56th Year of Soul Searching
Jan. 24 2001 At the end of WWII, retreating Japanese military dumped swarms of unleashed fleas tainted with cholera, typhoid, anthrax, bubonic plague and other diseases in China's southwestern Zhenjian province and over the city of Ningbo, south of Shanghai. 2 Chinese doctors said in Tokyo District Court. The lawsuit filed in 1997, about 180 Chinese plaintiffs are demanding compensation and an apology from the Japanese government.
The attacks had killed 50,000 people in 6 years. "After 60 years, we are still finding positive antibodies of bubonic plague in rats, dogs, cats and other animals. Every year a certain number of healthy people develop typhoid. Japan's germ warfare has left behind problems that still threaten our lives," Qiu said. Fears of another outbreak still haunt the city. After decades of denial, Japan only acknowledged few years ago that Unit 731 existed but has refused to confirm its activity.
Jan. 2001, Former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori publicly referred to the Sino-Japanese War as the "China Incident". His view reflects the thinking of some senior Japanese politicians.
Feb 8 2001 The Tokyo Hight Court refused to hear an appeal by a group of Hong Kong residents asking Japan to honor Military Yen, issued by the occupying Japanese military during WWII. The Japanese Imperial Army occupied HK between 1941 and 1945 and forced residents to exchange HK dollars, foreign currency, gold and jewelry for bills insured by the Japanese military. Anyone disobeyed were executed. Japan then used the money to buy war supplies. At the end of the war, the Allied Forces instructed Japan to declare the bills had no monetary value. Many families became broke overnight The bills stated they could be coverted into yen at par value.
17 HK residents filed the case against Japan in 1993, demanding their money back and compensation totaling Yen 768 million. The Tokyo District Court threw the case out in 1999, saying the bills had lost their value and the group had no grounds to claim the money. Since that decision, five claimants have died. "We are not demanding for war compensation, we are demanding Japan to pay back their legal debt", said Mr. Ng. They will appeal to the Tokyo Supreme Court.
Feb 21 2001 During a meeting of LDP supporters in Akita Prefecture, former Japanese Defense Minister Hosei Norota blamed the US for forcing Japan into the war and shameless said: "Colonialism in Asia was rooted out to the hilt thanks to the Greater East Asia War."
On Feb 24 2001, in the Hague War Crimes Court, the International Tribunal has convicted the 3 Serb commanders in the Bosnian town of Foca in 1992 and 1993, where hundreds of women were abducted and sexually enslaved by Bosnian Serb soldiers. They received prison terms of 28, 20 and 12 years. The 3-judge panel ruled that Mass Rape is a crime against Humanity, the 2nd most serious category of international Crimes after Genocide.
Feb 26 2001 Resolution No. 7 similar to the two bills passed in California and similar to HR 126 (US Congress) has been introduced in the West Virginia Legislation. The resoluton is calling on the Japanese Government to offer a formal apology and compensation to wartime victims.
Mar 2 2001 In view of the growing anger of people over Japanese government's move to authorize school textbooks that many critics said distort its wartime history, Korea and China called in the Japanese ambassador to deliver their protest. In protest, South Korean has frozen all military exchanges and canceled plans to further open its market to Japanese music tapes, cartoons and video games.
Many Japanese Historians and History Educators put forward their appeal We Cannot Entrust History Education to a Textbook That Distorts History . There is also the International Scholars’ Appeal.
May 14 2001 Asian Human Rights Commission has initiated an online petition Statement of Concern about Japanese History Textbook
A book published last Sept challenges the official history of Japanese Emperor's wartime role "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" by Herbert P. Bix, a Boston-born historian who teaches at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.
Bix reveals new information on the degree to which the U.S. government systematically deceived the whole world. As cold war deepen, US needs Japan as an anti-communist bulwark in Asia. Evidences show that senior aides to Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Japanese court officials schemed to fix testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials so as not to implicate Hirohito.
Bix, using official records that will be difficult for the Emperor's apologists to refute, shows Hirohito knew all the war crimes in China, and involved deeply in early strategic decisions as Japan's army marched through China, approved an alliance with Hitler and Mussolini, and the plan to attack Pearl Harbor. In Japan, some politicians are now joining scholars in calling for a reassessment of the Emperor's new clothes. "The Hirohito diaries should be made public," says Diet member Taro Kono.
Apr 25 2001 Within hours of becoming Japan's new prime minister, Koizumi told in his first news conference Japan's Peace Constitution Article 9 should be amended to legitimize the use of military force. Koizumi has refused to reverse the approval of new distorted high school textbooks. he also intends to pay an offical visit to Yasukuni Shrine on Aug. 15.
May 24 2001 After 60 years, US slaved PoW are still seeking justice. Their efforts have run into opposition from an unexpected source - U.S. State Dept. The State Department has filed papers in federal court in California stating the treaty prevents the courts from hearing the lawsuits. "The government has betrayed us. They will probably stall the lawsuit until we are all dead and gone." Henry Cornellisson said.
July 18 2001, the House of Representatives voted 395-33 to amend an appropriations bill that would prohibit the departments of Justice and State from using money to prevent former PoWs from seeking a fair hearing against Japanese companies. A House bill designed to help the veterans in court sponsored by Rep. Mike Honda, would let federal courts ignore a key section of the 1951 controversial San Francisco Peace Treaty that waived all claims against Japanese nationals for crimes committed during the war. "If the bill passes, it will open up the process and remove the roadblock the State Department has put up," said Linda Goetz Holmes author of a newly publish book Unjust Enrichment: How Japan's Companies Built Postwar Fortunes Using American PoWs .
There are now 35 separate civil suits that cite as defendants some of the world's largest corporations, including Nippon Steel, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Mitsui Mining USA. You can support them to pass "The Justice for US PoWs Act of 2001" (H.R. 1198) so that Japanese companies will be forced to take responsibility for their cruelty and atrocities.
May 30 2001 German Parliament approved compensation fund of US $4.5 billion to slave laborers, about $7,000 each to people forced to work in slave labor camps, but less to those forced to work in factories. Half the money is to be paid by more than 6,000 German companies including DaimlerChrysler, Bayer, Bertelsmann, Deutsche Bank, Hugo Boss, Mannesmann and Allianz. The other half is being paid by the government. Most recipients live in Eastern Europe.
Germany has already paid more than US $60 billion in reparations since WWII.
Jun 21, 2001 Tokyo District Court dismissed a Sex Slave case, ruling individuals did not have the right to demand compensation from the Government. 5 women from Shanxi province, China filed a lawsuit in Tokyo in 1995 demanding an apology and 20 million yuan (US 6 million) in compensation from Japan. One died in 1998, leaving 4 to pursue the case. The women had already filed an appeal. Of approx. 400,000 sex salves, no one knows how many still survive. They were forced to serve up to 30 - 40 men a day. Many have concealed their past, considering it too shameful.
In 1998, the Yamaguchi District Court recognised the Japan's use of so-called comfort women and ordered the payment of 900,000 yen in compensation to 9 former Korean sex slaves, but the ruling was later overturned.
Jul 12, 2001 Tokyo District Court ordered Japanese government to pay 20 million yen to a former Chinese forced labourer. However, the victim is paid for his suffering as a fugitive, NOT as slave laborer. Liu Lianren of Shandong Province was sent to a mine on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido in 1944 after the military abducted him. Liu escaped in Apr 1945, and went into hiding until Feb 1958. He didn't know the war had ended. Liu filed suit in March 1996. His relatives took it over after his death.
The judge said Japan should be held responsible for Liu's suffering as a fugitive NOT as slave, who was brought to Japan at the Japanese government's behest. Lawyer Toru Takahashi said his only regret is that the court fell short of ordering the Japan to pay compensation for subjecting Liu to forced labour. Japanese government has filed an appeal.
Some 114 Chinese are seeking redress from Japan and its private firms in 8 other trials, while 3 other suits are expected to be also filed by former forced labourers from China.
Aug. 13 2001 In protest over Japanese Prime Minister's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine and whitewashing Japan's war crimes in the new textbooks, 20 South Korean cut off tips of their little fingers. They plan to mail the severed pieces to the Japanese embassy. The signs near the Yasukuni Shrine refer to the Tojo and other war criminals as martyrs.
In Seoul, Kim Yun-ok said, "The Japanese soldiers enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine are the very ones who Raped our grandmothers."
More than 86 % of the enshrined Japanese soldiers were from WWII. Private Tadokoro Kozo of the 114th division said in 1971 interview, " There wasn't . ANY . soldier who didn't Rape. After things were done, usually we killed them ..... We didn't want to leave any trouble behind ....."
Aug. 15 2001 According to few survey, the school districts across Japan are now refusing to use the government approved distorted new textbook that glosses over Japan's wartime atrocities. "It could lead us down a mistaken path again." said Yukio Wani.
Sept. 2001 A lawsuit seeking $1 trillion in repatriations from the Japanese government was filed in the U.S. District Court in Chicago. The suit uses declassified documents to argue that former Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida told the Dutch government that the 1951 treaty did not mean the Allied powers were forfeiting the right of their citizens to sue Japan for wartime damages.
Sept 10 2001 A Jewish history museum with 3,000 square meters, the largest in whole Europe, formally opened in Berlin, Germany.
Oct. 8 2001 Japanese prime minister Koizumi, during his one day visit to Beijing, issued his war apoplgy after visiting the Lugouqiao ( Marco Polo Bridge), site of hostilities that led to a full scale war invasion to China in July 7, 1937. He also visited a War Museum. However, the apology was simply based on and did not go beyond the wording used in a 1995 statement by Murayama. His personal apology was NOT passed by Japanese Diet. Even so, Koizumi left open the possibility that he may visit Yasukuni Shrine again next year.
Oct. 19 2000 Judge William McDonald of the California Superior Court in Orange County ruled, in three slave labor suits, two against Mitsubishi and one against Mitsui, that it is the courts, not the executive branch, that determine the meaning or applicability of the treaty; that the court has a right to hear the PoWs claims.
The PoWs point out that Japan made payments to Britain, Holland, and Switzerland after the treaty, money that was used by those governments to compensate PoWs. Article 26 obliges Japan to give the same advantages to all other nations if, after the San Francisco Peace Treaty, better terms are reached with individual nations.
Nov. 1 2001. Over 900 people filed a lawsuit against Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi for his visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in August. They argued that his official visit to the Yasukuni Shrine had violated constitution which was rewritten after the war to ensure the separation of religion and politics.
Nov. 29 2001 The entire Japanese government, not just the military, was involved in the decision to provide sex slaves, Japanese researchers said at an international conference in Los Angeles on Japan's war crimes. After Japan invaded Manchuria, China in 1937, Japanese government created the Imperial Conference, composed of the emperor, the military and the leading Cabinet ministers. This body made all important decisions including approving the "comfort women", historian Hirofumi Hayashi of Kanto-Gakuin University in Yokohama said.
Other research presented indicates that the actual number of sex slaves may have been closer to 400,000 than the 200,000 previously estimated by a United Nations human rights agency. Su Zhi Liang, a history professor from Shanghai Teachers University, noted that the U.N. estimate did not take into account China, because China came into the research picture much later than its Asian neighbors. In Shanghai alone, the Japanese military set up 90 sex stations, with about 500 women serving soldiers at each station.
Nov. 29 2001 Los Angeles Superior Court judge, rejecting the US federal government's contention, has again refused to dismiss a Koreatown resident's slave-labor lawsuit against Japanese companies. Now a U.S. citizen, 79-year-old Jae-Won Jeong was forcibly taken to a slave labor camp in 1943 to break limestone by hand at a quarry for Japan's Onoda Cement Manufacturing Co. in the northeastern tip of the Korean peninsula.
Judge Lichtman said he was struck by the DOUBLE STANDARD in U.S. government's position concerning slave-labor that the U.S. government has not objected to suits seeking compensation for Nazi slave-labor victims but did in the suits against the Japanese companies.
10 Dec 2001 A documentary film "Japanese Devils" about brutal role of Japan's 14 years brutal invasion to China between 1931 - 1945, has been awarded with film prizes in Germany and Portugal. 14 veterans of the Imperial Army testify to their own brutal participation.
"Once you've killed your second or third, you stop thinking about it," Yasuji Kaneko describes how he grew numb to slaughter after bayonet drills using live Chinese prisoners tied to stakes. "It was ultimately about competition," another interviewed veteran describes throwing babies onto camp fires just for laughs, "how many you killed becomes a standard of achievement."
Former Japanese sergeant major, Masayo Enomoto, says he became so inured to murder and so steeped in the idea that the Chinese were sub-human that he thought nothing of chopping up a Rape victim, cooking her flesh and serving it to his hungry troops.
Director Minoru Matsui said his main reason for making the documentary was to counter Japan's tendency to "sugarcoat" history. "The biggest reason for making the film was to preserve a record," producer Kenichi Oguri said. "After making it, we held a preview. Some young Japanese said they didn't even know Japan had fought a war with China."
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.