A proposal to set up a foundation to compensate Chinese forced laborers in Japan during World War II will be submitted to the Diet, Japan's parliament, later this month.

A group of Japanese lawyers that has represented Chinese forced laborers in a number of compensation claims will submit the proposal after fully discussing it with Chinese counterparts and the forced laborer delegates, said attorney Toshitaka Onodera at a meeting with lawyers from the All-China Lawyers Association (ACLA) Wednesday. Onodera, of the Onoderakyodo Law Office in Tokyo, is acting head of the group representing the laborers.

According to the proposal, the fund will come from both the Japanese government and companies involved in the cases.

Chinese forced laborers and their families have begun to win some of their claims against the Japanese government and companies in recent years. Onodera said the time is ripe for the establishment of such a foundation.

On March 27 this year, the District Court of Niigata ordered the Japanese government and a local shipping company compensate 11 Chinese for forced labor during the war. It was the first judgment in Japan to clarify the government's legal responsibility in such a case.

"The success of a single lawsuit can only benefit a few. We hope that the foundation will cover most of the victims," Onodera said, "Those who are still alive are getting old and the time left for them to be compensated is growing short."

According to the Japanese government, 38,935 Chinese forced laborers -- most of them teenagers or in their 20s -- were taken by force to work as laborers for 35 companies in 135 locations in Japan during the war. Some 7,000 died of inhumane treatment.

The total number given by Chinese historians is some 40,000, not including those sent to Korea and Southeast Asia.

The foundation will help to settle the issue of wartime forced laborers and also assist in compensation claims against other wartime atrocities, said Kang Jian, deputy head of the group representing the victims.

"Given the present political climate in Japan, we are not optimistic that the Diet will pass the proposal soon. Still, we will do our best to fight for the legal rights and interests of victims," she said.

The Japanese lawyers plan to submit the proposal and release it to the media just before the High Court of Fukuoka starts the second hearing on a compensation lawsuit raised by 15 Chinese forced laborers, according to Onodera. The hearing is scheduled to open on May 24.

"There are chances we will hit a target regardless of whether the Diet passes the proposal," he said.

According to Onodera, Chinese forced laborers should have received 80 million yen, equal to about 80 billion yen now, from the Japanese government when the war ended in 1945, following the decision of the United Nations. They did not receive the funds, which are still held by the Japanese government.

Meanwhile, the 35 Japanese companies received 56.7 million yen, around 60 billion yen now, from the government as compensation after the war. That money could be the start-up fund for the foundation, Onodera said.

"It will be good to have such a foundation," said Ma Dezhi, a former forced laborer, "But what we ask from the foundation is what we ask from the court: an admission of the atrocities, an apology and compensation."

Ma was forced to go to Japan from his hometown in east China's Shandong Province at the age of 21, in 1944. The young primary school teacher worked as a stevedore for more than a year.

(Xinhua News Agency May 13, 2004)