Foreign and Military Affairs
Japan firm to pay chinese wartime laborers
(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-27 08:08
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TOKYO - Nishimatsu Construction Co. secured a reconciliation Monday with wartime Chinese laborers, agreeing to pay 128 million yen ($1.36 million) to the war victims.
According to the reconciliation agreement signed by the two sides at a Tokyo court, Nishimatsu admitted the fact of forcing Chinese laborers to labor under severe conditions in a working site in Niigata Prefecture, and issued an apology to them.
In October 2009, in a similar accord the company agreed to pay 250 million yen ($2.74 million) to the wartime Chinese laborers, who were forced to work in Hiroshima Prefecture.
In June 1944, some 183 Chinese laborers were forced to work at a construction site of a hydropower station in Niigata.
In September 1997, the former laborers filed the damage lawsuit against the construction company, which was turned down by a Tokyo district court in March 2003 and by the Tokyo high court in June 2006.
In April 2007, Japan's Supreme Court ruled that Chinese individuals do not have the right to demand war reparations from Japan, since their rights were abandoned under the 1972 Japan-China joint statement that re-established diplomatic ties between the two countries.
Xinhua
