Koizumi apologizes for war wounds

[Archaic]

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/08/15/pacific.victoryday/index.html
Koizumi apologizes for war wounds

Monday, August 15, 2005 Posted: 0627 GMT (1427 HKT)

TOKYO, Japan -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday apologized for his country's role in World War II on the 60th anniversary of the war's end, and vowed Japan would never again take "the path to war."

In a statement issued by his office, Koizumi acknowledged the "enormous damage" inflicted by Japan's military "by colonization and invasion" during the conflict.

"We must take this historical fact of such very sincerely, and I would like to express keen remorse and heartfelt apologies," Koizumi said.

"I would like to also express our deep condolences to the victims inside and outside of Japan during World War II."

At the height of the conflict, much of southeast Asia, China and the Pacific islands were in Japanese hands.

Japan agreed to surrender on August 15, 1945, after U.S. planes dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The formal surrender was signed on September 2.

Koizumi's apology was not the first to be issued by a Japanese leader.

In August 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the war's end, then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama expressed Tokyo's deep remorse and heartfelt apology for the damage and suffering it inflicted on its Asian neighbors.

Koizumi made a similar apology for Japan's role in the war at an Asian summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, this past April. And in 2001, Koizumi apologized for Japanese treatment of Koreans during its occupation of the Korean peninsula during the first half of the 20th century.

At the time, he had been criticized for visiting the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo honoring the war dead, including convicted war criminals, and several Asian countries had decried a school textbook approved by Japan that glosses over Tokyo's wartime atrocities.

Apart from Koizumi's statement, many Japanese held a moment of silence Monday as Emperor Akihito and other officials gathered to express sorrow and pledge to work towards peace.

And across the region Asians marked the anniversary by honoring their dead, burning Rising Sun flags and demanding compensation from Japan for wartime abuses, The Associated Press reports.

The occasion also inspired a rare joint commemoration by North Korea and South Korea.

Speaking Monday over a video link between the two Koreas, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun urged Koreans to come together to help overcome common problems.

"It's time for us to put an end to history of dissension, and open an era of national integration," AP reports Roh saying.

"This also means laying the grounds to surmount division, and to ring in a reunified era ruled by peace and prosperity."

Attending the event in Seoul was the North delegation led by Kim Ki Nam vice chairman of North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Fatherland. (Full story)

Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910. While the war's end brought liberation, it also led to the peninsula's division and a stalemated war between North and South in 1950-53.

Elsewhere, former Australian prisoners of war returned to the Thai jungles where they labored under brutal conditions to build the notorious Death Railway. (Full story)

And China exhorted its citizens to remember Tokyo's surrender with "a fresh wave of patriotism," as state-run media whipped up memories of Japanese atrocities.

In China's anniversary events, national religious associations planned rites condemning aggression and praying for peace, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The northeastern city of Qiqihar put on an exhibit commemorating the death of a Chinese man two years ago from a mustard gas canister abandoned by Japan's army, the China Youth Daily reported. The leak also injured 42 people.

Japan invaded China in 1931. Its troops massacred as many as 300,000 people after taking the city of Nanjing in December 1937, and Japanese scientists performed germ warfare experiments on Chinese prisoners.

In the Philippines, Lili-Pilipina, a group of women who say they were forced into prostitution by the Japanese Army, demanded again that Tokyo compensate them, AP reports.

While some have accepted payments from the privately run Asian Women's Fund, the women want official compensation and acknowledgment of their suffering.

Tokyo has generally refused to pay damages to individuals for the war, saying the issue was settled between governments in postwar treaties.

Japanese courts have rejected a number of lawsuits brought by former sex slaves across Asia.

[Zhen Lin]

From the looks of this list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan), it appears to be the latest addition to a long line of ignored apologies...

[Archaic]

Oo;;

I never realised there had been anywhere near so many apologies made.

[Zhen Lin]

There are probably a lot more minor ones not noted on the page...

[Archaic]

Almost certainly.

The way the media reports these things over here, it's like him doing this is unheard of. It's certainly been portrayed that way in the past, when reporting other nations demanding Japan apologise, even though they obviously have many times since.

[evkl]

And isn't Japan planning to change their constitution to remove the anti-war statue?

[Murgatroyd]

And isn't Japan planning to change their constitution to remove the anti-war statue?

From the current Wikipedia article:
The majority of Japanese citizens approve the spirit of article 9, and consider it personally important. But, since the 1980s, there has been a shift away from a stance that would tolerate no alteration of the article to allowing a revision that would resolve the discord between the Japan Self-Defense Forces, and article 9. Additionally, a smaller group of citizens consider that Japan should allow itself to commit the Self-Defense Forces to 'collective defense' efforts, like those agreed to by the UN security council--the Gulf War, for instance. Despite this move, the majority as of 2005 are still against revision.

[Archaic]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was ammended, to make peacekeeping and humanitatian efforts and self-defence forces constitutionally legal, but I highly doubt it'd be removed.

[Rachael]

I think it's compensation the other countries want. Japan has made a lot of apologies, but how do the Chinese and Koreans know they mean it unless they do something about it?

[Zhen Lin]

Korea and China, oddly enough, have given up some right to compensation - be it individually, nationally, or both. China waived its right to recieve intergovernmental compensation in return for Japan recognising the PRC over the ROC, and recognising that Taiwan was inseparable from China. South Korea and Japan confirmed that all claims between their countries and peoples had been settled in 1965. Nonetheless, China recieved substantial aid from Japan, as had South Korea.

I think, what remains of the anti-Japanese sentiment is now being manipulated for political reasons - especially in China, I would think, where they are being distracted from domestic issues...

Besides which, I think we can all agree on something, when I say that politicians rarely mean what they say or do...

[Evil Figment]

Well, that, and the continued school manuals and koizuni-at-the-shrine fiascos...

[Zhen Lin]

Though as he has demonstrated recently by dissolving the lower house and then fielding competitors to his party members who voted against his postal privatisation bills, Koizumi is a stubborn one and should probably be voted out soon. [Lower house elections are on September 11, 2005; the PM will be re-selected following the elections.]

Japan is starting to develop its own Neocons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_%28Japan%29), regrettable.

[Archaic]

As far as those textbooks go, one thing that's not widely reported overseas is that only 4 of all the Junior High's in the nation actually use them.

And as far as the Shrine goes....it's a shrine to all of Japan's war dead, not just the WW2 ones, and the fact that some war criminals are there is incidental. Not to mention the fact that Koizumi has only ever visited it as a private citizen, not in his role as Prime Minister.

[Zhen Lin]

All Imperial Japan that is - so it includes a few Koreans and Taiwanese too. Apparently, some Taiwanese aborigines want to have their ancestors removed from the shrine.

Koizumi also has some relatives enshrined there, so it's extremely unlikely he'll stop visiting. Which only exacerbates the controversy...

Interesting point though:
Many Japanese see a cultural difference involved. The Chinese, unlike the Japanese, do not believe that a person's crimes are absolved after death. While China and Korea criticize Koizumi's actions, the prime minister has said: "Why keep blaming the dead for the crimes they committed when they were alive?"
I need to check that up...

[Girafarig_Magcargo]

As far as those textbooks go, one thing that's not widely reported overseas is that only 4 of all the Junior High's in the nation actually use them.

And as far as the Shrine goes....it's a shrine to all of Japan's war dead, not just the WW2 ones, and the fact that some war criminals are there is incidental. Not to mention the fact that Koizumi has only ever visited it as a private citizen, not in his role as Prime Minister.

If 4 schools in Germany used textbooks that ignored the Holocaust, wouldn't it be cause for alarm.

As for the Yasu-shitty shrine, it has the right to be opened but the blatant revisionism and shrining of people like Tojo can't be recognized by the Prime Minister.

[Archaic]

If 4 schools in Germany used textbooks that ignored the Holocaust, wouldn't it be cause for alarm.

Given that they'd learn about it without being taught in school anyway, thanks to the collective guilt trip Germany has over WWII, not really.

Japan's got a fairly large guilt trip about the war also, or had, but they've also been trying a lot harder to move on from all that. The past is the past, and once the lessons have been learnt from it, better to forget about the bad and concentrate on the good. There's no point dwelling on something you can't change.

As for the Yasu-shitty shrine, it has the right to be opened but the blatant revisionism and shrining of people like Tojo can't be recognized by the Prime Minister.

You have to remember, in Japanese culture, the bad deeds of a person cease to matter once they've died. Effectively, you could say that dying has absolved them of their sins. Koizumi is simply, as a private citizen (Not as the Prime Minister), paying his respects to the dead. He hasn't at any time attempted to glorify the actions of the wartime leaders.

[Girafarig_Magcargo]

Given that they'd learn about it without being taught in school anyway, thanks to the collective guilt trip Germany has over WWII, not really.

How? School's really the only place a high schooler would get history, unless he actively searchecd for it.

Japan's got a fairly large guilt trip about the war also, or had, but they've also been trying a lot harder to move on from all that. The past is the past, and once the lessons have been learnt from it, better to forget about the bad and concentrate on the good. There's no point dwelling on something you can't change.

That's the problem. The Germans have gone far to apologize for their actions during WWII, but such a response has not come from the Japanese.

You have to remember, in Japanese culture, the bad deeds of a person cease to matter once they've died. Effectively, you could say that dying has absolved them of their sins. Koizumi is simply, as a private citizen (Not as the Prime Minister), paying his respects to the dead. He hasn't at any time attempted to glorify the actions of the wartime leaders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junichiro_Koizumi

On January 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1), 2004 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004), Koizumi made a surprise New Year's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. It was his fourth visit to the shrine since becoming Prime Minister. Because this shrine also honours Japanese war criminals, again, the visit drew strong condemnation and protests from Japan's neighbors, mainly the People's Republic of China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China), North (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea) and South Korea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea), and the Philippines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines), who still hold bitter memories of Japanese colonization. For these governments, the event held even greater significance than previous visits in light of the imminent dispatch of JSDF troops to Iraq (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deployment_of_Japanese_troops_to_Iraq)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine


When revealed to the media on April 19 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_19), 1979 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979), this started a controversy which rages to this day. The shrine has further angered many with its defiant defense of the war criminals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_criminal); the same pamphlet mentioned above also claims: "Some 1,068 people, who were wrongly accused as war criminals by the Allied court, were enshrined here." The shrine's English-language website refers to those 1,068 as those "who were cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces." After the revelation of 1979, Emperor Hirohito (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Hirohito) stopped paying visits to the shrine and this has remained the case ever since. However there are also strong voices among the Japanese people in support of the visits [1] (http://www.asahi.com/special/shijiritsu/TKY200404190343.html), including Governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintaro_Ishihara), who on August 15 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_15), 2004 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004), indicated his strong hope for Emperor Akihito (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Akihito) to start paying visits to the shrine.



It's interesting that Hirohito didn't want to honor the executors of his demands, but the fact that influential wacko-revisionists want Koizumi and Akihito to visit the shrine, knowing full well that the shrine not only holds the remains of war criminals, but also glorifies them, shows that there are many in Japan who want to gloss over the horrific acts commited in WWII.

[Archaic]

Hello? Parents? Germany has this huge collective guilt over WWII. Even if they didn't learn about it at school, they would encounter knowledge about it elsewhere.

I disagree. The Japanese have continually apologised over the past 50 years. People just haven't seemed to take notice. It's only now that Japan's finally starting to get over the war, and is stopping making apologies so constantly, that people are noticing a lack of apologies, and are making an unreasonable outcry.
Seriously now, a lot of Japanese weren't even alive back then, or were too young when it was all going on. Why should they be guilt tripped for the actions of the past?

His forth visit to the shine since becoming Prime Minister....your point exactly? He visited it as a private citizen, not in an official capacity as prime minister.

And for the record....the victors write history. A lot of Japanese who had no part in war atrocities were convicted as war criminals in sham trials. Hell, even the legitimate war criminals were convincted in sham trials. It was a very, very different process to the trials against the German war criminals. The shrine isn't even a government affiliated institution anyway. You can hardly take anything that might be said in its booklets as being indicitive of everyone.

And as for the right-wing nutjobs...who cares what they think? So they think the shrine glorify's the war dead? So what? Most Japanese who visit the shrine see it as an act of remembrance and not reverence. I mean, seriously now, let's get something straight here. There are 14 class-A war criminals in the Book of Souls, out of 2,466,532 Japanese and former colonial soldiers (mostly Korean and Taiwanese) killed in war. Unlike Hirohito, Koizumi has family buried at that shrine. He has a very good, non-political reason for going. Heck, he's even stated that his visits are to ensure that there will be no further wars involving Japan."

Hell, it's not like Japan is the only country which glosses over its own acts during WWII. All the bombings of major cities by forces on all sides in the war can be counted as war atrocities. Is Nanking ever compared to the Fire-bombing of Tokyo in Americian history classes I wonder?

[Girafarig_Magcargo]

Hello? Parents? Germany has this huge collective guilt over WWII. Even if they didn't learn about it at school, they would encounter knowledge about it elsewhere.

I disagree. The Japanese have continually apologised over the past 50 years. People just haven't seemed to take notice. It's only now that Japan's finally starting to get over the war, and is stopping making apologies so constantly, that people are noticing a lack of apologies, and are making an unreasonable outcry.
Seriously now, a lot of Japanese weren't even alive back then, or were too young when it was all going on. Why should they be guilt tripped for the actions of the past?

They should at least know all about what happened, rather than having things hushed up.

His forth visit to the shine since becoming Prime Minister....your point exactly? He visited it as a private citizen, not in an official capacity as prime minister.



And for the record....the victors write history. A lot of Japanese who had no part in war atrocities were convicted as war criminals in sham trials. Hell, even the legitimate war criminals were convincted in sham trials. It was a very, very different process to the trials against the German war criminals. The shrine isn't even a government affiliated institution anyway. You can hardly take anything that might be said in its booklets as being indicitive of everyone.

The fact that not only is there a religious shrine with these people there, they have some influence in the government.

And as for the right-wing nutjobs...who cares what they think? So they think the shrine glorify's the war dead? So what? Most Japanese who visit the shrine see it as an act of remembrance and not reverence. I mean, seriously now, let's get something straight here. There are 14 class-A war criminals in the Book of Souls, out of 2,466,532 Japanese and former colonial soldiers (mostly Korean and Taiwanese) killed in war. Unlike Hirohito, Koizumi has family buried at that shrine. He has a very good, non-political reason for going. Heck, he's even stated that his visits are to ensure that there will be no further wars involving Japan."

Most of those Korean and Taiwanese were forced to fight, so that's just another ugly facet of the Japanese evils. Anyway, it seems that Tokyo cares about right-wing nutjobs, since they elected on as Govenor.

Hell, it's not like Japan is the only country which glosses over its own acts during WWII. All the bombings of major cities by forces on all sides in the war can be counted as war atrocities. Is Nanking ever compared to the Fire-bombing of Tokyo in Americian history classes I wonder?

The firebombing was certainly an atrocity, but nothing compared to the much more numerous Japanese horrors.

[Zhen Lin]

Right... like the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the subsequent American purchase of human experimentation data from Unit 731 and the like...

Though I am quite annoyed that people think that Nanjing would not have happened... it's what stressed soldiers do - loot and pillage - since the beginning of time... It would be nice if it didn't happen, but it did, and people think there's something unusual about it.

[Girafarig_Magcargo]

Right... like the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the subsequent American purchase of human experimentation data from Unit 731 and the like...

Though I am quite annoyed that people think that Nanjing would not have happened... it's what stressed soldiers do - loot and pillage - since the beginning of time... It would be nice if it didn't happen, but it did, and people think there's something unusual about it.

The nuclear bombings were certainly terrible but not as bad as a Soviet-American invasion that would kill millions.

As for Nanking, it's not that looting occured, it's that the generals supported such actions.