Aug. 15, 2006
is untrustworthy to be a permanent member on the UN Security Council.
Letter to U.N. Secretary General
Millions already joined to reject Japan
Dec. 7, 1970
|
Angry at the Japanese atrocities in Nanjing during WWII,
German diplomat Georg Rosen sent Magee's film to Nazi government and requested film be shown to Hitler to prove that Japanese army was a "Violent Killing Machine".
The real Root Cause of Japan's remorselessness is the Cover-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity. Without the Cover-up, Japan will have to naturally and willingly follow the great example set by the courageous Germany. For most Japanese, the courageous question is still haunting : What did you do in the War, Daddy ? |
| Japanese way of Apology Aug. 15, 2006
| Japan with a history of aggression, crimes against Humanity, with
NO signs of remorse is untrustworthy to be a permanent member on the UN Security Council. Letter to U.N. Secretary General Millions already joined to reject Japan |
German way of Apology Dec. 7, 1970
|
This forgotten Asian Holocaust is definitely the worst case of systematic governmental Cover-up of State-Terrorism against Humanity in our Human History. By covering-up Japan's State-Terrorism and orchestrated many war/proxy wars around the world, U.S. has become an Indirect-State-Terrorism nation. There are more than 60,000 Nazi, Austrian, Italian war criminals on US "Watch List" since 1978. In vivid contrast, currently less than 30 Japanese are on the watch list added only under public pressure in 1996 . Since 2001, another 48 Nazi war criminal convictions . In vivid contrast , zero conviction for the Japanese in the past 60 years. The Human Rights of more than 30 Million Asian death are totally ignored and covered-up by U.S. to this day.
A look at recent prosecutions of suspected Nazi war criminals in Germany:
According to the released US documents in June 2006, US covered-up Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann during Cold War because of the Anti-Communist efforts in West Germany.
In 2010, declassified CIA files have also revealed that U.S. went to great lengths to protect Mykola Lebed, a Ukrainian fascist leader and suspected Nazi collaborator from prosecution after the WWII and used him to stir up trouble inside the Soviet Union.
Another report's chapters deals with how the U.S. saved Gestapo officers, including Rudolf Mildner from war crimes investigators because his knowledge of Communist subversion was considered useful.
U.S. CIA and FBI employed at least 1,000 Nazis e.g. Aleksandras Lileikis, a Nazi officer implicated in 60,000 Jews' deaths, worked for the CIA before immigrating.
The Department of Justice released portions of a 600-page report revealed that the U.S. under code name Operation Paperclip, not only shipped Nazi's planes, V-2s, and also leading Nazi's designers including Dr. Wernher von Braun and his team to U.S. Years later, he became the project director for the Apollo program. The fact that he and others were Nazi Party members, in the SS and had used slave labor was covered up, as was their relationship with the SS leader who had designed Auschwitz. The group also included Arthur Rudolf, who ran a slave labor operation, is remembered for developing the Saturn V missile. Their Nazi backgrounds were covered up, instead they were showered with honors by U.S.
Similarly, a recent award winning documentary "
The Ants" ["Ari no Heitai"] reveals the fact that after Japanese WWII surrender, "Japan was not disarmed after all, and the U.S. knew it. Mr. Okumura is a living witness to that". It is a story about how Waichi Okumura and other Japanese soldiers were ordered to continue fighting the communists during the Chinese Civil War after Japan's surrender on Aug. 15, 1945.
"The Allied powers were accomplices," said Asaho Mizushima, a law professor at Waseda University in Tokyo. "The Japanese soldiers fought the communists so the United States didn't have to send its own troops ...... [Chinese Civil] War against China was the first Japan fought after WWII. As many as 550 soldiers were the first victims ..... Japanese government, however, cannot admit it ..... At stake is not only Japan's breach of the Potsdam Declaration
Mr. Okumura and others former soilders waged a legal battle against the Japanese government demanding military pensions. Despite the evidence he provided, the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiffs' final appeal in September. "They completely ignored it," Mr. Okumura said. "Otherwise, they would have had to admit Japan's breach of the Potsdam Declaration."
In a recent CBS show 60 Minutes, Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf said that
U.S. militarily threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" unless it joined the fight against the Terrorism. U.S. warning was delivered by U.S. former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
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. By covering-up Japan's State-Terrorism and orchestrated many war/proxy wars around the world, U.S. has become an Indirect-State-Terrorism nation.
Of all the countries on Earth, Japan is the ONLY nation that used ALL 3 WMDs against Humanity in WWII, i.e. WMD Biological Weapons, WMD Chemical Weapons, and the addictive WMD Drugs.
Of all the countries on Earth, Japan is the ONLY nation criminally committed 2 Holocausts against Humanity, i.e. the Asian Holocaust and the International Drug Holocaust.
Unlike the Jewish Holocaust, the Internation Drug Holocaust and the Asia Holocaust, i.e. the Japanese Rape of Nanjing, WMD Biological Warfare unit 731, 100, WMD Chemical Warfare unit 516, Opium Monopoly Bureau, Sex Slaves, Slave Laborers and looting of Asia are barely mentioned in most histories of WWII and is absent from almost every textbook.
There are many reasons for the story of the Asian
Holocaust has taken so long to get out :
The Cover-up is mainly due to the Cold War between U.S. and the former communist Soviet Union and China, especially after the start of Korean War in June 1950 and then the Vietnam War in 1960s.
In 1950's, in order to contain the communism, the U.S. and France even supply the drug warlords in the Golden Triangle with ammunition, arms and air transport for the production and sale of opium.
As the Cold War deepened, U.S. desparately needed the speedy rebuilding of Japan as a constitutional monarchy that would provide an anti-Communist bulwark in Asia.
After the war, influential groups of
Japanese intellectuals wanted Emperor Hirohito tried for his War Crimes, but were turned down by U.S. . War responsibility and historical memory: Hirohito's Apparition.
Therefore, US and Japan foisted all blame for the war onto army leaders while pretending that the emperor had done nothing wrongful because they had been "deceived" by the military. US preserved immunity for Hirohito's premises and property including all of Hirohito's official and private papers plus the papers of his military aides-de-camp that could have revealed valuable facts about his war role. MacArthur then went to extraordinary lengths to shield Hirohito from every phase of the trial, including influencing the testimony of former wartime prime minister General Tojo Hideki, who was pressured to go to his death having assumed all responsibility for the lost war.
Evidences show that senior aides to Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Japanese court officials schemed to fix testimony at the
Tokyo War Crimes Trials so as not to implicate Hirohito.
After the surrender, Japanese government and military moved swiftly to destroy evidence that might assist in the prosecution of any Japanese for war crimes, including Emperor Hirohito. The Imperial Army, Navy, and almost all government ministries, destroyed their incriminating files.
However, vast archive of Japanese military records that could confirm Japanese extreme war crimes, were in the hands of U.S. for 9 years after the war. In 1957, all Japanese military records were ordered to be returned to Japan. The reason given to the 1986's congress PoW hearing. John H. Hatcher, Army Record Management of US Army explained, "because the problem of language was too difficult for us to overcome.".
As the Cold War intensified, U.S. believed that the Anti-Communist aims would be difficult to achieve if the Japanese people were alienated by continuing prosecutions of their war criminals.
Therefore after the war, U.S. conducted a half-hearted show trial - The Tokyo Trial which most historians agreed was a flawed trial focused only on the maltreatment of PoW
ignoring ALL other unspeakable brutalities (e.g. WMD Biological, WMD Chemical, Sex Slaves etc.) crimes committed against the Asians by the Japanese.
In fact, the trial was rendered absurd from the very beginning by Allied Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur's aggressive and obsessive attempt to shield Emperor Hirohito from responsibility for his war crimes. Even the General Charles Willoughby, MacArthur's chief intelligence officer, privately denounced the trials as the "Worst hypocrisy in recorded History".
Herbert Bix, author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, commented on the trial, "While these colonial powers were professing to be defenders of civilization,
sitting in judgment of Japan for pursuing policies of aggression, they themselves were continuing to commit comparable offenses."
For the same reason, the U.S. called a abrupt halt to further war crimes prosecutions. U.S. released large number of the remaining Class-A Criminal suspects from detention. Many of these suspected war Criminals were able to move smoothly into politics, bureaucracy, and big business. Nobusuke Kishi who oversaw the Slave labor program as minister of commerce and industry during the war, was imprisoned as a Class-A War Criminal suspect and later became Japanese prime minister in 1957, and was also the founding father of the current dominated LDP Party. That is exactly why his grandson, Japanese new hawkish PM, Shinzo Abe un-apologetic over war.
At the same time, U.S. began to wind down the Class-B and Class-C trials. By the end of 1958, all Japanese war criminals, including A-, B- and C-class were released from prison and politically rehabilitated.
Australian prosecutions of Japanese War Criminals were obstructed by lack of cooperation from the U.S. government.
U.S. was active in apprehending Nazi war criminals, denazifying German society, and collecting and protecting archives of the Nazi regime, all of which have by now been de-classified.
By contrast, from the moment of Japanese surrender, US Government sought to exonerate the Emperor Hirohito and his relatives from any responsibility for the war. US still keeps many of its archives concerned with postwar Japan highly classified.
Unlike Germany where intensive de-Nazification procedures were employed to prevent former Nazis entering parliament and the bureaucracy, instead, US allowed Japanese War Criminals to enter parliament and seek public office.
That process climaxed in 1957. Nobusuke Kishi, a top official in the Manchurian puppet regime and oversaw the Slave labor program as minister of commerce and industry during war. He was also imprisoned as a Class-A War Criminal suspect later became Japan's prime minister. This would have been the equivalent of Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler's surviving economic henchman, becoming head of post-war Germany.
It has been estimated by the US Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations that at least several thousand Japanese criminals escaped prosecution as a result of the pre-mature termination of war crime prosecutions by the US in 1949.
Basically U.S. handed the Japanese government back in the hands of the same notorious men and war criminals who started the 14 years in-human brutal WWII in Asia.
This was equivalent to re-instating the Nazi Party in the postwar Germany by U.S..
Historians long ago concluded that the Allies turned a blind eye to many Japanese War Crimes, particularly in Asian, as fighting communism became the U.S. priority. In 2005 and 2006, newly declassified CIA records document more fully than ever how Col. Masanobu Tsuji, Yoshio Kodama, Takushiro Hattori, Hideki Tojo and other suspected Japanese war criminals were recruited by U.S. during Cold War.
According to these newly declassified files, Japanese war criminals working with former Lt. Gen. Yorashiro Kawabe, who was a military intelligence officer in China in 1938 -- to organize groups of Japanese veterans and others for underground operations.
These groups consisted of former war buddies and often retained the same chains of command and militarist ideology of the war machine that committed unspeakable war crimes throughout Asia.
The U.S. association with Japanese war criminals illustrates how U.S. embraced Japanese nationalist and conservative forces after War and helping them reassert their grip on the government once the occupation ended in 1952. "When we talk about the emergence of neo-nationalism or a strong right wing in Japan today, this has very deep roots and it involves a very strong element of American support," said John Dower, historian and author of "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II."
Hirohito, however, was at the very center of the policy-making process through every stage of war, provided continuous oversight for wars that he knew were aggressive; and he incurred steadily mounting responsibility for those aggressions. He also figured centrally in the cultural process that nurtured the actual perpetrators of war crimes. The newspaper in 1948: Call for trial of Hirohito.
By protecting Hirohito from prosecution as a war Criminal and basically handed the Japanese government back to the same war Criminals, U.S. laid a solid foundation for Japan not to confess, only to whitewash its war Crimes, e.g. distort History textbook, pay tribute to the Class-A War Criminals, never admit to the WMD Biological Warface etc.
Therefore, Japan systemically portray itself as Atomic Victim instead of atrocious Colonial War Criminal. Under the U.S. Cover-up, when U.S. occupation ended in 1952, the Japanese government immediately pardoned ALL its own War Criminals.
Another sinister reason for U.S. granted immunity from war crimes
prosecution to the Japanese doctors of Unit 731 & Unit 100 was to exchange for their in-human data and helped covering up Japanese War Crimes so that U.S. could gain some advantages of the WMD Biological Weapon - An act utterly ignored justice and against Humanity. This was equivalent to barter Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele's freedom and cover-up in return for the results of his horrific human experiments.
Nazi doctors were held accountable for their crimes in the famous 1947 "Nuremberg Doctors Trials", but there were NO comparable "Japanese Doctors Trial".
NGO
The Sunshine Project has discovered that even today US is still actively developing Biological and Chemical Weapon. On 24 Sept. 2002 Sunshine Project provided evidence for
US Military Secret Chemical Weapons Program violating international law.
U.S. government not only pardoned some of Imperial Japan's top leaders, short-circuited reparations programs, reversed the dissolution of Japanese conglomerates and also waived payment of international relief funds to American PoWs after the war.
The truth was also hampered by the great upheavals with the resuming of the Japanese interrupted Chinese Civil War, which was prolonged by U.S. involvement, lasted another 4 years. The Civil War was un-ended with the Communist took over mainland (People's Republic of China) and Nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan (Republic of China). At the same time, few foreign powers had tried very hard to encourage Taiwan to be an independent country, but failed miserably due to strong objections by both Chinese government.
Finally, in 2015 Leaders of China and Taiwan meet for 1st time in nearly 7 decades.
The Alabama Claims were a series of claims for damages by the U.S. against the Britain for its assistance given to the Confederate, the 11 Southern states declared their secession from the U.S. during the American Civil War. After the War, U.S. demanded compensation from the Britain for its sale of warships to the Confederacy. The Britain settled the matter by paying the U.S. $15.5 Million for damages cuased by the warships built in Britain. So far, U.S. has not paid 1 cent to China for its war assistance given to Taiwan in the Chinese Civil War.
Then, China suffered yet another almost 30 years of various extremely irrational, self-destructive political, social, educational, cultural, demographic and economic disasters in mainland China during Mao's disastrous misrule who was regarded by many as the "Last Emperor of China" or even "Gang of Five".
Due to the Chinese Civil War, both Chinese government competed to consolidate their own regime at ANY cost, and was eager to flatter and win diplomatic recognition from Japan, and both need financial loans and trading partnership with Japan to rebuild war torn China. Therefore, both decided to relinquish their claim to war reparations from Japan.
The mainland Chinese government is also very fearful of this popular protest might be linked to its own Communist Party's complicity in abuse in its past and other social discontent by her people, have greatly hampered the situation.
Although the Cold War had ended, the Cover-up still continues. It is now mainly due to the U.S. War, ironically, against Terrorism, and its determination for the containment, isolation and prevention of a rising communist China.
That is exactly why U.S. is keeping thundering SILENT about Japan's State-Terrorism war crimes. By covering-up Japan's State-Terrorism and orchestrated many war/proxy wars around the world, U.S. has become an Indirect-State-Terrorism nation.
A young American lawyer, who had just returned from a trip through Asia. She was surprised to find out that when people in Thailand spoke of
their memories of the great horror that swept through Asia in the past, they were referring not to China, but to Japan. Japan, in her U.S. brain-washed American mind, was always a gentle, beautiful land of peace-loving democrats. China, she thought, was always the evil scourge of Asia.
To encircle communist China, U.S. signed Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security with Japan since 1960.
For decades, Chinese government kept silence about the Nanjing Massacre because of the need for political recognition and financial aid from Japan, and unwillingness to recognize the resistance that China's Nationalist armies had put up against the Japanese. Almost all the soldiers who died in the Nationalist capital Nanjing were Nationalists. Nanjing Massacre was NOT even mentioned in Chinese textbooks until 1980's. Even in the early 1990's, Chinese historians and others were not allowed to organize any conferences about the Massacre. Despite John Rabe's heroism, he and his house in Nanjing were all but forgotten. Before 1982, virtually nothing was published by Chinese academics on the subject. Even the Nanjing museum on the massacre did not open until 1985 . In 1997, John Rabe's tombstone was moved from Berlin to China and given a place of honor in the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. Rabe's home in Nanjing has been restored and turned into a museum called the John Rabe Memorial Hall. In 2008, for the first time war museum in Shenyang to exhibit photos of Nationalist armies' generals who fought the Japanese.
Therefore, without any political support, the "Un-told Holocaust" has fallen largely to the overseas Chinese war survivors and their children to tell their tales.
But for years, Asian survivors kept silent out of shame and a desire to shield their families from a painful past. "They didn't want to burden their children with this dark heritage," said historian Peter Black. Just as many Jewish Holocaust survivors were also reticent about their concentration camp experiences.
New interest in Japan's war Atrocities, but Why Now ?
Almost every Chinese family has had some kind of experience with WWII, in many cases, dead relatives. Chinese had learned from their parents or their own experiences that politics can be deadly, and it's probably best to stay away from politics. That's why it seems to be a tradition of Chinese political apathy. As the Chinese feel more comfortable in their adopted nation, their Western-born children have begun to ask questions and re-discover the Asian Holocaust.
Silence is a form of family protection. Unfortunately, the silence also protects the criminals. Enraged by the Japan's denial, survivals now start Breaking the Silence.
As the numbers and affluence of Asian in the Asia countries and N.America have grown, so has the desire to document the Asian Holocaust, commemorate its victims and excoriate Japanese war criminals.
"My father's generation passed on its legacy silently," Kwan said. "Unlike the Jews, who came together and forcefully announced what occurred, the Asians have tried to brush it aside and say it's OK. But it's NOT OK."
"The new generation is made up of people who grew up in the U.S., are curious about their roots, and possess the English language skills and connections to conduct effective political campaigns," Chang said. It parallels to the 80s and '90s which led to a surge of interest in Jewish Holocaust studies.
Shielded by the US, the "Japan's refusal to face up to its War Crimes keeps this alive," said William C. Kirby, chairman of the History department at Harvard University.
For U.S., China is the only country that has high potential to threaten U.S. global dominance in the 21st century.
In 2005, the UN's World Food WFP's 26-year program of food aid to China officially ended. The final UN shipment of food to China was delivered in Apr. WFP executive director James Morris said, "China, having graduated from aid recipient to donor, should now share its success with the rest of the world.... It's truly one of mankind's great accomplishments over the last 100 years." In the same year, China emerged as the world's 3rd largest food aid donor.
Rise of China is one of the greatest events in human History.
China was a drugged sleeping giant, Napoleon once said, "Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the World !".
In fact, more accurately, it is NOT really about China's rise , but rather China's restoration from the ashes of 2 Holocausts , namely the International Drug Holocaust and the Asian Holocaust set afire by the Axis of Evil of Colonial Terrorism , and also the ashes of self-destruction by Mao . China is now rising again , like a reborn phoenix , back to its long traditional and historical position of global influence, its culture, power and role in the world and to remind others of its amazing achievements over thousands of years. The "Middle Kingdom" was already a mighty empire thousands of years before the US was even founded. China (both as a State and as a civilization) has flourished for centuries and has outlived the Roman, Persian, Arabian, Turkish, Mongol, and British empires.
Why ? ? ? Read the following articles :
China's rise: Civilization Logic-oriented Country . . . China Model: a Civilizational-State perspective . . . China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State . . . PEW Research Center 2014 survey : China vs. US
China is the 1st new great global power to emerge in over a century. US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick's 2005 admonition to Beijing that it should be a "responsible stakeholder". Ironically, looking back in History over the past few hundred years, there is NOT a single one modern nation including U.S. could have been described as a "responsible stakeholder" during their rise to global power. In EVERY case, conquest, destruction, enslavement, executions, looting with their bloody guns, airplanes and battleships accompanied by ruthless bellicose, brutal and often barbaric acts. It is China's unprecedented quest for a peaceful rise. That is exactly why the term "China's peaceful rise to great power status" is coined by the China in order to break the Great-Power-Rising-Curse.
For Japan, China undermines Tokyo as the leading power in the region. To cope with this "China Threat", Tokyo is adopting a more muscular military posture, one that causes alarm to its WWII victimized neighbors.
According to the initial official draft of
U.S. Defense Planning Guidance leaked to the press in early 1992, the primary aim of U.S. strategy would be to bar the rise of any competing superpower. A pool of potential rivals has now been narrowed to just one: China. The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Report states explicitly that "of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States".
Faced with China's rising power, the U.S. and Japan are reinforcing bilateral security relations by changing Japan's pacifistic military posture to prevent China from emerging as the global and regional superpower, politically, economically and militarily, in the coming decades.
In 2005, for the first time the joint US-Japanese defense policy statement named China as a "Security Threat". 2 months after, Japan explicitly agreed with US that Taiwan Strait was a "common strategic concern" of US and Japan. Then, Japan announced the Japanese Coast Guard would officially take control of the
disputed Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands. Japan is also discussing with US on building enhanced US command and control base facilities in Japan and cooperation on missile defense as well as force
deployment.
U.S. hawks now refer to Japan as the "Britain of the Far East".
So desperate to contain China, U.S. even broke its own golden rule and suddenly signed a nuclear pact with India has long refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The pact opens a Pandora’s box of nuclear proliferation and condemned by Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter as "A Dangerous Nuclear Deal With India" . Australia has said it will not sell yellowcake to India unless it signs the nuclear NPT.
In 1959, the U.S. , Dalai Lama and CIA staged a failed proxy war in Tibet for its independence. Initially, the India didn't want to accept Dalai Lama. So U.S. proposed to help India's nuclear technology. In 1974, the 1st Indian A-bomb was given the cynical nickname of "smiling Buddha".
Japan's habit of inventing itself via ideas borrowed from other cultures has often left itself floundering for national direction. Since WWII, Japan has failed to discover its place in the world, instead allowing in "an infantile dependency on the U.S."
Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, U.S. has repeatedly
pressured Japan to revise Article 9 of its constitution. In fact,
U.S.
has been doing everything in its power to encourage and even
accelerate Japanese rearmament.
However, just in the opposite, on Apr. 30, 2005 the leaders of China's Communist Party and of Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party,
the 2 sides that fought China's Civil War, formally ended 6 decades of hostility with a nationally televised historic
handshake and pledged to work together to undermine Taiwan's Independence movement
which is compared by many to the independence of South Carolina's secession that kicked off U.S. own American Civil War of Secession.
The meeting is the first between the leaders of the two parties in 60 years; the last was in the wartime redoubt of Chongqing, when Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong made a final, failed bid to reach a cease-fire.
"The parties reached a common understanding on upholding the '92 consensus, opposing Taiwanese Independence and striving for peace and stability in the Taiwan Sea," said in a joint communiqué.
Lien said his 8-day visit had unleashed a process of engagement that holds out the promise of peace, stability and increased trade.
China hosts a 2nd Taiwan opposition party head.
Interestingly, a survey of global opinion in 2005 by the Pew Research Centre, an American think tank, China has a better public image than U.S. in almost all 16 countries in Britain, France, Poland, Turkey, Russia, Indonesia etc.
Under the Cover-up of State-Terrorism by US against Humanity, Japanese government with its economic power, is able to wage a sophisticated propaganda after the WWII :
Japan portrayed itself as an Atomic Victim rather than a colonial Atrocious War Criminal.
Ian Buruma, author of "The Wages of Guilt" resents the Japan's transformation of Hiroshima into a mecca of "Japanese Victim-hood". Many of Japanese attitudes towards the atomic bomb on Hiroshima are so extreme as to be ludicrous. He dismisses them and wrote: "
Again, such opinions are extreme. But, judging from what appears in Japanese periodicals and on best-seller lists, not that far from the mainstream".
There are more than 900 ultra nationalist groups in Japan. They are well organised and well connected with ties to the ruling LDP. Unlike in German where the ultra nationalists basically are out of the mainstream political debate. In Japan, they are part of the mainstream.
Rightist threats raise fears in Japan. "Speech and journalism in this country are facing an extremely difficult situation," Masato Kitamura, chairman of the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association, told the group's annual meeting recently. Japan's estimated 10,000 ultra-rightists, have become increasingly violent in recent years, the National Police Agency said in its annual report last year. When ruling party lawmaker Koichi Kato criticized a prime minister's trip to Yasukuni Shrine, retribution from Japan's right-wing was swift: An extremist set his house on fire. "Many people are now keeping their months shut. Parliament is not an exception." said Kato.
Documents translated from the 731's
original reports can be found at the US Army's Dugway Proving Ground in
Utah using the Freedom of Information Act.
In 1946, after knowing the unit 731 & unit 100, Russian immediately sent a request
through the International Bureau of Investigation to prosecute Ishii Shiro
731's commander and all related personnel, but the request was dismissed
by U.S. government as a communist propaganda.
In response, on Dec. 25, 1949,
Josef Stalin ordered the
Khabarovsk Trial.
Vladislav Bogach, author of a book about the trial "Outlaw Weapon", wrote
"experts proved that in one cycle, up to 300 kg of plague bacteria, 800-900
kg of typhoid and about a ton of cholera were produced. In one unit, there
were 13,000 rats ... The output of incubators was 45 kg of infected fleas
during 3-4 months."
As the trial ended, the daily Suvorovsky natisk expressed its anger,
"They have no sympathy ... The Japanese were robots."
However, unlike the
Nuremberg Trial and
Tokyo Trial, in which high-ranking German
and Japanese officials were hanged or life sentenced, in Khabarovsk trials
the war criminals were mostly sentenced to terms of only 20 to 25 years.
Several years later, all were quietly sent back to Japan and freed in 1956.
The interrogation reports, some 18 volumes were never released.
Many Western historians have criticized Soviet for handing down such light sentences. "My guess is that the Soviet made a deal with the Japanese similar to the one completed by the Americans" Harris said.
A 137-page counterintelligence file from the National Archives which had been declassified, makes it clear that U.S. intelligence agents not
only covered up war crimes against Americans, but also aggressively
protected the architect of those crimes, Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii.
"At the request of Nationalist Chinese officials who heard about "bacteriological experiments upon Chinese and Americans as human guinea pigs," the U.S. counterintelligence corps prepared a report on Ishii, the head of Unit 731, according to a July 24, 1947, memo.
The document makes it clear that a high-level U.S. intelligence officer, Col. Philip Bethune, quashed the report after informing his agents that "no information is to be released to any agent as data on subject is classified as top secret." The agent who wrote the memo, identified only by the initials WSC, also wrote that "Col. Bethune desires no further action be taken in this case. No further action was taken."
Months later, on
April 15, 1948, it was noted for the record that "It is of a highly sensitive nature, and that every precaution must be taken to maintain its secrecy."
A report dated April 18, 1947 from
the legal section of Gen. MacArthur's headquarters, specifying that the
Unit 731 investigation was "under direct Joint Chiefs of Staff order."
"Every step, interrogation, or contact must be coordinated with this
section," said the report by Lt. Neal R. Smith of Report of Investigation Division, Legal Section, "
The utmost secrecy is essential in order to protect the interests of the United States and to guard against embarrassment."
Some of the reports were labeled "Commander in Chief" that leaves little doubt that US President Truman was informed of the events. President Truman also withdrew the 1925 Geneva Protocol outlawing Chemical and Biological Weapons from Senate ratification of protocol in 1947.
A separate inquiries were made by the International Prosecution Section (IPS). Its lawyers gathered evidence including detailed statements from defecting Japanese bio-scientists from Pingfan. The latter testified to human live vivisection, the dumping of lethal germs in Chinese water supplies and food stores, as well as aerial spraying. Yet
all was silenced even though the information went to the top. IPS documents stamped "to be read by the Commander-in-Chief U.S. forces" were sent to President Harry Truman in 1947.
Vast archive of Japanese military records that could confirm Japanese extreme war crimes, were in the hands of U.S. for 9 years after the war. The documents, first screened by the CIA, include hundreds of thousands of pages of War Ministry records from 1868 to 1942, Naval Ministry records from 1868 to 1939 and operational records of many units throughout the war including Unit 731. In 1948 the CIA turned over the records to the National
Archives, with no indication of what, if anything, had been removed.
In 1957, all Japanese military records were ordered to be returned to Japan.
Concerned over the
potential loss, a group of scholars including Edwin O. Reischauer of
Harvard University and John Young of Georgetown University, obtained a Ford
Foundation grant to hurriedly microfilm what they could.
In February 1958, after about 5 % of the records were copied, Young recalled in an
interview, the documents were sent to Baltimore and loaded aboard a
ship for Japan. "There was no way we could read them all," said Young, who deplored the loss.
Young, who assisted Allied war crimes investigators in China after the war, compiled a 144-page index to the pages that were microfilmed.
A microfilm set was presented to the National Diet Library in Tokyo,
"An irony, Young said, considering that Japan has now closed off the collection. "I can tell you frankly, the militarists felt relieved," Young said. "As a
historian I couldn't stand it."
This issue was also raised in the 1986's congress PoW hearing. John H. Hatcher, Army Record Management of US Army explained, "because the problem of language was too difficult for us to overcome", therefore all records were returned to Japan.
Subcommittee member Solomon was stunned, "to say that didn't have the expertise in this country to translate those records is almost incomprehensible." It clearly indicated that the subcommittee members
believed that there was a Cover-up.
It was until Dec. 3, 1996, U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) which has focused almost exclusively on Nazi war criminals despite its mandate to pursue BOTH Nazis and their
allies, finally took its FIRST STEP toward redressing this imbalance by
adding the
FIRST 16 Japanese war criminal names on the
"Watch List" (Holtzman Amendment)
since it was
legislated in 1978 for denying more than 60,000 Nazi German, Austrian, and Italian war criminals entry to U.S.
However, Japan is blocking probe of War Criminals and refused to cooperate with the Justice Department to put the names of several hundred surviving criminals on the
Watch List.
"Japan is the ONLY country in the world from whom we seek assistance that does not provide it." said Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department's office of Special Investigations. Rosenbaum said his office has been able to identify
less than 30 Japanese suspects compare to 60,000 Nazi, Austrian, and Italian war criminals on the
"Watch List"
"After the war, they were not punished, so why is the U.S. government dealing with this problem now ?" said Masao Okonogi, professor of political science at Keio University in Tokyo.
"This seems to me remarkably hypocritical. At the end of WWII, the
U.S. occupying force was aware of the information about Unit 731 but deliberately exonerated the men in return for their agreement to be debriefed on the findings of their atrocious experiments. We agreed to Cover-up their crimes." said John Dower, MIT professor and specialist on modern Japanese history and US relations.
In the
San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) process, the interests of
Asian people and countries brutally victimized by the Japanese Imperial
Army were mostly ignored.
Despite the protests by Asian countries most
affected by the Japanese aggression, U.S. did NOT even invite China (both mainland-People's Republic of China and Taiwan-Republic of China) and Korea (both North and South) . China insisted on abolishing Japan's emperor system.
Soviet Union, India and Burma refused to participate. 3 signatories from Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) were actually representatives of the French colonial regime.
Only 4 Asian countries signed the treaty.
Of these 4, Indonesia signed the treaty but never ratified it. The
Philippine reserved its signatures and did not ratify the treaty. So
in fact, the ONLY Asian countries that supported the SFPT were Pakistan
and Ceylon, both colonies of Britain up till that time.
Furthermore, U.S. feared that Dutch's refusal of signing the
San Francisco Peace Treaty
might lead the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand to drop out as well, so on the day before and the morning of the treaty signing ceremony, U.S. principal negotiator, John Foster Dulles, orchestrated a "
Secret Deal " with exchange of confidential letters between the minister of foreign affairs of the Netherlands, Dirk Stikker, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida.
Yoshida pledged that "the Government of Japan does not
consider that the Government of the Netherlands by signing the Treaty has
itself expropriated the private claims of its nationals so that, as a
consequence thereof, after the Treaty comes into force these claims would
be non-existent."
The deal and letters had to be kept secret because
Article 26 of the Treaty states that, "should Japan make a peace
settlement or war claims settlement with any State granting that State
greater advantages than those provided by the present Treaty, those same
advantages shall be extended to the parties to the present Treaty."
In 1956, the Dutch did successfully pursue a claim against Japan on behalf of private citizens. Japan paid $10 million as a way of "expressing sympathy and regret." A year before, the British noted two other instances in which governments had made deals with Japan for reparations: a settlement with Burma that provided reparations, services and investments amounting, over 10 years, to $250 million; and an agreement with Switzerland that provided "compensation for maltreatment, personal injury and loss arising from acts illegal under the rules of war."
The letters were finally declassified in April 2000, by which time most
potential claimants were probably all dead.
With the "
Secret Deal " and by withholding documents, the U.S. has significantly
contributed and played a major role in Japan's historical amnesia.
Japan subsequently signed treaties with other States, including the war claims settlements.
Both U.S. and Japan purposely ignored without honoring the
provision of
Article 26 and continues to deny its bounded responsibility to compensate its wartime victims to this day.
For details, refer to San Francisco Peace Treaty: Has Justice Been Served and Peace Secured ? , and A Just Peace ? The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty in Historical Perspective.
"Those of us who really believe in human rights believe that justice has not been achieved by the San Francisco Peace Treaty," said Lillian Sing, a San Francisco Superior Court judge.
"Japan's historical amnesia is a result of collusion between the U.S. and Japan," said Mark Selden, a history professor at the State University of New York, "That collusion reached its height in the San Francisco Treaty of 1951." because the treaty becomes an obstacle to a full reckoning of the suffering Japan inflicted on other Asians and on American PoW.
Peace Treaty locked Japan into a flawed Present.
John Dower in his recent book,
Embracing Defeat: "One of the most pernicious aspects of the occupation was that the Asian peoples who had suffered most from imperial Japan's depredations -- the Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, and Filipinos had no serious role, no influential presence at all in the defeated land. They became invisible. Asian contributions to defeating the emperor's soldiers and sailors were displaced by an all-consuming focus on the American victory in the Pacific War".
San Fransisco Peace Treaty is therefore an
un-precedented BIG Sell-Out of all countries in Asia and Allied PoWs by U.S.
In Oct. 1999, in a
Letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein for the Bill S.9102
, i.e. the Disclosure Act of Japanese War Crime Documents,
History Professor Sheldon H. Harris of California State University emphatically stated in his letter that :
The ""sensitive" documents as defined by archivists and FOIA officers are at the moment being destroyed...... Three examples of this wanton destruction......" by U.S.
In a Satellite Video Link Conference of Japanese War Crimes in 1998, Sheldon Harris, professor emeritus of history at California State University and author of the book, "Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-up" stressed that :
"The U.S. government is as culpable for
inaction as Japan, and the Canadian, British, Dutch and Australian governments knew about it ... While the US "bears a major responsibility" for the coverup of Unit 731, the greater responsibility lies with Japanese."
Justice B.V.A Roling, the only surviving judge from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, complained that no word about biological warfare had been offered in evidence. He wrote: "It is a bitter experience for me to be informed now that centrally ordered Japanese war criminality of the most disgusting kind was kept secret from the court by the U.S. government."
Nazi doctors were held accountable for their crimes in the famous 1947 "Nuremberg Doctors Trials", but there were NO comparable "Japanese Doctors Trial".
Christopher Reed is a journalist, living in Japan. He wrote, "On my desk are two documents previously marked Top Secret and dated July 1947. They show not only full U.S. participation in allowing the Japanese medical torturers who escaped to Tokyo to go free in exchange for information, but that the Pentagon actually paid them.
Starting from Korea, in the course of 45 years, Japanese gold hunting expert teams accompanying Japan's armed forces had systematically emptied treasuries, banks, factories, private homes, pawn shops, art galleries, and stripped ordinary people, while Japan's top gangsters looted Asia's underworld and black economy.
For 45 year, Japan systematically looted wealth of 12 Asian countries accumulated over thousands of years: currency, gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, gemstones, jewelry, cultural treasures, valuable ancient books, priceless manuscripts, religious artifacts, artworks and historic artifacts, and antiques including more than a dozen solid gold Buddhas, each weighing more than a ton.
The looting and plundering, which was far more thorough than the Nazis, became the Japanese way to finance its brutal war. In China alone, Japan looted 6,000 tonnes of gold from Chinese capital Nanjing in 1938.
When the plunder was later unable to be shipped to Japan due to US submarine blockade, the treasure of Golden Lily was buried in Philippine, known as the "Yamashita's Gold", estimated US$ 500 billion-plus of wealth looted from 12 Asian countries accumulated over thousands of years.
Shocking details of the Japanese criminal enrichment could be found in the controversial book Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold, backed up by massive amounts of the author's raw research material, which is available in 2 CD-ROMs containing more than 900 megabytes of documents, interviews, maps and photographs assembled during their meticulous research for independent verification.
A Swiss court disclosed in 1997 that one of the solid gold Buddhas is now in a bank vault beneath Zurich's Kloten Airport, along with a large quantity of other gold bullion recovered by former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and held in Marcos family accounts.
In 1997, a team from Japan's Asahi television was led to a mountain cave in the Philippine, where they filmed and examined 1,800 of these bars, worth $150 million, and drilled core samples that confirmed their province.
After Japan's surrender, some golds were recovered by U.S. But U.S. decided to steal and criminally enrich itself instead of returning to its rightful Asian owner for their desperate recovery after War.
According to the Seagraves,
US financial experts from CIA instructed Santa Romana to deposit the gold in 176 reliable banks in 42 different countries. Instead of returning these looted gold to the rightful owners of Asian countries for recovery in the aftermath of WWII, U.S. criminally enriched itself by stealing these looted gold and
set up Slush Funds to finance and influence politics around the world for its own interests. The slush funds became US political worldwide action fund to fight communism. The most famous one is known as the Black Eagle Trust, or the M-Fund to reinforce the treasuries of its allies, bribe political leaders, manipulate politics, military, economics and elections around the world.
"Truth is something governments do not wish to be known. Big corporate media and bootlicking academics have tried to undermine our books by pretending they don't exist or saying that the M-Fund is imaginary. But look at the CD-ROMs. Secrecy, lying and corruption have become the official seal of Tokyo and Washington" says Peggy Seagrave.
The fact that the U.S. still refuses to declassify relevant OSS/CIA materials, in blatant contravention of U.S. Freedom of Information laws, strongly suggests to many scholars and historians that there is something serious to Cover-up.
After the war, according to Segraves, US used the looted treasure from Asia as sort of Japanese Marshall Plan to re-build Japan, and develop Japanese key industries such as coal, iron, shipbuilding and electric power for Japan's so-called "Economic Miracle Recovery" and as bulwark against communism.
San Francisco Peace Treaty reveals that the reparations matter was postponed until Japan has the financial means to pay.
To cover-up, U.S. insisted that Japan was badly damaged and bankrupt when the war ended, and waived Japan's war reparations.
In fact, few factories and mansions were destroyed or even seriously damaged, and there was little damage to the infrastructure. Japanese industries were dispersed widely and largely concealed from air attack. According to historian John W. Dower, author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WWII, the financial centers, transportation infrastructure, and public utilities in Japan remained largely intact.
Far from being bankrupted by the War, Japan had been greatly and criminally enriched by the
Plunder of Asia after the War.
After the war, U.S. played a central role in redress activities targeting Germany. However, U.S. State Department vigorously opposed former Allied PoWs reparations campaign against Japan, and insists that the San Francisco Peace Treaty as precluding individual claims against Japanese companies. As a result other Allied nations, e.g. Britan, Canada pressured by U.S.,have compensated their own ex-PoWs with own funds in recent years.
After the war, the abuse of the allied PoWs in Slave camps was vigorously prosecuted. But in cases, where the victims were Chinese Slaves, often igonored. e.g. In Yokohama war crimes trials handed down 60 guilty verdicts including 8 death sentences for atrocities against Allied PoWs in Niigata Prefecture.
But NO charges were even filed for the Chinese Slaves enslaved at the SAME port facilities and were TWICE as likely to have died .
The issue of forced Chinese Slaves was simply ignored in the Tokyo Trials.
In 1993, Japanese NHK broadcasted a award-winning documentary called "The Phantom Foreign Ministry Report: The record of Chinese forced labor". NHK went to U.S. and interviewed the former Chinese Slaves investigator William Simpson, "American authorities lost interest in prosecuting forced labor ..... because these were people we wanted to work with in the Cold War as allies." said Simpson.
Using this obvious U.S. double-standard in the Tokyo Trials, Japanese company Mitsubishi asserted that the lack of Slave War Crimes prosecutions against the company proves its innocence in the Slave lawsuits. In the court, Mitsubishi not only denied the historical facts routinely recognized by other Japanese courts, also criticised Tokyo Trials, even openly questioning whether Japan ever "invaded" China at all.
Despite the widespread prevalence of what was essentially institutionalized Mass Rape, the issue of Sex Slaves was also ignored by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, set up after the WWII to prosecute Japan's war criminals.
The Japanese brutal colonial rule of Taiwan and Korea was also ignored at the Tokyo Tribunal.
Peter Calvocoressi, author of the book
"Total War", wrote "What seems quite incredible is that the cover-up conspiracy - for it is by no means a demonological exaggeration to speak of it as a conspiracy - was maintained throughout the three years which elapsed between the Japanese defeat and the conclusion of the
Tokyo Trial ... and that ... this conspiracy was sustained for so long afterwards."
Under the Cover-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity, Japanese government with its economic power, is able to wage a sophisticated propaganda after the war:
Japan portrayed itself as an Atomic Victim rather than a colonial Atrocious War Criminal.
Ian Buruma, author of "The Wages of Guilt" resents the Japan's transformation of Hiroshima into a mecca of "Japanese Victim-hood". Many of Japanese attitudes towards the atomic bomb on Hiroshima are so extreme as to be ludicrous. He dismisses them and wrote: "
Again, such opinions are extreme. But, judging from what appears in Japanese periodicals and on best-seller lists, not that far from the mainstream".
There are more than 900 ultra nationalist groups in Japan. They are well organised and well connected with ties to the ruling LDP. Unlike in German where the ultra nationalists basically are out of the mainstream political debate. In Japan, they are part of the mainstream.
Rightist threats raise fears in Japan. "Speech and journalism in this country are facing an extremely difficult situation," Masato Kitamura, chairman of the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association, told the group's annual meeting recently. Japan's estimated 10,000 ultra-rightists, have become increasingly violent in recent years, the National Police Agency said in its annual report last year. When ruling party lawmaker Koichi Kato criticized a prime minister's trip to Yasukuni Shrine, retribution from Japan's right-wing was swift: An extremist set his house on fire. "Many people are now keeping their months shut. Parliament is not an exception." said Kato.
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." Today, U.S. eyes spoiler role in Japan-China dispute. The Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands dispute.
Japan has now being able to skirt the soul-searching for its War Crimes for more than half century.
Most people have termed it
"The Forgotten Asian Holocaust".
From history, we know that Militarism is extreme State-Terrorism.
Ironically, Japanese War Crimes cover-up is, in fact, a
Cover-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity -- an U.S. "With-Us or Against-Us" mockery to its own war against Terrorism. By covering-up Japan's State-Terrorism and orchestrated many war/proxy wars around the world, U.S. has become an Indirect-State-Terrorism nation.
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
militarizing in support of the American government. People think it's right, That's what's really the problem I'm concerned about."
In Jun 2006, even the Japanese Emperor Akihito gave warning against a current Japan's return to the right-wing violence and militarist oppression.
Japan's "Peace Constitution Article 9"prohibits Japan from having an army. So, instead of an army, Japan calls it Self-Defense Force (SDF). As clearly indicated by its name, Japan is forbidden by the constitution to resort to military action unless attacked.
However, encouraged by US, Japanese Self-Defense Force is now the best equipped and most modern army in Asia. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Japan military spending in 2003 was US$ 46.9 billion, the 2nd largest in the world, even outstrips Britain's in total spending and manpower. Its navy is probably the 2nd largest in the Pacific.
Bomb by bomb, Japan sheds military restraints. China is now trying to catch up.
Japan now inches toward a full-fledged military. A bill to revise the Defense Agency Establishment Law will be enacted soon. The agency will officially become the Defense Ministry in January, the first time the name of the agency has been changed in its 53-year history. Japan has about 240,000 SDF troops and one of the world's biggest defense expenditures. Japanese governments have explained away the contradiction by claiming that SDF is not a military but a kind of police force. Another bill aimed at instilling patriotism among students at school, is also expected to be enacted soon. It will be the first revision of the basic education law since it took effect in 1947.
Taking advantage of US war against Terrorism, ironically, instead of self-defense, Japan dispatched its Self-Defence warships for the FIRST TIME in the postwar period to Afghanistan; and then sent its Self-Defence troops to combat zone for the FIRST TIME to Iraq, to help fighting Terrorism.
It is a speechless mockery to its own Cover-up of extreme State-Terrorism committed during 14 years atrocious WWII.
No other nation on the Earth has looked into the evils of war crimes and worked so hard to come to terms with them than Germany. Germany's willingness to confront the past sets Germany apart from all other countries.
To the rest of the world, the comparison between Japan and Germany is as clear as the Emperor's new clothes.
In the past 6 decades, Germany has gone to great lengths to make restitution. It has paid billions of dollars in compensation and tried thousands of its citizens for the massacre. Germany's acknowledgment of its war crimes and its sensitivity to them have been seemingly endless. It was Germany's long rehabilitation. Now it is seen more as the rebirth of Germany. The success of this decades-long national process was clearly demonstrated during the World Cup by the return of nationalism that was viewed as joyful, playful, healthy but not in any way threatening, not in any way reflective of darker impulses.
The German government and its industry, even after some legal victories in favor of German companies barring claims of Slave laborers, recognized their responsibility and did not walk away from the bargaining table. Rather, they continued to negotiate to bring the matter of the wartime role of German private industry to a moral closure.
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.
Austria government setup a
Austrian Reconciliation Fund and has paid nearly $350 million to 132,000 slaves or their families, enslaved by the Nazi war machine in Austria.
In Mar 2008, the Belgium government and banks decided to pay $170 million compensation to Holocaust survivors, families of victims and Jewish community for their property and material losses during WWII.
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.
Even before Germany set up its Slave redress fund, Mercedes Benz had voluntarily researched the company's wartime role and compensated forced workers. "Should not Japanese companies also have the self-awareness to at least properly research their own histories ?" NHK asked. "Can these Japanese corporations move into China and develop their businesses while leaving their past unexamined ?"
Can Japan be allowed to do any less ?
"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.
Germany has also paid out nearly 1.8 Billion marks on the basis of special bilateral agreements concluded in 1991 and 1993 with Poland, Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus (White Russia) -- even though in 1953 Poland and Soviet Union each renounced any further reparations payments from Germany.
There is also a Polish-German Reconciliation Fund for Poles who were used as human guinea pigs in pseudomedical experiments by the Nazis.
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.
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.
Although he spoke NO words, but Brandt's historic thundering silent apology was the most powerful words ever spoken for the world peace and reconciliation. For that, Germans have won back the world's high respect.
Willy Brandt's new Ostpolitik, on dealing with Germany's history in a serious way had earned Brandt the Nobel Peace Price in 1971. Symbolically, one individual German knelt down, humbly . Spiritually, whole German nation stood up again, honourably. In a stark contrast, symbolically, one individual Japanese stood there worshipping, stubbornly . Spiritually, whole Japanese nation knelt down, shamefully.
When Brandt described the moment, "On the abyss of German history and carrying the burden of the millions who were murdered, I did what people do when words fail them."
In 2000, the then German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder recalled Brandt's heroic act and said: "We committed crimes and we confess to these crimes."
Germany has also made generous acts of atonement.
From 1951 to 1998, Germany has already paid
More than 102 Billion marks (US $ 61.8 Billion), in federal government reparation payments to Israel and Third Reich victims.
While most suvivors are already dead, but Germany is still
paying out pension to some 1.25 Billion marks (US $ 75 Million) to 106,000 pensioners around the world.
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.
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 Government has bought a former labor camp near Berlin to open a memorial to commemorate Slave laborers in 2006. The memorial is in Schöneweide in the east of the capital.
The German government started constructing of an exhibition center at the site where the Gestapo, leaders of the SS and other top officials in Adolf Hitler's police state presided over Nazi-era crimes.
In Oct, 2007 a new Nazi camp memorial exhibition center opens in central Germany, the Bergen-Belsen camp, to more accurately document prisoners’ experiences there. It draws on archive material that came to light in the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War.
In Dec 2008, Germany started building a memorial to Gypsies persecuted by the Nazis in Berlin's central Tiergarten park. Some 220,000 to 500,000 Gypsies were killed during the Holocaust.
German government has also agreed to open Holocaust archive in Germany to scholars and historians, not just vicitms' family members. Archive to expand access to files on the Holocaust . Nazi archives finally made public in Nov 2007.
Germany it is also dealing with property claims from former East Germany. Germany long ago satisfied the vast majority of claims pending from the war. It has spent an estimated $100 billion, adjusted for inflation, to victims of Nazism. However, the communist East German government had generally refused to compensate.
In 2010 Germany doubles money to the aging Holocaust survivors worldwide. The extra money provides for the at-home care of aging victims of the Holocaust.
Germany gives $80 million to preserve the death camp of Auschwitz to preserve the barracks, gas chambers and other evidence of Nazi crimes at the former death camp, some of which are deteriorating to the point of collapse.
In schools, Germany has hammered students with anti-Nazi education and the concept of Zivilcourage. In Japan, "Teachers are afraid of criticism from the parents or administration," said Mr. Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer. He describes his own experience in high school. Japanese history was abruptly cut off around 1925, when class time was up for the year. At which point the teacher told the class: "Please read the remainder on your own," Mr. Murakami says that such high-school experiences were common.
German students are also required to visit former concentration camps as part of their Holocaust studies.
German education requires an average of 60 hours of teaching the history of the Nazi era with the goal of exposing the sins of the past. Japanese textbooks have always been carefully controlled and whitewashed by the Japanese government.
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. Germany now wants Holocaust denial to be EU-wide crime.
Germany tries 'Holocaust denier'. If found guilty, Germar Rudolf could face up to 5 years in prison. In Feb 2005, British revisionist historian David Irving was found guilty of denying the Holocaust by an Austrian court and sentenced to 3 years in prison.
In Germany, family links alone do not disqualify citizens from public office. But they are expected to show atonement or make amends. Otherwise, would NOT be admitted to any German government office.
However, in Japan, Abe Shinzo, is now considered the front runner to replace Koizumi as PM later this year. He is the son of former foreign minister Shintaro Abe who was implicated in the Recruit insider trading and big corruption scandal in 1980s. He is also the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi who oversaw the Slave labor program as minister of commerce and industry during the war, was imprisoned as a Class-A War Criminal suspect and later became Japanese prime minister in 1957, and was also the founding father of the current dominated LDP Party.
Japanese current Foreign Minister Taro Aso, another front runner to replace Koizumi, has a direct link to family's mining company used thousands of Koreans and PoWs as Slaves. Taro Aso himself ran the firm from 1973-79, has never acknowledged his family company's enslavement.
The 2 candidates Shinzo Abe and Taro Aso refuse to halt war Shrine visits. They gave their reason in Feb 2006 in Lower House budget committee meeting that Japanese Class-A War Criminals are not criminals according to Japanese standards.
German government even offers cash reward to those who help to track down the Nazi war criminals. Most of the war crimianals kept their identities hidden to escape punishment. There is one final drive to locate these elderly war criminals: Operation Last Chance. One of the next to be found could be Aribert Heim. "There's now a prize of 310,000 euros on his head -- 130,000 offered by the German government, another 130,000 offered by us, and this July the Austrians added another 50,000 euros," said Efraim Zuroff of Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Germany also updates official list of Jews murdered by Nazis. The
4-volume book, containing 150,000 names of all known German Jews killed in the Holocaust with new information following German reunification in 1990. "We have a moral duty to keep alive the memory of all the Jewish victims of the Nazi dictatorship and pass it to future generations," said Bernd Neumann, German state minister for the arts.
Germany also agrees to open Nazi files which describes how the Holocaust was carried out for research purposes, not just for the victim's families.
German government has even offered its
formal apology for the colonial-era massacre of Herero tribe in Namibia happened 100 years ago.
Hitler was admitted to a field hospital in WWI, temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack, therefore kept any notion of WMD Chemical or Biological weapons from beginning in Germany. When German V1 and V2 rockets hit England, Brits worried that they might contain WMD Chemical or Biological agents. Unlike what Japan did to China, Hitler never used WMD.
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".
Because today's wealth & prosperity of ALL Western colonial rich countries including Japan
i.e. G8, are all built upon the Criminal Enrichment foundation of their long brutal colonial crimes.
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 ..... "
In a speech to Israel's Parliament in 2000, Germany's President Johannes Rau made an emotional plea for forgiveness for the Holocaust. He became the first German leader to address the Israeli parliament,
"With the people of Israel watching, I bow in humility before those murdered, before those who don't have graves where I could ask them for forgiveness," said Rau, "
I am asking for forgiveness for what Germans have done, for myself and my generation, for the sake of our children and children's children."
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 and 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 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.
Media Intimdation in Japan - A Close Encounter with Hard Japanese Nationalism . Silenced Voices: The Japanese Media, the Comfort Women Tribunal, and the NHK Affair.
Japan finds itself staring at the Past as it looks into the Future.
Crime and responsibility: war, the state, and Japanese society.
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 WMDs against Humanity in WWII, i.e. the WMD Biological Weapons, WMD Chemical Weapons, and the addictive WMD Drugs, 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 and Entertainment without feeling any guilt. Instead, they enjoyed very much the brutal fun and atrocious pleasure.
"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 and the 2 Atomic Bombs appear very Humane."
In fact, mass murder was carried out systematically by the Japan long before the first Nazi's Auschwitz Gas Chambers were even built.
Painstaking research by British historian Mark Felton, author of
Slaughter at Sea: The Untold Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes, reveals that Japanese Navy was far worse than Hitler's Kriegsmarine. Japanese Navy ordered the deliberately sadistic murders of more than 20,000 Allied seamen and countless civilians in cold-blooded defiance of the Geneva Convention. There is only one documented case of a German U-boat skipper being responsible for cold-blooded murder of survivors. In the Japanese Imperial Navy, it was official orders.
"The Japanese Navy sank Allied merchant and Red Cross vessels, then murdered survivors floating in the sea or in lifeboats. Allied air crew were rescued from the ocean and then tortured to death on the decks of ships. Naval landing parties rounded up civilians then raped and massacred them. Some were taken out to sea and fed to sharks. Others were killed by sledge-hammer, bayonet, beheading, hanging, drowning, burying alive, burning or crucifixion. I also unearthed details of medical experiments by naval doctors, with prisoners being dissected while still alive."
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."
Using their own funds, Minoru Matsui and Ken'ichi Oguri began filming
"Japanese Devils" in 1999. Matsui traveled around Japan, interviewing veterans. Aware that the film would be explosively controversial in Japan, he asked them to limit their recollections to acts in which they had personally participated. Matsui ruled out any use of hearsay. Matsui specifically requested these Japanese soldiers to only talk about their personally involved facts, not anything anecdotal.
Credibility was the most critical issue. Interviewees often felt highly emotional about the atrocities they had committed, Matsui asked them not to cry in front of the camera. He asked them to hold back on their emotions and relate their activities in a clear, accurate manner. In Japan, those who try to bring such events to light are sometimes dismissed as insane or victims of Chinese brainwashing. So Matsui wanted his interviewees to appear as clear-headed as possible.
Shortly after their award-winning film's release in 2001, 2 of the 14 witnesses have died. Matsui realized that he has made "Japanese Devils" just in time.
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".
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 said he himself never had the courage to ask his father, a former soldier in China : What did you do in the War, Daddy ?.
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 called 'em "Chinks", you know, didn't treat 'em like humans. We didn't think of "Chinks" as human, they were subhuman. If we thought they were human, we couldn't have been so cruel"
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 brutal invasion casualties. The rest of Asia's more than 30 Millions victim's death are totally ignored in historical amnesia.
The 3 million Japanese died in the war, MOST were Japanese invading soldiers. But the more than 30 Millions victimized Asians died, MOST were just civilians. This stark contrast clearly indicates the vast magnitude and scope of the Japanese actrocious Crimes committed in Asia.
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 
Shrine from a phrase in "Chunqiu Zuoshi Zhuan 
" (Shunju Sashiden) , another Chinese Classic , meaning "Bringing Peace to a Nation."
"Shinto 
" itself is Chinese words which means "the way of the gods" (Shin=gods; To is Tao=the way).
| Colonial Brutal Invasion/Wars | 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 (JiaWu War) |
13,619 |
| War against China - 1900 | Boxer Rebellion | 1,256 |
| War inside China - 1904 | Russo-Japanese War | 88,429 |
| 21 Demands to China - 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.
Both Russia and Japan wanted to colonize the resource rich Chinese Manchuria. In 1904, Japan declared war on Russia, altogether ignoring China, who still technically ruled the area. The
Russian-Japanese War was fought inside China to determine who had more "Rights" to colonize China. They spent a year and a half fighting each other on Chinese soil, ended with
Treaty of Portsmouth. Again ignoring China, U.S. President Roosevelt presided the treaty: Russia lose all its holdings in China and Japan gain effective control southern Manchuria, securing its influence in Korea, which it would officially takeover in 1910. China wasn't even consulted by the foreign colonial powers on how to carve up their share inside China.
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, tortured PoWs, WMDs 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 50-minute film even questions whether the Japanese invasion of Asia was ever a violation of international law.
The Museum also displays the first engine that travelled the infamous 415 km Railway of Death - Thai-Burma Railway without mentioning the
savage death of 16,000 PoWs and 100,000 Asian Slaves, described by Cameron Forbes in his book Hellfire as
"
built on the Bones of the Dead", i.e. 300 death for each km. The C56 steam locomotive engine of the Thai-Burma Railway of Death was called by ex-PoW Eric Lomax as a "Monument to the Japanese Barbarism".
WWII is called "the Greater East Asian War", invasion of China is described as "China Incident". The Museum displays a reconstructed Zero fighter and a Kaiten or Japanese single-man mini-sub/human torpedo , and the Short Sword used by Gen. Korechika Anami who advocated to continue the War even after the 2 Atomic Bombs.
On display was a kaiten human torpedo, the innocently named "cherry blossom bomb" - a one-trip flying rocket piloted by suicide bombers.
There is also a monument in the shrine tributed to the hated dreadful Japanese Kempeitai , "It is like seeing a memorial to the Gestapo in a German cathedral." said ex-PoW Eric Lomax.
The website of the Yasukuni shrine then declares: "The Truth of modern Japanese History is now restored.”
What if a museum in Germany featuring a Nazi plane, a memorial to the bravery of the Gestapo, a display claiming the Poles welcomed their invaders ?
Again U.S., Britain and other countries remain thundering SILENT.
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.
According to the minutes from a 1969 meeting and documents of some 808 government and shrine documents, released by the National Diet Library in 2007, entitled "A New Compilation of Materials on the Yasukuni Shrine" , Japanese government initiated and urged the Yasukuni Shrine to enshrine ALL Class-A, B, C War Cirminals.
Enshrinement Politics: war dead and war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine.
In 1959, Yasukuni Shrine began to enshrine Class-B and Class-C war criminals. It had 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. It was a serious violation of Japanese Constitution, the separation of religion and state.
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 .....",
i.e. ALL Japanese WWII soldiers are criminals , committed Mass Rape crime at the least.
According to the published figures in Oct 2001,
there were 28,863 Taiwanese and 21,181 Koreans enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine without their families' permission. Most of them were forced into war service under Japan's colonial rule. Since Feb 1978, a group of Taiwanese residents in Japan who had learned about the list started legal proceedings to get the
Taiwanese removed from Yasukuni. In Feb 1979, a group of 7 indigenous
Taiwanese bereaved relatives came to Japan and, for the first time, demanded that their relatives be removed from enshrinement. The Taiwan Chinese 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 June 2001, 55 members of bereaved families from S.Korea filed a suit at the Tokyo District Court demanding the removal from enshrinement of their relatives. Okinawan families sue Yasukuni to end relatives' enshrinement.
In the past 3 years, Taiwan Chinese 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 Taiwan Chinese people, including large numbers of Aborigines.
For people in Asia, Yasukuni Shrine is a symbol of Japan's brutal militaristic past.
It is a potent symbol of how the Japanese intoxicated by fascism and coerced by military rule, once collectively lost their reason and were fed fantastic myths, of racial superiority and the Emperor's divinity.
The brutal military aggression in Asia was promoted and justified by Japan as a sacred mission of the glorified militarism, racial superiority, and emperor worship. Dying for the Emperor was the highest virtue. That was why soldiers believed that they would meet after death at Yasukuni Shrine . It became both a state religion and a political ideology, of which Yasukuni Shrine is the prime symbol.
This is what makes the shrine such a disturbing place. Not the Class-A war criminals, or the Japanese Kempeitai monument, but this destructive ideology, which has survived intact despite war crime trials, democratic government, and more than half a century to analyze, debate, and reflect on the catastrophes of the past.
Japanese prime minister Koizumi is either ignorant or dishonest when he claims that visiting the shrine is simply "a matter of the heart".
Weekly news magazines and commentators on cable television current affairs talk shows have recently taken to describing Mr Koizumi's stance on Yasukuni as "Childish".
General MacArthur once described
Japan as "A Nation of 12-year-olds" and Japanese "as a childlike people who would run amok without imperial guidance".
Ian Buruma, author of "The Wages of Guilt" wrote: "A normal society, a society not haunted by ghosts, cannot be achieved by 'normalizing' history. More the other way around..... When society has become sufficiently open and free to look back, from the point of view neither of the victim nor of the criminal, but of the critic, only then will the ghosts be laid to rest."
To the Japanese, 14 years of in-human brutality was a Holy War. They were fighting for the God-like Emperor. According to "Yasukuni Daihyakka" (Yasukuni encyclopedia), a pamphlet published by the Shrine, War Criminals are called "Showa martyrs"
Grand-daughter of Tojo: If there was no Emperor , there would be no Japan ......
DM : But the Emperor himself admits he is Korean.
Grand-daughter of Tojo : I know nothing about his roots , but I was astonished that he said such a thing ......
Japan rediscovers its Korean past . . . . .
The Emperor's new roots - Emperor declared his own Korean ancestry.
It is because Japanese Nara city was the capital of Japan from 643 and 794 A.D. where Japan's earliest Emperors were buried. In fact, Conclusive evidences have shown that Japanese Nara Prefecture was actually a Korean colony. The word "Nara" itself means "motherland" in Korean. The Meiji government also agreed that Taizen Kumazawa from Nara was the legitimate heir of the southern Yoshino court.
In 2001, Emperor Akihito said he feels a close "kinship" with Korean and cited the fact that the mother of Emperor Kammu was also a Korean. He also appreciated Korean culture and technology brought to Japan. In fact, more accurately, it should be "from
China via Korea to Japan".
In 1984, Emperor Hirohito made similar statement that the Imperial family had a "close kinship" with Korea.
In fact, the anthropologists and archeologists have confirmed that the modern Japanese came quite late from the mainland Asia to Japan only around 400 B.C., that is a very shallow root . DNA research has confirmed Japanese are close genetic kin to both Chinese and Korean
"Archaeology has made a lot of progress," said Hisao Baba, curator of anthropology at the National Science Museum in Tokyo, "but
politics has made it difficult for the Japanese general public to take a critical look at their own past."
Ironically,
Racial Prejudice and Japanese militaristic Brain-washing of believing other Asian as Sub-Human was so successful,
Most Japanese simply forgot the fact that MOST of their so proudly proclaimed "superior" culture are really originated from "inferior" China.
Writing didn't even appear in Japan until Chinese culture was imported . Even today, the Japanese writing still adopts many Chinese characters.
The Japanese "Banzai 
" or "Manzai" was also originated from the Chinese "Wansui" for the Chinese Emperor.
The Japanese old capital Nara was actually modelled after Chang'an, the Chinese capital of Tang China which was the largest city on Earth at the time.
Kyoto was the former Imperial "Capital City" of Japan. It was also the first Japan's planned capital. Kyoto city's layout and key buildings were also modelled after Chinese capital Changan.
Japan, it might be said, attended the Chinese school of civilization in China. Between 607 and 838, Japan sent 19 missions to China -- on average, one every 12 years. Knowledge was the principal goal. Monks studied
Ch'an ( i.e. Zen ) and other sects of Buddhism ; officials studied government ; scholars studied literature ; doctors studied medicine ; artists studied arts ; and so on ..... e.g. Japanese Writing , Medicine , Poetry , Architecture , Literature , Zen (Ch'an) , Shinto , Painting , Music , Garden , Bonsai (tray planting) , Ikebana (flower arranging) , Tea , Calligraphy , Drum , Chopsticks , Sushi , Origami (paper folding) , New Year ,
Go Game (Wei Qi) , Kimono , Karate , Jujitsu , Judo ,
Kendo , Geisha .......
The extremely friendly relationship between the 2 countries was the most extraordinary one (probably NO parallel in world History) of Teacher-to-Pupil.
Japanese scholars who had studied Chinese even adopted a new name 
for their country using the Chinese phrase for "origin of the sun, sunrise" because Japan is located east of China. Actually, the name was given by a Chinese Empress of the Tang dynasty.
Japan also implemented its Yoro Clothing Code by copying the China's official Tang dress codes, and imported Japanese Kimono from China's Wu-Uet area. That is why even today, many Japanese Kimono professionals still call it Gofuku which means "Clothes of Wu" from China. The Chinese Traditional Hanfu disappeared because Ching Dynasty brutally prohibited the Han Chinese from wearing and forced them to have a Manchurian pigtail through numerous massacres. However, Chinese Traditional Hanfu advocates now have generated a hanfu movement to promote them by wearing it in the public and in Chinese ceremonies ,
Chinese Coming of Age ceremony,
easily mistaken to be Japanese Kimono or the Korean Hanbok 
because both of them are based on Chinese Hanfu. Some pictures of the Hanfu design.
Even the name of Japanese Emperor Meiji was originated from "Yi Jing (I Ching) " , a Chinese Classic.
Having a name for the Emperor's era is also a tradition following the Chinese Emperor.
The name of Emperor Hirohito's reign "Showa 
" is originated from "Shu Jing 
" , a Chinese Classic , which means "Enlightened Peace".
The name of Emperor Akihito's reign "Heisei 
", is originated from "Shi Ji 
" and "Shu Jing " , both Chinese Classics , which means "Peace Everywhere".
Ironically, the sole purpose of the Chinese Classic "Shi Ji " was to preserve the Truth of History as a mirror and learn from it.
In late 19th century, in order to distinguish themself from the other minority ethnic groups, again following Chinese way using an era name, the Japanese call themself the "Yamato people 
" which means , ironically , "The Great Peaceful Race". The name comes from Yamato Period.
Emperor Meiji also took the name Yasukuni Shrine from a phrase in "Chunqiu Zuoshi Zhuan " (Shunju Sashiden) , another Chinese Classic , meaning "Bringing Peace to a Nation."
"Shinto " itself is Chinese words which means "the way of the gods" (Shin=gods; To is Tao=the way).
The conclusion is that : Basically, the Japanese so proudly proclaimed superior culture is really the Chinese culture with only minor modifications. Ironically, Japanese believed that their own Cultural Teacher , the Chinese , were sub-Human , and then decided to " Repay Virtue with Evil " through Wars.
Yasukuni
Shinto Shrine is a symbol of Japan's failure as a nation to collectively face its past war responsibilities.
Strangely, there are NO human remains at Yasukuni Shrine.
In 1952, Japan passed a "Resolution on the recovery and repatriation of the remains of war dead in overseas territories". Strangely, 60 years after, 50 % of Japanese dead soldiers, i.e. more than 1,160,000 of them are still not repatriated. Even now some 600,000 are retrievable. Inside the Biak cave, in a small island of Indonesia, the skulls of Japanese soldiers were set out in a row, their teeth and parts of thigh bones lined up. Every visitor comes to the Biak cave would really wonder:
What do the Japanese think about their relatives' bones ?
Why Japan and Japanese families don't care and completely dis-concern about the bones of their relatives ? What is this Japanese mentality ? After 65 years, some Japanese soldiers' bone finally going home.
Japanese pacifism is really originated more from a feeling that Japanese suffered during the war rather than from a recognition that Japan started the 14 years long brutal WMD war and caused extreme damage and pain to its Asian neighbors. Therefore, many 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 6th time as PM, and also the first on 15 Aug 2006, the anniversary of Japan's surrender, the most provocative date possible, signing the guest book as prime minister.
Koizumi's dangerous game.
Under Article 11 of San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japanese government was to accept the verdit of the Tokyo Tribunal. Japanese Prime Minister to Yasukuni Shrine violates the Peace Treaty. This was why PM Nakasone refrained from further visits in the following years.
Hirohito visited Yasukuni Shrine 8 times as Emperor, last pilgrimage was in 1975. In 1978 the shrine's head priest secretly enshrined 14 Class-A War Criminals. "That's why I have since not visited the shrine" according to the diaries of former palace Grand Steward Tomohiko Tomita.
However, many think it was an act of "self-protection" because Hirohito was afraid that their enshrinement would "reignite" debate over his holy responsibility of the war.
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 an Editorial 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 denies Nazi's war crimes and flatly refuses to offer true apology and compensation to the victims, then Chancellor of Germany goes to a Nazi shrine and
pays tribute to Hitler, and Goebbels, and Gestapo, and tells the world it's just for peace,
Do you think U.S., Britain and other countries would remain silent ?
Imagine if current German government adopts the Nazi's song and Swastika as their National anthem and flag, publicly marks anniversary of Hitler's death, and then honors Hitler by making his birthday as a National Holiday,
Do you think U.S., Britain and other countries would remain silent ?
Japan has done exactly that.
Japan Prime Minister Taro Aso, other politicians and members of the imperial family attended the Shinto ceremony as Japan marks anniversary of wartime emperor Hirohito's death.
In Aug 1999, Japan's parliament voted 166 to 71 enacted bitterly contested legislation enshrining the notorious militaristic rising sun flag as the national flag , the imperial hymn Kimigayo as the national anthem. The militaristic symbols were condemned by hundreds protesters demonstrated outside the building because of their connection with Japan's militarist and imperial past.
Since 1999, the playing of the Japanese notorious militaristic anthem Kimigayo (His Majesty's Reign) and the flying of the notorious militaristic Hinomaru (Rising Sun) flag, have been
compulsory at Japanese school ceremonies
Teacher Katsuhisa Fujita who urged parents attending a graduation ceremony to remain seated during Japanese national anthem was fined $1,800. Though Fujita was ejected, about 90 % of the students remained seated during the song, school officials said.
To support the hundreds of teachers and students who refuse to sing the current Japanese notorious militaristic national anthem at school, someone has turned the notorious militaristic national anthem "Kimigayo" into 2 English versions titled : "Kiss Me" , and "Kiss Me Girl" , urge people to remember Japan's war crimes including Nanjing Massacre and Sex Slaves. It takes the syllables of each word of the Japanese and turns them into phonetically similar English words to support the
protest of people who are forced to sing as "a small pillar of opposition in people's hearts".
In Sept 2006 Japanese district court ruled that a Tokyo metropolitan government order compelling teachers to stand up for Japan's notorious national flag Hinomaru (Rising Sun) and sing the notorious national anthem Kimigayo (His Majesty's Reign) violated the Constitution. However, Tokyo Board of Education has appealed to the Supreme Court. A decision is not expected until 2010.
Watch the Japanese teachers' story in video : Japanese teachers fight Militarization of schools , and sign their petition. Compensation win for Japanese teachers forced to sing notorious militaristic national anthem.
In an interesting coincidence, the Chinese National Anthem was written in 1935 with lyrics by the noted poet Tian Han and music by the famous composer Nie Er. The original name of the song was "Sons and Daughters in a Time of Storm", as a theme song for the film "March of the Volunteers". The film tells the story of those who went to the front to fight the Japanese invaders in northeast China in the 1930s when the fate of China was hanging in the balance. The song inspired the whole China to defeat the atrocious Japanese invaders and became the provisional Chinese National Anthem in 1949, and officially in 1982.
Kimiko Nezu, a Japanese teacher, 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. Tokyo teachers fight an uphill battle against nationalism and coercion.
"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.
In 1976, Takashi Nagase organized the first reunions between ex-PoWs and Japanese soldiers on the bridge of 415 km Thai-Burma Railway of Death. He wants to redeem by Building Bridges Over Hate. But he was criticized by the Japanese press for holding the Thai national flag rather than the
Japanese notorious Rising Sun flag. "Do they know how many people were slaughtered under that flag ?" he asks.
The rebel teachers say they have no problem with honouring Japan, but urged Japanese government to come up with a different flag and anthem.
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." Today, U.S. eyes spoiler role in Japan-China dispute. The Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands dispute.
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.
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".
In late 19th century, in order to distinguish themself from the other minority ethnic groups, again following Chinese way using an era name, the Japanese call themself the "Yamato people " which means , ironically , "The Great Peaceful Race". The name comes from Yamato Period.
According to the published figures in Oct 2001,
there were 28,863 Taiwanese and 21,181 Koreans enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine without their families' permission. Most of them were forced into war service under Japan's colonial rule. Since Feb 1978, a group of Taiwanese residents in Japan who had learned about the list started legal proceedings to get the
Taiwanese removed from Yasukuni. In Feb 1979, a group of 7 indigenous
Taiwanese bereaved relatives came to Japan and, for the first time, demanded that their relatives be removed from enshrinement. The Taiwan Chinese 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 June 2001, 55 members of bereaved families from S.Korea filed a suit at the Tokyo District Court demanding the removal from enshrinement of their relatives. Okinawan families sue Yasukuni to end relatives' enshrinement.
In the past 3 years, Taiwan Chinese 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 Taiwan Chinese people, including large numbers of Aborigines.
Japan is responsible for the death of more than 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. It was a serious violation of Japanese Constitution, the separation of religion and state.
According to the minutes from a 1969 meeting and documents of some 808 government and shrine documents, released by the National Diet Library in 2007, entitled "A New Compilation of Materials on the Yasukuni Shrine" , Japanese government initiated and urged the Yasukuni Shrine to enshrine ALL Class-A, B, C War Cirminals.
Enshrinement Politics: war dead and war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine.
Inside the Shrine, a monument was also built to pay tribute to the hated dreadful Japanese Kempeitai , "It is like seeing a Memorial to the Gestapo in a German cathedral." said ex-PoW Eric Lomax.
Tsuneo Watanabe is Japan's most powerful media baron chief editor of Japan's largest daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, well known for its conservative stance. He equates Class-A War Criminal Tojo to Hitler.
Tsuneo Watanabe, Japanese Media tycoon also calls for clearer war apology by Japanese premiers, "It would be best for Parliament to set up a standing committee on war responsibility and express its position".
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 because
the visit violates article 11 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty that Japanese government was to accept the verdit of the Tokyo Tribunal. However, Japanese PM Koizumi, drawing sharp criticism from other Asian countries, made his official tribute to the war Yasukuni Shrine the 6th time as PM, and also the first on 15 Aug 2006, the anniversary of Japan's surrender, the most provocative date possible, signing the guest book as prime minister.
Koizumi's dangerous game.
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." Today, U.S. eyes spoiler role in Japan-China dispute. The Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands dispute.
Western apathy to Japanese WWII atrocities
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.
"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.
Double Standard ... Evil Cover-up ... Evil Conspiracy ... or .. Axis of Evil ... ?
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. By covering-up Japan's State-Terrorism and orchestrated many war/proxy wars around the world, U.S. has become an Indirect-State-Terrorism nation.
Remorseless Japan, assisted by U.S., has committed the
"2nd Rape of Nanjing -- Rape of History" , has committed the "2nd Nanjing Massacre -- Massacre the Massacre" , has committed the "2nd Asian Holocaust -- Holocaust the Holocaust".
* No : None, little, un-official, or in-sufficient
Germany
Japan*
1.
Sincere soul searching
Yes
No
2.
Confession of war crimes
Yes
No
3.
Official true apology
Yes
No
4.
Compensate victims
Yes
No
5.
Compensate Slave Laborers
Yes
No
6.
Compensate Sex Slaves
N/A
No
7.
Compensate WMD Biological victims
N/A
No
8.
Compensate WMD Chemical victims
N/A
No
9.
Identify War criminals
Yes
No
10.
Punish War criminals
Yes
No
11.
Punish WMD Biological criminals
N/A
No
12.
Punish WMD Chemical criminals
N/A
No
13.
Punish WMD Drug criminals
N/A
No
14.
Punish "Three All" criminals
N/A
No
15.
Punish "Strict Disposal" criminals
N/A
No
16.
Punish "Compulsory Seizure" criminals
N/A
No
17.
Punish Sex Slavery criminals
N/A
No
18.
Punish Slavery criminals
Yes
No
19.
Open war time records
Yes
No
20.
Include history in school textbook
Yes
No
21.
Include history in museum
Yes
No
22.
Tribute to victims
Yes
No
23.
Build Memorial for victims
Yes
No
24.
Set Remembrance day for victims
Yes
No
25.
Condemn war crimes
Yes
No
26.
Suppress Militarism
Yes
No
27.
Return looted Wealth
Yes
No
28.
Return looted Cultural Assets
Yes
No
29.
Cover-up war crimes
No
YES
30.
Purported as victims instead of aggressors
No
YES
31.
Worship war Criminals
No
YES
32.
Adopt Militarism symbols as
National Anthem, Flag and
HolidayNo
YES
33.
Suspicion of secretly planning to
develop WMD Nuclear WeaponsNo
YES
Double Standard ... Evil Cover-up ... Evil Conspiracy ... or .. Axis of Evil ... ?
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. By covering-up Japan's State-Terrorism and orchestrated many war/proxy wars around the world, U.S. has become an Indirect-State-Terrorism nation.
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".
Because today's wealth & prosperity of ALL Western colonial rich countries including Japan
i.e. G8, are all built upon the Criminal Enrichment foundation of their long brutal colonial crimes.
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 ..... "
In a speech to Israel's Parliament in 2000,
Germany's President Johannes Rau made an emotional plea for forgiveness for the Holocaust. He became the first German leader to address the Israeli parliament,
"With the people of Israel watching, I bow in humility before those murdered, before those who don't have graves where I could ask them for forgiveness," said Rau, "
I am asking for forgiveness for what Germans have done, for myself and my generation, for the sake of our children and children's children."
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 and 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 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.
Media Intimdation in Japan - A Close Encounter with Hard Japanese Nationalism . Silenced Voices: The Japanese Media, the Comfort Women Tribunal, and the NHK Affair.
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.
"Teachers are afraid of criticism from the parents or administration," said Mr. Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer. He describes his own experience in high school. Japanese history was abruptly cut off around 1925, when class time was up for the year. At which point the teacher told the class: "Please read the remainder on your own," Mr. Murakami says that such high-school experiences were common.
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. By covering-up Japan's State-Terrorism and orchestrated many war/proxy wars around the world, U.S. has become an Indirect-State-Terrorism nation.
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.
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.
Kinhide Mushakoji, Professor of Osaka University of Economics and Law, said: "Now we're part of the west and
militarizing in support of the American government. People think it's right, That's what's really the problem I'm concerned about."
In Jun 2006, even the Japanese Emperor Akihito gave warning against a current Japan's return to the right-wing violence and militarist oppression
Japan's "Peace Constitution Article 9"prohibits Japan from having an army. So, instead of an army, Japan calls it Self-Defense Force (SDF). As clearly indicated by its name, Japan is forbidden by the constitution to resort to military action unless attacked.
However, encouraged by US, Japanese Self-Defense Force is now the best equipped and most modern army in Asia. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Japan military spending in 2003 was US$ 46.9 billion, the 2nd largest in the world, even outstrips Britain's in total spending and manpower. Its navy is probably the 2nd largest in the Pacific.
Bomb by bomb, Japan sheds military restraints. China is now trying to catch up.
Japan now inches toward a full-fledged military. A bill to revise the Defense Agency Establishment Law will be enacted soon. The agency will officially become the Defense Ministry in January, the first time the name of the agency has been changed in its 53-year history. Japan has about 240,000 SDF troops and one of the world's biggest defense expenditures. Japanese governments have explained away the contradiction by claiming that SDF is not a military but a kind of police force. Another bill aimed at instilling patriotism among students at school, is also expected to be enacted soon. It will be the first revision of the basic education law since it took effect in 1947.
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.
Although Japanese Government had systemically destroyed most of its war documents to conceal its State-Terrorism with significant help from the U.S. to cover-up Japanese Terrorism, researchers have now shed more light on the Forgotten Asian Holocaust. Some questions, however, will never be answered. Just as the survivor of the Jewish Holocaust, Arno Lustiger with prisoner number A5592 remains tattooed on his arm, his telephone number Lustiger once told his curious daughter, said, " The more I have learned about this episode, the less I understand it ."
Takesato Watanabe, professor of media ethics at Doshisha University in Kyoto and visiting scholar at Harvard University, his book titled "A Public Betrayed" lists some of the following reasons for Japanese extreme brutalities. Similar conclusion was also reached by Iris Chang in her best selling book "Rape of Nanking - The Forgotten Holocaust" :
e.g. in the Jan. 1942 issue of Bungei Shunju, one of Japan's most popular monthly magazine, article "
Establishing a Japanese Racial Worldview" explained the Japanese concept of "Proper Place" and stated that the Japanese is "the most superior race in the world".
Long before the war, Japanese militaristic government had already extensively brain-washed both the civilians and soldiers. Japanese brain-washing was so successful that most Japanese were brain-washed into believing that other Asian were actually Sub-Human.
In 1923, after the magnitude 7.9 Tokyo Earthquake, rumors flew and reports of many Korean crimes in Japan. Japanese government proclaimed martial law. However, the evidence of the crimes was, and remains, hard to locate. Regardless, the mass killing of Koreans was carried out, not only by the civilians but also by uniformed officers—both military and police. An eyewitness described how the Japanese lined up children in front of parents and cut their throats; they then nailed parents to the wall by their wrists and ankles and tortured them to death. One Japanese man sawed off the arm of a living Korean man. All night long, the massacre continued ...... Torture was methodical—laceration inch by inch, taking eyeballs out, cutting off women’s breast, sticking bamboo spears into women’s vagina, emptying the pregnant woman’s belly, slashing the nose off, cutting off the ears, amputating finger by finger—while alive. After death, desecration of the corpse followed. Many sources agree that 6,000 of the 20,000 Koreans residing in the Kanto area were massacred. 500 Chinese were also massacred.
To the Japanese, the Chinese were considered to be even lower than the sub-human Koreans. Tamaki Matsuoka, a retired teacher, who had spent a decade interviewing more than 300 Chinese victims and 250 Japanese soldiers. Japanese veterans admit on camera their crimes in the documentary "Torn Memories of Nanjing". Tomokazu Takeda said, "Many of the soldiers still did not see Chinese people as human beings. It seems they had no opportunities to correct or reflect on that view after the war". Out of the 250 former soldiers interviewed, only 3 expressed regret for their actions, Tamaki Matsuoka said.
Most Japanese had an extremely naive and completely distorted cultural view of Superiority which played a foundamental role in most Japanese attitude and behaviour. The distorted view brain-washed Japanese into committing these extremely atrocious crimes un-precedented in modern History.
Most Japanese had been thoroughly brain-washed by the Japanese militaristic government and blindly believed that the 14 years of inhuman brutality was a Holy War in the name of the God-like Emperor Hirohito. Even today, the 1,068 War Criminals including the 14 Class-A War Criminals secretly enshrined in 1978, are called "Showa Martyrs" by the Yasukuni Shrine.
In 2005, wartime Emporer Hirohito's birthday is honored as "Showa Day", a National holiday to explicitly glorify Japan's 14 years Asian Holocaust, equivalent to making Hitler's birthday a National holiday in Germany.
To the rest of world, it is an issue as clear as the Emperor's new clothes.
Ironically, the Emperor himself admits he is Korean.
In 1999, Japan's parliament enshrined the notorious militaristic Hinomaru (Rising Sun) flag and the notorious imperial hymn Kimigayo (His Majesty's Reign) as Japan's national flag and anthem. Kazuhisa Suzuki, a Japanese high school teacher said: " It's as though Germany brought back the Nazi Swastika and forced teachers to stand for it."
To support the hundreds of teachers and students who refuse to sing the current Japanese notorious militaristic national anthem at school, someone has turned the Japanese notorious militaristic national anthem "Kimigayo" into 2 English versions titled : "Kiss Me" , and "Kiss Me Girl" , urge people to remember Japan's war crimes including Nanjing Massacre and Sex Slaves.
Watch the Japanese teachers' story in video : Japanese teachers fight Militarization of schools , and sign their petition. Compensation win for Japanese teachers forced to sing notorious militaristic national anthem.
Extremely successful education programs of brain-washing implemented by the Japan's militaristic government through distorted education in the schools, media and militaries. It is called as the "Japanese Media Atrocities" of deceptions, lies, and abuses of media power in Japan by the book "A Public Betrayed".
The brain washing education was so successful that even today Japanese current PM Koizumi ignores the victimized Asian countries and has paid tribute to these War Criminals in Yasukuni Shrine the 6th time as PM, and also the first on 15 Aug 2006, the anniversary of Japan's surrender, the most provocative date possible, signing the guest book as prime minister. Koizumi's dangerous game. It's as though Germany Chancellor went to a Nazi shrine and paid tribute to Hitler, and Goebbels, and Gestapo and telling the world it's just for peace.
The 2 candidates to become Japanese next prime minister Shinzo Abe and Taro Aso also refuse to halt war Shrine visits. They gave their reason in Feb 2006 in Lower House budget committee meeting that Japanese Class-A War Criminals are not criminals according to Japanese standards.
Japanese current prime minister Taro Aso, whose family's Aso Mining Company had enslaved thousands of Koreans and PoWs as Slaves. In Jan. 2009, after 64 years of denial, Japanese prime minister Aso acknowledged that his family Aso Mining used 300 PoW slaves. In Oct 2005 he proclaimed that Japan is "one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture, and one race, the like of which there is no other on earth." completely ignored the Japanese aboriginal, i.e. Ainu of Hokkaido, and the Okinawan of Liuqiu Islands (Ryukyu Islands) . Both have their own origin, culture and languages . Ryukyuan language . also the Japan's untouchable class: the burakumin estimated 1.2 to 3 millions.
In fact, the anthropologists and archeologists have confirmed that the modern Japanese came quite late from the mainland Asia to Japan , only around 400 B.C., and that is really a very shallow root . DNA research has confirmed Japanese are actually close genetic kin to both Chinese and Korean.
"Archaeology has made a lot of progress," said Hisao Baba, curator of anthropology at the National Science Museum in Tokyo, "but politics has made it difficult for the Japanese general public to take a critical look at their own past."
Tamaki Matsuoka, a retired teacher, who had spent a decade interviewing more than 300 Chinese victims and 250 Japanese soldiers. In the documentary "Torn Memories of Nanjing", Japanese veterans admit on camera their crimes. The brain washing education was so successful that out of the 250 former soldiers interviewed, only 3 expressed regret for their actions, Tamaki Matsuoka said.
Japanese Bushido for the samurai , i.e. the absolute obedience, loyalty, and even die for the Emperor, was actually inherited from the Chinese Emperor culture. However, in China, this kind of absolute obedience and loyalty had already long been recognized and condemned as the "Loyalty of Stupidity" if the Emperor were not following the "Ren 
" and "Yi 
" which are the most important "De 
" championed by the Chinese sage Confucius.
Instead, Japan vigorously promoted the extreme suicidal death as twisted samurai honor and to preserve the Emperor, e.g. Okinawan's Group Suicides , Suicide Cliff , Ketsugo , and Kamikaze. Ironically , due to its numerous brutalities, instead of honour, Japan has become the most dis-honorable atrocious nation on Earth.
Japan is considered by many as a Confucian country due to its Confucian inheritance from China. However, viewing through the History, it seems that Japanese had only selectively copied the Chinese Confucian culture and intentionally discarded anything that might erode the absolute power of the God-like Emperor, such as "Ren " and "Yi " which are the most important "De " of the Confucius teachings. This could explain why the Japanese Government and most of the Japanese soldiers committing the extreme crimes, inventing
Games of Rape and Massacre , turned murder into Sport and Entertainment without feeling any guilt. Instead, they enjoyed very much the brutal fun and atrocious pleasure.
Japanese new Prince Hisahito is the first heir recently born to monarchy in nearly 41 years. His name, after consulting with experts in both Chinese and Japanese classic literature, uses the Chinese characters for "virtuous, calm and everlasting". Keeping with custom, Hisahito's name 
ends with the Chinese character "hito" which means virtuous person, similar to current emperor, Akihito 
, and his father, Hirohito 
. Ironically, in reality, we know that it was exactly this Chinese character "hito" , i.e. "Ren " the most important Confucian virtue, that was completely trampled by Japan during its 14 years unspeakable WMD brutalities against Humanity.
History has witnessed that Japan has a long history of extreme atrocities against its neighbours immediately after its Meiji Restoration. Extreme brutalities were always used by the Japanese to conquer. Starting with the brutal annexation of the Okinawan's Liuqiu Islands (Ryukyu Islands) in 1879 , Massacre of Lushun Port (Port Arthur) in 1894 , brutal Annexation of Korea in 1910 , Tokyo Earthquake Massacre of Koreans in 1923 , Jinan Massacre of Chinese in 1928 , Pingdingshan Massacre in 1932 more than 3,000 women, children and elderly of Pingdingshan Village near Fushun were masacred. These early atrocities were only few precursors of the Japanese 14 years' extreme State-Terrorism during WWII invasion.
"Take No Prisoners" was the official revenge military policy for the un-expected Japan's huge loss. This official revenge policy was also adopted purposely in order to save Japanese lots of military resources and manpower needed to manage, shelter, and feed the Chinese PoWs.
"Three All Policy : Burn All, Loot All, Kill All" official policy : Japan employed this infamous extremely barbaric and brutal military policy as its official revenge and scare tactics throughout the war.
In the documentary "Torn Memories of Nanjing", former soldiers describe in detail how they worked as a team to hold down women and girls, checking their private parts for sexually transmitted diseases and drawing lots to decide who would go first.
Juhei Teramoto, a former soldier, admits on documentary film that "superior officers told us to commit robbery, murder, rape and arson and do anything".
Japan
explicitly ordered its soldiers to loot for food and other supplies from the locals, so that no need to set up much supply lines.
When Japanese were not able to loot any food from the Chinese due to their extreme poverty, Japanese hungry soldiers simply killed the Chinese and cooked human flesh and organs as their food source.
Soldiers were sent out on
Month-long missions with only 2 days' rations, hungry Japanese soldiers scavenged and some were reduced to eating the flesh of murdered Chinese.
Extraordinarily strict and brutal nature of the Japanese military led to a transfer of aggression toward Chinese civilian.
Yoshio Suzuki, former sergeant major recalled,
"In training, we were forced to engage in actual charges in order to kill live humans ..... There were 3 men tied to stakes, all ready for us ..... I'd never killed anyone before. Still, if I was clumsy at it, it would affect my whole military career. So I showed no mercy or leniency."
Japanese war veterans who would often beat and humiliate new Japanese army recruits,
called them cowardly if they did not participate in the atrocious crimes.
Former army corporal Yasuji Kaneko said, "It was ultimately about competition. How many you killed becomes a standard of achievement."
"Bayoneting a woman doesn't exactly feel good. If you didn't, you were called a coward and never got promoted. I completely lost my humanity," recounted a former Japanese soldier.
Japanese soldiers routinely received arbitrary and cruel treatment from their army officers of violent discipline. Years of the suppressed anger and hatred turned into an uncontrollable violent release in China. In China, even the lowest Japanese private enjoyed a tremendous authority power over the Chinese.
Most Japanese soldiers just arbitrarily walked into any Chinese family and committed rape, killings and burnt the houses. Korea was a direct victim of Japanese colonial invasion. Yet, according to the Chinese survivors, the Japanese-Korean-soldiers were even MORE cruel than the Japanese, evidently due to another level transfer of oppression. As a result of war-crimes trials after war, 23 Koreans were executed and 125 others were given prison sentences. After they were released, those Korean were neglected by the Japanese government on the grounds that they were no longer Japanese. They were also regarded as pro-Japanese traitors and not welcomed back to their country Korea.
Various brutalities and atrocities served as the medieval scare tactic aimed to break the unexpected Chinese strong will of resistance. Terror was also extensively used in order to extract information and recruit Chinese traitors.
Former sergeant major Masayo Enomoto said, "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."
Former Japanese soldier Taisuke Funyu said, "In the military, the more crimes you commit, the better your record."
Considering China had been totally weakened, corrupted and poverished by British, US, Frence, Japanese Opium, Heroine, Morphia , consumed by the Warlords , and the on-going Chinese Civil War, the Japanese original invasion war plan was "3 days to conquer Shanghai, 3 months to conquer China". Yet, not only Japan had to spend 3 months just to
capture Shanghai city, but also suffered great casualties. Therefore, feeling humiliated for not able to conquer China in 3 months with its overwhelmingly superior trained and well-equiped army, Japan determined to use extreme terror of various brutalities and atrocities to crush Chinese strong will of resistance and as revenge.
The Japanese
Meiji Restoration had successfully transformed Japan from a feudal state to a modern state politically and militarily only. Unfortunately, it failed to transform Japan from a feudal state to a modern state
culturally and spiritually. That was why the Japanese behaved in a medieval way, acted barbarously, invented Games of Rape and Massacre , turned murder into Sport and Entertainment without feeling any guilt. Instead, they enjoyed very much the brutal fun and atrocious pleasure. It was no wonder that General MacArthur once described Japan as "A Nation of 12-year-olds", but with deadliest WMDs.
The Japanese Meiji Restoration had only partially succeeded in transforming Japan from a feudal state to a modern state. However, Japan then decided to "Leave Asia and Join Europe (Datsu-A Ron)" promoted by Fukuzawa Yukichi whose image is still on the Japanese 10000-Yen bank note, to disassociate Japan from China and Korea and modernize through complete Westernization. His famous article said: "Since westerners always regarded Japan, China and Korea as the same culture and similar countries, those 2 countries had become obstacles to Japan. Those are intimate with bad friends are also regarded bad, therefore we should deny those bad Asian friends from our hearts ....."
Is Japan a Western country or an Asian one ?
In 2005, it was reported that nearly 70 % of Japanese thought their country was NOT a part of Asia but part of of the West.
In Mar 1933, Japan withdrew from the
League of Nations. Few months later, Hitler also left the league. In 1940, dazzled by the Hitler's victories in Europe, Japan decided to join the Axis and formally signed the Axis Pact (i.e. Tripartite Pact) and joined with
Hitler.
The pact stipulated that Germany and Italy recognized and respected the leadership of Japan in Asia, while Japan would do the same, and to help each other by providing political, economic and military assistance.
Westernization was soo successful , Unfortunately , Japan had also successfully transformed itself from a previous Western Colonial Victim to a Eastern Colonial Aggressor. Japan acted exactly like the Western colonial aggressors with its own colonial dream of "Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere" . To achieve its colonial dream , Japan, exactly like the Western colonial aggressor , determined to dis-regard Humanity , and believed its colonial dream could justify the means .
Therefore , Japan officially turned to the following medieval extreme State-Terriorism in wars:
Japan was the FIRST in Asia engaged in "Indiscriminate Bombing" on civilians in Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu and other Chinese cities. Japan dropped numerous incendiary bombs onto the Chinese capital of war time, i.e. 6 years Bombing of Chongqing. In Chongqing, scars of WWII are still visible and survivors sue Japanese govt, demanding apology.
FIRST in Asia, used the WMD Drug Weapon. FIRST in Asia, used the WMD Biological Weapon. FIRST in Asia, used the WMD Chemical Weapon, except the WMD Nuclear Bomb which was fortunately still under development. FIRST in Asia, committed the extremely brutal Mass Rape. FIRST in Asia, committed many extremely atrocious large scale of massacres, for example, the infamous Nanjing Massacre. FIRST in Asia, committed an extensive scale of Mass Extortion & Looting. FIRST in Asia, committed massive scale of abducting and kidnapping of young girls and women, then forced them to be Sex Slaves. FIRST in Asia, committed massive scale of kidnapping of men and forced them to be Slaves treated much worse than the PoWs. FIRST in Asia, committed the brutal colonial governance of Cultural Massacre forcing Asians to adopt Japanese language, name, religion etc. FIRST in Asia, committed the extreme barbarism un-precedented in modern History by inventing
Games of Rape and Massacre ,
turned murder into Sport and Entertainment . FIRST in Asia, committed the extreme barbarism un-precedented in modern History of the Japanese medieval Official "Three All Policy" -- "Kill All, Loot All, Burn All".
Rhawn Joseph, producer of the documentary
"Nightmare in Nanking",
analyses that the Japanese crimes were so horrific that they almost made Nazis look civilized in comparison. By contrast, Nazi soldiers became ill and began to break down after a few hours of shooting people. Even Nazi Heinrich Himmler, the head of the dreaded SS and the concentration camps, became ill and almost threw up while watching his men shoot civilians.
The Battle for Manila lasted only 28 days. However, estimated
100,000 Filipine civilians were massacred by the Japanese. One diary found on a dead Japanese soldier "wrote of his love for his family, eulogized the beauty of a sunset — then described how he participated in a massacre of Filipinos during which he clubbed a baby against a tree".
"War is inherently inhumane," Max Hastings writes in "Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, "but the Japanese practiced extraordinary refinements of inhumanity in the treatment of those thrown upon their mercy. Sadism by the Japanese was not occasional but institutional".
British general Sir William Slim said, "The Japanese soldieris is the most formidable fighting insect in history".
Extreme brutalities are sometimes called as the "Crimes of Passion" . But the "Crimes of Passion" are normally generated by extreme hatred and rage. Yet, most of the Japanese soldiers committing their extreme crimes did not feel any rage,
instead, they enjoyed very much the brutal fun and atrocious pleasure that puzzles everyone.
The puzzlement is not unique. Through research, more light has now being shed on the Japanese Forgotten Asian Holocaust. Some questions, however, will never be answered. Just as the survivor of the Jewish Holocaust, Arno Lustiger with prisoner number A5592 remains tattooed on his arm, his telephone number Lustiger once told his curious daughter, said, "The more I have learned about this episode," said Lustiger, "the less I understand it."
The Asian dream of an Union similar to the European Union (EU) could only be achieved through the only path available, i.e. truly sincere apology, compensation, and forgiveness. Only then, all Asian could truly live peacefully and harmoniously together in their Asian Union.
German leaders consistently apologize for their past aggression
in the clearest possible terms. Former German 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.
Although he spoke NO words, but Brandt's historic thundering silent apology was the most powerful words ever spoken for the world peace and reconciliation. For that, Germans have won back the world's high respect.
Willy Brandt's new Ostpolitik, on dealing with Germany's history in a serious way had earned Brandt the Nobel Peace Price in 1971. Symbolically, one individual German knelt down, humbly . Spiritually, the whole German nation stood up again, honourably.
In a stark contrast, symbolically, one individual Japanese stood there worshipping the war criminals, stubbornly . Spiritually, the whole Japanese nation knelt down, shamefully.
When Brandt described the moment, "On the abyss of German history and carrying the burden of the millions who were murdered, I did what people do when words fail them."
In 2000, the then German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder recalled Brandt's heroic act and said: "We committed crimes and we confess to these crimes."
The old saying that "time heals all wounds" is NOT really true. Wounds that are left to fester sometimes get much worse with time.
It's people, NOT time, that can heal the wounds.
Perhaps because a Chinese saying,
" Repay Evil with Virtue ", many Chinese say - " We can Forgive, but never Forget ".
However, the Japanese war crimes that we know of could only be the tip of an iceberg. That is exactly why Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, 1984 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, has sharply pointed out, "We can only forgive what we know". He had also provided foreword in the book
The Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographs.
Hajime Takano, Editor in chief, Insider, commented on the "No War Resolution" and wrote about encountering a
Chinese farmer near Shanghai. The farmer told him, "The Japanese
soldiers had come to my village, and
cut off one of my arms. Then they raped and killed my wife and my daughter right before my eyes. But I do NOT hate Japanese people, because they are also the victim of Japanese Imperialism, and we shall work hand in hand to create a war-free world."
The Editor in chief, Hajime Takano continued:
I would NOT dare face to the same farmer, read out that
despicable
No War Resolution
of the Diet, and say to him, "This is how we have come to feel after 50 years."
Kaoru Okano, Japanese Professor of politics at
Meiji University said, "Japan, which made use of this important resolution for political means, has been made a laughing stock of the world."
To invade and colonize China, Japan had moved approx. 2 Millions of Japanese into Manchuria of China. After defeating the Japanese army in Manchuria, Soviet Army committed brutalities towards Japanese civilian. At Gegenmiao in Manchuria, over one thousand Japanese civilian were slaughtered, known as the Gegenmiao Incident.
Every year, Japanese "Association of Bereaved Families from the Three Ships Incident" asks Japanese government to demand an apology from Russia for the killing of 1,708 retreating Japanese civilian on the Ogasawara-Maru, the Taito-Maru and the Dai-Ni Shinko Maru following Japan's surrender. However, Japanese demand of Russia's apology is inextricably linked to Japan's own extreme atrocious Crimes.
It is estimated that as many as 20,000 Japanese civilians were left behind in China. Although the Chinese suffered many extreme brutalities committed by the Japanese, after the War, many Chinese families still adopted the abandoned Japanese orphan children.
In northeast China and eastern Inner Mongolia thousands of other
kind-hearted Chinese women like Li Shuxian had adopted these abandoned Japanese orphans. About 6,300 abandoned Japanese in China, including 2,500 under the age of 12, returned to Japan since 1972 according to the Japanese Health Ministry. Most were raised by Chinese who kindly adopted them. According to research carried out by Professor Qu Xiaofan of Northeast Normal University,
Chinese families adopted at least 5,000-7,000 Japanese orphans . Japanese war orphans in China.
These Japanese orphans started suing the Japanese government. In 2006, Japanese Kobe District Court ruled that these Japanese abandoned 'War Orphan' should be paid compensation. However, in 2007, Tokyo District Court rejects Japanese 'War Orphan' suit.
"Building a resting place in northern China for Chinese foster parents, many of them very poor, is the least we can do in return for taking care of thousands of Japanese children," explains Isamu Endo, now 65, who has built a cemetery for the Chinese foster parents who took care of these abandoned Japanese children in China.
Endo, who was only 6 when he was orphaned and left behind in China,
says he will never forget the kindness of his Chinese foster mother who looked after him and sent him to school despite the fact that he was the child of the enemy - Japan.
"I had mixed feelings at first. What decided me was knowing that Xu Guilan would die if I didn't adopt her, so I overcame my hatred of the Japanese and raised her as my own." Now 81, Li Shuxian lives alone. Her adopted Japanese daughter Xu Guilan has settled in Japan and visits her occasionally.
"There is a lesson to be learnt from my Chinese parents without whose care I would not be alive now. These old people can teach Japan the value of repentance, the most important step to transcending enmity," says Endo. Peace activists have begun a campaign to turn the cemetery into a symbol of Japan-China friendship as well as compel the Japanese government to accept its war history and apologise to victims in Asia.
Hiroshi Yamasaki, a Japanese doctor who devoted most of his life to the Chinese people, said, "I hate wars and I couldn't bear our troop's brutality to the Chinese people", He only spent six months serving in the Japanese army before he escaped, but starved and collapsed. He was saved by an impoverished Chinese farmer's family. When he was strong enough to walk again, the aged couple gave him the only set of clothes they had. They were simple threads but were washed. With the only flour they still had, the couple made a pancake for Yamasaki to take on the road. When the old doctor recalls the couple's kindness he cannot hold back the tears. "They knew I was Japanese but still saved my life," Yamasaki says as he weeps. "For so long, I have carried a sense of atonement", said Yamazaki "I will continue to serve the Chinese people till I die".
He died of old age of 102 in the Chinese city of Jinan in year 2010.
Japan adopted a national policy of emigration and colonization. By the end of WWII, there were more than 2 million Japanese emigrants in China. After the war, the Japanese government urged its emigrants to stay in China, even to die there, rather than come back. However, 9 months after Japan surrendered, the repatriation of about 1.05 million Japanese emigrants, victims of their country's colonial expansion, began their voyage home from Huludao island and lasted into 1948. The retired Japanese professor, Shuyoshi Manase said he would cherish the island as the place of his rebirth. Another Huludao repats Sasagi Munemaru, now 83, thinks Huludao is her 2nd home.
Kunihiro Takeo, was captured by Russian soldiers and nearly died. He was later saved by Chinese villagers and was repatriated to Japan. In 1997, Kunihiro sold off his family property to shoot the film Huludao Repatriation which had sparked overwhelming response in Japan. Japanese PM Hashimoto Ryntaro congratulated and praise the efforts Kunihiro had made in promoting the friendship between Japan and China. Driven by her desire to return goodwill to the Chinese, Tamata Sumiko established the Breeze Society to assist the impoverished children in Northeast China. Since its creation, the society has assisted more than 1,000 poor Chinese students.
In Singapore, then a British colony where Japanese troops killed as many as 100,000 ethnic Chinese Singaporan, Elizabeth Choy, now 95, praised as a war heroine in Singaporean school books, said she's forgiven the Japanese Kempeitai secret police who tormented her for nearly 200 days. "I have no ill feelings toward the Japanese," Choy said. "What I detest is not the Japanese, but War itself
In a ceremony commemorating the 60th V-J Day, members from 22 countries unveiled a Peace Monument, a wall 60 metres long and 60 steps high in Beijing's 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."
Former US PoW slave labor Dr. Lester Tenney, author of
"My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan Death March" said the following:
"...... By my forgiving I am now free. No longer am I a Prisoner of War. Those men who beat and tortured me are no longer alive in my mind. Those awful memories from years past lay dormant, always there, but no longer consuming other thoughts that would make my life whole once again."
"I have learned to forgive, but I will never forget, and through forgiveness I have found freedom. By my forgiving those who have wronged me, I have recovered my dignity, my honor and my self-esteem. By forgiving I have found inner peace ........".
After the film screening of award-winning documentary Japanese Devils, an emotional Chinese woman audience rose to speak of how her grandmother had seen her brother stabbed to death by Japanese soldiers on the eve of his wedding. Her grandmother had raised her to hate all Japanese. She spoke of the heavy burden this hatred had become after she began to meet some friendly Japanese. Breaking down several times, she spoke of how she wished her grandmother had been able to see Japanese Devils, as it finally allowed her to see Japanese as human beings like herself.
NHK's 1993 documentary "The Phantom Foreign Ministry Report: The Record of Chinese Forced Labor", together with its 1994 book, exposed the Japanese government's postwar campaign to evade accountability for Chinese Slave by suppressing evidence and deceiving the Diet. The documentary won an Asia-wide broadcasting award and is regularly shown in courtrooms of Slave lawsuits.
The documentary featured a former Japanese soldier admitted on camera to abducting Chinese, bayonet practice on live Chinese and tossing of hardcore Chinese Slaves, unblindfolded, into a blast furnace at a Qingdao steel mill. "I became a devil then. The regret will never leave my heart," the man told NHK. "Even now when I see a white-haired man on the street, I wonder, "Did that guy also become a devil during the war ? ".
Azuma Shiro, a former Japanese soldier who was the first to publicly admit and apologize for Nanjing crimes. He personally
went to Nanjing 7 times to apologize. He tirelessly rebut Japanese deniers by publishing his own war dirary "My Nanking Platoon" and gave numerous public speeches. He donated his war dirary to the Nanjing Memorial Hall. He became an important witness in the Japanese court law suits for the Chinese victims. He suffered harassment, threats and was sued for libel by Japanese right-wings who denounced him as a traitor.
Many called Azuma Shiro as the "Conscience of Japan". Through his sincerity, not only he had earned the forgiveness from the Chinese victims, he was also highly respected by the Nanjing Chinese who had even celebrated his 88th birthday when he was in Nanjing 1999.
Mr. Ohsawa Yuhkichi was a formal Japanese soldier. Shortly before he passed away, he gave his son a piece of paper and
finally revealed his darkest secret at the end of his life. On the paper, it reads :
"I have served in the former military for twelve years and eight months. Among those years, I served tens years as a lower rank China-based army officer (ex-MP warrant officer) in the military police in Tianjin, Beijing, Shanxi Province, Lingfen, Liancheng, Old Manchuria, and Donglin, etc. I participated in the war of aggression. I am very sorry for what I have done to the Chinese people. I want to apologize over and over."
He asked his son to have the above words engraved on his tombstone.
His son is now an active volunteer for the victims - see My Father's Apology by Kurahashi Ayako.
But, another former Japanese soldier refused to repentent and was haunted every single night in his death bed by what he did.
In his own son's words: "my father ran wild, killing, burning, looting in Hangzhou, Xuzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing along the river of Chang Jiang. He became a homicidal maniac , a looter-killer, and a arsonist....."
"when the evening and night came, he started to howl, cry and shout loudly, < waaah, waaah, waaah, > making everybody around sleepless...... Momentarily he stopped howling, but his hands were shaking as if he were frightened of something terrible..... His scream and cry resounded in every corner of the sick ward during the night. No closed door could stop the noise from coming in ......."
"I told my sister that I would not attend the funeral of my father overwhelmed by my anger over the father's denial. However, there is one consolation to me , that is, he never made discriminative remarks about Chinese people. Time and time again since my childhood, he told me that Chinese were all broad-minded and kindhearted people......"
"I once heard him murmuring to himself, "that war, what an absurd thing! ......" These are the only words close to repentance......."
"His howling and shouting continued over a month. It must have been the cry of fear from Chinese victims he murdered during the war......."
For details, see My Father and The War by Shoji Mita.
Tomokazu Takeda helped produce "Torn Memories of Nanjing" a documentary film, interviewed more than 300 Chinese victims and 250 Japanese soldiers. The soldiers' stories made Takeda remember his grandfather, a former Japanese soldier. His grandfather was usually calm but once he got drunk he became very violent, "My parents told me that grandfather apparently was haunted by Chinese ghosts from time to time, often screaming, 'Chinese are going to attack me'" Takeda said.
"I am now 80 years old," says Masao Shikada, "For the rest of my days, I will talk about the war of invasion ..... I must find a way to tell future generations that we must never commit such transgressions again. That is the very least I can do to atone for my sins".
Tatsutaro Honda gave his final 1,125th war experience lecture one day before his 92 birthday. "War brings nothing but separation and death." Honda told his audiance that how he thrust a bayonet into a Chinese. "I can't forget his eyes and his ashen expression. He stared straight at me. A sin is a sin, even in War. I remain bitterly sorry and ashamed".
Takashi Nagase was a military interpreter for the dreaded Japanese Kempeitai
in the prison camp of the 415 km Thai-Burma Railway made famous in the movie "Bridge on the River Kwai". When the war ended, he spent 7 weeks locating 13,000 abandoned bodies along the Railway for the Allied War Graves Commission. "The work of searching for bodies changed my whole life," Takashi Nagase began to write and lecture in Japan about the horrors he had seen and harshly criticizes Japanese military and the Emperor, "The Emperor should apologize for what was done in his name."
Nagase wants to redeem by Building Bridges Over Hate. He used his own money to build memorials across Thailand, including a Buddhist peace temple near the bridge, and to fund education programs in the area. He has returned to Thailand 125 times to "calm his soul". At 87, Nagase knows his time is short and desperately wants the railway declared a U.N. World Heritage Site before he dies. "The shame belongs to the whole Japanese race", he says.
In 1976, he organized the first reunions between ex-PoWs and Japanese soldiers on the bridge which was overseen by Thai riot police "just in case". ex-PoW Eric Lomax went to Thailand ended up comforting a shaking, crying Nagase who simply kept saying: "I am so sorry, so very, very sorry". Nagase was criticized by the Japanese press for holding the Thai national flag rather than the
Japanese notorious Rising Sun flag. "Do they know how many people were slaughtered under that flag ?" he asks.
Every year, Iwata Ryuzo, a Japanese monk 70, makes an apology trip to China. Knelt and prayed at the Memorial. "
As long as I live I will make an apology to China every year," said Ryuzo. He hoped his act would raise awareness among young people in Japan of the atrocities. "Most of the people around me, even my family members, strongly oppose my act. I even received phone calls threatening to kill me if I insisted in carrying out my deed," Ryuzo said.
He chanted scriptures and performed rituals at the notorious Japanese germ warfare site and memorial. he had also made 5 trips to S.Korea and prayed for the victims there.
During the War, Inose Kenzo who forcibly kidnapped and deported Chinese Slaves to Japan, wrote a book "Mountain Stream of Deep Regret". Inose later helped form the Tochigi chapter of the Japan-China Friendship Association, a group that has been promoting Chinese Slaves reparations for half a century.
In 1973, a "Chinese Martyred Heroes Memorial" was erected at Ashio. Local Japanese residents used 109 stones formed the base of the memorial with a name list of the 109 dead Chinese Slave remains. "My atonement after the war is not over yet," Inose Kenzo says with a pained expression. "I must continue atoning. 109 people died at Ashio. If there are still people living in China who have not forgotten their resentment, I truly want to meet them and apologize. This memorial alone does not settle the past."
Yoshio Shinozuka, a former member of Unit 731, now 83, has devoted himself to making amends. In 1997 he testified on behalf of the 180 Chinese Biological victims suing Japan for compensation. however,
The court denied them apology and compensation. The court again denied them compensation and apology in 2005. In 1998, he tried to
speak at peace conferences in U.S. and Canada, but immigration turned him away as a war criminal.
But Shinozuka argued that those like himself
who want to tell the truth about war crimes should not be on the watch list.
"It took me a long time to get beyond the excuse that I was just following orders," he said. "I was doing what I was told. And I might very well have been killed had I disobeyed. But what we did was so terrible that I should have refused, even if that meant my own death. But I didn't do that. And I will never be forgiven."
Though he often wanted to tell his story, "No one wanted to hear what I was saying," he said. "The Japanese prefer to think of themselves as victims in the war. Even the peace movement people told me that talking about Japan's role as an aggressor wasn't constructive. But I couldn't let this piece of history remain in the dark."
Every May, a couple dozen of Shinozuka's comrades join him at the temple in Yokaichiba, a village about 100 kilometers east of Tokyo. Near the Shinozuka family plot, they have built a simple stone monument for their Chinese victims. "We express our bottomless gratitude to the Chinese people, and our deepest apologies." the monument says.
"Soldiers impaled babies on bayonets and tossed them still alive into pots of boiling water," Nagatomi Hakudo said with deepest remorse. He is now an acupuncturist in Japan and has built a shrine of remorse in his waiting room and patients can watch video tapes of his trial in Nanking and a full confession of his crimes. "They gang-raped women from the ages of 12 to 80 and then killed them when they could no longer satisfy sexual requirements. I beheaded people, starved them to death, burned them, and buried them alive, over two hundred in all. It is terrible that I could turn into an animal and do these things. There are really no words to explain what I was doing. I was truly a devil."
Ichiro Koyama, now 84 former Japanese soldier and later a PoW, said his strong anti-war sentiments and sense of mission grew out of his prison reflections. He was sentenced to death by a Chinese tribunal, but released in an act of clemency after 11 years in prison.
"We had beaten the Chinese and executed people, but they didn't beat us. I often sat wondering why that was." The answer, Koyama said, lay in culture and education, with the Japanese being taught they were a race apart. "
We thought the Chinese and people of Southeast Asia were inferior to us. We knew they were human, but they were a lower class. We were taught from a young age to adore the Emperor, and that if we died in battle our souls would go to Yasukuni Jinja. We just didn't think anything of killing, of massacres or atrocities. It all seemed normal."
"I'm old now. This may be my last chance to tell what really happened," Ichiro Koyama, now 88-year-old said in a recent interview, "It was hell. I still cannot forget their blood spraying."
Another Japanese veteran, former navy sailor Sho Mitani, 90, "We were living in an age where we were taught that Chinese were not human," he said. "The army used a trumpet sound that meant 'Kill all Chinese who run away.' We were taught from childhood in schools that Chinese were like insects."
Yasuo Togashi was 9 when he and his neighbors cheered when the bone-thin Hanaoka Chinese Slave escapees were recaptured. When he became an adult, he was overwhelmed with regret as he learned what those Chinese endured. "We thought the Chinese weren't even human, and we were happy when they were caught. Now, I feel nothing but remorse." said Togashi, 69, a retired teacher. He and others have have built monuments. The town holds an annual remembrance for the victims. "We have to make an apology from the heart." Togashi said.
"
We were taught that we were a superior race since we lived only for the sake of a human god -- our emperor. But the Chinese were not. So we held nothing but contempt for them." Shiro Azuma is the first Japanese soldier to publicly admit and apologize for what he did. He told his story by publishing his diaries "My Nanking Platoon" and was sued for libel. But Azuma vows to keep fighting in courts for the right to speak truth, "I am 86 year old now, but I will fight to death like a young man, but this time is not for the Emperor but for the Justice and the History."
Azuma compared the Nanjing Massacre to the Holocaust. "
These two were the most inhuman tragedies during the Second World War," said Azuma.
"We used barbed wire to bind the captured Chinese into bundles of ten and tied them onto racks.
Then we poured gasoline on them and burned them alive. I felt like killing pigs." said Kozo Tadokoro, former Japanese soldier.
In the Jan. 1942 issue of Bungei Shunju, one of Japan's most popular monthly magazine, article "Establishing a Japanese Racial Worldview" explained the Japanese concept of "Proper Place" and stated that the Japanese is "the most superior race in the world".
To the Japanese, 14 years of in-human brutality was a Holy War. They were fighting for the God-like Emperor. According to "Yasukuni Daihyakka" (Yasukuni encyclopedia), a pamphlet published by the Shrine, War Criminals are called "Showa martyrs"
Grand-daughter of Tojo: If there was no Emperor , there would be no Japan ......
DM : But the Emperor himself admits he is Korean
Grand-daughter of Tojo : I know nothing about his roots , but I was astonished that he said such a thing ......
Japan rediscovers its Korean past . . . . .
The Emperor's new roots - Emperor declared his own Korean ancestry.
It is because Japanese Nara city was the capital of Japan from 643 and 794 A.D. where Japan's earliest Emperors were buried. In fact, Conclusive evidences have shown that Japanese Nara Prefecture was actually a Korean colony. The word "Nara" itself means "motherland" in Korean. The Meiji government also agreed that Taizen Kumazawa from Nara was the legitimate heir of the southern Yoshino court.
In 2001, Emperor Akihito said he feels a close "kinship" with Korean and cited the fact that the mother of Emperor Kammu was also a Korean. He also appreciated Korean culture and technology brought to Japan. In fact, more accurately, it should be "from China via Korea to Japan".
In 1984, Emperor Hirohito made similar statement that the Imperial family had a "close kinship" with Korea.
In fact, the anthropologists and archeologists have confirmed that the modern Japanese came quite late from the mainland Asia to Japan only around 400 B.C., that is a very shallow root . DNA research has confirmed Japanese are close genetic kin to both Chinese and Korean.
"Archaeology has made a lot of progress," said Hisao Baba, curator of anthropology at the National Science Museum in Tokyo, "but
politics has made it difficult for the Japanese general public to take a critical look at their own past."
Ironically,
Racial Prejudice and Japanese militaristic Brain-washing of believing other Asian as Sub-Human was so successful,
Most Japanese simply forgot the fact that MOST of their so proudly proclaimed "superior" culture are really originated from "inferior" China.
Writing didn't even appear in Japan until Chinese culture was imported . Even today, the Japanese writing still adopts many Chinese characters.
The Japanese "Banzai " or "Manzai" was also originated from the Chinese "Wansui" for the Chinese Emperor.
The Japanese old capital Nara was actually modelled after Chang'an, the Chinese capital of Tang China which was the largest city on Earth
Kyoto was the former Imperial "Capital City" of Japan. It was also the first Japan's planned capital. Kyoto city's layout and key buildings were also modelled after Chinese capital Changan.
Japan, it might be said, attended the Chinese school of civilization in China. Between 607 and 838, Japan sent 19 missions to China -- on average, one every 12 years. Knowledge was the principal goal. Monks studied Ch'an ( i.e.
Zen ) and other sects of Buddhism ; officials studied government ; scholars studied literature ; doctors studied medicine ; artists studied arts ; and so on ..... e.g. Japanese Writing , Medicine , Poetry , Architecture , Literature , Zen (Ch'an) , Shinto , Painting , Music , Garden , Bonsai (tray planting) , Ikebana (flower arranging) , Tea , Calligraphy , Drum , Chopsticks , Sushi , Origami (paper folding) , New Year ,
Go Game (Wei Qi) , Kimono , Karate , Jujitsu , Judo ,
Kendo , Geisha .......
The extremely friendly relationship between the 2 countries was the most extraordinary one (probably NO parallel in world History) of Teacher-to-Pupil.
Japanese scholars who had studied Chinese even adopted a new name for their country using the Chinese phrase for "origin of the sun, sunrise" because Japan is located east of China. Actually, the name was given by a Chinese Empress of the Tang dynasty.
Japan also implemented its Yoro Clothing Code by copying the China's official Tang dress codes, and imported Japanese Kimono from China's Wu-Uet area. That is why even today, many Japanese Kimono professionals still call it Gofuku which means "Clothes of Wu" from China. The Chinese Traditional Hanfu disappeared because Ching Dynasty brutally prohibited the Han Chinese from wearing and forced them to have a Manchurian pigtail through numerous massacres. However, Chinese Traditional Hanfu advocates now promote them by wearing it in the public and in Chinese ceremonies ,
Chinese female coming of age ceremony,
easily mistaken to be Japanese Kimono or the Korean Hanbok because both of them are based on Chinese Hanfu. Some pictures of the Hanfu design.
Even the name of Japanese Emperor Meiji was originated from "Yi Jing (I Ching) " , a Chinese Classic.
Having a name for the Emperor's era is also a tradition following the Chinese Emperor.
The name of Emperor Hirohito's reign "Showa " is originated from "Shu Jing " , a Chinese Classic , which means "Enlightened Peace".
The name of Emperor Akihito's reign "Heisei ", is originated from "Shi Ji " and "Shu Jing ", both Chinese Classics , which means "Peace Everywhere".
Ironically, the sole purpose of the Chinese Classic "Shi Ji " was to preserve the Truth of History as a mirror and learn from it.
In late 19th century, in order to distinguish themself from the other minority ethnic groups, again following Chinese way using an era name, the Japanese call themself the "Yamato people " which means , ironically , "The Great Peaceful Race". The name comes from Yamato Period.
Emperor Meiji also took the name Yasukuni Shrine from a phrase in "Chunqiu Zuoshi Zhuan " (Shunju Sashiden) , another Chinese Classic , meaning "Bringing Peace to a Nation."
"Shinto " itself is Chinese words which means "the way of the gods" (Shin=gods; To is Tao=the way).
The conclusion is that : Basically, the Japanese so proudly proclaimed superior culture is really the Chinese culture with only minor modifications. Ironically,
Japanese believed that their own Cultural Teacher , the Chinese , were sub-Human , and then decided to " Repay Virtue with Evil " through Wars.
Noriaki Kamiya, a high school social studies teacher in Nagoya. He wasn't sure what his own father, Minoru Kamiya, had done as a soldier. He suspected there might be something dark, something unmentionable in his family's past.
But finally, when his father was seriously ill in 1994, his father confessed all his unit 731 guilt to his son.
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. "The ghosts of Unit 731 are still alive," said Kamiya, "Japan has emphasized the part of Japanese as victims, such as in Hiroshima. But it hasn't touched the shameful parts. We should teach children history as it happened and leave them to judge."
Honda Tatsutaro, now 91 year old, went to China in his 8 days long apology for killing Chinese PoWs. He knelt down on the Marco Polo Bridge in southwest Beijing, site of hostilities that led to Japan full scale war invasion in July 7, 1937 and said,
"I committed crimes against the Chinese. For the past 60 years I have been suffering from a strong uneasiness caused by a sense of guilt. Kneeling down, in that sense, is the best way to express my feeling."
For most Japanese, the courageous question is still haunting :
What did you do in the War, Daddy ?.
Kosuke Takahashi, former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is currently a freelance correspondent, wrote an appeal letter
"To His Majesty, the Emperor Akihito of Japan :
"I beseech you to admit your father's war responsibility, at least his moral responsibility, and to finish off any issues related to past wrongs, which have been overshadowing Japan for decades. I am 36 and do not want to leave any kind of historical issues regarding Japan's past wrongs to the next generation. I do not want to pass any kind of historical issues to your granddaughter Princess Aiko's generation."
"I sometimes wonder why my generation still has to face up so many times to the nation's past wrongs. I think this is because my grandparents' and parents' generations have failed to overcome the wrongs by not grappling with the nation's past. And it's quite unnatural and sad to see that we Japanese still do NOT have any revered national flag and anthem, despite the 1998 designation of Hinomaru and Kimigayo as national emblems. Still, they are not emblems of enlightenment......."
In 1976, Takashi Nagase organized the first reunions between ex-PoWs and Japanese soldiers on the bridge of 415 km Thai-Burma Railway of Death. He wants to redeem by Building Bridges Over Hate. But he was criticized by the Japanese press for holding the Thai national flag rather than the
Japanese notorious Rising Sun flag. "Do they know how many people were slaughtered under that flag ?" he asks.
In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of U.N. and end of the war, Japan considered and proposed a
"No War Resolution" in an effort to reflect its past history. However, it was rejected by Japanese Diet mainly because it contained a formal official apology for its wartime atrocities. The revised version had the official apology deleted.
That was exactly why on Aug 15, 1995 Japanese Prime Minister
Tomiichi Murayama could only offer a personal apology to mark the 50th anniversary end of WWII. It was a personal apology NOT passed by the Japanese parliament.
In Sept 1997 Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto also reiterated the apology. Again, his apology was NOT approved by the parliament.
In Oct. 8 2001 Japanese prime minister Koizumi, issued an apoplgy after visiting the Lugouqiao (
Marco Polo Bridge), site of hostilities that led to a
full scale war invasion in July 7, 1937. The apology was simply based on and did not go beyond the wording used in a 1995 statement by
Murayama.
It was his personal apology and NOT passed by Japanese Diet.
This was exactly why in Nov. 1998, Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun ran a very naive headline: "We are fed up of saying sorry".
In 1998, Japan disappointed China during the 1998 summit by refusing to use the word "apology" in a joint declaration, although then prime minister Keizo Obuchi apologized verbally. But the brother of wartime emperor Hirohito,
Prince Mikasa who had first-hand experiences of the war as he was stationed as an army officer in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing from 1943 to early 1944, apologized to China over war at an imperial palace banquet in Tokyo: "
I'm still profoundly ashamed of the violence committed by the Imperial Japanese Army. I want to apologize to the Chinese people," said the Japanese Prince Mikasa.
In fact, Japan has NEVER offered any government official apology that is formally and officially approved by Japanese Parliament as a "Truly Legal National Apology" using the more sincere Japanese word " shazai 
", NOT the much less sincere Japanese word "owabi" for its unspeakable horrific War Crimes, and takes full legal and moral responsibilities.
In 2000, talking with 100 representatives of Japan's general public on a TBS television program, the visiting Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said, "I would like to call your attention to one thing. That is, in any of the official documents, Japan has NEVER apologized to the Chinese people".
"In this country, a formal apology from the government is from Congress and then the president. Individual [Japanese] Prime Ministers have offered their "heartfelt apology". They were all individual apologies", said Japanese-American Congressman Michael Honda.
Tsuneo Watanabe, Japanese Media tycoon, chief editor of Japan's largest daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun well known for its conservative stance, now calls for clearer war apology by Japanese premiers, "It would be best for Parliament to set up a standing committee on war responsibility and express its position".
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 was exactly why Murayama could only offer his Personal Apology in 1995 and repeatedly used the words "I", "me", and "my".
Furthermore, Murayama only used the much less sincere Japanese word "Owabi", NOT "shazai " in his personal apology. Professor Yoshimi Yoshiaki of Modern Japanese History at Chuo University in Tokyo, explained that "Owabi" is only "slightly more weighty than an 'excuse me' offered when one bumps shoulders with someone on the subway."
British veterans accused Murayama "fudging the issue by making the apology a Personal one" . Australia's reponse: "comprehensive" but "more Personal & not representative".
Many of today's contemporary Japanese leaders, in big business, the bureaucracy, and the LDP are the DIRECT inheritors of power from Japanese Militarists. To admit and confess the Japanese War Crimes would be to admit to the "Moral Bankruptcy" of the Pre-War, War-time and Post-War Japanese Government.
Nobusuke Kishi who oversaw the Slave labor program as minister of commerce and industry during the war, was imprisoned as a Class-A War Criminal suspect and later became Japanese prime minister in 1957, and was also the founding father of the current dominated LDP Party. His grandson, Abe Shinzo, is now considered the front runner to replace Koizumi as PM later this year. Abe is the son of former foreign minister Shintaro Abe who was implicated in the Recruit insider trading and big corruption scandal in 1980s. Japanese current Foreign Minister Taro Aso, another front runner to replace Koizumi, has a direct link to family's mining company used thousands of Koreans and PoWs as Slaves. Taro Aso himself ran the firm from 1973-79, has never acknowledged his family company's enslavement.
In Germany, family links alone do not disqualify citizens from public office. But they are expected to show atonement or make amends. Because of Japanese current foreign minister's declared views, Aso would not be admitted to any government in Germany, a German embassy official in Tokyo says.
This is the exact reason why the Japanese government has failed so far to pass an Diet resolution to offer an official apology.
Apology is a sign of maturity. Should we apologise for the behaviour of previous generations ?
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"
Because today's wealth & prosperity of ALL Western colonial rich countries including Japan
i.e. G8, are all built upon the Criminal Enrichment foundation of their long brutal colonial crimes.
Without an act of the Japanese Parliament, NO apology is lawful representative of the Japanese Government, or the People of Japan.
That is exactly why Japan has been offering Personal Apology for several decades, about 40 times but NO one believes that Japan is sincere because of its contrary actions and statements. Japanese way of apology.
"The world criticizes Japan for failing to come to terms with its past," writes Jennifer Lind in her book Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics. "Tokyo's apologies have been perceived as too little, too late. Even worse, its politicians repeatedly shock survivors and the global community by denying past atrocities; its history textbooks whitewash its wartime crimes".
Koizumi has reiterated his personal "deep remorse" over its colonial
aggression in Asia at the Asia-Africa summit in Apr. 2005. But 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 80 Japanese members of Parliament visited Yasukuni Shrine most of them from Koizumi's own LDP party. MPs undermine Japanese apology.
To the afflicted countries, Koizumi's latest apology is the
SAME as all previous apologies -- "Purely Personal".
It is intended to mollify or worse , FOOL the Asian public, Western media and Western politicians.
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."
In 2008, Japan air force chief defends Japan was not an aggressor in WWII . Many back my WWII views: sacked Japan general, "Politicians and bureaucrats do not support me on the surface," air force chief Toshio Tamogami told a news conference. "But in actual fact I think many of them agree with me. They just can't say it in public." He told a news conference. "If you look at what the major world powers were doing at the time, I think Japan was gentler." In Dec. 2008, Ousted Japan air force chief tells parliament he doesn't regret his apologist essay . Facing the past: war and historical memory in Japan.
Japan's numerous weak personal apologies appear so appalling in comparison with the German's historic thundering silent apology which was the most powerful words ever spoken for the world peace and reconciliation.
Willy Brandt's new Ostpolitik, on dealing with Germany's history in a serious way had earned Brandt the Nobel Peace Price in 1971. Symbolically, one individual German knelt down, humbly . Spiritually, whole German nation stood up again, honourably.
In a stark contrast, symbolically, one individual Japanese stood there worshipping, stubbornly . Spiritually, whole Japanese nation knelt down, shamefully.
Hitoshi Motoshima, a liberal democratic Mayor of Nagasaki for 15 years, once suggested that Japan's emperor Hirohito was partially responsible for the war and its atrocities. For 2 years, Motoshima was harassed by the right wing extremists and ostracized by his liberal democratic cohorts.
On Jan. 18 1990, a right wing fanatic shot Motoshima in the back. The bullets pierced his lungs and miraculously the mayor survived. Yet Motoshima remains steadfast in his views.
In August 2000, the
Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future"
was created by the German Government and German companies in recognition of Germany's moral responsibility towards those subjected to slave labour during the WWII. The Foundation was endowed with Slave Funds of $5.11 Billion Euros, provided in equal parts by the German government and about 6,000 companies of German Industry.
"I pay tribute to all those who were subjected to slave and forced labor under German rule, and in the name of the German people beg forgiveness," said Johannes Rau, German president in 2000, "We will not forget their suffering."
To date,
Over 1.63 Million Slave victims have received compensation from Germany.
In addition to paying compensation, the Foundation also supports hundreds of educational projects to document and ensure the slavery history of Nazi will not be forgotten, e.g. project "Encounters with former forced laborers and other victims of National Socialism" has invited some 2,000 former Slaves to Germany as a gesture of reconciliation. Another project called "Documentation of the life stories of former forced and slave laborers" to document stories of the former Slaves in 28 countries with 550 interviews.
In contrast, Japan neither compensated individual victims nor acknowledged the historical fact of Slave and PoW laborers. Nor did the Japanese government initiate any educational projects to preserve and document the Japanese crimes against the Slaves and PoWs.
There is also a Polish-German Reconciliation Fund for Poles who were used as human guinea pigs in pseudomedical experiments by the Nazis.
Germany has also paid out nearly 1.8 billion marks on the basis of special bilateral agreements concluded in 1991 and 1993 with Poland, Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus (White Russia) -- even though in 1953 Poland and Soviet Union each renounced any further reparations payments from Germany.
From 1951 to 1998, Germany has already paid
More than 102 Billion marks (US $ 61.8 Billion), in federal government reparation payments to Israel and Third Reich victims.
While most suvivors are already dead, but Germany is still
paying out pension to some 1.25 Billion marks (US $ 75 Million) to 106,000 pensioners around the world.
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.
Exactly like ALL the Western colonial countries G8, Japan also became a rich country mainly through various brutal colonial Crimes. For details, refer to Criminal Enrichment against Humanity - Extortion & Looting of Asia.
Can Japan be allowed to do any less ?
Japan also criminally enriched by the U.S. Cover-up of State-Terrorism without taking any legal and moral responsibilities and pay compensation to the victims, instead increased its wealth extensively from the Cold War between U.S. and Soviet, China.
The total past War Indemnity that China paid to Japan alone was a staggering capital 265 million plus interest 321 million taels of silver (i.e. Total 586 Million taels of silver in 1895, about 7 times China's annual revenue).
China could not pay the crushing staggering War Indemnity and had to borrow money from several Western countries and paid heavy interest.
In fact, China continued to pay Japan the War Indemnity up to WWII.
In an extremely vivid contrast, the
San Francisco Peace Treaty reveals that the reparations matter was postponed until Japan has the financial means to pay.
To cover-up, U.S. insisted that Japan was badly damaged and bankrupt when the war ended, and waived Japan's war reparations.
In fact, few factories and mansions were destroyed or even seriously damaged, and there was little damage to the infrastructure.
Japanese industries were dispersed widely and largely concealed from air attack. According to historian John W. Dower, author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WWII, the financial centers, transportation infrastructure, and public utilities in Japan remained largely intact.
According to Segraves, far from being bankrupted by the War, Japan had been greatly and criminally enriched by the Plunder of Asia after the War.
Makoto Tanabe, a Social Democrat in the Japanese Parliament,
commented on the redress :
"A compensation without apology is un-ethical. An apology without compensation is mere hypocrisy."
Japan has been maintaining that no single yen should be
compensated to any Chinese victim after its own defeat.
According to the record, about 2.3 million Japanese soldiers were killed in WWII, of which
More than 1 million Japanese soldiers, i.e. approx. 50 % of Japanese soldiers died in WWII, were annihilated in China.
Those battles in China were no less, in fact, were more fierce and brutal than the Battle of Saipan ,
Battle of Iwo Jima , or
Battle of Okinawa in the 14 years WWII with unspeakable atrocious Japan.
For WWII, China War was the FIRST one to start and the LAST one to end. Certainly was the MOST brutal battle field during war. It lasted 14 years. The Chinese fought 22 large scale battles, 1,117 medium scale battles, and 38,931 small scale battles against the brutal Japanese army.
The China War was one of the most massive military conflicts in this Century of Total War. It lasted 14 years, from 1931 when Japan seized Manchuria to 1945. On a geographic scale its fronts would have engulfed the entire Eastern U.S. and were comparable to those of the Eastern Front between the USSR and Germany. Spread across more than 2000 miles and embracing vastly differing terrain and environments with millions of soldiers mobilized to fight it, making it a colossal calamity. Very few Chinese did not become refugees at some point during the war. It was truly Asia's Great War, one of the most horrific struggles in human history. Yet, it is hardly known to much of the world outside China.
During the war, Japanese forces were bogged down deep in China and were unable for "Northward Advance" to attack Soviet Union. So Japan turned around for "Southward Advance" instead. However, the Chinese resistance also made Japan unable to concentrate huge ground forces for "Southward Advance" and effectively occupy the regions.
Chinese army pinned down Japanese in China, and saved valuable time for allied forces in Europe that helped prevent a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union and the possible convergence of the two strongest fascist countries in the Middle East.
Without Chinese resistance, it would have been almost impossible to implement the 'Europe First' strategy" . The World's wartime debt to China . Forgotten Ally: China's World War II.
US President Roosevelt said: If there were no China, or if China were defeated, the Japanese army could have occupied Australia and advanced toward India and charged all the way to the Middle East and then joined forces with Hitler to isolate Soviet Union, the consequence would be unimaginable.
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin said: If there were no China, Soviet would not have been able to withdraw massive army from the Far East to defend itself when the German army attacked Soviet.
China was the FIRST battle field ignited during WWII, yet the LAST one to end. And certainly was the MOST brutal battle field in the WWII. The war money US lent to Britain was 29 billion, Soviet 9 billion, but to China was merely 0.8 billion. Yet, most of the 0.8 billion was actually used by the US in-experinced general Joseph Stilwell for operations in Burma-India region. Stilwell was an incompetent "know-it-all" officer with no command experience. Due to US general's ignorance and in-experience, it was the darkest few years of the Chinese WWII. In other words, China actually did not get much help from the US except at the end of WWII after Joseph Stilwell was replaced.
It is estimated that China's loss due to Japan's 14 years of atrocious destruction comes to many Hundreds of Billions US $. The total loss should be well over many Trillion US $ if the interest, direct and indirect economic, cultural, social, environmental and ecosystem destruction, damaged and looted wealth, invaluable and in-replaceable destroyed ancient cultural assets, relics, properties, arts, books, buildings, temples, natural resources, and other tangible or intangible losses were included, NOT to mention more than 35 Million Chinese casualties by Japanese indiscriminate killing, starvation and various diseases.
Not to mention many more Millions of Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Filippino, Malaysia, Burma, Thailand, Singapore ..........
Material compensation could never make up for the sorrow and suffering caused victims - but they were seen as a symbolic gesture of fairness and respect; a contributory step towards a better understanding and rereconciliation between nations.
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, and without the covering-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity. Only without the covering-up, Japan will then have to naturally and willingly follow the great example set by the courageous Germany.
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.
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.
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, Sex Slaves, tortured PoWs, Biological and Chemical WMDs 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 50-minute film even questions whether the Japanese invasion of Asia was ever a violation of international law.
The Museum also displays the first engine that travelled the infamous 415 km Railway of Death - Thai-Burma Railway without mentioning the
savage death of 16,000 PoWs and 100,000 Asian Slaves, described by Cameron Forbes in his book Hellfire as
"
built on the Bones of the Dead", i.e. 300 death for each km. The C56 steam locomotive engine of the Thai-Burma Railway of Death was called by ex-PoW Eric Lomax as a "Monument to the Japanese Barbarism".
WWII is called "the Greater East Asian War", invasion of China is described as "China Incident". The Museum displays a reconstructed Zero fighter and a Kaiten or Japanese single-man mini-sub/human torpedo , and the Short Sword used by Gen. Korechika Anami who advocated to continue the War even after the 2 Atomic Bombs.
On display was a kaiten human torpedo, the innocently named "cherry blossom bomb" - a one-trip flying rocket piloted by suicide bombers.
There is also a monument in the shrine tributed to the hated dreadful Japanese Kempeitai , "It is like seeing a memorial to the Gestapo in a German cathedral." said ex-PoW Eric Lomax.
The website of the Yasukuni shrine then declares: "The Truth of modern Japanese History is now restored.”
What if a museum in Germany featuring a Nazi plane, a memorial to the bravery of the Gestapo, a display claiming the Poles welcomed their invaders ?
Again U.S., Britain and other countries remain thundering SILENT.
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.
Minutes from a 1969 meeting and some 808 government and shrine documents, released in 2007 by the National Diet Library, entitled "A New Compilation of Materials on the Yasukuni Shrine" show the Japanese Government was involved in discussions with Yasukuni Shrine officials around 1958, reached an agreement that 12 Class-A War Criminals should be made eligible for enshrinement, "while avoiding any announcement". Another document dated April 1958, Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry urged the Yasukuni Shrine to list the names of hundreds of lower-ranking Class-B and Class-C War Criminals. "How about enshrining them in a way that would be hard to discover ?" a document quoted an unnamed official as saying, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun.
The enshrinement of war criminals cannot be attributed simply to religious or filial impulses. In fact, it was a blatantly ideological and political act to justify and legitimize Japanese War Crimes.
Enshrinement Politics: war dead and war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine . Yasukuni and the Enshrinement of War Criminals.
"Judging from the documents, it was the Health Ministry that made the first move," said Chifuyu Hiyama, an official at the National Diet (parliament) Library that published the 1,200-page book. The Health Ministry, provided a list containing the names of executed Class-A criminals, including wartime leader Hideki Tojo, according to a January 31, 1969, Yasukuni document. Class-A criminals "can be honored" but the process must be carried out secretly, the shrine document said citing an agreement with the ministry. "Announcement should be avoided," it added. The book "confirmed the government's initiative to enshrine war criminals through active interaction with the shrine", said Koichi Nakano, an associate professor of political science at Tokyo's prestigious Sophia University.
In 1959, Yasukuni Shrine began to enshrine Class-B and Class-C war criminals. It had 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. It was a serious violation of Japanese Constitution, the separation of religion and state.
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 .....",
i.e. ALL Japanese WWII soldiers are criminals , committed Mass Rape crime at the least.
According to the published figures in Oct 2001,
there were 28,863 Taiwanese and 21,181 Koreans enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine without their families' permission. Most of them were forced into war service under Japan's colonial rule. Since Feb 1978, a group of Taiwanese residents in Japan who had learned about the list started legal proceedings to get the
Taiwanese removed from Yasukuni. In Feb 1979, a group of 7 indigenous
Taiwanese bereaved relatives came to Japan and, for the first time, demanded that their relatives be removed from enshrinement. The Taiwan Chinese 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 June 2001, 55 members of bereaved families from S.Korea filed a suit at the Tokyo District Court demanding the removal from enshrinement of their relatives. Okinawan families sue Yasukuni to end relatives' enshrinement.
In the past 3 years, Taiwan Chinese 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 Taiwan Chinese people, including large numbers of Aborigines.
For people in Asia, Yasukuni Shrine is a symbol of Japan's brutal militaristic past.
It is a potent symbol of how the Japanese intoxicated by fascism and coerced by military rule, once collectively lost their reason and were fed fantastic myths, of racial superiority and the Emperor's divinity.
The brutal military aggression in Asia was promoted and justified by Japan as a sacred mission of the glorified militarism, racial superiority, and emperor worship. Dying for the Emperor was the highest virtue. That was why soldiers believed that they would meet after death at Yasukuni Shrine . It became both a state religion and a political ideology, of which Yasukuni Shrine is the prime symbol.
This is what makes the shrine such a disturbing place. Not the Class-A war criminals, or the Japanese Kempeitai monument, but this destructive ideology, which has survived intact despite war crime trials, democratic government, and more than half a century to analyze, debate, and reflect on the catastrophes of the past.
Japanese prime minister Koizumi is either ignorant or dishonest when he claims that visiting the shrine is simply "a matter of the heart".
Weekly news magazines and commentators on cable television current affairs talk shows have recently taken to describing Mr Koizumi's stance on Yasukuni as "Childish".
General MacArthur once described
Japan as "A Nation of 12-year-olds" and Japanese "as a childlike people who would run amok without imperial guidance".
Ian Buruma, author of "The Wages of Guilt" wrote: "A normal society, a society not haunted by ghosts, cannot be achieved by 'normalizing' history. More the other way around..... When society has become sufficiently open and free to look back, from the point of view neither of the victim nor of the criminal, but of the critic, only then will the ghosts be laid to rest."
To the Japanese, 14 years of in-human brutality was a Holy War. They were fighting for the God-like Emperor. According to "Yasukuni Daihyakka" (Yasukuni encyclopedia), a pamphlet published by the Shrine, War Criminals are called "Showa martyrs"
Grand-daughter of Tojo: If there was no Emperor , there would be no Japan ......
DM : But the Emperor himself admits he is Korean.
Grand-daughter of Tojo : I know nothing about his roots , but I was astonished that he said such a thing ......
Japan rediscovers its Korean past . . . . .
The Emperor's new roots - Emperor declared his own Korean ancestry.
It is because Japanese Nara city was the capital of Japan from 643 and 794 A.D. where Japan's earliest Emperors were buried. In fact, Conclusive evidences have shown that Japanese Nara Prefecture was actually a Korean colony. The word "Nara" itself means "motherland" in Korean. The Meiji government also agreed that Taizen Kumazawa from Nara was the legitimate heir of the southern Yoshino court.
In 2001, Emperor Akihito said he feels a close "kinship" with Korean and cited the fact that the mother of Emperor Kammu was also a Korean. He also appreciated Korean culture and technology brought to Japan. In fact, more accurately, it should be "from
China via Korea to Japan".
In 1984, Emperor Hirohito made similar statement that the Imperial family had a "close kinship" with Korea.
In fact, the anthropologists and archeologists have confirmed that the modern Japanese came quite late from the mainland Asia to Japan only around 400 B.C., that is a very shallow root . DNA research has confirmed that Japanese are close genetic kin to both Chinese and Korean
"Archaeology has made a lot of progress," said Hisao Baba, curator of anthropology at the National Science Museum in Tokyo, "but
politics has made it difficult for the Japanese general public to take a critical look at their own past."
Yasukuni
Shinto Shrine is a symbol of Japan's failure as a nation to collectively face its past war responsibilities.
Strangely, there are NO human remains at Yasukuni Shrine.
In 1952, Japan passed a "Resolution on the recovery and repatriation of the remains of war dead in overseas territories". Strangely, 60 years after, 50 % of Japanese dead soldiers, i.e. more than 1,160,000 of them are still not repatriated. Even now some 600,000 are retrievable. Inside the Biak cave, in a small island of Indonesia, the skulls of Japanese soldiers were set out in a row, their teeth and parts of thigh bones lined up. Every visitor comes to the Biak cave would really wonder:
What do the Japanese think about their relatives' bones ?
Why Japan and Japanese families don't care and completely dis-concern about the bones of their relatives ? What is this Japanese mentality ? After 65 years, some Japanese soldiers' bone finally going home.
Japanese pacifism is really originated more from a feeling that Japanese suffered during the war rather than from a recognition that Japan started the 14 years long brutal WMD war and caused extreme damage and pain to its Asian neighbors. Therefore, many Japanese do not think they need to be forgiven.
Since the war, only Prime Minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1985
and Ryutaro Hashimoto in 1996, have made the visit, only once. The torrent of protest was enough to persuade them not to make another. However, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi, drawing sharp criticism from other Asian countries, made his official tribute to the war Yasukuni Shrine the 6th time as PM, and also the first on 15 Aug 2006, the anniversary of Japan's surrender, the most provocative date possible, signing the guest book as prime minister.
Koizumi's dangerous game.
Under Article 11 of San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japanese government was to accept the verdit of the Tokyo Tribunal. Japanese Prime Minister to Yasukuni Shrine violates the Peace Treaty. This was why PM Nakasone refrained from further visits in the following years.
Hirohito visited Yasukuni Shrine 8 times as Emperor, last pilgrimage was in 1975. In 1978 the shrine's head priest secretly enshrined 14 Class-A War Criminals. "That's why I have since not visited the shrine" according to the diaries of former palace Grand Steward Tomohiko Tomita.
However, many think it was an act of "self-protection" because Hirohito was afraid that their enshrinement would "reignite" debate over his holy responsibility of the war.
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 an Editorial 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.
"It is sometimes said, "Instead of clinging forever to the past,
we should proceed with an eye to the future." If we simply
brush aside the war crimes of the past without clearly establishing
responsibility, we will be unable to hold aggressors accountable for similar
crimes should they be repeated."
What if Japan had succeeded in building its own A-Bomb first in the WWII ?
Nobody would ever doubt that the Japanese would have certainly used it 60 years ago.
The annual commemoration of the victims of Hiroshima provides
a strong basis for the resistance to the dangers of nuclear wars.
In the United Nations, there is a statue of Catholic Saint Agnes with a broken right limb, scars over her body and deep scratches on the back. The
display introduction board explains : The broken statue of Saint Agnes was found in the Catholic ruins in Nagasaki, Japan. The Atomic Bomb exploded about 500 meters away from the Catholic Church. The scars on the statue were caused by the extremely strong thermal radiation of the atomic bomb. In the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, on display are the granite stone steps of the Sumitomo Bank Building showing a dark shadow that someone had been sitting there at the time of explosion -- the shadow is all that remains.
But, we must never forget that the dropping of the
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (combined death 200,000 compared to
Nanjing Massacre 300,000) was a DIRECT consequence of Japan's 14 years WWII brutal invasion of Asia.
In July 1945, Japan flatly rejected the Potsdam Declaration and refused to surrender.
After waiting for 11 days with no response from Japan, Hiroshima Atomic Bombs exploded. Therefore, Japanese
A-bomb victims were, in fact, DIRECT victims of the Japanese Militarism.
Only until 6 days after the 2nd Atomic Bomb in Nagasaki exploded, then Japanese Emperor finally announced the End of War to his people but without even mentioning ONE word about the defeat and unconditional surrender,
no apology, instead, still tried hard to JUSTIFY Japanese 14 years brutal WWII in Asia as the Japanese way to bring peace to Asia :
Japan formally surrendered and signed aboard battleship Missouri on Sept. 2 in Tokyo Bay. The Japanese armies in China surrendered to the Chinese government on Sept 9 in Chinese capital Nanjing , thus ended the most devastating 14 years of inhuman brutal WWII in human History.
Japan's own efforts to build an Atomic Bomb during the WWII are extremely difficult for many to accept because of the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Atomic Bombs were complained by the Emperor as the "Most Cruel Bomb" in his surrender speech. But very few Japanese, including Japansese Atomic victims, have even heard of their own government's Atomic Super Bomb program.
What if Japan had succeeded in building its own A-Bomb first in the WWII ?
Nobody would ever doubt that the Japanese would have certainly
used it 60 years ago.
Paul Tibbets who flew the
Enola Gay bomber and dropped the atomic bomb, recalled a meeting with Japanese pilot Mitsuo Fuchida who transmitted the radio signal "Tora! Tora! Tora!" indicating that a successful Pearl Harbor attack was underway. However, it was
a strategic failure for Japan. Japan was gambling that it would be able to complete their Asian conquests before the U.S. could recover. U.S. might then choose negotiation over fighting.
Fuchida told him, "
You did the right thing. You know the Japanese attitude at that time, how fanatic they were, they'd die for the Emperor. Can you imagine what a slaughter it would be to invade Japan ?" Fuchida continued. "It would have been terrible. You did the right thing. The Japanese people know more about that than the American public will ever know."
Paul Tibbets has been credited by thousands of former PoWs, soldiers and civilians in all Asian countries for saving their lives.
The Atomic Bombs also prevented the utter destruction of the Japanese mainland, and the deaths of millions of Japanese civilians who would have fought to their deaths.
"Ask me to do it again under the same circumstances, I wouldn't hesitate," said Paul Tibbets during a brief meeting with reporters. "Dropping the atomic bomb was a lesser of two evils," said Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk, who was the navigator of the Enola Gay.
War in Europe finally ended at May 7, 1945 when Germany surrendered unconditionally. Therefore, U.S. demanded the same full unconditional surrender from Japan. Knowing Japan desperately wanted to keep its Emperor system, U.S. slightly changed the demand of the "Full Unconditional Surrender" in the Potsdam Declaration to "unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces" and the Japanese would be allowed to establish their own government. Otherwise, Japan was warned by Truman, that it would face "prompt and utter destruction" because Truman had just been informed that U.S. had just successfully tested its first Atomic bomb.
However, Japanese government gambled to gain more by "Killing it with Silence" without knowing its atomic consequence. On July 26 Truman issued the order to drop the Atomic Bombs.
During the war, U.S. had built only 3 Atomic Bombs. The first atom bomb was used to successfully tested on 16 July 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico. By that time, the Germany had already accepted the unconditional surrender on May 8th in Europe. The 2 Atomic Bombs were now left to be used to end the War in Asia, although 7 more atomic bombs scheduled to be produced before Nov 1.
The 2 bombs were too scarce to be used for a demonstration, Truman ignored the plea by the scientists from Manhattan project to demonstrate the weapon's terrible ferocity to give Japan a chance to surrender.
Furthermore, dropping the Bomb on a non-populated area as a demonstration could be easily dismissed and downplayed, even ignored by those who did not witness it first hand. Without any real way of showing the destructive force, it would not have the desired psychological impact to break Japanese sucidal resistance and would unlikely be taken seriously by Japan.
Therefore, Truman ordered the 2 Bombs dropped on the densely populated central districts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The U.S. wanted to make a tremendous psychological impact to Japan by killing a great many people, and also to impress and deter Russia at the same time before the Soviet Union could join an invasion of Japan.
It also served as a rare opportunity for acquisition of scientific knowledge using a nuclear device in warfare. For data accessment, the cities were chosen for their military significance and previously untouched by mass aerial bombing and of appropriate size and topography to ensure the utmost effectiveness. Hiroshima and Nagasaki met all the conditions. 2 cities situated in a basin and surrounded by mountains ensured the blasts would be at their most devastating. The 2
cities were not conventionally bombed. They were purposely preserved by US so that the atomic destruction could be much more accurately measured scientifically.
Many historians view that the decision to use the atom bomb on Japan was also motivated by the Americans' desire to dominate the world and to give a strong signal to the Soviet Union of who was in charge, and to gain an edge in the post-war control of East Asia and Japan.
U.S. wanted to display its intention of global power domination clearly. Therefore, Truman completely rejecting Roosevelt's "blueprint" and wanted to keep the Russians out of the Pacific War. He wrote in his diary July 1945, "Anxious as we were to have Russia in the war against Japan, the experience at Potsdam now made me determined that I would not allow the Russians any part in the control of Japan.... force is the only thing that the Russians understand." The last thing the US wanted was for Japan to capitulate to the USSR and become communist country.
As for the Japanese, Truman wrote in August 1945 in a blunt letter to Samuel Calvert, a Christian religious leader who had complained about the human toll of the Atom Bomb, "When you have to deal with a beast, you have to treat him as a beast".
However, many believed that not even the Atomic Bombs could convince Japan to surrender. It was the added weight of Soviet's decision to declare war on Japan that had finally convinced Japan to surrender.
On June 8, 1945 the Japanese Army successfully pushed the government into approving "The Fundamental Policy To Be Followed Henceforth in the Conduct of the War". This made it Japan's official policy to "prosecute the war to the bitter end."
A relentless "Die for the Emperor" propaganda campaign was waged to motivate Japanese civilians to fight to a suicidal death for their God-like Emperor.
Japanese government had prepared a War Policy called "Ketsugo" which was a refinement of the Shosango victory plan for the defence of the home islands to the last man. These plans would prepare the Japanese people to die in defence of their homeland. All males ages 15-60 and all females ages 17-40 were drafted into a huge national militia. Even children, including girls, would be trained to use makeshift lethal weapons, and exhorted to sacrifice themselves by killing an American invader.
To implement this "
Ketsugo Policy" of training children to kill, soldiers attended Japanese schools and trained even small children in the use of weapons such as bamboo spears. Several thousand aircraft would be adapted for suicide attacks. Other methods of suicide attack being developed included dynamite-filled "crash boats", guided human torpedoes, guided human rocket bombs (similar to the "Baka" rocket plane used against American ships at Okinawa), and specially trained ground suicide units carrying explosives.
It was the wartime Prime Minister Tojo Hideki personally issued the admonition in the Senjinkun (Imperial Japanese Army Field Service Code) to "live without the humiliation of being taken prisoner and die without leaving a blemish on your name".
Excerpts from the approximately 20 pages written by Tojo in the final days of the war and held by the National Archives of Japan were published for the first time. "The notes show Tojo kept his dyed-in-the-wool militarist mentality until the very end," said Kazufumi Takayama, the archives curator. Tojo also criticized his colleagues, accusing government leaders of "being scared of enemy threats and easily throwing their hands up." Surrender proponents were "frightened by 'the new type of bomb' and terrified by the Soviet Union's entry into the war." Tojo wrote.
Ironically, Emperor Hirohito and Tojo themselves did not committed suicide after the brutal War. Tojo only tried an un-successful suicide when the war arrest warrants was issued.
Japan now knew that US would no longer need to invade Japan because the atomic bombs had nullified its basic assumption on which the suicidal KetsuGo strategy was based. However Japanese Supreme War Council did not even convene for 3 days after the Hiroshima bomb; not until after the USSR entered the war did it meet.
After uranium bomb Hiroshima, the Japanese military claimed that their army and navy could still fight, and would inflict serious losses on the enemy. The military police cracked down on anti-war movements. Censorship was rampant. All newspapers toed the official line and served up propaganda.
After Hiroshima,
leaflets were distributed to major Japanese cities warning of future atomic attacks and warnings to Japan were also distributed by Radio Saipan. But Nagasaki did not receive the
leaflets until Aug 10.
The atomic plutonium-239 bomb Fat Man was originally scheduled to be dropped 5 days later. But it was moved up to Aug 10, then to Aug 9, to avoid a projected 5 days of bad weather.
Japan had signed a neutrality pact with Soviet and asked Soviet to mediate a peace, not an unconditional surrender, at the Emperor's request. But Stalin had already promised U.S. to declare war against Japan 3 months after Germany's surrender in the Yalta conference, in return, U.S. agreed to Soviet's colonial privileges in China and also agreed to the Independence of Outer Mongolia from China as part of their Russian deal behind China' back. Therefore, Russian had absolutely no interest to help or convey Japan's concerns.
Japan knew the Stalin's promise at the Yalta conference, and also received regularly intelligence about the redeployment of Soviet troops to the Far East.
2 days after the Yalta conference, the influential Japanese politician Prince Fumimaro Konoye, 3 times Japanese Premier, rushed a classified report to Emperor which urged Hirohito to "End the war as soon as possible" before "Soviet intervention".
On June 6, Japanese Supreme War Council heard an analysis of the situation: "The Soviet Union is taking measures to prepare the diplomatic ground for possible military intervention against the Empire. At the same time, it is stepping up its war preparations in the Far East. It is very likely that the Soviet Union will go to war against Japan... The
Soviet Union could enter the war against Japan in summer or in the fall." But Japan still refused to surrender.
Potsdam ultimatum was not delivered through diplomatic channels (i.e. using the neutrality of Sweden and Switzerland to deliver the message) and was issued through the Office of War information. Therefore, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, professor of history at the University of California Santa Barbara and author of the book Racing the Enemy argued that Truman "needed Japan's refusal to justify the use of the atomic bomb.... thus... he could not include the provision providing a constitutional monarchy" in the ultimatum. "Truman and Stalin were racing the enemy Japan, but at the same time they were also racing each other. Truman was trying to terminate the war before the Soviets could take parts of Asia, and Stalin was trying to join the war against Japan before the Americans managed to terminate it." However, Hasegawa concluded that "Without the twin shocks of the atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war, the Japanese never would have surrendered".
After Hiroshima, Russia announced on Aug. 8 that it was abandoning its neutrality policy with Japan and entering the war. On Aug. 9, 1.5 million Soviet troops launched codenamed
August Storm against Japanese in Manchuria China and northern Korea.
Few hours later, another Atomic Bomb exploded over Nagasaki instead of the original target city Kokura because of the bad weather. Few days later, Japanese million-man army had collapsed.
The Soviet army looted and dismantled most of the industrial machinery in Manchuria, China. The valuable industrial equipments and machines badly needed for rebuilding the poverish China were looted by the Russians and shipped back to Soviet Union.
"The impact of the blow in Manchuria persuaded Japan's civilian and political leadership more than the atomic strikes to recognize they stood no chance at all of holding out even in the home islands," said historian Nigel Steel.
Subsequent events showed that Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki of Japan addressed an emergency session of the Supreme Council for the Conduction of War on August 9, saying that
"the Soviet decision to declare war on Japan that morning had placed the country in a completely hopeless situation, and that it was no longer possible to continue the war ......"
Yet many Japanese generals including Gen. Korechika Anami still bitterly opposed the surrender, even after the Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Soviet invasion. They advocated fiercely to continue the War rather than surrender.
Japan's Prime Minister Suzuki said publicly on June 9, 1945, "
Should the Emperor system be abolished, they [the Japanese people] would lose all reason for existence. 'Unconditional surrender', therefore, means death to the hundred million: it leaves us no choice but to go on fighting to the last man."
Having broken the code JN-25 Japan used for transmitting messages, US knew Japan was willing to surrender, but had repeated rejection of "unconditional surrender" insisting on Emperor's retention.
Aug 11, 1945 Allied responded to Japanese government to clarify Emperor's role: "
the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers." Truman also ordered to halt the area fire bombing.
Aug 12, No response from Japan.
Aug 13, Truman ordered to resume the area fire bombing.
Japan had originally pinned its last hope on Moscow's mediation, only to face the Soviet's betrayal of its neutrality pact. Japan now distrust Moscow who might be harsher and demand the elimination of the Emperor system, it would be better to surrender to US before the USSR was able to change the war situation.
Aug 14, The Emperor told Japan's cabinet, "
I have studied the Allied reply and concluded that it virtually acknowledges the position of our note [requesting the Emperor's retention] sent a few days ago. I find it quite acceptable." Japanese news agency announced surrender and Hirohito later had his surrender speech recorded for next day broadcasting.
Aug 15, In the early morning 1:00 am, in their last attempt to reverse the surrender and continue Japan's in-human brutal War, as much as 30 % of the high officer militarists staged a military coup. By 6:00 am, the military coup narrowly failed. Many militarists committed suicide. They preferred death rather than the humiliating surrender.
At noon time, Japanese people heard a pre-recorded voice never heard before by the most Japanese, the voice of a kamisama, a god, the Emperor himself announcing the End of War only to complain the Atomic Bombs, NO apology, instead still tried hard to JUSTIFY Japanese 14 years brutal WWII in Asia as the Japanese way to bring peace to Asia :
"..... Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.
..... the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.
Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.
..... This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the joint declaration of the powers.
We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to our allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire toward the emancipation of East Asia ......"
In the end , neither the 2 Atomic Bombs : Hiroshima and Nagasaki , NOR the Soviet Union joining the war had really played a decisive role , except they did hasten the end of the war . The last straw was the God-like Emperor Hirohito whose "Divine Decision" to save himself had finally ended the war . After all , it was a 14 long years of brutal in-human Holy War
that was personally approved and blessed by Emperor himself.
In all conceivable military terms, the war's outcome was clearly determined at much earlier time.
Why did Japan or the Emporer allow the senseless killing go on for so long ?
In Feb. 1945, former Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe proposed to the Emperor that the war be ended, stating that, "Defeat, while deplorable, is inevitable." This early advice failed to move the Japanese leadership to surrender and save numerous lives.
Showa scholar supreme Herbert P.Bix, author of "
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" commented, "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 ....."
The Atomic Bombs not only were the final act of the second world war but also became the first act of the Cold War. In view of the weapon's terrible ferocity, the world was kick started into a mad nuclear arms race.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in his article "A Dangerous Nuclear Deal With India", quoted today we have almost 30,000 nuclear weapons worldwide, of which the
U.S. about 12,000, Russia 16,000, China 400, France 350, Israel 200, Britain 185, India and Pakistan 40 each. Israel has '200 nukes all pointed at Iran', former US secretary of state says.
So desperate to contain China, U.S. even broke its own golden rule and suddenly signed a nuclear pact with India has long refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The pact opens a Pandora’s box of nuclear proliferation and condemned by Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter as "A Dangerous Nuclear Deal With India" . Australia has said it will not sell yellowcake to India unless it signs the nuclear NPT.
In 1959, the U.S. , Dalai Lama and CIA staged a failed proxy war in Tibet for its independence. Initially, the India didn't want to accept Dalai Lama. So U.S. proposed to help India's nuclear technology. In 1974, the 1st Indian A-bomb was given the cynical nickname of "smiling Buddha".
Most experts estimate that Israel has between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads. In Dec 2006, Israel PM Ehud Olmert implied that Israel has nuclear weapons during an interview with German television, "Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as France, America, Russia and Israel ?" he said. Arab countries are now calling for UN action over Israeli Nuclear Arms . Holocaust honor from Israel is sent back with an open letter after Gaza deaths.
In 2010, Israel denounced the resolution adopted at the U.N. by the Non-Proliferation Treaty's 189 nations for a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East. The fact is that all the states in the region have acceded to the NPT except Israel . UN asks Israel to join nuclear NPT. Israel rejects UN call to inspections . UN nuclear-free Middle-East proposal blocked by US.
It was because the 2 Atomic Bombs had served multi-faceted purposes. Therefore, Hiroshima had become one of the most morally contentious events of the 20th century.
Hiroshima : Was It Necessary ? Blood on Our Hands ?
Japanese historian Sadao Asada of Doshisha University in Kyoto, notes that the Japanese military was steadfastly refusing to give up, and was determined to keep going even if that meant, as a navy official urged at one meeting, "sacrificing 20 million Japanese lives." The Japanese wartime leaders who favored surrender saw the
Atomic Bomb as a new argument to accept surrender.
In the
Battle of Saipan, about 43,000 Japanese soldiers and 12,000 Japanese civilians died on Saipan along with some 5,000 Americans and 900 local people died on Saipan and the nearby island of Tinian during a 3-week battle
from June to July 1944. It provided the first B-29 base in the Pacific.
The B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima took off from Tinian.
In the Battle of Iwo Jima ("Sulfur Island", 700 miles south of Tokyo), the Japanese soldiers were commanded to die in defense to exact such a price on allied forces as to discourage invasion of their mainland. US wanted it as a base for fighters escorting B-29 bombers and as an emergency landing strip. Kuribayashi is said to have ordered each soldier to kill 10 Americans before dying. Of over 21,000 Japanese, only 1,083 were taken prisoner alive. The allied forces suffered 25,000 casualties, with nearly 7,000 dead.
Japanese leaders hoped to kill enough Americans to convince U.S. that the invasion of Japan would be too costly so that the unconditional surrender could be avoided.
Battle of Okinawa 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. Out of desperation, Japan established a Kamikaze special attack force, using suicide pilots to crash bomb-laden planes into Allied ship. During the battle, Japanese army mounted a mass suicidal one-way Kamikaze's Zero plane attack. In total, US lost 36 ships. 368 ships were damaged. 763 aircraft were destroyed. Of the total, the Kamikazes sunk 21 warships and damaged 66.
Tsuneo Watanabe is Japan's most powerful media baron chief editor of Japan's largest daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, well known for its conservative stance. He equates Class-A War Criminal Tojo to Hitler.
As to the kamikaze pilots glorified as willing martyrs for the emperor, he said, angrily, "It's all a lie that they left filled with braveness and joy, crying, 'Long live the emperor!' . They were sheep at a slaughterhouse. Everybody was looking down and tottering. Some were unable to stand up and were carried and pushed into the plane by maintenance soldiers".
After 50 year, Maj. Gen. Charles W. Sweeney who was the only pilot to have flown on both atomic missions, presented his reflection in a Senate Testimony in 1995.
A battle of Japanese main islands would have definitely cost much more. Moreover, the Japanese War Ministry had ordered all Allied PoWs to be executed if an assault on mainland Japan was staged.
Every single life, regardless color and race, is precious and sacred. Unfortunately, in certain circumstances, the only way to save sacred lives and stop massive on-going senseless killing is to kill the killers and destroy their war capacity ASAP.
Waiting for the Japan to surrender was NOT a cost-free option - as a result of the Japanese invasion, hundreds if not thousands were dying throughout Asia every day.
That was exactly why the Atomic Bombs were described by Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, who had been Premier in 1940 and the Japanese Navy Minister at the time, as a "
Gift from Heaven".
"
We of the peace party were assisted by the Atomic Bomb in our endeavor to end the War" said Marquis Koichi Kido, the Emperor's Privy Seal and, in a sense, his spokesman and closest aides.
"The
Atomic Bomb was a
golden opportunity given by Heaven for Japan to end the War
While many people around the world were horrified by the bombings, many were overjoyed. The Atomic Bombs might not be the only factor that finally convinced Japan to surrender. But it definitely was one of the major and determined factors to shorten the most in-human war in our 20th century, thus save hundreds of thousands of lives including Japanese.
The tremendous psychological impact had caused many people to ignore the fact that more people died in the conventional war than the Atomic Bombs. In fact, the
total death in the Battle of Okinawa is more than the Atomic Bombs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined.
A man from West Australia wrote in the guest book at the science museum at the Los Alamos National Laboratory :
"My mother, sister and I were in a PoW camp in Java (Djakarta) when the first bomb went off. As a reprisal, the Japanese were going to place all the camp residents in barges and sink them in the Java Sea. The 2nd bomb saved our lives -- and all those innocent women and children held in PoW camps all over Java and Sumatra and no doubt elsewhere.
I am grateful" . Nagasaki saved my life.
Japan's own efforts to build an Atomic Bomb during the WWII are extremely difficult for many to accept because of the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Atomic Bombs were complained by the Emperor as the "Most Cruel Bomb" in his surrender speech. But very few Japanese, including Japanese Atomic victims, have even heard of their own government's Atomic Super Bomb program.
What if Japan had succeeded in building its own A-Bomb first in the WWII ?
Nobody would ever doubt that the Japanese would have certainly
used it 60 years ago.
Japanese people's cry for "No More Hiroshima" is actually a slap on their own government's face because Japanese
A-bomb victims were all DIRECT victims of Japanese Militarism.
In fact, Japan dropped 2 much more Deadly Bombs than the 2 Atomic Bombs onto China, i.e. Japanese-made "Massacre Bomb" and "Rape Bomb" exploded 1937 in Nanjing, the Chinese capital. The
Chinese killed : 300,000 compared to 200,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and
100,000 girls and women Raped.
In fact, it was NOT Japan, but the rest of Asian nations have to "endure the unendurable, and bear the unbearable" to this day.
Therefore, it should be "No More Nanjing", "No More Denial", "No More Cover-up" instead.
Not to mention the Worst Bombs ever dropped by Japan all over China, i.e. WMD Biological Bombs, WMD Chemical Bombs. These deadly
Japanese WMD Bombs are still killing and injuring Chinese, including Children .
to this day.
Ironically, after Hiroshima, Japan lodged a protest with the International Red Cross, insisting that the deadly A-Bomb was a serious violation of international law.
Ironically again, Japanese WMD unit 731, 100 routinely performed human guinea pig biological experiments and some Chinese marutas were put into hot water and gradually increase the temperature to study degree of burns and the relationship between temperature and survival. This in-human skin burn treatment knowledge might have saved many Japanese Atomic victims by the Chinese lives.
Unfortunately, for most Japanese, the defining moments in WWII were not their 14 years brutal invasion of its neighboring countries, but the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This nuclear-victim attitude has riled all its truly victimized neighbors.
This attitude is deeply reflected in that, Japan has NEVER offered any government official apology that is formally and officially approved by Japanese Parliament as a "Truly Legal National Apology" using the more sincere Japanese word "
shazai ", NOT the much less sincere Japanese word "owabi"
for its unspeakable horrific War Crimes, and takes full legal and moral responsibilities.
In 2000, talking with 100 representatives of Japan's general public on a TBS television program, the visiting Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said, "I would like to call your attention to one thing. That is, in any of the official documents, Japan has NEVER apologized to the Chinese people".
"In this country, a formal apology from the government is from Congress and then the president. Individual [Japanese] Prime Ministers have offered their "heartfelt apology". They were all individual apologies", said Japanese-American Congressman Michael Honda.
Tsuneo Watanabe, Japanese Media tycoon, chief editor of Japan's largest daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun well known for its conservative stance, now calls for clearer war apology by Japanese premiers, "It would be best for Parliament to set up a standing committee on war responsibility and express its position".
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 was exactly why Murayama could only offer his Personal Apology in 1995 and repeatedly used the words "I", "me", and "my".
Furthermore, Murayama only used the much less sincere Japanese word "Owabi", NOT "shazai " in his personal apology. Professor Yoshimi Yoshiaki of Modern Japanese History at Chuo University in Tokyo, explained that "Owabi" is only "slightly more weighty than an 'excuse me' offered when one bumps shoulders with someone on the subway."
British veterans accused Murayama "fudging the issue by making the apology a Personal one" . Australia's reponse: "comprehensive" but "more Personal & not representative".
Many of today's contemporary Japanese leaders, in big business, the bureaucracy, and the LDP are the DIRECT inheritors of power from Japanese Militarists. To admit and confess the Japanese War Crimes would be to admit to the "Moral Bankruptcy" of the Pre-War, War-time and Post-War Japanese Government.
Nobusuke Kishi who oversaw the Slave labor program as minister of commerce and industry during the war, was imprisoned as a Class-A War Criminal suspect and later became Japanese prime minister in 1957, and was also the founding father of the current dominated LDP Party. His grandson, Abe Shinzo, is now considered the front runner to replace Koizumi as PM later this year. Abe is the son of former foreign minister Shintaro Abe who was implicated in the Recruit insider trading and big corruption scandal in 1980s. Japanese current Foreign Minister Taro Aso, another front runner to replace Koizumi, has a direct link to family's mining company used thousands of Koreans and PoWs as Slaves. Taro Aso himself ran the firm from 1973-79, has never acknowledged his family company's enslavement.
In Germany, family links alone do not disqualify citizens from public office. But they are expected to show atonement or make amends. Because of Japanese current foreign minister's declared views, Aso would not be admitted to any government in Germany, a German embassy official in Tokyo says.
This is the exact reason why the Japanese government has failed so far to pass an Diet resolution to offer an official apology.
Apology is a sign of maturity. Should we apologise for the behaviour of previous generations ?
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".
Because today's wealth & prosperity of ALL Western colonial rich countries including Japan
i.e. G8, are all built upon the Criminal Enrichment foundation of their long brutal colonial crimes.
Without an act of the Japanese Parliament, NO apology is lawful representative of the Japanese Government, or the People of Japan.
That is exactly why Japan has been offering Personal Apology for several decades,
about 40 times but NO one believes that Japan is sincere because of its contrary actions and statements. Japanese way of apology.
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."
Koizumi has reiterated his personal "deep remorse" over its colonial
aggression in Asia at the Asia-Africa summit in Apr. 2005. But 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 80 Japanese members of Parliament visited Yasukuni Shrine most of them from Koizumi's own LDP party. MPs undermine Japanese apology.
To the afflicted countries, Koizumi's latest apology is the
SAME as all previous apologies -- "Purely Personal".
It is intended to mollify or worse , FOOL the Asian public, Western media and Western politicians.
In 2008, Japan air force chief defends Japan was not an aggressor in WWII . Many back my WWII views: sacked Japan general, "Politicians and bureaucrats do not support me on the surface," air force chief Toshio Tamogami told a news conference. "But in actual fact I think many of them agree with me. They just can't say it in public." He told a news conference. "If you look at what the major world powers were doing at the time, I think Japan was gentler." In Dec. 2008, Ousted Japan air force chief tells parliament he doesn't regret his apologist essay . Facing the past: war and historical memory in Japan.
Japan's numerous weak personal apologies appear so appalling in comparison with the German's historic thundering silent apology which was the most powerful words ever spoken for the world peace and reconciliation.
Willy Brandt's new Ostpolitik, on dealing with Germany's history in a serious way had earned Brandt the Nobel Peace Price in 1971. Symbolically, one individual German knelt down, humbly . Spiritually, whole German nation stood up again, honourably.
In a stark contrast, symbolically, one individual Japanese stood there worshipping, stubbornly . Spiritually, whole Japanese nation knelt down, shamefully.
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 brutal invasion casualties. The rest of Asia's more than 30 Millions victim's death are totally ignored in historical amnesia.
The 3 million Japanese died in the war, MOST were Japanese invading soldiers. But the more than 30 Millions victimized Asians died, MOST were just civilians. This stark contrast clearly indicates the vast magnitude and scope of the Japanese actrocious Crimes committed in Asia.
Mr. Jintaro Ishida, 79, had served in the Japanese navy during the war, After he retired as a school teacher in 1988, he decided to travel through Asia spreading the word about the horrors of the 2 atomic bombs.
Instead of sympathy, he said, he sometimes found hostility. " I was shocked to discover that the bombs were dropped to stop Japan." he said.
So he began reading wartime accounts, searching through the records of war crimes trials and systematically visiting the sites of massacres. "Wherever I went," he said, "the survivors had only one question : How could the Japanese have been so cruel ?? " "These stories were beyond anything I had expected," he said. "How could they have done this ? Did they have no conscience ? "
His decade long search has resulted in an extraordinary book "The Remains of War: Apology and Forgiveness" published 2001, with Japanese title "The Killers and the Killed".
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
militarizing in support of the American government. People think it's right, That's what's really the problem I'm concerned about."
In Jun 2006, even the Japanese Emperor Akihito gave warning against a current Japan's return to the right-wing violence and militarist oppression.
Japan's "Peace Constitution Article 9"prohibits Japan from having an army. So, instead of an army, Japan calls it Self-Defense Force (SDF). As clearly indicated by its name, Japan is forbidden by the constitution to resort to military action unless attacked.
However, encouraged by US, Japanese Self-Defense Force is now the best equipped and most modern army in Asia. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Japan military spending in 2003 was US$ 46.9 billion, the 2nd largest in the world, even outstrips Britain's in total spending and manpower. Its navy is probably the 2nd largest in the Pacific.
Bomb by bomb, Japan sheds military restraints. China is now trying to catch up.
Japan now inches toward a full-fledged military. A bill to revise the Defense Agency Establishment Law will be enacted soon. The agency will officially become the Defense Ministry in January, the first time the name of the agency has been changed in its 53-year history. Japan has about 240,000 SDF troops and one of the world's biggest defense expenditures. Japanese governments have explained away the contradiction by claiming that SDF is not a military but a kind of police force. Another bill aimed at instilling patriotism among students at school, is also expected to be enacted soon. It will be the first revision of the basic education law since it took effect in 1947.
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.
The constant reminders of the atrocities of Germany's Nazi regime is now recognized as a major preventive measure against the revival of Nazism in Germany.
To bring attention to the MOST In-human War Crimes against Humanity in 20th century committed by Japan can also prevent the current resurgence of Militarism in Japan.
The concern does not come from resentment or hatred or revenge
or reprisal. It comes from the hope and love of peace for our future
generations all over the world.
The un-Thinkable
What if Japan had succeeded in building its own A-Bomb first in the WWII ?
Nobody would ever doubt that the Japanese would have certainly used it 60 years ago.
Japan's "Peace Constitution Article 9"prohibits Japan from having an army. So, instead of an army, Japan calls it Self-Defense Force (SDF). As clearly indicated by its name, Japan is forbidden by the constitution to resort to military action unless attacked.
However, encouraged by US, Japanese Self-Defense Force is now the best equipped and most modern army in Asia. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Japan military spending in 2003 was US$ 46.9 billion, the 2nd largest in the world, even outstrips Britain's in total spending and manpower. Its navy is probably the 2nd largest in the Pacific.
Bomb by bomb, Japan sheds military restraints. China is now trying to catch up.
Japan now inches toward a full-fledged military. A bill to revise the Defense Agency Establishment Law will be enacted soon. The agency will officially become the Defense Ministry in January, the first time the name of the agency has been changed in its 53-year history. Japan has about 240,000 SDF troops and one of the world's biggest defense expenditures. Japanese governments have explained away the contradiction by claiming that SDF is not a military but a kind of police force. Another bill aimed at instilling patriotism among students at school, is also expected to be enacted soon. It will be the first revision of the basic education law since it took effect in 1947.
Taking advantage of US war against Terrorism, ironically, instead of self-defense, Japan dispatched its Self-Defence warships for the FIRST TIME in the postwar period to Afghanistan; and then sent its Self-Defence troops to combat zone for the FIRST TIME to Iraq, to help fighting Terrorism.
It is a speechless mockery to its own Cover-up of extreme State-Terrorism committed during 14 years atrocious WWII.
In Jun 2006, even the Japanese Emperor Akihito gave warning against a current Japan's return to the right-wing violence and militarist oppression.
Japan once again capable of an awesome military buildup, but this time includes Nuclear Capabilities.
On 17 June 1974, Japanese Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata told reporters that "it's certainly the case that Japan has the capability to possess nuclear weapons but has not made them."
In Nov 2006, "Japan is capable of producing nuclear weapons," Foreign Minister Taro Aso told a parliamentary committee on security issues. "But we are not saying we have plans to possess nuclear weapons." Aso, who has called for discussion of Japan's non-nuclear policy, also asserted that the pacifist constitution does not forbid possession of nuclear bomb.
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 is already known that Japan on several occasions conducted research on the possibility of developing a nuclear arsenal, this report focused on the technical possibilities. But
concluded the idea wasn't feasible in light of the nation's industrial and technological infrastructure at that time.
In May 2002, Prime Minister Koizumi's top aide, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, appeared to signal a shift away from the anti-nuclear doctrine by saying Japan was not legally prohibited from having atomic arms.
In June 2004, some
Japan's politicians have begun to voice breaking
with policy of non-nuclear pacifism ratified in a parliamentary vote in 1971, i.e. the Three Non-Nuclear Principles - Never to own, produce or allow nuclear weapons on Japanese territory.
In the past, U.S. turns a blind eye to Israel that refuses to join the NPT and Israel secretly accumulated 200 nuclear weapons according to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Israel has '200 nukes all pointed at Iran', former US secretary of state says. U.S. treats Japan similarly.
In 2010, Japan finally ended decades of denials by confirming the existence of Secret agreements with US, Japan allowed US nuclear-armed warships into Japan in violation of Japan's non-nuclear policies.
In the 1990s, Japan declared that it would neither stockpile nor hold more than was necessary for commercial use. Contrarily, Japan has now already become the world’s largest holder of weapons-usable plutonium and grows steadily. Some of Japan's 51 nuclear reactors are operated beyond commercial terms. In 1991, it had 9,000 kilograms of plutonium. But the current stockpile has already increased 5-fold to
largest stocks of Weapons-usable Plutonium in the world, i.e. more than 45 tonnes of plutonium which is equivalent of 5,000 Nagasaki-type weapons, almost 1/5 of the global stock of civil plutonium.
In 2005, Japan ignored the appeal from the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for a 5-year freeze on all enrichment and reprocessing work. Japan is now in full commercial reprocessing at Rokkasho, which is about to release the equivalent of the nuclear wastes of 1,300 power stations into sea. Its reprocessing unit is capable of yielding about 8 more tons (1,000 warheads-worth) of pure Weapons-Usable Plutonium each year. However, countries such as Iran and North Korea are told by U.S. that they must absolutely stop from doing the nuclear reprocessing.
Japan already possesses a prototype intercontinental ballistic missile, in the form of its H2A rocket capable of lifting a 5-tonne payload into space, huge stores of plutonium and high levels of nuclear scientific and technical expertise, also with plans to start up the fast-breeder reactors of plutonium-uranium oxide (MOX) fuel. No country could match Japan as a potential member of the nuclear weapon club.
This is NOT by accident, but design under the cover-up of U.S.
Without having to cross the difficult threshold of actual weapons development, Japan has already become a de facto nuclear weapons state.
Huge Weapons-usable uranium and plutonium stockpiles, enough for thousands of nuclear bombs, combined with rockets that could be converted into missile launchers "enable Japan to deliver WMD Nuclear Bombs in months"
Japan's nuclear power program based on reprocessed plutonium has aroused widespread suspicion that Japan is secretly planning to develop nuclear weapons. Japan's nuclear technology and ambiguous nuclear inclinations have provided a considerable nuclear potential, becoming a "para-nuclear state".
The US deliberately circumvented laws and allowed Japan access to the US' most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals.
US repeatedly violated US laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the US has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.
The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers.
While Japan has refrained from deploying nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrella of U.S. nuclear protection, NSNS has learned that the country has used its electrical utility companies as a cover to allow Japan to amass enough nuclear weapons materials to build a nuclear arsenal larger than China, India and Pakistan combined.
That secret effort was hidden in a nuclear power program that by March 11, 2011– the day the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 metric tons of plutonium. Like its use of civilian nuclear power to hide a secret bomb program, Japan used peaceful space exploration as a cover for developing sophisticated nuclear weapons delivery systems.
With the help of U.S., all Japanese nuclear weapon activities are simply disguised as innocent energy and civil space programs. In 2013, it becomes a "nightmare" and is haunting back on U.S. after the Japanese government compiled an internal report: "The possibility of domestically producing nuclear weapons".
Though Japan claims to support the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, but Japan has not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
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 its own A-Bomb first in the WWII ?
Nobody would ever doubt that the Japanese would have certainly
used it 60 years ago.
Japan's own efforts to build an Atomic Bomb during the WWII are extremely difficult for many to accept because of the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Atomic Bombs were complained by the Emperor as the "Most Cruel Bomb" in his surrender speech. But very few Japanese, including Japansese Atomic victims, have even heard of their own government's Atomic Super Bomb program.
For nearly 6 decades, historians have been unable to solve one of the mysteries :
Japanese Atomic Program - How close were Japanese scientists to building the Atomic Bomb ?
In 1936, Japan's leading nuclear physicist, Dr. Yoshio Nishina who had previously worked with atomic pioneer and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, built a 26-inch cyclotron. Dr. Nishida knew the military potential of nuclear weapons, and was worried that the U.S. were already at work on such a nuclear bomb. In 1937, Nishina built another bigger 220-ton 60-inch cyclotron and promoted the development of a nuclear weapon.
In October 1940, Lt. General Takeo Yasuda of the Japanese Army was convinced that atomic bomb was practical and by July of 1941 the program was funded and headed by Dr. Yoshio Nishina in his research institute, the Riken (the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research).
In a separate atomic program, the Japanese Naval Technological Research Institute had also looked into the feasibility of a Japanese atomic bomb.
The project was called F-Go or No. F (F for Fission) in 1942. It was headed by Prof. Bunsaku Arakatsu at the Kyoto University, who studied under Albert Einstein.
The Navy concluded the atomic bomb was feasible, but lack of resources and also could not be built in time before the war's likely end. The Japanese Navy therefore dropped the project on March 1943.
However, the Japanese Army project under Dr. Nishina continued. It was later supplemented by the Imperial Navy's 2nd Nuclear program which was financed by the Fleet Administration Center. The Navy contract was awarded to the University of Kyoto where a second cyclotron was built and operated by Dr. Arakatsu. After U.S. B-29 bombing raids destroyed the Riken research facilities in early 1945, Navy program still tried to develop an atomic bomb to use in suicide planes and submarines against a probable invasion of Japan main island.
To avoid further bombing, the development was relocated to Konan (now called Hungnam, in North Korea) early in 1945. Japan later disclosed its nuclear program to its ally Germany, and requested assistance.
On May 19, 1945, US captured a Nazi U-boat arrived at Portsmouth, N.H. The German submarine was carrying 560 kilograms of uranium oxide in 10 cases destined for the Japanese army, escorted by 2 Japanese officers. To avoid capture, the 2 Japanese officials, Lieutenant Commander Hideo Tomonaga and Lieutenant Commander Genzo Shoji, committed suicide.
In 1946, a journalist named David Snell, wrote a sensational story which claimed that Japan had in fact successfully developed and tested a nuclear weapon in Konan. Snell had served in the military during the war and was assigned to the 24th Criminal Investigation Detachment in Korea. He interviewed "a Japanese officer, who said he was in charge of counter intelligence at the Konan project before the fall of Japan", known under the pseudonym Capt. Tsetusuo Wakabayashi. According to Snell, the program was able to assemble a complete nuclear weapon in a cave in Konan and detonate it on August 12, 1945 on an unmanned ship nearby.
The officer said before the Soviets arrived, the Japanese destroyed the plant, including incomplete bombs. "We lost 3 months in the transfer," Snell quoted him as saying. "We would have had [the bomb] 3 months earlier if it had not been for the B-29."
Robert Wilcox, author of "
Japan's Secret War - Japan's race against time to build its own Atomic Bomb" and Washington, D.C., researcher Charles W. Stone have documents suggesting Japan might have moved its nuclear operations to Korea after U.S. B-29 raids dropped conventional bombs on Japan. which was captured by Soviet troops at war's end. It says the mysterious output of the Hungnam plant was collected every other month by Soviet submarines.
In April 2002, a long-lost wartime 23 pages document of Imperial army papers finally offer some insight into
Japan's WMD Atomic Bomb Project - An Unrealized Nuclear Armageddon in China.
The document was sneaked out of Japan just after the war by former University of Tokyo professor Kazuo Kuroda, who left for the U.S. After his death in Las Vegas in 2001, Kuroda's widow sent the document back to Riken Institute.
The wartime rationing, limited resources and material, inefficient method to make U-235 and lack of funding made Japan's Atomic Bomb project progressed very slowly. But at the root of Japan's atomic failure was Nishina's flawed theory about an atomic blast. "The documents are one of a kind. We can finally prove that even if Japan had built a bomb, it would not have been powerful at all." said Masakatsu Yamazaki, a professor of science history at the Tokyo Institute of Technology who analyzed the document.
On April 12, 1945, the night the U.S. B-29 warplanes came, Ryohei Nakane had been enriching uranium for
Japan's Super Bomb. By the next morning, all the samples, laboratory and the Japan's dream of Atomic Super Bomb, at Riken Institute, were destroyed by the B-29.
Former German President Richard von Weizasecker
in a speech that marked 40th aniversity of WWII, stated clearly :
" Whoever refuses to remember the in-humanity is prone to new risks of infection. "
But this time, the new risks of infection could be Nuclear.
Japan's "Peace Constitution Article 9"prohibits Japan from having an army. So, instead of an army, Japan calls it Self-Defense Force (SDF). As clearly indicated by its name, Japan is forbidden by the constitution to resort to military action unless attacked.
However, encouraged by US, Japanese Self-Defense Force is now the best equipped and most modern army in Asia. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Japan military spending in 2003 was US$ 46.9 billion, the 2nd largest in the world, even outstrips Britain's in total spending and manpower. Its navy is probably the 2nd largest in the Pacific.
Bomb by bomb, Japan sheds military restraints. China is now trying to catch up.
Japan now inches toward a full-fledged military. A bill to revise the Defense Agency Establishment Law will be enacted soon. The agency will officially become the Defense Ministry in January, the first time the name of the agency has been changed in its 53-year history. Japan has about 240,000 SDF troops and one of the world's biggest defense expenditures. Japanese governments have explained away the contradiction by claiming that SDF is not a military but a kind of police force. Another bill aimed at instilling patriotism among students at school, is also expected to be enacted soon. It will be the first revision of the basic education law since it took effect in 1947.
Taking advantage of US war against Terrorism, ironically, instead of self-defense, Japan dispatched its Self-Defence warships for the FIRST TIME in the postwar period to Afghanistan; and then sent its Self-Defence troops to combat zone for the FIRST TIME to Iraq, to help fighting Terrorism.
It is a speechless mockery to its own Cover-up of extreme State-Terrorism committed during 14 years atrocious WWII.
The dispatch of Self-Defense warships and troops is a small but significant step in Japan's efforts to modify its
"Peace Constitution Article 9" and renew its Militarism.
Under the cover-up of U.S., Japan once again capable of an awesome military buildup, but this time includes Nuclear Capabilities.
In June 2006, even the Japanese Emperor Akihito gave warning against a current Japan's return to the right-wing violence and militarist oppression.
Some 1,100 Japanese citizens file a lawsuit and wanted the dispatch of SDF to Iraq to be suspended and the government to pay damages. In 2008, Nagoya High Court ruled SDF's airlifting of multinational combat troops into the war zone of Baghdad is unconstitution. However, Japan said the ruling will not halt the SDF deployment to Kuwait for the airlift mission because Tokyo considers that where the troops are being flown, Baghdad airport, is outside the combat zone.
The debate has been smoldering in Japan for the past 60 years after the war. Japanese history Professor Saburo Ienaga, who had become for many the living conscience of Japan, had launched 3 highly publicized lawsuits against the Department of Education. It was a crusade motivated by his need to erase a sense of wartime guilt at indoctrinating students to fight for a god-emperor, but also to expose and understand wartime atrocities. Based on his own research, he wrote a high school textbook which included Japan's terrible War crimes : Nanjing Massacre and infamous Unit 731.
Time after time again, his manuscripts were sent back from the Education Department. He was asked to delete a reference to the Japanese "aggression" in China and told to use the words "military advance" instead. Regarding the Nanjing massacre, he had to haggle with education officials over the number of Chinese civilians killed. As for the infamous Unit 731, it was made clear that any mention of its existence would quite simply bar the book from publication.
In 1965, Mr. Ienaga sued the Education Department, arguing that textbook screening violates freedom of expression and education guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution.
In 1967, he filed a 2nd suit seeking the reversal of a 1966 rejection of an application for approval of the textbook. Ienaga lost both suits.
In 1970, when the Tokyo District Court ruled on the 2nd case, it said the review system was illegal and a form of censorship when ideological and philosophical considerations arose during the approval process.
In 1975, the Tokyo High Court dismissed an appeal by the Education Ministry against the ruling on the 2nd case. But the Supreme Court later overturned the judgment and ordered a retrial, leading the high court to rule against Ienaga in 1989.
In 1984, Ienaga filed a 3rd suit over a description in his history textbook about the Japanese Imperial Army's notorious Biological Warfare Unit 731.
In May 1997, a joint committee with representatives of the Association for Learning & Preserving the History of WWII in Asia (ALPHA) and the National Association of Japanese Canadians' (NAJC) Human Rights Committee, has begun a campaign in support of the Ienaga textbook screening suit in Japan.
August 29, 1997 Japanese Supreme Court finally ruled that it was illegal for the textbook screeners to urge Ienaga to delete the description about Unit 731 and ordered the government to pay 400,000 yen in damages to 83-year-old historian Saburo Ienaga, although it ruled that the system of screening school textbooks is constitutional.
Although the Japanese government has now admitted to the existence of Unit 731, but officials have repeatedly stated that no documents exist that verify the unit's activities.
Noriko Omori, a lawyer who has been involved in the lawsuits for nearly 30 years, said she will continue fighting against the screening system outside the courtroom in order for Japanese children to be able to nurture their own thinking."
Because of his old age and poor health, Ienaga decided not to file another lawsuit. "I believe I have helped open a hole to let in the fresh air." said Ienaga.
The partial victory ended his 32 years legal battle started in 1965.
After the lawsuits, in conclusion, Japanese History Professor Saburo Ienaga wrote in Nanking Massacre and the School Textbook Screening Lawsuit :
"Durng World War II the Nanking Massacre was a secret strictly hidden from Japanese people. Only after the War did we come to know about what happened through news reports on the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo. I thought that we Japanese should feel ashamed because as perpetrators we didn't know anything about this major event which was very well-known among the victims and their compatriots. I therefore considered it as being necessary to mention it in the school history textbook. However, I decided not to do so as it was obvious during period of the 1970's that my entire textbook draft would have been rejected by the screening officials if I had touched on the subject."
"Later on at the beginning of the 1980's I decided that the Nanking Massacre should be mentioned and I actually wrote about it. As expected, I was requested to revise the description of the subject. This indeed became one of the major issues of the school textbook screening lawsuit. In 1993 the Tokyo High Court ruled that the government (Ministry of Education) had acted illegally when screening the description of "Nanking Massacre" in my draft textbook. The government did not appeal this High Court ruling to the Supreme (highest) Court. As a result, the High Court ruling on the illegal screening regarding the Nanking Massacre was finalized. We are now able to openly write about it in the textbooks."
"In August 1997 the Supreme Court issued the judgement that marked the conclusion of the school textbook lawsuit. Through the long process of the lawsuit, the final result is that nobody could now seriously argue that the Nanking Massacre was nothing but a fabrication."
In 1987, Azuma Shiro becomes the first former Japanese soldier to publicly admit and apologize for his Nanjing crimes. He published his diary "My Nanking Platoon" to show his remorse and rebut Japanese doubts about Nanjing Massacre. He suffered harassment and threats from Japanese right-wings denounced him as a traitor.
Ienaga was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He passed away in peace on Dec. 2, 2002 at age 89.
"Japan is a very strange country, truth cannot prevail," Nagase Takashi another former imperial solder, says in a mock incredulous voice. "So I am a citizen of the world and NOT a Japanese". Mr. Nagase is also a devoted crusader for a just cause.
He dares to do the unthinkable in Japan. He calls the Japanese Royal Family the War Criminal Family, saying the Emperor should either commit harikiri or become a Shinto priest. Hirohito could have stopped the war at any time. And he never took any responsibility.
Japan has successfully brainwashed its own people by glorifying Convicted Class A war Criminals as national heroes and publicly denied the atrocities - Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, Unit 100, Unit 516.
With censored textbooks to conceal atrocities, 80 % of the Japanese now do not know that Japan had ever invaded another country, he says. "They only know the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima and we lost the war." Mr. Nagase believes Japan deserved the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the atomic bombs immediately stopped the war, saving numerous lives of Japanese, PoWs, and civilians in Asian countries.
They say that after war, the losers get the gallows and the winners get to write the History, except for Japan. Ever quick to criticize China for human rights abuses, the US has been remarkably silent about Japan's ethical lapses, current and historical.
The Asia's strong reactions in 2005, 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.
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.
"Japanese people and the Japanese Media talk only about the reaction of the Koreans and Chinese," said Takesato Watanabe, professor of media ethics at Doshisha University in Kyoto and visiting scholar at Harvard University, author of book titled "A Public Betrayed" to expose what he called the "Japanese Media Atrocities" of deceptions, lies, and abuses of mdeia power in Japan.
"We need the historical facts about how these issues are born in the first place if we are ever going to settle anything peacefully in Asia", said professor Takesato Watanabe.
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.
History Textbooks: for whom and for what purpose ?
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".
In WWI , China, suffering as a Western colonial victim, sent 140,000 Chinese Labor Corps to help allies and served on the Western Front .2 .3 .4. About 2,000 - 20,000 Chinese had died . Their remains lie in many graveyards in Europe, each headstone marked in Chinese characters . 2 . 3. At end of WWI 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 in China, the U.S., Britain and France rejected China's demands. Ignoring China, 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, i.e. G8 - Canada + Austria. Some advocated gradual cultural reform, while others introduced Marxism and led to the birth of the Chinese 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.
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, and without the covering-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity. Only without the covering-up, Japan will then have to naturally and willingly follow the great example set by the courageous Germany.
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 of 2002. and
Tortuous tangles over Japanese textbooks
For details, refer to Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21
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 :
It was for this reason 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........"
Ikehara Hastudo, who no longer lived on Saipan, said this: "I was 16 then, and was a very good swimmer. When I hit the water, I knew immediately that I was not ready to die yet. So I swam and was able to grab some rocks. I saw some Americans in boats. They came and got me and took me prisoner. When they did, I no longer believed the propaganda I had been told."
"In the story that you write, please say that I am Okinawan. I am not Japanese."
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. Mr. Shigeaki Kinjo who said he decided not to kill himself after he saw that Japanese soldiers were not committing suicide themselves. "Young people are retorting, 'Is the [Japanese] government saying our grandparents are lying ?' " says Etsuko Urashima, an Okinawa-based author and journalist. Others are worried about the precedent it sets. "Should we let this happen, I think [Japanese] government will continue to gloss over one after another," says Kodai Tsukayama, a senior at Yomitan High School in Yomitan Village, where more than 100 villagers are believed to have committed mass suicide. Okinawa's war time wounds reopened.
In Sept 2007, Japan ordered to delete all references in textbooks on Japanese army involvement in mass suicides. Immediately, more than 100,000 Okinawan people protested Japan's textbook censorship. Osaka Court also upholds Nobel Prize-winning author for writing Japanese order of "Group Suicides" in the Battle of Okinawa. "This verdict calms the troubled souls of our families and relatives who died", said Minamoto Keisuke now 69.
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.
on U.N. Security Council ?
They say that after war, the losers get the gallows and the winners get to write the History, except for Japan. Ever quick to criticize China for human rights abuses, the US has been remarkably silent about Japan's ethical lapses, current and historical. U.S. president Obama even blindly praised Japan stands as a model country for a permanent member of the Security Council.
The Asia's 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.
"Japanese people and the Japanese Media talk only about the reaction of the Koreans and Chinese," said Takesato Watanabe, professor of media ethics at Doshisha University in Kyoto and visiting scholar at Harvard University, author of book titled "A Public Betrayed" to expose what he called the "Japanese Media Atrocities" of deceptions, lies, and abuses of mdeia power in Japan.
"We need the historical facts about how these issues are born in the first place if we are ever going to settle anything peacefully in Asia", said professor Takesato Watanabe.
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.
History Textbooks: for whom and for what purpose ?
Though given away for free, the Government approved nationalist New History Textbook is used only by 18 junior high schools. But it has caused outrages and been denounced by many Japanese conscientious educators and liberals in Japan.
It also underscores a disturbing broader trend in recent years. Japan's largest national newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun has called on its readers to celebrate the new Textbooks of cutting out all mentions about the Sex Slaves.
" All history textbooks are shifting their focus away from Japan's wartime atrocities," said Mikio Someya, spokesman for Japan Teachers' Association, the leading teachers' union in Japan.
"They are approved because their contents reflect the views of the government and conservative ruling party members." said Yoshifumi Tawara, who heads Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21.
The 2005 revised edition of Japanese History textbook distorts even more than the 2001 Edition: excises all mention of Sex Slaves, portraying Japan as more victim than aggressor; claims Japan had "no choice" but to occupy the Korea;
The new textbook questions Nanjing Massacre and says China provoked war : downplaying "21 Humiliating Demands".
Although still suffering as a Western colonial victim, during W.W.I, China sent 96,000 laborers to help allies and worked in the trenches. 2,000 had died there. 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 in China, the U.S., Britain and France rejected China's demands. Ignoring China, 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, i.e. G8 - Canada + Austria. Some advocated gradual cultural reform, while others introduced Marxism and led to the birth of the Chinese 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.
The Root cause of the bitterness is NOT the History Textbook or the bidding of U.N. Security Council which are only the triggering factors. The Real Root Cause is the
Cover-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity. It is also the Real Solution for the people in Asia because Without the Cover-up, Japan will have to Naturally and Willingly follow the great example set by the courageous Germany.
WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab warned Asia of the
Risk of un-Digested History,
"
Coming from Europe where a reconciliation process has taken place, we have today a clear "European Identity", parallel to our National Identity. This has not happened here in this region. We speak a lot about Asia, but where is the "Asian Identity" ?
The "Asian Identity" could only be achieved through the only path available, i.e. through truly sincere apology, compensation, and forgiveness, and without the covering-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity. Only without the covering-up, Japan will then have to naturally and willingly follow the great example set by the courageous Germany.
Only then, the people of Asia can truly live peacefully and harmoniously together, and only then their Asian dream of an Union similar to the
European Union (EU) could be realized in the future.
From history, we know that Militarism is extreme State-Terrorism.
Ironically, Japanese War Crimes cover-up is, in fact, a
Cover-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity
-- an U.S. "With-Us or Against-Us" mockery to its own war against Terrorism. By covering-up Japan's State-Terrorism and orchestrated many war/proxy wars around the world, U.S. has become an Indirect-State-Terrorism nation.
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
militarizing in support of the American government. People think it's right, That's what's really the problem I'm concerned about."
In Jun 2006, even the Japanese Emperor Akihito gave warning against a current Japan's return to the right-wing violence and militarist oppression.
Japan's "Peace Constitution Article 9"prohibits Japan from having an army. So, instead of an army, Japan calls it Self-Defense Force (SDF). As clearly indicated by its name, Japan is forbidden by the constitution to resort to military action unless attacked.
However, encouraged by US, Japanese Self-Defense Force is now the best equipped and most modern army in Asia. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Japan military spending in 2003 was US$ 46.9 billion, the 2nd largest in the world, even outstrips Britain's in total spending and manpower. Its navy is probably the 2nd largest in the Pacific.
Bomb by bomb, Japan sheds military restraints. China is now trying to catch up.
Japan now inches toward a full-fledged military. A bill to revise the Defense Agency Establishment Law will be enacted soon. The agency will officially become the Defense Ministry in January, the first time the name of the agency has been changed in its 53-year history. Japan has about 240,000 SDF troops and one of the world's biggest defense expenditures. Japanese governments have explained away the contradiction by claiming that SDF is not a military but a kind of police force. Another bill aimed at instilling patriotism among students at school, is also expected to be enacted soon. It will be the first revision of the basic education law since it took effect in 1947.
Taking advantage of US war against Terrorism, ironically, instead of self-defense, Japan dispatched its Self-Defence warships for the FIRST TIME in the postwar period to Afghanistan; and then sent its Self-Defence troops to combat zone for the FIRST TIME to Iraq, to help fighting Terrorism.
It is a speechless mockery to its own Cover-up of extreme State-Terrorism committed during 14 years atrocious WWII.
Backed and Covered-Up of
State-Terrorism by U.S., Japan is now seeking its ultimate seal of legitimacy for its current resurgence of Militarism : a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
In Aug 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.
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 (12.53), Germany (8.018), Britain (6.604), France (6.123), China (3.189)% in 2011.
The U.N. is NOT a board of directors and cannot decide its Security Council permanent membership according to the member's financial contribution.
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 "Truly Legal National Apology" using the more sincere Japanese word "
shazai ", NOT the much less sincere Japanese word "owabi" for its unspeakable horrific War Crimes, and takes full legal and moral responsibilities.
In 2000, talking with 100 representatives of Japan's general public on a TBS television program, the visiting Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said, "I would like to call your attention to one thing. That is, in any of the official documents, Japan has NEVER apologized to the Chinese people".
"In this country, a formal apology from the government is from Congress and then the president. Individual [Japanese] Prime Ministers have offered their "heartfelt apology". They were all individual apologies", said Japanese-American Congressman Michael Honda.
Tsuneo Watanabe, Japanese Media tycoon, chief editor of Japan's largest daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun well known for its conservative stance, now calls for clearer war apology by Japanese premiers, "It would be best for Parliament to set up a standing committee on war responsibility and express its position".
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 was exactly why Murayama could only offer his Personal Apology in 1995 and repeatedly used the words "I", "me", and "my".
Furthermore, Murayama only used the much less sincere Japanese word "Owabi", NOT "shazai " in his personal apology. Professor Yoshimi Yoshiaki of Modern Japanese History at Chuo University in Tokyo, explained that "Owabi" is only "slightly more weighty than an 'excuse me' offered when one bumps shoulders with someone on the subway."
British veterans accused Murayama "fudging the issue by making the apology a Personal one" . Australia's reponse: "comprehensive" but "more Personal & not representative".
Many of today's contemporary Japanese leaders, in big business, the bureaucracy, and the LDP are the DIRECT inheritors of power from Japanese Militarists. To admit and confess the Japanese War Crimes would be to admit to the "Moral Bankruptcy" of the Pre-War, War-time and Post-War Japanese Government.
Nobusuke Kishi who oversaw the Slave labor program as minister of commerce and industry during the war, was imprisoned as a Class-A War Criminal suspect and later became Japanese prime minister in 1957, and was also the founding father of the current dominated LDP Party. His grandson, Abe Shinzo, is now considered the front runner to replace Koizumi as PM later this year. Abe is the son of former foreign minister Shintaro Abe who was implicated in the Recruit insider trading and big corruption scandal in 1980s. Japanese current Foreign Minister Taro Aso, another front runner to replace Koizumi, has a direct link to family's mining company used thousands of Koreans and PoWs as Slaves. Taro Aso himself ran the firm from 1973-79, has never acknowledged his family company's enslavement.
In Germany, family links alone do not disqualify citizens from public office. But they are expected to show atonement or make amends. Because of Japanese current foreign minister's declared views, Aso would not be admitted to any government in Germany, a German embassy official in Tokyo says.
This is the exact reason why the Japanese government has failed so far to pass an Diet resolution to offer an official apology.
Apology is a sign of maturity. Should we apologise for the behaviour of previous generations ?
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".
Because today's wealth & prosperity of ALL Western colonial rich countries including Japan
i.e. G8, are all built upon the Criminal Enrichment foundation of their long brutal colonial crimes.
Without an act of the Japanese Parliament, NO apology is lawful representative of the Japanese Government, or the People of Japan.
That is exactly why Japan has been offering Personal Apology for several decades, about 40 times but NO one believes that Japan is sincere because of its contrary actions and statements. Japanese way of apology.
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."
Koizumi has reiterated his personal "deep remorse" over its colonial
aggression in Asia at the Asia-Africa summit in Apr. 2005. But 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 80 Japanese members of Parliament visited Yasukuni Shrine most of them from Koizumi's own LDP party. MPs undermine Japanese apology.
To the afflicted countries, Koizumi's latest apology is the
SAME as all previous apologies -- "Purely Personal".
It is intended to mollify or worse , FOOL the Asian public, Western media and Western politicians.
In 2008, Japan air force chief defends Japan was not an aggressor in WWII . Many back my WWII views: sacked Japan general, "Politicians and bureaucrats do not support me on the surface," air force chief Toshio Tamogami told a news conference. "But in actual fact I think many of them agree with me. They just can't say it in public." He told a news conference. "If you look at what the major world powers were doing at the time, I think Japan was gentler." In Dec. 2008, Ousted Japan air force chief tells parliament he doesn't regret his apologist essay . Facing the past: war and historical memory in Japan.
Japan's numerous weak personal apologies appear so appalling in comparison with the German's historic thundering silent apology which was the most powerful words ever spoken for the world peace and reconciliation.
Willy Brandt's new Ostpolitik, on dealing with Germany's history in a serious way had earned Brandt the Nobel Peace Price in 1971. Symbolically, one individual German knelt down, humbly . Spiritually, whole German nation stood up again, honourably.
In a stark contrast, symbolically, one individual Japanese stood there worshipping, stubbornly . Spiritually, whole Japanese nation knelt down, shamefully.
If Japan wants to play a larger political role in the world, Japan must settle its past.
Japan now faces a stark choice : Accepting legal and moral responsibilities for its crimes including a legal obligation to identify and prosecute surviving criminals or continuing to avoid the legal and moral responsibilities, which violate international law as well as Japan's international treaty obligations.
For US, China is the only country that has high potential to threaten US global
dominance in the 21st century.
For Japan, China undermines Tokyo as the leading power in the region. To cope with this "China Threat", Tokyo is adopting a more muscular military posture, one that causes alarm to its WWII victimized neighbors.
Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, U.S. has repeatedly
pressured Japan to revise Article 9 of its constitution. In fact,
U.S.
has been doing everything in its power to encourage and even
accelerate Japanese rearmament.
Under the
Cover-up of State-Terrorism by US against Humanity, Japanese government with its economic power, is able to wage a sophisticated propaganda after the WWII :
Japan portrayed itself as an Atomic Victim rather than a colonial Atrocious War Criminal.
Ian Buruma, author of "The Wages of Guilt" resents the Japan's transformation of Hiroshima into a mecca of "Japanese Victim-hood". Many of Japanese attitudes towards the atomic bomb on Hiroshima are so extreme as to be ludicrous. He dismisses them and wrote: "
Again, such opinions are extreme. But, judging from what appears in Japanese periodicals and on best-seller lists, not that far from the mainstream".
There are more than 900 ultra nationalist groups in Japan. They are well organised and well connected with ties to the ruling LDP. Unlike in German where the ultra nationalists basically are out of the mainstream political debate. In Japan, they are part of the mainstream.
Rightist threats raise fears in Japan. "Speech and journalism in this country are facing an extremely difficult situation," Masato Kitamura, chairman of the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association, told the group's annual meeting recently. Japan's estimated 10,000 ultra-rightists, have become increasingly violent in recent years, the National Police Agency said in its annual report last year. When ruling party lawmaker Koichi Kato criticized a prime minister's trip to Yasukuni Shrine, retribution from Japan's right-wing was swift: An extremist set his house on fire. "Many people are now keeping their months shut. Parliament is not an exception." said Kato.
After the war and Covered-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S., U.S. granted immunity to the Emperor Hirohito. But many insist he was intimately involved in the planning and should be ultimately responsible for 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 Diet member Taro Kono.
"Why, in this, the 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.
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".
In late 19th century, in order to distinguish themself from the other minority ethnic groups, again following Chinese way using an era name, the Japanese call themself the "Yamato people " which means , ironically , "The Great Peaceful Race". The name comes from Yamato Period.
Remorseless Japan, assisted by U.S., has committed the
"2nd Rape of Nanjing -- Rape of History" , has committed the "2nd Nanjing Massacre -- Massacre the Massacre" , has committed the "2nd Asian Holocaust -- Holocaust the Holocaust".
Denial and Cover-up will not make the past go away. Only by facing
the Truth of History with courage as Germany, can Japan bring the wounds of war to a final closure.
Makoto Tanabe, a Social Democrat in the Japanese Parliament,
commented on the redress :
"A compensation without apology is un-ethical. An apology without compensation is mere hypocrisy."
But so far, Japan has refused to do either to restore its own dignity and honor.
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".
Because today's wealth & prosperity of ALL Western colonial rich countries including Japan
i.e. G8, are all built upon the Criminal Enrichment foundation of their long brutal colonial crimes.
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 ..... "
In a speech to Israel's Parliament in 2000,
Germany's President Johannes Rau made an emotional plea for forgiveness for the Holocaust. He became the first German leader to address the Israeli parliament,
"With the people of Israel watching, I bow in humility before those murdered, before those who don't have graves where I could ask them for forgiveness," said Rau, "
I am asking for forgiveness for what Germans have done, for myself and my generation, for the sake of our children and children's children."
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 and 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 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.
Media Intimdation in Japan - A Close Encounter with Hard Japanese Nationalism . Silenced Voices: The Japanese Media, the Comfort Women Tribunal, and the NHK Affair.
Japan finds itself staring at the Past as it looks into the Future.
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.
For most Japanese, the courageous question is still haunting :
What did you do in the War, Daddy ?.
To forget the past is to be blind to the present. As George Santayana said, "Those who forget their history are destined to re-live it."
Japanese veterans, war widows, families of those killed in action, civilians employed by the military, and citizens mobilized for the war, all receive generous benefits from Japanese government under the entitlement program.
In 1954, Japanese government even revised the Pensions Law to assist War Criminals for their pensions and compensation.
Japanese War Criminals received full military pensions and benefits from Japanese government,
But millions of their victims and families suffered, and continue to suffer in poverty, shame, chronic physical and mental pain,
WMD Death Toll and
WMD Injuries including Children continue to rise due to Japanese abandonded WMD weapons
to this day .........
Japan is now seeking its ultimate seal of legitimacy for its current resurgence of Militarism : a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
Japan with a history of aggression, crimes against Humanity, with NO signs of remorse, is untrustworthy to be a permanent member on the UN Security Council.
In June 2006, even the Japanese Emperor Akihito gave warning against a current Japan's return to the right-wing violence and militarist oppression.
It is said that who has the courage to remember the past, shall find an honorable future.
Until after a truly sincere Soul-searching, Japan remains as the most dis-honorable nation on Earth -- carrying a "burden of the Soul on future generations of our [Japan] nation, possibly for the next hundreds of years."
