Posted on 09/07/2001 11:13:04 PM PDT by kattracks
TOKYO (September 7, 2001 8:15 p.m. EDT) - Japan's foreign minister is set to apologize this weekend for the suffering of Americans who were held as prisoners of war by the Japanese military, a Japanese newspaper reported Friday.
The ceremony will be held to commemorate the treaty that ended World War II.
Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka will meet with Secretary of State Colin Powell in San Francisco on Saturday, when a ceremony will be held in remembrance of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the peace treaty bearing the city's name.
Tanaka has decided to offer an apology at the ceremony for the suffering of American POWs in an attempt to soothe what remains a sore spot between the two countries, the nationally circulated Asahi newspaper reported.
A number of former American POWs have unsuccessfully sued Japanese companies for using them as forced labor during the war, and this year U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation to make it easier for such suits to be filed.
The State Department's official position is that the 1951 peace treaty waived all future compensation claims against Japan.
The unattributed report by the Asahi did not indicate whether Tanaka planned to apologize directly to American veterans or do so during her meeting with Powell.
The newspaper said that the language of the apology would be based on a 1995 speech made by Tomiichi Murayama, the prime minister at the time, marking the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Going beyond statements of remorse made by previous Japanese leaders, Murayama spoke of Japan's "mistaken national policy" that "caused tremendous damage and suffering to people of many countries" and offered a "heartfelt apology."
Some historians estimate Japan forced as many as 30,000 Americans POWs to work during the war. Several thousand are living.
A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit last fall filed by 700 ex-POWs, citing the 1951 treaty and saying the debt had been paid by "the immeasurable bounty of life for themselves and their posterity in a free society and in a more peaceful world."
Though is it ever a deeper defect in all of ourselves that never senses the horror in war enough to avoid it?
It has been widely reported, however, that the truth about WWII is NOT told, in the Japanese history classes. This nation conducted warfare, brutality against soldiers and civilians alike, way beyond most other nations.
The two nukes were a bold act of international humanitarianism; saving countless American and Japanese lives. They ought to be grateful, that we saved them from their national insanity. Had we done it sooner, so much the better.
My dad, already wounded once at Okinawa, was healed, ready and waiting to be among those who would be sent to invade the Japanese mainland.
The Japanese and North Koreans were the most cruel of adversaries. No POW suffered any more than did those interred in a Japanese or a North Korean prison camp. The extreme tortures and medical experiments they did on our poor guys was just awful.
The sad part of it is that not only do the young Japanese not know what their ancestors did, American youth don't know either!
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