Civic group urges Japan to reflect on germ warfare

Japanese civic activists have called on society to confront and reflect on the Imperial Japanese Army's germ warfare in China, saying the atrocities are an established historical fact that Japan has never fully addressed.

About 100 people attended a gathering in Tokyo on Sunday, where they listened to audio recordings of the interrogation of convicted war criminal Shunji Sato and watched video testimony by his subordinate Yoshio Kurihara.

In their testimonies, Sato and Kurihara said the Imperial Japanese Army deliberately contaminated food for refugees with bacteria, including salmonella and cholera, causing large numbers of deaths. They also described human experiments on prisoners, including providing them with only water to observe how long they could survive.

Japanese investigative journalist Fuyuko Nishisato, who has spent years researching the army's germ warfare and interviewing Kurihara, said Japan failed to fully abandon its wartime values after World War II.

The crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army's germ warfare units — particularly Unit 731, which killed hundreds of thousands of people in occupied China in the 1930s and 1940s — were never fully prosecuted, and many perpetrators later assumed important positions in postwar Japan, Nishisato said.

That failure to confront the past persists today, leaving many young Japanese with little knowledge of the atrocities and making it increasingly difficult for society to reflect on its wartime responsibility, she said.

Among those at the gathering was Katsutoshi Takegami, whose father served in germ warfare Unit 1644. He traveled from Nagano Prefecture to Tokyo for the event.

Takegami said he hopes more people will join efforts to uncover the truth and restore the historical record. He has spent years collecting materials, but said investigations have been hindered by a severe shortage of records, which he believes may be the result of political interference.

Drawing on photographs left by his father, Toshiichi Miyashita, who traveled to China three times from 1932 as a medical orderly, Takegami said there should be no doubt that germ warfare did take place, whether involving Unit 731 or Unit 1644.

In June last year, he donated copies of historical materials to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, including personnel rosters of Unit 1644 and the 158th Field Hospital, the military register of his father, and photocopies of photo albums documenting Japanese troop movements in China.

"My biggest wish now is to further clarify these historical facts," he said.

Kazuyuki Kawamura, a representative of the Association Demanding Investigation on Human Bones Discovered from the Site of the Army Medical College, said his father's forced service in Japan's war of aggression against China shaped his belief that the country must reflect on its wartime past.

The association, which organized the gathering, was founded in 1990 after numerous human bones were unearthed at a construction site in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward the previous year. The site once housed the Imperial Japanese Army Medical College, where Unit 731 is believed to have conducted its activities.

"I have devoted the past 37 years to investigating the human remains discovered in Shinjuku," Kawamura said. "A sincere reflection on the war is the foundation for genuine friendship between Japan and China."

The gathering coincided with a rally outside Japan's parliament, where about 25,000 people gathered in scorching heat to protest against the government's remilitarization moves, including efforts to revise the pacifist Constitution, ease restrictions on weapons exports and weaken the Three Non-Nuclear Principles.

A nationwide poll by the Mainichi Shimbun over the weekend found support for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's cabinet fell 10 percentage points to 41 percent, its lowest level since she took office in October. The disapproval rating rose 9 points to 44 percent, surpassing the approval rating for the first time.

houjunjie@chinadaily.com.cn