|
Issue of Abuse of Allied POWs: Mainichi Shimbun, evening edition, 7/26/2010
Commentary by
Akinori Fukuda Translated by Asia Policy Point Even for the sake of the global strategy of Japanese corporations The evening edition of the Mainichi on May 10 ran an op-ed by Lester Tenney, former National Commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, who called for Japanese companies that used Allied POWs during the war to apologize. In this commentary, I would like to explain why Japanese companies need to do so. I had the chance to meet Mr. Tenney in December 1999, when he came to Japan to give testimony at the International Citizens’ Forum to Consider War Guilt and Postwar Compensation. Although his face was always smiling broadly, his testimony was horrifying, with such accounts as, “Although Japanese would never beat a dog with a stick, when it came to POWs, they pummeled us without any compulsions”; or, “The large corporation Mitsui has never informed anyone or made any effort to tell what it once did to wartime prisoners.” In his op-ed, Tenney expressed appreciation to Ambassador to the United States Fujisaki for his honorable resolution to the POW issue. The Ambassador apologized sincerely to the former POWs for the unbearable suffering and pain done to them. Tenney also revealed that his letter to then Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) Chairman Mitarai seeking an apology [from the business community] had been ignored. Compared to Ambassador Fujisaki’s sincerity, the response of Mr. Mitarai, who did not even reply to Mr. Tenney’s letter, stands out for its insincerity. Continuing, Mr. Tenney listed such companies as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Nippon Sharyo, and Hitachi as having forced POWs to work as slave labor. What should be noted is that each company he named is bidding for contracts on high-speed railway construction projects being planned in parts of the United States. The projects will create a massive social infrastructure across the U.S. The companies he named all have close ties to the Japanese government and are actively engaged in many business activities. Two days later, on May 12, the morning edition of the Mainichi ran a special feature reporting on the sales campaign connected with the U.S.’s high-speed railway projects, in which the various Japanese companies and the Japanese government were working as one. The headlines that jumped out went: “Pro-active strategy links government and private sector …. Internal demand having reached limit, a way out found overseas.” Approximately 40% of American POWs captured by Japanese forces during the war died in captivity inside and outside of Japan. That reality requires the Japanese government and the companies employing POWs to respond with sincerity. But the overly peculiar situation now is that the government will not even erect a memorial stone to the former POWs, and the corporations that used forced POW labor will not even admit that fact. Mr. Tenney’s op-ed should be heard as a warning that in order to enter the bidding for the U.S. projects, the Japanese government and those companies should first change their historical perspective and carry out postwar compensation. There is a model for resolving this issue. Germany, which is a strong rival for building the high-speed railway in the U.S., paid compensation to the victims from the former Soviet Union and various European countries such as Poland for forced internment and labor. In order to do so, the government and private sector each paid out 5 billion marks or a total of 10 million marks, and forced-labor reparation fund was set up in August 2000 under the rubric of “memory, responsibility, and the future.” As of now, the fund has paid out reparation money to approximately 1.7 million persons.
On the other
hand, in Japan, since a Tokyo high court established an historical conciliation
in the Hanaoka trial against Kajima Construction (see: http://www.ncrr-la.org/news/landmark.html),
there has been no further resolution of forced internment and labor issues
harking back to the war. However, starting last year and continuing into this
year, there were two trials on forced labor connected with Nishimatsu
Construction Company (Yasuno Power Plant in Hiroshima Prefecture and the
Tokamachi Power Plant in Niigata Prefecture) that were reconciled by the company
apologizing and paying reparations (including the erection of a memorial stone
in Yasuno). With these epoch-making precedents, it is time for the government
and companies [mentioned by Tenney] to change the tide of history. Photos remain that were taken at the Mitsui and Mitsubishi mines of POWs who were nothing but skin and bones. Should these photos be picked up by the media in the U.S., the managers of these companies can only imagine the reaction. They should realize the risk entailed to their corporate strategies by ignoring the “historical problem.” Echoing Mr. Tenney’s appeal, I, too, ask for a swift response from the Japan Business Federation now under the new chairman Hiromasa Yonekura and from the managers of the companies concerned. *http://www.ncrr-la.org/news/landmark.html
|