More than 40 plaintiffs in east China's Zhejiang Province seeking compensation for
Japanese war atrocities between 1931 and 1945 have released a
statement, condemning the Japanese Supreme Court, which had earlier
overruled and dismissed their appeal.
"The ruling by the Japanese Supreme Court ignores the judicial
responsibility of the Japanese government for biological warfare
activities carried out in China ... (It) had full knowledge of
Japanese biological warfare during World War II, one of the most
despicable war crimes ever committed," the statement dated Friday
said.
Chen Zhifa, 77, whose father and elder brother were both killed
in 1942 by biological weapons, said: "This decision by the Japanese
Supreme Court shows utter disrespect for the victims.
"We will carry on the fight until the Japanese government offers
an apology and compensation," he said.
The epicenter of Japanese atrocities in China during the war
years was Unit 731, a biological warfare unit headed by the
infamous Shiro Ishii, based at Pingfang near Harbin in northeast
China.
Unit 731 experimented on prisoners -- Chinese, Russians,
Americans and others -- referred to as maruta. Unit 731 pretended
to be a lumber mill and maruta is the Japanese word for logs. Not a
single human "log" survived Unit 731.
The terrible experiments remained secret for a long time after
the war, partly because of American collusion in keeping the
incidents quiet.
The plaintiffs' statement was released at a press conference at
the Japanese Germ Warfare Museum, located at an ancestral temple in
Congshan Village of Yiwu in Zhejiang Province. Altogether, 404
villagers, one-third of the village population, were killed by
plague in the autumn of 1942.
Another museum dedicated to Unit 731 is located in Harbin, in
northeast China.
Wang Xuan, head of the delegation of plaintiffs, vowed to pursue
research on Japanese germ warfare and continue to seek publicity
for victims of it.
The lawyers' group for the Chinese plaintiffs issued a statement
denouncing the Japanese Supreme Court's ruling as an injustice on
May 10, a day after the ruling.
(Xinhua News Agency May 21, 2007)