gaojeng@durras.anu.edu.au (J.Gao) (02/15/91)
============================================================================
Japan confronts truth of its war atrocities
Cameron Hay
From p.22, The Canberra Times, 6 Feb., 1991
It shouldn't be news -- a 78-year-old World War II veteran recalling the
events of 50 years ago. But Shiro Azuma's testimony of his wartime experiences
and the reaction it has provoked illustrate the difficulty Japan still has in
coming to terms with its past.
In September 1937, Azuma and most of his village friends were conscripted into
the Imperial Army, and almost immediately transported to China. At that time,
Azuma marched under the conviction that Japan's invasion was a "sacred war",
necessary to establish a "new order" of peace in Asia.
However, within a couple of weeks of arriving in China Azuma and his battalion
were ordered to a small village, and another side of Japan's "sacred war"
was revealed. The young men of the village had already left to join the Chinese
army, but those who remained, about 40 old men, women and children, were
rounded up and massacred.
In particular, Azuma remembers a young boy clutching the leg of his grandfather
in terror as he was stabbed in the chest. He fell to the ground, screaming,
and the old man tried to suck the blood that flowed from the boy's wound
before also being killed.
No reason accompanied the order for the massacrd, but it became common practice
for the Japanese soldiers to kill all the peasants in any village where they
stayed the night. The soldiers feared that the peasants would inform the
Chinese army of their whereabouts, and thought nothing of massacring an entire
village to ensure a good night's sleep.
"How could we do such things?" Azuma now wonders. "In JFapan we were good
citizens, good husbands, and good sons. But we held the Chinese in contempt,
wo we were capable of anything."
The soldiers would also take turns raping Chinese women, making sure to kill
them afterwards, because rape was banned under military regulations.
But is was Azuma's testimony on the Rape of Nanking that has provoked the most
interest in Japan. On December 13, 1937, the Imperial Army captured Nanking,
and went on a six-week rampage during which an estimated 100,000 Chinese were
killed and 20,000 raped.
The Japanese Government still insists that the number of victims was a fraction
of this, and that it was the result of a few soldiers getting out of hand, not
an official policy of calculated terror. Azuma, however, is adamant: "We were
following orders."
Until recently, Azuma had not given the war much thought. But in 1987 he was
asked to recount his wartime experiences at a news conference. Unaware of the
impact his testimony might have, he accepted the request quite casually, and
gave a frank account of the atrocities commited by JFapanese soldiers during
the war.
It was, quite simply, the first time a Japanese soldier had done this, and he
was unprepared for the reaction. Immediately, he began to receive anonymous
threats to burn down his house unless he stopped "defaming the honour of the
heroic death of Japan's soldiers".
To protect himself, jAzuma took to carring a pair of brass knuckles, and at
one stage police patrols were set up around his neighbourhood. But what
has clearly upset him the most has been the hostility of his fellow veterans.
AFTER his comments in 1987 he was not invited to his regiment's annual reunion,
and his name has subsequently been struck off the regiment's list.
The threats and resentment only prompted Azuma to reflect even more deeply on
the war. He has since published his diary of those two weeks, and travelled to
China for the 50th anniversary of the Rape of Naking.
He was the only Japanese soldier to attend, and recalls being surrounded by
a group of Chinese, who asked him how many people he raped and killed in
Nanking. Unable to answer them, and fearing he would be attacked, he could
do nothing but bow his head in remorse. "It was a very hard time for me. But
after all, I was one of the assailants, I was one of the invading troops..."
His feelings are not shared by the Japanese Department of Education, which
continues to censor textbooks about the war. As a result most Japanese see
themselves only as victims of the war, and believe that the only lessons to be
learned from it can be found in the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
For example, it is estimated that tens of thousands of Koreans, who had been
brought to Japan as slave labour, also died in the atomic blasts. But a
cenotaph in their memory was not allowed to be built inside the Hiroshima
Peace Park, a park established in memory of the Japanese victims, and
dedicated to "international peace".
Similarly, when the Mayor of Nagasaki, Hitoshi Motoshima, apologised to the
Korean victims of the bomb in this year's memorial speech, many older people
in Nagasaki criticised him for making irrelevant and personal comments.
Although Azuma and Motoshima's actions attract a lot of hostility, they are
no longer alone. Others have published a collection of excerpts from South-
East Asian schools about Japanese atrocities during the war, and formed a
Japanese German Peace Forum to discuss these issues.
The most recent initiative has come from the top. In January the Prime
Minister, Toshiki Kaifu, laid a wreath in a Seoul park commemorating the
Korean Independence Movement against the Japanese occupation. The past may be
painful, but for Azuma the reason for recalling it is quite simple. "Only if
we tell the truth, will we teach our children to hate war."
=============================================================================