Sorry to go on about this, but it really ticks me off that people who haven't read their history books go on about this; and I would damn well include some world leaders and newspaper editors outside of Japan on this topic.
Here is an Op Ed piece from Asahi Shimbun about a recent careless remark by a LDP pollie in the lower house in Japan.
Asahi is a newspaper renowned for its unashamed left-leaning media bias. It never has anything good to say about the successive LDP governments of year after year, and can be relied on to voice the traditional old Left Wing position that dates back to the Cold Warin a day and age when such politics is rather obsolete (though I know Conservative Weasel still has much faith in it - sad man).When the war ended, the victorious allies set up the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, convicting 25 Japanese leaders as Class-A war criminals, including former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and six others who were executed.
Japan may not have fully welcomed the outcome of the proceedings. In fact, Judge Radhabinod Pal of India insisted Japan was innocent. But Tokyo chose to settle the issue of its wartime responsibility by accepting the tribunal's verdict. That is an indisputable fact.
The San Francisco Peace Treaty incorporates the issue in Article 11, welcoming Japan back into international society. Many countries that signed the treaty renounced claims for compensation in consideration of Japan's rehabilitation efforts. From that point, postwar Japan made a fresh start. Accepting its responsibility in the last war at the Tokyo tribunal was the foundation of the country's resurgence, and Morioka's comments essentially negate that history.
The government is paying pensions to descendants of Class-A war criminals to ease the hardships of their daily lives. That should not be construed as denying what the war criminals did during the war.
We cannot but say Morioka's remarks are startling from the international point of view. If the world believes that Tokyo considers the military tribunal was wrong, people might wonder if Japan plans to start arguing about its war responsibility from scratch and whether it wants to review the San Francisco Peace Treaty.
So I think it valuable to note that:
1) Even the old Left in Japan consider the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals and its outcomes are in direct connection to alleged war crimes perpetrated by the Japanese forces during WWII. In other words, yes, war crimes were commited, not denying it.
2) That people were held 'accountable' and were executed for these crimes.
3) That the San Francisco Treaty signed by the nations to bring Japan back to the International community signed on the proviso that reparations were made or renounced their claims.
4) This fact, combined with the outcomes of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal essentially makes it that the case is closed.
The more centre-right Yomuri had this to report about the Yasukuni shrine visits by PM Koizumi.
Hidenao Nakagawa, head of the Liberal Democratic Party's Diet Affairs Committee, said that Koizumi made his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which includes Class-A war criminals, out of his personal feelings toward the war dead enshrined at the facility.
Nakagawa made his remarks on a Fuji TV news program on Sunday, saying Koizumi said in response to a question about his visits to the shrine at the House of Councillors Budget Committee on May 20 that he made the visits in a personal capacity.
"The Chinese government didn't raise any objection when former prime ministers Masayoshi Ohira and Zenko Suzuki visited [the shrine]. So I believe Prime Minister Koizumi's words indicate that he hopes to be able to visit the shrine under circumstances similar to those of the Ohira and Suzuki era," he said.
Since an official visit to the shrine in 1985 by former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, China has taken issue with such visits by Japan's prime ministers. In an effort to win Chinese understandng, Koizumi stressed his visits had been made in a personal capacity, he said. Nakagawa also said that it was desirable for the bereaved families of soldiers who died in World War II and Yasukuni officials to voluntarily discuss enshrining the war dead and Class-A war criminals separately.
In other words, Yasukuni isn't about the A-Class War criminals, it's about the war dead. If China's objection is that the A Class War criminals are enshrined there, then this is a practical solution.
- Art Neuro
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