Denial Against Humanity - Denial, Nanjing Death Toll
Regardless what the actual death toll of the Nanjing Massacre was, the fact that Japan was engaged in wanton executions and reckless rapes remains the same.
"We have to be aware that the atrocities are not just about people being killed." said Daqing Yang of George Washington University, "It also includes rape, looting, destruction of property..... I think it is more important to understand the whole picture of the Atrocity."
The controversial Death Toll has been attached with extensive political symbolic meaning, it often provokes extremely heated emotional debates.
The international community estimated that approx. 200,000 - 300,000 Chinese were killed, and 20,000 - 100,000 women were raped within 2 - 3 months of continuous Rape and Massacre.
In the International Military Tribunal of the Far East (IMTFE), court exhibit estimated approx. " 260,000 were slaughtered " (Source: Document no. 1702, box 134, IMTFE records, court exhibits, 1948). The tribunal ruled " total number of the civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanking and its vicinity during the first 6 weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. "
Note - the number does NOT include huge number of bodies burned, dumped or buried by the Japanese Army.
In 1946, the chief prosecutor of the Nanjing District Court concluded that 260,000 Chinese had died from the massacre, while a summary report prepared by the head procurator of the same district court placed the number at more than 300,000.
On Jan. 17, 1938 during the first month of massacre when the killing was far from over, a cable message by British reporter " I investigated reported atrocities committed by Japanese army in Nanjing and elsewhere. Verbal accounts (of) reliable eye-witnesses and letters from individuals whose credibility (is) beyond question afford convincing proof ..... (Not) less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians slaughtered .... ".
At the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal, Japanese Lieutenant General Tani Hisao, the commander of the 6th Division, estimated more than 300,000 victims were massacred.
Hora Tomio, Japanese Professor of History at Waseda University, had investigated the atrocities. His research had shown the same conclusion in his books "The Nanjing incident" and "The great Nanjing massacre".
Another Japanese Honda Katsuichi, a prize winning journalist, also reached the similar conclusion in his publication "The road to Nanjing", "The great Nanjing massacre" and The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame.
Japanese Historian Kasahara Tokushi at Tsuru University and author of "The Nanjing Incident" concluded that approx. 200,000 people were massacred in the "Nanjing Special Municipality" area.
Fujiwara Akira, a Professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University and author of "The Japanese Army in Nanjing" reached a similar conclusion that " nearly 200,000 or even more soldiers and civilians " were slaughtered in the "Nanjing Special Municipality" area.
Many other historians, such as Yoshida Yutaka at the Hitotsubashi University, author of "The Whole Picture of the Nanjing Incident Obliges Us to Recognize the History" and Joshua Fogel at the University of California, in his "Correspondence: How Bad Was the Nanjing Massacre ?", also embrace their research conclusion.
Various different Death Toll figures come up by researchers are simply due to their different definitions used for the time duration ("2" or "3" months) of the massacre and different city boundaries of Nanjing area ("Nanjing walled city" or "Nanjing Special Municipality") in their estimations.
Japanese journalist Masato Kajimoto, in his thesis " The Nanking Atrocities", concluded that
"It is safe to say that today the majority of historians estimate the death toll of the Nanking Atorcities in the range between 200,000 - 300,000 as claimed by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) or the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal."
Note - the number does NOT include huge number of bodies burned, dumped or buried by the Japanese Army.
If we use " 3 months " as time duration for the continuous massacre, use the larger "Nanjing Special Municipality" as the city boundary, also include the huge number of bodies burned, dumped or buried by the Japanese Army to hide their crimes,
Actual Death Toll should be more than 300,000. In fact, it could be a very conservative estimate.
If we use the same approach for the number of Rapes, i.e. use " 3 months " of continuous Rape in the larger "Nanjing Special Municipality" city boundary and add the number of girls and women Raped but were too ashame to tell, plus the huge number of girls and women Raped but were killed immediately after the Rape that has been confirmed by many former Japanese soldiers as their common practice to hide their Rape crimes.
Actual Girls and Women Raped should be about 100,000 instead of only 20,000.
This is more civilian and PoW massacred by the Japanese than the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (200,000 compared to Nanjing Massacre 300,000).
This is more civilian and PoW massacred in one Chinese city than the total death of some European countries in entire war.
However, voices dismissing or greatly playing down Japan's wartime crimes are regularly heard from Japanese political, academic and media establishment.
Feb. 1999 Nobukatsu Fujioka is a Japanese Professor of Education at Tokyo University and the chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform which aims to erase all Japan's atrocities from text book. "Comfort women were not Sex Slaves," said professor, "They were simply prostitutes taken to war zones by private brokers." He also denied that there was no massacre in 1937 Nanjing.
Nov. 2000 Osamichi Higashinakano, a Japanese Professor of Intellectual History in Asia University and writer Toshio Matsumura Matsumura, author of "Big Doubts about the Nanking Massacre" also tried to distort the truth about the Nanking Massacre as fabrication.
Jan. 23, 2000 In the Japan's 3rd-biggest city of Osaka, a Japanese nationalist group hold a conference in the Osaka Peace Center with the theme "The Biggest Lie of the 20th Century" insisting that the 1937 Nanjing Massacre never occurred.
The same group organised a screening of the Japanese film Pride - The Fateful Moment which depicts WWII leader Hideki Tojo as a heroic warrior rather than a Class A War Criminal at the same Osaka Peace Center in 1998.
Ironically, the Osaka Peace Center was established in order "NOT to forget the tremendous damage inflicted by Japan on people of China and other Asia-Pacific countries as well as people in Korea and Taiwan under colonial rule."
The Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara has frequently called the Nanjing Massacre a lie.
Japanese cabinet ministers also frequently made similar public denying comments with some losing their posts over their statements.
In May 1994, Japanese Justice Minister and Army Chief of Staff Nagano Shigeto said the Pacific War was to liberate Asia, the Nanjing Massacre was a fabrication. He was later forced to resign.
In 1995, Japanese Education Minster Shimamura Yoshinobu frequently made statements to down play Japanese atrocities during the war.
In Jan. 1997, Seiroku Kajiyama, a LDP contender for the premiership, even claimed that "comfort women" had provided sex to Japanese troops "for money".
Many of the western missionaries' diaries and letters that elaborately depicted the scale and character of the Nanjing Massacre are all available at the Yale Divinity School Library, where Martha Smalley works as the archivist.
To the Japanese Nanjing Massacre "denying camp", Martha said, " We have never had Japanese ultra-nationalists come here and look at these records because it is very clear to anyone, looking at these records, that it occurred. You have several different people giving independent accounts and they were all documenting the same events. These could not possibly be any kind of way that they were making up what they saw. "
"They say executing plain-clothes soldiers and stragglers are not massacres ..... It seems even right leaning scholars are criticizing this arbitrary interpretation of the law by the denying camp," said the Japanese historian Yoshida Yutaka at Hitotsubashi University, "The most important aspect of the historical analysis, which is, why it happened ? What drove the Japanese troops to go on the rampage in the way they did in Nanjing ?"
In 1988, Ono Kenji wanted to know what had happened to the approx. 20,000 Chinese PoWs captured by Yamada Detachment of the 13th division.
For 7 years, he interviewed 200 war veterans, collected 24 wartime diaries, video taped many confessions, and collected other historical evidences.
Ono has documented his remarkable research in his publications "Imperial Army Soldiers Who Recorded the Nanjing Massacre", "Massacre or Discharge? Fate of the About 20,000 PoWs captured by Yamada Detachment", "Thirteen lies in the Nanjing Massacre Deniers' Claims".
His in-depth research has revealed how the shocking mass executions occurred near the Mufu Mountain that lasted for 2 days and 2 nights. The dead corpses were quickly burnt with gasoline or dumped into the Yantze river.
An entry on Dec. 16 in one of his collected diaries, we "mowed them down by machine guns. Then we stabbed them with bayonets to our satisfaction. I probably bayoneted 30-odd hateful Chinese soldiers. Climbing up the heap of dead bodies and bayoneting them gave me a courage, which made me feel I could even vanquish ogres. I stabbed them with all my might while hearing them groan. There were some old ones and kids. I killed them all ......"
One of his video taped confessions, "The order 'to do it' came through all the way from the top ..... Those high-rankings don't know what it was like. They just order and never come to the scene ..... I don't know how they could talk about it. They haven't even seen it. We, noncommissioned officers and men, were the ones who actually carried it out ..... I wonder who on earth are those people to claim that such a miserable incident was 'fabrication' ......"
In mid-1980s, in order to refute the Myth of Nanjing Massacre, a campaign was initiated by the Japanese War Veterans' organization - Kaikosha. The organization asked its 18,000 former soldier members to submit any information to " dis-credit " the Nanjing Massacre for its newsletter - Kaiko.
Ironically, instead of receiving any refutable information, the editors had received many eyewitnesses accounts confirmed that the unspeakable atrocities did indeed happen in Nanjing.
Katogawa Kotaro, one of the chief editors for the newsletter Kaiko, wrote in the concluding part of the 11 part series about the Nanjing Massacre, " As a person relating to the Imperial Army, I can do nothing but apologize to the Chinese people. It was cruel. I am sincerely sorry. "
Japanese history Professor Saburo Ienaga, who became for many as the "Conscience of Japan", had launched 3 highly publicized lawsuits lasted 32 years against the Department of Education.
After the 32 years prolonged lawsuits, in conclusion, Japanese History Professor Saburo Ienaga wrote in Nanking Massacre and the School Textbook Screening Lawsuit :
"Durng World War II the Nanking Massacre was a secret strictly hidden from Japanese people. Only after the War did we come to know about what happened through news reports on the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo. I thought that we Japanese should feel ashamed because as perpetrators we didn't know anything about this major event which was very well-known among the victims and their compatriots. I therefore considered it as being necessary to mention it in the school history textbook. However, I decided not to do so as it was obvious during period of the 1970's that my entire textbook draft would have been rejected by the screening officials if I had touched on the subject."
"Later on at the beginning of the 1980's I decided that the Nanking Massacre should be mentioned and I actually wrote about it. As expected, I was requested to revise the description of the subject. This indeed became one of the major issues of the school textbook screening lawsuit. In 1993 the Tokyo High Court ruled that the government (Ministry of Education) had acted illegally when screening the description of "Nanking Massacre" in my draft textbook. The government did not appeal this High Court ruling to the Supreme (highest) Court. As a result, the High Court ruling on the illegal screening regarding the Nanking Massacre was finalized. We are now able to openly write about it in the textbooks."
"In August 1997 the Supreme Court issued the judgement that marked the conclusion of the school textbook lawsuit. Through the long process of the lawsuit, the final result is that nobody could now seriously argue that the Nanking Massacre was nothing but a fabrication."
In 1987, Azuma Shiro becomes the first former Japanese soldier to publicly admit and apologize for what he did in the Nanjing Massacre.
Yet Japan often said that Japan's aim in World War II was simply to liberate Asia from Western colonialism and project themselves as the victims instead of perpetrators of WWII because atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ignoring all the facts that Nanjing Massacare, infamous Unit 731, Unit 100, Unit 516 were the most horrific chapters against Humanity in the 20th century.
Japanese forces had been bogged down deep in the China and were unable for "Northward Advance" to attack Soviet Union. So Japan turned around for "Southward Advance" instead. However, the Chinese resistance also made Japan unable to concentrate huge ground forces for "Southward Advance" and effectively occupy the regions.
Chinese army pinned down Japanese in China, and saved valuable time for allied forces in Europe that helped prevent a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union and the possible convergence of the two strongest fascist countries in the Middle East.
"That is the main reason why Japan did NOT respond the demands of Germany to attack the Soviet Union or invade British troops in Southeast Asia,"
Without Chinese resistance, it would have been almost impossible to implement the 'Europe First' strategy."
US President Roosevelt said: If there were no China, or if China were defeated, the Japanese army could have occupied Australia and advanced toward India and charged all the way to the Middle East and then joined forces with Hitler to isolate Soviet Union, the consequence would be unimaginable.
Japan is responsible for the death of 30 Million Asian during its 14 years brutal WWII invasion,
including millions of Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Indian, Vietnamese, Filippino, Malaysia, Burma, Thailand, Singapore ..........
It was a worst Holocaust against Humanity committed by Japan in WWII and NOT yet confessed.
Forgotten Holocaust - Cover-up against Humanity
This Forgotten Holocaust is definitely the worst case of systematic governmental Cover-up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity in our Human History.
Of all the countries on Earth, Japan is the ONLY nation that used ALL 3 WMD in war, i.e. WMD Biological Weapons, WMD Chemical Weapons, and the addictive WMD Drug.
Unlike the Jewish Holocaust, Japanese Rape of Nanjing, WMD Biological Warfare unit 731, 100, WMD Chemical Warfare unit 516, Opium Monopoly Bureau, Sex Slaves, Slave Laborers are barely mentioned in most histories of WWII and is absent from almost every textbook.
There are many reasons for the story of the Asian Holocaust has taken so long to get out :
The cover-up is mainly due to the Cold War between U.S. and the former communist Soviet Union, and communist China, especially after the start of Korean War in June 1950 and then the Vietnam War in 1960s.
As the Cold War deepened, U.S. desparately needed the speedy rebuilding of Japan as a constitutional monarchy that would provide an anti-Communist bulwark in Asia.
U.S. granted immunity to the Emperor and Prince Asaka. Evidences show that senior aides to Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Japanese court officials schemed to fix testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials so as not to implicate Hirohito.
After the surrender, Japanese government and military moved swiftly to destroy evidence that might assist in the prosecution of any Japanese for war crimes, including Emperor Hirohito. The Imperial Army, Navy, and almost all government ministries, destroyed their incriminating files.
Vast archive of Japanese military records were in the hands of U.S. for 9 years after the war. In 1957, all Japanese military records were ordered to be returned to Japan. The reason given to the 1986's congress PoW hearing. John H. Hatcher, Army Record Management of US Army explained, "because the problem of language was too difficult for us to overcome.".
As the Cold War intensified, U.S. believed that the Anti-Communist aims would be difficult to achieve if the Japanese people were alienated by continuing prosecutions of their war criminals.
Therefore after the war, U.S. conducted a half-hearted show trial - The Tokyo Trial which most historians agreed was a flawed trial focused only on the maltreatment of PoW ignoring all other unspeakable brutalities (e.g. Unit 731) committed against the Asians by the Japanese.
For the same reason, the US called a abrupt halt to further war crimes prosecutions. MacArthur released large number of the remaining Class-A suspects from detention. Many of these suspected war criminals were able to move smoothly into politics, bureaucracy, and big business.
At the same time, MacArthur began to wind down the Class-B and Class-C trials.
Australian prosecutions of Japanese War Criminals were obstructed by lack of cooperation from the U.S. government.
U.S. was active in apprehending Nazi war criminals, denazifying German society, and collecting and protecting archives of the Nazi regime, all of which have by now been de-classified. By contrast, from the moment of Japanese surrender, US Government sought to exonerate the Emperor Hirohito and his relatives from any responsibility for the war. US still keeps many of its archives concerned with postwar Japan highly classified.
Unlike Germany where intensive de-Nazification procedures were employed to prevent former Nazis entering parliament and the bureaucracy, US allowed Japanese War Criminals to enter parliament and seek public office.
It has been estimated by the US Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations that at least several thousand Japanese escaped prosecution as a result of the pre-mature termination of war crime prosecutions by the US in 1949.
Nazi doctors were held accountable for their crimes in the famous 1947 "Nuremberg Doctors Trials", but there were NO comparable "Japanese Doctors Trials".
After the war, influential groups of Japanese intellectuals wanted Emperor Hirohito tried for his War Crimes, but were turned down by U.S..
Instead, U.S. handed power and put Japan's government back in the hands of the same notorious men and other war criminals who started the brutal war in Asia. This was equivalent to reinstating the Nazi party in postwar Berlin.
By protecting Hirohito from prosecution as a War Criminal, U.S. laid the foundation for Japan to refuse to confess, only to whitewash its War Crimes, distort History Textbook, portray itself as Atomic Victim instead of atrocious Colonial War Criminal.
To the Japanese, 14 years of in-human brutality was a Holy War. They were fighting for their God-like Emperor.
The Japanese Militaristic Brain-Wash of beliving other Asian as Sub-Human was so successful, most Japanese simply forgot the fact that MOST of their own so proudly proclaimed "superior" culture are really originated from "inferior" China. Even today, the Japanese writting still adopts many Chinese characters. The Japanese "Banzai" or "Manzai" was also originated from the Chinese "Wansui" for the Chinese Emperor.
Therefore, Under the U.S. Cover-up, when U.S. occupation ended in 1952, the Japanese government immediately pardoned ALL its War Criminals.
Another sinister reason for U.S. granted immunity from war crimes prosecution to the Japanese doctors of Unit 731 & Unit 100 was to exchange for their in-human data and helped covering up Japanese War Crimes so that U.S. could gain some advantages of the WMD Biological Weapon - An act utterly ignoring international laws and against Humanity.
NGO The Sunshine Project has discovered that even today US is still actively developing Biological and Chemical Weapon. On 24 Sept. 2002 Sunshine Project provided evidence for US Military Secret Chemical Weapons Program violating international law.
U.S. government not only pardoned some of Imperial Japan's top leaders, short-circuited reparations programs, reversed the dissolution of Japanese conglomerates and also waived payment of international relief funds to American PoWs after the war.
The truth was also hampered by the great upheavals that followed in China with the resuming of the interrupted Civil War which last for another 4 years un-ended with the Communist took over mainland (People's Republic of China) and Nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan (Republic of China).
Then followed by another 30 long years of various extremely irrational and disastrous political chaos in mainland China.
Due to Civil War, both Chinese government competed to consolidate their own regime at any cost, and was eager to flatter and win diplomatic recognition from Japan, and both need financial loans and trading partnership with Japan to rebuild war torn China.
The mainland Chinese government is also very fearful of this popular protest might be linked to its own Communist Party's complicity in abuse in its past and other social discontent by her people, have greatly hampered the situation.
To encircle communist China, U.S. signed Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security with Japan on Jan. 19, 1960.
Faced with China's rising power, the US and Japan are reinforcing bilateral security relations by changing Tokyo's pacifistic military posture for their common interest - to prevent an ever-stronger China from emerging as the global and regional superpower, especially militarily, in the coming decades.
Therefore, without any political support, the Un-Told Holocaust has fallen largely to the war's survivors and their children to tell their tales.
But for years, Asian survivors kept silent out of shame and a desire to shield their families from a painful past. "They didn't want to burden their children with this dark heritage," said historian Peter Black. Just as many Holocaust survivors were also reticent about their concentration camp experiences.
New Interest in Japan's War Atrocities, but Why Now ?
As the numbers and affluence of Asian in the Asia countries and U.S. have grown, so has the desire to document the war, commemorate its victims and excoriate its villains.
"My father's generation passed on its legacy silently," Kwan said. "Unlike the Jews, who came together and forcefully announced what occurred, the Asians have tried to brush it aside and say it's OK. But it's NOT OK."
" The new generation is made up of people who grew up in the US, are curious about their roots, and possess the English language skills and connections to conduct effective political campaigns," Chang said. It parallels to the 80s and '90s which led to a surge of interest in Holocaust studies.
Shielded by U.S., the "Japan's refusal to face up to its War Crimes keeps this alive," said Kirby of Harvard.
For US, China is the only country that has high potential to threaten US global dominance in the 21st century. Rise of China is one of the great events in economic history.
When she wakes she will shake the world.
For Japan, China undermines Tokyo as the leading power in the region. To cope with this "China Threat", Tokyo is adopting a more muscular military posture, one that causes alarm to its WWII victimized neighbors.
In 2005, for the first time the joint US-Japanese defense policy statement named China as a "Security Threat". 2 months after, Japan explicitly agreed with US that Taiwan Strait was a "common strategic concern" of US and Japan. Then, Japan announced the Japanese Coast Guard would officially take control of the disputed Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands. Japan is also discussing with US on building enhanced US command and control base facilities in Japan and cooperation on missile defense as well as force deployment.
U.S. hawks now refer to Japan as the "Britain of the Far East".
Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, U.S. has repeatedly pressured Japan to revise Article 9 of its constitution. In fact, U.S. has been doing everything in its power to encourage and even accelerate Japanese rearmament.
However, just in the opposite, on Apr. 30, 2005 the leaders of China's Communist Party and of Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party, the 2 sides that fought China's Civil War, formally ended 6 decades of hostility with a nationally televised historic handshake and pledged to work together to undermine Taiwan's Independence movement.
The meeting is the first between the leaders of the two parties in 60 years; the last was in the wartime redoubt of Chongqing, when Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong made a final, failed bid to reach a cease-fire.
"The parties reached a common understanding on upholding the '92 consensus, opposing Taiwanese Independence and striving for peace and stability in the Taiwan Sea," said in a joint communiqué.
Lien said his 8-day visit had unleashed a process of engagement that holds out the promise of peace, stability and increased trade.
China hosts a 2nd Taiwan opposition party head.
Under the Cover-up of State-Terrorism by US against Humanity, Japanese government with its economic power, is able to wage a sophisticated campaign after the WWII :
Japan portrayed itself as an Atomic Victim rather than a colonial Atrocious War Criminal.
Documents translated from the 731's original reports can be found at the US Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah using the Freedom of Information Act.
In 1949, after knowing the unit 731 & unit 100, Russian immediately sent a request through the International Bureau of Investigation to prosecute Ishii Shiro 731's commander and all related personnel, but the request was dismissed by U.S. government as a communist propaganda.
In response, on Dec. 25, 1949, Josef Stalin ordered the Khabarovsk Trial.
Vladislav Bogach, author of a book about the trial "Outlaw Weapon", wrote "experts proved that in one cycle, up to 300 kg of plague bacteria, 800-900 kg of typhoid and about a ton of cholera were produced. In one unit, there were 13,000 rats ... The output of incubators was 45 kg of infected fleas during 3-4 months."
As the trial ended, the daily Suvorovsky natisk expressed its anger,
"These are not humans the military court is trying; they are monsters and villains, and there is no proper word in human language to characterize them ...."
"They have no sympathy ... The Japanese were robots."
However, unlike the Nuremberg Trial and Tokyo Trial, in which high-ranking German and Japanese officials were hanged or life sentenced, in Khabarovsk trials the war criminals were mostly sentenced to terms of only 20 to 25 years. Several years later, all were quietly sent back to Japan and freed in 1956.
The interrogation reports, some 18 volumes were never released.
Many Western historians have criticized Soviet for handing down such light sentences. "My guess is that the Soviet made a deal with the Japanese similar to the one completed by the Americans" Harris said.
A 137-page counterintelligence file from the National Archives which had been declassified, makes it clear that U.S. intelligence agents not only covered up war crimes against Americans, but also aggressively protected the architect of those crimes, Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii.
"At the request of Nationalist Chinese officials who heard about "bacteriological experiments upon Chinese and Americans as human guinea pigs," the U.S. counterintelligence corps prepared a report on Ishii, the head of Unit 731, according to a July 24, 1947, memo. The document makes it clear that a high-level U.S. intelligence officer, Col. Philip Bethune, quashed the report after informing his agents that " no information is to be released to any agent as data on subject is classified as top secret." The agent who wrote the memo, identified only by the initials WSC, also wrote that "Col. Bethune desires no further action be taken in this case. No further action was taken."
Months later, on April 15, 1948, it was noted for the record that "It is of a highly sensitive nature, and that every precaution must be taken to maintain its secrecy."
A report dated April 18, 1947 from the legal section of Gen. MacArthur's headquarters, specifying that the Unit 731 investigation was "under direct Joint Chiefs of Staff order." "Every step, interrogation, or contact must be coordinated with this section," said the report by Lt. Neal R. Smith of Report of Investigation Division, Legal Section, " The utmost secrecy is essential in order to protect the interests of the United States and to guard against embarrassment."
Some of the reports were labeled "Commander in Chief" that leaves little doubt that US President Truman was informed of the events. President Truman also withdrew the 1925 Geneva Protocol outlawing Chemical and Biological Weapons from Senate ratification of protocol in 1947.
Vast archive of Japanese military records were in the hands of U.S. for 9 years after the war. The documents, first screened by the CIA, include hundreds of thousands of pages of War Ministry records from 1868 to 1942, Naval Ministry records from 1868 to 1939 and operational records of many units throughout the war including Unit 731. In 1948 the CIA turned over the records to the National Archives, with no indication of what, if anything, had been removed.
In 1957, all Japanese military records were ordered to be returned to Japan.
Concerned over the potential loss, a group of scholars including Edwin O. Reischauer of Harvard University and John Young of Georgetown University, obtained a Ford Foundation grant to hurriedly microfilm what they could. In February 1958, after about 5 % of the records were copied, Young recalled in an interview, the documents were sent to Baltimore and loaded aboard a ship for Japan. "There was no way we could read them all," said Young, who deplored the loss.
Young, who assisted Allied war crimes investigators in China after the war, compiled a 144-page index to the pages that were microfilmed. A microfilm set was presented to the National Diet Library in Tokyo, "An irony, Young said, considering that Japan has now closed off the collection. "I can tell you frankly, the militarists felt relieved," Young said. "As a historian I couldn't stand it."
This issue was also raised in the 1986's congress PoW hearing. John H. Hatcher, Army Record Management of US Army explained, "because the problem of language was too difficult for us to overcome", therefore all records were returned to Japan.
Subcommittee member Solomon was stunned, "to say that didn't have the expertise in this country to translate those records is almost incomprehensible." It clearly indicated that the subcommittee members believed that there was a Cover-Up.
It was until Dec. 3, 1996, U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) which has focused almost exclusively on Nazi war criminals despite its mandate to pursue BOTH Nazis and their allies, finally took its FIRST STEP toward redressing this imbalance by adding the FIRST 16 Japanese war criminal names on the "Watch List" (Holtzman Amendment) since it was legislated in 1978 for denying more than 60,000 Nazi German, Austrian, and Italian war criminals entry to U.S.
However, Japan is blocking probe of War Criminals and refused to cooperate with the Justice Department to put the names of several hundred surviving criminals on the Watch List.
"Japan is the ONLY country in the world from whom we seek assistance that does not provide it." said Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department’s office of Special Investigations. Rosenbaum said his office has been able to identify fewer than 100 Japanese suspects compare to 60,000 Nazi, Austrian, and Italian war criminals on the "Watch List"
"After the war, they were not punished, so why is the U.S. government dealing with this problem now ?" said Masao Okonogi, professor of political science at Keio University in Tokyo.
"This seems to me remarkably hypocritical. At the end of WWII, the U.S. occupying force was aware of the information about Unit 731 but deliberately exonerated the men in return for their agreement to be debriefed on the findings of their atrocious experiments. We agreed to Cover-Up their crimes." said John Dower, MIT professor and specialist on modern Japanese history and US relations.
In the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) process, the interests of Asian people and countries brutally victimized by the Japanese Imperial Army were mostly ignored.
This Treaty had caused much controversial from the very beginning. After 54 years, the Treaty still remains very much controversial today.
Despite the protests by Asian countries most affected by the Japanese aggression, U.S. did NOT even invite China (both mainland-People's Republic of China and Taiwan-Republic of China) and Korea (both North and South).
Soviet Union, India and Burma refused to participate. 3 signatories from Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) were actually representatives of the French colonial regime.
Only 4 Asian countries signed the treaty. Of these 4, Indonesia signed the treaty but never ratified it. The Philippines reserved its signatures and did not ratify the treaty. So in fact, the ONLY Asian countries that supported the SFPT were Pakistan and Ceylon, both colonies of Britain up till that time.
Furthermore, U.S. feared that Dutch's refusal of signing the San Francisco Peace Treaty might lead the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand to drop out as well, so on the day before and the morning of the treaty signing ceremony, U.S. principal negotiator, John Foster Dulles, orchestrated a " Secret Deal " with exchange of confidential letters between the minister of foreign affairs of the Netherlands, Dirk Stikker, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida.
Yoshida pledged that "the Government of Japan does not consider that the Government of the Netherlands by signing the Treaty has itself expropriated the private claims of its nationals so that, as a consequence thereof, after the Treaty comes into force these claims would be non-existent."
The deal and letters had to be kept secret because Article 26 of the Treaty states that, "should Japan make a peace settlement or war claims settlement with any State granting that State greater advantages than those provided by the present Treaty, those same advantages shall be extended to the parties to the present Treaty."
In 1956, the Dutch did successfully pursue a claim against Japan on behalf of private citizens. Japan paid $10 million as a way of "expressing sympathy and regret." A year before, the British noted two other instances in which governments had made deals with Japan for reparations: a settlement with Burma that provided reparations, services and investments amounting, over 10 years, to $250 million; and an agreement with Switzerland that provided "compensation for maltreatment, personal injury and loss arising from acts illegal under the rules of war."
The letters were finally declassified in April 2000, by which time most potential claimants were probably all dead.
With the " Secret Deal " and by withholding documents, the U.S. has significantly contributed and played a major role in Japan's historical amnesia.
Japan subsequently signed treaties with other States, including the war claims settlements.
Both U.S. and Japan purposely ignored without honoring the provision of Article 26 and continues to deny its bounded responsibility to compensate its wartime victims to this day.
For details, refer to San Francisco Peace Treaty: Has Justice Been Served and Peace Secured ? , and A Just Peace ? The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty in Historical Perspective.
"Those of us who really believe in human rights believe that justice has not been achieved by the San Francisco Peace Treaty," said Lillian Sing, a San Francisco Superior Court judge.
"Japan's historical amnesia is a result of collusion between the U.S. and Japan," said Mark Selden, a history professor at the State University of New York, "That collusion reached its height in the San Francisco Treaty of 1951." because the treaty becomes an obstacle to a full reckoning of the suffering Japan inflicted on other Asians and on American PoW.
Peace Treaty Locked Japan into a Flawed Present.
John Dower in his recent book, Embracing Defeat: "One of the most pernicious aspects of the occupation was that the Asian peoples who had suffered most from imperial Japan's depredations -- the Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, and Filipinos had no serious role, no influential presence at all in the defeated land. They became invisible. Asian contributions to defeating the emperor's soldiers and sailors were displaced by an all-consuming focus on the American victory in the Pacific War".
San Fransisco Peace Treaty is therefore an un-precedented BIG Sell-Out of all countries in Asia by U.S.
In Oct. 1999, in a Letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein for the Bill S.9102 , i.e. the Disclosure Act of Japanese War Crime Documents, History Professor Sheldon H. Harris of California State University emphatically stated in his letter that :
The ""sensitive" documents as defined by archivists and FOIA officers are at the moment being destroyed...... Three examples of this wanton destruction......" by U.S.
1. "In 1991, the Librarian at Dugway Proving Grounds, Dugway, Utah, denied me access to the archives at the facility. It was only through the intervention of then U.S. Representative Wayne Owens, Dem., Utah, that I was given permission to visit the facility. I was not shown all the holdings relating to Japanese medical experiments, but the little I was permitted to examine revealed a great deal of information about medical war crimes. Sometimes after my visit, a person with intimate knowledge of Dugway's operations, informed me that "sensitive" documents were destroyed there as a direct result of my research in their library."
2. "I conducted much of my American research at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md. The Public Information Officer there was extremely helpful to me. Two weeks ago I telephoned Detrick, was informed that the PIO had retired last May. I spoke with the new PIO, who told me that Detrick no longer would discuss past research activities, but would disclose information only on current projects. Later that day I telephoned the retired PIO at his home. He informed me that upon retiring he was told to "get rid of that stuff", meaning incriminating documents relating to Japanese medical war crimes. Detrick no longer is a viable research center for historians."
3. "Within the past 2 weeks, I was informed that the Pentagon, for "space reasons", decided to rid itself of all biological warfare documents in its holdings prior to 1949. The date is important, because all war crimes trials against accused Japanese war criminals were terminated by 1949. Thus, current Pentagon materials could not implicate alleged Japanese war criminals. Fortunately, a private research facility in Washington volunteered to retrieve the documents in question. This research facility now holds the documents, is currently cataloguing them (estimated completion time, at least twelve months), and is guarding the documents under "tight security".
Starting from Korea, in the course of 45 years, Japanese gold hunting expert teams accompanying Japan's armed forces had systematically emptied treasuries, banks, factories, private homes, pawn shops, art galleries, and stripped ordinary people, while Japan's top gangsters looted Asia's underworld and black economy.
For 45 year, Japan systematically looted wealth of 12 Asian countries accumulated over thousands of years: currency, gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, gemstones, jewelry, cultural treasures, valuable ancient books, priceless manuscripts, religious artifacts, artworks and historic artifacts, and antiques including more than a dozen solid gold Buddhas, each weighing more than a ton.
The looting and plundering, which was far more thorough than the Nazis, became the Japanese way to finance its brutal war. In China alone, Japan looted 6,000 tonnes of gold from Chinese capital Nanjing in 1938. When the plunder was later unable to ship to Japan due to US submarine blockade, The treasure of Golden Lily was buried in Philippines, known as the "Yamashita's Gold", estimated US$ 500 billion-plus of wealth looted from 12 Asian countries accumulated over thousands of years.
Shocking details of the Japanese unjust enrichment could be found in the controversial book Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold, backed up by massive amounts of the author's raw research material, which is available in 2 CD-ROMs containing more than 900 megabytes of documents, interviews, maps and photographs assembled during their meticulous research for independent verification.
A Swiss court disclosed in 1997 that one of the solid gold Buddhas is now in a bank vault beneath Zurich’s Kloten Airport, along with a large quantity of other gold bullion recovered by former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and held in Marcos family accounts.
In 1997, a team from Japan’s Asahi television was led to a mountain cave in the Philippines, where they filmed and examined 1,800 of these bars, worth $150 million, and drilled core samples that confirmed their province.
After Japan's surrender, some golds were recovered by US. But US decided to steal and unjustly enrich itself instead of returning to its rightful Asian owner for their recovery after War.
According to the Seagraves, US financial experts from CIA instructed Santa Romana to deposit the gold in 176 reliable banks in 42 different countries. Instead of returning these looted gold to the rightful owners of Asian countries to recover in the aftermath of WWII, U.S. unjustly enriched itself by stealing these looted gold and set up Slush Funds to finance and influence politics around the world for its own interests. The slush funds became US political worldwide action fund to fight communism. The most famous one is known as the Black Eagle Trust, or the M-Fund to reinforce the treasuries of its allies, bribe political leaders, manipulate politics, military, economics and elections around the world.
After the war, according to Segraves, US used the looted treasure from Asia as sort of Japanese Marshall Plan to re-build Japan, and develop Japanese key industries such as coal, iron, shipbuilding and electric power for Japan's "Economic Miracle Recovery" and as bulwark against communism.
Far from being bankrupted by the War, Japan had been greatly and unjustly enriched by the Plunder of Asia after the War.
"Truth is something governments do not wish to be known. Big corporate media and bootlicking academics have tried to undermine our books by pretending they don't exist or saying that the M-Fund is imaginary. But look at the CD-ROMs. Secrecy, lying and corruption have become the official seal of Tokyo and Washington" says Peggy Seagrave.
The fact that the U.S. still refuses to declassify relevant OSS/CIA materials, in blatant contravention of U.S. Freedom of Information laws, strongly suggests to many scholars and historians that there is something serious to Cover-Up.
Peter Calvocoressi, author of the book "Total War", wrote "What seems quite incredible is that the cover-up conspiracy - for it is by no means a demonological exaggeration to speak of it as a conspiracy - was maintained throughout the three years which elapsed between the Japanese defeat and the conclusion of the Tokyo Trial ... and that ... this conspiracy was sustained for so long afterwards."
Under the Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity, Japanese government with its economic power, is able to wage a sophisticated campaign after the war:
Japan portrayed itself as an Atomic Victim rather than a colonial Atrocious War Criminal.
Minoru Morita, a Tokyo-based political analyst said, "These days we very often hear more experts say publicly that the U.S. wants such adversary relationship between China and Japan and that's why they remain SILENT."
Remorseless Japan, assisted by U.S., has committed the " 2nd Rape of Nanjing -- Rape of History " , has committed the " 2nd Nanjing Massacre -- Massacre the Massacre " , has committed the " 2nd Holocaust -- Holocaust the Holocaust ".
Japan has now being able to skirt the soul-searching for its War Crimes for more than half century.
Most people have termed it "The Forgotten Holocaust".
The recent very strong reactions, i.e. large scale of protests against Japan and millions signed the online petition to U.N., from the people of Asia, especially from China and S.Korea, have shown that even though the WWII ended in Asia 60 years ago, the bitter issue of Japanese War Crimes committed before and during that war has clearly not been resolved.
The Textbook was first approved by Japanese Government screening panel 4 years ago and had already caused extensive outcry in 2001 from neighbouring WWII vicitimized countries. China condemned Japan 'absurd' rewrite of WWII in 2001. Japanese education ministry said 137 changes had been made after widespread protests from Korea and China in 2001.
Dec. 2000 Appeal by Japanese Historians and History Educators - We cannot entrust History Education to a Textbook that distorts History.
Though given away for free, the Government approved nationalist New History Textbook is used only by 18 junior high schools. But it has caused outrages and been denounced by many Japanese conscientious educators and liberals in Japan.
It also underscores a disturbing broader trend in recent years. Japan's largest national newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun has called on its readers to celebrate the new Textbooks of cutting out all mentions about the Sex Slaves.
" All history textbooks are shifting their focus away from Japan's wartime atrocities," said Mikio Someya, spokesman for Japan Teachers' Association, the leading teachers' union in Japan.
"They are approved because their contents reflect the views of the government and conservative ruling party members." said Yoshifumi Tawara, who heads Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21.
The 2005 revised edition of Japanese History textbook distorts even more than the 2001 Edition: excises all mention of Sex Slaves, portraying Japan as more victim than aggressor; claims Japan had "no choice" but to occupy the Korea;
The new textbook questions Nanjing Massacre and says China provoked war : downplaying "21 Humiliating Demands".
Although still suffering as a Western colonial victim, during W.W.I, China sent 100,000 laborers to help the allies in France; about 2,500 died. At end of W.W.I at the peace conference in Paris, China requested: do away with the privileges of imperialist foreign countries in China, cancel the Japanese "21 Humiliating Demands", take back the privileges in Shandong that Japan had taken from Germany.
However, not willing to give up their forced colonial privileges, U.S., Britain and France rejected China's demands. Instead, Article 156 of Treaty of Versailles transferred German concessions in Shandong, China to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China.
China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, compounded with the Japanese 21 Humiliating Demands led directly to the first mass movement in modern Chinese history, i.e. the famous First Chinese university student movement : May 4th Movement in Beijing in 1919 and triggered a nationwide Boycott of Japanese Goods. The movement also ignited a wave of searching efforts by the intellectuals for a solution to save China from foreign colonial powers. Some advocated gradual cultural reform, while others introduced Marxism and led to the birth of the Communist Party.
15 Japanese civic groups issued a statement, " The 'dangerous' contents filling the Textbook as a whole have not changed in any essential way. There are even parts that have been revised for the worse.", down playing Nanjing Massacre, ignoring Sex Slaves, depicting Japan as aimed at liberating other Asian countries, using wartime propaganda terminology e.g. calling WWII the "Greater East Asian War".
The Textbook has been a big problem in Japan since end of war, 32 Years History Textbook Legal Battle for details.
Recently, Japanese civic groups ran an advertisement in the Yomiuri Shimbun calling on people to reject the new textbooks
The Root cause of the bitterness is NOT the History Textbook or the bidding of U.N. Security Council which are only the triggering factors. The Real Root Cause is the Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity. It is also the Real Solution for the people in Asia because Without the Cover-up, Japan will have to Naturally and Willingly follow the great example set by the courageous Germany.
WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab warned Asia of the Risk of Un-Digested History, " Coming from Europe where a reconciliation process has taken place, we have today a clear "European Identity", parallel to our National Identity. This has not happened here in this region. We speak a lot about Asia, but where is the "Asian Identity" ?
The "Asian Identity" could only be achieved through the only path available, i.e. through truly sincere apology, compensation, and forgiveness.
Only then, the people of Asia can truly live peacefully and harmoniously together, and only then their Asian dream of an Union similar to the European Union (EU) could be realized in the future.
From history, we know that Militarism is extreme State-Terrorism.
Ironically, Japanese War Crimes cover-up is, in fact, a Cover-Up of State-Terrorism by U.S. against Humanity -- an U.S. "With-Us or Against-Us" mockery to its own war against Terrorism.
Fumiko Nakamura, a 91-year-old former public school teacher, can't shake the profound remorse she feels. Ms. Nakamura used to exhort her students to fight for the Emperor. She is deeply ashamed of her involvement in the war. " I will carry this sin as long as I live," she says.
As Japan expands its military roles abroad, her voice has grown louder. Now that some Japanese leaders want to turn the "Self-Defense Forces" into Full-Fledged Military, 91-years-old woman has become more vocal than ever. "I see certain parallels between present situations in Japan and in the pre-war period," she warns.
Noriaki Kamiya, a high school social studies teacher in Nagoya. Rather than hiding his family history, Kamiya talked about it in his classroom and around Japan. At first he referred to his father obliquely, as an "acquaintance."
But in 1995, a young Diet member declared that her generation bore no responsibility for wartime atrocities, and he sees worrying signs of a revival of the same kind of nationalistic thinking. So he began speaking openly. " Japan has emphasized the part of Japanese as victims, such as in Hiroshima. But it hasn't touched the shameful parts." said Kamiya.
The Asia Peace Alliance of Japan in Japan which has support from 64 organizations warned that nationalism is on the rise and more should be done to prevent the younger generation from thinking that Japanese militarism is the way to go.
"Everything I hear these days makes me really upset," said Sunao Tsuboi, now 80 was a university student when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima. "I get a strong feeling that Japan is leaning to the right, that we're going down a road that we've been down before," His face still visibly scarred from the atomic burns and is worried Japan may again be headed down the path of militarism.
Kinhide Mushakoji, Professor of Osaka University of Economics and Law, said: "Now we're part of the west and millitarizing in support of the American government. People think it's right, That's what's really the problem I'm concerned about."
Taking advantage of US war against Terrorism, ironically, instead of self-defense, Japan dispatched its Self-Defence warships for the FIRST TIME in the postwar period to Afghanistan; and then sent its Self-Defence troops to combat zone for the FIRST TIME to Iraq, to help fighting Terrorism.
It is a speechless mockery to its own Cover-Up of extreme State-Terrorism committed during 14 years atrocious WWII.