Atrocity victims await compensation
Atrocity victims await compensation
TOKYO (Reuter): Survivors of Japanese World War II atrocities from 13 countries across the Asia-Pacific region gathered in Tokyo yesterday in a combined attempt to get compensation from the Japanese government.
"This is a question of the honor of the Japanese people, and the honor of the Japanese government," said Tasrip Rahardjo, leader of a group of Indonesian former militiamen press-ganged into service in the Japanese army.
"The Japanese army robbed us of our basic human rights," said Filipino Gertrudes Balisalisa, a wheelchair-bound former "comfort woman" forced to serve as a sex slave in army-run battlefield brothels.
"The only way we can get them back is through compensation," he added.
The representatives comprise a total of 50 from Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Russia's Sakhalin island, Singapore, Taiwan, Britain and the United States.
They spoke at a news conference ahead of meetings with Chief Cabinet Secretary Kozo Igarashi, Foreign Ministry officials and Lower House speaker Takako Doi.
The group was to hand Igarashi a letter to Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama demanding that Japan first send fact-finding missions and obtain information on survivors.
Survivors from Nauru, the Marshall Islands and Papua New Guinea were in Tokyo for the first time.
About 30,000 of 100,000 Indonesian militiamen perished on Pacific island battlefields helping the Japanese army. Taiwanese soldiers in the Japanese military were never paid, compensated or given pensions.
Japan's wartime government cheated Hong Kong residents by forcing them to exchange their cash for military notes, now worthless.
Sakhalin
Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were brought to Japan as forced laborers, many of whom perished as a result of harsh working conditions. Some were taken to Sakhalin and abandoned there when the territory reverted to Soviet rule.
Japanese army units conducted massacres in Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the Marshalls.
Some 40 percent of Nauru islanders were taken to the Japanese navy base at Truk Island, where many died.
British prisoners-of-war were forced to dig mass graves for massacre victims, set to work on the "Death Railway" between Thailand and Burma and then forced to work in mines in Taiwan.
"At least we could fight," said Jack Edwards, a former British prisoner-of-war and now a resident of Hong Kong. "But these sisters (comfort women), they were not even given a chance to fight."
Aleutian natives from the north Pacific island of Attu were incarcerated in Hokkaido, Japan, where many died.
The representatives were invited to Tokyo by a coalition of some 12 Japanese citizens' groups which is to host the two-day annual International Forum of War Reparation for the Asian- Pacific Region, opening today.
What had been separate moves to demand compensation for the atrocities from the Japanese government were now being combined, Japanese organizers said.
Almost 50 years after World War II, Japan has yet to come to terms with its bloody record of massacre, rape, plunder and gross mistreatment of people under its yoke.