" The painful reexamination [sic] of the Holocaust and other Nazi war crimes stands in sharp contrast to the tiny step the U.S. government made to correct its wilfully blind policy toward Japan’s war crimes, which included the murder and torture of civilians and military prisoners."
The step referred to is the adding of Japanese names (16) to the list of 70,000 "watch list" held by the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations (I.S.O.). in December 1996.12 were members of "the infamous Unit 731 which conducted grotesque medical and biological experiments on POWs, some of whom may have been Americans. The other four are believed to have been involved with "comfort women"
In a well written article the writer enumerates a series of reasons why this is the "first formal attempt since the post- WW2 war crimes trials to do something about Japanese war criminals."
1) There is a dearth of Japanese records
2) There is a reluctance among victims to speak out
3) A general lack of interest among scholars, human rights groups and others.
"As far as World War II is concerned, the world’s focus has been on Europe, that’s a focus we’re trying to rectify" Eli Rosenbaum, (Director of OSI).
4)" The biggest obstructions have been the Japanese…for the most part they have refused to acknowledge their role in wartime atrocities… they have made deliberate attempts to keep it out of their textbooks"
5) The American Government "has done little to bring Japanese conduct out into the open." The trials were stopped quickly in the efforts to fight the cold war and "a new strategy that called for molding Japan as a bulwark against communism."
6) "all results in exchange for blanket immunity" was a deal accepted by
the US military with regard to Unit 731.
7) Congress held 2 hearings in the 1980s prompted by reports of Unit 731. No reports or conclusions were issued!
In short "Rosenbaum estimates that several thousand Japanese escaped prosecution, and of these several hundred are still living and should be added to the watch list."
The article reveals 3 convergent themes which have led to final U.S. intervention.
1) the emergence of more Japanese documents from the vaults.
2) the effort of veterans to substantiate their claims that they had been experimented on
3) The anniversary season: the recurrent commemoration of one war-related event after another provided the forum for the organisation and promotion of views about war-related issues. It specifically mentions the alliance fr preserving the truth of the Sino-Chinese War, which was founded out of services by the Chinese-American service in California.
To this I (Teal) would add the following: that the involvement of ex-Unit 731 members at director-level in the HIV Green Cross Company scandal reawakened memories of their potential for ignoring human suffering. This scandal in which the supply of untreated blood was delayed to support Japanese suppliers, with the full knowledge that there existed
The production of Sarin gas again in the Aum gas attack on subway trains in 1995 may have led to a further investigation of records and tightening up of / review of the Government’s interest in the war…
" Reviving the issue of war crimes is about more than punishing the guilty: it is about rectifying the historical record so that we can understand everyone’s role and prevent this from happening again." William Triplett , article author.
Where I would split from him however is in the appraisal of current issues: Firstly he biggest obstructers of the truth are clearly the Americans and their allies, who refused to hold trials, not the Japanese who pursue a confused mixed pattern of politics, conditioned by the obsessive need to avoid socialist policies in order to placate their immature patron. Left adrift by an obvious possibility for conflict with the Chinese, a minority made powerful by a Proportional Representation system, which ensures a vital role for bargaining between inner party interest groups retains its power to stifle criticism. With the United States on the side of suppression, there is little incentive to quiet the Right.
To deny this is to forget that after WW2 Japan was run by an Occupation Force even in the 1950s Peace Festivals were banned- the Hiroshima Peace Museum reports:: why? : perhaps in an attempt to avoid potential embarrassment to America’s involvement in Korea.
So among the real victims of these acts are the Japanese, among who live murderers and callous war murder-inspired crazies who have slaughtered and will never be forced to reveal even one word of apology, and the influence this example has had upon others, such that the Aum scientists still were able to subsume their evident preparations for murder in their devotion to a cause: how much like that of their predecessors in 1930s and wartime Japan, preparing for the more than a thousand gas attacks alleged by their Japanese handlers…..[ref.1: Japan At War, ]
Why is it that you leave China to lead your own regretting, Japan??
Why is it that you hide what happened to your people, America and Britain?
© T.R 10th/6/98
"Princess, each of us has his own private hell…." Paul Newman, Sweet Bird of Youth
[ref. 1: Tanisuga Shizuo, Poison Gas Worker's Association; quoted in Chapter 1, section "Gas Soldier" of Japan At War:an oral history by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook, New Press (New York 1993) ISBN 1-56584-039-9. Japan At War]
© Teal Ray... (with acknowledgement to Steve Hartley, Uzbekistan and the camels for inspiration)...