Wartime forced labor case settled

Wartime forced labor case settled

Kajima Corp. agreed on Wednesday to settle a damage suit
brought by Chinese laborers who were forced to work in a mine in
Akita Prefecture during World War II operated by Kajima-gumi, the
predecessor of Kajima Corp. Workers in the Hanaoka mine staged an
uprising on June 30, 1945, to rebel against the torture they had
been subjected to.

As a condition of the settlement, Kajima Corp. has agreed to
contribute 500 million yen toward a fund for the forced laborers.
This settlement is unprecedented.

Laborers who were forced by the Imperial Japanese Army to work
under harsh conditions in the Philippines and Manchuria have also
joined class action lawsuits filed in the United States to
extract compensation from Japanese corporations. The settlement
of the Hanaoka Incident will certainly have an impact on the fate
of these lawsuits.

Many of the people employed by Kajima Corp. today had not
heard of the Hanaoka Incident. But the company cannot avoid blame
for having refused to accept responsibility for its behavior
after the war had ended, and for trying to cover up the incident.
Needless to say, conveying the facts of history to posterity is
the first step that needs to be taken in order to resolve
problems from the past.

-- Mainichi Shimbun, Tokyo