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

"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."

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1521072/posts?page=24#24

>>>>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.<<<<

Green Cross Corporation
(株式会社ミドリ十字; Kabushiki Gaisha Midori Jūji) was one of the premire pharmaceutical companies in Japan. The company merged into Yoshitomi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
(吉富製薬株式会社) on April 1, 1998, and renamed to Welfide Corporation (ウェルファイド株式会社) on April 1, 2000. Finally Welfide Corp. and Mitsubishi-Tokyo Pharmaceutical Inc.
(三菱東京製薬株式会社) were mereged to form Mitsubishi Pharma Corporation (三菱ウェルファーマ株式会社) on October 1, 2001.

Green Cross was founded in 1950 as Japan's first commercial blood bank and became a diversified international pharmaceutical company producing ethical drugs for delivery or administration by doctors and healthcare workers. It included war criminals such as Kitano Masaji who performed human experimentation in Unit 731 of the Japanese military during World War II.

Its products were extensively used in the treatments of a wide range of ailments. As well as supplying whole blood for transfusions, Green Cross was also active in developing blood derivative products such as coagulation factors, immunoglobulin and albumin. In the mid 1960's, it expanded into the non-plasma sector. Cardiovascular agents, coagulation/fibrinolytic agents, immunological agents, anti-inflammatory agents, albumin-based agents, blood plasma components and parenteral nutrition accounted for 71% of fiscal 1998 unconsolidated revenues; wholesale of diagnostic reagents, 14% and other, 15%. Unconsolidated revenues accounted for 59.5% of fiscal 1998 consolidated revenues. The company had eleven consolidated subsidiaries, three each in the United States and Japan, and one each in Germany, the United Kingdom, Barbados, China and Hong Kong. Overseas sales accounted for 41.9% of fiscal 1998 consolidated revenues.

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HIV-tainted blood scandal (Japan)

Japan's HIV-tainted blood scandal, known in Japanese as 薬害エイズ事件 (yakugai eizu jiken) refers between one and two thousand cases in the 1980s in which Japanese patients with haemophilia contracted HIV via tainted blood products. Controversy centers on the continued use of non-heat-treated blood products after the development of heat-treatments that prevent the spread of infection.

Early years

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, is a communicable disease caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV. AIDS is currently considered incurable. The first reported cases of AIDS occurred in Los Angeles is 1981. See full article at AIDS.

It was not until 1985 that the first cases of AIDS were officially reported in Japan. As early as 1983, however, Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare was notified by Baxter Travenol Laboratries (BTL) that it was manufacturing a new blood product, licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which was heat-treated to kill the HIV virus. BTL was interested in licensing this new product in Japan. Japan's own Green Cross Corporation, the main Japanese provider of blood products protested that this would constitute unfair competition, as it was "not prepared to make heat-treated agents itself" [Leflar]. The Ministry of Health responded by ordering screening of untreated blood products, clinical trials of heat-treatments, and a campaign to increase domestic blood donations. Green Cross meanwhile distributed letters of "safety assurance of unheated blood roducts" to patients, many of whom suffered from haemophilia [Miyamoto].

"AIDS Year One"

On January 17, 1987, Japan's AIDS Surveillance Committee reported that "for the first time" a Japanese woman had contracted AIDS. Described as a "habitual prostitute," the woman had reportedly had sexual intercourse with "a hundred men," including "non-Japanese," and had lived in Kobe with a "non-Japanese" sailor from whom the Committee concluded she had contracted HIV. On January 18, Shiokawa Yuichi, chair of the government comission in charge of AIDS policy, announced that the disease was now a threat to "ordinary people living ordinary lives." He proclaimed 1987 Japan's "AIDS Year One" [Treat].

Kobe exploded in panic. Thousands of people went in for testing and visited health centres, and "armies of reporters" tracked the woman down like a "criminal," publishing her photograph, real name, and address in newspapers. Much later it was admitted, after the woman's family filed a lawsuit, that she had never been a prostitute [Ikeda].

AIDS was seen as a foreign disease; some began to refer to it as a kurobune, literally a "black ship," a reference to the American invasion by Commodore Perry in 1853. "No Foreigners Allowed" signs began to appear at businesses throughout Japan; Japanese people were warned not to have sex with foreigners and to be wary of those who had. A government-produced pamphlet showed an image of the Statue of Liberty holding a book on AIDS and towering over a trembling Mount Fuji. Hospitals began advertising that they had no HIV-positive patients, and the Diet introduced a bill to ban HIV-positive foreigners from entering Japan. [Treat].

The tainted blood scandal exposed

In May and October of 1989, HIV-infected haemophiliacs in Osaka and Tokyo filed lawsuits against the Ministry of Health and Welfare and five Japanese drug companies. In 1994 two charges of attempted murder were filed against Dr. Abe Takeshi, who had headed the Health Ministry's AIDS research team in 1983; he was found not guilty in 2005. Abe resigned as vice-president of Teikyo University.

In January of 1996, Kan Naoto was appointed Health Minister. He assembled a team to investigate the scandal, and within a month nine files of documents related to the scandal were uncovered, despite the Ministry of Health's claims that no such documents existed. As Minster, Kan promptly admitted the Ministry's legal responsibility and formally apologised to the plaintiffs.

The reports uncovered by Kan's team revealed that, after the report about the possibility of contamination, untreated blood products were recalled by the Japanese importer. However, when the importer tried to present a report to the Ministry of Health, it was told that such a report was unnecessary. The Ministry claimed that there was a "lack of evidence pointing to links between infection with HIV and the use of unheated blood products." According to one official, "we could not make public a fact that could fan anxieties among patients" [J.E.N].

According to the files, the Ministry of Health had recommended, in 1983, that the import of untreated blood and blood products be banned, and that emergency imports of heat-treated products be allowed. A week later, however, this recommendation was withdrawn because it would "deal a blow" to Japan's marketers of untreated blood products [Updike].

In 1983 Japan imported 3.14 million litres of blood plasma from the US to produce its own blood products, as well as 46 million units of prepared blood products. These imported blood products were said to pose no risk of HIV infection, and were used in Japan until 1986. Heat-treated products had been on sale since 1985, but there was neither a recall of remaining products nor a warning about the risks of using untreated products. As a result, untreated blood preparations stored at hospitals and in patients' home refrigerators were used up; there have been cases reported in which individuals were diagnosed with haemophilia for the first time between 1985 and 1986, began treatment, and were subsequently infected with HIV, even though it was known that HIV could be transmitted in untreated blood preparations, and treated products had become available and were in use at that time.

As early as 1984, several Japanese haemophiliacs were discovered to have been infected with HIV through the use of untreated blood preparations; this fact was concealed from the public. The patients themselves continued to receive "intentional propaganda" which downplayed the risks of contracting HIV from blood products, assured their safety, and promoted their use. Of some 4500 haemophiliacs in Japan, an estimated 2000 contracted HIV in the 1980s from untreated blood preparations [J.E.N].

Charges

Matsushita Renzo, former head of the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Pharmaceutical Affairs Bureau, and two of his colleagues, were found guilty of professional negligence resulting in death. Matsushita was sentenced to two years in jail. A murder charge was also brought against him. Matsushita, who after retirement became president of Green Cross, is one of at least nine former Ministry of Health bureaucrats who have retired to executive positions in Japan's blood industry since the 1980s

BIOLOGICAL WAR-FEAR
The secret history of anthrax
Declassified documents show widespread experimentation in '40s
Editor's note: This is Part 1 of a two-part report on the history of the deadly bacterium anthrax. Part 2 will detail the usage and production of anthrax since World War II.

By H.P. Albarelli Jr.
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

The rash of anthrax attacks in the U.S. following the World Trade Center tragedy has spurred widespread interest and concern about what many believe to be a formerly obscure disease. The history of anthrax as a biological weapon, however, reveals a story quite opposite of public consensus.

The first allegations of the use of anthrax as a weapon were made against Germany during World War I. German agents stand accused of infecting cattle and horses with the disease in Bucharest in 1916 and in France in 1917. According to a top-secret 1943 report written by George W. Merck, pharmaceutical magnate and biological-warfare adviser to President Roosevelt, the U.S. possessed "incontrovertible evidence" that "as early as 1915" German agents in New York City's harbor "inoculated horses and cattle with disease-producing bacteria."

Dr. W. Seth Carus, an expert on bioterrorism and special adviser to the Department of Defense, writes in an April 2000 working paper that in 1915 German agents carrying bottles filled with liquefied anthrax infiltrated the horse pens in Manhattan's Van Courtland Park with the objective of injecting the animals there with crude cork-topped needles.

Other declassified U.S. military intelligence documents reveal that in 1916 a covertly placed Prussian medical officer, Dr. Anton Dilger, cultivated anthrax spores in a surreptitious laboratory in Chevy Chase, Md., for use against draft animals in Baltimore's port. Also, that same year in Argentina, German undercover operatives combed out across several ports, infecting European-bound horses and cattle with sugar cubes laced with anthrax.

British intelligence documents and cable intercepts from 1916-1918 reveal that the Germans infected nearly 5,000 mules and horses employed in Mesopotamia and that agents in August 1916 sent anthrax to Romania to infect sheep being transported to Russia. British documents also reveal that German agent Baron Otto Karl Von Rosen was apprehended attempting to infect draft reindeer in Norway with a vial filled with anthrax.

Dr. Theodor Rosebury, a former U.S. Army microbiologist, claimed in his 1949 book, "Peace or Pestilence," that German agents operating out of Switzerland during World War I attempted "with possibly some level of success" to spread anthrax and cholera among the "human populations of surrounding countries." Apart from Rosebury's sketchy and unverifiable account, there is no known evidence that any country seriously contemplated employing anthrax against human targets during World War I.

This was most likely because of the devastating effectiveness of the poison gases that were widely deployed during the war by both sides and a global mindset that the use of germ warfare against humans was unthinkable. But that changed decidedly in the mid-1930s.

After noting that the Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibited "the use of bacteriological methods of warfare," a young Japanese army officer and bacteriologist, Dr. Shiro Ishii, nonetheless convinced his superiors in 1935 that he be allowed to research the many potentialities of germ warfare. By 1937, the ambitious Ishii had established a vast germ warfare complex in Pingfan, a small village outside the Manchurian city of Harbin. The complex, innocuously dubbed Unit 731, was composed of over 150 buildings and nearly 3,500 researchers and employees.

Ishii's scientists concentrated their studies on anthrax, as well as typhus, plague, cholera, botulism, smallpox, tularemia and encephalitis. Bacteria were grown in massive amounts in huge aluminum tanks scattered throughout the site. It is estimated that by 1940, Unit 731 manufactured over five tons of anthrax for placement into bombshell casings.

Ishii's mammoth complex nearly doubled in size and personnel after Japanese forces claimed that Russian agents attacked Japanese soldiers in China with anthrax and cholera, killing nearly 6,000 troops and 2,000 horses.

Unit 731 began conducting tests around the clock with anthrax. Several types of steel-walled anthrax bombs were developed and tested extensively. In 1938, Ishii himself designed a prototype porcelain anthrax bomb that shattered upon impact, scattering millions of deadly spores into the air.

To give Japanese agents the ability to target individuals in close-in and covert contacts, Ishii's scientists developed anthrax-infected chocolates and chewing gum, as well as fountain pens, hatpins and umbrellas tipped with the deadly disease.

In addition to anthrax-filled artillery shells, Unit 731 experimented extensively with hot-air balloons filled with the deadly disease.

Declassified documents from Fort Detrick, a military research facility in Frederick, Md., (the installation's name was changed from Camp Detrick after the war) partially portray a frightening scenario that might have been had World War II gone on much longer.

Beginning in late 1944, areobiologists at Camp Detrick were placed on high alert after several reports were received from western states that large balloons, some up to 150 feet around, had been sighted silently floating over populated areas.

Somewhat skeptical at first, Camp Detrick scientists quickly realized that something serious was amiss after three balloons fell to earth in California, Montana and Washington state. All were composed of a unique lightweight silky material and bore distinctive Japanese markings.

By March 1945, over 250 balloons had been discovered in nine western states, including Hawaii, and in western Canada. The few declassified documents released by the Army on the balloons reveal nothing about their contents but do note that each was armed with an incendiary device. A top secret Chemical Corps report written in 1947 by Rexmond C. Cochrane states that one balloon that fell in Montana killed a woman, that another in Oregon "killed six men in a hunting party," and that in May 1945, "five women and children in Georgia were killed while tampering with a charge fixed to one of the grounded balloons."

A massive research program like Ishii's obviously required numerous experimental subjects or guinea pigs, and there is overwhelming and chilling evidence that Ishii's unit much preferred human subjects to animals. British investigative journalists Peter Williams and David Wallace recount in their book, "Unit 731," that Ishii deliberately located his complex "in remote northern Manchuria so he could experiment on human beings." Ishii's human experiments with anthrax were especially horrendous.

According to declassified Army documents written after the war, Unit 731 human subjects, many of whom came from the Mukden POW camp and included women and children, "were tied to stakes and protected with helmets and body armor" but "their legs and buttocks were bared and exposed to shrapnel from anthrax bombs exploded yards away." Wounded thusly, the subjects were untreated but studied closely so as to ascertain how quickly they would die. Documents reveal that none lived longer than a week.

Other human subjects were surreptitiously fed food laced with anthrax and other bacteria and then monitored to measure the arrival of death. Some subjects were forced to drink liquids contaminated with anthrax and typhoid germs.

According to congressional hearings held in Washington, D. C., in September 1986, former American POWs were among Ishii's experimental subjects.

Said Montana Congressman Pat Williams at the start of the hearings: "These men are victims of a terrible secret, born 44 years ago deep in Manchuria in Japanese POW camps. This perhaps has been the longest kept secret of World War II, long denied by Japan and long concealed by the U.S. government."

The hearings produced a litany of horror stories told by former American POWs. These survivors of Japanese atrocities maintained that after they were set free at the end of the war they were sent home under strict orders "not to talk about their experiences."

Following the hearings, an Army spokesman stated that the U.S. had no "documentary evidence to corroborate the allegations" of the former POWs, because all records related to Ishii's activities had been returned to the Japanese government in the late 1950s, and no copies had been retained.

Amidst the fury of the early months of World War II, the U.S., Britain, Canada and Russia all secretly initiated sophisticated biological warfare programs in response to frequently exaggerated intelligence reports that they were being outpaced in their research by Nazi scientists. Ironically, Army documents released in the 1980s reveal that the U.S. intelligence community had gleaned precious little about the grotesque activities of Ishii's Unit 731 until near the end of the war.

That Nazi Germany never seriously embarked down the germ warfare trail has perplexed many historians and journalists. Perhaps one of the primary reasons for this was that Hitler, who had been the victim of a near fatal gas attack in World War I, found the subjects of biological and gas warfare to be abhorrent.

This is not to maintain that the Nazis conducted no biological warfare studies. They did, and as might be expected, many of these experiments conducted under the auspices of the esoteric-leaning Ahnenerbe Institute were performed on concentration camp prisoners. Most of these crude experiments were conducted at the Dachau and Ravensbrueck camps and were overseen by Dr. Walter P. Schreiber, a major general in the Nazi army. Schreiber, according to declassified Army intelligence documents and Nuremberg Tribunal testimony, was considered one of Germany's experts on anthrax. Eminent historian and former investigative reporter Linda Hunt reveals that Schreiber's litany of horrors included experiments in which camp prisoners were injected "with phenol to see how long it took them to die."

In July 1998, London's Daily Telegraph reported that in June 1944 Britain's Special Operations Executive hatched a plot to assassinate Hitler by sending a lone agent into Germany "to impregnate [Hitler's] clothing with anthrax." According to the article, the plot was never carried forward because of concerns that "successful liquidation" would turn Hitler into an unintended martyr. The article quoted one British officer who argued against the plot as saying, "It would almost certainly canonize [Hitler] and give birth to the myth that Germany would have been saved if he had lived."

British and Canadian researchers were especially aggressive in their pursuit of anthrax as a weapon of mass destruction. In the summer of 1942, after conducting anthrax experiments at their germ warfare center at Porton Down, England, the British initiated a series of large anthrax-bomb tests on Gruinard, an uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland. The first bomb exploded, infecting and killing about 30 test sheep in less than a week's time. Subsequent tests killed larger numbers of livestock. Camp Detrick liaison officer to Porton Down, William Sarles, witnessed the Gruinard Island tests.

As might have been expected, spores eventually made their way to the Scottish mainland, causing an outbreak of anthrax. As a result of the Gruinard tests, the island was so badly contaminated that it has been completely sealed off to visitors. Over the years, there have been reports that the remaining animals of the island display prominent manifestations of genetic change.

Declassified Porton Down documents reveal that the British, as early as 1941, began a battery of anthrax experiments involving spraying anthrax spores from aircraft. By early 1942, the British had also launched a series of experiments at Porton Down that involved the aerial dispersal of anthrax over herds of sheep and cattle. These same experiments led to the production of what British researchers called "cattle cakes." These were thick, compressed whey wafers dipped into anthrax and foot-and-mouth cultures. The Canadians were only slightly behind the British with their own anthrax tests conducted on a desolate prairie called Suffield near Calgary and Medicine Hat. Few details about these tests have ever been publicly released.

Encouragement for anthrax research in Britain came from the highest levels. Winston Churchill's closest scientific adviser, Lord Cherwell, informed the prime minister in early 1944 that because of the "appalling potentiality" of anthrax, Britain had no choice but to develop bombs filled with the disease. In response, Churchill ordered his military leaders to request 500,000 anthrax bombs from the United States.

Since 1942, the U.S. Army had been conducting an ongoing series of secret experiments with anthrax, often in cooperation with biological warfare scientists with the Canadian military. The Canadians were producing anthrax spores at the rate of about 150 pounds per month at a secluded location on Grosse Ile, a St. Lawrence seaway island near Quebec. Before its conversion to the bacteriological cause, the island had served as a quarantine station for immigrants wishing to enter Canada.

Grosse Isle anthrax production was slow and problematic, provoking U.S. officials to decide to produce their own anthrax spores at a multi-million dollar production facility built near Vigo, Ind., south of Terre Haute. Originally designed in 1942 by the Army as a conventional munitions plant, the newly equipped plant held 12 20,000-gallon tanks that within less than one-month's time could produce enough anthrax for 500,000 bombs. In June 1944, following the British request for a half-million bombs, the U.S. decided to produce one million anthrax bombs, half of which would be stockpiled in the U.S. for possible use.

Ed Regis, in his book "The Biology of Doom," says the shell casings for the Vigo anthrax bombs were to be "manufactured by the Electromaster Corporation, a commercial bomb maker in Detroit, Mich." and that "high explosives would be made by the Unexcelled Manufacturing Company of Cranbury, N.J."

Prior to development of the Vigo plant, the U.S. produced anthrax spores in large quantities – some say well over two tons – at Camp Detrick. Weapons research of the disease began in early 1943 after Dr. Ira Baldwin of the University of Wisconsin was hired to direct research at the just-opened Frederick installation. Baldwin was less than enthusiastic about anthrax as a weapon, as were many of his handpicked scientists. Most notably siding with Baldwin was Dr. William A. Hagen, a member of the National Research Council's Biological Warfare Committee, the group that paved the way for the creation of Camp Detrick. Hagan, affiliated with Cornell's New York Veterinary College, believed that exploitation of anthrax was too risky because the disease thrives long after use in the ground and elsewhere and is highly resistant to environmental changes.

Initially, Baldwin left the vast majority of anthrax research to Lord Trevor Stamp, a British bacteriologist who was married to an American. Stamp, who had worked at Porton Down, set up his laboratory in an area that was nicknamed "Old McDonald's farm" by a number of his colleagues. Former Camp Detrick researchers who knew Stamp report that he was often at odds with Baldwin over anthrax research, but that he "generally won out on most clashes" because he had friends in high places. Not the least of these friends was Stanley Lovell, director of the OSS Research and Development program, Merck, the essential godfather of the U.S. biological warfare program, and several high-ranking U.S. Army Chemical Corps officers who deeply resented civilian Baldwin's placement as director of Camp Detrick.

By early 1944, largely due to Lord Stamp's skillful advocacy and work, Camp Detrick engaged a full-blown anthrax weapons development program that rapidly resulted in the cultivation of large amounts of anthrax spores within the confines of the Maryland facility. Additionally, the program produced several hundred prototype anthrax cluster bombs. Expansion of the program into the Vigo operation was viewed at the time as an essential step in keeping pace with the military's wartime objectives.

Fort Detrick officials maintain that the Vigo plant was "never used to produce pathogenic agents" and that it was abandoned at the end of the war and leased to a large pharmaceutical company for private use. There has never been an official public accounting for the millions of anthrax spores and hundreds of anthrax bombs that were produced by Camp Detrick scientists prior to the re-equipping of the Vigo plant.

H.P. Albarelli Jr. is an investigative journalist who lives in Florida. His articles on the mysterious death of Frank Olson and West Nile virus also appear on WorldNetDaily.

BIOLOGICAL WAR-FEAR
Feds' involvement in anthrax experiments
Records show conflicting reports about bacterium's use as weapon
Editor's note: This is Part 2 of a two-part report on the history of the deadly bacterium anthrax. Part 1 covers the experimentation and usage of anthrax up to and during World War II. This installment investigates the history of the United States government's involvement with the bacterium since the end of the war.

By H.P. Albarelli Jr.
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

Following the end of World War II, the United States made a determined decision – in response to the steady flow of Cold War intelligence asserting that the Russians were aggressively developing an offensive biological weapons program – to increase America's biological warfare capacity rather than curtail it.

A declassified 1975 Pentagon report states that "to understand and evaluate" the decision that resulted in the "subsequent proliferation" of biological research in the U.S., "it is necessary to first examine the threat to the free world as it was perceived at that time." Continues the report, "Of particular importance in this effort was the intensified struggle between the free world and communists and the generally accepted thesis that supremacy must be maintained in all matters which involved the communist bloc."

In a number of sections, the Pentagon report cited a January 1945 top-secret Joint Intelligence Committee study that identified several Soviet biological research stations. Chief among these was Vozrozhdeniya Island in the Sea of Aral and Gorodomyla Island in Lake Seliger. Both locations were used extensively for anthrax weaponry development.

In the final months of World War II, the United States raced the Soviets to capture any and all documents pertaining to Nazi and Japanese biological research. This effort was preceded by what has been described as "a murderous intelligence operation" launched in 1943 to capture key German scientific personnel.

Formally dubbed the Alsos Mission, the operation was conceived by Dr. Vannevar Bush, director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, Maj. Gen. George V. Strong, chief of Army intelligence, and Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, head of the U.S. atomic project at Los Alamos. Lt. Col. Boris T. Pash was chosen by Groves to head the mission. Pash would go on to direct Program Branch 7, a top-secret Army assassination unit, and then become a member of the CIA's ironically titled Health Alteration Committee, which vigorously explored assassination techniques using anthrax-tipped and other biological weapons.

The Alsos Mission at its start focused on finding Nazi nuclear scientists but was expanded near the war's end to include the capture of Germany's top biological researchers. Alsos agents were especially interested in finding Nazi anthrax expert and SS major general, Dr. Walter P. Schreiber (see Part 1 of this article), but in 1945 Soviet troops captured Schreiber first.

In 1948, Schreiber inexplicably turned up in West Berlin claiming that he had escaped. Remarkably, despite his being wanted for war crimes and strong suspicions that he was acting as a double agent for the Russians, Schreiber was hired to work with the U.S. Army's Counter Intelligence Corps. Linda Hunt reveals in her book, "Secret Agenda," that Schreiber was employed at Camp King, a large POW interrogation center in Oberusal, Germany.

In the first quarter of 1951, a team of three scientists from Fort Detrick, a military research facility in Frederick, Md., who were attached to the CIA-funded Special Operations Division traveled to Germany to interview Schreiber. The team, which included Dr. Frank R. Olson, then Special Operations Division branch chief for planning and intelligence activities, was charged with learning all that it could about a Nazi SS project that employed "psychochemical drugs" during concentration camp interrogation experiments.

Schreiber and SS Col. Wolfram Sievers, director of the Ahnenerbe's Institute for Scientific Research, oversaw the project, which was conducted from 1942 to November 1943. Seivers was hung in 1948 after being tried at Nuremberg.

On Oct. 7, 1951, the New York Times reported that Schreiber was in Texas working for the U.S. Air Force. The article made no mention of Schreiber being a war criminal. Former Nuremberg prosecutors and several Jewish groups were outraged to learn of Schreiber's presence in the U.S. and complained to the White House. Nothing happened, and in February 1952 the New York Times reported that pressure to take action against Schreiber was mounting due to his performing "medical experiments on unwilling concentration camp victims."

After his employment contract with the Army and Air Force expired, the CIA blocked plans to send Schreiber back to Germany and in May 1952 helped arrange his relocation to Buenos Aires where he was employed as an expert on "disease and epidemics" by the Argentine government. Some former Fort Detrick researchers who declined to be identified maintained that Schreiber, on at least two occasions, lectured at the Frederick, Md., facility. Others maintain that Schreiber was relocated to Argentina so he could help facilitate the flow to the United States of other fugitive Nazi scientists hiding there.

In the Pacific

After the Allied victory over Japan, U.S. Army and intelligence agents also moved swiftly to capture Japan's Unit 731 anthrax-bomb technology and other research. The initial job fell to Col. Murray Sanders, a Camp Detrick (its name during the war) bacteriologist. Earlier, Sanders had been part of Camp Detrick's investigation team into the Japanese balloon incidents. Sanders had sounded the first alarm about the mysterious balloons flying over the U.S. possibly being armed with anthrax.

Decades later, in an interview, Sanders said, "Anthrax is a tough bug. It's sturdy. It's cheap to produce, and [the Japanese had] used it in China." In a 1985 interview with the Miami Herald, Sanders revealed that he was "duped" by the Japanese during his nine-week investigation of Unit 731 and that had he known about torturous experiments on innocent human beings conducted by bacteriologist Dr. Shiro Ishii, "I would have been very happy to be part of the firing squad."

Unable to interview Ishii because the scientist was in hiding in Japan's mountains, Sanders spent two weeks in Japan questioning Dr. Ryoichi Naito, a high-ranking Unit 731 bacteriologist who oversaw many of Ishii's horrific anthrax experiments. At the time, Sanders was unaware that in 1939, Naito had visited New York's Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in an attempt to obtain samples of lethal viruses. Refused, Naito unsuccessfully attempted to bribe employees of the Institute only to be again turned away.

When Sanders arrived back at Camp Detrick he discovered that he had contracted a severe case of tuberculosis, and he was bedridden for months. He told his replacement on the investigation, Lt. Col. Arvo T. Thompson, executive assistant to Dr. Ira Baldwin and George Merck, that he "strongly suspected" that the Japanese had conducted extensive human experiments but had been unable to obtain any definitive evidence.

Thompson, along with friends and colleagues, Olson and John Schwab, had been among the very first recruits to Camp Detrick. All three men had been initially headquartered at Maryland's Edgewood Arsenal while assisting Baldwin, Camp Detrick's first research director, in finding a suitable location for the nation's first biological warfare center. During the war, all three dealt extensively with the development of anthrax weapons. Schwab helped oversee the development of the Vigo anthrax plant in Indiana. Thompson directed anthrax experiments at Horn Island Testing Station in Pascagoula, Miss. Olson, during 1943 and 1944, oversaw aerobiology research concentrating intensively on anthrax.

Thompson, called "Tommy" by his friends, was given orders to aggressively follow up Sanders' work with the central objective of keeping all that he learned away from the Russians.

In Japan, Thompson interviewed Ishii, who had been captured by the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps. He found Ishii to be "often evasive" but still managed to glean a great deal of information from the scientist. Thompson was ordered not to discuss his sessions with Ishii with anyone.

A top-secret U.S. Army Far East Command report on Thompson's findings reads: "The value to the U.S. of Japanese biological weapons data is of such importance to national security as to far outweigh the value accruing from war-crimes prosecution." A 1956 FBI memorandum reveals that by the mid-1950s the U.S. knew everything about Ishii's human experiments but agreed not to prosecute in exchange for Japan's scientific data on germ warfare.

In May 1951, scientists at Fort Detrick were shocked to learn that Thompson had "committed suicide" while on another special assignment in Tokyo. The circumstances surrounding Thompson's death have never been publicly revealed. Two years later, Olson would also "commit suicide" under circumstances so unusual that eventually he became an icon of American mysteries. Not long before Thompson's death, according to Sanders and other former Fort Detrick researchers, Ishii was secreted into the United States to lecture at Camp Detrick. Sanders, in an interview before his death in 1988, also claimed that Ryoichi Naito was brought to Camp Detrick to lecture American researchers on Unit 731's human experiments.

Pertinent to note is that in 1996, Naito was caught up in a huge scandal in Japan that involved the shipment of HIV-infected blood to the United States. The same HIV-infected blood was sold to Japanese hemophiliacs. The company responsible for the shipments and sales of the tainted blood was Green Cross, a private blood bank founded in 1950 by Naito and two other Unit 731 researchers. Naito died in 1982 shortly after the Japanese media began referring to Green Cross as the "Vampire Blood Bank."

Anthrax in Korea?

The use of biological weapons, including anthrax bombs, by the U.S. during the Korean War is a continuing subject of heated controversy – that biological weapons were designated a top priority by the Joint Chiefs of Staff is not. Biological warfare "offers fabulous opportunities" read one Pentagon report produced at the start of the Korean War.

In October 1950, the Air Force ordered 5,000 anthrax bombs from Fort Detrick. Other large orders soon followed, but reportedly the Air Force was concerned about the ramifications of their use. Read one declassified document written in 1950: "The Air Force could be fairly accurate in predicting what a biological warfare attack would do to a city full of monkeys, but what an attack would do to a city full of human beings remained the $64,000 question."

By the time the call for an accelerated anthrax weapons program came from military leaders to Fort Detrick, debate over the use of the disease had ceased. In June 1944, Baldwin had been forced to resign over the issue.

Enlisted officers at the facility resented Baldwin, a civilian, from the start. Officers felt strongly that control of Fort Detrick should be totally in the hands of the Army. Gen. William N. Porter, head of the Army's Chemical Corps, which oversaw Fort Detrick's operations, kept Baldwin and much of his staff in the dark about all major anthrax decisions. Baldwin was told nothing about Britain's order for 500,000 anthrax bombs or about the decisions that led to the creation of the Vigo production plant.

When the Vigo plant was near operational, Baldwin was told of its existence and ordered to oversee safety issues concerning its huge anthrax-producing tanks. Because of deep concerns about faulty engineering, Baldwin refused and subsequently resigned.

At the same hour trouble was brewing along Korea's border, the Army was busy establishing a number of additional anthrax testing sites in the United States. Chief among these was the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas that featured a number of huge underground anthrax fermenters. In 1967, the commander of Pine Bluff informed investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh that the facility could "produce 100 gallons of a [biological warfare] agent in two days."

Dugway Proving Ground near Salt lake City, Utah, was used extensively by Fort Detrick researchers for anthrax testing. The 2,000 square mile site is notorious for a number of testing accidents that decimated nearby livestock herds. A declassified Army report reveals that anthrax was deployed at Dugway on well over 150 separate testing occasions between 1951 and 1960. Additional testing related to anthrax weapons during the Korean War was conducted at Fort Terry on Plum Island, N.Y., located off the coast of Long Island.

A declassified Department of Army report dated Feb. 24, 1977, contains a lengthy list of locations where "biological field testing of anti-personnel biological simulates involving the public domain" were held. Included on the list are San Francisco, Panama City, Florida, Washington, D.C., Hawaii and New York City. In 1953 and 1954, Fort Detrick scientists working with the CIA conducted secret tests with anthrax simulates in New York City's subway system.

In December 1951, a Reuters's news dispatch reported that the U.S. commander of troops in Korea, Gen. Matthew Ridgeway, secretly brought Ishii to Korea as a biological warfare consultant to the U.S. military. Subsequent news reports stated that Ishii made two trips to Korea as a consultant for the Army.

In early 1952, the North Korean and Chinese governments accused the U.S. of employing biological weapons. North Korea's foreign affairs minister alleged that the U.S. had dropped hundreds of bombs filled with anthrax, plague and cholera on his country. The Pentagon scoffed at the notion and flatly denied any and all accusations.

To further bolster their charges against the U.S., the Chinese released the "confessions" of 25 captured American airmen. Along with the confessions, China also released a batch of photographs that they claimed were of "American germ bombs" dropped on North Korea.

The United States categorically denied the charges and maintained that the POW pilots and airman had been "brainwashed" into making any confessions. The U.S. demanded that the World Health Organization and the Red Cross be called to investigate the allegations, but the Chinese refused to officially recognize either organization as impartial.

Historians Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman write convincingly in their book, "The United States and Biological Warfare," that the U.S. extensively experimented with and deployed biological weapons, including anthrax, during the Korean War. They offer "hard evidence" that the Pentagon lied to Congress and to the American public about wartime activities in Korea and paint a vivid portrait of the U.S. Army and Camp Detrick researchers methodically exploiting captured data on Japanese experiments.

Other biological warfare historians have sharply ridiculed the meticulous research of Endicott and Hagerman. Ed Regis wrote in a 1999 New York Times book review that the two historians advanced evidence "fabricated" by the North Koreans and Chinese.

'Ethnic weapons'

Anthrax has also factored into the darker side of biological research known as "ethnic weapons." Simply put, ethnic weapons – sometimes called "genetic weapons" – are those biological means developed to incapacitate and kill specific ethnic or racial groups.

A November 1970 U.S. Army Command Military Review article by Carl A. Larson, head of the Department of Human Genetics at Sweden's Lund University, stated, "The immense laboratory of human natural variations provides many instances of sharp differences in the activities of well-defined enzymes." Larson writes on to detail various enzyme deficiencies including the susceptibility of southeastern Asians "to a poison to which Caucasoids are largely adapted" and underscores that "Europeans, as well as Americans of African descent, have among their members about 50 percent slow [enzyme] inactivators."

Concluded Larson, "Surrounded with clouds of secrecy, a systematic search for new incapacitating agents is going on in many laboratories. During the first half of [1969], several laboratories reported factors engaged in passing over the genetic message from DNA, the primary command post, to RNA, which relays the chemical signal. The enzymatic process for RNA production has been known for some years, but now the factors have been revealed which regulate the initiation and specificity of enzyme production. Not only the factors have been found, but their inhibitors. ..."

During Camp Detrick's fledgling years, anthrax factored into ethnic weaponry when scientists there began questioning whether certain "geographical groups" better withstood anthrax attacks than others.

According to British science writer and former diplomat Wendy Barnaby, "The U.S. Navy thought of [ethnic weapons] as long ago as 1951 presumably on the basis of the observation that [African-Americans] are much more likely than whites to die from Valley Fever, a disease caught from a fungus endemic in California's San Joaquin Valley."

The future of anthrax

Without doubt, the post-9-11 anthrax attacks have left Americans deeply concerned about the future possibilities of bioterrorism conducted on American soil. Many people believe that the recent anthrax attacks marked the beginning of such activity in the U.S., but a cursory review of the history of "biocrimes" involving anthrax reveals a disturbing picture that has escaped serious public scrutiny.

A copiously researched working paper on bioterrorism produced by the Department of Defense last year reveals that in the past 10 years alone there have been a startling number of cases in the United States involving the threatened use of anthrax.

For example, in July 1997 a number of large U.S. cities, including Tampa, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix and Miami, received a fax that stated that their water supplies had been targeted for contamination with anthrax and botulinum toxin.

In March 1998, a canister marked "anthrax" was found inside a rented car in San Antonio, Texas. In October 1998, three abortion clinics in Louisville, Ky., received letters claiming to contain lethal amounts of anthrax.

In November 1998, a Wal-Mart store in Indiana received an anthrax letter threat. The store was evacuated. On Nov. 18, 1998, an office worker at Ocean Drive, a Miami-based magazine, opened a letter that contained an anthrax threat and a white powder. Workers in the office were treated with ciprofloxacin on the recommendations of the FBI and Army officials.

Also in November 1998, a high school in Virginia Beach, Va., received a telephone threat that the school contained an anthrax bomb. The caller said, "People will die. That is all."

A mail sorter in Pembroke Pines, Fla., on Nov. 21, 1998, found an envelope that had the words, "Congratulations, you have been exposed to anthrax," written on an outside flap. The following month, postal workers in Coppell, Texas, found similar messages on envelopes.

In February 1999, the Los Angeles Times received a letter that claimed to contain anthrax. The same month the U.S. State Department received a letter that claimed to hold anthrax. In February 1999, according to Capitol Hill police, "several congressional offices" received threats in letters that claimed to contain anthrax and other lethal biological agents.

The list goes on and on, numbering well over 100 incidents in the past three years, occurring in virtually every part of the country. Readers of the list can't help but wonder what nexus, if any, these incidents had to events following the World Trade Center attacks.

Another strange and recent incident involving anthrax occurred in March 2000 in Irvine, Calif. Anthrax containers were found buried in the yard of Dr. Larry C. Ford, a biomedical researcher who specialized in infectious diseases. According to Ford's lawyer, the doctor worked for the CIA for nearly 20 years.

Ford committed suicide after his business partner, James Patrick Riley, chief of Biofem, Inc. was shot and wounded by a masked gunman. After Ford killed himself, a number of newspapers alleged that he and Riley had corporate ties with biological warfare development in apartheid-era South Africa and with Israel. Ford was also linked to Dr. Neil Knobel, former chief medical officer for the South African Defense Forces. During the apartheid-era, Knobel oversaw South Africa's notorious Project Coast, a covert biological program directed by Dr. Wouter Basson, nicknamed "Dr. Death." South African newspapers have claimed that Basson considered employing everything from anthrax to AIDS against black militants during the struggle against apartheid.

Ironically, only one week before the World Trade Center attacks, the New York Times published an article that stated, "Over the past several years, the United States has embarked on a program of secret research on biological weapons that, some officials say, tests the limits on the [1972] global treaty barring such weapons." Written by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William Broad, the article told of a secret CIA project, code-named Clear Vision, that since 1996 built and tested several model anthrax bombs that were replicated on "a Soviet-designed germ bomb that agency officials feared was being sold on the international market."

The CIA project grew out of concerns that Russian scientists "had implanted genes from Bacillus cereus, an organism that causes food poisoning, into the anthrax microbe."

Recently, according to Dr. Meryl Nass, an expert on anthrax, the strain of anthrax used in this fall's mail attacks was identified as coming from a U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Ames, Iowa, "where it was originally isolated in 1950." Nass, in an exclusive interview with WorldNetDaily, said that the strain "has been out there for decades and shared with many other labs."

According to Nass and other anthrax experts, the Ames strain has been shared with the British biological warfare center at Porton Down, Fort Detrick and several colleges and universities. He stated that researchers favored the Ames strain because it "was long known as the most virulent strain against which vaccines were tested."

Oddly, following the October revelations that the Ames strain was the original source of the post-9-11 attacks, officials at Iowa State University destroyed all Ames specimens "by baking them in an autoclave," a special oven used to sterilize surgical instruments. Iowa State officials reported that they had received permission from the CDC and FBI to destroy the anthrax.

H.P. Albarelli Jr. is an investigative journalist who lives in Florida. His articles on the mysterious death of Frank Olson and West Nile virus also appear on WorldNetDaily.

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