A Japanese high court yesterday
rejected compensation appeals by 180 Chinese victims of Japan's
World War II biological warfare program.
Upholding a previous lower court verdict, Tokyo High Court
acknowledged damage was caused by Japan's germ warfare program in
China, but ruled that the Japanese government is not liable for
compensation to individual survivors.
The plaintiffs, all Chinese citizens, filed the case in 1997,
demanding an apology and 10 million yen (US$89,300) each from the
Japanese government.
In an August 2002 ruling, Tokyo District Court acknowledged that
Japan had used biological weapons before and during World War II in
violation of international conventions.
But the court rejected plaintiffs' demands for compensation, saying
that under international law foreign citizens cannot seek redress
directly from the Japanese government, which has already settled
compensation issues under post-war peace treaties.
The Chinese government signed the Sino-Japanese Joint Statement in
1972, renouncing any claim for compensation from Japan for
good.
One of the plaintiffs, Wang Xuan, lost nine relatives in a 1942
plague outbreak after the notorious Unit 731 of the Japanese
Imperial Army, based in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin,
scattered lethal microbes over her village in east China's Zhejiang
Province.
Wang denounced yesterday's ruling: "It's not a verdict of justice.
It's impossible that individuals' right to seek compensation can be
rejected this way."
She added that the plaintiffs planned to appeal to the Supreme
Court.
After the ruling, nearly 90 supporters who had accompanied Wang and
three other plaintiffs marched to Tokyo's government headquarters
to protest.
The case has unearthed details about Japan's biological warfare
program that the Japanese government and US occupation forces had
allegedly kept secret after the war.
Some Japanese veterans have testified that they mass-produced
cholera, dysentery, anthrax and typhoid at the unit's base in
Harbin in the early 1940s.
Japan's Imperial Army is also estimated to have left behind about 2
million chemical weapons in China, which have reportedly killed
over 2,000 people since 1945.
After decades of denial, Tokyo confirmed the existence of Unit 731
several years ago.
Some historians estimate that the unit may have killed as many as
250,000 people in experiments during the 1930s and 1940s, when
Japanese troops occupied much of China.
(China Daily July 20, 2005)