Japan’s irrefutable war crimes
By Susanna Ng
Ming Pao Daily (Canada Western Edition) 29 January 2007
On Jan 12, US’s National Archives released 100,000 pages of newly declassified war time documents. These documents provide solid, undisputable proofs that Japan had conducted biochemical experiment on humans, dissected prisoners of war live and employed bacteriological Weapon in China during WWII.
Japan has never admitted that they'd conducted biochemical experiment on humans - in fact all war crimes - claiming there was no proof. And now, I wonder if they could still deny any of their crimes, as the documents are released by their “best friend” United States, which gave clemency towards Japanese war criminals in the post-war era and helped cover up evidence of atrocities Japan had done.
As Prof. Donald Goldstein, leading WWII authority of University of Pittsburgh, puts it, these new documents “expose the Japanese to criticism that they have thus far avoided.” Goldstein also believes these documents would have a great impact on the foreign policies of China and Korea, the two countries that have not forgiven the Japanese for their atrocities, specifically the Nanjing Massacre and the biochemical experimentations of Unit 731.
I’ve gone through documents available online on the National Archives’ website, and have found lots of solid proofs of Japanese war crimes. For instance, in a translated statement given to Gen. Douglas MacArthur of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) from Japanese general Hiroshi Ueki dated Oct 4, 1946, it reads:
¡K during the present war, former Lt Gen Shiro Ishii, an Army medical doctor, established a large scale human experimental station in the suburbs of Harbin. He acted as commander of the fictitious Kamo unit and executed brutal experiments on many Allied POWs. At the time of the end of the war, it was no secret to the people that he destroyed the experiment station and the evidences.
Moreover, the extensive US investigations on Japanese atrocities against prisoners of wars have led the US to say that: “We have conclusive evidence that unethical experiments such as dissections of live human beings were performed on captured US airmen and other American POWs.” The statement was a briefing note prepared by US department of veterans affairs in 1995 under the "Q&A" section.
Not only has Japan been denying the performance of biochemical experiments and employment of bacteriological and poisonous weapons of mass destruction, right wing historians and politicians have also been working very hard to “prove” that atrocities like the Nanjing Massacre are nothing but fabrication made up by China for propaganda purposes. It would be very interesting to see how Japan would react to the release of these new evidence.
Among the documents, perhaps the most graphic report is that written by Dr Norbert Fell, the Allied chief chemical officer, after he completed a trip to Japan in April 1947. Dr Fell was among a team of investigators sent to Japan after the war to interrogate captured Japanese scientists and obtain their research materials.
Dr Fell's wrote that data showed that various experiments were “carried out on human beings at the main biological warfare installation, Pingfan in Manchuria.”
The report said the human subjects used were said to be Manchurian coolies and “were used in exactly the same manner as other experimental animals.”
Dr Fell reported that the experiments included determining “minimum infectious and lethal dosage of various organism” on these human subjects, then they were “immunized with various vaccines and then challenged with living organisms, and they were used as subjects during field trials of bacteria disseminated by bombs and sprays. These subjects also were used almost exclusively in the extensive work that was carried out with plague.”
In the introductory notes accompanying the release of the declassified documents, it points out that historians have recently proved definitively with the help from Japanese documents that Japan had used poisonous gas in China.
The declassified documents also indicate that in a USSR war trial conducted in 1949, it was established that Japanese war criminals had more than once employed bacteriological weapons in China, Mongolia and the USSR. The court trial had proved by facts that Emperor Hirohito had a “leading role in the preparation and realization of bacteriological warfare.”
However, Japanese right wingers do not seem to bow to these new proofs of war crimes. Not only Prime Minister Shinzo, a grandson of a convicted war criminal, Abe vows to “depacify” Japan by amending the constitution, upgrade the defense unit to “ministry”, and make it a state policy that patriotism is mandatory in all schools, Abe has made it clear that he’s determined to shed Japan from the clout of WWII. In other words, it’s almost certain that Japan WILL shirk away from these newly released war crime convictions. It would be very much up to the West, especially the academics, to bend Japan to facing its past.
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