RIGHTS-JAPAN: Pay For Disastrous War Policy, Citizens Tell Gov’t

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Aug 11 2006 (IPS) - For years Hiroshi Hoshino, 75, bottled up the pain and suffering he, his two sisters and their mother suffered when Japan was at war with the Allied powers.

”Life was full of misery and hardship for the ordinary people at that time,” recalls the elderly man who today is the head of the ‘Association for Victims of Great Tokyo Air Raid in World War ll’, a group of 750 survivors of the March 10, 1945 intensive bombing campaign by the United states that killed 100,000 civilians and left many more injured and homeless.

Hoshino, whose brothers fought and died on the battlefield, says the raids left survivors with a deep feeling of loss unrelieved by Japan’s postwar economic recovery that allowed them to start life afresh.

‘’Our members suffer from despair as they grow older. There is the nagging feeling among us that the Japanese government has not taken responsibility for damages caused to ordinary people. The Tokyo air raids were the result of Japan’s decision to invade Asia,” said Hoshino.

Such opinions, according to historians, are common in Japan but expressed privately rather than, as Hoshino has started doing, on a public platform.

‘’There is a deep rooted taboo in Japan on speaking publicly about the war, based on the concept of national loyalty. I believe Hoshino and his group represent a turning point in the mood here,” explained Tadahito Yamamoto, curator at the Tokyo Air Raid Museum, a repository of documentation on the bombing.

Indeed, Hoshino, who worked in factories for years to support his mother and sisters, is now preparing, with his group, to file the first lawsuit by Japanese nationals to get their government to accept responsibility for war policies that, they say, devastated the lives of large numbers of people.

”We must speak out before we die. The objective of our lawsuit is to leave a record of the cruelty of the bombing and what led to it. We also hope the government will never repeat the wrongs of the past,” he explained to IPS.

Lawyers for the expected 140 plaintiffs, all of them aging survivors of the Tokyo air raids, say the possible lawsuit is of vital importance today as politicians prepare to boost military capabilities and change its postwar constitution that prohibits Japan from waging war again.

”Ordinary people suffered a lot when their homes were bombed and their family members killed. It is high time the perspectives of ordinary people about Japan’s war past are publicised,” said Taketoshi Nakayama, chief attorney for the group.

Nakayama, however, admitted that records on the effect of war on ordinary citizens are not available. Japan’s present justice system also does not encourage individuals suing the government. For example, several lawsuits filed by Asian victims of Japan’s colonization of their countries, such as former Korean comfort women who were sexual slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army, have stopped short of holding the government responsible.

Hoshino also angrily points out that while postwar policies provide pensions for aging Japanese soldiers and their families, there are no support measures or relief for ordinary citizens.

”Other countries, even the U.S. paid compensation to individuals,” he argued, referring to Washington’s decision to pay Japanese Americans who were forcibly sent to camps during World War ll.

Japan pays handsome pensions to former soldiers and their families.

Lawyers believe that the upcoming lawsuit by Hoshino will encourage more Japanese to speak up about their war experiences and seek compensation from the government, a trend that will eventually force Japan to examine and, perhpas, rest its past.

Sixty one years since the end of World War ll, Japan continues to deal with its war past mostly concerning ordinary survivors such as the return of a 79-year-old man, last month, who spent time in a Russian prison after being mistaken for a Japanese soldier.

Survivors of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 have also begun to record their testimonies. Yasuo Endo, 76, who lived in Hiroshima and suffers symptoms of radiation, told IPS: ”Our purpose is to leave a record of our stories to show the next generation that war kills people and causes suffering. The government is responsible for what happened to us.”