematic mass violation of women rights against Humanity committed by a country in our modern History.

Nearly all of the 2.5 Million Japanese soldiers who surrended to the Allies in 1945 would have known about the Sex Slaves. However, after the war the Sex Slave issue quickly faded from public consciousness, and for years the issue received little attention.


On Feb 24 2001, in the Hague War Crimes Court, the International Tribunal has convicted the 3 Serb commanders in the Bosnian town of Foca in 1992 and 1993, where hundreds of women were abducted and sexually enslaved by Bosnian Serb soldiers. They received prison terms of 28, 20 and 12 years. The 3-judge panel ruled that Mass Rape is a crime against Humanity, the 2nd most serious category of international Crimes after Genocide.


In 1980s, the outcry of the former Sex Slaves started capturing the world wide attention, and slowly has gained the wide international support.

In 1988, Professor Yun Chung Ok of Ehwa Women's University in Korea began to lead an activist group that conducted and presented research about the Comfort Women.

In 1990, 37 women's groups in Korea formed the Voluntary Service Corps Problem Resolution Council and demanded apology and compensation from Japan.


In the beginning, Japanese Government refused to admit any involvement of the state, as illustrated by Japan's position stated in the house of councilor's Budget Committee Session of June 1990 that "Comfort Women" were recruited by private sector operators.


On 16 Jan. 1992, Japanese history professor Yoshiaki Yashimi of Chuo University unearthed 6 official war documents from the Library of the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo confirmed the involvement of Japanese military authorities in both establishing and operating the comfort stations..


The unrefutable proof forced the Japanese Government to acknowledge the involvement and issued an apology but continues to deny by saying that the women were not forcibly recruited.


Humiliated and ashamed, Sex Slave survivors remained silent for decades before finally speaking out in the early 1990s in response to persistent denials by Japan of its involvement.


August 1991, Kim Hak Sun became the first Korean woman to give public testimony to her life as a Sex Slave. She was one of the 3 Korean former Sex Slaves women filed the first lawsuit against the Japanese government in Dec. 1991. Her lawsuit had attracted worldwide attention. Similar lawsuits followed by South Korea women had finally shed some light to the worst case "Rape Camps" against women's human rights in this century.


Japan did not even admit to the Sexual Salvery until 1993.


Japanese military also in cooperation with the Japanese organized criminal organization Yakuza, ran thousands of brothels for Japanese soldiers, kidnapping and forcing hundreds of thousands of women into "Comfort Women" - Sex Slaves.


Using the Sex Slaves, Japanese Army extorted large sums of money from the women's families in exchange for their Sex Slavery.


The Japan's first wartime "Facility for Sexual Comfort" was opened in Nanjing, China in 1938.


Hundreds of thousands Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Filipina, Malaysian, Dutch, East Timorese women were forced into Sex Slavery. In Shanghai alone, the Japanese military set up 90 sex stations, with about 500 women serving soldiers at each station.


Research has shown that the previous estimated 200,000 by U.N. did not take into account of China, because China came into the research picture much later than its Asian neighbors. In Shanghai alone, the Japanese military set up 90 sex stations, with about 500 women serving soldiers at each station.


The total actual number of Sex Slaves could be close to 400,000.


Despite the widespread prevalence of what was essentially institutionalized Rape, the issue of Sex Slaves was ignored by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, set up after the WWII to prosecute Japan's war criminals.


Kim Yoon Shim, a former Sex Slave, now 69 years old, told the cast of Hanako that she was 13 years old when she was abducted by Japanese outside her village in Cholla province. She said it was common for young women to have to offer sexual services 20 to 50 times a day. Many tried to commit suicide; others attempted escape.


During a rainstorm, Kim tried to flee. She sought refuge in a house - only to discover it was occupied by Japanese soldiers. "I was beaten up and tortured," she recounted. "My feet were broken and my spine cracked. They hung me upside down, poured water in my nostrils and stuck pins in me."


As a result of the torture, Kim's hearing is permanently damaged. When she was later reunited with her family, she said her mother suggested that it might have been better if she had died rather than survive with "that kind of past".


Kim's past followed her into her future. She was abandoned by her first husband because she could not have children. She underwent surgery in an attempt to repair the damage to her body. When she married a second time, she gave birth to a daughter with serious handicaps. Gonorrhea and syphilis contracted from Japanese soldiers had been passed to her baby. "To this day, my daughter cannot hear or talk," Kim said. "She doesn't know what happened to me."


In Filippine, Sex Slaves are known as the "Lolas", the Grandmothers. When "Lola Nenita" resisted the first assault, she was severely beaten. During their "rest periods" the women had to cook and do the laundry for their captors -- but they were never allowed to talk. They escaped when the Americans came and "Lola Nenita" returned home only to be thrown out by her husband and ostracized by relatives. She had brought dishonor to the family. Her children were forbidden from calling her Mother.


Many Sex Slaves became sterile from the repeated rapes. Women who became pregnant or infected with a sexually transmitted disease were given a shot of the antibiotic terramycin, which the women referred to as "Number 606", the drug made the women's bodies swell up and would usually induce an abortion." If a girl did get pregnant, soldiers would occasionally sit on the girl’s stomach until the unborn baby came out, then they would kill the baby. The girl who had just given birth was not allowed a recovery period, and she was forced to have sex again right away. If a girl became too ill, a guard would wrap her up in a blanket and carry her away. Kim Yoon-shim, a former comfort woman reported, " I did not see any of the sick girls ever come back.”


Lee Ok Soon, now 76, still suffers from the Sexual Slavery of her teens, "My two sisters feel quite ashamed of me and say that it was all my fault. They won’t visit me at all." Although Lee married later, but she never revealed her past to her husband for fear of rejection, "I got so many injections of 606 that I was unable to have children ..... He didn’t know." she explained.


Jang Jomdol, 83, gave the tearful testimony, "It's so shameful just to think of what had happened to me when I was young serving as a Sex Slave of the colonial Japanese troops. It makes me sick," She said, "At first I felt so ashamed of my humiliating experiences I couldn't come out. It was really agonizing to bring myself up to tell the truth, but I finally decided to let the world know what really happened, contrary to the continued denial of this truth by the Japanese authorities."

She was abducted in 1938 at age 16 and forced to be Sex Slave of 40 to 50 Japanese soldiers daily on average for almost 2 years with repeated pregnancies and miscarriages alternately. She made several futile escape attempts, each time ending in beatings until she fell into unconsciousness. She saw 2 of her Sex Slave friends commit suicide and the memory haunts her even these days. "I won't be able to close my eyes even at my deathbed, unless I hear Japan apologize for its barbarism." she emphasized.


University of Victoria Japanese history professor John Price says that After the war, the Japanese Army went to great lengths to cover up its connection to the Sex Slaves. Thousands of them were killed by the fleeing Imperial soldiers.


Of the approx. 400,000 Sex Slaves, only fraction lived through the ordeal and just about 500 are believed alive today. They were forced to serve up to 40 men a day.

No one knows the true figure.


Most have concealed their past, considering it too shameful.


In Feb. 1992, the "Comfort Women" issue was first taken up at the U.N. by attorney Etsuro Totsuka at the commission of Human Rights adopted a resolution criticizing all form of violence against women in war situation.

In Nov. 1992, the International Commission of Jurists recommended that the Japanese Government should pay state compensation of US $20,000 to each of the victims for their physical and emotional damages.


The Japanese Government insisted that the recommendation from U.N. do not imply any legal binding, therefore, Japan has no obligation to comply with them.


In Aug. 1994, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama annonunced a project for "Peace and Friendship Exchanges" tried to solve this issue. The proposal was criticized both at home and aboard that Japan is not taking its responsibility of state compensation to the victims.

In July. 1995, Japanese government established a private sector fund called "Asian Women's Fund" (AWF) tried to settle the "Comfort Women" issue privately. However, the fund has been rejected by most of the victims of military sex slavery by Japan and their support groups.

Victims strongly opposed the "Asian Women Fund" because the private fund covers up the war crime of Japanese government and the systematic sexual violence again women committed by a country.

Most victims have refused it and say, "We want no charity, but dignity".

On Jan. 4 1996, the U.N. Human Rights Commission released an official report, submitted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women by Radhika Coomaraswamy, on the wartime Sex Slavery, report by International Commision of Jurists, Geneva Comfort Women : An Unfinished Ordeal, and also another report by Special Rapporteur Ms. Gay J. McDougall in 1998 : Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery and Slavery-like practices during armed conflict.

The reports are founded on years investigation and recommends that Japanese government should assume state responsibility and

1. Acknowledge its violation of international law.
2. Make a public apology in writing to individual women.
3. Pay compensation to individual women.
4. Amending educational curricula to reflect true historical realities.
5. Full disclosure of related documents
6. Identify and punish, as far as possible, involved perpetrators

In April 1996, the delegate to U.N. from China, for the first time, stated that Japan should pay state compensation to the victims of Sex Slavery by Japan during WWII.

With the financial support from Japanese government, the AWF has been actively exploring its canvassing, large scale advertisement and disunited activities in victimized countries.

In Aug. 1996, 5 Filipino victims became the first group to receive 2 million yen each from AWF, together with a letter from Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. However, the 5 Filipino victims refused the letter and declared that they will continue their fight to demand official apology and compensation because the money from the private fund was not meant as a redress because Japanese government had not made state compensation.

To encourage victims to accept the "offer of atonement", Japanese government decided in Jan. 1997, to pay out extra money to be used for medical care and welfare through the AWF. Still, most victims have rejected the offer and only few accepted.

But how can one put a dollar amount on a war crime that stigmatised an estimated 400,000 women ? Lured by false promises of employment or violently abducted from their homes in the Phillipines, East Timor, Malaysia, Taiwan, Burma, China, Indonesia, and especially North and South Korea, these women were forced under threat of death to stay in so-called "Comfort Stations" across Asia.

In Sept. 1997, Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation in Taiwan held an unprecedented fund raising with the support of a famous Taiwanese historian and writer Lee Auh. It successfully raised and distributed 500,000 NT (2 million yen) each to 42 victims going against AWF. In Dec. 1997, Taiwan government matched the fund and distributed another 2 million yen each to all victims rejecting AWF.

In May 1998, South Korea paid 34.5 million won (about 3.5 million yen) to 12 victims. In May 8, 1998 the payment made by the Health and Welfare ministry, comprised 31.5 million won from state coffers and 3 million won from an additional 6.5 million won donated by non-government organizaiton. South Korea will continue making payments to the remaining victims through welfare section of Korean local government.

Japan has always denied any official approval of the brothels, arguing they were created by civilians. But according to a recently declassified US report from the National Archives obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act, issued by General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers on Nov. 15, 1945, the 36-page report offers the most detailed account yet of how the Japanese military brothels were run.

According to the report, Sex Slaves were given room and board but had to split medical expenses for treating their sexually transmitted diseases with the brothel operators, and had to buy clothes and grooming out of a small stipend they were to have received. But the women, abducted or tricked into the brothels by agents for the Japanese government, never received any payment, former Sex Slaves told researchers.

The report is expected to assist human rights activists who have been fighting for reparations for the surviving Sex Slaves of what some scholars refer to as the "Pacific Holocaust".

Last year 2003, a list of Korean victims compulsorily mobilized by the Japanese imperialists was made public display in Seoul for the first time. The list of 413,407 people was the result of the efforts for 30 years of the Investigation Team on the Truth about Forced Korean Laborers in Japan, composed of Korean and Japanese scholars and researchers. Congresswoman Kim stressed, “The number of victims including forced laborers, those drafted for military service, sex slaves, is about 7.5 millions." About 15 % of visitors found their names on the list.

“I do not want money, but just a formal apology. Give back my youth.” said Hwang Gun Ju, now 81. When she was 20 years old, she was forced to be a Sex Slave for about 4 years. There were the names of 147 “Korean Sex Slaves” on the list. Their real names were withheld in consideration of their privacy. " Is the Japanese government waiting for us to die ? I will not die before I win the apology” she added.

"Some Japanese, unofficially, have spoken openly of what they term the "Biological Solution", said Christopher Simpson, an associate professor at American University studied the comfort women issue for years, "In other words, waiting until the women die."

In 1995 Kim Hak Sun, the first former Sex Slave to give public testimony, told the anthropologist that she thought the Japanese tactics would be to stall the legal proceedings until all the litigants were dead. Her words proved tragically prophetic. She died on December 16, 1997.


Her funeral procession was routed to pass in front of the Japanese Embassy, where it halted for a symbolic demonstration of her struggle against the Japanese Government.


15 Sex Slaves tell their story.


Oct. 2005 In a comprehensive report entitled " Still Waiting After 60 years: Justice for Survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery System" by Amnesty International. the report outlines the brutal treatment suffered by Sex Slaves and the excuses given by Japan over the years to deny responsibility for their suffering, called on the Japanese government to accept full responsibility for Sexual Crimes.


The Japanese government has argued that Rape was not a war crime until 1949, when it was incorporated into the 4th Geneva Convention. Amnesty International argues in its report, that there is a wealth of evidence that Rape in the context of armed conflict was a crime under customary international law during the entire period in which the Japanese government operated its system of sexual slavery.


Of the 215 Korean survivors who registered with the Korean Council, only 122 are left.


Since 1992, Korean Sex Slaves have been demonstrating every Wednesday in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea, calling for justice.


"Now you want a witness to my rape ? I am a witness. I am my own witness. I was the one Raped. I was the one ruined." said Lola Julia Porras, held captive in a tunnel in the Philippines and Raped by Japanese forces in 1942 when she was 13 years old.


In a statement on Sex Slaves during the 51st session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 1996, Karen Parker said the following :


"Mr. Chairman, How much compensation do you think ought to be paid to a woman who was Raped 7,500 times ???


What would the members of the Commission want for their daughters if their daughters had been Raped even once ??


One victim recounted how she was kidnapped; she was placed in a cubicle, where her hands were tied behind her back, and her legs were spread and tied to posts. They lined themselves outside our cubicles and as soon as one of them had satisfied his sexual desires another would come and have his turn."


Japanese Government earned hundred of millions by forcing hundreds of thousands of girls and women into Sex Slaves as pay service to its soldiers.


U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Karen Parker, confirmed victims’ testimonies, and added her findings during the 51st session of the U.N. Commission of Human Rights in 1996, Parker states,


"Our research shows that more than 50 % of the girls and women died as a direct result of the treatment they received"


"There was at least 100,000 Rapes per Day , arranged by the Japanese Government , and carried out by its soldiers , 100,000 Rapists per Day".


"Even assuming only 5 years of program, there were at least 125 Million Rapes , 125 Million Rapes against the women of Korea, Philippines, Burma, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Netherlands."


Addressing at a public forum held in Tokyo in June, 1999, Ms. Gay J. an American international law specialist who issued a report endorsed at the 50th session of the U.N. Human Rights Subcommission on Aug. 21, 1998 : Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery and Slavery-like practices during armed conflict, calling for Japan’s reparation to wartime Sex Slaves, denounced the Japanese military abuse of Asian women as “One of the most egregious examples of wartime systematic Rape and Sex Slavery in History.”


McDougall rebuffed Japanese argument and said, “Statute of Limitations are in-applicable to Slavery, Crimes against Humanity and other gross violations of customary international law."


Dec 1, 2004 Women's organisations from Asia, Europe and North America agreed to act together from next year, the 60th anniversary of WWII to made Abducted Sex Slaves By Japan To Become Global Issue In 2005. "We'll launch a million-signature campaign worldwide to demand an apology and compensation from the Japanese government," said Suda Kaori, a Japanese member of the Korea Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sex Slavery by Japan.


Aug 10, 2005 Women's groups rally across Asia, Manila, Seoul, Taipei, Tokyo, Osaka and other Japanese cities, urged Japan to apologize and compensate Sex Slaves. "Japan abducted me and forced me to become a Sex Slave," 76-year-old Korean Lee Yong-soo said, "The Japanese government should have come to my home and kneel down to apologize."



In Seoul, Kim Yun-ok said, " The Japanese soldiers enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine are the very ones who Raped our grandmothers."


More than 86 % of the enshrined Japanese soldiers were from WWII. Private Tadokoro Kozo of the 114th division said in 1971 interview, " There wasn't . ANY . soldier who didn't Rape. After things were done, usually we killed them ..... We didn't want to leave any trouble behind ....."



Daughter EILEEN: It was a perfectly kept secret. There was some things that didn't make any sense - like, my mother always used to say, when it was her birthday or Mother's Day, and we'd say, "What do you want for a present?" And she'd say, "Just don't give me flowers. They're such a waste of money. Don't give me flowers." And we couldn't understand that. Everybody loves flowers. Every mother loves getting flowers.

Mother JAN: In 1992, 50 years on, I remember hearing on the news that the War in Bosnia had broken out, and women were being Raped. Then I saw on television the Korean comfort women. The South Korean comfort women were the first ones to speak out. And I watched them here in my living room. And they wanted justice and compensation and an apology, more than anything else. They wanted an apology from the Japanese government. And they weren't getting anywhere. They were getting nowhere. And I thought, I must back up these women. Now it's time to speak out...... But before I could do that, of course, I had to tell my family. I had to tell Eileen and Carol. You know, how can you tell your daughters ? The shame was still so great, you know. I knew I had to tell them, but I couldn't tell them face to face.

Daughter EILEEN: One day, my mother came up to my husband's shop and gave him an envelope and just mysteriously said, "Oh, give this to Eileen to read tonight." So I opened the envelope up, and there was two articles from Dutch newspapers with headlines about shocking revelations of Dutch women being used as Sex Slaves during the war. And I....I just couldn't associate...."Why have I been given this to read ? What is this about ? Why has my mother given me this ? And as I read the articles, I just got so angry inside. I can feel it now. Anger just surged up inside me. I could see there was also a large amount of hand written notes by my mother, which was, in fact, 30 pages.

Daughter EILEEN: And as it so turned out, it was exactly what I had feared. And all the time as I was reading, I was saying, "No! Not this! Not this!" And I was throwing the sheets of paper. And I can't believe the anger, because I'm not an angry person. Tears were just streaming down my face. I don't think I've ever cried so much in my whole life.

Daughter CAROL: What I really felt was horror, shock and horror, that these things could have happened to such a beautiful person as my mother.

Daughter EILEEN: All I'm thinking was, "No! Not my...No, this is not my mother. My mother is this beautiful...is this beautiful, strong person. Nobody could do that to her. That's not what's happened. That's not what I've heard. That's not...that's not the story of prison camp that I know."

More .........


However, in defiance to all Sex Slave victims, and the comprehensive report entitled "Still Waiting After 60 years: Justice for Survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery System" compiled by the Amnesty International, and the Human Rights recommendations of Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery by the United Nations which Japan is now applying for the permanent membership of U.N. Security Council, the


Japan's largest national newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun has called on its readers to celebrate the New History Textbooks of cutting out ALL mentions about the Sex Slaves.


Jun 13, 2005 Japan's Minister of Education and Culture, Nariaki Nakayama praised the recent deletion of Sex Slaves from History Textbooks.


Jul 12, 2005 Japanese Education Minister: "comfort women" have no place in Textbooks.


30 posted on 2005/11/14 12:31:41 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]
PoW, Slave Laborers - Inhuman Slavery Crime

This mass scale of Slavery Crime is definitely the worst war crime case of mass slavery violation against Humanity committed by a country in our Human History.


"The Japanese were running no less than the biggest Slave shipping operation since the middle passage, the African Slave Trade," California based lawyer Barry Fisher said.


It is estimated that 10 million Asians and PoWs were used as Slaves and only fraction of the survivors may still be alive.


Most shocking is the fact that the death rate in Nazi-run PoW camps was 1.1 %; but in Japanese prisoner camps it was a staggering 35.7 %, according to The Center for Civilian Internee Right, Inc..


Though the Nazi regime lost the war, German companies profited from Slave labor. German Industrial Wealth was 17 times larger After the war than in 1939 by using Slave laborers according to economic historian Dietrich Eichholz.


Linda Goetz Holmes details in her book Unjust Enrichment: How Japan's companies built postwar fortunes using American PoWs.


At least 2,700 American PoW as Slave labored in the factories, mines and shipyards of Mitsubishi subsidiaries.


Japan got rich in more than just the same way. For details, refer to Unjust Enrichment against Humanity - Extortion & Looting of Asia.


On Dec 7, 1941, Japanese pilot Mitsuo Fuchida led Japan's attack on the US base at Pearl Harbor. It was Fuchida's airplane from which was transmitted the radio signal "Tora! Tora! Tora!", indicating that a successful attack was underway.


On Aug 6, 1945, Paul Tibbets flew the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber and dropped the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on Hiroshima. Aug. 9 another atomic bomb "Fat Man" exploded on Nagasaki. August 15 Japan surrendered.


Tibbets recalled a meeting with Japanese pilot Mitsuo Fuchida who transmitted the radio signal "Tora! Tora! Tora!" indicating that a successful Pearl Harbor attack was underway. Fuchida told him, " You did the right thing. You know the Japanese attitude at that time, how fanatic they were, they'd die for the Emperor. Can you imagine what a slaughter it would be to invade Japan ?" Fuchida continued. "It would have been terrible. You did the right thing. The Japanese people know more about that than the American public will ever know."


Paul Tibbets has been credited by thousands of former PoW, soldiers and civilians including Japanese, in all countries of Asia for saving their lives.


A man from West Australia wrote in the guest book at the science museum at the Los Alamos National Laboratory :


"My mother, sister and I were in a PoW camp in Java (Djakarta) when the first bomb went off. As a reprisal, the Japanese were going to place all the camp residents in barges and sink them in the Java Sea. The 2nd bomb saved our lives -- and all those innocent women and children held in PoW camps all over Java and Sumatra and no doubt elsewhere.

I am grateful."


“Ask me to do it again under the same circumstances, I wouldn’t hesitate,” Paul Tibbets said during a brief meeting with reporters. “I think I did the right thing.”


Japan, driven by the frenzy of Militarism, committed unspeakable war crimes and atrocities of such great magnitude and diversities un-matched even by the Nazi. Following table is a comparison of atrocities against PoW :
By Nazis By Japan
US PoW captured & interned in WWII 93,941 36,260
US PoW DIED while interned 1,121
(1.1 %) 12,951
( 35.7 % )
US civilians captured & interned in WWII 4,749 13,996
US civilians DIED while interned 168
(3.5 %) 1,536
( 11 % )

Source: The Center for Civilian Internee Right, Inc.


During the war, Japan set up numerous Slave Camps all over Asia. According to Japanese official record, in Japan alone, there were 135 Slave Camps.


It is known as the "Compulsory Seizure Campaign", better known as "Laborer Hunting", in which the Japanese army kidnapped Chinese and exported them to Japan to work as Slaves at mines, construction sites and docks from Kyushu to Hokkaido. The overall official death rate of 17.5 percent, more than one in 6 in barely 2 years of operation. Some individual work sites posted death rates in excess of 50 %.


Cruelty was a central feature of supervision and there were no days off. Food, clothing and shelter were provided at, and in many cases below, survival threshold levels. Failure to meet demanding production quotas resulted in beatings and reduction of meager food rations. Some workers were reduced to wearing discarded cement sacks with arm holes cut into them.


For details, refer to Chinese Forced Labor, Japanese Government and Prospects for Redress.


Clinton Jennings of San Francisco survived through the savage Bataan Death March to prison Camp O'Donnell on April 9, 1942. It was 70 miles 5 days 5 nights death march in 100 degree heat, deprived of food and water, 10,000 of 70,000 US and Filipinos PoWs died. "If a fellow fell down, he was either shot, bayonetted or beaten to death. I saw bodies strung along the highway." recalled Merle Lype of Thomasboro.


At a railhead, they were loaded into hot, crowded box cars. "If you died in there, you couldn't fall to the floor even," said Rutter. At their eventual destination, Camp O'Donnell, 54,000 prisoners were crammed into facilities built for a fraction as many people. Malaria, dysentery and malnutrition killed another 20,000.


They were then transported to Japan in "Hell Ships" and elsewhere as slave laborer in 2 months trip, with little protection from the January cold. "the holes of the ship with just enough room to lie down head to toe," and fed "a small bowl of rice and a half a cup of water per day." "We were throwing American bodies overboard at the rate of 30, then 40, then 50 a day all the way to Japan," Mel Rosen said, "The Bataan Death March was a Sunday stroll compared to the 3 Hell Ships." Only 200 to 300 of the 1,600 prisoners loaded on the 1st ship made it to Japan. When Rosen arrived in Japan, his weight had dropped from 155 to 88 lbs.


Of the 12,000 US PoW at Bataan, only 4,000 were alive by the end of war.


For 3-1/4 years, Melvin Routt toiled in coal mines. His weight dropped from 163 pounds to 83. Like millions in Asia, Routt and Jennings were U.S. PoW victims of the Japanese Army's wartime brutality. They were used as slave laborers in violation of the International War Conventions.


In the Sandakan Death March, 2,400 Australian and British PoWs in Borneo were force to march to Ranau, 250 km away through the jungle in 3 separate marches.


On 28 Jan. 1945, 470 prisoners set off, with only 313 arriving in Ranau. On the 2nd march, 570 started from Sandakan, but only 118 reached Ranau. The 3rd march comprised 537 prisoners. The march route was through virgin jungle infested with crocodiles, snakes and wild pigs, and some of the prisoners had no boots. Rations were less than minimal. The march took nearly a year to complete.


At the time of the Japanese surrender on 15 Aug. 1945, only 6 Australians of the 2,400 PoWs had survived the horrors of the Sandakan war camp and the Sandakan Death Marches.. They survived because they were able to escape from the camp at Ranau, or escaped during the march from Sandakan. No British PoWs survived.


Numerous inhuman Slave Camps were established in Japan and all Asia. The so called "Hanaoka Incident - Kajima's Throne of Blood" was probably one of the many similar "incidents". It would never have become an incident if American occupation authorities had not caught employees of Kajima Gumi digging up a Mass Slave Grave to hide the evidence of their Chinese slaves.


The Slaves, recaptured after an unsuccessful uprising. More than 400 Chinese Slaves killed. Many were tortured to death during the non-stop 3 days and 3 nights torture without any food or water in the summer night of 1945. It was pieced together by Nozue Kenji and Yachita Tsuneo in their years long search for the truth.


Yasuo Togashi was 9 when he and his neighbors cheered when the bone-thin escapees were recaptured. "We thought the Chinese weren't even human, and we were happy when they were caught. Now, I feel nothing but remorse." said Togashi, 69, a retired teacher.


The mines at Kinkaseki, near town of Chinguashi, Taiwan, boasted the largest copper output in Japanese empire. But the Conditions at Kinkaseki were worse than any of Taiwan's other 15 PoW camps. The PoWs were forced to march daily up and over a high ridge to the mine entrance - the Hellhole of Kinkaseki.


The PoWs were forced to work in unstable shafts amid temperatures that reached as high as 55 degrees C (130 F). The torture, degradation and slow starvation became worse as the war continued, is best described by Kinkaseki inmate Jack Edwards, doggedly unapologetic about his book's title " Banzai You Bastards ! ". The Japanese version is titled " Drop Dead, Jap Bastards ! "


A document uncovered by The Fact-Finding Team on Truth about Forced Korean Laborers, at the National Archives detailed a Japanese cabinet decision in 1944 regarding a plan to conscript a total of 290,000 Koreans to provide workforces to all parts of Japan. It said that 119,170 were taken to "coal mountain," 38,831 to "metal mountain," 74,030 to "construction," and 57,969 to "factories and others." As for Fukuoka prefecture where the largest number of Koreans were forced to work during WWII, the data referred to it as "coal mountain 50,525." The record also provided a new fact that 3,365 Koreans were taken to Chiba prefecture.


In 2003, a list of Korean victims compulsorily mobilized by the Japanese imperialists was made public display in Seoul for the first time. The list of 413,407 people was the result of the efforts for 30 years of the Investigation Team on the Truth about Forced Korean Laborers in Japan, composed of Korean and Japanese scholars and researchers. Congresswoman Kim stressed, "The number of victims including forced laborers, those drafted for military service, sex slaves, is about 7.5 millions." About 15 % of visitors found their names on the list.


16,000 PoWs and 100,000 Asian Slaves died for the construction of the infamous 415 km Death Railway - Thai-Burma Railway which was made infamous by the movie - Bridge on the River Kwai, described by Cameron Forbes in his book Hellfire as " built on the Bones of the Dead", i.e. 300 death for each km.


The PoWs and Slaves were forced to build a railway between its garrisons in Thailand and Myanmar (Burma) through some of the world's most inhospitable, disease-ridden terrain with virtually no medicine, fed rotting rice with occasional bits of maggot-ridden meat and beaten by sadistic guards with nicknames like Dr. Death and The Maggot. The Japanese later started a "speedo" campaign, already intolerable working hours were pushed to 18 hours a day.


The greatest display of Japanese brutality during the 14 months of the railway's construction came at Hellfire Pass, where PoWs had to cut through 533 meters of sheer rock to a depth of up to 20 meters with only primitive tools during torrential monsoon rains.


"It was like a scene out of Dante's Inferno," wrote one PoW, Hugh Clarke, in an image which gave the pass its name. Working at night under oil lamps and fires, the PoWs seemed to be laboring in the jaws of Hell.


Another movie Return from the River Kwai, made in 1988, has never been released in North American markets. Its producer Kurt Unger sued Japanese Sony Corporation and seeking $15 million in damage for blocking release the movie.


It tells the story of allied PoW being shipped from Thailand to Japan to work as slave laborers in coal mines. The ships were called "Hell Ships" by the PoW and some of these hell ships including Arisan Maru and Rakuyo Maru were torpedoed and sunk by US submarines with heavy loss of life because the Japanese refused to mark the ships to allow allied forces to distinguish them from combatant and combat support vessels.


Japanese distributor of movie "The Last Emperor" also intentionally edited out the documentary footage of the Nanjing Massacre that Bernardo Bertolucci had pointedly put into his film.


Another 1,400 U.S. PoWs were shipped to Manchuria, where PoWs said they were used as human guinea pig or "logs" by the infamous Japanese medical Unit 731 & Unit 100.


Near the end of the war, Japan issued the infamous "Kill Order" to its war camp commanders to kill all the remaining prisoners leaving no trace. Many believe that the Atomic Bombs and no other reasons that had saved the lives of all allied PoWs.


While many people around the world were horrified by the Atomic Bombs, many were overjoyed. A man from West Australia, writing in a guest book at the science museum at the Los Alamos National Laboratory :


"My mother, sister and I were in a PoW camp in Java (Djakarta) when the first bomb went off. As a reprisal, the Japanese were going to place all the camp residents in barges and sink them in the Java Sea. The 2nd bomb saved our lives -- and all those innocent women and children held in PoW camps all over Java and Sumatra and no doubt elsewhere.

I am grateful."


Frank James, now living in Redwood City, was shipped to Shenyang (Mukden) in Manchuria as a PoW in November 1942. The Japanese medical personnel wearing masks, sprayed liquid into their faces and gave them injection, took frequent blood samples and released fleas in the warehouse where the prisoners slept.


When he returned to the United States in 1945, the U.S. Army made him sign a document swearing never to discuss his 731 experiences in the camps. For 40 years, he didn't breathe a word.


In 1976, Nippon TV briefly stirred up public attention with documentary movie "The Horror of Unit 731".


In Nov. 1976 Yoshinaga Haruko, producer of TV documentary after years research: "A Bruise - Terror of the 731 Corps." became convinced that American PoWs were also used as logs.


In 1981s, Morimura Seiichi, author of best-seller novel "The Devil's Gluttony" and later followed by The Devil's Gluttony - A Sequel in 1983 included assertion that Allies PoWs were used as guinea pigs; also "The Germ Warfare Unit That disappeared" by Keiichi Tuneishi drew some public attention.


In Oct. 1981, it was John W. Powell's article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - " Japan's Biological Weapons: 1930-1945, A Hidden Chapter in History" brought much wider public attention and pressured US congress to hold a hearing from PoWs in 1982 and 1986.


Frank James and Gregory Rodriquez Jr. testified to Congress in 1986. However, the hearing lasted only half a day. No report was issued and no investigation was ordered.


On Aug. 13, 1985, British Independent Televison broadcast a documentary "Unit 731 - Did the Emperor Know ? ". It was producted by Peter Williams and David Wallace after years research, hinted broadly that Emperor Hirohito was aware of the human experiments. There was also an interview with retired Lt. Col. Murray Sanders, the first US investigator into Unit 731. Sanders claimed that Gen. Douglas MacArthur authorized him to make a deal with the Japanese if they cooperated with US Biological Warfare scientists.


The producers even sent a copy of the documentary film to the Japanese officials in London.

Murray Sanders was also interviewed by NBC Dateline "Factory of Death: Unit 731" on Aug. 15, 1995 said "It was a mistake for the criminal Japanese to have been pardoned."


US PoW Art Campbell described in the same TV program "Factory of Death: Unit 731" that he was being frozen for 24 hours and then taken to a hot room to be thawed out just like the Unit 731's Frost Bite experiment: "They froze until I was unconscious....." " I could not describe how much it hurt. It hurt so much that I begged the Japs to kill me."


" The War "Should Be Taught" in schools, and NOT just Pearl Harbor ," said Routt, the ex-PoW in Tracy.


"Kids growing up have absolutely NO knowledge of what War is Really like."


It was a Total War - War Without Mercy Against Humanity.


31 posted on 2005/11/14 12:32:44 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]
Denial Against Humanity - Denial, Nanjing Death Toll

Regardless what the actual death toll of the Nanjing Massacre was, the fact that Japan was engaged in wanton executions and reckless rapes remains the same.

"We have to be aware that the atrocities are not just about people being killed." said Daqing Yang of George Washington University, "It also includes rape, looting, destruction of property..... I think it is more important to understand the whole picture of the Atrocity."


The controversial Death Toll has been attached with extensive political symbolic meaning, it often provokes extremely heated emotional debates.


The international community estimated that approx. 200,000 - 300,000 Chinese were killed, and 20,000 - 100,000 women were raped within 2 - 3 months of continuous Rape and Massacre.


In the International Military Tribunal of the Far East (IMTFE), court exhibit estimated approx. " 260,000 were slaughtered " (Source: Document no. 1702, box 134, IMTFE records, court exhibits, 1948). The tribunal ruled " total number of the civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanking and its vicinity during the first 6 weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. "

Note - the number does NOT include huge number of bodies burned, dumped or buried by the Japanese Army.

In 1946, the chief prosecutor of the Nanjing District Court concluded that 260,000 Chinese had died from the massacre, while a summary report prepared by the head procurator of the same district court placed the number at more than 300,000.

On Jan. 17, 1938 during the first month of massacre when the killing was far from over, a cable message by British reporter " I investigated reported atrocities committed by Japanese army in Nanjing and elsewhere. Verbal accounts (of) reliable eye-witnesses and letters from individuals whose credibility (is) beyond question afford convincing proof ..... (Not) less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians slaughtered .... ".

At the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal, Japanese Lieutenant General Tani Hisao, the commander of the 6th Division, estimated more than 300,000 victims were massacred.

Hora Tomio, Japanese Professor of History at Waseda University, had investigated the atrocities. His research had shown the same conclusion in his books "The Nanjing incident" and "The great Nanjing massacre".

Another Japanese Honda Katsuichi, a prize winning journalist, also reached the similar conclusion in his publication "The road to Nanjing", "The great Nanjing massacre" and The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame.

Japanese Historian Kasahara Tokushi at Tsuru University and author of "The Nanjing Incident" concluded that approx. 200,000 people were massacred in the "Nanjing Special Municipality" area.

Fujiwara Akira, a Professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University and author of "The Japanese Army in Nanjing" reached a similar conclusion that " nearly 200,000 or even more soldiers and civilians " were slaughtered in the "Nanjing Special Municipality" area.

Many other historians, such as Yoshida Yutaka at the Hitotsubashi University, author of "The Whole Picture of the Nanjing Incident Obliges Us to Recognize the History" and Joshua Fogel at the University of California, in his "Correspondence: How Bad Was the Nanjing Massacre ?", also embrace their research conclusion.


Various different Death Toll figures come up by researchers are simply due to their different definitions used for the time duration ("2" or "3" months) of the massacre and different city boundaries of Nanjing area ("Nanjing walled city" or "Nanjing Special Municipality") in their estimations.


Japanese journalist Masato Kajimoto, in his thesis " The Nanking Atrocities", concluded that

"It is safe to say that today the majority of historians estimate the death toll of the Nanking Atorcities in the range between 200,000 - 300,000 as claimed by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) or the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal."


Note - the number does NOT include huge number of bodies burned, dumped or buried by the Japanese Army.


If we use " 3 months " as time duration for the continuous massacre, use the larger "Nanjing Special Municipality" as the city boundary, also include the huge number of bodies burned, dumped or buried by the Japanese Army to hide their crimes,


Actual Death Toll should be more than 300,000. In fact, it could be a very conservative estimate.


If we use the same approach for the number of Rapes, i.e. use " 3 months " of continuous Rape in the larger "Nanjing Special Municipality" city boundary and add the number of girls and women Raped but were too ashame to tell, plus the huge number of girls and women Raped but were killed immediately after the Rape that has been confirmed by many former Japanese soldiers as their common practice to hide their Rape crimes.


Actual Girls and Women Raped should be about 100,000 instead of only 20,000.


This is more civilian and PoW massacred by the Japanese than the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (200,000 compared to Nanjing Massacre 300,000).


This is more civilian and PoW massacred in one Chinese city than the total death of some European countries in entire war.


However, voices dismissing or greatly playing down Japan's wartime crimes are regularly heard from Japanese political, academic and media establishment.

Feb. 1999 Nobukatsu Fujioka is a Japanese Professor of Education at Tokyo University and the chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform which aims to erase all Japan's atrocities from text book. "Comfort women were not Sex Slaves," said professor, "They were simply prostitutes taken to war zones by private brokers." He also denied that there was no massacre in 1937 Nanjing.

Nov. 2000 Osamichi Higashinakano, a Japanese Professor of Intellectual History in Asia University and writer Toshio Matsumura Matsumura, author of "Big Doubts about the Nanking Massacre" also tried to distort the truth about the Nanking Massacre as fabrication.

Jan. 23, 2000 In the Japan's 3rd-biggest city of Osaka, a Japanese nationalist group hold a conference in the Osaka Peace Center with the theme "The Biggest Lie of the 20th Century" insisting that the 1937 Nanjing Massacre never occurred.

The same group organised a screening of the Japanese film Pride - The Fateful Moment which depicts WWII leader Hideki Tojo as a heroic warrior rather than a Class A War Criminal at the same Osaka Peace Center in 1998.


Ironically, the Osaka Peace Center was established in order "NOT to forget the tremendous damage inflicted by Japan on people of China and other Asia-Pacific countries as well as people in Korea and Taiwan under colonial rule."


The Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara has frequently called the Nanjing Massacre a lie.

Japanese cabinet ministers also frequently made similar public denying comments with some losing their posts over their statements.

In May 1994, Japanese Justice Minister and Army Chief of Staff Nagano Shigeto said the Pacific War was to liberate Asia, the Nanjing Massacre was a fabrication. He was later forced to resign.

In 1995, Japanese Education Minster Shimamura Yoshinobu frequently made statements to down play Japanese atrocities during the war.

In Jan. 1997, Seiroku Kajiyama, a LDP contender for the premiership, even claimed that "comfort women" had provided sex to Japanese troops "for money".


Many of the western missionaries' diaries and letters that elaborately depicted the scale and character of the Nanjing Massacre are all available at the Yale Divinity School Library, where Martha Smalley works as the archivist.

To the Japanese Nanjing Massacre "denying camp", Martha said, " We have never had Japanese ultra-nationalists come here and look at these records because it is very clear to anyone, looking at these records, that it occurred. You have several different people giving independent accounts and they were all documenting the same events. These could not possibly be any kind of way that they were making up what they saw. "

"They say executing plain-clothes soldiers and stragglers are not massacres ..... It seems even right leaning scholars are criticizing this arbitrary interpretation of the law by the denying camp," said the Japanese historian Yoshida Yutaka at Hitotsubashi University, "The most important aspect of the historical analysis, which is, why it happened ? What drove the Japanese troops to go on the rampage in the way they did in Nanjing ?"


In 1988, Ono Kenji wanted to know what had happened to the approx. 20,000 Chinese PoWs captured by Yamada Detachment of the 13th division.

For 7 years, he interviewed 200 war veterans, collected 24 wartime diaries, video taped many confessions, and collected other historical evidences.

Ono has documented his remarkable research in his publications "Imperial Army Soldiers Who Recorded the Nanjing Massacre", "Massacre or Discharge? Fate of the About 20,000 PoWs captured by Yamada Detachment", "Thirteen lies in the Nanjing Massacre Deniers' Claims".

His in-depth research has revealed how the shocking mass executions occurred near the Mufu Mountain that lasted for 2 days and 2 nights. The dead corpses were quickly burnt with gasoline or dumped into the Yantze river.

An entry on Dec. 16 in one of his collected diaries, we "mowed them down by machine guns. Then we stabbed them with bayonets to our satisfaction. I probably bayoneted 30-odd hateful Chinese soldiers. Climbing up the heap of dead bodies and bayoneting them gave me a courage, which made me feel I could even vanquish ogres. I stabbed them with all my might while hearing them groan. There were some old ones and kids. I killed them all ......"

One of his video taped confessions, "The order 'to do it' came through all the way from the top ..... Those high-rankings don't know what it was like. They just order and never come to the scene ..... I don't know how they could talk about it. They haven't even seen it. We, noncommissioned officers and men, were the ones who actually carried it out ..... I wonder who on earth are those people to claim that such a miserable incident was 'fabrication' ......"


In mid-1980s, in order to refute the Myth of Nanjing Massacre, a campaign was initiated by the Japanese War Veterans' organization - Kaikosha. The organization asked its 18,000 former soldier members to submit any information to " dis-credit " the Nanjing Massacre for its newsletter - Kaiko.

Ironically, instead of receiving any refutable information, the editors had received many eyewitnesses accounts confirmed that the unspeakable atrocities did indeed happen in Nanjing.

Katogawa Kotaro, one of the chief editors for the newsletter Kaiko, wrote in the concluding part of the 11 part series about the Nanjing Massacre, " As a person relating to the Imperial Army, I can do nothing but apologize to the Chinese people. It was cruel. I am sincerely sorry. "


Japanese history Professor Saburo Ienaga, who became for many as the "Conscience of Japan", had launched 3 highly publicized lawsuits lasted 32 years against the Department of Education.

After the 32 years prolonged lawsuits, in conclusion, Japanese History Professor Saburo Ienaga wrote in Nanking Massacre and the School Textbook Screening Lawsuit :

"Durng World War II the Nanking Massacre was a secret strictly hidden from Japanese people. Only after the War did we come to know about what happened through news reports on the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo. I thought that we Japanese should feel ashamed because as perpetrators we didn't know anything about this major event which was very well-known among the victims and their compatriots. I therefore considered it as being necessary to mention it in the school history textbook. However, I decided not to do so as it was obvious during period of the 1970's that my entire textbook draft would have been rejected by the screening officials if I had touched on the subject."

"Later on at the beginning of the 1980's I decided that the Nanking Massacre should be mentioned and I actually wrote about it. As expected, I was requested to revise the description of the subject. This indeed became one of the major issues of the school textbook screening lawsuit. In 1993 the Tokyo High Court ruled that the government (Ministry of Education) had acted illegally when screening the description of "Nanking Massacre" in my draft textbook. The government did not appeal this High Court ruling to the Supreme (highest) Court. As a result, the High Court ruling on the illegal screening regarding the Nanking Massacre was finalized. We are now able to openly write about it in the textbooks."

"In August 1997 the Supreme Court issued the judgement that marked the conclusion of the school textbook lawsuit. Through the long process of the lawsuit, the final result is that nobody could now seriously argue that the Nanking Massacre was nothing but a fabrication."

In 1987, Azuma Shiro becomes the first former Japanese soldier to publicly admit and apologize for what he did in the Nanjing Massacre.

Yet Japan often said that Japan's aim in World War II was simply to liberate Asia from Western colonialism and project themselves as the victims instead of perpetrators of WWII because atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ignoring all the facts that Nanjing Massacare, infamous Unit 731, Unit 100, Unit 516 were the most horrific chapters against Humanity in the 20th century.

Japanese forces had been bogged down deep in the China and were unable for "Northward Advance" to attack Soviet Union. So Japan turned around for "Southward Advance" instead. However, the Chinese resistance also made Japan unable to concentrate huge ground forces for "Southward Advance" and effectively occupy the regions.


Chinese army pinned down Japanese in China, and saved valuable time for allied forces in Europe that helped prevent a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union and the possible convergence of the two strongest fascist countries in the Middle East.


"That is the main reason why Japan did NOT respond the demands of Germany to attack the Soviet Union or invade British troops in Southeast Asia,"


Without Chinese resistance, it would have been almost impossible to implement the 'Europe First' strategy."


US President Roosevelt said: If there were no China, or if China were defeated, the Japanese army could have occupied Australia and advanced toward India and charged all the way to the Middle East and then joined forces with Hitler to isolate Soviet Union, the consequence would be unimaginable.


Japan is responsible for the death of 30 Million Asian during its 14 years brutal WWII invasion,

including millions of Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Indian, Vietnamese, Filippino, Malaysia, Burma, Thailand, Singapore ..........


It was a worst Holocaust against Humanity committed by Japan in WWII and NOT yet confessed.


32 posted on 2005/11/14 12:33:48 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]
Forgotten Holocaust - Cover-up against Humanity

This Forgotten Holocaust is definitely the worst case of systematic governmental Cover-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity in our Human History.


Of all the countries on Earth, Japan is the ONLY nation that used ALL 3 WMD in war, i.e. WMD Biological Weapons, WMD Chemical Weapons, and the addictive WMD Drug.


Unlike the Jewish Holocaust, Japanese Rape of Nanjing, WMD Biological Warfare unit 731, 100, WMD Chemical Warfare unit 516, Opium Monopoly Bureau, Sex Slaves, Slave Laborers are barely mentioned in most histories of WWII and is absent from almost every textbook.


There are many reasons for the story of the Asian Holocaust has taken so long to get out :


The cover-up is mainly due to the Cold War between U.S. and the former communist Soviet Union, and communist China, especially after the start of Korean War in June 1950 and then the Vietnam War in 1960s.


As the Cold War deepened, U.S. desparately needed the speedy rebuilding of Japan as a constitutional monarchy that would provide an anti-Communist bulwark in Asia.


U.S. granted immunity to the Emperor and Prince Asaka. Evidences show that senior aides to Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Japanese court officials schemed to fix testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials so as not to implicate Hirohito.


After the surrender, Japanese government and military moved swiftly to destroy evidence that might assist in the prosecution of any Japanese for war crimes, including Emperor Hirohito. The Imperial Army, Navy, and almost all government ministries, destroyed their incriminating files.


Vast archive of Japanese military records were in the hands of U.S. for 9 years after the war. In 1957, all Japanese military records were ordered to be returned to Japan. The reason given to the 1986's congress PoW hearing. John H. Hatcher, Army Record Management of US Army explained, "because the problem of language was too difficult for us to overcome.".


As the Cold War intensified, U.S. believed that the Anti-Communist aims would be difficult to achieve if the Japanese people were alienated by continuing prosecutions of their war criminals.


Therefore after the war, U.S. conducted a half-hearted show trial - The Tokyo Trial which most historians agreed was a flawed trial focused only on the maltreatment of PoW ignoring all other unspeakable brutalities (e.g. Unit 731) committed against the Asians by the Japanese.


For the same reason, the US called a abrupt halt to further war crimes prosecutions. MacArthur released large number of the remaining Class-A suspects from detention. Many of these suspected war criminals were able to move smoothly into politics, bureaucracy, and big business.


At the same time, MacArthur began to wind down the Class-B and Class-C trials.


Australian prosecutions of Japanese War Criminals were obstructed by lack of cooperation from the U.S. government.


U.S. was active in apprehending Nazi war criminals, denazifying German society, and collecting and protecting archives of the Nazi regime, all of which have by now been de-classified. By contrast, from the moment of Japanese surrender, US Government sought to exonerate the Emperor Hirohito and his relatives from any responsibility for the war. US still keeps many of its archives concerned with postwar Japan highly classified.


Unlike Germany where intensive de-Nazification procedures were employed to prevent former Nazis entering parliament and the bureaucracy, US allowed Japanese War Criminals to enter parliament and seek public office.


It has been estimated by the US Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations that at least several thousand Japanese escaped prosecution as a result of the pre-mature termination of war crime prosecutions by the US in 1949.


Nazi doctors were held accountable for their crimes in the famous 1947 "Nuremberg Doctors Trials", but there were NO comparable "Japanese Doctors Trials".


After the war, influential groups of Japanese intellectuals wanted Emperor Hirohito tried for his War Crimes, but were turned down by U.S..


Instead, U.S. handed power and put Japan's government back in the hands of the same notorious men and other war criminals who started the brutal war in Asia. This was equivalent to reinstating the Nazi party in postwar Berlin.


By protecting Hirohito from prosecution as a War Criminal, U.S. laid the foundation for Japan to refuse to confess, only to whitewash its War Crimes, distort History Textbook, portray itself as Atomic Victim instead of atrocious Colonial War Criminal.


To the Japanese, 14 years of in-human brutality was a Holy War. They were fighting for their God-like Emperor.


The Japanese Militaristic Brain-Wash of beliving other Asian as Sub-Human was so successful, most Japanese simply forgot the fact that MOST of their own so proudly proclaimed "superior" culture are really originated from "inferior" China. Even today, the Japanese writting still adopts many Chinese characters. The Japanese "Banzai" or "Manzai" was also originated from the Chinese "Wansui" for the Chinese Emperor.


Therefore, Under the U.S. Cover-up, when U.S. occupation ended in 1952, the Japanese government immediately pardoned ALL its War Criminals.


Another sinister reason for U.S. granted immunity from war crimes prosecution to the Japanese doctors of Unit 731 & Unit 100 was to exchange for their in-human data and helped covering up Japanese War Crimes so that U.S. could gain some advantages of the WMD Biological Weapon - An act utterly ignoring international laws and against Humanity.


NGO The Sunshine Project has discovered that even today US is still actively developing Biological and Chemical Weapon. On 24 Sept. 2002 Sunshine Project provided evidence for US Military Secret Chemical Weapons Program violating international law.


U.S. government not only pardoned some of Imperial Japan's top leaders, short-circuited reparations programs, reversed the dissolution of Japanese conglomerates and also waived payment of international relief funds to American PoWs after the war.


The truth was also hampered by the great upheavals that followed in China with the resuming of the interrupted Civil War which last for another 4 years un-ended with the Communist took over mainland (People's Republic of China) and Nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan (Republic of China).


Then followed by another 30 long years of various extremely irrational and disastrous political chaos in mainland China.


Due to Civil War, both Chinese government competed to consolidate their own regime at any cost, and was eager to flatter and win diplomatic recognition from Japan, and both need financial loans and trading partnership with Japan to rebuild war torn China.


The mainland Chinese government is also very fearful of this popular protest might be linked to its own Communist Party's complicity in abuse in its past and other social discontent by her people, have greatly hampered the situation.


To encircle communist China, U.S. signed Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security with Japan on Jan. 19, 1960.


Faced with China's rising power, the US and Japan are reinforcing bilateral security relations by changing Tokyo's pacifistic military posture for their common interest - to prevent an ever-stronger China from emerging as the global and regional superpower, especially militarily, in the coming decades.


Therefore, without any political support, the Un-Told Holocaust has fallen largely to the war's survivors and their children to tell their tales.


But for years, Asian survivors kept silent out of shame and a desire to shield their families from a painful past. "They didn't want to burden their children with this dark heritage," said historian Peter Black. Just as many Holocaust survivors were also reticent about their concentration camp experiences.


New Interest in Japan's War Atrocities, but Why Now ?


As the numbers and affluence of Asian in the Asia countries and U.S. have grown, so has the desire to document the war, commemorate its victims and excoriate its villains.


"My father's generation passed on its legacy silently," Kwan said. "Unlike the Jews, who came together and forcefully announced what occurred, the Asians have tried to brush it aside and say it's OK. But it's NOT OK."


" The new generation is made up of people who grew up in the US, are curious about their roots, and possess the English language skills and connections to conduct effective political campaigns," Chang said. It parallels to the 80s and '90s which led to a surge of interest in Holocaust studies.


Shielded by U.S., the "Japan's refusal to face up to its War Crimes keeps this alive," said Kirby of Harvard.


For US, China is the only country that has high potential to threaten US global dominance in the 21st century. Rise of China is one of the great events in economic history.


When she wakes she will shake the world.


For Japan, China undermines Tokyo as the leading power in the region. To cope with this "China Threat", Tokyo is adopting a more muscular military posture, one that causes alarm to its WWII victimized neighbors.


In 2005, for the first time the joint US-Japanese defense policy statement named China as a "Security Threat". 2 months after, Japan explicitly agreed with US that Taiwan Strait was a "common strategic concern" of US and Japan. Then, Japan announced the Japanese Coast Guard would officially take control of the disputed Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands. Japan is also discussing with US on building enhanced US command and control base facilities in Japan and cooperation on missile defense as well as force deployment.

U.S. hawks now refer to Japan as the "Britain of the Far East".

Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, U.S. has repeatedly pressured Japan to revise Article 9 of its constitution. In fact, U.S. has been doing everything in its power to encourage and even accelerate Japanese rearmament.


However, just in the opposite, on Apr. 30, 2005 the leaders of China's Communist Party and of Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party, the 2 sides that fought China's Civil War, formally ended 6 decades of hostility with a nationally televised historic handshake and pledged to work together to undermine Taiwan's Independence movement.

The meeting is the first between the leaders of the two parties in 60 years; the last was in the wartime redoubt of Chongqing, when Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong made a final, failed bid to reach a cease-fire.

"The parties reached a common understanding on upholding the '92 consensus, opposing Taiwanese Independence and striving for peace and stability in the Taiwan Sea," said in a joint communiqué.

Lien said his 8-day visit had unleashed a process of engagement that holds out the promise of peace, stability and increased trade.

China hosts a 2nd Taiwan opposition party head.


Under the Cover-up of State-Terrorism by US against Humanity, Japanese government with its economic power, is able to wage a sophisticated campaign after the WWII :

Japan portrayed itself as an Atomic Victim rather than a colonial Atrocious War Criminal.


Documents translated from the 731's original reports can be found at the US Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah using the Freedom of Information Act.

In 1949, after knowing the unit 731 & unit 100, Russian immediately sent a request through the International Bureau of Investigation to prosecute Ishii Shiro 731's commander and all related personnel, but the request was dismissed by U.S. government as a communist propaganda.

In response, on Dec. 25, 1949, Josef Stalin ordered the Khabarovsk Trial.

Vladislav Bogach, author of a book about the trial "Outlaw Weapon", wrote "experts proved that in one cycle, up to 300 kg of plague bacteria, 800-900 kg of typhoid and about a ton of cholera were produced. In one unit, there were 13,000 rats ... The output of incubators was 45 kg of infected fleas during 3-4 months."

As the trial ended, the daily Suvorovsky natisk expressed its anger,


"These are not humans the military court is trying; they are monsters and villains, and there is no proper word in human language to characterize them ...."


"They have no sympathy ... The Japanese were robots."


However, unlike the Nuremberg Trial and Tokyo Trial, in which high-ranking German and Japanese officials were hanged or life sentenced, in Khabarovsk trials the war criminals were mostly sentenced to terms of only 20 to 25 years. Several years later, all were quietly sent back to Japan and freed in 1956.

The interrogation reports, some 18 volumes were never released.

Many Western historians have criticized Soviet for handing down such light sentences. "My guess is that the Soviet made a deal with the Japanese similar to the one completed by the Americans" Harris said.

A 137-page counterintelligence file from the National Archives which had been declassified, makes it clear that U.S. intelligence agents not only covered up war crimes against Americans, but also aggressively protected the architect of those crimes, Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii.

"At the request of Nationalist Chinese officials who heard about "bacteriological experiments upon Chinese and Americans as human guinea pigs," the U.S. counterintelligence corps prepared a report on Ishii, the head of Unit 731, according to a July 24, 1947, memo. The document makes it clear that a high-level U.S. intelligence officer, Col. Philip Bethune, quashed the report after informing his agents that " no information is to be released to any agent as data on subject is classified as top secret." The agent who wrote the memo, identified only by the initials WSC, also wrote that "Col. Bethune desires no further action be taken in this case. No further action was taken."

Months later, on April 15, 1948, it was noted for the record that "It is of a highly sensitive nature, and that every precaution must be taken to maintain its secrecy."

A report dated April 18, 1947 from the legal section of Gen. MacArthur's headquarters, specifying that the Unit 731 investigation was "under direct Joint Chiefs of Staff order." "Every step, interrogation, or contact must be coordinated with this section," said the report by Lt. Neal R. Smith of Report of Investigation Division, Legal Section, " The utmost secrecy is essential in order to protect the interests of the United States and to guard against embarrassment."


Some of the reports were labeled "Commander in Chief" that leaves little doubt that US President Truman was informed of the events. President Truman also withdrew the 1925 Geneva Protocol outlawing Chemical and Biological Weapons from Senate ratification of protocol in 1947.


Vast archive of Japanese military records were in the hands of U.S. for 9 years after the war. The documents, first screened by the CIA, include hundreds of thousands of pages of War Ministry records from 1868 to 1942, Naval Ministry records from 1868 to 1939 and operational records of many units throughout the war including Unit 731. In 1948 the CIA turned over the records to the National Archives, with no indication of what, if anything, had been removed.


In 1957, all Japanese military records were ordered to be returned to Japan.


Concerned over the potential loss, a group of scholars including Edwin O. Reischauer of Harvard University and John Young of Georgetown University, obtained a Ford Foundation grant to hurriedly microfilm what they could. In February 1958, after about 5 % of the records were copied, Young recalled in an interview, the documents were sent to Baltimore and loaded aboard a ship for Japan. "There was no way we could read them all," said Young, who deplored the loss.


Young, who assisted Allied war crimes investigators in China after the war, compiled a 144-page index to the pages that were microfilmed. A microfilm set was presented to the National Diet Library in Tokyo, "An irony, Young said, considering that Japan has now closed off the collection. "I can tell you frankly, the militarists felt relieved," Young said. "As a historian I couldn't stand it."


This issue was also raised in the 1986's congress PoW hearing. John H. Hatcher, Army Record Management of US Army explained, "because the problem of language was too difficult for us to overcome", therefore all records were returned to Japan.


Subcommittee member Solomon was stunned, "to say that didn't have the expertise in this country to translate those records is almost incomprehensible." It clearly indicated that the subcommittee members believed that there was a Cover-Up.


It was until Dec. 3, 1996, U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) which has focused almost exclusively on Nazi war criminals despite its mandate to pursue BOTH Nazis and their allies, finally took its FIRST STEP toward redressing this imbalance by adding the FIRST 16 Japanese war criminal names on the "Watch List" (Holtzman Amendment) since it was legislated in 1978 for denying more than 60,000 Nazi German, Austrian, and Italian war criminals entry to U.S.


However, Japan is blocking probe of War Criminals and refused to cooperate with the Justice Department to put the names of several hundred surviving criminals on the Watch List.


"Japan is the ONLY country in the world from whom we seek assistance that does not provide it." said Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department’s office of Special Investigations. Rosenbaum said his office has been able to identify fewer than 100 Japanese suspects compare to 60,000 Nazi, Austrian, and Italian war criminals on the "Watch List"


"After the war, they were not punished, so why is the U.S. government dealing with this problem now ?" said Masao Okonogi, professor of political science at Keio University in Tokyo.


"This seems to me remarkably hypocritical. At the end of WWII, the U.S. occupying force was aware of the information about Unit 731 but deliberately exonerated the men in return for their agreement to be debriefed on the findings of their atrocious experiments. We agreed to Cover-Up their crimes." said John Dower, MIT professor and specialist on modern Japanese history and US relations.


In the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) process, the interests of Asian people and countries brutally victimized by the Japanese Imperial Army were mostly ignored.


This Treaty had caused much controversial from the very beginning. After 54 years, the Treaty still remains very much controversial today.


Despite the protests by Asian countries most affected by the Japanese aggression, U.S. did NOT even invite China (both mainland-People's Republic of China and Taiwan-Republic of China) and Korea (both North and South).


Soviet Union, India and Burma refused to participate. 3 signatories from Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) were actually representatives of the French colonial regime.


Only 4 Asian countries signed the treaty. Of these 4, Indonesia signed the treaty but never ratified it. The Philippines reserved its signatures and did not ratify the treaty. So in fact, the ONLY Asian countries that supported the SFPT were Pakistan and Ceylon, both colonies of Britain up till that time.


Furthermore, U.S. feared that Dutch's refusal of signing the San Francisco Peace Treaty might lead the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand to drop out as well, so on the day before and the morning of the treaty signing ceremony, U.S. principal negotiator, John Foster Dulles, orchestrated a " Secret Deal " with exchange of confidential letters between the minister of foreign affairs of the Netherlands, Dirk Stikker, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida.


Yoshida pledged that "the Government of Japan does not consider that the Government of the Netherlands by signing the Treaty has itself expropriated the private claims of its nationals so that, as a consequence thereof, after the Treaty comes into force these claims would be non-existent."


The deal and letters had to be kept secret because Article 26 of the Treaty states that, "should Japan make a peace settlement or war claims settlement with any State granting that State greater advantages than those provided by the present Treaty, those same advantages shall be extended to the parties to the present Treaty."

In 1956, the Dutch did successfully pursue a claim against Japan on behalf of private citizens. Japan paid $10 million as a way of "expressing sympathy and regret." A year before, the British noted two other instances in which governments had made deals with Japan for reparations: a settlement with Burma that provided reparations, services and investments amounting, over 10 years, to $250 million; and an agreement with Switzerland that provided "compensation for maltreatment, personal injury and loss arising from acts illegal under the rules of war."


The letters were finally declassified in April 2000, by which time most potential claimants were probably all dead.


With the " Secret Deal " and by withholding documents, the U.S. has significantly contributed and played a major role in Japan's historical amnesia.


Japan subsequently signed treaties with other States, including the war claims settlements.


Both U.S. and Japan purposely ignored without honoring the provision of Article 26 and continues to deny its bounded responsibility to compensate its wartime victims to this day.


For details, refer to San Francisco Peace Treaty: Has Justice Been Served and Peace Secured ? , and A Just Peace ? The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty in Historical Perspective.


"Those of us who really believe in human rights believe that justice has not been achieved by the San Francisco Peace Treaty," said Lillian Sing, a San Francisco Superior Court judge.


"Japan's historical amnesia is a result of collusion between the U.S. and Japan," said Mark Selden, a history professor at the State University of New York, "That collusion reached its height in the San Francisco Treaty of 1951." because the treaty becomes an obstacle to a full reckoning of the suffering Japan inflicted on other Asians and on American PoW.


Peace Treaty Locked Japan into a Flawed Present.


John Dower in his recent book, Embracing Defeat: "One of the most pernicious aspects of the occupation was that the Asian peoples who had suffered most from imperial Japan's depredations -- the Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, and Filipinos had no serious role, no influential presence at all in the defeated land. They became invisible. Asian contributions to defeating the emperor's soldiers and sailors were displaced by an all-consuming focus on the American victory in the Pacific War".


San Fransisco Peace Treaty is therefore an un-precedented BIG Sell-Out of all countries in Asia by U.S.


In Oct. 1999, in a Letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein for the Bill S.9102 , i.e. the Disclosure Act of Japanese War Crime Documents, History Professor Sheldon H. Harris of California State University emphatically stated in his letter that :

The ""sensitive" documents as defined by archivists and FOIA officers are at the moment being destroyed...... Three examples of this wanton destruction......" by U.S.

1. "In 1991, the Librarian at Dugway Proving Grounds, Dugway, Utah, denied me access to the archives at the facility. It was only through the intervention of then U.S. Representative Wayne Owens, Dem., Utah, that I was given permission to visit the facility. I was not shown all the holdings relating to Japanese medical experiments, but the little I was permitted to examine revealed a great deal of information about medical war crimes. Sometimes after my visit, a person with intimate knowledge of Dugway's operations, informed me that "sensitive" documents were destroyed there as a direct result of my research in their library."

2. "I conducted much of my American research at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md. The Public Information Officer there was extremely helpful to me. Two weeks ago I telephoned Detrick, was informed that the PIO had retired last May. I spoke with the new PIO, who told me that Detrick no longer would discuss past research activities, but would disclose information only on current projects. Later that day I telephoned the retired PIO at his home. He informed me that upon retiring he was told to "get rid of that stuff", meaning incriminating documents relating to Japanese medical war crimes. Detrick no longer is a viable research center for historians."

3. "Within the past 2 weeks, I was informed that the Pentagon, for "space reasons", decided to rid itself of all biological warfare documents in its holdings prior to 1949. The date is important, because all war crimes trials against accused Japanese war criminals were terminated by 1949. Thus, current Pentagon materials could not implicate alleged Japanese war criminals. Fortunately, a private research facility in Washington volunteered to retrieve the documents in question. This research facility now holds the documents, is currently cataloguing them (estimated completion time, at least twelve months), and is guarding the documents under "tight security".


Starting from Korea, in the course of 45 years, Japanese gold hunting expert teams accompanying Japan's armed forces had systematically emptied treasuries, banks, factories, private homes, pawn shops, art galleries, and stripped ordinary people, while Japan's top gangsters looted Asia's underworld and black economy.

For 45 year, Japan systematically looted wealth of 12 Asian countries accumulated over thousands of years: currency, gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, gemstones, jewelry, cultural treasures, valuable ancient books, priceless manuscripts, religious artifacts, artworks and historic artifacts, and antiques including more than a dozen solid gold Buddhas, each weighing more than a ton.


The looting and plundering, which was far more thorough than the Nazis, became the Japanese way to finance its brutal war. In China alone, Japan looted 6,000 tonnes of gold from Chinese capital Nanjing in 1938. When the plunder was later unable to ship to Japan due to US submarine blockade, The treasure of Golden Lily was buried in Philippines, known as the "Yamashita's Gold", estimated US$ 500 billion-plus of wealth looted from 12 Asian countries accumulated over thousands of years.


Shocking details of the Japanese unjust enrichment could be found in the controversial book Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold, backed up by massive amounts of the author's raw research material, which is available in 2 CD-ROMs containing more than 900 megabytes of documents, interviews, maps and photographs assembled during their meticulous research for independent verification.


A Swiss court disclosed in 1997 that one of the solid gold Buddhas is now in a bank vault beneath Zurich’s Kloten Airport, along with a large quantity of other gold bullion recovered by former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and held in Marcos family accounts.


In 1997, a team from Japan’s Asahi television was led to a mountain cave in the Philippines, where they filmed and examined 1,800 of these bars, worth $150 million, and drilled core samples that confirmed their province.


After Japan's surrender, some golds were recovered by US. But US decided to steal and unjustly enrich itself instead of returning to its rightful Asian owner for their recovery after War.


According to the Seagraves, US financial experts from CIA instructed Santa Romana to deposit the gold in 176 reliable banks in 42 different countries. Instead of returning these looted gold to the rightful owners of Asian countries to recover in the aftermath of WWII, U.S. unjustly enriched itself by stealing these looted gold and set up Slush Funds to finance and influence politics around the world for its own interests. The slush funds became US political worldwide action fund to fight communism. The most famous one is known as the Black Eagle Trust, or the M-Fund to reinforce the treasuries of its allies, bribe political leaders, manipulate politics, military, economics and elections around the world.


After the war, according to Segraves, US used the looted treasure from Asia as sort of Japanese Marshall Plan to re-build Japan, and develop Japanese key industries such as coal, iron, shipbuilding and electric power for Japan's "Economic Miracle Recovery" and as bulwark against communism.


Far from being bankrupted by the War, Japan had been greatly and unjustly enriched by the Plunder of Asia after the War.


"Truth is something governments do not wish to be known. Big corporate media and bootlicking academics have tried to undermine our books by pretending they don't exist or saying that the M-Fund is imaginary. But look at the CD-ROMs. Secrecy, lying and corruption have become the official seal of Tokyo and Washington" says Peggy Seagrave.


The fact that the U.S. still refuses to declassify relevant OSS/CIA materials, in blatant contravention of U.S. Freedom of Information laws, strongly suggests to many scholars and historians that there is something serious to Cover-Up.


Peter Calvocoressi, author of the book "Total War", wrote "What seems quite incredible is that the cover-up conspiracy - for it is by no means a demonological exaggeration to speak of it as a conspiracy - was maintained throughout the three years which elapsed between the Japanese defeat and the conclusion of the Tokyo Trial ... and that ... this conspiracy was sustained for so long afterwards."


Under the Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity, Japanese government with its economic power, is able to wage a sophisticated campaign after the war:


Japan portrayed itself as an Atomic Victim rather than a colonial Atrocious War Criminal.


Minoru Morita, a Tokyo-based political analyst said, "These days we very often hear more experts say publicly that the U.S. wants such adversary relationship between China and Japan and that's why they remain SILENT."


Remorseless Japan, assisted by U.S., has committed the " 2nd Rape of Nanjing -- Rape of History " , has committed the " 2nd Nanjing Massacre -- Massacre the Massacre " , has committed the " 2nd Holocaust -- Holocaust the Holocaust ".


Japan has now being able to skirt the soul-searching for its War Crimes for more than half century.


Most people have termed it "The Forgotten Holocaust".


The recent very strong reactions, i.e. large scale of protests against Japan and millions signed the online petition to U.N., from the people of Asia, especially from China and S.Korea, have shown that even though the WWII ended in Asia 60 years ago, the bitter issue of Japanese War Crimes committed before and during that war has clearly not been resolved.


The Textbook was first approved by Japanese Government screening panel 4 years ago and had already caused extensive outcry in 2001 from neighbouring WWII vicitimized countries. China condemned Japan 'absurd' rewrite of WWII in 2001. Japanese education ministry said 137 changes had been made after widespread protests from Korea and China in 2001.


Dec. 2000 Appeal by Japanese Historians and History Educators - We cannot entrust History Education to a Textbook that distorts History.


Though given away for free, the Government approved nationalist New History Textbook is used only by 18 junior high schools. But it has caused outrages and been denounced by many Japanese conscientious educators and liberals in Japan.

It also underscores a disturbing broader trend in recent years. Japan's largest national newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun has called on its readers to celebrate the new Textbooks of cutting out all mentions about the Sex Slaves.

" All history textbooks are shifting their focus away from Japan's wartime atrocities," said Mikio Someya, spokesman for Japan Teachers' Association, the leading teachers' union in Japan.

"They are approved because their contents reflect the views of the government and conservative ruling party members." said Yoshifumi Tawara, who heads Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21.

The 2005 revised edition of Japanese History textbook distorts even more than the 2001 Edition: excises all mention of Sex Slaves, portraying Japan as more victim than aggressor; claims Japan had "no choice" but to occupy the Korea;

The new textbook questions Nanjing Massacre and says China provoked war : downplaying "21 Humiliating Demands".

Although still suffering as a Western colonial victim, during W.W.I, China sent 100,000 laborers to help the allies in France; about 2,500 died. At end of W.W.I at the peace conference in Paris, China requested: do away with the privileges of imperialist foreign countries in China, cancel the Japanese "21 Humiliating Demands", take back the privileges in Shandong that Japan had taken from Germany.

However, not willing to give up their forced colonial privileges, U.S., Britain and France rejected China's demands. Instead, Article 156 of Treaty of Versailles transferred German concessions in Shandong, China to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China.

China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, compounded with the Japanese 21 Humiliating Demands led directly to the first mass movement in modern Chinese history, i.e. the famous First Chinese university student movement : May 4th Movement in Beijing in 1919 and triggered a nationwide Boycott of Japanese Goods. The movement also ignited a wave of searching efforts by the intellectuals for a solution to save China from foreign colonial powers. Some advocated gradual cultural reform, while others introduced Marxism and led to the birth of the Communist Party.

15 Japanese civic groups issued a statement, " The 'dangerous' contents filling the Textbook as a whole have not changed in any essential way. There are even parts that have been revised for the worse.", down playing Nanjing Massacre, ignoring Sex Slaves, depicting Japan as aimed at liberating other Asian countries, using wartime propaganda terminology e.g. calling WWII the "Greater East Asian War".

The Textbook has been a big problem in Japan since end of war, 32 Years History Textbook Legal Battle for details.

Recently, Japanese civic groups ran an advertisement in the Yomiuri Shimbun calling on people to reject the new textbooks


The Root cause of the bitterness is NOT the History Textbook or the bidding of U.N. Security Council which are only the triggering factors. The Real Root Cause is the Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity. It is also the Real Solution for the people in Asia because Without the Cover-up, Japan will have to Naturally and Willingly follow the great example set by the courageous Germany.


WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab warned Asia of the Risk of Un-Digested History, " Coming from Europe where a reconciliation process has taken place, we have today a clear "European Identity", parallel to our National Identity. This has not happened here in this region. We speak a lot about Asia, but where is the "Asian Identity" ?


The "Asian Identity" could only be achieved through the only path available, i.e. through truly sincere apology, compensation, and forgiveness.


Only then, the people of Asia can truly live peacefully and harmoniously together, and only then their Asian dream of an Union similar to the European Union (EU) could be realized in the future.


From history, we know that Militarism is extreme State-Terrorism.


Ironically, Japanese War Crimes cover-up is, in fact, a Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity -- an U.S. "With-Us or Against-Us" mockery to its own war against Terrorism.


Fumiko Nakamura, a 91-year-old former public school teacher, can't shake the profound remorse she feels. Ms. Nakamura used to exhort her students to fight for the Emperor. She is deeply ashamed of her involvement in the war. " I will carry this sin as long as I live," she says.

As Japan expands its military roles abroad, her voice has grown louder. Now that some Japanese leaders want to turn the "Self-Defense Forces" into Full-Fledged Military, 91-years-old woman has become more vocal than ever. "I see certain parallels between present situations in Japan and in the pre-war period," she warns.

Noriaki Kamiya, a high school social studies teacher in Nagoya. Rather than hiding his family history, Kamiya talked about it in his classroom and around Japan. At first he referred to his father obliquely, as an "acquaintance."

But in 1995, a young Diet member declared that her generation bore no responsibility for wartime atrocities, and he sees worrying signs of a revival of the same kind of nationalistic thinking. So he began speaking openly. " Japan has emphasized the part of Japanese as victims, such as in Hiroshima. But it hasn't touched the shameful parts." said Kamiya.


The Asia Peace Alliance of Japan in Japan which has support from 64 organizations warned that nationalism is on the rise and more should be done to prevent the younger generation from thinking that Japanese militarism is the way to go.

"Everything I hear these days makes me really upset," said Sunao Tsuboi, now 80 was a university student when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima. "I get a strong feeling that Japan is leaning to the right, that we're going down a road that we've been down before," His face still visibly scarred from the atomic burns and is worried Japan may again be headed down the path of militarism.


Kinhide Mushakoji, Professor of Osaka University of Economics and Law, said: "Now we're part of the west and millitarizing in support of the American government. People think it's right, That's what's really the problem I'm concerned about."


Taking advantage of US war against Terrorism, ironically, instead of self-defense, Japan dispatched its Self-Defence warships for the FIRST TIME in the postwar period to Afghanistan; and then sent its Self-Defence troops to combat zone for the FIRST TIME to Iraq, to help fighting Terrorism.


It is a speechless mockery to its own Cover-Up of extreme State-Terrorism committed during 14 years atrocious WWII.


33 posted on 2005/11/14 13:45:47 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]
Japan's Soul Searching

Not only were the perpetrators not punished after the war, Nobusuke Kishi, who had served as the wartime czar of Chinese Slaves and spent 3 years in Sugamo Prison as a Class-A War Crimes suspect, even made all the way to became Prime Minister of Japan in 1957. Okinori Kaya, a Class-A War Criminal for life imprisonment, paroled in 1955, later became Justice Minister. Shigemitsu Mamoru, Class-A War Criminal sentenced to 7 years' imprisonment, became Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in 1954. The head of Unit 731, Shiro Ishii was permitted to continue medical research in Japan after the war. Ryoichi Naito, Ishii's right-hand man, founded Green Cross pharmaceutical companies, other Unit 731 leaders joined him there. Many directors of JNIH (Japan National Institute of Health) had served in biological warfare unit and involved in human experiments. Some went on to become Governor of Tokyo, Presidents of universities, Deans of medical schools, Heads of public health agencies, Head of Japan Olympic Committee, key position in Japanese drug and medical companies, lawmakers and industrialists.

Kobayashi Rokuzo - President - National Epidemic Prevention Institute

Nakaguro Hidetoshi - President - Defence Forces Medical School

Naito Ryoichi - President - Green Cross

Kitano Masaji - Chief Executive - Green Cross

Kasuga Chuichi - President = Trio-Kenwood

Yoshimura Hisato - President - Kyoto Municipal Medical University

Yamanaka Motoki - President - Osaka Municipal Medical University

Okamato Kozo - Dean - Kyoto University Medical

Tanaka Hideo - Dean - Osaka Municipal University Medical

Ishikawa Tachiomaru - President - Kanazawa University Medical

Kasahara Shiro - Vice president - Kitasato Hospital

Japanese veterans, war widows, families of those killed in action, civilians employed by the military, and citizens mobilized for the war, all receive generous benefits from Japanese government under the entitlement program.


In 1954, Japanese Public Officials Pensions Law was revised to assist War Criminals for pensions and compensation.


Japanese War Criminals received full military pensions and benefits from Japanese government,

But millions of their victims and families suffered, and continue to suffer in poverty, shame, chronic physical and mental pain, WMD Death Toll and WMD Injuries including Children continue to rise due to Japanese abandonded WMD weapons to this day .........

Japanese government officials and right-wingers, even some moderates, insist that all claims resulted from Japanese WW II transgression have been settled by the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty that Japan had paid the international Red Cross the equivalent of about $1 a day for missed meal and $1.5 per day for unpaid wages for PoW while the Allies agreed not to bring War Crimes charges against it, by citing the provision in Article 16 in which Allied nations agreed to waive all reparations in light of the postwar financial hardship Japan was experiencing. They also claim that Japan has paid a total of 27 billion dollars to 27 nations, transfer of Japanese capital equipment, facilities, other assets to nations abroad, and an apology was offered by Japanese Prime Minister Tomichi Murayama in Aug. 1995.

But his apology was only a personal one. He failed to make a formal and official apology in the so-called "No War Resolution". Only 26% of the diet members supported the Resolution and 47% were against it. Furthermore, the ex-education minister Seisuke Okuno managed to organize a national campaign and collected 4.5 million signatures against the Resolution. The revised version had the official apology deleted.

Critics also pointed out that the bulk of $27 billion did NOT come from its coffer. It was the relief funds the Allied sent to the PoWs in the Japanese camps throught the International Committee of Red Cross and they was illegally seized by the Bank of Japan in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. Japan only returned them to Switzerland as part of the 1951 San Frencisco Peace Treaty settlement.

The returned properties were looted by the Japanese Army. They were hardly any "reparations" but solely stolen goods.

Countless artwork, ancient antiques, valuable books and intellectual properties from China and other nations are still sitting in Japan's museums and private collections to this day.


Over 45 years, Japan systematically looted wealth of 12 Asian countries accumulated over thousands of years: currency, gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, gemstones, jewelry, cultural treasures, religious artifacts, art and antiques including more than a dozen solid gold Buddhas, each weighing more than a ton.


The looting and plundering, which was far more thorough than the Nazis, became the Japanese way to finance its brutal war. In China alone, Japan looted 6,000 tonnes of gold from Chinese capital Nanjing in 1938.


Far from being bankrupted by the War, Japan had been greatly enriched by the Plunder of Asia after the War.

Stolen Artifacts from Asia found in Japan

It is estimated that Japan had looted more than 2.7 million books from China. After the war only 158,873 books were returned.


Japan's ODA (Official Development Assistance) to China begins at 1979 when China has finally began its open door policy for economic development after suffering 30 long years of irrational political turmoil. But China lacked capital while developed countries had large quantities of idle money.


Although ODA was often criticized as the "Checkbook Diplomacy", it has definitely provided great benefits for both sides. By helping China's infrastructural facilities, Japan has paved the road for its own Japanese company profitable business in China and thus helped to pull Japan out of years of economic stagnation as already shown in recent economic recovery. China in late 70s and early 80s, was still an energy export country. The ODA thus helped Japan diversify its energy import sources and reduce reliance on Middle East at that time.


Japan's ODA for China comprises 3 parts: long-term loans, free grants and technical assistance. The bulk of the ODA are loans. Total Japanese ODA to China is about US$ 30 billion. They were NOT free gifts. All ODA loans including the low interest must be paid back.


The 30 billion US$ ODA paid-back loans amount to only a fraction of the financial losses in China caused by Japanese 14 years of atrocious WWII, estimated in many Hundreds of Billions US $. The total loss could be Trillion US$ if the interest, direct and indirect monetary and properties damages, environmental and ecosystem damages, looted wealth, cultural assets, natural resources, and other tangible or intangible losses were included, not to mention 35 Millions Chinese casualties caused by Japanese indiscriminate killing, starvation and various diseases.


A close examination of the San Francisco Peace Treaty reveals that the reparations matter was merely postponed until Japan has the financial means to pay. It was never resolved.


However, according to Segraves, far from being bankrupted by the War, Japan had been greatly enriched by the Plunder of Asia after the War.


The Treaty had caused much controversial from the very beginning. After 54 years, the Treaty still remains very much controversial today.

In the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) process, the interests of Asian people and countries brutally victimized by the Japanese Imperial Army were mostly ignored.

Despite the protests by Asian countries most affected by the Japanese aggression, U.S. did NOT even invite China (both mainland-People's Republic of China and Taiwan-Republic of China) and Korea (both North and South).

Soviet Union, India and Burma refused to participate. 3 signatories from Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) were actually representatives of the French colonial regime.

Only 4 Asian countries signed the treaty. Of these 4, Indonesia signed the treaty but never ratified it. The Philippines reserved its signatures and did not ratify the treaty. So in fact, the ONLY Asian countries that supported the SFPT were Pakistan and Ceylon, both colonies of Britain up till that time.

Furthermore, U.S. feared that Dutch's refusal of signing the San Francisco Peace Treaty might lead the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand to drop out as well, so on the day before and the morning of the treaty signing ceremony, U.S. principal negotiator, John Foster Dulles, orchestrated a " Secret Deal " with exchange of confidential letters between the minister of foreign affairs of the Netherlands, Dirk Stikker, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida.

Yoshida pledged that "the Government of Japan does not consider that the Government of the Netherlands by signing the Treaty has itself expropriated the private claims of its nationals so that, as a consequence thereof, after the Treaty comes into force these claims would be non-existent."

The deal and letters had to be kept secret because Article 26 of the Treaty states that, "should Japan make a peace settlement or war claims settlement with any State granting that State greater advantages than those provided by the present Treaty, those same advantages shall be extended to the parties to the present Treaty."

In 1956, the Dutch did successfully pursue a claim against Japan on behalf of private citizens. Japan paid $10 million as a way of "expressing sympathy and regret." A year before, the British noted two other instances in which governments had made deals with Japan for reparations: a settlement with Burma that provided reparations, services and investments amounting, over 10 years, to $250 million; and an agreement with Switzerland that provided "compensation for maltreatment, personal injury and loss arising from acts illegal under the rules of war."

The letters were finally declassified in April 2000, by which time most potential claimants were probably all dead.

With the " Secret Deal " and by withholding documents, the U.S. has significantly contributed and played a major role in Japan's historical amnesia.

Japan subsequently signed treaties with other States, including the war claims settlements.

Both U.S. and Japan purposely ignored without honoring the provision of Article 26 and continues to deny its bounded responsibility to compensate its wartime victims to this day.


For details, refer to San Francisco Peace Treaty: Has Justice Been Served and Peace Secured ? , and A Just Peace ? The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty in Historical Perspective


"Those of us who really believe in human rights believe that justice has not been achieved by the San Francisco Peace Treaty," said Lillian Sing, a San Francisco Superior Court judge.


"Japan's historical amnesia is a result of collusion between the U.S. and Japan," said Mark Selden, a history professor at the State University of New York, " That collusion reached its height in the San Francisco Treaty of 1951." because the treaty becomes an obstacle to a full reckoning of the suffering Japan inflicted on other Asians and on American PoW.


Peace Treaty Locked Japan into a Flawed Present.


As Harvard Professor Akira Iriye had pointed out, U.S. used the San Fransisco Peace Treaty to turn Japan from a conquered and occupied country to its military ally aiming at responding to the communist countries, Soviet Union and China.


John Dower in his recent book, Embracing Defeat: "One of the most pernicious aspects of the occupation was that the Asian peoples who had suffered most from imperial Japan's depredations -- the Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, and Filipinos had no serious role, no influential presence at all in the defeated land. They became invisible. Asian contributions to defeating the emperor's soldiers and sailors were displaced by an all-consuming focus on the American victory in the Pacific War".


San Fransisco Peace Treaty is therefore an un-precedented BIG Sell-Out of all countries in Asia by U.S.


In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of U.N. and of the war, Japan consideredand proposed a "No War Resolution" in an effort to reflect its past history. However, it was rejected by Japanese Diet mainly because it contained a formal official apology for its wartime atrocities. Only 26% of the diet members supported the Resolution and 47% were against it. Furthermore, the ex-education minister Seisuke Okuno managed to organize a national campaign and collected 4.5 million signatures against the Resolution. The revised version had the official apology deleted.

On Aug 15, 1995 Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama offered an apology to mark the 50th anniversary end of WWII. But his personal apology was NOT even passed by the Japanese parliament.

In Sept 1997 Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto also reiterated the apology. Again, his apology was NOT approved by the parliament.

In Oct. 8 2001 Japanese prime minister Koizumi, issued an apoplgy after visiting the Lugouqiao ( Marco Polo Bridge), site of hostilities that led to a full scale war invasion in July 7, 1937. However, the apology was simply based on and did not go beyond the wording used in a 1995 statement by Murayama. It was his personal apology and NOT passed by Japanese Diet.


This was exactly why in Nov. 1998, Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun ran a such naive headline: "We are fed up of saying sorry".


Japan also argues that individual victim cannot sue a state, and also argued that China had voluntarily give up the right of reparation from Japan in 1972 when Beijing and Japan established diplomatic ties. Although the Joint Communiqué and the Treaty have waived the state's rights to war damages, neither has ever specifically surrendered the rights of any private claims by Chinese citizens.

In fact, the obligation of States and the rights of individuals with respect to the violation of human rights cannot, as a matter of international law, be given away or extinguished by governments through peace treaty, peace agreement, amnesty or by any other means. This has been repeatedly affirmed in numerous resolutions passed by the United Nations over the years. (e.g. UN Resolution E/CN.4/SUB.2/RES/1999/16)

Professor Etsuro Totsuka of Kobe University in Japan has pointed out the following in his article Peace Treaty and Japan's Wartime Responsibility: Breaking the Treaty Defense :

1. Art. 3 of the Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed at the Hague, on 18 Oct. 1907 stipulates, "A belligerent party which violates the provisions of the said Regulations (i.e., the Regulations of Land Warfare annexed to the Convention) shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces."

This article of the 1907 Hague Convention was understood to have been customary international law and it was succeeded by Art. 91 of the Optional Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Japan acceded to it on Oct 21, 1953 and bound China in 1956. Therefore, It guarantees individual victims the right to compensation.

2. China is not a Party to the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Therefore, The treaty is not applicable to China.

3. The Treaty of Peace between Republic of China (i.e. Taiwan) and Japan of Apr 28, 1952 became null and void in accordance with the Sino-Japanese Joint Communique of Sept 29, 1972.

4. The Sino-Japanese Joint Communique includes no explicit provision, which waived the right of individual victims. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations had also made public its legal opinion that the Joint Communique did not waive the right to demand reparations for losses and damages sustained by Chinese nationals.

5. Art. 148 of the IV Geneva Convention reads "No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article." Therefore, if any military personnel commit war crimes of grave breaches under Art. 147, the responsible Parties could not be allowed to absolve itself from any liabilities including responsibility for compensation due to the crimes and other Parties shall not be allowed to relinquish the rights of the victims without compensation from the responsible state.

Also in the second sentence of Art. 7 of the IV Geneva Convention reads, "No special agreement shall adversely affect the situation of protected persons, as defined by the present Convention, nor restrict the rights which it confers upon them.” Therefore, the guarantee under Art. 148 cannot be adversely changed by any other international agreements.

Therefore, these 2 articles clearly prohibited Japan and China to absolve Japan of the individual rights to compensation under the said Joint Communique, in particular, if it comes to the issue of grave war crimes.


In 1959, Yasukuni Shrine began to enshrine Class-B and Class-C war criminals. In 1978, under the Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity, Japan secretly enshrined 1,068 war criminals including 14 Class-A War Criminals in Yasukuni Shinto shrine to be worshipped as national heroes. News of the secret enshrinement caused an uproar when it leaked out 6 months later.

In July 1996, on Japan's "Day of Armistice", known as the "Day of Surrender", the Japanese Royal Family and Prime Minister Hashimoto went to the Yasukuni Shrine to pay official tribute there. In doing so, they effectively bestowed the status of "National Heroes" upon more than 1,000 convicted War Criminals.

The Japanese ruling LDP party and right wingers even incorporated the worship as the national policy that the cabinet ministers should officially pay tribute to the Yasukuni Shrine. Japan Foreign Affairs Committee has even approved a motion on November 28, 1996 asking all visiting Heads of State to pay homage at the Yasukuni Shrine to their War Criminals.

Japan's "Peace Constitution Article 9" prohibits Japan from having an army. So, instead of an army, Japan has a Self-Defense Force (SDF). It was called an "emasculated" military force since it was forbidden to resort to military action unless attacked.

However, encouraged by US, Japanese Self-Defense Force is now the best equipped and most modern army in Asia. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Japan military spending in 2003 was US$ 46.9 billion, the 2nd largest in the world, even outstrips Britain's in total spending and manpower. Its navy is probably the 2nd largest in the Pacific.

Compared with most Shinto shrines, which were founded hundreds of years ago, the Japanese Yasukuni Shrine was a relatively recent affair. It was built by the Imperial Order of the Meiji Emperor in 1869 for the sole purpose to glorify Japan's imperialism. During WWII, Japanese Militarists took over the shrine. Yasukuni is a military war memorial to glorify its brutal past, anything but a symbol of peace. It grounds in central Tokyo include a museum devoted to glorifying Japanese militarism as a noble cause that tried to liberate Asia.

Ironically, Japanese Emperor Meiji, whose name Meiji originated from "Yi Jing (I Ching) " , A Chinese Classic , also took the name Yasukuni from a phrase in "Chunqiu Zuoshi Zhuan " (Shunju Sashiden) , another Chinese Classic , meaning "Bringing Peace to a Nation."

War / Colonial Brutal Invasion/War Dead:

Meiji Restoration - 7,751

South-West War - 6,971

War against China - 1874
Taiwan Punitive Expedition
( Taiwan Mudan Invasion ) - 1,130

War against China - 1894
Sino-Japanese War - 13,619

War against China - 1900
Boxer Rebellion - 1,256

War .inside China - 1904
Russo-Japanese War - 88,429

21 Demands - 1915
First World War - 4,850

War against China - 1928
Jinan Incident
( 53 Jinan Massacre ) - 185

War against China - 1931
Manchurian Incident
( 918 Invasion ) - 17,176

War against China - 1937
China Incident
( 77 Marco Polo Bridge Full Invasion ) - 191,250

War against China - 1941
Great East Asian War
( Asia Invasion WWII ) - 2,133,915

Total War Dead: 2,466,532

Of the 11 wars listed above, most of the Japanese wars were fought to invade and colonize China. The Russian-Japanese War was fought inside China in 1904 to determine who had more "Rights" to colonize China, ended with Treaty of Portsmouth.


Just a few paces from where Japanese PM Koizumi dropped a coin and prayed, is the Yasukuni museum. The museum portrays Japan as both the martyr and savior of Asia to drive "the foreign barbarians", to liberate and protect Asia from Russian Bolshevism and European colonialism. Pearl Harbor was "forced" by "a plot" by President Roosevelt. Japanese-led massacres, Korean comfort women, Chinese sex slaves, or tortured PoWs are not mentioned.


The Yasukuni Museum display shows Japan as a victim of a conspiracy by Western colonial powers and Japan was forced into war in self-defence to bring peace to Asia.

In a Museum film, Pearl Harbor is described as a "battle for Japan's survival," while one exhibit blames the 1937 Nanjing Massacre on the Chinese leaders who fled the city while ordering their men to fight to the death. After the fall of Nanjing to the Japanese, the museum notes, "the Chinese citizens were once again able to live their lives in peace."

The Museum also displays the first engine that travelled the infamous 415 km Railway of Death - Thai-Burma Railway without mentioning the savage death of 16,000 PoWs and 100,000 Asian Slaves, described by Cameron Forbes in his book Hellfire as " built on the Bones of the Dead", i.e. 300 death for each km.

WWII is called "the Greater East Asian War", invasion of China is described as "China Incident". The Museum displays a reconstructed Zero fighter and the Short Sword used by Gen. Korechika Anami who advocated to continue the War even after the 2 Atomic Bombs.


Okinori Kaya, a Class-A War Criminal for life imprisonment, paroled in 1955, and became Justice Minister. He was instrumental in getting a bill to the Diet that, if passed, would have turned Yasukuni into a national shrine. He kept the bill alive through 5 rejections until finally giving up in 1974. However,



in 1959, Yasukuni Shrine began to enshrine Class-B and Class-C war criminals. It had secretly enshrined 1,068 WWII Criminals including 14 CLASS-A War Criminals in 1978. News of the secret enshrinement caused an uproar when it leaked out 6 months later.



In Seoul, Kim Yun-ok said, "The Japanese soldiers enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine are the very ones who Raped our grandmothers."


More than 86 % of the enshrined Japanese soldiers were from WWII. Private Tadokoro Kozo of the 114th division said in 1971 interview, " There wasn't . ANY . soldier who didn't Rape. After things were done, usually we killed them ..... We didn't want to leave any trouble behind ....."



Nearly 21,000 war dead from Korea and 28,000 from Taiwan, most of them forced into war service under Japan's colonial rule, are enshrined at Yasukuni without their families' permission. The Taiwanese arrived in Tokyo said they want their relatives' names removed from memorial plaques there because it is "morally unpardonable that Murderers and Victims are honored at the SAME place."


In the past 3 years, Taiwanese went to Tokyo 7 times to protest against Yasukuni Shrine, demanding de-enshrinement of their family member of the forcibly conscripted war dead, insisting that "We are not Japanese ! We are the Victims of Japanese war crimes !", but without success in liberating their enslaved ancestral souls.


The "Return the Souls of our Forebears" protest delegation has come to the U.N. and brought with them are 2 old books that record the Japanese army employed the extreme brutal "Three All Policy : Burn All, Loot All, Kill All" in 1913 and 1914 against the Taiwan Aborigines who were resisting the invaders. A Japanese military photographic team followed the fighting, compiled its photographs into these " Pictorial Albums of the Punitive Expedition" and submitted them to the Japanese War Ministry as evidence of the army's "great military achievements".


The 2 albums now serve as undeniable proof of the Japanese army's war crimes. During its invasion and 51-year occupation of Taiwan, Japan killed more than 600,000 Taiwanese people, including large numbers of Aborigines.


For people in Asia, Yasukuni Shrine is a symbol of Japan's brutal militaristic past.


It is also a symbol of Japan's failure as a nation to collectively face its past war responsibilities.


It is not that the Asian do not want to forgive the Japanese. Unfortunately, it is many of the Japanese do not think they need to be forgiven.


Since the war, only Prime Minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1985 and Ryutaro Hashimoto in 1996, have made the visit, only once. The torrent of protest was enough to persuade them not to make another. However, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi, drawing sharp criticism from other Asian countries, visited war shrine the 5th time to the Yasukuni Shrine on Oct. 18, 2005 since he became prime minister.


Under Article 11 of San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japanese government was to "accept the judgements" of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Japanese government officials to a shrine that has deified war criminals violates the spirit of the Peace Treaty.


Japan has not yet signed the convention for the International Criminal Court, which tries War Criminals.


What is wrong about Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine to grieve for those who gave their lives for their country in the past war ? Here is the answer.


First in Feb., Japanese Osaka District Court ruled that the Koizumi's visit was made NOT as a private citizen but in his official capacity.

Then in Apr. 2004, Japanese Fukuoka District Court ruled that Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine has violated Constitution because it violated the separation of state and religion.

Also in Sept 30, 2005 Osaka High Court ruled Koizumi's shrine visits were a religious activity and Un-Constitutional. The Un-Constitutional Ruling stands since the Japanese government cannot appeal to the Supreme Court.


In fact, the question of Constitution was settled in 1991 when Sendai High Court ruled that an official Yasukuni visit by a PM or the Emperor was Un-Constitutional under Article 20 of the national charter.


Koizumi defied logic, insisting that neighboring countries would not be offended by his Un-Constitutional shrine visits.


The visits marked a further step in the resurrection and legitimisation of the symbols of Japan’s Militarism.


The largest PoW suit was filed in Tokyo district court on January 30, 1995 by the Miami-based Center for Internee Rights. The suit, representing 33,000 U.S. military PoWs, 14,000 civilian internees and thousands more Dutch, British, Australians and New Zealand survivors, asks for an apology and $22,000 individual compensation from the Japanese government. After many court appearances and testimony this case will be decided by the Tokyo District Court in 1998. The final plaintiff testimony was given in Tokyo court on February 19, 1998.

Karn Parker, an international human rights lawyer fighting in the U.N. and Japanese courts over the last 4 years for the "Comfort Women" which Japan did not even admit until 1993, said Japan's refusal to compensate victims directly could partly be attributed to lack of pressure from other countries, especially the United States and China for political and economic reasons. "It does seem the Japanese government wants these old ladies to die one by one until the whole thing blows over," said Elaine Kim, an Asian Studies professor at UC-Berkeley.

However, things have finally started to change after the collapsing of communist Soviet Union, and the normalization of relationship between U.S. and communist China.


On Dec. 3, 1996, U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) which has focused almost exclusively on Nazi war criminals despite its mandate to pursue BOTH Nazis and their allies, finally took its FIRST STEP toward redressing this imbalance by adding the FIRST 16 Japanese war criminal names on the "Watch List" (Holtzman Amendment) since it was legislated in 1978 for denying more than 60,000 Nazi German, Austrian, and Italian war criminals entry to U.S.


This is a tiny step the U.S. government recently made to correct its willfully blind policy toward Japan's war crimes but of great significance. As Kei-ichi Tsuneishi, a Japanese Professor at Kanagawa University, says "The decision is likely to shock and wake up the Japanese."

However, Japan is blocking probe of War Criminals and refused to cooperate with the Justice Department to put the names of several hundred surviving veterans on the Watch List.

"Japan is the ONLY country in the world from whom we seek assistance that does not provide it." said Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department’s office of Special Investigations. Rosenbaum said his office has been able to identify fewer than 100 Japanese suspects compare to 60,000 Nazi, Austrian, and Italian war criminals on the "Watch List"

"After the war, they were not punished, so why is the U.S. government dealing with this problem now ?" said Masao Okonogi, professor of political science at Keio University in Tokyo.

"This seems to me remarkably hypocritical. At the end of WWII, the U.S. occupying force was aware of the information about Unit 731 but deliberately exonerated the men in return for their agreement to be debriefed on the findings of their atrocious experiments. We agreed to Cover-Up their crimes." said John Dower, MIT professor and specialist on modern Japanese history and US relations.

On Jan. 4 1996, the U.N. Human Rights Commission released an official report, submitted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women by Radhika Coomaraswamy, on the wartime Sex Slavery, report by International Commision of Jurists, Geneva Comfort Women : An Unfinished Ordeal, and also another report by Special Rapporteur Ms. Gay J. McDougall in 1998 : Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery and Slavery-like practices during armed conflict. The reports are founded on years investigation and recommends that Japanese government should assume state responsibility and

1. Acknowledge its violation of international law.
2. Make a public apology in writing to individual women.
3. Pay compensation to individual women.
4. Amending educational curricula to reflect true historical realities.
5. Full disclosure of related documents
6. Identify and punish, as far as possible, involved perpetrators

The support for the U.N. report is growing around the world.

Germany now appears to have regained the trust of her neighbors while in vivid contrast, the current resurgence of Japanese Militarism continues to invite suspicion from Asia.


34 posted on 2005/11/14 14:19:54 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]
52th Year of Soul Searching

On Sept. 17, 1987, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Redress Bill HR442 for the wrongful internment of Japanese American during WWII :

1. Acknowledge that the internment order violated basic civil liberties
and constitutional rights.
2. Make a formal apology to the Japanese American for the internment.
3. US $1.37 billion in compensation - $20,000 to each survivor.
4. US $50 million fund to educate the American public about the internment.


In 1988, the Japanese Canadian also successfully managed to get

1. A formal apology from Canadian government to Japanese Canadian.
2. Canadian $291 million compensation fund - $21,000 each in compensation.
3. Canadian $50 million educational fund.


However, Cliff Chadderton, chairman of the National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada, has been trying unsuccessfully for the past 12 years to get compensation from Japan for the Canadian PoW since 1985. The PoW were captured by the Japanese on the Christmas Day 1941 in Hong Kong. They spent four years of extreme hardship as slave labourers. Many died in the Japanese prison camps. Mr. Chadderton said, "It is a legal debt owed by the Japanese".

Dec. 12, 1998 Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy said Canada has lobbied Japan unsuccessfully on the subject for some time. The government decided that time was too important for the aging vets to waste it on prolonged legal fights, so it paid up on its own to each PoW Cad $24,000.

During the 14 years brutal WWII invasion into China, Japan not only manufactured huge quantity of WMD Biological Weapons, it also mass produced WMD Chemical Weapons by its top-secret Chemical Weapons research facility Unit 615. Japan had used these destructive weapon in more that 2,000 battles against the Chinese and caused great civilian casualties. It has been estimated that 700,000 - 2,000,000 Chemical Bombs most of them loaded with mustard gas and many of them corroded and leaking, are still scattered in China.

Tokyo finally acknowledged the existence of WMD Chemical Weapon Unit 516 and is now helping to preventing the disaster, on the quiet. But Japan's efforts already come too late for approx. 2000 Chinese had already been injured by these abandoned deadly WMD Chemical Weapons.

On Feb. 9 1997, as a signatory of Chemical Weapons Convention banning chemical weapons, Japanese government finally proposed that it may plan to build a large factory in Northern China to destroy these deadly weapons. After the treatment the extreme poisonous solid remainder - Arfrodic must be transported back to Japan for disposal. So far there is no concrete agreement. International chemical weapon prevention organization has pressed Japanese government to cleanup the weapons in 5 years, but the Japanese government said may need 10 years due to the large quantity of these deadly WMD Chemical Weapons. According to UN regulation, the chemical weapon must be destroyed by 2007.

Many deaths resulted e.g. owing to the poison gas released while dredging the Songhua River in Heilongjiang Province, and poison gas leaked out during sewerage construction on Guanghua Avenue in Mudanjiang City etc. Victims of these deadly WMD Chemical Weapons are now suing Japanese government and demanding compensation. The will be hearing in Tokyo court in July, 1997.

On Feb. 12, 1997 Mrs. Li XouYing, a Nanjing Massacre survivor, who is now 79 years old, tearfully recalled in the Tokyo court about the atrocities she had suffered 60 years ago : She was 19 years old with 7 months pregnancy. To avoid being raped, she forcefully smashed her head against the brick wall determined to suicide. She didn't die but fainted. After she woke up, she found herself lying on a cot. Then a Japanese soldier came to rape her. She again fought fiercely. Other soldiers came and used their bayonets keep stabbing her again, again and again for a total of 37 times during the fight. She lost her 7 months old fetus. She was later rescued by Mr. Magee and miraculously she survived. Magee used his camera and recorded her terrible conditions on film.

The 20-minutes film is now being used as the proof in the lawsuit against the Japanese government. Ms. Li and 9 others including some 731 survivors went to Tokyo to testify. "Japanese Government MUST apologize and compensate for the massacre." demanded 79 years old Mrs. Li in the court, "I want the whole world to known that it was such an In-human War." Their trip to Japan was organized and sponsored by a group of 200 courageous and conscientious Japanese lawyers, scholars and others so that the Japanese can be better educated through the court hearing.

The lawsuit is supported by the Society to Support the Demands of Chinese War Victims (SuoPei). Other SuoPei cases are:

* Forced Relocation to Japan, and Forced Labor
* Comfort Women
* Pingdingshan Incident: 3,000 people were massacred in Liaoning Province. The pretext for this slaughter was reprisal for cooperating with guerrillas in the resistance movement.)
* Abandoned Poison Gas and Bombs

On March 20, 1997 the U.S. Justice Department added 17 more names to the "Watch List" (Holtzman Amendment) barring these Japanese War criminals from ever entering U.S.

On March 27, 1997 the Center for Internee Rights (CFCIR, Inc.), representing former PoWs and civilian internees brutalized by Japanese forces, turned over 100 additional names of suspected Japanese war criminals to the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. the "Watch List" (Holtzman Amendment) has more than 60,000 Nazis, Austrian, and Italian war criminals , but has only 33 Japanese names added since 1996.

On June 27 1997, Frits Kalshoven, a legal expert, Dutch professor emeritus at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, appeared as an expert in international humanitarian law suit filed by 46 former Philippine sex slaves in 1993 seeking 20 million yen each in damages for being forced to serve as "Comfort Women" during WWII.

The Japanese government insisted that individual war victims cannot sue a state based on international law and the postwar peace treaties have already settled the issue. Kalshoven pointed out that Article 3 of the Hague Convention of 1907 clearly implies, although it doesn't spell out, that individuals have rights to claim compensation against a state.

On June 23 1997, Kalshoven also appeared as an expert witness in another damages suit in which 8 former Dutch PoWs and civilian internees, are demanding 2.2 million yen each.

Chinese citizens have for years been barred by their government from making claims for compensation from Japan. The number of surviving victims has continued to fall. The few alive are now more than 80 years old.

In July, 1997 the Nanjing municipal government finally decided to trace massacre survivors, victims and witnesses. With the help of 10 thousand high school students including some Japanese student reps from 14 schools of Japan as summer camp activity, about 2630 survivors were found. The Nanjing City Notary Association also issued them with certificates in batches. Hope the Nanjing government will soon do more to help survivors in their endeavor to obtain justice.

On July 25 1997, Resolution HCR 126, condemning Japan for its atrocities in WWII is also being introduced by Congressman Lipinski, Stump, and others. It calls for the Japanese government to :

1. Formally issue a clear and unambiguous apology.
2. Immediately pay compensation to all the victims of Japanese WWII war crimes.

The bill was cosponsored by 78 members of House of Representatives. Over 12,000 petitions had been gathered from every State in the Union in support of this legislation and over 50 veterans and military and human rights organizations are supporting HCR 126. Although it did not pass in the 105th Congress, a similar resolution will be introduced as soon as the 106th Congress is started in 1999.

On August 11 1997, 108 Chinese filed a law suit involving the former Japanese Imperial Army's germ warfare in Tokyo District Court demanding $9.39 million compensation and apologies from the Japanese government. This was the latest in a series of court cases against Japanese WWII crimes. Kouken Tsuchiya, the plaintiffs' chief lawyer, said they needed such long time to gather evidence before filing suit because the Japanese government had covered up the germ warfare. The Japanese Imperial Army carried out germ warfare despite a ban under the 1925 Geneva convention.

On Sept 22, 1997, Japanese steelmaker, Nippon Steel Corp. and the families of 11 Koreans have reached an out-of-court settlement for a lawsuit filed 2 years ago for using them as forced labor during WWII. The company will pay more than $163,000 in "condolence money" to each of the victims. "We are not completely happy with the settlement, but we wanted to focus more on the positive side -- the fact that a Japanese company is paying money for the victims and their memorial services," Akihiko Oguchi said. The families, however, plan to continue their legal fight against the Japanese government. Nippon Steel and many other corporate giants today, have said they only operated under government orders. Companies, including NKK Corp., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kajima Corp., face similar lawsuits.

In Germany, the Federal Compensation Law for slave labour were established in 1953. Claims are valid for damage to health, persecution and for being kept in prison-like conditions.

On Oct 7, 1997, 37 Japanese lawyers and scholars of a group established earlier this year, including lawyer Koken Tsuchiya, the former head of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, Hosei University Professor Yoko Tajima and novelist Ayako Miurars, will push for legislation that would make Japanese government directly compensate foreign WWII victims. The group will urge a nonpartisan group of Diet members to introduce 2 bills, One bill would be aimed at investigating "violations of international humanitarian law" committed by the Japan before and during WWII. The other would enable a provisional payment by the government to the comfort women.

Nov. 1997, South Korean National Assembly decided to prohibit entry of war criminals into South Korea.

On Dec. 10, 1997 the Tokyo District Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chinese former slave laborers during WWII. The lawyer Takashi Niimi said the group will appeal. In February, Judge Sonobe angered the plaintiffs when he, during an oral hearing, suddenly announced that the court would wrap up its deliberations without questioning the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs immediately filed for dismissal of the judges, but the Tokyo High Court rejected the motion. "An unjust ruling like this has not only hurt the Hanaoka victims," he said, "but also has downgraded the credibility and dignity of the Japanese justice system."

The plaintiffs claim that 986 Chinese were forcibly brought from China to Hanaoka copper mine in Akita and were slaved into hard labor for Kajima-gumi, the predecessor of Kajima Corp. In June 1945, the Chinese revolted and were soon rounded up and tortured. In the end, 113 Chinese died by torture. They sued the giant construction firm in June 1995, demanding 5.5 million yen each in damages for malnutrition, slave labor and torture.


35 posted on 2005/11/14 14:27:47 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]
53th Year of Soul Searching

On Jan 12, 1998 Japan tried to apologize to Britain to smooth the visit of Emperor Akihito to Britain in May, for the suffering of prisoners during WWII. Japan also offered 1.3 million fund for the grandsons of the British PoWs to study in Japan for 1 year. But the veterans in both England and Canada rejected it as too little and too late. "There are several ways in which you can say sorry in Japanese without in any way apologizing. If it is not the form of Japanese that says, 'We apologize' [i.e. use more sincere word " shazai ", NOT less sincere word "owabi"], I say so what ?" said Roger Cyr. " They were waiting for us to die then and they are waiting for us to die now." said Arthur Titherington.

On the very same day, Germany agreed to establish a fund of 200 million marks to compensate Jewish victims in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. They were barred from receiving the substantial compensation because of Cold War politics. Payments will be released over a period of 4 years starting in 1999.

In Hong Kong, Mr. Ng Yat-Hing, the chairperson of the Hong Kong Reparation Association, tells another fact that from 1941 to 1945, HK was under the control of Japanese Imperial Army. During this dark period, all other currencies were forbidden except the Japanese Military Yen, called Gunpyo. HK residents were forced to hand out their HK and foreign currency, gold, jewelry etc to exchange the Military Yen. Whoever disobeyed were executed. All the gold and valuables were either shipped back to Japan or used to buy military materials. The exchange rate at that time was 2 to 4 HK dollars for 1 Military Yen. After the war, the Military Yen immediately became worthless paper. Many families had become broke over night. For decades, the Association has been unsuccessfully demanding the Japanese government to take the responsibility of exchanging the Military Yen which totals 540 million, now valued at about US $1.28 Billion, back to HK dollars. In August 1993, they filed a law suit with the Tokyo District Court. There has been 28 hearings in the Japanese court. The Japanese government is still trying to forgo its duty.

On June 17, 1999 the Tokyo District Court rejected their request. Presiding Judge Seiichiro Nishioka acknowledged that the exchange of HK dollars with Military Yen was compulsory. He said, "Whether the plaintiffs should be compensated is not a matter to be decided by the courts but one to be decided by the Diet." "We are not demanding for war compensation, we are demanding Japan to pay back their legal debt", said Mr. Ng. "The Japanese government's fraudulent act of reneging on its debts will remain in history." Japanese courts rejected a similar claim filed by a Taiwanese woman on her military yen in the early 1980s.

On March 12, 1998, the Japanese Supreme Court will rule : In 1987, Mr. Shiro Azuma, a retired Japanese soldier, published "My Nanking Platoon" a diary describing his days in Nanjing. It described criminal acts committed by the Japanese Imperial Army which included savage killings, malicious rapes and countless war atrocities. Mituharu Hashimoto and his former officer Hideo Mori claimed the diary is a collection of lies. The Tokyo Lower Court ruled against Azuma. Mr. Azuma wrote in his recent letter, "On March 12, 1998 exactly at 2 pm, I will testify in the Supreme Court, and I will tell the truth of the Nanjing Massacre. The seats for the public hearing will, without doubt, be filled with the Kaikosha Society, the group of the old Japanese Imperial army officers...... I am 86 year old now, but I will fight to death like a young man, but this time is not for the Emperor but for the Justice and the History."

On 23 Dec. 1998 Dismissing the appeal, presiding Judge Koetsu Okuyama of the Tokyo High Court said Azuma's diary describes some Imperial Japanese Army actions that cannot be recognized as fact. Expressing strong disapproval of the ruling, Azuma's lawyers said they will appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

On Apr. 6, 1998, a US $11 millions movie " Pride - The Fateful Moment" about Tojo's trial and execution was released by Toei Co. in Japan. Gen. Hideki Tojo, a class-A war criminal, was Japan's prime minister in 1941 and gave the go-ahead for the attack on Pearl Harbor. He stepped down in 1944 to take responsibility for the fall of Saipan. The movie's cast said they wanted to correct what they called misconceptions. Tojo, they said, took Japan to war in self-defense and to liberate Asia from control by white Western colonizers.

The growing popularity of such views here can be seen by the crowds that lined up to see the movie, making it one of the top-grossing domestic films of last year with proceeds of $169 million. By contrast, only a handful of theaters dared to show "Nanjing 1937," a Chinese film released at almost the same time. Right-wing protesters even slashed the screen at a Tokyo theater where the film was shown.

On Apr. 21, 1998 failing to give any specific arguments or evidence Kunihiko Saito, the Japanese Ambassador to Washington took the extraordinary move of attacking the international best selling book The Rape of Nanking - The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII.

In addition, Saito sternly warned members of the US House of Representatives not to sponsor the HCR 126. The bill currently has 63 cosponsors and various victims groups and veterans groups are pushing for its passage prior to the adjournment of the 105th Congress. Over 12,000 petitions have been gathered from every State in the Union in support of this legislation and over 50 veterans and military and human rights organizations are supporting HCR 126.

Rabbi Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote a protest letter to Japanese Ambassador Saito for failing to provide "any specific details to back up your serious allegations." In April 28 reply to the rabbi's letter, Ambassador Saito merely quoted from the war apology read by then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on Aug. 15, 1995 and offer no specific back up for his allegations. But the apology in 1995 was not passed by Japanese parliament.

On Apr 27, 1998 calling the army's actions an example of sexual and ethnic discrimination and a "fundamental violation of human rights", Japan's Yamaguchi District Court Judge Hideaki Chikashita ruled that Japan must compensate the 3 South Korean women forced into sexual slavery during WWII with $2,300 each. The lawsuit was filed in 1992 by 10 women who demanded about $4.2 million in compensation for the pain they had suffered. However, the court rejected claims by 7 of the women, who had demanded in the same lawsuit that the Japanese government pay them for being slaved to work during the war. Seita Yamamoto, attorney for the 3 women, said he would appeal for more money and apology. Some are outraged," he said. Still, he called the ruling a big step in the right direction.

Japanese government has refused to compensate individual war victims, arguing that postwar treaties settled all wartime claims. Japan has paid $760,000 to former sex slaves, but through a privately funded body "Asian Women's Fund" so it could skirt admitting official responsibility. Many women have refused to accept money from the fund, which they say reflects Japan's failure to show true remorse for its wartime actions. Japanese government spokesman Kanezo Muraoka called the ruling "regrettable". Both the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Seoul declined comment. The ruling is likely to profoundly affect other 5 pending cases and encourage others to file similar lawsuits.

On May 26, 1998 Japanese Emperor Akihito visited England while survivors of PoW turned their backs and booed the newly arrived Emperor. Some protesters whistled Colonel Bogey, the tune associated with the film Bridge on the River Kwai. Many wore red gloves to symbolize the blood they said was on Japan's hands. They were seeking $22,800 compensation and an sincere apology.

June 22 1998 Author Iris Chang has challenged to a public debate six Japanese scholars who say the 1937 "Rape of Nanking" never happened. "These revisionists are engaged in a second rape of Nanking - the Rape of History," she said. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which tracks Nazi war criminals, likened Japanese revisionists to those who say that accounts of the Nazi Holocaust were fictionalized or exaggerated. "Japan cannot be trusted as a member of the community of nations until it once and for all, sincerely and genuinely, apologizes for its deeds during World War II -- beginning with Nanking," Cooper said.

June 25, 1998 Yoshio Shinozuka, Takemitsu Ogawa and Shiro Azuma are all aging Japanese veterans who repeatedly have admitted participating in WWII atrocities, and wanted to bring their quest for redemption to the US and Canada. Mr. Shiro Azuma got a severe cold and abandoned his plan to go abroad. Ironically US and Canada barred Shinozuka from entering the country due to their past war crimes.

The US Justice Department barred Shinozuka as a result of a 1996 decision to add suspected Japanese war criminals to the "Watch List" (Holtzman Amendment), which contained names of more than 60,000 Nazi, Austrian, and Italian war criminals. But has only 33 Japanese names added since 1996.

Shinozuka argued that those like himself who want to tell the truth about war crimes should not be on the "Watch List".

Saburo Ienaga, a professor of Japanese history who has battled with mixed success to get Japanese high school textbooks to include the facts of the country's conduct in World War II, suspects that the U.S. government fears Shinozuka's testimony would embarrass American officials. "He will cause them problems, not because of what he did, but because of what he knows."

They were scheduled to take part in a historical tour called "The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII in Asia." and forum of "A Glimpse of Reconciliation-Unit 731 Photo Exhibition". It was organized by The Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia. It traveled five cities: Toronto, New York, Washington, D.C., Vancouver and San Francisco from late June to early July. Mr. Koken Tsuchiya, a senior lawyer from Tokyo, was leading the delegation. He is also the chief attorney for the lawsuit of 108 Chinese germ warfare victims against the Japanese government.

Of the 3 eyewitness, only Dr. Takemitsu Ogawa was allowed to enter into the US to give his testimony. In recalling the basis of Japanese military training, Ogawa explained that it was a training of killing with the three-all policy: kill all, burn all, and loot all. Even with the thorough education system at the time to brainwash the Imperial soldiers, many were not psychologically fit to kill and developed autonomic ataxia with symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, abnormal fever, incontinent urine, asthma, spasm, paralysis of one side of the body, etc.

"The soldiers knew that if they deserted the three-all order, they would be shot dead. In those extreme situations, they showed abnormal symptoms - that was extreme autonomic ataxia," Ogawa explained. One of "The soldier was so afraid to return to the battlefield that he killed himself." Ogawa's testimony sheds light on Japan's experience on the war -something that its government and people had for a long time kept silent about.

July 31 1998, Japanese new agriculture minister Shoichi Nakagawa, who is opposed to describing Japan's wartime atrocities in school textbooks, said that Asian women may not have been forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese army brothels during WWII. A few hours later, he retracted them. "They were forcibly recruited," He said at a later news conference. The new Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi played down the incident.

In the past Japanese cabinet ministers have frequently made similar public comments DENYING atrocities Japan committed during WWII, with some losing their posts over the statements. As in January 1997, Seiroku Kajiyama, a LDP contender for the premiership, claimed that "comfort women" had provided sex to Japanese troops "for money."

Feb. 1999 Nobukatsu Fujioka, a professor at Tokyo University and the chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform which aims to erase all Japan's atrocities from text book, "Comfort women were not sexual slaves" said the professor. They were simply prostitutes taken to war zones by private brokers," Fujioka told a luncheon at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

August 23, 1998 Banned from entering North America, 4 Japanese veterans made a global Internet Web Apology over a satellite video link to panelists at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Click here to view and listen to the testimonies of Japanese Witnesses.

Hakudo Nagatomi said he had witnessed part of the weeks of slaughter from late 1937 to early 1938 at Nanking. Later, as a member of the Imperial Army's tokumu kikan (intelligence force) in China, he had "burned to death" two children inside their house, a crime for which their mother confronted him at a trial in China after the war. "I am so sorry," said Nagatomi, weeping. "I would like a judge to punish me. That is the only way I can repent."

Two of the other Japanese veterans Shiro Azuma and Yoshio Shinozuka, had both been denied entry in June to the US and Canada for their suspected involvement in "crimes against Humanity. Azuma has become well-known in Japan for publishing a diary he kept as a soldier in Nanking that details atrocities. He has since been threatened many times by rightists in Japan, and accused of libel and fabrication by other Army veterans, including his former platoon commander, who are suing him in court. Azuma said he had personally bayonetted to death 37 Chinese civilians, "old men and women, some cradling children in their arms, just like potatoes on a skewer."

Shinozuka, a member of the Imperial Army's infamous "Unit 731" said he took part in the mass cultivation of fleas to carry bubonic plague, and of typhoid, paratyphoid, cholera, plague and anthrax germs. He also took part in the live vivisection of five Chinese prisoners who had been infected with plague germs to test their deadly efficacy. At Unit 731, Shinozuka and his colleagues would dismissively refer to these guinea pigs by their code name--"maruta" (logs).

A former co-member of the Unit 731 "youth corps," Kanetoshi Tsuruta said he also took part in the Nomonhan offensive, dumping liquid from an oil drum into a river which had been laced with typhoid bacilli.

Sheldon Harris, professor emeritus of history at California State University and author of the book, "Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-up" stressed the enormous scale of Japan's top-secret biological warfare (BW) effort and of the atrocities committed in the process. "My calculation, which is very conservative, and based on incomplete sources as the major archives are still closed, is that 10,000 to 12,000 human beings were exterminated in lab experiments. Most were wiped out in four to six weeks, but sometimes it took 6 months," Harris told the satellite conference.

In addition, BW "field tests were carried out all over China including Manchuria," in which "a quarter of a million innocent people were wiped out ... This was a massive undertaking by the entire Japanese scientific community of the time," Harris told the global audience, "there were BW laboratories in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanking, Singapore, Rangoon and Bangkok," he said.

"The U.S. government is as culpable for inaction as Japan, and the Canadian, British, Dutch and Australian governments knew about it ... While the US "bears a major responsibility" for the coverup of Unit 731, the greater responsibility lies with Japanese."

Tokyo panelist Koken Tsuchiya, the chief lawyer for 108 Chinese victims and relatives of victims of Japanese biological warfare, said, "I am embarrassed as a Japanese by the attitude of the Japanese government of not revealing, on its own, information about BW activity and issuing an apology."

Akira Fujiwara, emeritus professor of history at Hitotsubashi University, added, "There are still politicians in Japan today who deny that the Imperial Army committed atrocities in Nanking. Those who speak out against the atrocities at Nanking receive threatening letters from rightists .... Like Auschwitz symbolizes the atrocities committed during the war by the Nazis, so does Nanking symbolize the worst atrocities committed by the Japanese Army"

Sept 22, 1998 Following Volkswagen's lead, Siemens announced its own plans for a 20 million mark fund to compensate former slave laborers forced to work for the company by the Nazis during WWII, in addition to the 7.2 million marks it had paid to the Jewish Claims Conference in 1961 to provide humanitarian help for the victims. Along with Siemens and Volkswagen, Krupp, Daimler-Benz, Audi and BMW are named in a New York lawsuit seeking a portion of the company profits for thousands of former slave laborers.

Oct. 9, 1998 The Tokyo District Court rejected claims by 46 Filipinas who said they should be compensated for being forced into prostitution by the Japanese military during WWII. The judge ruled against the women saying they could make no individual claims against a nation without international laws to support the action. Lawyers for the women argued that the 1907 Hague Convention requires a nation to pay compensation if it violates the terms of the convention.

The ruling is in stark contrast to two special reports issued by the United Nations that have proposed that Tokyo compensate individuals forced into sex slavery during WWII. official report, submitted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women by Radhika Coomaraswamy, on the wartime Sex Slavery, report by International Commision of Jurists, Geneva Comfort Women : An Unfinished Ordeal, and also another report by Special Rapporteur Ms. Gay J. McDougall in 1998 : Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery and Slavery-like practices during armed conflict.

Oct. 9, 1998 Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi issued his country's apology which was more sincere than those made in the past to the South Korean people for its 35 years of wartime brutal colonial rule. A joint declaration made by Obuchi and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, said Obuchi "expressed deep remorse and extended a heartfelt apology to the people of South Korea, having humbly accepted the historical fact that Japan inflicted heavy damage and pain on the people of South Korea through its colonial rule." But he made no mention of sex slaves. It was the first written apology ever issued to an individual country by Japan for its actions before and during WWII.

The South Korean leader promised Obuchi a gradual opening up to Japanese cultural imports, banned since the Japanese occupation ended in 1945. Japanese movies, popular songs and even cars are prohibited in South Korea. Obuchi offered Kim a loan package to beat its economic downtrun. Many insisted that Japan must pay compensation to the "comfort women".

Nov. 26 1998 Chinese President Jiang Zemin arrived in Tokyo for a six-day visit, becoming the first Chinese head of state to set foot in Japan. However, Japan's inability to apology for its wartime crimes to China was back onstage in a big way. This suggests a sinister failure by Tokyo to renounce its past or to mend its ways. It also casts doubt on the sincerity of previous Japanese attempts to apologize to its neighbours. It also reflects the power of right-wing groups within and outside Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

At the same time, the Tokyo District Court tersely rejected a lawsuit filed in 1995 by WWII PoWs and civilian internees demanding an apology and US $22,000 compensation for each detainee. "I spit on the doorstep of the Diet. There's no justice in this country." Arthur Titherington, a former PoW said after the ruling. "Germany has been able to mollify the world about its wartime past because they didn't hide things, like Japan did," Yasuo Kurata said.

Nov. 30 1998 The Tokyo District Court dismissed a damages suit filed in 1994 by seven Dutch men imprisoned by Japanese military forces and a Dutch woman forced into Sex Slavery during WWII, seeking $22,000 each in compensation. Lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that Article 3 of the 1907 Hague Convention allows individual victims of war to claim damages from the nation whose armed forces violated rules of war, such as humanitarian treatment of PoWs and respect for the life and rights of residents in the occupied territories. Presiding Judge Taichi Kajimura acknowledged both the inhuman brutal treatment against the plaintiffs and its illegality. Nevertheless, he dismissed the plaintiffs' claims for compensation, saying international law does not give individuals the right to seek redress for suffering during war. The government maintained that the Hague Convention, which Japan ratified in 1911, stipulates state-to-state relations and cannot be applied to individuals.

The recognition of both the inhumane brutal treatment against the plaintiffs and its illegality "is very important -- in relation to the Hague Convention of 1907," said plaintiff Gerard Jungslager "We are going to appeal because individuals' rights have not yet been recognized.... However, the most important step is that the first step has been set in the right direction."


36 posted on 2005/11/14 14:28:44 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]
To: Calpernia; backhoe; Cindy; bitt; neverdem; nopardons; Joe Boucher; SJackson
WAR indeed IS HELL ping...


37 posted on 2005/11/14 14:44:08 by The Spirit Of Allegiance (SAVE THE BRAINFOREST! Boycott the RED Dead Tree Media & NUKE the DNC Class Action Temper Tantrum!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
54th Year of Soul Searching

Feb. 1999, Twelve giant German companies, IG Farben, Allianz AG, BASF AG, Bayer AG, BMW AG, DaimlerChrysler AG, DegussaHuels AG, Dresdner Bank AG, Fried Krupp AG Hoesch Krupp, Hoechst AG, Siemens AG and Volkswagen AG, have agreed to compensate slave labourers and other Nazi era victims. It was estimated that the total would be 2.5 billion. Deutsche Bank chief executive Rolf Breuer described the fund as a milestone, similar to 1.9 billion settlement reached by Swiss banks of Holocaust claims last year.

March 28, 1999, In Japan Tokyo, a controversial $12 billion yen national museum, Showa Hall Museum was officially opened. It is Japan's first museum about the WWII. However, inside there is nothing about Japanese war crimes - comfort wowen, Nanjing massacre, Unit 731, germ warfare, not even Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima etc. Kazuo Ohashi, a pacifist, was so outraged by Showa Hall he has filed a lawsuit with his supporters accusing the government of misusing tax money to build it. "It's a sham," Ohashi said. "The museum contains nothing about the war." His lawsuit is pending in a Tokyo court.

Apr. 1999 In a landmark settlement, giant steelmaker NKK Corp. agreed to pay US $34,000 to a South Korean man who was forcibly brought to Japan for slave labor during WWII. This is the second court-brokered settlement of such a suit. The first payment by a Japanese company to a plaintiff -- a bereaved family receiving payment from a company in the first case. Kim Kyung Suk, 72, filed his lawsuit in 1991 demanding 10 million yen in damages and an apology from the company. Though the court admitted NKK's wrongdoing, it dismissed any responsibility of the steel giant, saying the 20-year statute of limitations had already run out. His lawyer, Kazuyuki Azusawa, says the threat of losing a subway contract in Seoul may have prompted the settlement, "Japanese companies are not sincere,".

May 1999, Canada ALPHA is launching a electronic postcard sending campaign to support the Canada Federal Bill C-479 Recognition of Crimes Against Humanity Act. The purpose of the Bill is to mandate the establishment of an exhibit in the Canadian Museum of Civilization to recognize the crimes against Humanity as defined by the United Nations that have been perpetrated during the twentieth century. If this Bill is passed, then exhibits on the systematic and organized atrocities and crimes against Humanity committed by the Japanese military machine throughout Asia before and during WW II will be included in the national Musuem of Civilization.

Aug. 24, 1999 The California State Assembly approved the resolution AJR 27 by urging Japan to apologize for its wartime atrocities and offer individual compensation to American veterans, former sex slaves and other victims. They also passed laws extending the statute of limitations for WWII lawsuits to 2010. The resolution maintains that the Japanese actions are not enough, and calls on the Japanese government to issue a "clear and unambiguous apology." It calls on U.S. Congress and the President to also seek an apology and reparations from Japan.

July 1999 9 Taiwanese women forced to work as sex slaves are taking the Tokyo government to court demanding 10 million yen each in compensation and an official apology. At least 2,000 Taiwanese women were forced to work as comfort women but only about 40 disclosed their grief.

Aug 9, 1999 Japan's parliament voted 166 to 71 enacted bitterly contested legislation enshrining as national symbols the notorious rising sun flag and the imperial hymn Kimigayo as the national anthem. Comdemned by hundreds protesters demonstrated outside the building because of their connection with Japan's militarist and imperial past.

Aug. 27, 1999 In a 15-2 resolution, the U.N. Subcommission on Human Rights rejected Japan's reasons for denying government compensation to women forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese military during WWII. It stressed that under international law, governments are responsible for war crimes and other rights violations committed by their soldiers. The Japanese governments "shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation".

Aug. 1999 Ralph Levenberg filed a class-action suit under a new California law that authorizes any World War II slave-labor victim to sue for compensation. The defendant is Nippon Sharyo, one of Japan's biggest makers of railroad cars. Levenberg is demanding compensation and a clear, no wiggle-room apology. Levenberg's lawyers already have other big Japanese corporations in their sights, including heavyweights like Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsui & Co. Both firms were named in a suit Levenberg filed earlier this year in a U.S. federal district court and both could face litigation under the new California law.

If companies in Europe are moving, however reluctantly, to close the final accounts of the war, their counterparts in Japan have not yet begun. At least 46 war redress suits have been filed in Japanese courts, Not one case has been won. According to attorney Yoshitaka Takagi, 3 cases have been settled out of court, including a forced labor case against steel giant NKK Corp. In 2 cases, the courts ruled that the plaintiffs had been wronged, though they declined to order restitution, saying it is up to parliament to decide whether and how to compensate victims.

Sept 3, 1999 A California based lawyer Barry Fisher urged the Japanese and U.S. government, Japanese companies to disclose wartime documents that would expose facts about the forced labor of American prisoners of war in Japan during WWII, whereas the German government recently disclosed papers that revealed over 500 firms were involved in the Holocaust.

Sept 13, 1999 500 American ex-PoWs used as slave laborers during WWII are seeking an apology and compansation. The lawsuit, which seeks nationwide class-action status, was filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, N.M., against five Japanese companies - Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., Mitusi & Co., Inc., Mitsubishi International Corp., Nippon Steel Corp., and Showa Denko, They used POWs to produce war goods between 1942 and 1945. Such actions are illegal under the Geneva Convention and various treaties that Japan's wartime government promised to honor. Eli J. Warach, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit comes more than 50 years after the war because evidence and information withheld by U.S. agencies during the Cold War was only recently declassified. Several ex-PoWs also said U.S. officials warned them in 1945 and asked them to sign secrecy document not to discuss their experiences.

Sept 22, 1999 The Tokyo court ruled that it does not acknowledge the right of a foreign individual to seek compensation for war damages from Japan. The lawyer of 10 Chinese plaintiff, Hiroshi Oyama complained that the decision was based less on the law than on the judges' personal political views. The plaintiffs will appeal, said another of their lawyers, Harumi Watanabe. They demanded compensation for suffering caused by wartime biological experiments, the Rape of Nanking and the firebombing of Yong'an city. The Japanese government has acknowledged that during the war its Unit 731, based in the Chinese city of Harbin, conducted experiments with bubonic plague, anthrax and cholera on thousands of Allied prisoners of war and Chinese civilians.

Oct. 27, 1999 Members of the LA-based Simon Wiesenthal Center and the New York-based Alliance in Memory of Victims of the Nanjing Massacre met with Attorney General Janet Reno and Pentagon officials. The activists said US officials promised to persuade Japan to supply information about human experiments in WWII. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., sent a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi urging that his government release the documents. If not complied, Lantos said he plans to sponsor legislation in Congress that would declassify U.S. documents relating to WWII in hopes of finding information. Meanwhile, Cooper and other activists want Washington to modify the amnesty granted to Japanese veterans or express some regret. "If the U.S. will acknowledge its moral error perhaps that will inspire the Japanese to look at this black hole," Cooper said.

Nov. 4 1999 Japan's leading journalist Honda Katsuichi reflected on the Nanjing Massacre to the world through the internet. Click here to listen. He also discussed his new book The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame.

Dec. 7, 1999 On the anniversary of Japan's attach on Pearl Harbor, New York lawyer Edward D. Fagan, best known for his billion-dollar lawsuits on behalf of Jewish Holocaust survivors, filed a class action lawsuit against the Japanese industrial giants Mitsui, Mitsubishi Corp. and Nippon Steel Corp. on behalf of former prisoners of war who were used as slave laborers. A total of 18 class action lawsuits have already been filed in the U.S, with dozens more planned.

Nov. 8, 1999 US. Congressmen introduced Resolution H.3254 codifying WWII war crimes claims. H.3245 is a parallel bill to Resolution S.1856, introduced last Thursday in the Senate, to amend title 28 of the United States Code to authorize Federal district courts to hear civil actions to recover damages or secure relief for certain injuries to persons and property under or resulting from the Nazi regime and its wartime allies including Japan. It furthers the resolve of the U.S. Congress to bring proper closures to outstanding WWII civil liability issues.

November 10, 1999 Resolution S.1902 was introduced to review and examine wartime documents related to Japanese war crimes from 1931 to 1948, declassify them and released to the National Archive for public access. It is a parallel bill to a US Senate resolution S.1379 passed by unanimous consent in both the Senate and the House last year to declassify all Nazi war crime records through a similar interagency.

Dec. 17, 1999 German, U.S. and east European officials agreed to setup a US $5.2 billion fund to compensate Nazi-era slave and forced labourers, about $8,000 for each in a concentration camp and about $3,200 for each non-concentration camp forced labourer. Payment would start in the middle of year 2000.

Dec. 24, 1999 Japan finally announced that its government will spend US $27.7 million dollars to destroy all their Chemical Weapon left in China during WWII. It is estimated 700,000 - 2,000,000 Chemical Bombs still scattered in China. Many of them are corroded and leaking and have caused many causalities to the Chinese. As a signatory of Chemical Weapons Prevention Treaty, Japan is pressed by the International chemical weapon prevention organization to cleanup in 5 years, but the Japanese government said 10 years are required due to the large quantity of these deadly WMD Chemical Weapons. According to UN regulation, the chemical weapon must be destroyed by 2007.


38 posted on 2005/11/14 14:58:47 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]
55th Year of Soul Searching

Jan. 2000 Officials in the Japan's 3rd-biggest city of Osaka said they had no choice but to let a nationalist group hold a conference, ironically in the Osaka Peace Center, with the theme "The Biggest Lie of the 20th Century" insisting that the 1937 Nanjing Massacre never occurred. The same citizens' group organised a screening of the Japanese film Pride - The Fateful Moment which depicts WWII leader Hideki Tojo as a heroic warrior rather than a Class A War Criminal at the same facility in 1998.

Voices dismissing or greatly playing down Japan's wartime crimes are regularly heard from Japanesee political, academic and media establishment. The governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, for one, has frequently called the Nanjing Massacre a lie. In the past Japanese cabinet ministers also frequently made similar public denying comments with some losing their posts over the statements. In January 1997, Seiroku Kajiyama, a LDP contender for the premiership, even claimed that "comfort women" had provided sex to Japanese troops "for money".

Jan. 19, 2000 U.S. Nebraska State Senator Don Preiester of Omaha and 12 of his Senate colleagues have introduced Legislative Resolution 298 (LR 298) condemning the atrocities Japanese military committed in the WWII and demanding the Government of Japan to offer formal apology and compensations to its victims. A similar resolution passed in California, namely AJR 27, which was introduced by Japanese American Assemblyman Mike Honda of San Jose.

Jan. 27, 2000 To underline that Germans intend to remain aware of Nazi evils, German government decided to build a monument just south of the landmark Brandenburg Gate. The monument will consist of a vast field of 2,700 close-set concrete slabs resembling stones in a graveyard. Jan. 27 is also Germany's annual Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nazism, established in 1996.

Feb 1, 2000 Resolution HR 3561 was introduced in the US House by Brian Bilbray. It is a parallel bill to the Senate Resolution S.1902, the Japanese Imperial Army War Crime Disclosure Act on Nov. 1999. HR 3561 & S.1902 are to create an interagency work group, fully funded for 3 years, to review and examine wartime documents related to Japanese war crimes from 1931 to 1948, declassify them and released to the National Archive for public access.

Feb. 2000 In a speech to Israel's Parliament, Johannes Rau, the German president said, "I ask forgiveness for what Germans have done - for myself and my generation, for the sake of our children and our children's children."

May 15 2000 Senate Resolution 174 was introduced. The resolution calls attention to the atrocities committed by Japan against the Chinese and others during WWII. It also called on the Government of Japan to issue a formal apology and reparations to the victims of its war crimes.

May 18, 2000 Trying to blunt fears of Asian countries about a resurrection of Japanese militarism, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori apologized for any "misunderstandings" for endorsing the nationalists' view that Japan is a "divine country" whose emperor has a pipeline to the gods, but he refused to retract his comments, which he said were meant to reflect "Japan's eternal traditional culture." The WWII invasions were fuelled by Shintoism, a religion which held that Japan's emperor had a mandate from the god to take over Asia. Defeated, constitution was rewritten to separate religion and politics.

But the old militarism lives on among Japan's ultraright, who glorify the country's war history and play down documented war atrocities. Japanese Prime Minister Mori made his statement Monday to a group of legislators and Shinto leaders in a speech marking the 30th anniversary of the Parliamentarian Conference for Shinto Politics League, of which he is a founding member. Opposition parties called for Prime Minster's resignation. Mr. Mori apologized again a week later and still refuses to withdraw it.

May 24 2000 Japanese Emperor Akihito started a state visit to the Netherlands, Dutch. To remind Japan of its war crimes and unfinished responsibilities, the Foundation for Japanese Honorary Debts (JES) organized a series of activities during the state visit, which were supported by many international peace organizations, including veteran and grassroots organizations from Japan, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, US and Canada. Many observers commented on these activities as a powerful moving force facilitating a new milestone in the international redress movement against Japan.

JES also sponsored the exhibition of photos and stamps in the Hague. Entitled "Unfinished Matters: The Other Face of Japan", the exhibition focused on the Nanjing Massacre, the Military Sexual Slavery, and the Unit 731 unit. The very first of its kind in Europe. To further enhance public awareness of Japan's unfinished business, JES organized protest marches in Amsterdam and Hague. to coincide with the arrival of Emperor Akihito. Joined by several hundred supporters, many put on the JES jacket imprinted "Pay Your Debts" in both Japanese and English.

July 6, 2000 German Parliament passed a bill setting up billions dollar slave fund for the Nazi-era slave and forced laborers. They formally apologized to the victims "for what Germans did to them". The vote on the compensation fund bill was 556-42, with 22 abstentions. It is being financed 50-50 by German industry and the government. It was signed on July 17 and formally established the 10 billions marks (US $7.5 billion) slave fund. More than 3,127 German firms have pledged money. "This closes one of the last open chapters of the Nazi past," said the German Chancellor, "We are setting down a durable marker of historic and moral responsibility."

July 12, 2000 Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp. a Japanese machine-toolmaker has reached a settlement with 3 South Koreans who served as forced laborers during WWII. settled a lawsuit filed by the South Koreans in Sept. 1992. It is the first time that a compromise of this kind has been made at the Supreme Court. It is the third such settlement, following a compromise between Japan Steel Corp. and former Korean workers recruited during WWII. Kensuke Imura, president of Nachi-Fujikoshi, said in Toyama that the company will pay the Koreans "settlement money," but he did not specify the amount. The plaintiffs had sought a total of 20 million yen in damages, 5,200 yen in unpaid wages and a public apology.

About 60 lawsuits seeking compensation payments for forced labor during the war are being heard throughout the country.

Aug. 15, 2000 Nine members of Japan Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's Cabinet went into Yasukuni Shrine and bow deeply before its altar to offer their prayers. The Prime Minister himself, already under fire for comments that stirred memories of Japanese Militarism, stayed away. Among those honored at the Yasukuni Shrine are the Japanese war-time prime minister, Hideki Tojo, and many other Japanese military leaders convicted of WWII war crimes. For people in Asia, Yasukuni Shrine is a symbol of Japan's brutal militaristic past.

Sept 4 2000 Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo prefecture, turned a hitherto boring annual earthquake drill into one of the largest military exercises most Japanese have seen since WWII. More then 7,000 uniformed soldiers participated in the streets of central Tokyo with tanks and helicopters. Many questioned the need for a military drill on this scale. "Ishihara wants to change the Constitution and turn Japan into a big military country again." said Atsuo Nakamura, an opposition member of Paliament. Japanese Prime Minister visited the basement command room of Japan's Self defence Forces to monitor the drill.

Oct 14 2000 In room 103 of Tokyo district court, Japan was at war with her own History. It was the first testimony of its kind, former Japanese soldier of notorious Unit 731, Yoshio Shinozuka, 78, told the court he participated in mass production of cholera, dysentery and typhoid germs. He also assisted in the vivisection of Chinese civilians during WWII. He said one of his reasons for testifying was disappointment with the government's efforts to come clean about the war. "What I have done was something that nobody should have done as a Human Being." he said.

Nov. 2000 The first case of its kind to be tried in Chinese courts, Xia Shuqin is suing Asia University professor Osamichi Higashinakano and writer Toshio Matsumura for distorting the truth about the Nanking Massacre. Xia is also seeking compensation and public apology from Matsumura, author of "Big Doubts about the Nanking Massacre," and the Tentensha Publishing House for printing the two books.

Nov 7 2000 Since Japan has refused to compensate British PoW of Japan for their suffering in WWII, and time was too important for the aging vets to waste it on prolonged legal fights, British Government announced its own compensation for PoW, £10,000 each, at a cost to British Government of 180 million £. Canadian governmnet did the same in 1998, paid up on its own to each PoW Cad $24,000.

Nov 29 2000 Major Japanese construction firm Kajima Corp. agreed to set up a US 4.6 million fund to compensate 986 victims of WWII slave labor worked in Hanaoka mine. 418 out of 986 Chinese died due to the brutal conditions. However, at the same day Kajima issued its own statement that :

1. The payment of $500 million yens was not the result of a case settlement, but financial assistance to the aging plaintiffs on humanitarian ground in the spirit of Sino-Japanese friendship;
2. Kajima is not admitting any guilt or accepting any legal responsibility of the death or injuries of the plaintiffs;
3. The death of many plaintiffs were caused by illness or harsh wartime conditions.

All three points above were blatant lies. The Global Alliance demands that Kajima Corporation to retract its Statement by Feb 12 2001 and continue with appeals to other Kajima clients and world communities to pressure Kajima. About 60 suits have been filed against the Japanese government or Japanese companies for compensation for slave labor during WWII.

Dec 7 2000 Japanese court rejected a lawsuit filed by nearly 80 aging Filipino women demanding apology and US 9 million in compensation for being forced to work as sex slave. Some of the women were as young as 10. "I will fight till I die," said plaintiff Carmecita Ramel. "They are all criminals, the Japanese government." Last week the court also rejected a former Korean sex slave's demands for compensation. approx.400,000 women were forced to work as sex slave by Japan in WWII.

Dec 27 2000 President Clinton signed into U.S. Public Law 106-567, the "Intelligence Authorization Act for F/Y 2001," in which the the original S 1902 of "Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act of 2000" is included as Title VIII. It now allows the public for the first time in over 55 years to have access to hitherto classified U.S. documents which are expected to shed more light upon the extent of the war crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Government during WWII. But some researcher remain skeptical because the law's "national security" exemptions.


39 posted on 2005/11/14 14:59:23 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]
56th Year of Soul Searching

Jan. 24 2001 At the end of WWII, retreating Japanese military dumped swarms of unleashed fleas tainted with cholera, typhoid, anthrax, bubonic plague and other diseases in China's southwestern Zhenjian province and over the city of Ningbo, south of Shanghai. 2 Chinese doctors said in Tokyo District Court. The lawsuit filed in 1997, about 180 Chinese plaintiffs are demanding compensation and an apology from the Japanese government.

The attacks had killed 50,000 people in 6 years. "After 60 years, we are still finding positive antibodies of bubonic plague in rats, dogs, cats and other animals. Every year a certain number of healthy people develop typhoid. Japan's germ warfare has left behind problems that still threaten our lives," Qiu said. Fears of another outbreak still haunt the city. After decades of denial, Japan only acknowledged few years ago that Unit 731 existed but has refused to confirm its activity.

Jan. 2001, Former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori publicly referred to the Sino-Japanese War as the "China Incident". His view reflects the thinking of some senior Japanese politicians.

Feb 8 2001 The Tokyo Hight Court refused to hear an appeal by a group of Hong Kong residents asking Japan to honor Military Yen, issued by the occupying Japanese military during WWII. The Japanese Imperial Army occupied HK between 1941 and 1945 and forced residents to exchange HK dollars, foreign currency, gold and jewelry for bills insured by the Japanese military. Anyone disobeyed were executed. Japan then used the money to buy war supplies. At the end of the war, the Allied Forces instructed Japan to declare the bills had no monetary value. Many families became broke overnight The bills stated they could be coverted into yen at par value.

17 HK residents filed the case against Japan in 1993, demanding their money back and compensation totaling Yen 768 million. The Tokyo District Court threw the case out in 1999, saying the bills had lost their value and the group had no grounds to claim the money. Since that decision, five claimants have died. "We are not demanding for war compensation, we are demanding Japan to pay back their legal debt", said Mr. Ng. They will appeal to the Tokyo Supreme Court.

Feb 21 2001 During a meeting of LDP supporters in Akita Prefecture, former Japanese Defense Minister Hosei Norota blamed the US for forcing Japan into the war and shameless said: "Colonialism in Asia was rooted out to the hilt thanks to the Greater East Asia War."

On Feb 24 2001, in the Hague War Crimes Court, the International Tribunal has convicted the 3 Serb commanders in the Bosnian town of Foca in 1992 and 1993, where hundreds of women were abducted and sexually enslaved by Bosnian Serb soldiers. They received prison terms of 28, 20 and 12 years. The 3-judge panel ruled that Mass Rape is a crime against Humanity, the 2nd most serious category of international Crimes after Genocide.

Feb 26 2001 Resolution No. 7 similar to the two bills passed in California and similar to HR 126 (US Congress) has been introduced in the West Virginia Legislation. The resoluton is calling on the Japanese Government to offer a formal apology and compensation to wartime victims.

Mar 2 2001 In view of the growing anger of people over Japanese government's move to authorize school textbooks that many critics said distort its wartime history, Korea and China called in the Japanese ambassador to deliver their protest. In protest, South Korean has frozen all military exchanges and canceled plans to further open its market to Japanese music tapes, cartoons and video games.

Many Japanese Historians and History Educators put forward their appeal We Cannot Entrust History Education to a Textbook That Distorts History . There is also the International Scholars’ Appeal.

May 14 2001 Asian Human Rights Commission has initiated an online petition Statement of Concern about Japanese History Textbook

A book published last Sept challenges the official history of Japanese Emperor's wartime role "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" by Herbert P. Bix, a Boston-born historian who teaches at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.

Bix reveals new information on the degree to which the U.S. government systematically deceived the whole world. As cold war deepen, US needs Japan as an anti-communist bulwark in Asia. Evidences show that senior aides to Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Japanese court officials schemed to fix testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials so as not to implicate Hirohito.

Bix, using official records that will be difficult for the Emperor's apologists to refute, shows Hirohito knew all the war crimes in China, and involved deeply in early strategic decisions as Japan's army marched through China, approved an alliance with Hitler and Mussolini, and the plan to attack Pearl Harbor. In Japan, some politicians are now joining scholars in calling for a reassessment of the Emperor's new clothes. "The Hirohito diaries should be made public," says Diet member Taro Kono.

Apr 25 2001 Within hours of becoming Japan's new prime minister, Koizumi told in his first news conference Japan's Peace Constitution Article 9 should be amended to legitimize the use of military force. Koizumi has refused to reverse the approval of new distorted high school textbooks. he also intends to pay an offical visit to Yasukuni Shrine on Aug. 15.

May 24 2001 After 60 years, US slaved PoW are still seeking justice. Their efforts have run into opposition from an unexpected source - U.S. State Dept. The State Department has filed papers in federal court in California stating the treaty prevents the courts from hearing the lawsuits. "The government has betrayed us. They will probably stall the lawsuit until we are all dead and gone." Henry Cornellisson said.

July 18 2001, the House of Representatives voted 395-33 to amend an appropriations bill that would prohibit the departments of Justice and State from using money to prevent former PoWs from seeking a fair hearing against Japanese companies. A House bill designed to help the veterans in court sponsored by Rep. Mike Honda, would let federal courts ignore a key section of the 1951 controversial San Francisco Peace Treaty that waived all claims against Japanese nationals for crimes committed during the war. "If the bill passes, it will open up the process and remove the roadblock the State Department has put up," said Linda Goetz Holmes author of a newly publish book Unjust Enrichment: How Japan's Companies Built Postwar Fortunes Using American PoWs .

There are now 35 separate civil suits that cite as defendants some of the world's largest corporations, including Nippon Steel, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Mitsui Mining USA. You can support them to pass "The Justice for US PoWs Act of 2001" (H.R. 1198) so that Japanese companies will be forced to take responsibility for their cruelty and atrocities.

May 30 2001 German Parliament approved compensation fund of US $4.5 billion to slave laborers, about $7,000 each to people forced to work in slave labor camps, but less to those forced to work in factories. Half the money is to be paid by more than 6,000 German companies including DaimlerChrysler, Bayer, Bertelsmann, Deutsche Bank, Hugo Boss, Mannesmann and Allianz. The other half is being paid by the government. Most recipients live in Eastern Europe.

Germany has already paid more than US $60 billion in reparations since WWII.

Jun 21, 2001 Tokyo District Court dismissed a Sex Slave case, ruling individuals did not have the right to demand compensation from the Government. 5 women from Shanxi province, China filed a lawsuit in Tokyo in 1995 demanding an apology and 20 million yuan (US 6 million) in compensation from Japan. One died in 1998, leaving 4 to pursue the case. The women had already filed an appeal. Of approx. 400,000 sex salves, no one knows how many still survive. They were forced to serve up to 30 - 40 men a day. Many have concealed their past, considering it too shameful.

In 1998, the Yamaguchi District Court recognised the Japan's use of so-called comfort women and ordered the payment of 900,000 yen in compensation to 9 former Korean sex slaves, but the ruling was later overturned.

Jul 12, 2001 Tokyo District Court ordered Japanese government to pay 20 million yen to a former Chinese forced labourer. However, the victim is paid for his suffering as a fugitive, NOT as slave laborer. Liu Lianren of Shandong Province was sent to a mine on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido in 1944 after the military abducted him. Liu escaped in Apr 1945, and went into hiding until Feb 1958. He didn't know the war had ended. Liu filed suit in March 1996. His relatives took it over after his death.

The judge said Japan should be held responsible for Liu's suffering as a fugitive NOT as slave, who was brought to Japan at the Japanese government's behest. Lawyer Toru Takahashi said his only regret is that the court fell short of ordering the Japan to pay compensation for subjecting Liu to forced labour. Japanese government has filed an appeal.

Some 114 Chinese are seeking redress from Japan and its private firms in 8 other trials, while 3 other suits are expected to be also filed by former forced labourers from China.

Aug. 13 2001 In protest over Japanese Prime Minister's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine and whitewashing Japan's war crimes in the new textbooks, 20 South Korean cut off tips of their little fingers. They plan to mail the severed pieces to the Japanese embassy. The signs near the Yasukuni Shrine refer to the Tojo and other war criminals as martyrs.



In Seoul, Kim Yun-ok said, "The Japanese soldiers enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine are the very ones who Raped our grandmothers."


More than 86 % of the enshrined Japanese soldiers were from WWII. Private Tadokoro Kozo of the 114th division said in 1971 interview, " There wasn't . ANY . soldier who didn't Rape. After things were done, usually we killed them ..... We didn't want to leave any trouble behind ....."



Aug. 15 2001 According to few survey, the school districts across Japan are now refusing to use the government approved distorted new textbook that glosses over Japan's wartime atrocities. "It could lead us down a mistaken path again." said Yukio Wani.

Sept. 2001 A lawsuit seeking $1 trillion in repatriations from the Japanese government was filed in the U.S. District Court in Chicago. The suit uses declassified documents to argue that former Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida told the Dutch government that the 1951 treaty did not mean the Allied powers were forfeiting the right of their citizens to sue Japan for wartime damages.

Sept 10 2001 A Jewish history museum with 3,000 square meters, the largest in whole Europe, formally opened in Berlin, Germany.

Oct. 8 2001 Japanese prime minister Koizumi, during his one day visit to Beijing, issued his war apoplgy after visiting the Lugouqiao ( Marco Polo Bridge), site of hostilities that led to a full scale war invasion to China in July 7, 1937. He also visited a War Museum. However, the apology was simply based on and did not go beyond the wording used in a 1995 statement by Murayama. His personal apology was NOT passed by Japanese Diet. Even so, Koizumi left open the possibility that he may visit Yasukuni Shrine again next year.

Oct. 19 2000 Judge William McDonald of the California Superior Court in Orange County ruled, in three slave labor suits, two against Mitsubishi and one against Mitsui, that it is the courts, not the executive branch, that determine the meaning or applicability of the treaty; that the court has a right to hear the PoWs claims.

The PoWs point out that Japan made payments to Britain, Holland, and Switzerland after the treaty, money that was used by those governments to compensate PoWs. Article 26 obliges Japan to give the same advantages to all other nations if, after the San Francisco Peace Treaty, better terms are reached with individual nations.

Nov. 1 2001. Over 900 people filed a lawsuit against Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi for his visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in August. They argued that his official visit to the Yasukuni Shrine had violated constitution which was rewritten after the war to ensure the separation of religion and politics.

Nov. 29 2001 The entire Japanese government, not just the military, was involved in the decision to provide sex slaves, Japanese researchers said at an international conference in Los Angeles on Japan's war crimes. After Japan invaded Manchuria, China in 1937, Japanese government created the Imperial Conference, composed of the emperor, the military and the leading Cabinet ministers. This body made all important decisions including approving the "comfort women", historian Hirofumi Hayashi of Kanto-Gakuin University in Yokohama said.

Other research presented indicates that the actual number of sex slaves may have been closer to 400,000 than the 200,000 previously estimated by a United Nations human rights agency. Su Zhi Liang, a history professor from Shanghai Teachers University, noted that the U.N. estimate did not take into account China, because China came into the research picture much later than its Asian neighbors. In Shanghai alone, the Japanese military set up 90 sex stations, with about 500 women serving soldiers at each station.

Nov. 29 2001 Los Angeles Superior Court judge, rejecting the US federal government's contention, has again refused to dismiss a Koreatown resident's slave-labor lawsuit against Japanese companies. Now a U.S. citizen, 79-year-old Jae-Won Jeong was forcibly taken to a slave labor camp in 1943 to break limestone by hand at a quarry for Japan's Onoda Cement Manufacturing Co. in the northeastern tip of the Korean peninsula.

Judge Lichtman said he was struck by the DOUBLE STANDARD in U.S. government's position concerning slave-labor that the U.S. government has not objected to suits seeking compensation for Nazi slave-labor victims but did in the suits against the Japanese companies.

10 Dec 2001 A documentary film "Japanese Devils" about brutal role of Japan's 14 years brutal invasion to China between 1931 - 1945, has been awarded with film prizes in Germany and Portugal. 14 veterans of the Imperial Army testify to their own brutal participation.

"Once you've killed your second or third, you stop thinking about it," Yasuji Kaneko describes how he grew numb to slaughter after bayonet drills using live Chinese prisoners tied to stakes. "It was ultimately about competition," another interviewed veteran describes throwing babies onto camp fires just for laughs, "how many you killed becomes a standard of achievement."

Former Japanese sergeant major, Masayo Enomoto, says he became so inured to murder and so steeped in the idea that the Chinese were sub-human that he thought nothing of chopping up a Rape victim, cooking her flesh and serving it to his hungry troops.

Director Minoru Matsui said his main reason for making the documentary was to counter Japan's tendency to "sugarcoat" history. "The biggest reason for making the film was to preserve a record," producer Kenichi Oguri said. "After making it, we held a preview. Some young Japanese said they didn't even know Japan had fought a war with China."


40 posted on 2005/11/14 15:00:34 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]
57th Year of Soul Searching

Jan 1, 2002 In Nanjing, about 20,000 Chemical Weapon metal canisters lay buried atop the Yellow Beard Mountain, showing for the first time that Japanese forces deployed WMD Chemical Weapon during their invasion of the capital city of Japan's infamous Nanjing Massacre in 1937.

The digging finally wrapped up in Dec. 2001 on unearthing and moving them to a special storage site.

The size of the chemical weapon, experts say, is enough to put Yellow Beard Mountain near the top of the list of places around the world.

Most startling is the fact that the stockpile in Nanjing represents just a tiny fraction of the chemical weapon in China left behind by Japanese army.

China is now home to the world's largest chemical weapons cleanup campaign for 700,000 - 2,000,000 Chemical Bombs.

"This is something that has been done before, but not on that scale," said Abu Talib, a chemical weapons expert from Mitretek Systems in Falls Church, Va. in U.S., " Most of the chemical weapons around the world, you're talking hundreds and thousands -- not such a huge pile."

Whether such a monumental task can be completed by 2007, the deadline imposed by the international Chemical Weapons Convention, remains to be seen.

Japan only admitted in November 1995 that it had used "lethal gases" during war.

The weapons have continued to injure, kill and damaging the environment. 18 alleged postwar victims are finally to get a hearing in a Tokyo court in Feb or March after years of filing suit for compensation.

According to court records, the injuries to plaintiffs were sustained during the leak of a mustard gas bomb in 1974, in which sailors aboard a ship on a local river were poisoned; a leak of barreled poisonous gas in Mudanjiang in 1982; and the explosion of a poison gas bomb in Shuangcheng in 1995, and four other cases. The plaintiffs want an apology from the Japan and 360 million yen in compensation.

Jan. 1 2002 Chu Chung Wen is not a U.S. postal worker or a recipient of an anthrax-tainted letter. He is an elderly man living in China, one of thousands who suffered anthrax infections caused by Japanese germ warfare. Chu and his mother developed swollen lymph nodes when the infection spread from the skin to internal tissues.

He contracted anthrax in 1942 while working as a slave laborer for a Japanese-occupied airport located in the village of Nan Zi. "more than half the people repairing the airport" came down with the "unknown disease" Chu recalls. Japanese military disseminated anthrax germs, as part of the waged bacteriological attacks in the Chinese east-coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangxi.

Now a restitution trial for Japanese biological warfare is going forward in a Tokyo court. The plaintiffs are demanding apology and compensation for the deaths of their relatives killed by biological warfare carried out by Japan's notorious Unit 731 and Unit 164. The thousands of victims included 2,100 civilians, whose personal details have been verified in China.

In a prepared statement for the trial, a 78-year-old Japanese veteran, Yoshio Shinozuka, confessed: "From July to November 1940, I participated in the production of typhoid, paratyphoid, cholera, plague and anthrax germs" at Unit 731 headquarters.

Feb 2, 2002 It is rare that a foreign-written book becomes so critical in explaining another country's history to its own people. The "Embracing Defeat" by John W. Dower have sold about 122,000 copies in just few months in Japan. The extraordinary popularity of this 900 pages history about postwar Japan raised a deep question - Japanese people understanding of their own country's history.

Many Japanese say they have now understood their country's WWII history for the first time.

Feb 10 2002 In Japan, at the Fukuoka District Court, the Japanese government said in a statement that Koizumi "did not visit the Yasukuni Shrine in his capacity as the prime minister". The lawsuit was filed by 211 people demanding 100,000 yen each in compensation that the visit violated the constitutional. Similar lawsuits have also been filed in Chiba, Tokyo, Osaka and Ehime prefectures.

In 1991, the Sendai High Court ruled that a 1985 Yasukuni visit by then Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone violated the Constitution. Japan's two other high courts handed down similar rulings in 1992.

Mar 22 2002 U.S. medical expert Dr. Martin Furmanskihave specialized in research into the biological war waged by the Japanese and historian Sheldon Harris emeritus professor of history at California State University researched this field for 20 years, in their fortnight long trip to China, have proved that a bacterium called glanders was used by Japanese troops during WWII. "Glanders was a disease first found in horses, and it could attack human beings," said Furmanski. Human beings' legs are most affected by the disease. "Only one out of 20 people with the disease could survive."

Medical records showed that glanders had virtually been wiped out in 1906, but new cases suddently broke out in the 1940s during WWII in China."

Japanese showered 7 WMD biological pathogens on Zhejiang province to retaliate the Doolittle Tokyo Raid.

Even today, one hard-hit village in Zhejiang still bears the nickname "Rotten-Leg Village" because so many older residents are scarred with glanders from the 1942 attacks. Their flesh are still rotten and have not been healed since they were attacked - they have been suffering physically and mentally for almost 60 years now.

Apr 21, 2002 Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi made a surprise visit to the war Yasukuni Shrine that also remembers convicted war criminals, drawing sharp criticism from China and South Korea. Koizumi made no effort to disguise, "My visit was as Japan's prime minister," he told reporters after the visit. During the last August visit, Koizumi had refused to specify if he was going in an official or private capacity.

Apr 26, 2002 In the first such ruling in Japan, Japanese court ordered Mitsui Mining to pay $85,000 to each of 15 Chinese forced laborer to work for it in WWII. Almost immediately Mitsui Mining filed an appeal. The company said Mitsui Mining shouldn't have to bear the responsibility, "Basically, it's a matter of government policy." The Japanese government, however, has so far denied its responsibility.

May 10 2002 Ruling that Toshio Matsumra's book "Great doubts on the Nanking Massacre" was irrational, the Tokyo District Court ordered him and the Tokyo publishing house, Tendensha, to pay Li Xiuying 1.5 million yen in compensation. The judge said there was no rational reason for claiming that Li was not one of the victims of the massacre who appeared on Magee's footage. But the court rejected Li's claim for an apology.

Li, now 83, sued Matsumura and his publisher in 1999. She was 18 and pregnant at the time, narrowly survived after suffering 37 sword slashings by Japanese soldiers who had try to rape her. Li's separate damages lawsuit demanding Japanese government compensate for her injuries is still pending at the Tokyo High Court.

May 25, 2002 There is a growing movement among Bataan veterans to force Japan for apology and compensation. Of the 12,000 US PoW at Bataan, only 4,000 were alive by the end of war. Marching for days in terrible heat, beaten and deprived of food and water, estimated 7,000 to 10,000 of the 78,000 US and Filipinos PoW died. They were then transported to Japan in " Hell Ships" and elsewhere as slave laborers.

With little protection from the January cold, PoWs frozen to death. "We were throwing American bodies overboard at the rate of 30, then 40, then 50 a day all the way to Japan," Mel Rosen said, "The Death March was a Sunday stroll compared to the 3 Hell Ships." Only 200 to 300 of the 1,600 prisoners loaded on the 1st ship made it to Japan. When Rosen arrived in Japan, his weight had dropped from 155 to 88 lbs.

Mel Rosen, now 83 a retired colonel living in Falls Church, Va., is the lead plaintiff in a $1 trillion class-action lawsuit against Japan filed in Sept 2001 in federal court in Chicago. " The Japanese are waiting for us to die off," he said, "I have been waiting 60 years for an apology from Japan".

"The [US State Department] fought tooth and nail to help the people who suffered at the hands of the Nazis," Rosen said, "In our case [Resolution H.R. 1198], it would help us if they just shut up. In fact, they're fighting tooth and nail for the Japanese."

July 9, 2002 Hiroshima District Court rejected 5 Chinese who were taken to Japan as slave laborers during WWII have no right to demanding 27.5 million yen in compensation. Judge Kiyomasa Yamagaki acknowledged that the Nishimatsu Construction Co. was responsible, but rejected their demand, arguing that more than 20 years have passed. "The court has recognized our sufferings and yet we still lost. Where is the justice in this ruling ?" said Lu Xuewen. It is in stark contrast to the Fukuoka District Court decision handed down in April, when Mitsui Mining Co. was ordered to pay 165 million yen in compensation to 15 Chinese for forced labor.

Aug 15, 2002 On 57th anniversary of surrender, 5 Japanese cabinet ministers and Tokyo's governor made their visit to the controversial war Yasukuni Shrine which secretly enshrined 1,068 War Criminals including 14 CLASS-A War Criminals in 1978. News of the secret enshrinement caused an uproar when it leaked out 6 months later. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi made his official tribute to Yasukuni Shrine Aug 13, 2001 and Apr 21, 2002 drew sharp criticism from both China and South Korea.

Aug 27, 2002 Germany and Canada has signed an agreement that Germany will pay pensions starting next year to German-speaking Canadian Jews who were living in Eastern Europe during WWII.

Germany has paid similar pensions to Jews and non-Jews living in Israel and the US since 1995.

Aug 27, 2002 After 27 court hearings since 1998, and with former Unit 731 Japanese soldiers including Yoshio Shinozuka, came forward as witnesses, Japanese court had no choice and finally recognized for the FIRST TIME that Japan had conducted Biological Warfare in China during WWII. even though Japanese Supreme Court has confirmed the existence of "Unit 731" that developed bacteriological weapons.

But the court rejected the demand for apology and compensation of 10 million yen ($83,430) each by 180 Chinese victims. Kohken Tsuchiya, lawyer said, "It's still a loss for the plaintiffs so we would like to appeal."

Contrarily, the Japanese government still refused to recognize that its army ever waged Biological Warfare due to lack of evidence.

This partial victory came 4 days before Dr. Sheldon H. Harris, Emeritus Professor of History at California State University, passed away in peace. Dr. Harris was author of the groundbreaking book "Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-Up", that helped to focus international attention to defeat the repeated denials, blatant lies and continuing cover-up by both Japanese and U.S. governments.

Sept 6, 2002 Covered head to toe, Japanese and Chinese specialists in chemical weapons disposal were digging in a wooded area in Heilongjiang. It is the latest effort to find and remove WMD Chemical Weapons including mustard gas and lewisite - a fluid that emits poisonous vapours. Estimated 700,000 - 2,000,000 Chemical Bombs were left behind in China by Japan's Imperial Army. The experts showed reporters four 75 mm artillery shells loaded with mustard gas that were unearthed in April.

Lawyers for Chinese plaintiffs are suing Japanese government because the leaking Chemical Weapons have already caused some 2,000 deaths since the end of war. The digging will continue until Oct. 1, 2002.

Dec. 20, 2002 More than 600 Japanese nationals orphaned and left in China at the end of WWII filed a suit Friday, demanding the government pay damages of 33 million yen per person for their suffering both in China and in Japan. "We want the government to acknowledge that we were orphaned because of the war Japan waged". Hundreds more of the orphans plan to join the damages suit.


41 posted on 2005/11/14 15:01:13 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]
58th Year of Soul Searching

Jan. 14, 2003 Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi visited again the Yasukuni Shrine provoking protests from neighbors victimized by Japanese aggression. Yasukuni Shrine secretly ensrined 1,068 War Criminals including 14 Class-A War Criminals in 1978. News of the secret enshrinement caused an uproar when it leaked out 6 months later. It is considered a symbol of Japanese wartime military imperialism. This was his 3rd time since he became prime minister.

Jan 22, 2003 Federal Appeals Court, San Francisco, strikes down 1999 law enacted by California Legislature allowing slave laborers of Japanese and German corporations in WWII to sue for wages and injuries; finds law is impermissible intrusion on federal government's exclusive power to make and resolve war; also dismisses claims by slave laborers on other theories, saying statute of limitations bars them and may not sue for wages and injuries.

Mar. 11, 2003 The Tokyo District Court rejected the lawsuit filed by 42 Chinese slave labourer during WWII, seeking damages and unpaid wages, a total 840 million yen from the Japanese government and 10 Japanese companies (Hazama Corp., Nishimatsu Construction Co., Tekken Corp., Nittetsu Mining Co., Japan Energy Corp., Furukawa Co., Ube Industries Ltd., Dowa Mining Co., Tobishima Corp. and Mitsubishi Materials Corp.) The Judge said the plaintiffs lost their right when 20 years had passed since the illegal act. However, the judge also rejected the legal argument that the state bore no responsibility for the actions of civil servants that occurred before enactment of the State Redress Law.

Mar. 28, 2003 Japanese Supreme Court rejected an appeal from a group of South Korean women seeking compensation and apology from Japan for their forced Sex Slavery during WWII. It also ruled today that Japan does not have to pay $1 million to the 80 year old Korean comfort woman Song Shin-do. Japanese government insists that the compensation issue was settled on a government-to-government basis in postwar treaties. The stance has drawn criticism at home and abroad that it remains unrepentant for its war crimes.

Mar 28, 2003 Breaking from over 30 years of strict non-military use of the high sky, Japan launched its first pair of reconnaissance satellites today. Critics say the launch violates a 1969 resolution that prohibits military use of space by Japan.

Apr 10, 2003 In the 59th General Assembly of the U.N., both South and North Korea urged Japan to take measures in accordance with the recommendations made by U.N. Special Rapporteurs to apologize and pay compensation to Korean women forced into Sex Slavery for Japanese soldiers during WWII. In the 1996 report, the rapporteurs denounced the Japanese government for failing to take legal responsibility for the comfort women and falling far short of punishing those responsible for the "inhumane crimes".

Apr 23, 2003 Japan's Air Self Defense Force (ASDF) is holding aerial refueling exercises with the U.S. Air Force from April 21 to May 2, the first such exercises for the ASDF -- ever. U.S. is actively encouraging Japan to move away from its constitutional restrictions and rearm itself.

Apr. 28, 2003 In unprecedented denial, the family members of the two Japanese lieutenants, Mukai Toshiaki and Noda Takeshi who were well known for their Killing Contest to behead 100 Chinese with their sword in 1937, launched a libel suit against the Mainichi. They are seeking a total 12 million yen in damages, claiming that that the defendants failed to retract the stories although it has been "proved" that the alleged massacre did not take place.

Also sued for libel were the Asahi Shimbun that printed a follow up story in 1971, former Asahi writer Katsuichi Honda who reported the story and was one of authors of a book challenging revisionists view that denies the Rape of Nanking, and a Tokyo publishing house that published his book.

May 15, 2003 Tokyo District Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by 5 Chinese who demanded Japan to pay 80 million yen in damages for their health problems caused by Japanese abandoned WMD Chemical Weapons. They mistakenly spilt hazardous liquids on their bodies and inhaled poisonous gas while examining chemical weapons they found. They are still suffering from the after-effects, such as paralysis of an arm, breathing difficulties and a decline in their eyesight. The judge ruled that Japan goverment broke no law when it failed to recover the weapons. Japan abandoned 700,000 - 2,000,000 Chemical Bombs in China.

June 12, 2003 30 South Koreans forced into labor in Siberia during WWII by Japan sued the Japanese government for their unpaid wages, demanding an average of 10 million yen per person in damage. They base their lawsuit on international custom and the Geneva Convention for the Protection of War Victims. They launched the suit along with a group of 133 South Koreans who separately sued Japan demanding that the remains of their relatives who died in the war after being conscripted by the Japanese military be returned and that their enshrinement at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo be rescinded.

July 26 2003 The Japanese Diet passed legislation allowing the government to proceed with plans to dispatch up to 1,000 troops to bolster the US-led occupation of Iraq. The deployment will be the 1st time Japanese soldiers have been stationed in a combat zone since the end of WWII and the 1st time without a UN mandate. The law is designed to circumvent the Japan’s "Peace Constitution Article 9" that prohibits the use of military force except in self-defence.

Aug 13, 2003 A scrap metal collector in Northeastern China, Qiqihar had mistakenly uncovered 5 drums filled with mustard gas abandoned chemical weapons by the Japanese Army in WWII, harmed more than 40 people. One man had chemical burns over 95% of his body and later died. Others had suffered from vomiting to severe burns. Japan has apologized to China for the incident, but offer NO compensation.

This is the FIRST official acknowledgement by the Japanese Government that the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII used Chemical Weapon (mustard gas). The next step should be the official acknowledgement of the use of the WMD Biological Weapon by the infamous Unit 731.

Approx. 700,000 - 2,000,000 Chemical Bombs most of them loaded with mustard gas and many of them corroded and leaking, are still scattered in China. More than 2,000 Chinese had already been injured by these abandoned deadly WMD Chemical Weapons and damaging the environment. Japan has acknowledged leaving behind chemical weapons in China, has been looking for and disposing of such armaments according to the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. Many doubt such a monumental task can be completed by 2007 because Japan has been inactive in the chemicals cleanup despite its promise.

Sept. 12, 2003 Saito Gun, head of the Japanese investigation team admitted that another 52 mustard gas bombs found in Gaocheng, a city east of Shijiazhuang in 1991 and stored in the mountainous area around Lu Quan, were indeed left by Japan. The 52 mustard gas bombs will be dug up and sealed for future destruction. In reference to the compensation claims of the 20 victims injured, Saito refused to comment.

Ge Guangbiao, Chinese director of the office dealing with the problems said: "The Japanese Government should provide overall statistics on its abandoned WMD Chemical Weapons in China to the Chinese Government, including the location, numbers and categories of the weapons."

Sept. 29, 2003 The Tokyo District Court awarded 190 million yen (US 1.5 million) to 13 Chinese who sued the Japanese government over the abandoned WMD Chemical Weapon causing Chinese killed and injured in 1974 and 1982, and a shell explosion in 1995. It ruled against a ruling the same court issued for a separate case in May. Judge Yoshihiro Katayama said the Japanese government had neglected its responsibility to supply information to China over the whereabouts of the weapons, which killed and wounded Chinese.

This is the first time a Japanese court has accepted a damages claim related to abandoned WMD Chemical Weapons overseas.

The court ruled that "Distributing and abandoning poison gas weapons and similar actions, which are illegal under international law, cannot be accepted as justifiable. Not allowing the right (to claim damages) just because 20 years have passed goes against the principles of justice and fairness." However, the Japanese government has refused to accept the verdict and appealed to the higher court.

Oct. 20, 2003 To the WMD mustard gas victims (one killed and 42 injured) in Aug. incident in Qiqihar, Japanese government decided to offer 300 million yen, but NOT as compensation. But despite the inducement, the family of the person killed by the mustard gas is pressing on with plans to sue the Japanese Government.

Dec. 8, 2003 Japan has retrieved a total of 36,000 Chemical Weapons including bombs, poisonous fume pipes and iron barrels containing chemical preparations and put under temporary safekeeping. A unnamed Japanese official said in an interview with Oriental Outlook magazine, Under the UN Chemical Weapons Convention, Japan has until 2007 to destroy 700,000 - 2,000,000 of them. But experts say it will take much longer to safely dispose of so many WMD Chemical Bombs.

Dec. 9 2003 "Dispatching the Self Defence Forces to Iraq violates our constitution, which forbids the use of military forces," Peaceboat director Tatsuya Yoshioka said. Protesters held placards denouncing Koizumi and his allies as “war criminals”. Japan’s post-war constitution bans the use of Japanese force as a means of settling international disputes.

Dec 10, 2003 Grief overflowed and anger erupted as aged Japanese survivors confronted the Enola Gay, the US warplane which unleashed the world's 1st atom bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. The Enola Gay was put on display for the 1st time in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, which also includes a just retired French Concorde and space shuttle prototype. However, the vigil stirred anger among some visitors to the museum. "Remember Pearl Harbor" "What about the Nanjing massacre ?" several men shouted, as several scuffles broke out.

Dec 26, 2003 Japanese Supreme Court turned down a 920 million yen damages suit filed by Filipino women forced into Sex Slavery for the Japanese military during WWII. The suit has been filed by 81 people, including former "comfort women" from the Philippines and relatives of those who have died. Supporters said it was the Japanese government that lost the court battle, because Japan was deprived of an opportunity to make amends for its wartime wrongdoing.


42 posted on 2005/11/14 15:01:56 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]
59th Year of Soul Searching

Jan. 1, 2004 On New Year's Day, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited war shrine the 4th time, the controversial Yasukuni Shrine which secretly enshrined 1,068 War Criminals including 14 CLASS-A War Criminals in 1978, triggering instant condemnation from China and South Korea. Before Koizumi, only serving postwar prime minister, Yasuhiro Nakasonein 1985 and Ryutaro Hashimoto in 1996, had visited the shrine. The torrent of protest was enough to persuade him not to make another. Koizumi defied logic, insisting that neighboring countries would not be offended by his un-constitutonal shrine visits.

Jan 15, 2004 Japan is sending troops to combat zone FIRST TIME since WWII. 600 ground troops and 400 air force and naval personnel are due to be deployed in Iraq by March. Public are opposed to the plan arguing that the mission violates the Japanese Peace Constitution which prohibits offensive capability.

Feb. 10, 2004 The Tokyo High Court rejected an appeal by 7 women from Taiwan for an official apology from Japanese government and a total of 70 million yen in damages for being forced to become Sex Slave during WWII. The plaintiffs said they will appeal to the Supreme Court and are considering taking the case to the international tribunal.

Mar. 15, 2004 There could be over 700,000 or even 1,000,000 lives lost to Japan’s Biological Warfare programme said Daniel Barenblatt, author of new book "A Plague Upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation", in a recent interview. Barenblatt said the plague bacteria released then still lingers on in some animal populations today. "It is still there.... rodents still test positive for antibodies to the bubonic plague ..... What the US did in making the deal with top doctors is unconscionable. As far as we know, no one in the US government raised any more objection to it."

Mar 23, 2004 The Sapporo District Court rejected an 860 million yen damages suit against the Japanese government and 6 companies filed by 43 Chinese who were forced to work at coal mines and construction sites in Hokkaido during WWII.

In a similar lawsuit in 2002, the Fukuoka District Court ruled for the First time that the Japanese government and a mining company both committed a crime in using slave labor. But the court ordered only the company to pay compensation and excluded the state, agreeing with the government's argument that it cannot be held responsible.

Mar. 26, 2004 In Japanese Niigata District Court, Presiding Judge Noriyoshi Katano acknowledged that the Chinese were forced to perform hard labor under poor working conditions for Niigata-based harbor transport company Rinko Corp. (previously known as Niigata Koun) and ordered the state and a Japanese company to pay 88 million yen in compensation, marking First time for a Japanese court to order both Japanese government and a firm to pay damages for slave labor crimes. The judge dismissed the defendants' arguments that the statute of limitations for the crimes had passed.

Apr 7, 2004 Hiroyuki Hosoda of a group of 211 activists filed a lawsuit alleging that Koizumi's visits to the shrine violated the constitution. Fukuoka District Court ruled that Koizumi's visit in his official capacity as prime minister to the Yasukuni Shinto shrine indeed violated constitution of separation of church and state. But the court rejected their claims for compensation,

In Feb. the Osaka District Court refused to rule on the constitutionality of the visit, saying the plaintiffs had not suffered emotional turmoil as claimed. Four other cases are making their way through Japanese courts.

May 27, 2004 A group of 219 Japanese citizens filed a lawsuit claiming Japan's dispatch of troops to Iraq violated Japan's pacifist constitution. One of the plaintiffs is Nobutaka Watanabe who was one of 5 Japanese taken hostage by the militants in Iraq. Four similar lawsuits have been filed by other groups across Japan.

June 14 2004 U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the lawsuit against Japan filed by 15 kidnapped and enslaved former "Comfort Women" when they were only 10 - 26 years old from China (People's Republic of China), Taiwan (Republic of China), North and South Korea and the Philippines, to be reconsidered by the Appellate Court in the District of Columbia if Holocaust survivors and heirs can sue the French national railroad for transporting Jews and others to Nazi concentration camps during WWII. It is an encouraging news to the plaintiffs. Japan has argued that it is entitled to immunity from suit in U.S. courts concerning its pre-1952 acts.

July 9 2004 Hiroshima High Court overturned a lower court decision in July 2002, which ruled that too much time had passed to award compensation. Nishimatsu Construction must pay 27.5m yen ($255,000) in damages to 5 Chinese (2 of whom have since died) worked as slave labor in a power plant construction site owned by Nishimatsu. Presiding judge Satoshi Suzuki ruled Nishimatsu's argument that the statute of limitations had expired "seriously goes against justice". Japanese Government has acknowledged that many people suffered as a result of forced labour, but insists that most reparations were settled by treaties.

Jul 24, 2004 "The abandoned weapons issue is little known in Japan," said Japanese freelance director Tomoko Kana, who recently completed a doucmentary film From the Land of Bitter Tears."The way Chinese people feel about this issue is very similar to how Japanese feel about North Korea's abductions of Japanese," she said.

Min Liu whose father was killed in 1995 by Japanese abandoned artillery shell, was hoping of becoming a school teacher, but instead she has since been working at her relative's cafeteria to pay off her father's medical bills. The film captured the emotional Liu and 3 other victims from separate incidents has been on, including the scene of Liu giving a tearful hug to her mother while the mother burst into tears, confessing that she pulled the plug on her injured husband because family could not pay the medical bills and thus took him out of the hospital. He died the following day.

Tokyo District Court awarded the 13 plaintiffs a combined 190 million yen in damages, but Japanese government filed an appeal. The case is now pending before the Tokyo High Court.

Jul 23, 2004 Two Chinese children playing near a river in Dunhua, Jilin Province, injured by mustard gas leaked from the Japanese WMD Chemical Weapon discarded by the Japan in WWII. Japanese embassy statement says it was "quite regrettable" and expressed sympathy for the victims. At least 2,000 Chinese have so far become victims of the discarded 700,000 - 2,000,000 Japanese WMD Chemical Weapons since the war ended.

Aug 2, 2004 Fifteen years have passed since Human Bones that Haunt a Nation - Japanese war atrocities, dug up at a construction site in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, linked to the infamous Unit 731, and they remain a mystery that Japanese authorities still appear reluctant to resolve. The citizens' group speculate that Unit 731's victims' corpses were sent to the medical school for research purposes, and now ask Japanese government to use DNA and superimposing technology to verify their origins.

Kanagawa University professor Keiichi Tsuneishi said Japan's failure to address the issue over the past 15 years shows how the people disregard Unit 731's atrocities. The group is also demanding that the ministry and Shinjuku Ward excavate another site near Toyama Park where it suspects, based on testimony of some surviving officials, that more remains might be buried. Japanese authorities have refused to comply.

Aug 3, 2004 Payment worth US$ 401 million will be paid to some 130,681 Nazi-era Jewish slave laborers in 62 countries. The payments come from the German Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility, and the Future", a US$ 6 Billion dollar Slave Fund established in 2000. Half of the DM 10 Billion Foundation's Funding is provided by the German government and half by the German industries and businesses. The first disbursement to Jews, totaling $703 million, was transfered to recipients between June 2001 and July 2004. Payments to non-Jewish slave laborers were largely covered by humanitarian organizations.

In addition to reparations from the German fund, the Claims Conference also disbursed a special payment to slave laborers out of 1.25 Billion Swiss Banks Settlement signed in 1999 by the Swiss banks. The banks agreed to compensate slave laborers, following evidence that during WWII they raked in profits on deals and financial services for German factories that used slave laborers.

"I pay tribute to all those who were subjected to slave and forced labor under German rule, and in the name of the German people beg forgiveness", said Johannes Rau, German president in 2000, "We will not forget their suffering."

Aug 9 2004 13 former Chinese slave laborers (6 relatives of laborers who have died) forced to work in the Makimine copper mines in Miyazaki Prefecture during WWII, filed a damages lawsuit against the Japanese government and Mitsubishi Materials Corp., seeking 184 million yen for compensation, and demand an official apology.

Aug 12, 2004 U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, have both reiterated U.S. support for Japan's eager quest for permanent UN Security Council membership and urged Japan to revise war renouncing Article 9 of its Constitution if it wants to become a permanent U.N. Security Council member.

Aug 12, 2004 German Interior Minister Otto Schily joined a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of a Nazi massacre site in Tuscan village, in Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Italy, calling it a "place of shame" for Germany. In August 1944, Nazi SS soldiers were ostensibly hunting for partisans, but instead they rounded up and killed approx. 560 villagers

Also in 2002, President Johannes Rau became the first German leader to visit another 1944 Nazi massacre site of 700 people killed, at Marzabotto in the hills south of Bologna, where he expressed sorrow and shame.

Aug 14, 2004 Germany has offered its first formal apology for the colonial-era massacre of Herero tribe by German troops in Namibia 100 years ago. Herero chief Kuaima Riruako said the apology was appreciated but added: "We still have the right to take the German government to court."

Some 200 ethnic Herero filed a lawsuit in the US court of the district of Columbia in Sept. 2001 demanding $2 billion from the German government and $2 billion in damages from several German companies including Deutsche Bank, mining company Terex Corporation, formerly Orenstein-Koppel Co., and the shipping company Deutsche Afrika Linie, formerly Woermann Linie, all of which allegedly profitted. About 55,000 Herero died after German officers issued an extermination order in 1904 to crush an uprising against German colonial rule.

The US district court of Columbia was chosen to hear the case as it has a 215-year-old law on its books, the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, that allows for such civil action from foreign countries.

Aug 15, 2004 Three Japanese ministers, joined by 58 members of parliament, paid homage to the country's war dead in the Yasukuni Shrine, which celebrates Japan's military past and sparked anger from neighbouring countries.

But Junichiro Koizumi had visited the shrine 4 times since he became the Japanese prime minister. Mr. Koizumi who had vowed to visit the shrine every year, avoided the shrine this time obviously because the illegality of his visits ruled by the Japanese court in April.

Aug 21, 2004 Japan plans to build a 2.8 billion dig-up facility and two incinerators in Haerbaling in north China's Jilin province to clean-up its abandoned WMD Chemical Weapons. China worries about the chemicals that will be released in the air during the disposal process. Japan may be difficult to meet the 2007 deadline demanded by the international Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to dispose all its 700,000 - 2,000,000 abandoned WMD Chemical Weapons. At least 2,000 Chinese have so far become victims of the discarded Japanese WMD Chemical Weapons since the war ended.

Aug 26, 2004 A Japanese history textbook omitting Japanese wartime atrocities was approved by Tokyo's school board for use in a public secondary school in the Tokyo. China and Korea say it distorts history and omits Japanese wartime atrocities, e.g. WMD Biological Warfare in China and the use of hundreds of thousands of military Sex Slaves.

Sept 15, 2004 Despite a statement by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that WMD weapons are unlikely to be found in Iraq. However, Japan refused to admit that there are no WMD in the war-ravaged Iraq. Even Brithish PrimeMinister Tony Blair admitted that WMD which is vital to the case for the Iraq war, was wrong. Also, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that he hasn't seen "any strong, hard evidence" to link Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorists who staged the 9/11 attacks.

After 2 years intensive search with 1,200 experts, U.S. finally quit the WMD search. Unfortunately, the WMD was the main reason for US to "pre-emptive" invade Iraq. End to search for WMD seals doubts about pre-emption.

Sept. 18 2004 Instead of reflecting on own war crimes, the 10-member Japanese advisory panel to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will recommend that China be treated as a military threat. Japan will also discuss the possibility of permitting US and Japanese military flights to an island halfway between Okinawa and Taiwan, and build a port there.

Sept. 21 2004 Japan, Germany, India and Brazil told UN in joint bid seeking for a permanent seats on the UN Security Council.

Japan said it has been the second largest contributor to the UN and is involved in peacekeeping operations. However, U.N. members' contributions are in line with assessments based on their relative "Capacity To Pay" with a ceiling set at 22% - the rate at which the US is assessed. Next come Japan (19.5), Germany (9.8), France (6.5), Russia (1.1), and China (1.0) percent.


The U.N. Charter has a special stipulation about the WWII Axis enemies of the Allied nations and Japan has NEVER offered any government official apology that is formally and officially approved by Japanese Parliament as a "True Legal National Apology" using the more sincere Japanese word " shazai ", NOT the less sincere word "owabi" for its unspeakable horrific War Crimes, and takes full legal and moral responsibilities.


Japanese former PM Murayama had tried very hard for the official apology, but failed miserably to achieve it in the " No War Resolution" for the 50th anniversary of U.N. and End the War in 1995. That is exactly why Murayama's Personal Apology in 1995 repeatedly used the words "I", "me", and "my".


That is exactly why Japan has been apologizing for several decades but NO one believes that Japan is sincere.


"The U.N. is not a board of directors and you cannot decide its composition according to the financial contribution", Chinese spokesman said, "We want to see a responsible attitude from the Japanese including a clear understanding of historical issues."

Sept. 24 2004 In a steelworks site located in Ningan county, Mudanjiang China, a team of Japanese and Chinese experts unearthed more than 2,000 Bombs. 89 of the 2,000 bombs were confirmed as WMD Chemical Bombs abandoned by Japan. China says Japan made the WMD weapons in Hiroshima. At least 2,000 Chinese have so far become victims of Japanese discarded 700,000 - 2,000,000 Japanese WMD Chemical Weapons since the war ended.

Sept. 26 2004 The Chinese say there are 4 barriers on Japan's way to U.N. "Permanent Seat" :

1. Peace Constitution
2. Honestly face up to its own History
3. At the US' bidding and losing independence
4. UN competition and complicated procedure

Korea also questions Japan's Security Council bid.

Sept 29, 2004 Settlement reached in Osaka High Court that Tokyo-based Nippon Yakin Kogyo Co. has to pay 21 million yen to a group of Chinese abducted to Japan during WWII to work as slave laborers and their surviving family members. However, the company refused to offer an apology. The plaintiffs will continue their suit against the Japanese government, which has claimed the statute of limitations for compensation has expired. The Kyoto District Court ruled in last year that the Japanese government and Nippon Yakin Kogyo had acted illegally in abducting the plaintiffs and used them as slave laborers. But the court rejected the plaintiffs' demand for compensation.

Oct 1, 2004 A Japanese defense ministry panel has urged that the military be given the capability to launch "Pre-Emptive Strikes", shoot down Japan's pacifism, a move that would deviate from Japan's long-held defense-only policy. "A Pre-Emptive Strike would go beyond what current government policy and Article 9 of the Constitution allows," said Takehiko Yamamoto, political science professor at Tokyo's Waseda University. Article 9 renounces the right to go to war and forbids a military, although it is interpreted as permitting forces for only self-defense.

Oct 3, 2004 According to a research report, Japan secretly studied the possibility of Japan going nuclear. The report, dated July 30, 1981, is titled "On nuclear equipment" and was part of a research project on "The future of Japan's defense policy."

It was the 2 Atomic Bombs, "Little Boy" and "Fat Man", had finally stopped Japan's in-human War Crimes.


What if Japan had succeeded in building their A-Bomb first in WWII ? Nobody would ever doubt that the Japanese would have certainly used it 60 years ago.


For nearly 6 decades, historians have been unable to solve one of the mysteries of Japan's WWII WMD Atomic Bomb Project : How close were Japanese scientists to building the Atomic Bomb ?

A long-lost wartime 23 pages document of Imperial army papers returned to Japan in April 2002, finally offer some insight into Japan's WMD Atomic Bomb Project - An Unrealized Nuclear Armageddon in China.

Oct 7, 2004 Despite a statement by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that WMD weapons are unlikely to be found in Iraq. Japan refused to admit that there are no WMD in the war-ravaged Iraq. Even Brithish Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that WMD which is vital to the case for the Iraq war, was wrong. Also, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that he hasn't seen "any strong, hard evidence" to link Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorists who staged the 9/11 attacks.

A new CIA report by US arms inspector of Iraq Survey Group in 1,000 pages concluded U.S. "Almost All Wrong" on Iraq's WMD Weapons. The report forced Bush to recast his rationale for Iraq war. This time, Japan said the U.N. resolutions justify the War.".

After 2 years intensive search with 1,200 experts, U.S. finally quit the WMD search. Unfortunately, the WMD was the main reason for US to "pre-emptive" invade Iraq. End to search for WMD seals doubts about pre-emption.

Apr 1, 2005 "Dead Wrong" on Iraq WMD crippled US credibility A new presidential commission reported "We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq's WMD". It is probably the biggest blunder in the history of US.

Apr 25, 2005 CIA final report: No WMD in Iraq "After more than 18 months, the WMD investigation and debriefing of the WMD-related detainees has been exhausted" Mr Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), wrote in the 92-page addendum.

Oct 16, 2004 Tokyo District Court rejected the lawsuit of compensation 20 million yen each over the Japan's refusal to give unpaid wages to Korean laborers forced to work and died at Japan Iron & Steel Co. (Nippon Steel Corp.) Kamaishi plant in Iwate Prefecture in Japan during WWII. The families had discovered through company documents that a total of about 9,500 yen unpaid wages to the deceased and had been placed in trust. Judge ruled that domestic laws based on a 1965 agreement between Japan and South Korea had terminated the property rights of Korean nationals.

In a separate 1995 lawsuit, families are also seeking damages from Japan and Nippon Steel. The steel giant agreed to an out-of-court settlement and paid roughly 20 million yen as "condolence" money. In 2003, the Court rejected their demand for compensation from Japan government, and they are appealing.

Oct 19, 2004 Japanese politicians including Tsutomu Takebe, newly appointed secretary general of the ruling LDP, and former prime minister Tsutomu Hata of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan and others, altogether 79 Japanese politicians made a pilgrimage to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. For people in Asia, Yasukuni Shrine is a symbol of Japan's brutal militaristic past.

Oct 29, 2004 Since 1999, the playing of the Imperial Japanese notorious militarism anthem Kimigayo (His Majesty's Reign) and the flying of the notorious militarism Hinomaru (Rising Sun) flag, have been compulsory at Japanese school ceremonies, but many teachers refuse to toe the line and filed a lawsuit taking the Tokyo education board to court. Kazuhisa Suzuki, who teaches civics at a high school in Kanagawa Prefecture, said: " It's as though Germany brought back the Nazi swastika and forced teachers to stand for it. If teachers don't fight it, who will ?" Japan’s patriotic revival Last year 243 teachers were punished for not honouring the notorious Militaristic flag and 67 reprimanded for not ordering students to sing the notorious anthem.

Japanese Emperor opposes compulsory flag, anthem in schools

Nov 2, 2004 "I buried poison gas weapons. I received the emergency order from our commander," the 83-year-old former Japanese soldier told the Tokyo High Court. The testimony could overturn the government's contention that the Japan was not involved in the dumping of WMD Chemical Weapons in China. Five Chinese who became ill after digging up ground where chemicals had allegedly been buried, are seeking damages of $750,000. The Tokyo District Court had dismissed the lawsuit in May last year, prompting the plaintiffs to appeal to the high court.

Nov 10, 2004 Iris Chang, author of " Rape of Nanking - The Forgotten Holocaust", a young author, historian, and Human Rights advocates dies at age 36. The news re-minds Japanese unspeakable atrocities :

"An estimated 20,000 - 80,000 Chinese women were raped. Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters and sons their mothers as other family members watched .........."

Nanjing Massacre claims another life.
Sad news stunned the Survivors of Rape of Nanjing.
Granddaughter of Survivors of the Nanjing Massacre
New Interest in Japan's War Atrocities, but Why Now ?

Dec 4, 2004 Japanese media still deny Nanking Massacre "No serious scholar has denied the gist of The Rape of Nanking -- that it was one of the most brutal war crimes in history."

Nov 11, 2004 A popular Japanese comic would self-censor after nationalist anger about its portrayal of Japanese brutality during the Rape of Nanking. Young Jump, halted publication of its long-running story, "The Country Burns", in September after being inundated by phone calls and e-mails objecting to the latest episode. The magazine ran an apology for illustrations showing Japanese soldiers bayoneting helpless captives, assaulting women and beheading civilians in former Chinese capital Nanjing. The publisher also said it would delete 10 pages and amend another 11 when the story is released in book form. There is no precedent for such self-censorship in Japanese comics, which often have graphic war scenes.

Nov 29, 2004 After more than a decade legal process, Japanese Supreme Court refused compensation to 35 kidnapped south korean Slaves and Sex Slaves. Japanese government has refused to pay any compensation saying such claims were settled through postwar peace treaties. In March 2001, the district court said too much time had passed for the redress. It also ruled that international laws banning Sex Slavery don't require restitution.

The suit was originally brought in Dec. 1991 by 3 south Korean Sex Slaves, the first such victims to shed light on their plight after staying silent for decades out of shame.

Nov 30, 2004 Japan's top court denied compensation to abducted Slave fatalities of an explosion on Japanese ship ferrying Korean Slaves home after WWII. It was a sharp reversal to the survivors who filed their case in 1992 and won in a lower court in 2001. The Koreans were angered that Tokyo annually pays compensation to relatives of the 25 Japanese crewmen killed on the ship, but offers no compensation to the hundreds abducted Slaves and Sex Slave victims and their kin.

Nov 30, 2004 Japanese Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama slams textbooks as 'self-torturing' over Japan's war atrocities.

Dec 1, 2004 Women's organisations from Asia, Europe and North America agreed to act together from next year, the 60th anniversary of WWII to made Abducted Sex Slaves By Japan To Become Global Issue In 2005. "We'll launch a million-signature campaign worldwide to demand an apology and compensation from the Japanese government," said Suda Kaori, a Japanese member of the Korea Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sex Slavery by Japan.

Dec 3, 2004 Japanese "War Orphans" sued Japanese government and demand 33 million yen compensation for each of them for being left in China for such a long time and receiving little or no Japanese language education or job search support after they came to Japan. Similar suits have been filed at 12 district courts across Japan, including in Tokyo, Kyoto and Kagoshima.

Dec 6, 2004 Former abducted Sex Slaves from South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines gathered in Tokyo, Kyoto, Fukuoka etc in mass rallies across 10 cities in Japan to demand a formal apology and compensation.

Dec 9, 2004 Nanking Massacre survivor Li Xiuying dies at 86. She was 18 and pregnant, was attacked and slashed 37 times with swords by Japanese tried to rape her. She lost her unborn baby but survived after treatment by an American doctor, Robert Wilson. In 1999, Li sued right-wing Japanese authors who claimed she had faked her accounts and won. The Japanese Supreme Court awarded her 1.5 million yen against author Toshio Matsumura and Tendensha, the publisher that the book "A Big Doubt About the Rape of Nanking" had damaged Li's reputation.

Dec 12, 2004 A day after the pro-U.S. government voted to keep Japanese "Self-Defense Force" in war of Iraq for another year, Japan took another step away from its post-war pacifism on by ending its decades-old ban on military exports.

Dec 12, 2004 In a written statement, Juanita Cruz, a native of the Mariana Islands witnessed Japanese atrocities in Guam. Vividly told of how she at 8, was unable to help her mother while she was repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers, and how she at 10, watched her 5 years old young brother die as a Japanese soldier cut his tongue off. All around her, people were being beaten, beheaded or gunned down with machine guns, she said at a forum in Tokyo.

Dec 15, 2004 Four former abducted Chinese Sex Slaves lost appeal in Tokyo High Court.

Dec 20, 2004 Shiro Takahashi, editor of history textbook which whitewashes Japan's war crime atrocities has been appointed to the local school board.


43 posted on 2005/11/14 15:03:16 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]
60th Year of Soul Searching

Jan 4, 2005 Filmmaker T.F. Mou (sometimes referred to as T.F. Mous) is probably best known as the director of the Man Behind the Sun (also called Black Sun 731). He followed up with another travelogue of Japanese war atrocities film: Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre.

Jan 12, 2005 Japan top politician pressured NHK to alter television program on a mock trial on abducted Sex Slaves before it was aired. The trial ruled late Emperor Hirohito and others "guilty", but this part was deleted.

In July 2001 the citizens group that sponsored the mock trial sued NHK and the two companies that made the program. The court ordered the firm that made the program to pay the citizens group 1 million yen in compensation, but both rejected the ruling and filed appeals in the Tokyo High Court.

Japanese minister Shoichi Nakagawa and former Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe both denied pressuring NHK to edit abducted Sex Slave program.

Jan 13 2005 The first real-name military record of a surviving abducted Sex Slave has been discovered. It is an important piece of evidence in refuting Japanese denials.

Jan 14, 2005 Harry, son of Britain's Prince Charles and 3rd in line to the throne, drew a storm of world wide protest by wearing costume with a Nazi Swastika armband to a birthday party. Prince has ordered his son to visit Auschwitz concentration camp. Harry said he was sorry, "It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize".

German government has made displaying the Swastika and other Nazi symbols illegal in Germany. Germany would have tried Prince Harry for Nazi prank. Now, German politicians have called for Nazi symbols to be banned throughout Europe.

For comparison :

Since 1999, the playing of the Imperial Japanese notorious militarism anthem Kimigayo (His Majesty's Reign) and the flying of the notorious militarism Hinomaru (Rising Sun) flag, have been compulsory at Japanese school ceremonies, but many teachers refuse to toe the line and filed a lawsuit taking the Tokyo education board to court. Kazuhisa Suzuki, who teaches civics at a high school in Kanagawa Prefecture, said: " It's as though Germany brought back the Nazi Swastika and forced teachers to stand for it. If teachers don't fight it, who will ? " Japan’s patriotic revival. Last year 243 teachers were punished for not honouring the notorious Militaristic flag and 67 reprimanded for not ordering students to sing the notorious anthem. You cannot force them to sing it in Japan, or to listen in London.

In ironically speechless vivid contrast, U.S., Britain and other countries remain thundering SILENT.


Jan 19, 2005 In a rare ruling, Japanese Hiroshima High Court ordered Japanese government to pay compensation to 40 kidnapped Korean Slaves , 1.2 million yen ($11,740) each.

Tens of thousands of kidnapped Koreans and Chinese were brought to Japan to work in factories and mines as forced Slaves to keep Japan's war machine going. Dozens of compensation suits have been filed, but almost all have been rejected by Japanese courts. Japan has insisted that compensation issues were settled by diplomatic ties in 1965.

Jan 20, 2005 Weekly Protest Rally in front of Japanese Embassy by former abducted Korean Sex Slaves in Seoul. The latest one was their 641 rally.

Jan 21, 2005 UN General Assembly held a special session marking 60th anniversary of liberation of Holocaust Nazi death camps for First Time. Kofi Annan said, "It is essential for all of us to remember, reflect on, and learn from what happened 60 years ago......".

"I express my shame over those who were murdered, and before those of you who have survived the hell of the concentration camps," said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, "The vast majority of Germans alive today are NOT to blame for the Holocaust, but they DO bear a "Special Responsibility".

Jan 24, 2005 Japan to end private AWF for Sex Slaves. Most victims strongly opposed the "Asian Women Fund" because the private fund covers up Japan's war crimes and refused it saying, "We want no charity, but dignity".

Research has shown that the previous estimated 200,000 by U.N. did not take into account of China, because China came into the research picture much later than its Asian neighbors. In Shanghai alone, the Japanese military set up 90 sex stations, each had about 500 women. The actual number of Sex Slaves should be closer to 400,000. Only 10% lived through the ordeal and just about 500 are believed alive today. They were forced to serve up to 40 men a day.

No one knows the true figure. Many have concealed their past, considering it too shameful.

Jan 27, 2005 German Chancellor paid tribute at the entrance to Auschwitz and promised that Germany will fulfill its "Moral Obligation" to keep alive the memory of Nazi's crimes.

Jan 28, 2005 Japanese court refused to award damages over PM's shrine visits to relatives of Okinawa people killed in Battle of Okinawa who said they suffered distress from Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine. More than 140,000 Okinawan men, women and children, about 1/3 of the population of island were killed, including many forced to commit Mass Suicide by Japanese soldiers. Many Okinawans see themselves as much victims of Japan as of the U.S.

Fukuoka district court ruled that Koizumi shrine visits violated Constitution.

Feb 5, 2005 Proposals for the U.N. by East Asian NGOs say Article 9 has contained militarism in Japan and is key to maintaining peace in the region.

Feb 20, 2005 China-Japan tension grows because of competition for resources and old resentments, especially the latest conflict of 5 uninhabited isles, known by Chinese as Diaoyutai and Japanese as Senkaku Islands near a continental shelf containing natural gas.

Feb 23, 2005 China's oldest abducted Sex Slave died at age 94. Only about 60 former abducted Sex Slaves are known of in China; most have never come forward because of shame. But in Shanghai alone, Japanese set up at least 83 brothels.

Feb 25, 2005 Japanese court rejected lawsuit by abducted S.Korean Slaves worked at a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. munitions factory.

Feb 25, 2005 S.Korea urges Japan to be 'candid about the past'

Feb 26, 2005 Japan, Philippines secretly agreed on postwar compensation in 1955 to a total amount of $800 million.

Feb 26, 2005 Only 7 of 9 elderly abducted Sex Slaves lived long enough to hear Japanese Supreme Court deny their claims.

Mar 1, 2005 S.Korean urges Japan to compensate for past. S.Korea said if Japan is angered by North Korea's kidnapping of its citizens, it should also provide compensation for thousands of kidnapped Koreans who were forced into Slavery and Sex Slaves.

In Jan. S.Korea declassified documents revealing that S.Korea's past military government agreed to accept a US$800 million economic package as reparations from Japan when established ties in 1965. The revelation triggered an uproar. Critics accused Japan of abusing S.Korea's poverty to settle the issue in its favor. They also charged that their own government sought quick economic aid in exchange for national pride. Calls are growing for nullifying the normalization pact and re-negotiate terms of compensation.

Mar 4, 2005 Family members of Japanese, S.Koreans and Taiwanese war dead demanded Junichiro Koizumi stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine. About 10 members also submitted a letter to Yasukuni Shinto Shrine requesting that it stop enshrining their relatives. Nearly 21,000 war dead from Korea and 28,000 from Taiwan, most of them forced into war service under Japan's colonial rule, are enshrined at Yasukuni without their families' permission.

Mar 7, 2005 Honorable Judge Yosh Yamanaka speaks against Japan to have a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council in the International Petition to U.N. Campaign by joined organizations in Japan, Korea, China, Philippine, US and Netherlands to collect 1,000,000 signatures to U.N. to reject Japan.

Mar 11, 2005 Germany passed a bill to restrict rallies by neo-Nazis. The bill will also allow courts to impose sentences of as much as 3 years in prison or a fine on anyone found guilty of approving, glorifying or justifying the Nazi regime in public.

Mar 11, 2005 Sex Slaves demand compensation and apology from Japan through U.N. Women’s groups in 10 countries willl launch a petition drive. “We want to collect one million signatures in Taiwan, China, Japan, North and South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Netherlands and East Timor,” Lai Cai-er, spokeswoman for the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation, "We do this because the Japanese government is waiting for the surviving Sex Slaves to die." Aged 80-year-old Chinese Sex Slave went to Japan to serve as witness in a Tokyo court.

Mar 11, 2005 2005 revised edition of Japanese History textbook distorts even more than the 2001 Edition: denies Japanese forced Koreans to adopt Japanese names during the colonial period; excises all mention of Sex Slaves, portraying Japan as more victim than aggressor; claims Japan had "no choice" but to occupy the Korea;

2005 New Japanese History textbook questions Nanjing Massacre and says China provoked war : downplaying "21 Humiliating Demands".

Although still suffering as a Western colonial victim, during W.W.I, China sent 100,000 laborers to help the allies in France; about 2,500 died. At end of W.W.I at the peace conference in Paris, China requested: do away with the privileges of imperialist foreign countries in China, cancel the Japanese "21 Humiliating Demands", take back the privileges in Shandong that Japan had taken from Germany.

However, not willing to give up their forced colonial privileges, U.S., Britain and France rejected China's demands. Instead, Article 156 of Treaty of Versailles transferred German concessions in Shandong, China to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China.

China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, compounded with the Japanese 21 Humiliating Demands led directly to the first mass movement in modern Chinese history, i.e. the famous First Chinese student movement : May 4th Movement in 1919 and triggered a nationwide Boycott of Japanese Goods. The movement also ignited a wave of searching efforts by the intellectuals for a solution to save China from foreign colonial powers. Some advocated gradual cultural reform, while others introduced Marxism and led to the birth of the Communist Party.

Mar 16, 2005 German foreign minister calls Jerusalem's new Holocaust memorial a place of "deep shame" for every German because "the name of my country, Germany, is and will forever be inseparably linked to the Shoah, the ultimate crime against Humanity."

Mar 19, 2005 Japanese high court rejects Chinese Sex Slave suit for apology and compensation. They were taken at age 13 and 15. Judge said their right "has been disclaimed and expiated with the signing of the Treaty of Peace Between Japan and China" and the statute of limitations under the Civil Code, which gives claimants 20 years from the incident to file for damages, had elapsed.

Mar 24, 2005 S.Korea is ready for "Diplomatic War" with Japan, President Roh said, as tensions flared over a territorial row and a Japanese Textbook critics say whitewashes Japan’s Militarism. "These actions are not just undertaken by a single local government or some thoughtless extreme nationalists, but they are done under the abetting of the Japanese leadership and the central government," Roh calls for an apology over colonial rule. S.Korean protestors burned Japanese flags, cut their little fingers and one man torched himself outside Japanese embassy and Wired citizens wage "War"

Mar 27, 2005 Japanese notorious Militaristic national anthem and flag, only gazetted as national symbols in 1999, remain as symbols of Japan's Imperialistic past. Many teachers refused to follow. Last year 243 teachers were punished for not honouring the notorious Militaristic flag and 67 others reprimanded for not ordering students to sing the notorious Militaristic anthem. You cannot force them to sing it in Japan, or to listen in London.

Kazuhisa Suzuki, who teaches civics at a high school in Kanagawa Prefecture, said: " It's as though Germany brought back the Nazi Swastika and forced teachers to stand for it. If teachers don't fight it, who will ? " Japan’s patriotic revival.

In vivid contrast, German government has made displaying the Swastika and other Nazi symbols illegal in Germany. Germany would have tried Prince Harry for Nazi prank. Now, German politicians have called for Nazi symbols to be banned throughout Europe.

Mar 30, 2005 A group of Chinese and S.Koreans sue over Japan textbook that whitewashes Japan's war crimes.

Mar 31, 2005 Tokyo High Court rejected compensation to abducted Chinese Sex Slaves.

Mar 31, 2005 52 Japanese teachers punished for refusing to sing "Kimigayo" notorious Militaristic national anthem. Last year 243 teachers were punished for not honouring the notorious Militaristic flag and 67 others reprimanded for not ordering students to sing the notorious anthem.

Apr 1, 2005 22 Millions signed the Petition to U.N. to reject Japan.

Apr 1, 2005 S.Korea has vowed to block Japan UN bid

Arp 4, 2005 Chinese protest at Japan UN bid turns violent In Shenzhen, more than 3,000 protestors took to streets. "Down with the Japanese empire" they shouted. In Chengdu, 10,000 protestors surrounded a Japanese department store and began smashing its windows.

The China Chain Store & Franchise Association urged members to Boycott Japanese Goods.

Apr 5, 2005 Japan History Textbook anger E Asia

Apr 5, 2005 Japan holds tight grip on Textbook on Iraq War

Apr 5, 2005 15 Japanese civic groups issued a statement, " The 'dangerous' contents filling the Textbook as a whole have not changed in any essential way. There are even parts that have been revised for the worse.", down playing Nanjing Massacre, ignoring Sex Slaves, depicting Japan as aimed at liberating other Asian countries".

Apr 9, 2005 S.Korea said, "It's unfortunate for the entire world that we have to exist with a people who honor their past of invasion and harm ..... Japan's attitude does not fit with the universal values that must be sought by human society." Roh said.

Apr 11, 2005 The most contentious history text removes all references to the comfort women and suggests that Korea and China invited or benefited from the Japanese occupation. Just one new history textbook out of 8 mentions the comfort women this year, down from 7 in the mid-1990s, and references to other war crimes have been toned down or dropped. Japanese government Liberal Democrats, well over 100 of whom - including Education Minister, Nariaki Nakayama - publicly back the historical revisionist movement in schools. Under Mr Koizumi's government, hundreds of teachers have been punished for refusing to stand for the notorious Militaristic national anthem.

Apr 11, 2005 Germany led a commemoration of 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazis' Buchenwald Death Camp. "We cannot change History, but this country can learn a lot from the deepest shame of our History," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder urged the world never to forget the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis, "I bow before you, the victims and their families."

Apr 12, 2005 U.S. has of late been remarkably SILENT about Japan's ethical lapses, current and historical.

Apr 14, 2005 "All history textbooks are shifting their focus away from Japan's wartime atrocities" said Mikio Someya of Japan Teachers' Association, the leading teachers' union in Japan.

Apr 15, 2005 Schröder: Japan Can Learn From Germany saying postwar Berlin had won the respect of its neighbors in how it contended with its Nazi past.

Apr 16, 2005 Japan's largest national newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun called on readers to celebrate new Textbooks of cutting out all mentions about the Sex Slaves. "No matter how young or old, none of the women we rounded up could escape being raped..... Afterwards "we always stabbed them and killed them. Because dead bodies don't talk." Yasukuni Museum display shows Japan as victim of a conspiracy by Western colonial powers and Japan was forced into war in self-defence to bring peace to Asia.

Apr 18, 2005 East Asians urge Japan to own up to wartime record

Apr 19, 2005 Tokyo high court denies compensation to Chinese victims over war atrocities. The Court upheld a 1999 lower court ruling that international law barred foreign citizens from seeking compensation from the Japanese government and the statute of limitations had expired and it was too late to seek damages. The 10 plaintiffs demanded compensation caused by biological experiments, the Rape of Nanjing and the Firebombing of Yong'an city in Fujian province. In 11 raids from 1938 to 1943, Japan dropped firebombs killing and injuring more than 10,000 inhabitants in Yong'an city.

Yoshio Shinozuka, a courageous and conscious former member of unit 731 who testified on behalf of victims said, "I don't know how to apologize. Today, I've never felt so ashamed to be Japanese."

Apr 19, 2005 China has offered to repair Japan's Beijing embassy damaged in protests. Local authorities in Shanghai have expressed readiness to pay damages to Japanese restaurants.

Pointing to the Nazi Concentration Camp of Auschwitz in Poland and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan as precedents for UNESCO protection of war ruins, China would seek UNESCO World Heritage protection for the ruins of a Japanese WMD Biological Warfare center of Unit 731 in Harbin, including its laboratories, prisons and crematoria used for experiments on humans to develop WMD weapons.

Japan's government officially neither denies nor recognizes any activities of Unit 731, even though Japanese Court has recognized for the first time in 2002 that Japan had conducted Biological Warfare in China during WWII.

Apr 20, 2005 Japan Prime Minister Koizumi said he doesn't think his visits to Yasukuni Shrine hurt feelings of Chinese people and Japanese lawmakers plan to visit War Shrine

Apr 20, 2005 Nanjing Massacre: The deepest of wounds United Human Rights Council called it "The single worst atrocity during the WWII era in either the European or Pacific theatres of War".

Apr 22, 2005 Koizumi has reiterated his personal "deep remorse" over its colonial aggression in Asia at the Asia-Africa summit. His personal apology was NOT endorsed by Japanese Parliament, only based on speech made by former PM Tomiichi Murayama in 1995. It was dis-credited immediately by the 80 Japanese members of Parliamnet visited Yasukuni shrine most of them from Koizumi's own LDP party.

However, Koizumi's personal apology were a far cry from what many Asian nations have long clamored for: A strongly worded government official statement of apology that is formally and officially approved by Japanese Parliament as a "True Legal National Apology" using the more sincere Japanese word " shazai ", NOT the less sincere word "owabi".


Japanese former PM Murayama had tried very hard for the official apology, but failed miserably to achieve it in the " No War Resolution" for the 50th anniversary of U.N. and End the War in 1995. That is exactly why Murayama's Personal Apology in 1995 repeatedly used the words "I", "me", and "my".

That is exactly why Japan has been apologizing for several decades but NO one believes that Japan is sincere.

Shinichi Arai, professor emeritus at Surugadai University, said: "Mr. Koizumi is bringing out An OLD Apology that has been repeated many times over the past 10 years ..... The problem is that only the words were repeated, but Japan has never done anything to prove it really regretted its past."

Apr 23, 2005 Japan's failure to own up to its past threatens its future

Apr 23, 2005 Mr Koizumi's education minister, Nariaki Nakayama and his deputy secretary general, Shinzo Abe are among more than 100 LDP supporters of the neo-nationalist group that wrote the disputed Textbooks.

Apr 26, 2005 German expert: Japan needs to launch debate on History Eberhard Sandschneider, Director of the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations, said that there should be an open and self-critical debate within Japan.

Apr 26, 2005 Tokyo District Court rejected a damages suit over PM Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine. All courts, in Chiba, Osaka, Matsuyama, Fukuoka, Naha and Tokyo, rejected similar damage suits without issuing a constitutional judgment. Only the Fukuoka court ruled in Apr. 2004 that Koizumi's Yasukuni visit violated the Constitution of separation of state and religion.

Apr 26, 2005 Malaysian lawmakers demand apology from Japan over war crimes.

Apr 26, 2005 China detains 42 for anti-Japanese protests

Apr 28, 2005 Former Japan PM denies 'Gentlemen's Agreement' with China over war shrine.

May 3, 2005 Beijing finds anti-Japan protest a 2-edged sword

May 3, 2005 Japanese PM Koizumi apologized for sufferings inflicted on estimated 14,000 Dutch Pows held by the Imperial Japanese Army in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. The Honorary Debts Foundation received more than 80,000 claims. It has sent 125 petitions detailing requests to the Japanese government. In a letter to the UN, the foundation also expressed its opposition to Japan's bid to be a permanent member of UN Security Council.

May 3, 2005 Members of the Korean Community held a anti-Japanese protest outside consulate in Sydney.

May 4, 2005 Although still suffering as a Western colonial victim, during W.W.I, China sent 100,000 laborers to help the allies in France; about 2,500 died. At end of W.W.I at the peace conference in Paris, China requested: do away with the privileges of imperialist foreign countries in China, cancel the Japanese "21 Humiliating Demands", take back the privileges in Shandong that Japan had taken from Germany. However, not willing to give up their forced colonial privileges, U.S., Britain and France rejected China's demands.

Instead in 1919, Japan had the treaty with the allies ensuring a claim on a chunk of eastern China around Shandong. China refused to sign Versailles Treaty, triggered the famous May 4 Movement and the first organized Boycott of Japanese Goods. A major opposition movement arose - the first real questioning of Western and Japanese treatment of the Chinese. A national identity began to emerge from the May 4 Movement.

May 4, 2005 Should history textbooks make you love your country? Most people would say "yes." And that's why textbooks inevitably distort the past - even here, in the good old USA.

May 4, 2005 China walks nationalist tightrope The demonstrations in 1919, when students marched through Beijing to protest against colonial Japan and other foreign powers, marked the birth of China's first mass movement : May 4 Movement. The nationalistic, patriotic gathering was joined by workers and intellectuals, and eventually led to the birth of the Communist Party.

Chinese police head off May 4 anti-Japan protests

May 5, 2005 Denmark apologizes for WWII 'mistakes'. Danish prime minister said, "An apology cannot change history. But it can contribute to recognize mistakes made in history and hopefully help future generations to avoid similar mistakes in the future."

May 9, 2005 Speaking to a special joint sitting of parliament marking the 60 anniversary of the end of the war, German Mr Köhler said: "We have the Responsibility to keep alive the memories of all the suffering .... We Germans look back with horror and shame ..... "

May 10, 2005 China to mark war's end; activists seek memorial day The announcement breaks from China's usual stance of avoiding war memorial events to keep peace with Japan. Every year since 2001, activists in Beijing have urged China's top legislature, to approve a memorial day, but their suggestions have never been approved.

May 10, 2005 Germany opens new Holocaust memorial marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the war. " Today we open a memorial that recalls Nazi Germany's worst, most terrible crime ...." said parliamentary president Wolfgang Thierse. He added Germany now "faces up to its history".

May 10, 2005 Chinese historians have called for more awareness of China's "indispensable contribution" to the Allied victory in WWII. History of WWII would have been completely different without China's 14 years WWII with brutal Japan.

Chinese army pinned down Japanese in Asia, and saved valuable time for allied forces in Europe that helped prevent a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union and the possible convergence of the two strongest fascist countries in the East.

"That is the main reason why Japan did NOT respond the demands of Germany to attack the Soviet Union or invade British troops in Southeast Asia,"

Without Chinese resistance, it would have been almost impossible to implement the 'Europe First' strategy."

May 11, 2005 Authors defend controversial Japan textbook

May 12, 2005 However, attending the 60th anniversary of End of War in stark contrast to an earnest apology by German leader Gerhard Schroeder, at a press conference in Moscow, Koizumi said : Japan has done enough "Self-Examination".

May 13, 2005 Japan approved controversial national holiday to honor Wartime Emperor Hirohito to glorify its brutal militaristic past, a bill that would make Hirohito's birthday on April 29 a national holiday called Showa Day. A similar bill was twice scrapped under political pressure and criticism.


It is a speechless irony to the whole Asia : the name of Hirohito's reign " Showa " , is originated from " Shu Jing " , A Chinese Classic , which means "Enlightened Peace".


May 13 2005 Tokyo High Court acknowledged a 1932 Massacre in China's Liaoning Province but rejected any compensation for the 3 survivors.

May 15, 2005 Japan plans to build about a dozen new factories in China to dispose WMD Chemical Weapons abandoned in WWII. About 700,000 - 2,000,000 WMD abandoned in China. So far, only 37,000 of them have been dug up and treated. In 2004, 2 children were injured by Japanese WMD Chemical Weapon leaking mustard gas in a river. A similar leak in Heilongjiang province, the WMD killed one person and injured 42 in 2003. China say the abandoned WMD Chemical Weapons have killed at least 2,000 Chinese since 1945 end of war.

May 16, 2005 A fact-finding group has identified 406 Japanese companies brought Koreans to Japan as Slave laborers.

May 17, 2005 Japanese PM Koizumi rejects criticism of war shrine visits.

May 19, 2005 Singapore joins chorus against shrine visit

May 21, 2005 Disney here has rightist-yakuza links

May 24, 2005 S.Korea : Japan should follow Germany’s lead on History.

May 26, 2005 Senior Japanese lawmaker : No need to apologize for war Crimes and said "war criminals" was just a label imposed by the victors and are no longer regarded as criminals in Japan. China rips official's war-criminal remarks.

June 1, 2005 8 former Japanese PM against Koizumi's shrine visit. However, Koizumi will keep visiting the war shrine, his aide says.

June 3, 2005 Yasuhiro Nakasone, former Japanese PM whose own shrine visit in 1985 sparked huge Chinese protests, urged Koizumi: Don't repeat shrine mistake.

June 3, 2005 In Japanese Parliament, Shii read out a Yasukuni brochure that argued Japan's wars of aggression were an effort to free Asia from European colonialism. The writings also alleged that U.S. forced Japan to attack U.S. in 1941. Questioned in Parliament about his shrine visits, Koizumi was typically defiant. The shrine is similarly unrepentant. Yasukuni's guardians recently invited the public to compose a song that both praises Japan and burnishes its image overseas.

June 4, 2005 In a written statement, officials from Yasukuni Shrine have said the Shrine will not remove the 14 Class-A War Criminals, because the outcome of the Tokyo war crimes tribunal that convicted them remains controversial. It also said the Diet unanimously adopted a resolution in 1953 denying the existence of "War Criminals" in Japan in connection with WWII.

Jun 5 2005 Top Japanese newspapers suggest building non-religious war memorial to solve Yasukuni problem

Jun 5 2005 Israel, Germany celebrate 40 year ties Forged in the aftermath of Holocaust, Germany is Israel's closest partner and supporter in Europe, second only to U.S. in terms of economic and political ties.

Jun 5, 2005 Germany offers Japan clues on postwar Harmony.

Jun 6, 2005 Japan to spend US$1.9 billion to build a factory in China to dispose its WMD Chemical Weapons abandoned in WWII. About 700,000 - 2,000,000 WMD abandoned by Japan. Under a 1997 international convention, Japan is obliged to clean them up by 2007. So far, only 37,000 of them have been dug up and treated. In 2004, 2 children were injured by Japanese WMD Chemical Weapon leaking mustard gas in a river. A similar leak in Heilongjiang province, the WMD killed one person and injured 42 in 2003. China say the abandoned WMD Chemical Weapons have killed at least 2,000 Chinese since 1945 end of war.

Jun 6, 2005 Japanese Foreign Minister has called China's criticism of shrine visits "absurd" and defended the controversial history textbook.

Jun 7 2005 Japanese Parliament's speaker urges Koizumi not to visit war shrine

Jun 7, 2005 Yuko Tojo, granddaughter of wartime Prime Minister Gen. Hideki Tojo, is now speaking out against the postwar Allied tribunal that convicted him as a Class-A war criminal. She argued that Japan fought the war in self-defense

Jun 8, 2005 A Taiwanese aboriginal lawmaker with 60 aborigines, will travel to Japan to demand the removal of the names of aboriginal war dead from Yasukuni Shrine.

Discounting Yasukuni authorities' earlier statements that they have already become "gods" and nobody has the right to decide their fate, Kao Chin said that the Kaosha warriors are not Japanese and their "confined Souls should be released and allowed to return to their home in Taiwan. "Shackling of the warriors' Souls" in Japan is the "saddest event in the history of Taiwan's aboriginal people," She said her people will travel to Japan one group after another in a bid to "release" their ancestors' Souls in their own way.

The group will also demand an open apology from the Japanese Government for atrocities committed in Taiwan. Documentaries showing how Taiwan's aborigines were slaughtered or tortured by the Japanese were shown at the press conference.

Jun 9, 2005 Joint History report shows huge gaps between Japan and S.Korea

Jun 10, 2005 Chinese-Americans join push for war redress from Japan

Jun 10, 2005 Families of Japan's war dead ask PM to reconsider visits to shrine

Jun 13, 2005 About 28,000 Taiwanese war dead are enshrined at Yasukuni under Japanese names they were forced to assume. The Taiwanese arrived in Tokyo said they want their relatives' names removed from memorial plaques there because it is "morally unpardonable that Murderers and Victims are honored at the SAME place."


Jun 13, 2005 Japan's Minister of Education and Culture, Nariaki Nakayama praised the recent deletion of Sex Slaves from History Textbooks. Then, Japan apologized again for the Sex Slaves.

Jun 14, 2005 Many know the "Schindler's List", the film about a German who personally saved 1,100 Jews. Not widely known, the Chinese Consul Feng-Shan Ho in Vienna defied his government's policy and issued 20,000 visas that let European Jews into China from 1938 to 1940, Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany to China, a seemingly unlikely haven then under Japanese occupation. "China was the only country that would accept us," said Rita Atterman Feder.

Jun 19, 2005 The Ghost Of Mr. Tojo Opposition is growing to Koizumi's Yasukuni visits.

Jun 20, 2005 Okinawa Suicides and Japan's Army: Burying the Truth?

Jun 20, 2005 S.Korea, Japan remain at odds on History

Jun 23, 2005 Tokyo High Court overturned a lower court ruling awarding government compensation to a Chinese Slave. The original July 2001 ruling said Japan had a responsibility after its defeat to protect people forcibly taken to Japan. Liu, who first sued the Japanese government for compensation in 1996, died in 2000, and his son took over the suit.

Jun 27, 2005 Korean on Saipan seeks Japan's apology ahead of imperial visit and hope Emperor Akihito will visit Korean Peace Memorial next to the monument, built in memory of estimated up to 10,000 Koreans who died in the Battle of Saipan. Lu Yunfei said, "If he goes there and pays respects to Japanese and other victims who were sacrificed, he should make a distinction between the murderers and the victims." Japanese Emperor made a surprise visit to Korean memorial

Jun 27 2005 Another 3 Chinese injured by Japanese WMD Chemical Weapons.

Jun 29, 2005 US court rejected a damages lawsuit against Japan filed by 15 Asian Sex Slaves.

Jun 30, 2005 "The Phantom Unit 731" directed by TV producer Haruko Yoshinaga, documents Japan's WMD Biological experiments in China.

Jun 30, 2005 U.N. received petition to block Japan's Security Council bid with more than 41 million signatures seeking wartime redress from Japan.

Jun 30, 2005 Chinese survivors of Hanaoka Slave Incident mark anniversary. On June 30, 1945, Chinese Slaves near a copper mine in Odate, Akita Prefecture, Japan staged an uprising. More than 400 Chinese Slaves killed. Liu said, "We will continue to pursue a resolution to the crimes committed by Japanese militarism, no matter how long it will take."

Jul 3, 2005 No apology, no forgiveness.

Jul 10, 2005 Evidence of vast plant that Japan used PoWs as human guinea pigs in WMD Chemical and Biological Warfare found in remote grasslands of Inner Mongolia, China. "It covers an area of 40 square miles. It may be the largest and best-preserved gas experiment site in the world ..... Japan conducted WMD Chemical and WMD Germ Warfare in 2/3 of the country, but especially in the north, north-east and south of China," said Mr Jin Chengmin. "It should be qualified for World Heritage status. The ruins serve as a permanent reminder of the atrocities Japanese troops committed in China."

Jul 11, 2005 Chinese Americans lead effort to put pressure on Japan. Poland Hung said. "If we ignore and deny history, how can we promote peace ? ".

Jul 12, 2005 Japanese Education Minister: "Comfort Women" have no place in Textbooks.

Jul 12, 2005 German Government has bought a former labor camp near Berlin to open a Memorial to commemorate German Slave laborers in 2006.

Jul 13, 2005 Dispute: Rock or Island ?

Jul 14, 2005 The kamikaze and the communist: WWII survivors embody conflict that still haunts Japan. Japan was trying to rid Asia of Western colonialism. Japan wasn't invading Asia, Japan was liberating it. And, in the end, Japan had no choice but to fight or die. "I still believe that today," Toshio Yoshitake said.

Jul 14, 2005 Japan's High Court upheld a lower court verdict, which ordered Japanese government to compensate 9 Slave miners a total of 82 million yen ($732,000).

Jul 16, 2005 Female activists in Japan will open a Women's Active Museum on War and Peace to display Sex Slave's material in Tokyo.

Jul 18, 2005 Chinese Forced Labor, Japanese Government and Prospects for Redress.

Jul 19, 2005 Japan court rejects WMD Germ Warfare compensation. Upholding a previous ruling, however, the Tokyo High Court backed a lower court's landmark 2002 declaration that Japan had carried out WMD Biological Warfare, something the Japanese government has never officially acknowledged. But rejected demands by 180 Chinese for compensation and apology.

"It's a not a verdict you could reach if you were human," Yoshio Shinozuka, who has spoken of his involvement in WMD Germ Warfare, said, The judge was just making excuses for the Japanese government." And China demands Japan take responsibility for WMD Germ Warfare. They filed the appeal with the Supreme Court.

Jul 22, 2005 Japan finds itself staring at the Past as it looks into the Future.

Jul 23, 2005 Yasukuni: What draws Koizumi to the shrine ?.

Jul 24, 2005 "Seidan" means "Imperial decision" a mixed documentary footage and dramatic reconstruction to explain: Was the Emperor willing to sacrifice himself completely -- not only his throne but his life -- for the sake of his people ? Or did he give up reluctantly and only after he believed he would be spared ? What "Seidan" shows is that, though the emperor finally ended the madness with his "divine decision" he could have cut the nation's losses much earlier. "Seidan" still makes the Japanese people out to be victims, but in this case they are victims of their own leaders, and the emperor.

Jul 25, 2005 The "Chinese Schindlers". And The Angel of Austria's Jews.

Jul 28, 2005 Tojo's granddaughter says Japan war PM no criminal.

Jul 28, 2005 Tokyo school board adopts disputed History Textbook.

Jul 28, 2005 Tokyo shrine raises hackles. Minoru Morita, a Tokyo-based political analyst said, "These days we very often hear more experts say publicly that the U.S. wants such adversary relationship between China and Japan and that's why they remain SILENT."

Jul 30, 2005 Fund set up to help victims seek compensation from Japan. Takahashi Tohru, Japanese lawyer and head of the Japanese lawyer team for helping Chinese said one of the major difficulties was the lack of money to collect evidence and lawyers have no money to conduct their field studies.

Jul 31, 2005 Who should be blamed for Japan's WWII Militarism. Among experts, a loose consensus has emerged: not only the military was to blame but everybody in the era: politicians, bureaucrats, teachers, the media, the public as a whole and erstwhile demigod Emperor Hirohito.

Aug 2, 2005 Japan law makers adopted a resolution on the 60th anniversary of WWII that states Tokyo regrets the "suffering" it caused in Asia but dropped references to Japan's "colonial rule" and "acts of aggression" included in the resolution that marked the 50th anniversary of the War.

Aug 2, 2005 More than 300 Japanese lawmakers urged Koizumi to visit Yasukuni shrine on the 60th anniversary of WWII.

Aug 2, 2005 NGO in Japan have opened archives on Sex Slaves to protest war crimes against women by Japan.

Aug 3, 2005 "Any colonial government was harsh, but no other imperialist countries but Japan attempted to wipe out the culture and spirit of a whole nation.” said Lee Bae-Yong, a history professor at Korea’s Ehwa University.

Aug 5, 2005 Japanese LDP party executive Shinzo Abe, a popular hawk often cited as a likely successor to Koizumi publicly criticizes the Toyko War Tribunal, "But there is a big problem that they were judged by the victor countries ..... and according to retroactive laws." Abe said.

Aug 5, 2005 Hiroshima Anniversary: Iraq War spurred a new nuclear arms race. Iran, an NPT member insists on its right to pursue nuclear power, has been infuriated by U.S. nuclear co-operation with India, a non-member of the NPT, which blasted its way into the nuclear "club" in tit-for-tat tests with Pakistan in 1998.

Aug 8, 2005 Herbert P.Bix - Showa Scholar Supreme said,"Hirohito was Imperial Japan's hereditary head of state...supreme commander of his forces...a religious leader...nation's chief pedagogue. He lived in a world of high politics. So, naturally, he engaged in politics... Yet, this man never assumed responsibility for what happened to the Japanese and Asian peoples whose lives were destroyed or harmed by his rule... He was more concerned about preserving an empowered monarchy -- with himself on the throne... He never took responsibility for the war that was carried out in his name... Morally, I thought he was a very weak person. He lacked backbone, and I think his reign was a tragedy for the Japanese people... Gen. MacArthur and the Truman administration shielded the Emperor and documents were placed off limits..."

Aug 9, 2005 Lack of war knowledge among Japanese youth appalling

Aug 10, 2005 Women's groups across Asia, Manila, Seoul, Taipei, Tokyo, Osaka and other Japanese cities, urged Japan to apologize and compensate Sex Slaves. "Japan abducted me and forced me to become a Sex Slave," 76-year-old Korean Lee Yong-soo said, "The Japanese government should have come to my home and kneel down to apologize." In Philippine, Julia Poras, was abducted by Japanese at age 13 "Japanese soldiers tied up my hands and feet. I felt like an animal ready to be slaughtered," she said. For 8 months, Japanese lined up in an underground hideout and took turns raping her, Poras said.

Aug 13, 2005 4 former S.Korean Sex Slaves handed over 550,000 signatures petition to Japan demanding apology and compensation. The petition was also submitted to UN.

Aug 14, 2005 For 60 years, Japan still struggles with responsibility and Not all Japanese have learned the lessons of war.

Aug 15, 2005 U.S. provided money, food, gifts, entertainment and other kinds of rewards to the former Unit 731 members, even 2 years after the end of WWII to obtain data on human experiments conducted in China, according to 2 declassified U.S. government documents. The 2 declassified documents were found in the U.S. National Archives by professor Keiichi Tsuneishi at Kanagawa University and an expert on WMD biological and chemical weapons.

Aug 15, 2005 Japan expresses "remorse" over WWII. But in his speech in front of the emperor, Koizumi did not use the word "apology". 2 of his ministers, and more than 47 lawmakers visited Yasukuni shrine. Anti-Japanese protesters turned out in Hong Kong; Seoul, S.Korea; Manila, Philippines; and Taipei, Taiwan.

Aug 15, 2005 Michael Weiner, professor of East Asian history said, "V-J Day is very odd in comparison to V-E Day ....." He and Michael Bernstein, a history professor at UC San Diego agree that V-J Day had deeper implications and less obvious consequences than the defeat of Nazi. "I have been struck by how little people in the US and Europe understand the terrible impact the war had on more than 50 % of world's population." Weiner said.

Aug 18, 2005 "I think there are just as many Japanese Americans puzzled and angry that Japan hasn't come to grips with what happened in WWII," said Don Nakanishi, a Japanese American and director of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA.

Aug 18, 2005 A non-governmental fund, named "History, Human Rights and Peace", was established to help Chinese victims to file lawsuits demanding compensation from Japan and aid research on relevant historical facts. "This is an international fund. We welcome individuals and organizations from various countries, especially Japan, to contribute to the fund," said Wang Xuan, head of the Chinese team of plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Japanese WMD Biological Warfare in WWII.

Aug 19, 2005 In stark contrast with very active Germany's Schroeder participating in June 6th V-60 celebrations in Europe, Japan’s Koizumi was not invited to any of Asian country across the Pacific to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Japan's WWII surrender.

Aug 23, 2005 Tokyo District Court has ruled that the notorious " Bushido - Killing Contest Game " , were not a journalist's fabrication.

Aug 24, 2005 "I can accept the fact that the young generation of Japanese is not to blame. It was their fathers and grandfathers. But until they own up, they'll always be a pariah nation," 84-year-old Baden Jones, a PoW survivor of the notorious Railway of Death, said at the Thailand's Hellfire Pass.

Aug 26, 2006 S.Korean disclosed diplomatic documents exchanged with Japan for the two nations' normalization and declared that Japan is legally responsible for its war crimes. The documents detail negotiations held on compensation for victims, covered the legal status of hundreds of thousands of Koreans living in Japan, and the retrieval of Korean cultural assets taken to Japan during the colonial period.

Sept 3, 2005 In a ceremony commemorating 60th V-J Day, members from 22 countries unveiled a Peace Monument, a wall 60 metres long and 60 steps high, in Beijing Chaoyang Park, funded from private donations worldwide.

Akie Kato, a Japanese represented the Japanese veterans to sign the Beijing Peace Declaration in the ceremony. Her husband was captured by Chinese forces in 1940 and later joined an anti-war alliance organized by Japanese, fighting on the Chinese side in 1945 and even helping the People's Liberation Army in liberating the Northeast. "Peace and justice are what we fought for," she said. "The war caused catastrophe to both the Chinese and Japanese peoples. The value of peace is immeasurable."

Sept 8, 2005 The un-thinkable: A Nuclear-Armed Japan.

Sept 18, 2005 China marks War Anniv. without demonstrations at Japan embassy.

Sept 20, 2005 Japan recovers 281 WMD Chemical Weapons in Yichun city's residential area in China.

Sept 24, 2005 Japan blind to a Dark Past.

Sept 29, 2005 870 remains of kidnapped Korean Slaves found in Japan.

Sept 29, 2005 Tokyo High Court rejected a suit demanding compensation against Koizumi visiting Yasukuni Shrine. The judge also ruled that Koizumi worshipped there privately, and therefore there was no need to decide whether the visit violated the constitution.

Sept 30, 2005 One day after the Tokyo High Court ruled that Koizumi's visits could not be classified as an official visit. The Osaka High Court ruled Koizumi's shrine visits were a religious activity and Un-Constitutional. The court ruled several reasons why Koizumi's shrine visits were official: Koizumi used an official car and was accompanied by his aides; he visited the shrine to carry out a campaign pledge; and the PM did not clarify if his visits were done in a private capacity. The court said the visits "supported and promoted a specific religion."

Oct 7, 2005 Japan to dispose its abandoned WMD Chemical Weapons in China.

Oct 10, 2005 Japan returns looted anti-aggression monument to Korea. The ancient monument built in 1707 records brave stories of Korean victory of anti-Japanese aggression 400 years ago.

Oct 15 2005 China demands Japan to speed up destroying WMD Chemical Weapons

Oct 18, 2005 Asians angered by the 5th visit to Yasukuni Shrine by PM Koizumi.

Oct 18, 2005 About 100 Japanese lawmakers also visited the Shrine, joined by 94 aides representing legislators.

Oct 19, 2005 Taiwan, Japan, S.Korea families protest Yasukuni enshrinements. "Since the Osaka ruling has made it clear the principle of separation of religion and state, his (Koizumi) visit can be seen as cheating. I think victims are exploited, families are used," said Ryuken Sugahara, a Buddhist priest whose father was drafted in 1943 and succumbed to disease in the South Pacific. He urged a joint effort by relatives of the war dead to get the shrine to remove the names of their ancestors.

Oct 19, 2005 Japanese PM's shrine visits reflect importance of educating Westerners about Asia WWII. In April, the Ontario government in Canada agreed to include Asian WWII in curriculums of the province's secondary schools. Documentary: Canadian Surviors of WWII in Asia.

Oct 19, 2005 Pointless Provocation in Tokyo

Oct 23, 2005 Just a few paces from where Japanese PM Koizumi dropped a coin and prayed, is the Yasukuni museum. The museum portrays Japan as both the martyr and savior of Asia to drive "the foreign barbarians", to liberate and protect Asia from Russian Bolshevism and European colonialism. Pearl Harbor was "forced" by "a plot" by President Roosevelt. Japanese-led massacres, Korean comfort women, Chinese sex slaves, or tortured PoWs are not mentioned.

Oct 25, 2005 Korea demands apology over Yasukuni before summit.

Oct 25, 2005 Where Japan is heading.

Oct 28, 2005 In a comprehensive report entitled " Still Waiting After 60 years: Justice for Survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery System", Amnesty International outlines the brutal treatment suffered by "comfort women" and the excuses given by Japan over the years to deny responsibility for their suffering, Amnesty International called on Japan to accept full responsibility for Sexual Crimes.

Japan has argued that Rape was not a war crime until 1949, when it was incorporated into the 4th Geneva Convention. Amnesty International argues in its report, that there is a wealth of evidence that Rape in the context of armed conflict was a crime under customary international law during the entire period in which the Japanese government operated its system of sexual slavery.

Nov 2, 2005 S.Korea upset over Japan foreign minister. Aso said that Japan's colonial policy of forcing Koreans change their names to Japanese names was because Koreans wanted Japanese names.

Nov 3, 2005 2 Koreas celebrate looted monument returned by Japan.

Nov 4, 2005 Ghosts of wartime Japan haunt Koizumi's cabinet.

Nov 6, 2005 Japanese and Korean scholars said 1905 Korea Protectorate Treaty paving way to annexing Korea illegal, and therefore Japan had no right to represent Korea when it signed any further treaties, including the Potsdam Treaty in 1945, which ended the war in the Pacific and divided the Korean Peninsula into North and South.

"The evidence that the treaty was illegally signed and therefore null and void is strong. Ultimately, this is an issue that will likely have to be tried at the International Court of Justice in The Hague," Ryukoku University professor Esturo Totsuka told the symposium.

Nov 6, 2005 Yasukuni Shrine Visits - A sign of Japan's decline ?.

Nov 10, 2005 Japan considers building a secular war memorial to resolve Yasukuni Shrine issue.


44 posted on 2005/11/14 15:04:24 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]
Comparison - Germany vs Japan

Back in Sept 1999, two federal courts in New Jersey ruled in favor of a German company barring claims of a Slave laborer. Nonetheless, Germany and its industry recognized their responsibility and continued to negotiate.


Though the Nazi regime lost the war, German companies profited from Slave labor. German industrial wealth was 17 times larger After the war than in 1939 by using Slave laborers according to economic historian Dietrich Eichholz.

"We were treated worse than Slaves, you try to keep Slaves alive. We were like sandpaper: used, thrown away and burnt with the garbage."


In August 2000, the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future" was created by the German Government and German companies in recognition of Germany's moral responsibility towards those subjected to Slave labour during the WWII. The Foundation was endowed with Slave Funds of $5.11 Billion Euros, provided in equal parts by the German government and about 6,000 companies of German Industry.


In late 2000, an ambitious Japanese Diet proposed a similar fund to compensate Slaves, closely patterned on the German example. Unfortunately, it went nowhere.


There is also a Polish-German Reconciliation Fund for Poles who were used as guinea pigs in pseudomedical experiments by the Nazis.


"I pay tribute to all those who were subjected to slave and forced labor under German rule, and in the name of the German people beg forgiveness," said Johannes Rau, German president in 2000, "We will not forget their suffering."


To date, Over 1.63 Million Slave victims have received compensation from Germany.


Even professed Neutral Nations like Sweden and Switzerland have had the courage to take a painful look back at their WWII record; 1.25 Billion Swiss Banks Settlement signed in 1999 by the Swiss banks.


Can Japan be allowed to do any less ?


David Harris said "Those nations who hide behind the legal technicality will ultimately find that the wall comes tumbling down."


In Germany, it is a crime to utter what is called "the Auschwitz lie" - denial of the death camps.


In schools, Germany has hammered students with anti-Nazi education and the concept of Zivilcourage.


German leaders consistently apologize for their past aggression in the clearest possible terms. Former Chancellor Willy Brandt once even fell to his knees at the site of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on Dec 7, 1970 in Poland in tribute with the utmost sincerity to those who had died there at the Nazi hands.


Germany has also made generous acts of atonement and has paid 88 Billions Mark in compensation and reparations to Jewish Holocaust victims and will spend another 20 Billions Mark by 2005.


In 1963, president Charles de Gaulle of France and chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany signed a historic treaty which reconciled these historic enemies. Without this, it is doubtful whether the European Union (EU) could have been achieved.


On Jan. 21, 1997, a joint reconciliation treaty was signed that Germany apologized for Hitler's invasion of the former Czechoslovakia, and Czech expressed regrets for the postwar expulsion of 2.5 millions of Sudeten Germans.


Germany has also paid pensions to the Jews in Israel and U.S. who were living in Eastern Europe during WWII since 1995, and German-speaking Canadian Jews since 2003.


German has made January 27th a national Holocaust Remembrance Day for the victims of the Holocaust since 1996. The date was chosen to mark Jan. 27th, 1945, the day Soviet soldiers liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp.


On May 10, 2005 Germany opens a new Holocaust memorial south of the landmark Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, marking the 60th anniversary of the end of war. " Today we open a memorial that recalls Nazi Germany's worst, most terrible crime ...." said parliamentary president Wolfgang Thierse. He added Germany now "faces up to its history".


German students are also required to visit former concentration camps as part of their Holocaust studies.

German Government has bought a former labor camp near Berlin to open a memorial to commemorate Slave laborers in 2006.


German government has made displaying the Swastika and other Nazi symbols illegal in Germany. Now German politicians have called for Nazi symbols to be banned throughout Europe.


German government passed a bill to restrict rallies by neo-Nazis and allow courts to impose sentences of as much as 3 years in prison or a fine on anyone found guilty of approving, glorifying or justifying the Nazi regime in public.


German government has even offered its formal apology for the colonial-era massacre of Herero tribe in Namibia happened 100 years ago.


Oliver Raag is one of many Germans doing volunteer work in Israel to atone for the deeds of their parents and grandparents. She is a German geriatric nurse whose grandfather transported disabled Jews and other Germans to a gas chamber. "The more I learned about that period in German history, the more I wanted to come here to show that there are other Germans who are not like the Nazis,"


UN General Assembly held a special session marking 60th anniversary of liberation of Holocaust Nazi death camps for First Time. Kofi Annan said, "It is essential for all of us to remember, reflect on, and learn from what happened 60 years ago......".


"I express my shame over those who were murdered, and before those of you who have survived the hell of the concentration camps," said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, "The vast majority of Germans alive today are NOT to blame for the Holocaust, but they DO bear a "Special Responsibility".


German Chancellor paid tribute at the entrance to Auschwitzand and promised that Germany will fulfill its "Moral Obligation" to keep alive the memory of Nazi's crimes.


Germany led a commemoration of 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazis' Buchenwald Death Camp. "We cannot change History, but this country can learn a lot from the deepest shame of our History," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder urged the world never to forget the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis, "I bow before you, the victims and their families."


On Mar 16, 2005 German Foreign Minister gave a speech for the "Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future" session and calls the Jerusalem's new Holocaust memorial "A place of 'Deep Shame' for every German, because the name of my country, Germany, is and will forever be inseparably linked to the Shoah, the ultimate crime against Humanity."


Speaking to a special joint sitting of parliament marking the 60 anniversary of the end of the war, Mr Köhler said: "We have the Responsibility to keep alive the memories of all the suffering .... We Germans look back with horror and shame ..... "


German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder implied: Japan Can Learn From Germany saying postwar Berlin had won the respect of its neighbors in how it contended with its Nazi past.


However, attending the 60th anniversary of End of War in stark contrast to an earnest apology by German leader Gerhard Schroeder, at a press conference in Moscow, Koizumi said : Japan has done enough "Self-Examination".


In stark contrast with very active Germany's Schroeder participating in June 6th V-60 celebrations in Europe, Japan’s Koizumi was not invited to participate in any of its neighbor’s Asian V-60 celebrations in 2005.


Why Japanese wartime Apologies Fail - A German Perspective.


German expert: Japan needs to launch self-critical debate on History said Eberhard Sandschneider, Director of the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations.


A Close Encounter with Hard Japanese Nationalism.


Japan finds itself staring at the Past as it looks into the Future.


While Japanese Yushukan Museum celebrates the Japanese suicidal fighting spirit, the Potsdam exhibit blames the Wehrmacht, Germany's army for bringing shame to the country.

Germany has chosen to examine their history in microscopic details and admit German culpability for the war. By contrast, Japan has long censored textbooks to conceal Japanese atrocities in China and Korea.


Germany has successfully earned back high respect of the world.


Japan must have the courage to do the same and earn back the respect of the world.


Of all the countries on Earth, Japan is the ONLY nation that used ALL 3 WMD in war, i.e. the WMD Biological Weapons, WMD Chemical Weapons, and the addictive WMD Drug, not to mention Nanjing Massacre, Slave Laborers, Sex Slaves etc ....... utterly ignoring international law and Geneva Protocol. It was a Total War - War Without Mercy Against Humanity.



Japanese invented Games of Rape and Massacre, turned Murder into Sport.



"The manner in which these victims met their death was extremely cruel with atrocities of such great magnitude and diversities, so ghastly that it made Nazi's Auschwitz Gas Chamber appear Humane."



In fact, mass murder was carried out systematically by the Japan long before the first Nazi's Auschwitz Gas Chamber were even built.



In Nanjing Massacre :

"Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs and the roasting of people become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced, such as hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them torn apart by dogs."

"An estimated 20,000 - 80,000 Chinese women were raped. Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched."


" Japanese Devils" by Minoru Matsui, is a documentary interviews film with 14 former Japanese soldiers, comparable to Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah". Matsui specifically requested these Japanese soldiers to only talk about their personally involved facts, not anything anecdotal.


In Sarajevo, Matsui introduced his documentary, "Here in Sarajevo, where the scars of war are still vivid in the city's landscape and the hearts of its citizens, I am filled with a range of emotions difficult to put into words," He added that he "never had the courage to ask my father : What did you do during the War ?."


For almost 3 hours, the elderly Japanese veterans list horror after horror. The Sarajevo technician confessed : "Compared to this film, What happened in Sarajevo was like Disney animation."


Yoshio Tsuchiya explained Japan's policy of "Strict Disposal", better known as "Unprovoked Genocide" , the "Three All Policy : Kill All, Burn All, Loot All" , and the "Compulsory Seizure Campaign", better known as "Laborer Hunting" to kidnap Chinese and exported them to Japan as Slaves.


Yoshio Tsuchiya explained the Strict Disposal (genju shobun), "You see, Strict Disposal meant "kill" It was a synonym for murder. With no trial or anything, just kill any Chinese you want." he added, "We didn't think of 'Chinks' as human, they were subhuman."


Taisuke Funyu said, "I completely lost my humanity, I lost my human conscience. I was just like a fiend. The more I killed, the more I began to enjoy it."


Taisuke Funyu admitted to setting fire to whole villages, and in one instances, burning down a house with an incapacitated mother who had just given birth. He heard her "Death Screams".


Yasuji Kaneko described how he and his comrades surrounded and wiped out an entire village, not because it represented a threat, but because they wanted a thrill.


Yoshio Suzuki told how, finding a mother with her newborn baby, he burned both alive in their hut and listened with satisfaction to the screams.


Another game was to force 2 villagers to have Sex and just as the man was about to climax, a soldier would shoot him dead," said Taisuke Funyu, "In the military, the more crimes you commit, the better your record."


"Once you've killed your 2nd or 3rd, you stop thinking about it," Yasuji Kaneko, describing how he grew numb to slaughter after bayonet drills using live Chinese prisoners. "It was ultimately about competition", "So how many you killed becomes a standard of achievement."


"You stop thinking about it. In my mind I was just killing Chinks..... The more I killed, the more I enjoyed it. In the winter the soldiers would start a roaring bonfire, and warm themselves at it by bringing a baby and throwing it into the fire. We'd all stand around and laugh."


Masayo Enomoto said, "There was a young woman in the village, and I raped her. After I did her, I killed her. It then occurred to me that we had no meat. And I could give the troops this meat. I cut her up, taking the best parts, and fed them to the men. It tasted better than pork."


Masayo Enomoto said, "We came across a village full of women. We stripped them and made them lie down along the side of the road. After we raped them we stuffed petrol-soaked rags inside their vaginas and burned them. It was a message to the enemy, but it was also entertainment for us."


Every year on Aug. 15 at noon, Japan's "Day of Armistice", known as the "Day of Surrender", Japanese government calls for a minute of silence "in memory of the more than 3 million who perished in WWII.", But that figure is only Japanese casualties. The rest of Asia's 30 Millions war death are totally ignored in historical amnesia.


Compared with most Shinto shrines, which were founded hundreds of years ago, the Japanese Yasukuni Shrine was a relatively recent affair. It was built by the Imperial Order of the Meiji Emperor in 1869 for the sole purpose to glorify Japan's imperialism. During WWII, Japanese Militarists took over the shrine. Yasukuni is a military war memorial to glorify its brutal past, anything but a symbol of peace. It grounds in central Tokyo include a museum devoted to glorifying Japanese militarism as a noble cause that tried to liberate Asia.

Ironically, Japanese Emperor Meiji, whose name Meiji originated from "Yi Jing (I Ching) " , A Chinese Classic , also took the name Yasukuni from a phrase in "Chunqiu Zuoshi Zhuan " (Shunju Sashiden) , another Chinese Classic , meaning "Bringing Peace to a Nation."


War / Colonial Brutal Invasion / Enshrined:

Meiji Restoration - 7,751

South-West War - 6,971

War against China - 1874
Taiwan Punitive Expedition
( Taiwan Mudan Invasion ) - 1,130

War against China - 1894
Sino-Japanese War - 13,619

War against China - 1900
Boxer Rebellion - 1,256

War inside China - 1904
Russo-Japanese War - 88,429

21 Demands - 1915
First World War - 4,850

War against China - 1928
Jinan Incident
( 53 Jinan Massacre ) - 185

War against China - 1931
Manchurian Incident
( 918 Invasion ) - 17,176

War against China - 1937
China Incident
( 77 Marco Polo Bridge Full Invasion ) - 191,250

War against China - 1941
Great East Asian War
( Asia Invasion WWII ) - 2,133,915

Total War Dead Enshrined : 2,466,532

Of the 11 wars listed above, most of the Japanese wars were fought to invade and colonize China. The Russian-Japanese War was fought inside China in 1904 to determine who had more "Rights" to colonize China, ended with Treaty of Portsmouth.


Just a few paces from where Japanese PM Koizumi dropped a coin and prayed, is the Yasukuni museum. The museum portrays Japan as both the martyr and savior of Asia to drive "the foreign barbarians", to liberate and protect Asia from Russian Bolshevism and European colonialism. Pearl Harbor was "forced" by "a plot" by President Roosevelt. Japanese-led massacres, Korean comfort women, Chinese sex slaves, or tortured PoWs are not mentioned.


The Yasukuni Museum display shows Japan as a victim of a conspiracy by Western colonial powers and Japan was forced into war in self-defence to bring peace to Asia.

In a Museum film, Pearl Harbor is described as a "battle for Japan's survival," while one exhibit blames the 1937 Nanjing Massacre on the Chinese leaders who fled the city while ordering their men to fight to the death. After the fall of Nanjing to the Japanese, the museum notes, "the Chinese citizens were once again able to live their lives in peace."

The Museum also displays the first engine that travelled the infamous 415 km Railway of Death - Thai-Burma Railway without mentioning the savage death of 16,000 PoWs and 100,000 Asian Slaves, described by Cameron Forbes in his book Hellfire as " built on the Bones of the Dead", i.e. 300 death for each mile.

WWII is called "the Greater East Asian War", invasion of China is described as "China Incident". The Museum displays a reconstructed Zero fighter and the Short Sword used by Gen. Korechika Anami who advocated to continue the War even after the 2 Atomic Bombs.


Okinori Kaya, a Class-A War Criminal for life imprisonment, paroled in 1955, and became Justice Minister. He was instrumental in getting a bill to the Diet that, if passed, would have turned Yasukuni into a national shrine. He kept the bill alive through 5 rejections until finally giving up in 1974. However,



in 1959, Yasukuni Shrine began to enshrine Class-B and Class-C war criminals. It had secretly enshrined 1,068 WWII Criminals including 14 CLASS-A War Criminals in 1978. News of the secret enshrinement caused an uproar when it leaked out 6 months later.



In Seoul, Kim Yun-ok said, "The Japanese soldiers enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine are the very ones who Raped our grandmothers."


More than 86 % of the enshrined Japanese soldiers were from WWII. Private Tadokoro Kozo of the 114th division said in 1971 interview, " There wasn't . ANY . soldier who didn't Rape. After things were done, usually we killed them ..... We didn't want to leave any trouble behind ....."



Nearly 21,000 war dead from Korea and 28,000 from Taiwan, most of them forced into war service under Japan's colonial rule, are enshrined at Yasukuni without their families' permission. The Taiwanese arrived in Tokyo said they want their relatives' names removed from memorial plaques there because it is "morally unpardonable that Murderers and Victims are honored at the SAME place."


In the past 3 years, Taiwanese went to Tokyo 7 times to protest against Yasukuni Shrine, demanding de-enshrinement of their family member of the forcibly conscripted war dead, insisting that "We are not Japanese ! We are the Victims of Japanese war crimes !", but without success in liberating their enslaved ancestral souls.


The "Return the Souls of our Forebears" protest delegation has come to the U.N. and brought with them are 2 old books that record the Japanese army employed the extreme brutal "Three All Policy : Burn All, Loot All, Kill All" in 1913 and 1914 against the Taiwan Aborigines who were resisting the invaders. A Japanese military photographic team followed the fighting, compiled its photographs into these " Pictorial Albums of the Punitive Expedition" and submitted them to the Japanese War Ministry as evidence of the army's "great military achievements".


The 2 albums now serve as undeniable proof of the Japanese army's war crimes. During its invasion and 51-year occupation of Taiwan, Japan killed more than 600,000 Taiwanese people, including large numbers of Aborigines.


For people in Asia, Yasukuni Shrine is a symbol of Japan's brutal militaristic past.


It is also a symbol of Japan's failure as a nation to collectively face its past war responsibilities.


It is not that the Asian do not want to forgive the Japanese. Unfortunately, it is many of the Japanese do not think they need to be forgiven.


Since the war, only Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1985 and Ryutaro Hashimoto in 1996, have made the visit, only once. The torrent of protest was enough to persuade them not to make another. However, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi, drawing sharp criticism from other Asian countries, made his official tribute to the war Yasukuni Shrine the 5th time on Oct. 18, 2005 since he became prime minister.


Under Article 11 of San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japanese government was to "accept the judgements" of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Japanese government officials to a shrine that has deified war criminals violates the spirit of the Peace Treaty.


Japan has not yet signed the convention for the International Criminal Court, which tries War Criminals.


What is wrong about Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine to grieve for those who gave their lives for their country in the past war ? Here is the answer.


First in Feb., Japanese Osaka District Court ruled that the Koizumi's visit was made NOT as a private citizen but in his official capacity.

Then in Apr. 2004, Japanese Fukuoka District Court ruled that Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine has violated Constitution because it violated the separation of state and religion.

Also in Sept 30, 2005 Osaka High Court ruled Koizumi's shrine visits were a religious activity and Un-Constitutional. The Un-Constitutional Ruling stands since the Japanese government cannot appeal to the Supreme Court.


In fact, the question of Constitution was settled in 1991 when Sendai High Court ruled that an official Yasukuni visit by a PM or the Emperor was Un-Constitutional under Article 20 of the national charter.


Koizumi defied logic, insisting that neighboring countries would not be offended by his Un-Constitutional shrine visits.


The visits marked a further step in the resurrection and legitimisation of the symbols of Japan’s Militarism.


Imagine if German government publicly denied Nazi's war crimes and flatly refused to offer true apology and compensation to the victims, then Chancellor of Germany went to a Nazi shrine and paid tribute to Hitler, and Goebbels, and telling the world it's just for peace,


Do you think U.S., Britain and other countries will remain silent ?


Imagine if current German government adopt the Nazi's song and Swastika as their National anthem and flag, and then honor Hitler by making his birthday as a National Holiday,


Do you think U.S., Britain and other countries will remain silent ?


Japan has done exactly that.


Since 1999, the playing of the Imperial Japanese notorious militarism anthem Kimigayo (His Majesty's Reign) and the flying of the notorious militarism Hinomaru (Rising Sun) flag, have been compulsory at Japanese school ceremonies, but many teachers refuse to toe the line and filed a lawsuit taking the Tokyo education board to court. Kazuhisa Suzuki, who teaches civics at a high school in Kanagawa Prefecture, said: " It's as though Germany brought back the Nazi Swastika and forced teachers to stand for it. If teachers don't fight it, who will ? " Japan’s patriotic revival. Last year 243 teachers were punished for not honouring the notorious Militaristic flag and 67 reprimanded for not ordering students to sing the notorious anthem. You cannot force them to sing it in Japan, or to listen in London.


Kimiko Nezu has been punished by frequent transfers and salary cuts. She was transferred 4 times in 5 years, often to schools 2 hours from her home. Nezu is now allowed to teach only when another teacher is present. Officials warned that another offense could lead to her dismissal after 34 years of teaching. Neru, supported by pacifist groups and Teachers Union, has fought back by filing lawsuits against the moves; she has lost one, and at least 4 other cases are pending.

"I feel as if freedom to question authority is being quashed just as it was during the war years," she said "But I will never stand for that song, the same one that played when we were invading Asia. Never."

However, Japanese Emperor opposes compulsory flag, anthem in schools.


U.S., Britain and other countries remain thundering SILENT.


Minoru Morita, a Tokyo-based political analyst said, "These days we very often hear more experts say publicly that the U.S. wants such adversary relationship between China and Japan and that's why they remain SILENT."


Western apathy to Japanese WWII atrocities


In ironically speechless vivid contrast, Harry, son of Britain's Prince Charles and 3rd in line to the throne, drew a storm of world wide protest by wearing costume with a Nazi Swastika armband to a birthday party. Prince has ordered his son to visit Auschwitz concentration camp. Harry said he was sorry, "It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize".

German government has made displaying the Swastika and other Nazi symbols illegal in Germany. Germany would have tried Prince Harry for Nazi prank. Now, German politicians have called for Nazi symbols to be banned throughout Europe.


After the war, under the Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity, U.S. granted immunity to the Emperor Hirohito. But many insist he was intimately involved in the planning and should be ultimately responsible for the Japan's inhuman brutal past. That was why after his death in 1989, his birthday was only marked as an ambiguous holiday called "Greenery Day", an oblique reference to his passion for plants.

The book "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" by Herbert P. Bix, a historian who teaches at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, reveals information on the degree to which the U.S. government systematically deceived the whole world. Evidences show that senior aides to Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Japanese court officials schemed to fix testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials so as not to implicate Hirohito.

Using official records that will be difficult for the Emperor's apologists to refute, Bix shows Hirohito as commander in chief of the Imperial military, was deeply involved in the day to day management of Japan's military aggression and knew all the war crimes in China, and involved deeply in early strategic decisions as Japan's army marched through China, approved an alliance with Hitler and Mussolini, and the plan to attack Pearl Harbor. To reassess the Emperor's new clothes, "The Hirohito diaries should be made public," says Japanese Diet member Taro Kono.


"Why, in this 60th Anniversary of the End of War, do we have to create a Showa Day ?" Seiji Mataichi, Japanese upper house lawmaker who opposed the bill asked.

Wartime Emporer Hirohito's Apr 29 birthday, the ambiguous "Greenery Day" a national holiday will be renamed as the "Showa Day" that will explicitly glorify Japan's brutal militaristic past.



It is a speechless irony to the whole Asia : the name of Hirohito's reign " Showa " , is originated from " Shu Jing " , A Chinese Classic , which means "Enlightened Peace".



Nearly 21,000 war dead from Korea and 28,000 from Taiwan, most of them forced into war service under Japan's colonial rule, are enshrined at Yasukuni without their families' permission. The Taiwanese arrived in Tokyo said they want their relatives' names removed from memorial plaques there because it is "morally unpardonable that Murderers and Victims are honored at the SAME place."


In the past 3 years, Taiwanese went to Tokyo 7 times to protest against Yasukuni Shrine, demanding de-enshrinement of their family member of the forcibly conscripted war dead, insisting that "We are not Japanese ! We are the Victims of Japanese war crimes !", but without success in liberating their enslaved ancestral souls.


The "Return the Souls of our Forebears" protest delegation has come to the U.N. and brought with them are 2 old books that record the Japanese army employed the extreme brutal "Three All Policy : Burn All, Loot All, Kill All" in 1913 and 1914 against the Taiwan Aborigines who were resisting the invaders. A Japanese military photographic team followed the fighting, compiled its photographs into these " Pictorial Albums of the Punitive Expedition" and submitted them to the Japanese War Ministry as evidence of the army's "great military achievements".


The 2 albums now serve as undeniable proof of the Japanese army's war crimes. During its invasion and 51-year occupation of Taiwan, Japan killed more than 600,000 Taiwanese people, including large numbers of Aborigines.



Japan is responsible for the death of 30 Millions in Asia, including Americans. Japanese government thumbs its nose at the survivors by denying its legal and moral responsibilities and then honors the perpetrators i.e. 1,068 War Criminals including 14 CLASS-A war criminals secretly enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine in 1978. News of the secret enshrinement caused an uproar when it leaked out 6 months later.



In Seoul, Kim Yun-ok said, "The Japanese soldiers enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine are the very ones who Raped our grandmothers."


More than 86 % of the enshrined Japanese soldiers were from WWII. Private Tadokoro Kozo of the 114th division said in 1971 interview, " There wasn't . ANY . soldier who didn't Rape. After things were done, usually we killed them ..... We didn't want to leave any trouble behind ....."



Again, U.S., Britain and other countries remain thundering SILENT.


Minoru Morita, a Tokyo-based political analyst said, "These days we very often hear more experts say publicly that the U.S. wants such adversary relationship between China and Japan and that's why they remain SILENT."


Western apathy to Japanese WWII atrocities


Double Standard ... Evil Cover-Up ... Evil Conspiracy ... or Axis of ... ?

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, "The vast majority of Germans alive today are NOT to blame for the Holocaust, but they DO bear a "Special Responsibility".


German Chancellor paid tribute at the entrance to Auschwitzand and promised that Germany will fulfill its "Moral Obligation" to keep alive the memory of Nazi's crimes.


Germany led a commemoration of 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazis' Buchenwald Death Camp. "We cannot change History, but this country can learn a lot from the deepest shame of our History," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder urged the world never to forget the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis, "I bow before you, the victims and their families."


On Mar 16, 2005 German Foreign Minister gave a speech for the "Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future" session and calls the Jerusalem's new Holocaust memorial "A place of 'Deep Shame' for every German, because the name of my country, Germany, is and will forever be inseparably linked to the Shoah, the ultimate crime against Humanity."


Speaking to a special joint sitting of parliament marking the 60 anniversary of the end of the war, Mr Köhler said: "We have the Responsibility to keep alive the memories of all the suffering .... We Germans look back with horror and shame ..... "


German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder implied: Japan Can Learn From Germany saying postwar Berlin had won the respect of its neighbors in how it contended with its Nazi past.


However, attending the 60th anniversary of End of War in stark contrast to an earnest apology by German leader Gerhard Schroeder, at a press conference in Moscow, Koizumi said : Japan has done enough "Self-Examination".


In stark contrast with very active Germany's Schroeder participating in June 6th V-60 celebrations in Europe, Japan’s Koizumi was not invited to participate in any of its neighbor’s Asian V-60 celebrations in 2005.


Why Japanese wartime Apologies Fail - A German Perspective.


German expert: Japan needs to launch self-critical debate on History said Eberhard Sandschneider, Director of the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations.


A Close Encounter with Hard Japanese Nationalism.


Japan finds itself staring at the Past as it looks into the Future.


Remorseless Japan has virtually paid nothing for its horrific war crimes and continues to maintain an innocence that contrasts vividly with Germany's profound self-examination.

For 60 years, the Japanese have danced and dodged around the edges of their War Crimes and Atrocities.


Ironically, Japanese War Crimes cover-up is, in fact, a Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity -- an U.S. "With-Us or Against-Us" mockery to its own war against Terrorism.


Backed and Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity, Japan is now seeking its ultimate seal of legitimacy for its current resurgence of Militarism : a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.


Fumiko Nakamura, a 91-year-old former public school teacher, can't shake the profound remorse she feels. Ms. Nakamura used to exhort her students to fight for the Emperor. She is deeply ashamed of her involvement in the war. " I will carry this sin as long as I live," she says.

As Japan expands its military roles abroad, her voice has grown louder. Now that some Japanese leaders want to turn the "Self-Defense Forces" into Full-Fledged Military, 91-years-old woman has become more vocal than ever. "I see certain parallels between present situations in Japan and in the pre-war period," she warns.

Noriaki Kamiya, a high school social studies teacher in Nagoya. Rather than hiding his family history, Kamiya talked about it in his classroom and around Japan. At first he referred to his father obliquely, as an "acquaintance."

But in 1995, a young Diet member declared that her generation bore no responsibility for wartime atrocities, and he sees worrying signs of a revival of the same kind of nationalistic thinking. So he began speaking openly. " Japan has emphasized the part of Japanese as victims, such as in Hiroshima. But it hasn't touched the shameful parts." said Kamiya.


The Asia Peace Alliance of Japan in Japan which has support from 64 organizations warned that nationalism is on the rise and more should be done to prevent the younger generation from thinking that Japanese militarism is the way to go.

"Everything I hear these days makes me really upset," said Sunao Tsuboi, now 80 was a university student when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima, "I get a strong feeling that Japan is leaning to the right, that we're going down a road that we've been down before," His face still visibly scarred from the atomic burns and is worried Japan may again be headed down the path of militarism.


Kinhide Mushakoji, Professor of Osaka University of Economics and Law, said: "Now we're part of the west and millitarizing in support of the American government. People think it's right, That's what's really the problem I'm concerned about."


Taking advantage of US war against Terrorism, ironically, instead of self-defense, Japan dispatched its Self-Defence warships for the FIRST TIME in the postwar period to Afghanistan; and then sent its Self-Defence troops to combat zone for the FIRST TIME to Iraq, to help fighting Terrorism.


It is a speechless mockery to its own Cover-Up of extreme State-Terrorism committed during 14 years brutal WWII.


Japan with a history of aggression, crimes against Humanity, with NO signs of remorse, does NOT deserve to be a permanent member on the UN Security Council.


45 posted on 2005/11/14 15:10:36 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]
Falsification of History Textbook


The recent very strong reactions, i.e. large scale of protests against Japan and millions signed the online petition to U.N., from the people of Asia, especially from China and S.Korea, have shown that even though the war ended in Asia 60 years ago, the bitter issue of Japanese War Crimes committed before and during that war has clearly not been resolved.

But, vandalism is never an appropriate way to express one's anger. The violence against Japanese people and property is absolutely wrong because the Japanese Government does NOT equal to the Japanese People. One can despise a Government, but never dis-respect their people.

In fact, in the past years, it is the conscientious and courageous Japanese individuals, historians, lawyers, human rights activists, pacifists, teachers, doctors and former Japanese soldiers who brought forward many of the War Crime Cases against their own government. Some are even risking their own lives. They have contributed the most and donated much time and money to help the Chinese and Korean victims.

The Textbook was first approved by Japanese Government screening panel 4 years ago and had already caused extensive outcry in 2001 from neighbouring WWII vicitimized countries. China condemned Japan 'absurd' rewrite of WWII in 2001. Japanese education ministry said 137 changes had been made after widespread protests from Korea and China in 2001.


Dec. 2000 Appeal by Japanese Historians and History Educators - We cannot entrust History Education to a Textbook that distorts History.


Though given away for free, the Government approved nationalist New History Textbook is used only by 18 junior high schools. But it has caused outrages and been denounced by many Japanese conscientious educators and liberals in Japan.

It also underscores a disturbing broader trend in recent years. Japan's largest national newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun has called on its readers to celebrate the new Textbooks of cutting out all mentions about the Sex Slaves.

" All history textbooks are shifting their focus away from Japan's wartime atrocities," said Mikio Someya, spokesman for Japan Teachers' Association, the leading teachers' union in Japan.

"They are approved because their contents reflect the views of the government and conservative ruling party members." said Yoshifumi Tawara, who heads Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21.

The 2005 revised edition of Japanese History textbook distorts even more than the 2001 Edition: excises all mention of Sex Slaves, portraying Japan as more victim than aggressor; claims Japan had "no choice" but to occupy the Korea;

The new textbook questions Nanjing Massacre and says China provoked war : downplaying "21 Humiliating Demands".

Although still suffering as a Western colonial victim, during W.W.I, China nearly 100,000 laborers to help the allies in France; about 2,500 died. At end of W.W.I at the peace conference in Paris, China requested: do away with the privileges of imperialist foreign countries in China, cancel the Japanese "21 Humiliating Demands", take back the privileges in Shandong that Japan had taken from Germany.

However, not willing to give up their forced colonial privileges, U.S., Britain and France rejected China's demands. Instead, Article 156 of Treaty of Versailles transferred German concessions in Shandong, China to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China.

China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, compounded with the Japanese 21 Humiliating Demands led directly to the first mass movement in modern Chinese history, i.e. the famous First Chinese university student movement : May 4th Movement in Beijing in 1919 and triggered a nationwide Boycott of Japanese Goods. The movement also ignited a wave of searching efforts by the intellectuals for a solution to save China from foreign colonial powers. Some advocated gradual cultural reform, while others introduced Marxism and led to the birth of the Communist Party.

15 Japanese civic groups issued a statement, " The 'dangerous' contents filling the Textbook as a whole have not changed in any essential way. There are even parts that have been revised for the worse.", down playing Nanjing Massacre, ignoring Sex Slaves, depicting Japan as aimed at liberating other Asian countries.

The Textbook has been a big problem in Japan since end of war, 32 Years History Textbook Legal Battle for details.

Recently, Japanese civic groups ran an advertisement in the Yomiuri Shimbun calling on people to reject the new textbooks


The Root cause of the bitterness is NOT the History Textbook or the bidding of U.N. Security Council which are only the triggering factors. The Real Root Cause is the Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. again Humanity. It is also the Real Solution for the people in Asia because Without the Cover-up, Japan will have to Naturally and Willingly follow the great example set by the courageous Germany.


WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab warned Asia of the Risk of Un-Digested History, " Coming from Europe where a reconciliation process has taken place, we have today a clear "European Identity", parallel to our National Identity. This has not happened here in this region. We speak a lot about Asia, but where is the "Asian Identity" ?


The "Asian Identity" could only be achieved through the only path available, i.e. through truly sincere apology, compensation, and forgiveness.


Only then, the people of Asia can truly live peacefully and harmoniously together, and only then their Asian dream of an Union similar to the European Union (EU) could be realized in the future.


Here are some specific examples in the Japanese New Junior High School History Textbooks in 2002. and Tortuous tangles over Japanese textbooks

For details, refer to Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21

1. References to "Comfort Women" have disappeared from 4 out of 7 companies' product (if we include The Society's textbooks, it would bring it to 5 out of 8 companies). Furthermore, even in those companies who have retained references to "Comfort Women", only 2 of them place those references in the "15 Year Japan-China War, Asia-Pacific War" section; the remaining company only refers to "Comfort Women" in the "Postwar Compensation" section. In addition, only 1 company actually uses the term "Comfort Women" (ianfu), while the other 2 refer to "comfort stations" (ian shisetsu). Incidentally, the 4 companies that removed "Comfort Women" references currently dominate 80% of the market.

2. References to the Nanjing Massacre (Nanjing Incident) have also been considerably rolled back. Firstly, out of 4 companies that used the term "Nanjing Massacre", 2 have switched to the term "Nanjing Incident", Three of those companies formerly used the term "massacre" in the text, but all of them now refer to "murder" (satsugai) or "killing" (koroshita). Furthermore, while at present 6 companies refer to the numbers killed, only 2 will continue to do so, while the others will replace numbers with phrases such as "large numbers (were killed"), "many (were killed"), "a lot (were killed") (one even obligingly provides a qualifying footnote explaining that there is no agreement on the number of casualties).

3. On the Three-All Policy (Kill All, Loot All, Burn All), although 5 companies used to refer to it, only 1 will continue to do so in future, moreover the one company that referred to "Unit 731" will no longer do so.

4. References to the Battle of Okinawa have also regressed. From two pages to one, from ten lines to two and a half without its own sub-heading, from seven lines to five, from seven lines to four etc, with altogether 4 companies reducing the space allocated to this topic. In addition, 2 companies have omitted references to the number of civilians killed by the Japanese army and to "Group Suicides".

Okinawa Battle had killed approx. 100,000 Japanese soldiers (including local Okinawa conscripts), 12,000 US soldiers, and 100,000 - 150,000 Okinawans civilians. About 1/3 of the population of island were killed. Total death in the Battle of Okinawa is more than the Atomic Bombs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined.

An military order was also issued by the Japanese commander of the 32nd Army Headquarters: "Only standard Japanese is to be spoken. Anyone speaking the Okinawan dialect is to be executed as a spy." The Okinawan culture were oppressed and people were forced into the war by Japan.

Japanese historian Ishihara Masaie has pointed out the following factors contributing to the unusual high Okinawa civilian deaths by Japanese Army :
* Okinawa civilians were tortured and killed as spies by Japanese.

* Okinawa civilians were forced or made believed into "Group Suicides" (shûdan jiketsu). They were brain-washed and believed they would be tortured, raped and killed if fall into the hands of enemy. They either took their own lives directly with the distributed hand grenades, cyanide, jumped off the Suicide Cliff, or were killed by family member, close relative or friend as part of "Group Suicides".

It was for this reason that Japanese historian Ienaga Saburo argued that the large number of "Group Suicides" should also be included in the number of Okinawa civilians killed by the Japanese Army.

Kinjo Shigeaki, an Okinawa boy who had just turned 16 at war time, describes a typical scene in the book "Japan at War: An Oral History". He described a man "had that stick in his hands, he turned into a madman. Striking his wife and children over and over again, bludgeoning them to death. That was the beginning of the tragedy I saw. As if by a chain reaction, it spread from one family to the next. We all must die that way. Everyone seemed to think so. People began to raise their hands against their loved ones......."

"My memory tells me the first one we laid hands on was Mother. Those who had blades, or scythes, cut their wrists or severed arteries in their necks. Be we didn't do it that way. We might have used a string. When we raised our hands against the mother who bore us, we wailed in our grief. I remember that. In the end we must have used stones. To the head. We took care of mother that way. Then my brother and I turned on our younger sister. Hell engulfed us there........"

When the Battle of Okinawa was ending, no wonder the surrender of large numbers of Japanese soldiers was so shocking to the Okinawa civilians in disbelief.

* Okinawa civilians were driven out of their shelters by Japanese army.

* Okinawa civilians were robbed of their food by Japanese army.

* Japanese soldiers poisoned, stabbed, or strangled many small Okinawa children to death to prevent their noise of alerting US forces to their locations. Japanese soldier often pointed rifle at Okinawan mother and ordered her to kill her baby.

* Okinawa civilians were forced evacuations to malaria-infested areas by Japanese.

* Japanese moved their military command posts to areas occupied by the Okinawa civilian evacuees.


5. There are deliberate revisions of terminology, such as "advance" (shinshitsu) instead of "invasion".

6. The reality of colonial domination is treated in vague terms, and references to aggression in Asia are greatly reduced.


After watching an unedited footage of the Battle of Okinawa from the National Archives in Washington in Hawaii, one elderly woman told Fumiko Nakamura, a 91-year-old former public school teacher that she had been reluctant to see a "Jap movie" about the war. But after Seeing the suffering of Okinawans, however, she had changed her mind. " You should show this all over the world," she said.


46 posted on 2005/11/14 15:13:49 by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]
To: Blurblogger; Zacs Mom; PhilDragoo; Happy2BMe; potlatch; ntnychik; Smartass; Boazo; Alamo-Girl; ...
bump and ping for unbelieveable info...


47 posted on 2005/11/14 15:18:05 by bitt ('George Bush was to go up in flames this Fall, not Paris.'...Richard Baehr)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]
To: bitt
Those of us familiar with history have known a number of these horrific realities of Japanese atrocities during World War II.
But if you want to know the truly horrific thing, it's this: the Japanese have only perfunctorily recognized "improper" conduct during World War II. They do not teach their own children the truth of their atrocities during the war. Their own schoolbooks omit the Rape of Manchuria, the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And what's more, our own politicians gleefully treat America like we're the "war criminals" for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even after the head of the Japanese Imperial military clearly stated in his memoirs that, had his forces been victorious, he would not have given us the respect that our side showed his in defeat.

That is the compounding abomination in all this.

48 posted on 2005/11/14 15:24:16 by Prime Choice (Never excuse treason as "dissent.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]
To: Calpernia
Mark for later.


49 posted on 2005/11/14 15:30:16 by Enterprise (The modern Democrat Party - a toxic stew of mental illness, cultism, and organized crime.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
To: Calpernia; bitt
wow. a LOT OF MATERIAL here! I am half brain dead but found this fascinating. Thanks for ping bitt & thread Calpernia.. always enjoy "your stuff"


50 posted on 2005/11/14 17:37:35 by DollyCali (Don't tell GOD how big your storm is -- Tell the storm how B-I-G your God is!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]