| Tweet |
（International Herald Tribune）
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/30/asia/AS-GEN-Japan-Forced-Suicide.php
The Associated Press
Published: March 30, 2007
TOKYO: Japan's government ordered changes to seven history textbooks that said the country's army forced civilians to commit mass suicide at the end of World War II, amid moves by Tokyo to soften brutal accounts of its wartime conduct.
The new high school textbooks ― which the Education Ministry approved Friday, pending revisions ― also continued to claim a set of islets controlled by South Korea as Japanese territory, prompting a stern protest from Seoul.
"It is unacceptable for the Japanese government to authorize textbooks that describe our native territory of Dokdo as its territory, and we strongly demand the authorization be withdrawn," South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong said in a statement, referring to the outcroppings that Tokyo calls Takeshima, which lie in waters between the two countries.
"Some of the high school textbooks ... are based on incorrect perceptions of history," the statement said.
Earlier this month, Seoul also protested Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's denial that Japan's military forced Asian women, including many Koreans, to work as sex slaves in the World War II era.
New textbooks for use in Japanese schools must be screened and approved by a government-appointed panel, which can order corrections of perceived historical inaccuracies.
In one of the key correction orders announced Friday, seven history textbooks were ordered to modify sections that said the Japanese army ― faced with an impending U.S. invasion in 1945 ― handed out grenades to residents on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa and ordered them to kill themselves rather than surrender to the Americans.
"There are divergent views of whether or not the suicides were ordered by the army, and no proof to say either way. So it would be misleading to say the army was responsible," said Education Ministry official Yumiko Tomimori.
The publishers of the textbooks, slated for use in high schools next year, have been asked to make relevant changes and submit them for approval by a government-appointed expert panel, said.
Accounts of forced group suicides on Okinawa are backed up by historical research, as well as testimonies from victims' relatives. Historians also say civilians were induced by government propaganda to believe U.S. soldiers would commit horrible atrocities, thereby killing themselves and their families to avoid capture.
But in recent years, some academics have questioned whether the suicides were forced ― part of a general push by Japanese conservatives to soften criticism of Tokyo's wartime conduct.
The bloody battle in Okinawa raged from late March through June 1945, leaving more than 200,000 civilians and soldiers dead, and speeding the collapse of Japan's defenses.
Survivors of that battle criticized the revisions.
"If the (Japanese) soldiers hadn't come, people wouldn't have killed themselves," said Fumiko Miyamura, who told NHK she witnessed a group suicide on Okinawa.
"Are they trying to make us forget about the war? This story must remain."
Most textbooks approved Friday touched on the issue of Japan's wartime brothels, but did not discuss whether women were coerced or whether the Japanese military was involved, according to Kyodo News agency.
Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mainly from the Korean peninsula and China, were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers in wartime brothels, one of many atrocities Tokyo is accused of during its rampage through the region in the last century.
___
Associated Press Writer Jae-Soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.
▲このページのＴＯＰへ HOME > 政治・選挙・ＮＨＫ32掲示板
フォローアップ:- Japan to Revise Books on WWII Suicides （ワシントンポスト） スタン反戦 2007/3/31 07:23:22
(0)
- Japan deletes forced suicide references from textbooks スタン反戦 2007/3/31 07:17:09
(0)
投稿コメント全ログ コメント即時配信 スレ建て依頼 削除コメント確認方法
題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。
掲示板,ＭＬを含むこのサイトすべての
一切の引用、転載、リンクを許可いたします。確認メールは不要です。
引用元リンクを表示してください。