Pinoy-Hapon United Foundation (PHUF), a non-profit organization, Honorary Chairman Takeshi Asanuma
The Potsdam Declaration explicitly called for the trial of war criminals. The so-called Tokyo Trial (the International Military Tribunal for the Far East) was held from May 1946 to November 1948 at the former Army Military Academy in Ichigaya, Tokyo (now the site of the Ministry of Defense). No legal specialists took part; military officers and military-affiliated personnel from each Allied nation conducted the proceedings. Under an ex post facto law, 28 Japanese military men (including a few civilian officials) were indicted, 25 were found guilty, and the death sentences of seven — including former General Hideki Tojo — were finalized and carried out. I have also heard that their remains were never returned, but were instead thrown into the sea.
Justice Radhabinod Pal of India, who took part in the tribunal, strongly argued that it was an unlawful trial. This one-sided proceeding conducted by the Allied Powers, known as the “Class A” trial, was in truth a political trial run by the victors to judge “crimes against peace.” Defense counsel was nominally present, but…
Were not the indiscriminate bombing of cities across Japan and the dropping of the atomic bombs by the U.S. military — the mass killing of innocent civilians — also a “crime of war”?! The total number of victims is estimated at around 350,000.
The so-called Class B and C war crimes trials dealt with charges such as the abuse and execution of prisoners of war and the massacre of civilians. These were held in Yokohama in Japan, and abroad in Nanjing, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, and other locations — all conducted by the military of the former colonial powers that had previously been defeated by the Japanese army. The ordinary local populations in each of these places are said to have been largely uncooperative with the proceedings.
“Requite resentment with virtue” (以徳報怨) — these were the words Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Nationalist Party, addressed to the Japanese people at the war’s end. The phrase is said to originate from Laozi. He had not one single Japanese soldier or civilian prosecuted as a criminal, and instead worked to speed the return of every one of them to their homeland.
In turn, the Japanese government gave the Nationalist government the destroyer Yukikaze — the celebrated “unsinkable ship” — as war reparations.
The Philippines’ case is a bit more complicated, so I will address it separately.
Prosecutions in British colonies other than Singapore seem to have been relatively few, but the Class B/C war crimes prosecutions in Indonesia, then under Dutch colonial rule, appear to have been quite severe, with a considerable number of death sentences. Baron Toshitaka Maeda, an army captain and a graduate of Keio University from a cadet branch of the Maeda clan of Kaga, is said to have shouldered the guilt alone to shield his subordinates, and — as a soldier of the Empire — to have faced his end with dignity after bowing in the direction of Japan.
In Indonesia, Sukarno and Hatta — who had been released from Dutch custody by the Japanese military — launched their war of independence and issued a Declaration of Independence dated “17 August, Year 2605.” That “Year 2605” is the Japanese Imperial calendar, corresponding to 1945 — a telling sign of just how much respect Sukarno held for Japan. A great many former Japanese soldiers chose not to return to their homeland and instead fought in this war of independence, supporting the Indonesian independence army and supplying it with weapons and ammunition. They achieved real results in battle, and several dozen of them died in the fighting — their names are still inscribed at Indonesia’s National Heroes’ Cemetery today. Whenever a member of the Japanese Imperial Family or the Prime Minister makes an official visit to Indonesia, they are certain to lay flowers there.
Indonesia formally gained independence on December 27, 1949.
Even so, roughly 10,000 Japanese servicemen were detained on suspicion of Class B/C war crimes both in Japan and abroad; of these, about 5,700 were indicted and 4,500 were found guilty. 984 were sentenced to death, and the sentences were carried out. Most of these Japanese soldiers offered no defense of themselves, and are said to have quietly bowed toward the east and climbed the scaffold while praying for their homeland’s peace. They too were casualties of war. In later years, some of our predecessors chose to enshrine their souls together at Yasukuni Shrine, and I understand their feelings. It remains deeply regrettable to me that this continues to be turned into a political issue even now.
General Tomoyuki Yamashita and Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma were likewise executed as war criminals, and they rest in this land.
コメント