Japan Press Weekly

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2010 August 25 - 31 [WELFARE]

Legislation for compensation to air raid victims

The new nationwide group involves air raid victims and their families in 25 cities, including Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sasebo, and Okinawa, motivated by the Tokyo District Court ruling last December. In a lawsuit filed by the Great Tokyo Air Raid Victims seeking state compensation for war damage, the court ruled that the Diet should solve the issue by introducing a new legislation.

During WW II, more than 200 cities, towns, and villages in Japan were attacked from the air by the U.S. forces. On March 10, 1945, the U.S. carpet bombing of Tokyo killed more than 100,000 people and left about one million people injured or without houses to live in. The indiscriminate saturation bombings took place throughout the country, leading to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It has been 65 years since the end of the war, and air raid victims must be compensated as soon as possible.

However, the Japanese government has refused to do so. It must follow the lead of governments of other nations such as Germany, France, and Austria to establish a state aid system for both military personnel and civilians.

The government claims that members of the former Japanese Imperial Army must be given compensation since they were drafted by the state to fight the war. This argument should be applied to civilians as well because they were also forced by the government to cooperate with the war under the 1938 National Mobilization Law.

The government has spent more than 60 trillion yen in total to give financial assistances to those who were involved in the past war as military members while setting no relief measures to civilian war victims. Such discrimination between military personnel and civilians goes against Article 14 of the Constitution that guarantees equality for all.
- Akahata, August 25, 2010