Japan's WW2 War Crimes

I am a big fan of Japanese cartoons, Japanese hybrid cars, and Japan in general, but it is news like this that makes me ashamed of liking Japan at all:

Japan's PM denies army in WWII had sex slaves

[...]Historians say some 200,000 women – mostly from Korea and China – served in the Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. Many victims say they were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops, and the top government spokesman acknowledged the wrongdoing in 1993.

Now some in Japan's government are questioning whether the apology was needed.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday denied women were forced into military brothels across Asia, boosting renewed efforts by right-wing politicians to push for an official revision of the apology.

“The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion,” Abe said.

Abe's remarks contradicted evidence in Japanese documents unearthed in 1992 that historians said showed military authorities had a direct role in working with contractors to forcibly procure women for brothels.

Japan has a serious problem when its Prime Minister is denying Japanese atrocities during the 1930s and 1940s. It is as bad as if the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, denied the Holocaust. It is one thing for an idiot like David Irving to challenge factual evidence of the Holocaust, but for the head of state of Japan to deny the rape and enslavement of 200,000 women, it is far beyond deplorable.

Germany has spent the last 60+ years atoning for the Holocaust and other war crimes it committed during and leading up to World War II, and Japan has done a poor job in following Germany's example in humility and repentance.

And Japan has a lot to repent for. Here are just a few links to examples (Warning! Some of these have extremely violent and graphic content.):

Japanese war crimes

Nanking Massacre

Japanese human experimentation on the Chinese

Unit 731

If you thought the Nazis were bad, the Japanese were just as bad and in some ways worse. From the Wikipedia article on Japanese war crimes:

R. J. Rummel, a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, states that between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese military "murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.

It is called the "Asian Holocaust", yet while practically everyone knows of the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, most people may not be aware of the Asian Holocaust, and Japan elects politicians who actively deny it or passively ignore it.

Japan really needs to change this attitude of denial, fully take responsibility for these atrocities, completely apologize for them, and make amends where they can. I really do not know how to affect that change from my little blog, but every little bit helps, right?

The phrase "never again" has been used in reference the Jewish Holocaust many times, yet we still see genocide after genocide in Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, and now Darfur. The phrase has not been very effective in preventing genocide, but it helps to remind us. Through remembrance, we may hope to avoid more genocide, but only if we educate ourselves as much as possible.

It has been a failure on our part to teach the history of the Asian Holocaust, and we must correct that because those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Apparently, we still need to learn more about genocides like the Asian Holocaust because the act of genocide is still repeating.