Court recognizes Japanese Army’s involvement in wartime ‘mass suicides’

Japan Press Weekly

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Court recognizes Japanese Army’s involvement in wartime ‘mass suicides’

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

In a landmark ruling on March 28, the Osaka District Court said that the former Japanese military was “deeply involved in the ‘mass suicides’” that took place during the Battle of Okinawa in the final stages of the Pacific War.

The ruling was on a libel suit filed by two persons, including the then garrison commander on Zamami Island in Okinawa, against Nobel Prize-winning novelist Oe Kenzaburo and Iwanami Shoten Publishers, claiming that their deeds were discredited by books written by Oe, including “Okinawa Notes,” which gives accounts of the Japanese military ordering non-combatants to commit “mass suicides.”

At the end of March 1945, 178 civilians on Zamami Island and 368 civilians on Tokashiki Island were forced to die in “collective suicides.” The numbers of deaths in these islands are much larger than in any other Okinawan islands.

While stopping short of giving judgment as to whether there was direct involvement of the plaintiffs in ordering residents to commit “collective suicides,” the judge acknowledged that Oe has “an adequate reason to believe so."

The reason the judge gave for the ruling is that the military distributed to residents grenades although they were a valuable item for the garrisons on the two islands and that mass suicides did not take place on islands where the Japanese forces were not stationed. This reasoning is confirmed by Okinawans’ testimonies.

What was the aim of this libel suit? The plaintiffs said that the suit was “to exonerate the wrongfully convicted concerning mass suicides on Okinawa.” This means they wanted to erase from history the fact that the Japanese military ordered residents to commit “mass suicides.”

This is part of the series of campaigns aimed at justifying Japan’s war of aggression and atrocities committed by the Japanese Army, insisting, for example, that “there was no massacre in the Nanjing Incident” and that “there is no evidence that the Japanese Army had been involved in the ‘wartime comfort women’ affair.”

In order to prevent Japan from committing such atrocities again, we must join forces to defeat their attempt to falsify historical facts.

The Education Ministry’s school textbook screening is now called into question because the ministry ordered textbook publishers to delete descriptions of the historical fact that the Japanese Army ordered and coerced Okinawans to kill themselves simply because the plaintiffs in the lawsuit denied the fact.

It is clearly unjustifiable for the ministry to carry out textbook screening based only on the plaintiffs’ assertion. The government must admit its mistake, revoke its order, and take steps to redress the situation.

- Akahata, March 29, 2008