Asia Times: Japan: Better to pay for past sins


	September 1, 2000	atimes.com

Editorials

Japan: Better to pay for past sins

The US state of California in July of last year enacted a law that extends the statute of limitations to 2010 for suits concerning forced labor and similar abuses of the type Japan engaged in during World War II. Since then, several Chinese and Chinese-Americans have filed suit against companies controlled by Japanese multinationals Mitsui and Mitsubishi. The plaintiffs allege that during the war the companies used them or their relatives as slave labor. They demand reparations.

Similarly, three civil suits seeking damages and compensation for suffering from wartime slavery in Hiroshima are now under way. The first case involves six South Koreans who were forcibly taken from their homeland to work without compensation at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries factories in Hiroshima in 1944. They were later harmed in the atomic bombing of August 1945. The second case concerns Chinese slaves and family members of deceased ones. They charge that they were forcibly taken to work at a power plant construction site in Hiroshima and are taking Nishimatsu Construction Company to court. In the third case, South Korean women who were forced to provide sexual favors or work as members of a "volunteer corps" have appealed a lower court ruling that absolved the Japanese government of any responsibility for paying damages and compensation for their suffering.

In this connection, an interesting dispute has arisen between the Wall Street Journal and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, America's and Japan's leading business daily newspapers, which otherwise collaborate closely in business dealings. "The [Japanese] government," says the Nihon Keizai Shimbun in an August 5 editorial, "insists that it has settled war reparations with relevant nations on a state-to-state level. But this does not absolve private firms of responsibility for their actions more than half a century ago . . . Taking a cue from their German counterparts, Japanese companies must reflect critically on the dark side of their history in this century so that they can make a fresh start in the next. The anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be an occasion for them to do so."

"No," says the Wall Street Journal in an August 30 editorial. "Remembering Japan's atrocities in the 1930s and 1940s is important. But blaming today's Japanese companies for these crimes that took place more than half a century ago defies credulity. It's safe to say that Mitsui and Mitsubishi have only a tiny few employees or shareholders dating from the war years. Most weren't even alive at that time . . . The lawsuits could have some unsettling consequences . . . America likes to lecture the world about setting up fair and trustworthy laws, but these kinds of [legal] actions raise doubts about its seriousness. Learning from Japan's old injustices is valuable. But using them as yet another money-maker for an American legal system that no longer knows where to stop can only lead to the kind of resentment and nationalist anger that tends to breed fresh injustice."

We fully agree with one of the Wall Street Journal's points: American litigiousness has gone way overboard in recent years and winning reparations for wartime abuses has proved to be a highly successful business for American lawyers who otherwise could care less about Japanese or German war crimes. But that by itself is no good reason to let Japanese companies who committed the crimes they are accused of wriggle out of their responsibilities. The German government and major German companies have agreed to set up a US$5 billion fund to pay compensation to victims of Nazi slave labor practices in which the forerunners of present German corporations were complicit. It's been a long time in coming; but the fund has been set up and however belatedly, a measure of justice and retribution has been done.

The Japanese government and companies should do the same and should be ashamed of attempting to shun their responsibility, and the Wall Street Journal should take a cue from its Japanese business partner and reverse its stand. Even now, there are too many Japanese, whether in government or private corporations, who see World War II mainly as a war unfortunately lost and Japanese war crimes as part of the unavoidable fortunes of war for the victims, but nothing to be particularly ashamed of or to atone for. That attitude is in urgent need of being uprooted once and for all, and we don't care that American trial lawyers make hefty commissions on the compensation that must be paid. Japan first and foremost owes it to itself to finally and terminally come to grips with a dark and ugly chapter in its history and do now what's right and just.

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