Four relatives of Chinese victims of Japanese aggressor troops' germ warfare from China's Zhejiang and Hunan provinces today appeared all grief and with all sadness at the Tokyo local court, angrily denouncing the towering germ warfare crimes committed by Japanese aggressor troops in China during World War 11. They strongly demand the Japanese government be held under responsibility for Japanese troops' past war crimes committed in China.
Jin Xiaojun from Jiangshan City of China's Zhejiang Province said that due to Japanese aggressor troops' savagery mixing cholera germs in food grains in Zhejiang back in August 1942 his grandmother and two of his sisters had contracted and died of plague. With a piece of unfinished embroidered work on him, he told it was the embroidery of his grandmother's his mother had left him before her death along with the word adjoining her posterity never forget the blood history of the family suffered at the hands of Japanese aggressor troops. Carrying on their behest, remembering the family's past sufferings and the heinous crimes of Japanese troops, he said he must demand repayment of blood debts Japanese troops and the Japanese government owed to his family. "I will not stop my fight if the Japanese government is not to atone for their past atrocities committed against China", he said.
Old Chinese woman Zhang Cai'e from Yiwu City of China's Zhejiang Province was all tears at the court. She told the court that she had lost her parents at a tender age of ten and was made an orphan as Japanese aggressors had a germ warfare unleashed in Zhejiang late in 1941 claiming both lives of her parents. Though things had been over half a century past yet the aggressors' atrocities have been so far not the least exposed or punished. "Now I'm just here to ask for justice for my past dearest and want to even up the blood debts Japanese troops and the Japanese government had owed to my family", she loudly voiced her demand at the court.
Ma Peicheng from Changde City of Hunan Province is one who has been among the first batch of Chinese plaintiffs since 1997 and has taken part in the "Suit to Victimized Losses" Japanese 731 Unit's germ warfare had brought. He said that Japanese aggressor troops' germ warfare was far much more cruel and savage than anthrax attacks unleashed on the US. There was then an uncountable number of "quarantine grounds" and crematories set up by Japanese aggressors in Zhejiang. "My grandfather and grandmother had contracted and died of plague the Japs spread" he told the court. Germ warfare is a crime in violation of international convention and the Japanese government must be sued to a new crime since it tries all possibilities to conceal past crimes Japanese troops had committed in China.
He Yingzhen, an old Chinese woman from Changde City of China's Hunan Province, had six of her kith and kin died in Japanese aggressors' germ warfare in China. She told the court that it has taken her lawsuit four years since the Japanese government with its speaker tried by every means to deny, stay uncommunicative or gloss things over. But no one can wipe out the past bloody atrocities Japanese troops committed. She hoped that the court would act on conscience, respect facts and stand by justice, give just judgement over past germ warfare crimes by Japanese troops according to law.
The demand of indemnity for germ warfare crimes committed by Japanese 731 Unit was raised by plaintiffs representative of 187 Chinese victims. The court has altogether held 26 hearings over the case since it was filed in August 1997 at Tokyo local court. Some dozens of Chinese plaintiffs and experts and former army men of Japanese aggressor troops so far have borne witness or made representations of their views on the lawsuit at the court. It is reported that a court decision is going to be pronounced December 26 next month.
(People's Daily November 21, 2001)
