A-bomb victims urge Japan to own up to war-time atrocities

By Takehiko Kambayashi, DPA/NagasakiMichiko Harada still vividly recalls seeing the port city of Nagasaki engulfed by a ferocious inferno set off by the US nuclear attack in 1945.“The scene of the burning city is etched into my memory even 70 years after the atomic bombing,” Harada said.The attack on August 9 killed about 74,000 and injured a similar number in the city on the southern island of Kyushu, three days after Hiroshima was bombed.Like many survivors, Harada’s family has struggled with chronic ailments caused by exposure to radiation.“One family member after another died without knowing the exact cause of their illness,” she said.The 76-year-old Harada considers it her mission to keep her experiences alive for the next generations, she said.But Harada, who will visit the US next month to tell her story, said that she is concerned that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and some other political leaders are unwilling to concede Japan’s own atrocities.Abe has long been criticised for being unapologetic about war-time history.“Japan first needs to acknowledge its war-time aggression and apologise for it,” she said. “If the country does not, it is not compelling even when it imparts the horror of the nuclear bombs to other countries.”Kazutoshi Otsuka, an 80-year-old official at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, said: “When I was a child, we were taught Japan is a divine country and Japan waged the Pacific War in order to free East Asia [from the West].“We have seen something similar to this under Abe’s government.”Otsuka said that two publishing companies, which support Abe and other conservative lawmakers, have issued new history textbooks glorifying Japan’s military aggression.He said the move was not surprising given the premier’s controversial remarks during a debate in parliament two years ago.“The definition of aggression has yet to be established in academia or in the international community,” Abe said then.None of the current seven history textbooks for junior high school students published privately and approved by the government make any mention the so-called “comfort women”.Up to 200,000 women were forced into sexual servitude for the Japanese military before and during World War II, historians say.Many of them were from Korea, which was then under Japanese colonial rule.Critics also say very few history museums in Japan exhibit the country’s aggression.At the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura, east of Tokyo, exhibits concerning World War II focus more on war-time hardships suffered by Japanese people, and are silent on the issue of sexual slavery.The museum briefly mentions how the war started.Japan “launched surprise attacks on the US and Britain in December 1941, which started the Pacific War”, reads the description, which does not include the name Pearl Harbour.“Japan is always trying to hide something inconvenient” when it comes to its war-time history, said Sunao Tsuboi, chairman of the Japan Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Sufferers’ Organisations.Tsuboi, a survivor of the US atomic attack on Hiroshima, recalled that he had held strong nationalistic views 70 years ago because of official propaganda.“I firmly believed the emperor was God and I was ready to die for him,” he said.The atomic attack prompted him to “think about how I could take revenge on the US”..“Until about 20 years after the attack, I had held resentment against the US because it totally changed my life,” said Tsuboi, who has a mutilated ear and scars on his face.Tsuboi, who turned 90 years old recently, criticised Japan for stressing its victimhood and downplaying its war-time aggression.When Abe releases his statement to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II on Friday, he “should offer a sincere apology”, he said.“That’s a first step.” Shozo Muneto, a former pastor at the United Church of Christ in Hiroshima, was an 18-year-old university student when he was badly wounded by the bombing.He recalled seeing piles of decaying corpses days after the bombing.“We know the misery and the inhumane nature of the atomic bomb attack first hand. However, behind the bombing are Japan’s militarism, colonial expansion and the killing of 20mn people in Asia,” said Muneto, 88. “It is Japan that waged the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. The atomic attacks came as a consequence of the conflicts.”