From: ra01+@andrew.cmu.edu (Rikiya Asano)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,soc.culture.china
Subject: Biological experiments and other War Crimes
Date: 29 Dec 92 16:56:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.gfEEzSS00iV4Q2peNI
	<1992Dec29.052158.25512@athena.mit.edu>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Friends,

.

          I would like to take a little time out to respond to Mr. Hui
Zhu's presentation of one of the reports from China News Digest,
12/29/92:


>From: zhuh@athena.mit.edu (Hui Zhu)
>Subject: Re: Comfort girls?
>Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 05:21:58 GMT
> 
>Here is another report about Japanese war crime: (From China News Digest,
>Tuesday, December 29, 1992)
> 
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>3. Unearthing Past Crimes: Asian Skulls Evidence of Japanese Experiments..46
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Forwarded by: Yuan Liu
>Source: BALTIMORE SUN, 12/27/1992
> 
>TOKYO -- On the second floor of a northwest Tokyo funeral parlor, 35 skulls
>and hundreds of other human bones wait for bureaucrats to decide what to do
>with them.
> 
>They have waited three years and five months, since construction workers
>discovered them by accident.
> 
>No one knows whose remains they are. Yet bureaucrats shun them as if they
>might rise to life and put a curse on all of Japan.
> 
>"The more we learn, the more probable it becomes that these were human body
>parts shipped back to Japan around the time of World War Il, for study after
>people died in Imperial Army experiments on live human beings," said history
>professor Keiichi Tsuneishi of Kanagawa University.
> 
>At least 2,000 and possibly 3,000 Asians, mostly Chinese, are known to have
>died in the experiments.
> 
>Most of the experiments involved injecting healthy people with typhus,
>cholera and other deadly diseases. Researchers studied the progress of the
>illnesses in order to develop germ warfare methods. Sometimes they took tis-
>sue samples from living humans. Sometimes they surgically examined internal
>organs while their victims were still alive.
> 
>New research shows that participation in the human-experimentation program
>went far beyond the army.
> 
>"What is striking in my own recent research," Tsuneishi said, "is that
>famous civilian physicians and professors of medicine actively sought data
>from the experiments, studied human tissue shipped back from overseas, and
>wrote up their conclusions for the army.
> 
>"Japan's medical community still won't admit this, but my research leaves no
>question."
> 
>After the war, he added, doctors involved in the secret projects went on to
>high positions and public honors, protected by continuing postwar secrecy
>about the experiments.
> 
>U.S. occupation authorities, eager to get the data, helped to protect most
>of the participants from exposure and granted them immunity from trial as
>war criminals.
> 
>It is now clear that Unit 731 was only one of five units, said Tsuneishi,
>who specializes in Japan's World War II medical experiments.
> 
>Late last year, Hajime Sakura, a world-famous anthropologist, reported that
>the bones found three years ago were from non-Japanese Asians.
> 
>Including the 35 readily recognizable skulls, there were 132 parts of
>skulls, 30 spines, six chest bones, 13 thighs and 17 neck bones.
> 
>Some skulls had marks of incisions, holes drilled in them, bullet holes,
blows with sharp instruments, or sections neatly cut away.
 
 
Sorry, but I could not read this and go on as business as usual. I
commend professor Keiichi Tseuneishi for his research and his
truthfulness and courage
on this matter. It gives me special confidence in seeking to convince
more Japanese that a dutiful confession, an intense invesigation and
whatever else is needed to amended this great horribleness that was done
by our people. I know that these things are a terrible thing to confess
to. But as God's word says the truth shall set you free.(It seems as
though this is taken out of context but it's not). We Japanese must take
off this mask we wear and accept in full that
we owe people. I cannot reasonably understand how we, Japanese, could
have done this to our own people, race. Or anyone else for that matter.
There is no excuse! We will pay one way or another. It is a terrible
thing to sit on the Island thinking that we are beyond resolve. We have
yet to resolve. I personally
have resolved that is why my conscience is clear. I have paid the price.
The price you ask? The price of the continual hurt of recognizing that
this was done
by people who were represented leaders of my country. I have no or any
fear from any man! If the ship were mine a hole lot of things would be
different especially toward this end. It is my hope that all the secrets
will emerge. And, it is my hope that in the end we will be forgiven by
our brothers, sisters and cousins. I wish I could meet this Keiichi
Tsuneishi. And, maybe I could show him the technique of Investigative
Reporting Research Analysis and Direct Reporting to the Public.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan