Japan Press Weekly

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2022 November 30 - December 6 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Monument to wartime Chinese miners unveiled in Fukuoka

A ceremony to unveil the memorial cenotaph for wartime Chinese laborers, who had been carted off to work as forced laborers in the Mitsubishi Iizuka Coal Mine, took place on December 4 in Iizuka City in Fukuoka Prefecture.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Tamura Takaaki attended the ceremony. He said that Japan's past war of aggression itself had been a serious human rights violation and that postwar Japan's remorse over its wartime deeds, including taking Chinese people by force, had led to the creation of the present Constitution. He also criticized the recent Japanese government move to possess a counterforce capability for infringing upon the postwar Constitution.

The monument was erected by the History, Human Rights, and Peace Foundation following the 2016 reconciliation agreement between former Chinese miners and Mitsubishi Materials Co. (formerly Mitsubishi Mining Co.). It is recorded that 188 Chinese were forcibly taken to the mine, one died on the way, 19 died after taken to the mine, and six ended up missing. On the cenotaph, that history and the names of Chinese victims are inscribed.

This is the fourth memorial monument the Foundation erected, after Nagasaki, Miyazaki, and Akita. Lawyer Morita Taizo of the Foundation said, "Memorial services are important for both Japan and China to remember the past and to build true friendship."

Past related article:
> Chinese ex-workers demand Mitsubishi’s apology for wartime forced labor [May 15, 2013]