Tag: militarists

Mitsubishi apologizes, offers $56 million for Chinese forced labour in WW2 — 71 years after war’s end!

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Click to enlarge — Xinhua/Wang Haofei
Sun Yuanxin, 1 of 20 survivors, views remains of hundreds who died at this mine

A Japanese company that used Chinese forced labour in its coalmines during the second world war has agreed to compensate and apologise to thousands of victims and their families.

Mitsubishi Materials, one of dozens of Japanese companies that used such labourers from China and the Korean peninsula, said it would pay US$15,000 to each of the surviving victims and the families of those who have died.

If all 3,765 people entitled to compensation come forward, the total payout could reach US$56m, making it the biggest deal of its kind so far – From Imperial Japan.

“We have come to the conclusion that we will extend an apology [to the victims] and offer the money as a proof of that apology,” a Mitsubishi Materials spokesman said…

The victims hailed the decision a victory in their long quest for Japanese companies to take responsibility for bringing an estimated 40,000 Chinese to Japan between 1943 and 1945 to work in factories and mines amid a wartime labour shortage.

Almost 7,000 of them died due to the harsh working conditions and malnutrition…

Some of the relatives of former labourers, however, were concerned the settlement was in lieu of official compensation from the Japanese government, which insists that all reparation claims were covered by postwar treaties with former victims of Japanese militarism.

I’m surprised they didn’t wait for a nice round number — like 100 years, eh? Just continue the official Japanese policy of doing little or nothing to compensate anyone for the war crimes committed in the name of that militarist nation. Might only be a dozen or so survivors left by then.

They know they will be backed up all the way by Uncle Sugar – who gets to use Japan’s territory as their own private aircraft carrier and military barracks to “interact” with Asia.

China holds a Memorial Day for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre

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If there is anything I truly hate it is war.

I’ve experienced some small participation in wars. I have had dear friends more directly affected over longer periods. Now gone. One who survived the Warsaw Ghetto uprising – made it through the sewers of Warsaw, through the countryside eventually to the Soviet Union. After healing physically, she went back to Poland to fight in the underground against the Germans.

I asked her once why she kept her Polish name from the Underground instead of returning to her Jewish family name. She told me that all of that life died with her husband and her daughters in a German death camp. Who she became after that was a different person.

My closest friend most of my life was the most decorated soldier in WW2 from our home state in New England. He was awarded every medal except the Congressional Medal of Honor and he was nominated for that. Surviving injuries at the Battle of the Bulge he was severely wounded at the liberation of the Buchenwald Death Camp – and had sixteen months in a veterans’ hospital to reflect upon how he got there.

They’re both gone, now. Someone like me has to remember.

It doesn’t matter where or when my thoughts are stirred to recall. I’ve written about Nanjing before; but, tonight I happened to switch over to CCTV America just as the ceremonies at the Memorial Site in Nanjing were wrapping up.

I sat and watched the last half-hour of the live telecast. I cried some for 300,000 civilians slaughtered by Japanese soldiers over a few weeks starting on December 13, 1937. I won’t forget Nanjing. China won’t forget Nanjing.

Aung San Suu Kyi to take parliamentary oath

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Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is due to take her seat in parliament, a month after her party won a sweeping victory in by-elections.

She and 42 members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) refused to take part in the swearing-in ceremony due to the wording of the oath. They had objected to swear to “safeguard” the constitution drafted by the old military government and wanted to change the wording to “respect”. But they later agreed to take the oath.

“The reason we accept (the oath), firstly is the desire of the people. Our voters voted for us because they want to see us in parliament,” Ms Suu Kyi said.

However, the constitution – which enshrines the armed forces’ role in politics – will continue to be the focus of political battles in Burma, reports the BBC’s Rachel Harvey in Burma’s capital Nay Pyi Taw.

Ms Suu Kyi’s parliament debut comes after a recent flurry of diplomatic activity, as the outside world seeks to support the reforms introduced by the new civilian-led government, our correspondent says.

On Tuesday, she met US Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for the first time. Mr Ban, who is on a three-day visit to Burma to encourage more democratic reforms, met Ms Suu Kyi at her house in Rangoon.

He said she had accepted an invitation to visit the United Nations headquarters in New York. And Mr Ban said that he welcomed and respected her decision to compromise over the oath in the interests of the greater good.

“A real leader demonstrates flexibility for the greater cause of the people…I’m sure she’ll play a very constructive and active role as a parliamentarian,” he added.

Overdue!