【澳大利亚人报】Japan's PM Taro Aso must apologise: POWs

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Japan's PM Taro Aso must apologise: POWs
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25378168-5013404,00.html

[size=1em]Drew Warne-Smith and Peter Alford | April 24, 2009

[size=1em]THREE Australian prisoners of war used as slave labour in a Japanese coal mine owned by the family of Japan's current Prime Minister, Taro Aso, are seeking compensation and a personal apology from him.         
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In January, Mr Aso acknowledged for the first time that about 300 Allied POWs, including 197 Australians, had been forced to work at the Aso Mining Company's Yoshikuma Coal Mine in Fukuoka. Mr Aso would later become president of the company but, until three months ago, he maintained the claims could not be substantiated, and because he was four or five years old at the time he had no personal knowledge of it.

Following Mr Aso's volte-face, three former POWs - John "Jack" Hall, Joe Coombs and Arthur Gigger - signed a joint letter to the Prime Minister in February requesting an apology for their inhumane treatment and for neglecting the historical truth of their experience for so long. They also called for "monetary compensation in line with global norms for redressing historical injustices".

"Taking these three steps will be the honourable road for you, your family's company, and Japan," the letter reads.
The men recall being ordered down old mine shafts that collapsed regularly and being beaten if they failed to deliver the quota of coal for each 12-hour shift. Crews also worked in loin clothes because of the suffocating heat and humidity. Two Australians died in the mines.

Mr Coombs, now 88 and living in Regents Park in Sydney's west, said that while an apology wouldn't count for much if it had to be "prised" out of Mr Aso, compensation was only fair.

"Some compo would be nice," he said. "They made money out of the mines; we did the work. It's the least we deserve."

The veterans' demands have been supported by opposition politician Yukihisa Fujita, who has repeatedly raised the issue in the Japanese parliament and tabled the archival documents proving the claims, which forced Mr Aso's concession in January.

A general election is due before September, and Mr Fujita's Democratic Party of Japan is favoured to succeed Mr Aso's unpopular Liberal Democratic Party.

Mr Fujita told The Australian his party would settle the issue if it won government.

"When the Democratic Party of Japan becomes the governing party, I am sure we (will) make it a very important political issue and pursue its solution," he said.

"Our party has already set up a special team to tackle the issue of post-war compensation."

A spokesperson for Mr Aso was not available for comment, but on February 6 the Prime Minister told parliament Japan had paid pound stg. 4.5 million to the International Committee for the Red Cross in 1955 as part of its obligations under the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty. The money was distributed to 14 Allied countries, including Australia, for unjust hardships but not as payment for their labour.

Aso Mining Company is a large mining, cement and construction firm that was central to Japan's war effort under Mr Aso's father, Takakichi. It also used thousands of Koreans as forced labour.

Taro Aso was president of the company from 1973 to 1979, when it was known as Aso Cement.

The three Australian veterans hold little hope they will receive a reply to their letter, let alone an apology or money.

"We're pissing in the wind," said Mr Hall, 90, of Trundle in central NSW. "I know 'em, you see. We won't get a thing."