0
TOKYO, Aug 27: A Japanese court on Tuesday recognized for the first time that Japan had conducted biological warfare in China during World War Two — something that has never been officially acknowledged by the Japanese government.
But the Tokyo District Court rejected a lawsuit for damages filed against the Japanese government by Chinese people who said their relatives were killed in the germ warfare.
The 180 Chinese plaintiffs had demanded that Japan pay them compensation of 10 million yen ($83,430) each and apologise for the activities of biological warfare units such as the infamous Unit 731.
In dismissing the suit, the court said international law did not recognise the right of individuals to seek compensation from a state for damages suffered during war.
“It’s positive that the court recognised the fact,” said Kohken Tsuchiya, who headed the Japanese legal team acting for the plaintiffs. “However, it’s still a loss for the plaintiffs so we would like to appeal.”
The plaintiffs did not hide their bitterness.
“My father died of plague, my elder brother died of plague. But it’s all over in a few minutes at the court, it’s unfair,” 71-year-old Chen Zhifa from Yiwu city in eastern Zhejiang province told reporters through an interpreter.
“I was so disappointed and angry at the verdict,” said 62-year-old Xu Wanzhi, a plaintiff from central Hunan Province.
“Of course we are not going to accept a verdict like this... We are ready for a prolonged fight,” he said, adding that his son and grandson would continue the fight if he died.
The plaintiffs said there were eight outbreaks of plague or cholera in China’s eastern Zhejiang province and central Hunan province from 1940 to 1942, which they alleged was the result of germ warfare by Japanese forces.
Germ warfare was already illegal under international law at the time.
When asked about the court’s rejection of the lawsuit, Hideki Hama, director of the civil litigation division at the Justice Ministry, said: “We understand that the (Japanese) government’s legal assertion was recognised.”
The Japanese government’s position as defendants in the case, was that there was no legal basis for the plaintiffs to seek compensation from it, Hama said.
Hama declined to comment on the court’s decision to recognise the fact that Japanese forces had waged germ warfare.
The activities of Unit 731 were unknown to most Japanese citizens until 1981, when author Seiichi Morimura exposed its dark history in a book, “The Devil’s Gluttony”.
OWN UP TO THE PAST: After the ruling, a group of the plaintiffs along with Chinese and Japanese supporters demonstrated in the streets near the court, carrying banners that called on Japan to own up to its use of biological weapons during the war.
Critics had said that if the court recognised Japan had indeed conducted germ warfare, it could pave the way for such an official admission.
The suit is one of dozens that have been filed against the Japanese government or companies associated with Japanese aggression in the first half of the 20th century.
Most have been rejected by Japanese courts. The latest lawsuit, initially filed in 1997, has helped shed light on Unit 731, which conducted experiments and vivisection on Chinese captives near the northern Chinese city of Harbin.
Historians have said about 3,000 Chinese are believed to have died in experiments to produce diseases such as cholera, bubonic plague and anthrax as weapons of war.
The Japanese government’s stance on war reparations is that they were settled once and for all in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty that formally ended the Pacific War, and in subsequent bilateral treaties.
Japan says all wartime compensation issues with China were settled by a joint statement signed in September 1972 that established diplomatic ties.—Reuters
