TOKYO, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) — “We lost the case in court, but we won the historical truth,” Japanese lawyer Norio Minami, who has been advocating for the victims of deserted chemical weapons left in China throughout WWII by Japanese aggressors, stated in an interview with Xinhua in Tokyo just lately.
Minami is amongst a bunch of Japanese attorneys who’ve been serving to Chinese victims to sue the Japanese authorities for greater than 30 years. This authorized workforce was established in 1995 and has since grown to incorporate roughly 500 attorneys.
Since then, Minami and his colleagues have represented Chinese victims in a collection of lawsuits towards the Japanese authorities and associated firms relating to historic crimes such because the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, the “comfort women,” pressured labor, the Pingdingshan Massacre, and the deserted chemical weapons.
Although some lawsuits achieved partial victories in native and excessive courts, all of them led to defeat on the Supreme Court. “The fundamental reason lies in the Japanese government’s reluctance to acknowledge the victimization, while the Japanese society has also failed to adequately acknowledge and reflect upon this part of history,” Minami stated.
However, dropping the lawsuit doesn’t imply that the reality has been misplaced.
Minami believes that the attorneys’ efforts haven’t been in useless. “These lawsuits have revealed the crimes committed by the then Japanese Imperial Army and have shown the heavy burden that the victims have carried throughout their lives. These facts have been confirmed in all cases,” he stated.
“We have won the facts themselves, and this is a tremendous achievement. The historical facts recognized by the (Japanese) courts have become an indelible record,” he added.
Take the lawsuit filed towards Japan in 1996 by three Pingdingshan Massacre survivors, together with Mo Desheng, for instance. Although the plaintiffs’ lawsuit was finally dismissed, the decision clearly established the actual fact of the bloodbath: “The Japanese army forcibly drove nearly all the villagers of Pingdingshan Village to the foot of a cliff southwest of the village, where they indiscriminately opened fire with machine guns and other weapons, then stabbed the survivors with bayonets, killing most of the villagers. The next day, the Japanese army, in collusion with personnel from the Japanese-owned coal mine, gathered the remains of the victims at the foot of the cliff and burned them, then blew up the cliff wall to bury the bodies.”
In 2014, the lawsuit filed by the victims of poison gasoline bombs deserted by the Japanese invaders in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province, and Dunhua, Jilin Province, was finally dismissed. However, the attorneys continued their pursuit and are actually turning to a different battle — demanding that the Japanese authorities disclose a lot of hidden archives and supplies associated to poison gasoline bombs.
“The Japanese government always tries to cover up the issue of poison gas bombs. We found that almost all the information about poison gas bombs was completely blacked out.” Minami stated that the attorneys have compiled greater than 300 items of proof, in contrast them one after the other with the federal government’s causes for “non-disclosure” and raised questions. Currently, they’re making use of to the courtroom for full disclosure.
During WWII, the Japanese militarists secretly produced a big amount of chemical weapons and used them within the warfare of aggression towards China in violation of worldwide regulation, with as many as 1,241 documented situations. On the eve of their defeat in 1945, the Japanese invaders buried or deserted giant portions of those weapons to cowl up their crimes. These weapons nonetheless pose a critical menace and hazard to the lives and property of individuals in related areas of China, in addition to to the ecological atmosphere, to today.
According to incomplete statistics, because the finish of WWII, the deserted Japanese chemical weapons have triggered the deaths of over 2,000 Chinese folks.
“The Japanese military’s manufacture and use of poison gas to harm the Chinese people was essentially an act of aggression, and abandoning chemical weapons was precisely to cover up their crimes,” stated Minami.
According to the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention, Japan was supposed to finish the destruction of its deserted chemical weapons by 2007. However, on account of inadequate consideration and insufficient funding, Japan has repeatedly missed the deadlines, and the disposal of its deserted chemical weapons has been severely delayed.
Minami stated, “Regardless of how long it takes to dispose of the abandoned chemical weapons, Japan should be fully responsible for the entire process.”
Looking to the long run, Minami stated that the attorneys are checking out video supplies and interview information of victims of the Japanese invasion of China, and plan to make them into movies and put up them on social media, in order that extra younger folks can perceive the reality of historical past.
“There are no winners in war, and those who harm others will harm themselves. I hope young people (in Japan) can realize the profound disasters that the aggression launched by Japan in the past have caused to the Chinese people, and we must not allow such wars to recur. This is not only for the sake of others, but also for Japan itself,” Minami stated.